Governing the informed city: Examining local government strategies for information production, consumption and knowledge sharing across ten cities

Abstract

Cities are more and more embedded in information flows, and their policies are increasingly called assessment frameworks to understand the impact of the systems of knowledge underpinning local government. Encouraging a more systemic view on the data politics of the urban age, this paper investigates the information ecosystem in which local governments are embedded. Seeking to go beyond the ‘smart city’ paradigm into a more overt discussion of the structures of information-driven urban governance, it offers a preliminary assessment across ten case studies (Barcelona, Bogotá, Chicago, London, Medellín, Melbourne, Mexico City, Mumbai, Seoul and Warsaw). It illustrates how both internal and external actors to local government are deeply involved throughout information mobilization processes, though in different capacities and to different extents, and how the impact of many of these actors is still not commonly assessed and/or leveraged by cities. Seeking to encourage more systematic analysis the governance of knowledge collection, dissemination, analysis, and use in cities, the paper advocates for an ‘ecosystem’ view of the emerging ‘informed cities’ paradigm.