From technocentrism to humanism: Progress and prospects of smart city research

Abstract

With the implementation of new technologies such as 5G networks, the Internet of Things, cloud com-puting, big data analysis, and so on, inclusive and innovative governance and efficient innovation and application of technologies that lead cities towards smartness have become crucial and frontier topics of exploration in current international urban geography. The study of smart cities from the perspective of humanism provides an effec-tive theoretical tool for geographiers in this field. Different from the perspective of technocentrism that regards smart cities as a collection of physical spaces composed of a communication infrastructure network and digital technology, the humanism perspective emphasizes the interaction of technology, humanistic governance (soci-ety), and space in a specific (local) context. It calls for a micro-survey of the local cooperation mechanism of information and communication technology (ICT) innovation and smart city construction, as well as governance decision making carried out by multiple actors, with a view to revealing the construction process and localized driving mechanism of smart cities, and with an emphasis on the data analysis of individual actions to find out a development path consistent with local conditions. This study examined the latest developments in humanistic research on smart cities, arguing that current studies still follow the technocentric perspective or adopt the oppo-site knowledge-centric position, but lack a technology-society synergy perspective. On this basis, this article pro-poses future research topics that are worthy of in-depth discussion, namely, the symbiosis of technology and soci-ety, the complexity of social interactions on technology innovation, and the contextual analysis of technology innovation and interactions. Our discussion may help to understand how smart cities, as a complex human-environ-ment system, undergo transformation in the continuous interaction of people and technology, and provide some theoretical references for the study of smart cities in China.