Smart and (Un)Sustainable? Empowering Manchester's Youth to Reform the Smart City

Rendering smart cities concrete and accountable is challenging. Seamlessly integrated technologies
rooted in techno-utopian belief systems (Sadowski and Pasquale, 2015) are implemented into the
urban fabric under neoliberal ideals 'modelled on dogmas of efficiency' sustainability, and freedom of choice crucial to market imperatives (Cardullo and Kitchin, 2019, p.824). A predominantly techno-
utopian approach to city management and governance, dominant imaginaries presume urban
functioning can be optimised or addressed through technological solutions (Hobbs-Morgan, 2017;
Morozov, 2013). Everyday structural problems are not, however, confronted. Urban cores centre
around branding tactics and 'citizen focus', 'sustainable' or 'eco' labels amounting to little more than
tokens of greenness (De Jong, 2019). At the heart of smart urbanist discourse lies cleverly marketed
development strategies promoting implementation of cutting-edge technologies to fuel economic
growth whilst simultaneously reducing environmental impacts through lofty rhetoric of 'green
growth' (Trencher and Karvonen, 2019). However, concerns towards citizen involvement, uneven
distribution of benefits, and the
incompatible nature between social equity and emerging 'two-speed
cities' arise (Martin et al ., 2018). Instead of empowered citizens, we witness key components of
efficient systems and infrastructures. It is henceforth crucial to challenge evolving relationships
between smart, sustainable, and techno-optimist strategies. Klein (2014) has called for a
sociotechnical perspective warranting more holistic approaches to our urban futures whereby smart
versus sustainable urban mobilities no longer exist as unaligned paradigms (Lyons, 2018).