Are you interested in whether smart city is a utopia or a neoliberal ideology? 
Our summary today works with the article titled Smart cities: Utopia or neoliberal ideology from 2017 by Giuseppe Grossi and Daniela Pianezzi, published in the Cities journal. 
Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see an investigation into the smart city concept’s values and ideas. This article presents that smart city is a neoliberal ideology and not a utopia through the example of the Italian city Genoa.
As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

The paper suggests that, despite private corporations and cities promoting the smart city as a revolutionary utopia, this paradigm is an expression of the neoliberal ideology.
The emphasis on fancy technological solutions risks diverting attention away from issues that require a long-term urban-planning based approach driven by the political and ethical willingness of municipalities.
A democratic-inspired utopia is needed, and cities have a role in creating such utopia in enabling counter-discourses through a wider discursive engagement of citizens.

You can find the article through this link.
Abstract: This paper develops a critical understanding of the smart city by investigating the values and ideas that underpin this concept and how they are translated into practice. It suggests that, despite private companies and municipalities promoting the smart city as a revolutionary utopia, this utopia is, on the contrary, an expression of the neoliberal ideology. The case study of the Italian city of Genoa shows that the smart city utopia acts as a generator of a collective imaginary while promoting the interests of business elites and diverting the attention away from urgent urban problems, such as urbanization. The neoliberal ideology influences the framing of these problems by favoring business-led technological solutions rather than political and long-term urban planning. The study suggests that this business-led utopia has important implications in terms of accountability of the actors involved.
Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

No.034R - Actually existing smart citizens;
No.107R - Planning the post-political city;

You can find the transcript through this link.
What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.
I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.
Music by Lesfm from Pixabay