We tie the Smart Cities concept to the On-Life human-centered vision. The need to provide citizen-focused empowering visions of smart cities planning and development is very much needed, especially when a post-COVID environment requires urban growth “resets” within stringent sustainability limits. Our selected case studies describe some of these current challenges. Two novel utopian visions of technology are proposed: urban “cold spots” and “disposable identities.” The aim is to safeguard human digital rights in the digital smart urban sphere: our cherished freedom of expression, privacy, autonomy, and civic assembly. The chapter has three parts, the limits of smartness; the IoT, 5G, and 6G technology developments of cyber physical systems; and the need to choose a suitable form of identity management. Authors bring together their intradisciplinary approach.
Disclaimer: The research context of the work on digital identity and trust was undertaken in the context of H2020 projects (NGI Forward, H2020 Grant Agreement number 825652 and CAPS collective intelligence about urban regeneration). The characterization of hot spots/cold spots is from the T-Lab “Citizens-led Smartness” within the T-Factor Innovation Action (H2020 Grant Agreement number 868887). The ideas of the authors are personal and speculative, and they should not be misconstrued to reflect the policy views of the European Commission, of the European Parliament, or of the University or employment affiliation of the individual authors.
van Kranenburg R. et al. (2020) Future Urban Smartness: Connectivity Zones with Disposable Identities. In: Augusto J.C. (eds) Handbook of Smart Cities. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15145-4_56-1
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-030-15145-4_56-1