Are you interested in why smart city initiatives fail sustainability?
Summary of the article titled Smart city beyond efficiency: Technology-policy-community at play for sustainable urban futures from 2020 by Tan Yigitcanlar, published in the Housing Policy Debate journal.
Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see what smart city initiatives overlook regarding sustainability. This article highlights the shortfalls around smart city conceptualisation and practice, and directs to a better approach.
As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

About two decades of smart city practice has revealed that rather than providing comprehensive and sustainable solutions to the problems of our cities and societies, the movement so far has mainly generated growth in the business portfolios of major technology, construction, and consultancy companies.
The goal should be achieving sustainable developments, and moving toward holistic solutions by bringing together technology capabilities, good policy, and community support in building the cities of tomorrow and securing smart urban future for all.
It is critical to find ways to convince authorities and the general public before it is too late of the urban need for a change in urban politics.

Find the article through this link.
Abstract: Smart urbanization has become a popular discourse in urban policy circles across the world. This is due to the rising popularity of the smart city notion, the main premise of which is achieving heightened economic development, quality of life, and sustainability through the use of digital data and technology for generating urban service efficiency (Ahvenniemi, Huovila, Pinto-Seppä, & Airaksinen, Citation2017). The smart city movement has created numerous initiatives globally, but almost all of them have failed or lack adequate potential to generate sustainable urban futures (Cugurullo, Citation2018). The main reason behind this inadequacy is that current smart city practice portrays technologically determined and reductionist approaches to the city. These approaches overlook urban, human, and social complexities, and create conditions for new forms of social control, increased social inequality, and marginalization (Bina, Inch, & Pereira, Citation2020). This article highlights the fundamental shortfalls around smart city conceptualization and practice, and points to an approach that utilizes technology, policy, and community as interconnected and balanced drivers to secure sustainable urban futures for all.
Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

⁠No.038R - But how bad this "smart city"!⁠;
⁠No.168 - Interview with Jennifer George about better efficiencies and experimenting instead of trial-and-error

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