Discursive Pitfalls of the 'Smart City' Concept

This chapter sets out to unpack the complexities of the smart city concept, discussing its shifting set of meanings in news media in their role of main knowledge brokers. A textual selection of news stories, commentary, online discussions and analysis published by Guardian Cities - the newspaper's platform dedicated to urban issues - is critically investigated in order to elicit the recurrent threads and discursive tensions of a global debate that extends over an ambitious axiological map – technology hype, sustainability, social inclusion and active citizenship being among its bold promises.