AFTER THE SMART CITY: GLOBAL AMBITIONS AND URBAN POLICYMAKING IN PHILADELPHIA A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Alan G. Wiig August 2014 Examining Committee Members: Michele Masucci, Advisory Chair, Geography-Urban Studies Melissa Gilbert, Geography-Urban Studies Charles Kaylor, Geography-Urban Studies Youngjin Yoo, Management Information Systems Rob Kitchin, External Member, Geography, National University of Ireland 1 © Copyright 2014 by Alan G. Wiig All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT After the Smart City: Global ambitions and urban policymaking in Philadelphia is a study of the relationships between digital information and communication technologies, urban policy initiatives for economic development, and the material, spatial consequences of Philadelphia’s shift from an industrial manufacturing city to a node in the globalized economy. The rise of ‘smart city’ policy initiatives signaled a shift in urban governance strategies to use digital, information and communication technologies such as sensors, smartphone applications, and other forms of embedded network equipment, combined with analytic monitoring software, to improve the flow of people, goods, and information through a city. In Philadelphia, the ‘smart city’ acted as a rhetorical device to signal a promising, creative, vibrant, and intelligent city for globally oriented, knowledge and innovation-driven enterprise. The city’s primary use of the ‘smart city’ term was to describe a civic-engagement effort to build an online, workforce education application to train low-literacy residents—often living in formerly-industrial, now marginalized neighborhoods—with the skills to compete for entry-level jobs in the globalized economy. Jobs, if they materialized, would likely locate in the premium areas of the globalized economy, continuing the social and economic marginalization of much of the city. The research asks: Did the ‘smart city’ vision and associated iii programs in Philadelphia, such as Digital On-Ramps, result in a lessoning of economic inequality, a key stated goal of the programs and promise of the vision? If not, what alternative impacts resulted from them? This work suggests that one possibility is that the vision and associated programs evolved to form a script that promoted Philadelphia as a global city and ultimately drove a new form of digital and infrastructural inequality grounded in a series of new geographies. The analysis concludes by considering the spatial consequences of the ‘smart city’ discussion, arguing that the ‘smart city’ primarily benefitted the already- prominent business districts of the city. This dissertation’s findings contribute to literature in critical urban geography by discussing the implications of networked information and communication technologies on policy making and the ways urban policies are enrolled in larger shifts in governance strategies to position cities as relevant and competitive worldwide. The key finding of the dissertation is that rhetoric matters: the rhetorical construction of the ‘smart city’ is closely intertwined with the shaping of the ‘smart city’ through policy, practice and applications. The rhetoric of the smart city acted for economic development, creating a discourse of technological determinism in the actually-existing ‘smart city’. While much recent scholarship on the ‘smart city’ examines the data, control, and infrastructural change side of the topic, to fully critique the ‘smart city’ necessitates examining both sides which work differently despite using the same descriptive language. This division served to shift iv attention and resources away from addressing the actual inequality—of failing schools and a lack of skills relevant to employers—towards solving problems through an unproven online and smartphone application-platform. In Philadelphia, which serves as the contextual focus of this dissertation, the resources were deployed on basis of a technocratic ideology that masks inequality behind a curtain of perceived need, which shifted the policy discussion away from affecting widespread, formative change and toward technological solutions. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project began in 2008 with an interest in understanding how the Internet—and wireless, mobile information and communication technologies in general—were changing cities. Did fostering new forms of communicative potential, and the generation of new spatial relationships, actively transform the early twenty-first century urban condition? Who benefited from these changes and, especially for a geographic project, where were these benefits found? I first want to thank my committee, Michele Masucci, Melissa Gilbert, Youngjin Yoo, Charles Kaylor, and Rob Kitchin, for working with me. No effort of this size is ever possible without the support of family and friends. I would like to thank my parents Nancy Grannies and David Wiig, my sister Elizabeth Wiig and my nephew Rowan Odom. Dustin Delaney provided an outsider’s knowledge and appreciation for the work since the beginning. Troy Carle provided the coffee. Bhu Muhler, Brian Brown, Jeremiah Steele, James Connell, Chris Cantor, and James Newman offered wisdom and distraction from California and points beyond. As my Master’s advisor, Nancy Wilkinson at San Francisco State University has been consistently encouraging and supportive. Andres Luque, Colin McFarlane, and Simon Marvin at Durham University provided support early on. Jonathan Silver, also at Durham University, generously shared his own writing structure, which proved instrumental in the organization of this vi dissertation. Richard Hanley, editor of the Journal of Urban, kindly supported the research. Matthew Wilson at Harvard University and the University of Kentucky acted as a much-needed sounding board at a needed time. In Philadelphia, T.J. Seningen and the staff of Trophy Bikes offered an oft-needed distraction from academia. Lindsay Bremner was an early committee member before she relocated from Temple University to the University of Westminster in London. Thank you especially to Lindsay for introducing me to Keller Easterling’s work. Thanks to Charles Kaylor and Chris Mizes for a reading group on urban theory that outlined much of the methodology used in the research. In Worcester, Massachusetts and then Lexington, Kentucky, Taylor Shelton offered both feedback and peer review and Emily Jones applied her outsiders’ knowledge and wit to the struggles of graduate school. Thanks to Michele Masucci and Ruben Ybarra for their hospitality in the final months of work. It must be acknowledged that without Michele Masucci’s foresight, unwavering support, and resolve in guiding this project for the last five years this project would not have been completed. Finally, the biggest thank you goes to Renee Tapp for her patience, feedback, criticism, and ever more patience in seeing this project through to completion. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................. viii CHAPTER 1. THE SMART CITY IN PHILADELPHIA: AN INTRODUCTION ......................... 1 1.1 Opening illustration: Declaring Philadelphia a 'smart city’.....................1 1.1.1 Context about Philadelphia’s post-industrial decline………..6 1.2 Argument and findings: Opening up the ‘smart city’ in Philadelphia...11 1.2.1 Conceptual dimension.........................................................16 1.2.2 Methodological dimension...................................................17 1.2.3 Substantive dimension.........................................................20 1.3 Overview of the dissertation................................................................25 2. LITERATURE REVIEW: GEOGRAPHIES OF THE ‘SMART CITY’...............29 2.1 Introduction..........................................................................................29 2.2 Tying smart, networked urbanism together: Technology, script, disposition............................................................................................34 2.2.1 Setting the stage for ‘smart city’ research: Networked urbanism scholarship today.................................................38 viii 2.2.2 Technology: Ubiquitous computing and digital infrastructures......................................................................42 2.2.3 Urban marginality and premium networked zones: the landscape of networked urbanism.......................................44 2.2.4 Script: Urban policy efforts for entrepreneurial competitiveness..................................................................50 2.2.5 Disposition: ‘Smart city’ initiatives and smart urbanism......52 2.2.6 Stitching the ‘smart city’ together: Gaps in the literature.....58 2.3 Conclusion: Assembling the ‘smart city’.............................................61 2.4 Clarification of the terms ‘smart city’ and ‘smart urbanism’................63 3. METHODOLOGIES AND METHODS OF THE STUDY: FINDING THE ‘SMART CITY’ IN PHILADELPHIA..................................................................65 3.1 Part 1: Research Design....................................................................65 3.2 Relational methods applied to understanding