{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","title":"State Platform Capitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781009619714","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","id":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","uuid":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","title":"State Platform Capitalism","normalized_title":"stateplatformcapitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781009619714","isbns":["9781009619714","9781009446594","9781009446587"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":98,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/State%20Platform%20Capitalism","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/search"},"page":{"printed_page":60,"pdf_page":65,"physical_index":65,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"779893fbb61ec8d8a17c1e5488d36add6798215fc3d20ff408a7239ac3bca789"},"chapter":"Cambridge Elements","content":"Smart cities are paradigmatic examples of platforms insofar as they combine software and hardware in order to intermediate and influence interactions. Some are out-of-the box greenfield projects that are conceived as ‘whole system’ smart cities from the outset (Gaffney and Robertson, 2018). But greenfield smart cities are few in number, and most smart city technology is incorporated into the urban environment incrementally (Shelton et al., 2015). For example, a city may experiment with an automated traffic control system, while other systems remain decidedly analogue.\n\nSmart city systems make universal assumptions about how cities function, but these are often at odds with particular characteristics of actual urban environments. This explains why smart city systems have oftentimes performed disappointingly, exposing a jarring disjuncture with the techno-utopian ideals celebrated by their corporate proponents (Irazábal and Jirón, 2021). Corporations tried to address this problem by establishing a series of universal standards for smart cities.<sup>9</sup> This effort was taken up by the International Standards Organization, which disseminates standards to national standards agencies. It introduced a series of standards surrounding the representation of urban data, quality management processes and urban governance (Schindler and Marvin, 2018). The idea was to render complex social worlds into a myriad of legible relations among people and things, that could be observed, classified, and ultimately influenced. Proponents of smart city standards hoped that this would enhance the interoperability and effectiveness of smart city technology – if cities could be reduced to a series of relations, then smart city systems could be deployed in heterogeneous urban environments.\n\nEfforts to establish smart city standards began in the early 2010s, when states were reasserting their regulatory authority and platform firms were scaling up their operations at breakneck speed. However, geopolitical rivalry between United States and China was yet to burst into the open. Rather than a competitor in the global smart city market or a geopolitical rival, China’s rapidly growing cities were seen as a potentially lucrative market by vendors – with one 2013 stock-take of smart cities asserting that they ‘will become the first new industry of the twenty-first century’ (Townsend, 2013, 30). Indeed, China was then undergoing an urban revolution unprecedented in human history, and while Beijing made large-scale investments in urban infrastructure in response to the financial crisis, municipal governments in China were responsible for meeting growth targets (Hsing, 2010). Many municipal governments eagerly embraced smart city systems, while corporations from the OECD went to great lengths to secure a first-mover advantage in China. For example, South Korea’s Samsung coordinated the construction of a greenfield city – Songdo – which served as a ‘test bed’ for technologies that purportedly presaged the future of ‘the new China’ (Townsend, 2013).\n\n60\n\nReinventing Capitalism\n\n<sup>9</sup> ISO 37120, 37101, and 30182.","previous_page":59,"next_page":61}