There is a popular misrecognition of modern city: city is a computer. Algorithm such as big data and network would bring regulation, order and innovation to the city and form the city life. In other words, city is an object that can be totally coded. Technology does found a solid basis of city planning. The concept of “smart city”, which refers to the automation of city that should be achieved by complex algorithm, codes and smart technology, announced the importance of technology and the possibility of technological regulation. There is a video introducing the digitization of Hangzhou from public health to traffic congestion (link is here). One specific example is the use of health ID barcodes based on Alibaba cloud to track the spread of covid-19. The digitized city-management system is also applied in other areas such as public resources, municipal services, tourism, etc. Government use information technology to regulate and improve citizens’ life, from another perspective, technology helps to foster a better relationship between government and citizen communities. Hangzhou is not the only case, of course. Smart city is all around the globe. Internet of things is now the infrastructure of a city that connects everything including buildings, citizens, transportation and mass media. However, this does not mean that cities can be totally arranged by technological machine. Though the example of health ID barcodes showed the result of algorithm that citizens’ routines are arranged by programming, interpersonal communication can never be the mere data. Health ID barcodes can decided where you can go or cannot go, but it can never prevent the communication between two persons. Algorithm can predict the possible behavior of a community, but it is still a kind of fiction. Also, it can never reach our brain to calculate our emotions and minds. Data is cold, but human is not.
City is an organic ecosystem in which both human and technology are communicated and intertwined. Technology provides the space for human performance and nearly forms everything that human use to satisfy their daily needs. From infrastructure like internet and cable to specific products like smartphone and digital media, in the modern cities, communication is set up on this bridge of technology. However, the subjectivity of citizens, or in other words, their agency cannot be ignored. Citizens do have their freedom to decide which channel they want to access, who they want to contact and when they will act. There is no denying that the restriction of technology does not work, for instance, people cannot talk with someone through whatsapp when internet breaks down, however, the procedure of app cannot force you to talk with someone for a certain long time with your enthusiasm. Human agency is not the data that can be written into codes. Therefore, as long as city is somewhere human live, whatever the smart technology is, it never becomes a computer but a mixture with flesh and data.
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