UCLA

As high-profile smart city projects and technologies continue to pervade cities all over North America, this thesis seeks to answer two interrelated questions: what are issues relating to resident participation that arise in smart city plans and strategies in large cities across North America, and how are cities envisioning public engagement and the role of their citizens in smart city initiatives? To answer these questions, this thesis analyzes smart city documents (including smart city roadmaps, smart city plans, and relevant websites) of nine American cities, and conducts interviews with smart city staff at three cities. Consistent with much of the existing scholarship, this thesis concludes that the presence of the citizens in both the projects and initiatives being developed in the smart city, and in the engagement processes of these smart city plans, remains largely absent.