| Abstract |
Drawing from communication infrastructure theory, I propose a methodological and analytical intervention for the smart city and related initiatives: a community-driven approach to urban data-driven governance. This approach contends that data-related actors increasingly act as key storytelling agents within urban governance, given the rise of datafication. Moreover, it emphasizes the importance of an alternative storytelling network, positing the local storytelling network as a key-yet often minimally visible-set of experts and storytellers that can activate data-driven change and overcome extant gaps in dominant, "limited" versions of the smart city. As such, I spotlight two counterdata projects as prototypes for this intervention. In all, I argue it is imperative that urban governance explores this framework to incorporate, and design with, a wider range of local actors and knowledge in mind: not only to address critiques but, more so, to build more inclusive models in the public interest. |