DECONSTRUCTING THE CONCEPT OF SMART CITY. A CRITICAL LOOK AT ITS APPLICATION IN LATIN AMERICA

A critical look at its application in Latin America

Abstract

With the development of information and communication technologies, as well as those technologies related to new energy sources and urban environmental management policies, which have been going on for several years now, it is not surprising that the concept of Smart City has been promoted. There are several new smart cities in the world and they are framed, in general, in high-standard realizations in advanced countries, but it is also applied as an index of measurement of existing cities, both within a country, as a ranking between cities in different countries of the world. However, it is also possible to understand it as a community development initiative in existing localities, as well as a strategy for utopian projects. All these possibilities indicate that it does not have a univocal meaning, that it can be conceived simply as the application of advanced technologies in the management of the city, rather it is a complex concept of ideological contours, which has important derivations and applications for life contemporary urban. This article analyzes the modalities and implications of the concept in the Latin American context, for which the social component has been privileged over other considerations. Through the analysis of a series of documents and experiences produced mainly between the years 2015 and 2021, a critical perspective of the Smart City concept is approached, as a contribution to the debate for those who study the evolution of Latin American cities in the near future.