A Scientist's Warning on Smart Cities: Rethinking Urban Sustainability for More-than-Human Futures

Abstract

This commentary is styled in the form of the “Warning to Humanity” series, a series of scientific declarations about the environmental crisis facing the planet that was initiated by a 1992 “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” (Union of Concerned Scientists, 1992). It calls for transformative approaches to smart cities and urban technology. While digital technologies offer new tools for managing urban systems, prevailing approaches often remain narrowly focused on efficiency and optimization. This risks overlooking the broader ecological and ethical dimensions of urban development. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, this article establishes the need for three paradigm shifts necessary to guide future smart city innovation: (1) by arguing for a transition from efficiency-driven models to nature-positive and climate-positive approaches that require systemic reforms in regulatory, economic, and governance frameworks; (2) by highlighting the need to reconcile positivist urban science with constructivist epistemologies in urban studies with the goal of strengthening the value of local and Indigenous knowledge in creating more inclusive, just, and context-sensitive urban governance; (3) by exploring a posthuman shift in design, which advocates for more-than-human perspectives that recognize the agency and needs of non-human life in cities. These paradigm shifts provide a conceptual foundation for rethinking the role of smart cities and urban technology in fostering more desirable futures that are oriented toward environmental regeneration, multispecies justice, and long-term planetary well-being.