Smart Cities and Creative Economies

Join us for a guest speaker event, with two presentations and a discussion on Smart Cities and Creative Economies in the Global South.
What happens when urban heritage and a creative economy meet in Kampong Glam, Singapore?
Vinay Kumar (PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo)
In this talk, I discuss what happens when two main culture-based urban development strategies–creative economy and heritage-based urban development–coincide in the same physical urban place. Drawing on the case of Kampong Glam, Singapore, I analyze how the two cultural urban policies manifest, actualize, and interact in urban space.
Threat Levels: Smart cities and insecurity in the global South
Nabeel Ahmed (York Centre for Asian Research)
Smart cities are emerging across the global South as urban policymakers explore the use of technology to address a variety of challenges. Using the example of the Lahore Safe City project in Pakistan, I examine how the ‘smart’ agenda coincides with public safety imperatives across Asian cities. This focus on security, often driven by an international technology corporation working with the domestic police apparatus, opens up a multitude of questions regarding surveillance, privacy, and control.
This event is organized by Amardeep Kaur (Doctoral Candidate in Geography)
Snacks and refreshments will be provided.
ABOUT: The Emerging Asian Urbanisms series at the York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR) explores the diverse processes and practices of urbanism and urbanization in Asia. It draws upon calls made by Ananya Roy and Jennifer Robinson, among others, to investigate “new geographies of theory” as fertile sources of uncovering new ways of understanding urbanism everywhere. In Fall 2018, we started a reading group. In the Winter 2019 term, the series will host guest speaker events, graduate writing workshops, and more reading discussion sessions.