Georgia Institute of Technology GVU Center

Recent discourses on smart cities have been primarily focused on the deployment of technical infrastructures such as sensor installation, data collection, and security measures. These practices, however, are accompanied with tacit and explicit ideas about ideal cities and human values. This paper presents the preliminary results of an ethnographic study that looks closely at the North Avenue Smart Corridor in Atlanta, Georgia aimed at unpacking the driving ideas behind smart cities initiatives and critically engaging its key assumptions of progress and efficiency.