Speaker
Description
Keynote: The city is not the customer
After a decade of pilot projects and flashy demonstrations, it’s still not clear whether smart city technologies can actually solve or even mitigate the challenges cities face. A lot of progress on our most pressing urban issues—such as broadband access, affordable housing, or public transport—could come from better policies and more funding. These problems don’t necessarily require new technology.
What is clear is that technology companies are increasingly taking on administrative and infrastructure responsibilities that governments have long fulfilled. If smart cities are to avoid exacerbating urban inequalities, we must understand where these projects will create new opportunities and problems, and who may lose out as a result. And that starts by taking a hard look at how cities have fared so far.
Jennifer Clark is Professor and Head of the City and Regional Planning Section at the Knowlton School of Architecture in the College of Engineering at The Ohio State University and Adjunt Professor at the Centre of Innovation Research at the University of Stavanger. She specializes in urban and regional economic development planning.
Dr. Clark's most recent book is Uneven Innovation: The Work of Smart Cities (Columbia University Press, 2020) won the 2021 Best Book Award from the Urban Affairs Association. She is also the author of Working Regions: Reconnecting Innovation and Production in the Knowledge Economy (Routledge, 2013) and Remaking Regional Economies: Power, Labor, and Firm Strategies in the Knowledge Economy (with Susan Christopherson) (Routledge, 2007) winner of the Best Book Award from the Regional Studies Association in 2009.
Dr. Clark teaches courses on urban and regional economic development theory, analysis, and practice and research design and methods. She has provided expert testimony before the US Congress and policy advice and consulting to the OECD, the Canadian, UK, and US governments as well as serving on nongovernmental policy commissions and committees. Before joining the Knowlton School, Dr. Clark taught at Cornell University and the Georgia Institute of Technology where she was also the Director of the Center for Urban Innovation.
