The Making of Smart Cities: Borders, Security and Value in New Town
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The Making of Smart Cities: Borders, Security and Value in New Town Kolkata and Cape Town Ilia Antenucci Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Institute for Culture and Society Western Sydney University New South Wales March 2020 Acknowledgements This thesis has been a long and not always easy journey, through which I have learnt much. As this journey comes to an end, I want to thank all those who made it possible, those whom I met and who have supported me along the way. Brett Neilson has been the best supervisor I could possibly hope for. I am forever grateful for his intellectual generosity as well as for his kindness and patience. I also want to thank my co-supervisor, Ned Rossiter, for being a fantastic source of inspiration, insight and humour. The Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) welcomed me into an exciting and supportive academic environment, and made this research possible. Among the many ICS scholars from whom I have learnt so much, I want to thank Gay Hawkins for her generous advice. I also gratefully acknowledge the HDR Directors – Greg Noble, Megan Watkins and Denis Byrne – who guided and supported me during my candidature. I want to thank Tsvetelina for her thoughtfulness and for always sharing so many great ideas, information, and funny stories. Jack, for those lovely days of study and laughter. Mithilesh, for our endless conversations and for a bond that time won’t change. Cecelia, Giulia and Jasbeer for being wonderful friends. Amanda, for a few months of absolute bliss. To Andrea, my brilliant friend and partner in crime, I owe more than words can say. Sean was my home away from home. Together, Andrea and Sean have been my family in the past few years and always will be. Finally, my amazing parents deserve all my gratitude for putting up with me for all this time. 2 Thank you also to Marta, Agnese, Chiara, Cicci, Martina and Titta, for making my life better every day. And to P, sine quo non. Statement of Authentication The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. 2 3 Table of Contents Abbreviations ............................................................................................... 7 Abstract ........................................................................................................ 9 Introduction ............................................................................................... 11 Failure is Always an Option ........................................................................................ 16 The Making of the Digital Milieu ............................................................................... 19 Lines of Research ........................................................................................................ 22 Outline of the Thesis ................................................................................................... 28 1. Key Concepts, Problems and Methods .............................................. 31 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 31 The Research Sites ...................................................................................................... 32 Zones and Borders ....................................................................................................... 40 Models, Preemption, Speculation................................................................................ 43 Data/Value................................................................................................................... 51 Bricolage ..................................................................................................................... 58 Speculations and Testbeds .......................................................................................... 59 Relations ...................................................................................................................... 62 Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 65 2. Borders ................................................................................................. 67 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 67 Smart Borders, Smart Cities ........................................................................................ 69 Smart City Narratives .................................................................................................. 73 Digital Zoning ............................................................................................................. 86 The Ghost City Goes Smart......................................................................................... 88 Africa’s Smartest City ................................................................................................. 96 4 Ubiquitous Borders ................................................................................................... 108 We Will Know Everything ........................................................................................ 110 Watching, Tracking, Scoring .................................................................................... 113 Quantification and Blackboxing ............................................................................... 119 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 123 3. Security ................................................................................................. 126 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 126 Control Rooms .......................................................................................................... 128 Surveillance, Dataveillance and Beyond ................................................................... 137 Security Speculations ................................................................................................ 143 Mathematical Divination ........................................................................................... 152 Futures and Failures .................................................................................................. 158 Realtimeness and Preemption ................................................................................... 164 Milieu and Targets .................................................................................................... 167 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 171 4. Value ...................................................................................................... 173 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 173 Extractivism(s) .......................................................................................................... 175 Extraction before Data: Land Grabbing, Gentrification and Financialisation .......... 181 Platforms and Slaves ................................................................................................. 194 Urban Mining and Data Extractivism ....................................................................... 204 Extractive Urbanism/Urban Extractivism ................................................................. 212 Speculation and Extraction ....................................................................................... 217 Security and Value .................................................................................................... 222 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 226 Conclusions............................................................................................... 230 5 Overview ................................................................................................................... 230 Territories and Citizens ............................................................................................. 233 Futures ....................................................................................................................... 238 Is Another Smart City Possible? ............................................................................... 242 References................................................................................................. 250 6 Table of Figures Figure 1 IBM’s Smarter Cities video ..............................................................................75 Figure 2 There’s Never Been a Better Time to Build the Smart Cities of the Future .....76 Figure 3 Architecture of Cisco Kinetics for Safety and Security Solutions ....................76 Figure 4 Central Dashboard & Command & Control Room of IBM Intelligent Operations’ Centre ...........................................................................................77 Figure 5. Dashboard in SAP Smart Cities’ Demo ...........................................................78 Figure 6 Image from the Smart Cities Mission’s Website ..............................................81