HS2010: Smart Cities and Society

Asst/P Nurul Amillin Hussain

Office Location: SHHK-05-47
Consultation Hours: Wednesdays, 10am-12pm (please email me beforehand if you want to
drop by)
Email: nahussain@ntu.edu.sg

Course Description

This course will introduce students to the phenomena of ‘smart cities’. The course focuses on
the development of these cities, with an emphasis on sociological perspectives that look at the
interaction of individuals, groups, and institutions with their newly ‘smart’ social
environments. This course will be geared towards viewing the smart city as a simultaneously
social, cultural, political, and economic entity.

This course pays particular attention to these three aspects of the smart city phenomena: (1)
Definitions of the ‘smart city’, (2) Features of smart cities, and (3) Critical perspectives of
‘smart’ and ‘smartness’.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

1. Define what a ‘smart city’ is, and identify multiple perspectives that emerge in the
process of defining the term
2. Identify and discuss key features of the smart city, paying attention to its sociological
significance
3. Identify characteristics of a smart city in empirical examples
4. Explain how smart cities have solved urban problems

Course Policies and Student Responsibilities

1. General

You are expected to complete all assigned required readings and activities and take all
scheduled assignments by due dates. You are expected to take responsibility to follow up
with course notes, assignments, and course related announcements for sessions you miss.
You are expected to participate in all discussions and activities.

2. Absenteeism

Absence from class without a valid reason will affect your overall course grade. Valid
reasons include illness (supported by a doctor’s medical certificate) and participation in
NTU’s approved activities (supported by an excuse letter from the relevant bodies).

3. Deadlines/penalties
Unless you have a legitimate and documented excuse, deadlines will not be extended and late
assignments will result in lowered grades. Assignments turned in late will be marked down
by 1/3 of a grade per day.

Academic Integrity

All members of the NTU community are responsible for upholding the values of academic
integrity in all academic undertakings. At the beginning of the semester, you are required to
submit a signed declaration guaranteeing that all graded and non-graded work throughout the
semester is original and is created without assistance from others except where explicitly
allowed by the professor. You are expected to understand current academic policies regarding
academic honesty before signing the declaration. No marks will be awarded until a signed
declaration has been received by the professor. There is a penalty for late submission. The
declaration can be downloaded from the “Content” folder on NTULearn.

A guide to academic integrity can be found

here: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/ai/ForEveryone/pages/aguidetoacademicintegrity.aspx

The full academic integrity policy can be found

here: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/ai/ForEveryone/Pages/NTUAcademicIntegrityPolicy.aspx

Course Assessment

1. Class participation (10%)

Participation during the course will count towards this grade.

2. Group Project (40%)

Students are expected to work in groups (3-4 people) in order to submit a 2,500-3,000 word
essay. Groups will work together to answer this question:

“What are the sociological implications of smart city infrastructure on communities,

particularly in terms of social inequalities and the role of technology in shaping social
interactions and relationships? Please use at least 2 case studies to support your answer.”

 How do you define the main terms in this question, and what assumptions do you
make in order to develop your answer?
 Identify the sociological implications you want to discuss
 Use 2 case studies to discuss these implications

Format of submission: APA/ASA citation style, 2 copies to be submitted – 1 copy on

Turnitin, 1 hard copy to me in lecture (Week 11)

The deadline for this essay is Monday, Week 11.

3. Final examination (50%)

Course Content
Week 1: Introduction to the course

Robert G. Hollands (2008) Will the real smart city please stand up?, City, 12:3, 303-
320, DOI: 10.1080/13604810802479126

Saxe, Shoshanna. 2019. “I’m an Engineer and I’m not buying into “Smart Cities”, The New
York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/opinion/smart-cities.html

Week 2: Making Cities

Cugurullo, Federico. 2018. “The origin of the Smart City imaginary: from the dawn of
modernity to the eclipse of reason” in The Routledge Companion to Urban Imaginaries, Eds.
Lindner C. and Meissner M. (PDF available here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325474312_The_origin_of_the_Smart_City_imagin
ary_from_the_dawn_of_modernity_to_the_eclipse_of_reason)

Karvonen, A. et al. 2020. “Urban Planning and the Smart City: Projects, Practices and
Politics, Editorial.” In Urban Planning, Vol 5(1): 65-68. (PDF available here:
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/2936/2936)

Week 3: Smart Infrastructure

Kitchin, R. The real-time city? Big data and smart urbanism. GeoJournal 79, 1–14 (2014).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-013-9516-8

Federico Cugurullo, Ransford A. Acheampong, Maxime Gueriau & Ivana

Dusparic (2021) The transition to autonomous cars, the redesign of cities and the future of
urban sustainability,Urban Geography, 42:6, 833-
859, DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2020.1746096

Week 4: Smart Economy

Julie Tian Miao & Nicholas A. Phelps (2019) The intrapreneurial state: Singapore’s
emergence in the smart and sustainable urban solutions field, Territory, Politics,
Governance, 7:3, 316-335, DOI: 10.1080/21622671.2018.1467787

Wood, A. J., Graham, M., Lehdonvirta, V., & Hjorth, I. (2019). Networked but
Commodified: The (Dis)Embeddedness of Digital Labour in the Gig
Economy. Sociology, 53(5), 931–950. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038519828906

Week 5: CNY Holiday

Week 6: Smart Governance

Bulkeley, Harriet and Castan Broto, Vanesa. 2013. “Government by experiment? Global
cities and the governing of climate change” in Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers, Pp. 361-375.

Vanolo, Alberto. 2014. Smartmentality: The Smart City as disciplinary strategy. Urban
Studies, 51(5), 883-898.

Guest, Peter. 2021. “Singapore’s tech-utopia dream is turning into a surveillance state
nightmare.” In Rest of World Online. https://restofworld.org/2021/singapores-tech-utopia-
dream-is-turning-into-a-surveillance-state-nightmare/ (Accessed 20 May 2022).

Week 7: Review (no tutorials)

3-430 PM: First Visit to the URA City Gallery (up to 30 students)

Recess Week

Week 8: Smart People

Ho, Ezra. 2017. “Smart subjects for a Smart Nation? Governing (smart)mentalities in
Singapore” in Urban Studies, Vol 54(13): 3103-3118.

Attoh, K., Wells, K., & Cullen, D. (2019). “We’re building their data”: Labor, alienation, and
idiocy in the smart city. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 37(6), 1007-1024.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775819856626

Week 9: Smart Living

Si Jie Ivin Yeo (2022) Smart urban living in Singapore? Thinking through everyday
geographies, Urban Geography, DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2021.2016258

Calzada, Igor and Cristobal Cobo. 2015. “Unplugging: deconstructing the Smart City” in the
Journal of Urban Technology, 22(1): 23-43.

Week 10: The Post-Colonial

Datta, Ayona. 2019. “Postcolonial urban futures: Imagining and governing India’s smart
urban age” in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 37(3): 393-410

Hoyng, R. (2021). From Open Data to “Grounded Openness”: Recursive Politics and
Postcolonial Struggle in Hong Kong. Television & New Media, 22(6), 703–
720. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476420931444

Week 11: Case study – Covid 19

Diganta Das & J. J. Zhang (2021) Pandemic in a smart city: Singapore’s COVID-19
management through technology & society, Urban Geography, 42:3, 408-
416, DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2020.1807168

Lew, Joanne. 2020. ’This is Singapore’: On Watching Westworld in the Diaspora in

Evergreen Review Online (https://evergreenreview.com/read/this-is-singapore-on-watching-
westworld-in-the-diaspora/)

Week 12: Film Screening

Film: Coded Bias

Abbas, Jumanah. “Israel’s Occupation of the West Bank Extends to the Electromagnetic
Spectrum”. Failed Architecture series on Cities After Algorithms.
https://failedarchitecture.com/israels-occupation-of-the-west-bank-extends-to-the-
electromagnetic-spectrum/

Heilweil, Rebecca. 2020. “Why algorithms can be racist and sexist” in Vox.
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/18/21121286/algorithms-bias-discrimination-facial-
recognition-transparency

Week 13: Exam Review (no tutorials)

3-430 PM: Second Visit to the URA Singapore City Gallery (up to 30 students)