Partial platforms and oligoptic surveillance in the smart city

Abstract

Smart city technologies are proliferating in our urban environments. The latest iteration of the urban techno-fix, cities on a global level have begun piloting and plugging into a range of “smart” infrastructure and IoT, resulting in granular and even enactments of “the actually existing smart city.” Rather than evoking once promised vision of the totalizing smart city, the adoption of these technologies draws attention to the fractured, varied, and layered characteristics of these systems. This paper draws on research into GeoPal, an asset management platform used mainly by business improvement areas (BIAs)—in order to ground our theoretical discussion of oligoptic geospatial surveillance.