SMART CITY AND GEOGRAPHIES OF CORPORATE MEDIATION

Abstract

This paper debates the reconfiguration of the relationship between space, power and knowledge linked to the launch of the IBM smart city strategies. The global spread of the smart city model is interpreted as the result of corporate activism and its discursive, spatial and technological mediation. In particular, the aim of the paper is to scrutinize the interconnection between the economic dimensions of IBM territorial strategy, linked to the experimentation of innovative mechanisms of knowledge extraction, production and exploitation within capitalist economy, and its political dimensions, related to the promotion and territorialisation of such a model of urban planning and governance.