The document discusses the (de)feasibility of smart cities. It notes that researchers working on smart cities often do not know whose demands such programs are answering, like IBM or Cisco. It also questions whether smart cities actually solve current issues or just aggravate problems through increased data collection and management. The document raises concerns about issues like the Jevon's paradox, decoupling growth from environmental impact, and the continuous growth of digital technologies' environmental footprint. It argues that smart cities fit within the model of global climate governance but do not actually address fundamental issues of growth and fossil fuel use. Overall, the document is skeptical of smart cities and "solutions" that do not challenge current economic and energy consumption models.

1. The (de)feasibility of
smart cities
Alexandre Monnin
Origens Medialab / ESC Clermont
MSc « Strategy & Design for the Anthropocene »

2. The example of
researchers
I ONCE ASKED MY FORMER
COLLEAGUES AT INRIA WHY
THEY WERE WORKING ON
SMART CITIES.
NO ONE COULD ANSWER
THAT QUESTION.
NO ONE KNEW WHOSE
DEMAND SUCH A RESEARCH
PROGRAM WAS
ANSWERING (IBM! CISCO!).

3. Solving
current issues
through
technology
(and data
management)
Sevareid’s law (1970):
« The chief source of problems is
solutions. »
• i.e., aiming to solve a problem
(making urban areas more
« resilient », the environmental
crisis, etc.) by aggravating it.

4. Have you
solved…?
the Jevon’s
paradox and the
rebound effect
(the problem with
optimization)
the issue of
decoupling growth
and
envrironmental
« impact » ?
the problem with
the so-called
dematerialization?
the issue with the
continuous growth
of the
environmental
impact of digital
technologies?

5. References
• Magee, Christopher L., et Tessaleno C. Devezas. « A Simple Extension of Dematerialization Theory:
Incorporation of Technical Progress and the Rebound Effect ». Technological Forecasting and Social
Change 117 (avril 2017): 196-205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2016.12.001.
• EEB - The European Environmental Bureau. « Decoupling Debunked – Evidence and Arguments against
Green Growth as a Sole Strategy for Sustainability ». Consulté le 6 août 2019.
https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/.
• Wiedenhofer, Dominik, Doris Virág, Gerald Kalt, Barbara Plank, Jan Streeck, Melanie Pichler, Andreas
Mayer, et al. « A Systematic Review of the Evidence on Decoupling of GDP, Resource Use and GHG
Emissions, Part I: Bibliometric and Conceptual Mapping ». Environmental Research Letters 15, no 6
(juin 2020): 063002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab8429.
• Haberl, Helmut, Dominik Wiedenhofer, Doris Virág, Gerald Kalt, Barbara Plank, Paul Brockway, Tomer
Fishman, et al. « A Systematic Review of the Evidence on Decoupling of GDP, Resource Use and GHG
Emissions, Part II: Synthesizing the Insights ». Environmental Research Letters 15, no 6 (juin 2020):
065003. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab842a.

6. Smart cities are not disruptive solutions but (cybernetic) business as usual

7. "advocates of smartness (…) see
opportunities to decentralize agency
and intelligence by distributing it
among objects, networks, and life
forms.“
In Halpern, Orit, Robert Mitchell, et Bernard Dionysius
Geoghegan. « The Smartness Mandate: Notes toward a
Critique ». Grey Room 68 (septembre 2017): 106-29.
https://doi.org/10.1162/GREY_a_00221.

8. « to preach the corporate cosmology » (1976/2008)

9. With smart cities, this cosmology
extends to cities themselves, they
become firms, have competitors
and rely on the same
infrastructures as corporations do.

10. Why « solutions » won’t
work : adversarial trends
The problem with digital technologies is not an
accidental but an essential one :
- The rebound paradox won’t go away.
- « Zombie technologies » (José Halloy) will stay such.
- Decoupling is nigh on impossible.

11. About zombie
technologies
Monnin, Alexandre, José Halloy, et Nicolas Nova. « Au-
delà du low tech : technologies zombies, soutenabilité
et inventions. Interview croisée de José Halloy et
Nicolas Nova par Alexandre Monnin ». In Low tech :
face au tout-numérique, se réapproprier les
technologies, édité par Isabelle Attard, Emmanuel
Charles, Fergus, Alexandre Monnin, Laura Pigeon,
Edouard V. Piely, Amélie Polachowska, Caroline Weill,
et Mathieu Wostyn, 120-28. Passerelle 21. Paris:
ritimo, 2020.

12. Why « solutions » won’t
work?
• Environmental issues are not merely a
byproduct but an integral part of the model…
• … i.e., not a « negative externality » but a
necessity.
• Yet, smart cities (and techno-fixes in general)
fit well within the model of global
governance of climate issues.
• More and more parties are taking up climate
issues (cities, corporations, etc.)…
• … at their level, without tackling fundamental
issues of growth, the extraction and use of
fossil fuel, etc.

13. The Climatisation of the World, Stefan Aykut,
2020
“This model is based on so-called "end-of-pipe" measures, i.e. we will try to regulate outputs, and
therefore greenhouse gas emissions. International negotiations will therefore mainly concern the
distribution of the global effort to reduce emissions. On the other hand, we will not tackle the
question of inputs, i.e. the processes that determine the evolution of emissions, such as energy
production, industrial development models or the functioning of the world economy. Thirdly, this
approach has also fostered the isolation of climate governance on the international scene, by separating
it from a whole range of other international arenas and regimes. While the functioning of global energy
markets has been identified as one of the "root causes" of the problem, the regulation of these markets
is not one of the topics discussed in climate negotiations (Victor, 2011, 19). Other crucial issues are
absent from these talks: the regulation of world trade is dealt with within the World Trade Organization
or in bilateral negotiations; and the regulation of financial markets is negotiated in confidential arenas
such as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. These arenas do not take the climate issue into
account at all. And vice versa, climate institutions have little or no interest in trade or finance issues.
Quite the contrary, since "firewalls" have been established to prevent these regimes from interfering, as
noted by politician Elmar Altvater (2007, 37). By excluding these issues from climate governance,
important levers for influencing the emissions trajectory have been deprived.”

14. The problem
is not the
solution:
against the
pharmakon
• The late Bernard Stiegler and the
Internation collective wrote about smart
cities (Stiegler, Bernard, Collectif
Internation, Alain Supiot, & Jean-Marie Le
Clezio. Bifurquer: Il n’y a pas d’alternative.
Paris: Les Liens Qui Libèrent, 2020, chapter
2).
• Against technophobic trends they insisted
on the importance of technology, just as
Stiegler did for his entire life.

15. • But technology =/= technologies: one can oppose zombie
technologies (including smart cities) and yet refuse to embrace
a technophobic position.
 Technodiversity matters.
• The technical system is thought to be disrupting the social,
economical, legal, etc. systems. As if it was always in advance.
But this time, it’s not in advance but rather out of sync with
the current situation.
 IoT dates back from the 80s, smart cities appeared in 2005,
etc. and we know these perspectives do not fit well with the
Anthropocene/impending collapse/ecological
meltdown/looming extinction, etc.

16. The smart city is thus a good
example of what I call
« obsolete futures »

17. The consequences of the Anthropocene
• Raymond, Colin, Tom Matthews, et Radley M. Horton. « The Emergence of
Heat and Humidity Too Severe for Human Tolerance ». Science Advances 6, no
19 (mai 2020): eaaw1838. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw1838.
• Mora, Camilo, Bénédicte Dousset, Iain R. Caldwell, Farrah E. Powell, Rollan C.
Geronimo, Coral R. Bielecki, Chelsie W. W. Counsell, et al. « Global Risk of
Deadly Heat ». Nature Climate Change 7, no 7 (19 juin 2017): 501-6.
https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3322.
• Steffen, Will, Johan Rockström, Katherine Richardson, Timothy M. Lenton, Carl
Folke, Diana Liverman, Colin P. Summerhayes, et al. « Trajectories of the Earth
System in the Anthropocene ». Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences 115, no 33 (14 août 2018): 8252-59.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115.

18. Issues
Stiegler takes for granted
that smart cities will
happen.
01
No attention is given to
movements of resistance
and tactics deployed to shut
down some projects like
Quayside in Toronto.
02
From a strategic perspective,
no effort is dedicated to
synchronizing the scenario
of the smart city with what
we know about the
trajectory of the Earth-
system in the Anthropocene.
03

19. Smart cities as “negative commons”
“Negative commons refers to “resources”, material or immaterial, “negative” such as waste,
nuclear power plants, polluted soil or certain cultural legacies (the right of a colonizer, etc.). The
challenge is to take care of them collectively (commoning) if we cannot wipe out these realities. It
is therefore an extension of the classical theory of commons, particularly in relation to the
“positive” approach of the Commons Pool Resources proposed by Elinor Ostrom, sometimes
described as bucolic by Alexandre Monnin. The negative commons approach revolves around two
major axes a) giving a negative value to realities that are often considered positive - fossil energy
reserves, digital technologies, etc. - and b) giving a negative value to realities that are often
considered to be positive. b) the fact of building new institutions likely to allow collectives to
democratically reappropriate subjects that have escaped them until now, in particular co-existence
with negative commons, more or less at a distance (one can think of the recent measures taken by
mayors on the subject of pesticides, but also of the digital tomorrow, based on the same model).”
Monnin, Alexandre, et Lionel Maurel. « Glossaire · Politiques des communs ». In Politiques des communs, 2020.
https://politiquesdescommuns.cc/glossaire.

20. The Closing
Worlds
initiative

21. Two
directions
• Avoiding innovations to come to existence ;
• Dismantling existing technologies,
infrastructures, etc. unfit for the time to
come.
We are helping a City of 100 000+ inhabitants
to foreclose some of its infrastructures with
democratic “protocols of renunciation” that
call for broader transformations.

22. Looking at pressing issues for cities…
Food security Rising sea
levels
Extreme heat
Access to
water
Etc.

23. Smart cities?
• Smart cities (« metropoles »)
 get rid of the smart element
• Smart Cities
 how about cities in the Anthropocene?
There is an ongoing de-urbanizing movement because
cities might not fit well with what we know aout the
future? (see Faburel, Guillaume. Les Metropoles
Barbares - Poche - Demondialiser la Ville,
Desurbaniser la Terre. Le Passager Clandestin, 2019, )

24. • Meanwhile in France a Grenoble, once the place where smart city
was first implemented in France, is looking to ban 5G…

25. So… Smart Cities?
As jokes they
should be ridiculed.
As dystopias, they
should be seriously
fought.
As projects, we
should use them to
learn how to shut
down innovations.
As realities, we
should learn how to
inherit them as
ruins.

26. Thank you.