Christian Dimmer | Waseda University (original) (raw)

Papers by Christian Dimmer

Mega event planning, 2024

Review of Japanese culture and society, 2021

16th International Docomomo Conference Tokyo Japan 2020+1, 2021

This paper offers a critical re-evaluation of what is arguably the clearest representation of a J... more This paper offers a critical re-evaluation of what is arguably the clearest representation of a Japanese consumer electronic and media corporation in architectural form: the Ginza Sony Building. The paper argues that architect Yoshinobu Ashihara’s 1966 modern master- piece can be seen as a multilayered assemblage through which a number of distinct modernist traditions have evolved. This aspect of the building, we argue, is clearer in the present, ironically, after it has been demolished; in its absence. The building’s status as a modernist icon and, consequently, fame, developed gradually since it was opened. But a series of recent events and the resulting dynamic encouraged us to revisit the building to construct a wider, more satisfying understanding of its value. The renewed relevance of the Sony Build- ing, we know in hindsight, was determined when Tokyo was announced as a host of the 2020 Olympics. That announcement in September 2013 was a catalyst for a chain of events that revealed four distinct ‘evolutions’ in which the iconic building plays a distinct role. We discuss the change over time of: (1.) the emergence and presence of Sony in Ginza; (2.) the employment of modern architectural traditions and ideas; (3.) the linkage between Sony’s flagship products and the building; and (4.) the representations of Sony as an architectural form and how it evolved from building to park and the expected building-park. The paper, then, offers a re-reading of the modernist building as a non-discrete urban assemblage at the intersection of new technologies in consumer electronics, novel architectural ideas, a Post-War nascent consumer society, and, an urban district that transformed because of the 1964 Olympic Games and is currently re-transforming through the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The paper recognizes the Sony Building as a relevant object of study and repositions it in the current context. It accounts for the main evolutionary traditions and shows how the building encourages their composition.

Local Action on Climate Change, 2017

Japan is currently supplying its energy demand mostly by importing fosile fuels, especially LNG. ... more Japan is currently supplying its energy demand mostly by importing fosile fuels, especially LNG. This is costly and contribute to CO2 related global warming. While the Japanese central government aims at reducing its reliance on LNG by restarting nuclear power plants, local initiatives show more concern for global and local environmental issues. In this chapter we are looking at three cases in Japan, a prominent Japanese branch of the transnational Transition Town initiative, a town in southern Japan and a mountain village in northwest Japan. We show that local initiatives within Japan differ strongly from national agendas and also from each other. We pay attention to geographic, demographic and political differences in order to point out the factors that contribute or hinder climate change action. We also point out, that climate change related activities in Japan, do not necessarily have to address or frame climate change as the main issue. Our cases show, that local problems seem to be much more eminent in the perception and motivation for taking action and that climate protection sometimes comes as a side effect. We also point out that while there is a huge natural, economic and social potential for renewable energies in Japan, committed politician, entrepreneurs and citizen activists face serious political and economic challenges.

Perhaps few other ideas have been more persevering in architecture or urban planning discourses o... more Perhaps few other ideas have been more persevering in architecture or urban planning discourses over the past decades than ‘public space’. Ironically, its recent, expanded career as a central intellectual concept beyond those academic disciplines, concerned with the built environment, and its extensive use in professional and scholarly debates, in media and everyday language, didn’t help to lessen its semantic ambiguities (Gulick 1998, Nadal 2000). One substantial problem with the concept is its (mis-)conception as static and universal; as transcending the particularities of time, space, or culture, thus frustrating meaningful comparative discourses. As a result examining public space outside ones own cultural context may lead to early conclusions and normative distortions when observations do not match the preconceived repertoire of spatial archetypes, or familiar patterns of appropriation. Neil Smith reminds us thus that "(d)ifferent societies and different modes of production produce space differently; they produce their own kinds of spaces” (1998: 54). He argues that “specific societies and specific periods have distinctive spatial codes (… that) are integral to the social and spatial practices of a given place and period (…)” (ibid.). Consequently, public space is better conceived as a complex multi-dimensional notion, perpetually reproduced by local and global actors and discourses, shaped by hard and soft social institutions, as well as specific spatio-culturally induced systems of perception, interaction, representation, and language in a particular time and place. The job of theory and empirical enquiry is then elucidating the emergence, performance, and change of those spatial codes, constituting particular public space notions, rather than superimposing a priori views. Interestingly, international debates showed hitherto a strong bias toward Europe or North America —underplaying public space in non-western settings. Referring to the ultimately related and equally abstract idea of ‘civil society’ Frank Schwartz points out the intricacies of applying concepts across cultures that evolved in distinctively western milieus (2003: 3). After all, as the etymology of the Latin publicus (‘of the people’) suggests, delineating the social universe in public and private spheres or spaces has been a recurring concern of Western thought since antiquity. Cultures, however, have always borrowed from one and another in the past and thus rarely constitute homogeneous entities in the present. “Defying abstract considerations of authenticity and universality, ideas and institutions are constantly spreading beyond their place of origin to take root elsewhere, where they may be reconceived in local terms” (ibid.). Jennifer Robertson adds that “culture (...) is every bit as much an ongoing production as it is a constantly transforming product” (1998: 11). With Henri Lefèbvre (1991) I suggest that space, or more specifically public space, both reflects and contributes to this process and thus deserves further attention. The objective of this article is therefore to sketch out a more nuanced, flexible and culture sensitive understanding of public space. The key is Lefèbvre’s influential idea of the social construction of space, after which space is continually and dynamically constructed through a trialectic between the perceived, the conceived and the lived. The paper elucidates this idea with the example of urban Japan and applies it for a close examination of the underlying socio-spatial and historical processes, leading up to the present public space boom. In order to reduce complexity, the focus is on one particular spatial archetype and its related institutional and discursive context. So-called privately owned public spaces (POPS) are quantitatively highly significant as they thrived adjacent to hundreds of downtown skyscrapers since the late 1960s. Moreover, since these privately owned, yet publicly accessible spaces result from a trade-off between bonus floor area for open space, involving developers and local governments, their design and operation reflects how public space was thought by both public and private key actors at a specific point in time. This is a fresh perspective, as most writing on the subject focused hitherto mostly on government policies but ignored the motivation of private developers.

At the centre of this article is arguably one of the most significant yet underexplored voids at ... more At the centre of this article is arguably one of the most significant yet underexplored voids at the heart of the major cities in Japan: the temporal void of approximately four hours, which occurs between the last train on any day and the first train of the following one. Many cities, including Tokyo, have witnessed debates in recent years about their competitiveness as "always on" 24-hour global cities. In these debates "night" is often characterised as a temporal void, a comparatively unproductive urban time that might be better utilized to improve the city's economic position as well as urban experience. This article argues that such a view is institutionally biased, as it marginalizes or ignores the everyday experiences of city inhabitants and is also a misunderstanding of the broader temporal and spatial context of "night" and the apparent void it creates.

Routledge Companion to Global Heritage Conservation, 2019

Rarely has the value of modern architecture and heritage in the Japanese city been more trenchant... more Rarely has the value of modern architecture and heritage in the Japanese city been more trenchantly depicted than in Kon Ishikawa's classic "Tokyo Olympiad" of 1965. The monumental film that chronicles the 1964 Tokyo Olympic begins with a staggering scene of destruction: The image of a rising sun, representing the Japan that has similarly risen out of the ruins of World War II, seamlessly blends into a wrecking ball, vociferously knocking down complete ferro-concrete building facades. After these violent opening scenes and now framed by an ethereal, almost angelic score, the camera gracefully pans along the astounding architectural jewels that were created for the 1964 Tokyo Olympiad-the National Stadium by Katayama Mitsuo, the Komazawa Stadium by Murata Masachika, the Komazawa Gymnasium by Ashihara Yoshinobu, and the Yoyogi Gymnasiums by Tange Kenzo-and that catapulted modernist Japanese architecture into the global limelight almost overnight. This sequence of a dignified, quiet monumentality, devoid of people, harshly ends with a crosscut to a bustling, chaotic Tokyo street, underscored by a nervous score. On the most abstract level, the wrecking ball functions as a powerful symbol, "denoting the violence implicit in [Japan's overall] modernizing process" (Russell 2002: 218). On another level, these scenes seem to suggest that the old city naturally should give way for the new to emerge. Only the creative destruction of the outdated buildings and neighborhoods allows for the Olympic city to materialize. On yet another concrete level these scenes graphically depict the unsentimental and utilitarian treatment of building structures throughout the country's modern history. Like in few other places in the world, perfectly maintained ferro-concrete office buildings that couldn't be much older than 20 to 30 years at the time the film was made are torn down just because changed regulations, new building technologies, or a tense real estate market demanded bigger, more profitable structures. And indeed, few modern building structures last longer than 50 years in Japan. Wrecking balls are no longer used today, but the incessant replacement of outdated building structures continues to this day.

Geographische Rundschau, 2013

It is clear that attempting to address environmental problems at their point of harm through iden... more It is clear that attempting to address environmental problems at their point of harm through identifying immediate causes has not been successful. The rate of change and growth in human activity, science, technology and society continues to create environmental crises which outpace remedial actions attempting to safeguard the ecosystems of the planet. Moreover, the uncoordinated application of technological fixes on many scales without properly understanding their long-term side effects has caused new, unpredicted wicked legacies. At the same time, prior efforts to identify root causes of the environmental crisis failed to provide a basis for designing policy interventions which could have direct impacts on the environmental crises within a timeframe suited to the rapid rate at which these crises unfold. Identifying proximate factors contributing to the environmental crisis, in which interventions can be considered short of revolutionary or unlikely societal changes, provides a way to bridge this gap between band-aid solutions and unachievable aspirations. The paper explores a range of proximate factors contributing to the environmental crisis, including: The momentum and self-sustaining logic of money and raw materials; Warfare and the environmental crisis; Wicked legacies; Ownership and legal systems; Modernity, utopian thinking, pursuit of personal happiness, and the idea of progress; Externalising waste, exporting harm, creating inter-generational debt; Information transparency and deliberate blindness; Compartmentalisation and specialisation; Decision making and accountability: Sovereignty, nation-states and the international system; Poverty, redistribution, Malthus and the limits to growth; and, Adaptability.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011

This paper reports on the first international workshop on Aesthetic Intelligence. The focus of th... more This paper reports on the first international workshop on Aesthetic Intelligence. The focus of the workshop is on the relevance of beauty and aesthetic values for Ambient Intelligence and the meaning of aesthetically pleasing design for usability, technology acceptance, and well-being in technology-enhanced spaces.

Review of Japanese Culture and Society, 2016

temporary place of debate and deliberation that serves the development of shared visions and

Das Idealbild der europäischen Stadt mit ihrer dicht gewachsenen Baustruktur und ihren öffentlich... more Das Idealbild der europäischen Stadt mit ihrer dicht gewachsenen Baustruktur und ihren öffentlichen Räumen steht als Synonym für'Urbanität'und beeinflußt bis zum heutigen Tag das planerische Denken und Handeln. Eng verbunden damit tauchen immer wieder ...

Planning Theory & Practice, 2014

Itonaga & Christian Dimmer (2014) Planning innovation and post-disaster reconstruction: The case ... more Itonaga & Christian Dimmer (2014) Planning innovation and post-disaster reconstruction: The case of Tohoku, Japan/Reconstruction of tsunami-devastated fishing villages in the Tohoku region of Japan and the challenges for planning/Post-disaster reconstruction in Iwate and new planning challenges for Japan/Towards a "network community" for the displaced town of Namie, FukushimaResilience design and community support in Iitate Village in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster/Evolving place governance innovations and pluralising reconstruction practices in post-disaster Japan,

Mega event planning, 2024

Review of Japanese culture and society, 2021

16th International Docomomo Conference Tokyo Japan 2020+1, 2021

This paper offers a critical re-evaluation of what is arguably the clearest representation of a J... more This paper offers a critical re-evaluation of what is arguably the clearest representation of a Japanese consumer electronic and media corporation in architectural form: the Ginza Sony Building. The paper argues that architect Yoshinobu Ashihara’s 1966 modern master- piece can be seen as a multilayered assemblage through which a number of distinct modernist traditions have evolved. This aspect of the building, we argue, is clearer in the present, ironically, after it has been demolished; in its absence. The building’s status as a modernist icon and, consequently, fame, developed gradually since it was opened. But a series of recent events and the resulting dynamic encouraged us to revisit the building to construct a wider, more satisfying understanding of its value. The renewed relevance of the Sony Build- ing, we know in hindsight, was determined when Tokyo was announced as a host of the 2020 Olympics. That announcement in September 2013 was a catalyst for a chain of events that revealed four distinct ‘evolutions’ in which the iconic building plays a distinct role. We discuss the change over time of: (1.) the emergence and presence of Sony in Ginza; (2.) the employment of modern architectural traditions and ideas; (3.) the linkage between Sony’s flagship products and the building; and (4.) the representations of Sony as an architectural form and how it evolved from building to park and the expected building-park. The paper, then, offers a re-reading of the modernist building as a non-discrete urban assemblage at the intersection of new technologies in consumer electronics, novel architectural ideas, a Post-War nascent consumer society, and, an urban district that transformed because of the 1964 Olympic Games and is currently re-transforming through the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The paper recognizes the Sony Building as a relevant object of study and repositions it in the current context. It accounts for the main evolutionary traditions and shows how the building encourages their composition.

Local Action on Climate Change, 2017

Japan is currently supplying its energy demand mostly by importing fosile fuels, especially LNG. ... more Japan is currently supplying its energy demand mostly by importing fosile fuels, especially LNG. This is costly and contribute to CO2 related global warming. While the Japanese central government aims at reducing its reliance on LNG by restarting nuclear power plants, local initiatives show more concern for global and local environmental issues. In this chapter we are looking at three cases in Japan, a prominent Japanese branch of the transnational Transition Town initiative, a town in southern Japan and a mountain village in northwest Japan. We show that local initiatives within Japan differ strongly from national agendas and also from each other. We pay attention to geographic, demographic and political differences in order to point out the factors that contribute or hinder climate change action. We also point out, that climate change related activities in Japan, do not necessarily have to address or frame climate change as the main issue. Our cases show, that local problems seem to be much more eminent in the perception and motivation for taking action and that climate protection sometimes comes as a side effect. We also point out that while there is a huge natural, economic and social potential for renewable energies in Japan, committed politician, entrepreneurs and citizen activists face serious political and economic challenges.

Perhaps few other ideas have been more persevering in architecture or urban planning discourses o... more Perhaps few other ideas have been more persevering in architecture or urban planning discourses over the past decades than ‘public space’. Ironically, its recent, expanded career as a central intellectual concept beyond those academic disciplines, concerned with the built environment, and its extensive use in professional and scholarly debates, in media and everyday language, didn’t help to lessen its semantic ambiguities (Gulick 1998, Nadal 2000). One substantial problem with the concept is its (mis-)conception as static and universal; as transcending the particularities of time, space, or culture, thus frustrating meaningful comparative discourses. As a result examining public space outside ones own cultural context may lead to early conclusions and normative distortions when observations do not match the preconceived repertoire of spatial archetypes, or familiar patterns of appropriation. Neil Smith reminds us thus that "(d)ifferent societies and different modes of production produce space differently; they produce their own kinds of spaces” (1998: 54). He argues that “specific societies and specific periods have distinctive spatial codes (… that) are integral to the social and spatial practices of a given place and period (…)” (ibid.). Consequently, public space is better conceived as a complex multi-dimensional notion, perpetually reproduced by local and global actors and discourses, shaped by hard and soft social institutions, as well as specific spatio-culturally induced systems of perception, interaction, representation, and language in a particular time and place. The job of theory and empirical enquiry is then elucidating the emergence, performance, and change of those spatial codes, constituting particular public space notions, rather than superimposing a priori views. Interestingly, international debates showed hitherto a strong bias toward Europe or North America —underplaying public space in non-western settings. Referring to the ultimately related and equally abstract idea of ‘civil society’ Frank Schwartz points out the intricacies of applying concepts across cultures that evolved in distinctively western milieus (2003: 3). After all, as the etymology of the Latin publicus (‘of the people’) suggests, delineating the social universe in public and private spheres or spaces has been a recurring concern of Western thought since antiquity. Cultures, however, have always borrowed from one and another in the past and thus rarely constitute homogeneous entities in the present. “Defying abstract considerations of authenticity and universality, ideas and institutions are constantly spreading beyond their place of origin to take root elsewhere, where they may be reconceived in local terms” (ibid.). Jennifer Robertson adds that “culture (...) is every bit as much an ongoing production as it is a constantly transforming product” (1998: 11). With Henri Lefèbvre (1991) I suggest that space, or more specifically public space, both reflects and contributes to this process and thus deserves further attention. The objective of this article is therefore to sketch out a more nuanced, flexible and culture sensitive understanding of public space. The key is Lefèbvre’s influential idea of the social construction of space, after which space is continually and dynamically constructed through a trialectic between the perceived, the conceived and the lived. The paper elucidates this idea with the example of urban Japan and applies it for a close examination of the underlying socio-spatial and historical processes, leading up to the present public space boom. In order to reduce complexity, the focus is on one particular spatial archetype and its related institutional and discursive context. So-called privately owned public spaces (POPS) are quantitatively highly significant as they thrived adjacent to hundreds of downtown skyscrapers since the late 1960s. Moreover, since these privately owned, yet publicly accessible spaces result from a trade-off between bonus floor area for open space, involving developers and local governments, their design and operation reflects how public space was thought by both public and private key actors at a specific point in time. This is a fresh perspective, as most writing on the subject focused hitherto mostly on government policies but ignored the motivation of private developers.

At the centre of this article is arguably one of the most significant yet underexplored voids at ... more At the centre of this article is arguably one of the most significant yet underexplored voids at the heart of the major cities in Japan: the temporal void of approximately four hours, which occurs between the last train on any day and the first train of the following one. Many cities, including Tokyo, have witnessed debates in recent years about their competitiveness as "always on" 24-hour global cities. In these debates "night" is often characterised as a temporal void, a comparatively unproductive urban time that might be better utilized to improve the city's economic position as well as urban experience. This article argues that such a view is institutionally biased, as it marginalizes or ignores the everyday experiences of city inhabitants and is also a misunderstanding of the broader temporal and spatial context of "night" and the apparent void it creates.

Routledge Companion to Global Heritage Conservation, 2019

Rarely has the value of modern architecture and heritage in the Japanese city been more trenchant... more Rarely has the value of modern architecture and heritage in the Japanese city been more trenchantly depicted than in Kon Ishikawa's classic "Tokyo Olympiad" of 1965. The monumental film that chronicles the 1964 Tokyo Olympic begins with a staggering scene of destruction: The image of a rising sun, representing the Japan that has similarly risen out of the ruins of World War II, seamlessly blends into a wrecking ball, vociferously knocking down complete ferro-concrete building facades. After these violent opening scenes and now framed by an ethereal, almost angelic score, the camera gracefully pans along the astounding architectural jewels that were created for the 1964 Tokyo Olympiad-the National Stadium by Katayama Mitsuo, the Komazawa Stadium by Murata Masachika, the Komazawa Gymnasium by Ashihara Yoshinobu, and the Yoyogi Gymnasiums by Tange Kenzo-and that catapulted modernist Japanese architecture into the global limelight almost overnight. This sequence of a dignified, quiet monumentality, devoid of people, harshly ends with a crosscut to a bustling, chaotic Tokyo street, underscored by a nervous score. On the most abstract level, the wrecking ball functions as a powerful symbol, "denoting the violence implicit in [Japan's overall] modernizing process" (Russell 2002: 218). On another level, these scenes seem to suggest that the old city naturally should give way for the new to emerge. Only the creative destruction of the outdated buildings and neighborhoods allows for the Olympic city to materialize. On yet another concrete level these scenes graphically depict the unsentimental and utilitarian treatment of building structures throughout the country's modern history. Like in few other places in the world, perfectly maintained ferro-concrete office buildings that couldn't be much older than 20 to 30 years at the time the film was made are torn down just because changed regulations, new building technologies, or a tense real estate market demanded bigger, more profitable structures. And indeed, few modern building structures last longer than 50 years in Japan. Wrecking balls are no longer used today, but the incessant replacement of outdated building structures continues to this day.

Geographische Rundschau, 2013

It is clear that attempting to address environmental problems at their point of harm through iden... more It is clear that attempting to address environmental problems at their point of harm through identifying immediate causes has not been successful. The rate of change and growth in human activity, science, technology and society continues to create environmental crises which outpace remedial actions attempting to safeguard the ecosystems of the planet. Moreover, the uncoordinated application of technological fixes on many scales without properly understanding their long-term side effects has caused new, unpredicted wicked legacies. At the same time, prior efforts to identify root causes of the environmental crisis failed to provide a basis for designing policy interventions which could have direct impacts on the environmental crises within a timeframe suited to the rapid rate at which these crises unfold. Identifying proximate factors contributing to the environmental crisis, in which interventions can be considered short of revolutionary or unlikely societal changes, provides a way to bridge this gap between band-aid solutions and unachievable aspirations. The paper explores a range of proximate factors contributing to the environmental crisis, including: The momentum and self-sustaining logic of money and raw materials; Warfare and the environmental crisis; Wicked legacies; Ownership and legal systems; Modernity, utopian thinking, pursuit of personal happiness, and the idea of progress; Externalising waste, exporting harm, creating inter-generational debt; Information transparency and deliberate blindness; Compartmentalisation and specialisation; Decision making and accountability: Sovereignty, nation-states and the international system; Poverty, redistribution, Malthus and the limits to growth; and, Adaptability.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011

This paper reports on the first international workshop on Aesthetic Intelligence. The focus of th... more This paper reports on the first international workshop on Aesthetic Intelligence. The focus of the workshop is on the relevance of beauty and aesthetic values for Ambient Intelligence and the meaning of aesthetically pleasing design for usability, technology acceptance, and well-being in technology-enhanced spaces.

Review of Japanese Culture and Society, 2016

temporary place of debate and deliberation that serves the development of shared visions and

Das Idealbild der europäischen Stadt mit ihrer dicht gewachsenen Baustruktur und ihren öffentlich... more Das Idealbild der europäischen Stadt mit ihrer dicht gewachsenen Baustruktur und ihren öffentlichen Räumen steht als Synonym für'Urbanität'und beeinflußt bis zum heutigen Tag das planerische Denken und Handeln. Eng verbunden damit tauchen immer wieder ...

Planning Theory & Practice, 2014

Itonaga & Christian Dimmer (2014) Planning innovation and post-disaster reconstruction: The case ... more Itonaga & Christian Dimmer (2014) Planning innovation and post-disaster reconstruction: The case of Tohoku, Japan/Reconstruction of tsunami-devastated fishing villages in the Tohoku region of Japan and the challenges for planning/Post-disaster reconstruction in Iwate and new planning challenges for Japan/Towards a "network community" for the displaced town of Namie, FukushimaResilience design and community support in Iitate Village in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster/Evolving place governance innovations and pluralising reconstruction practices in post-disaster Japan,

Tokyo Totem, Oct 30, 2015

POPS – el uso público del espacio urbano, 2015

El presente ensayo analiza la proliferación de una de las categorías más significativas de esp... more El presente ensayo analiza la proliferación de una de las categorías más significativas de espacios de uso público en el Japón metropolitano contemporáneo. El texto explora cuándo y por qué el gobierno comenzó a traspasar la producción de espacios públicos a actores privados, y reflexiona sobre cómo se han transforma- do estos espacios en el transcurso de los últimos cuarenta años, pasando de ser «espacios públicos muertos» a convertirse en «escenarios totales de trabajo y es- parcimiento». Resulta interesante observar que la transformación cualitativa de esos relevantes residuos de materia urbana fue, más que el resultado de la presión de la sociedad civil o de los planificadores gubernamentales en pro de la creación de entornos urbanos de alta calidad, el efecto de mecanismos del mercado que identificaron a los espacios públicos como medios importantes para valorizar locaciones específicas.

Pacific Affairs, 2021

Few recent ideas have equally captivated the imaginations of politicians, corporate strategists, ... more Few recent ideas have equally captivated the imaginations of politicians, corporate strategists, and citizen activists as much as the Smart City. The ubiquitous and pervasive application of information and communication technology (ICT) like big data, Internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), or robots is widely identified as a means to make cities smarter and more sustainable at a time when 55 percent of the global population resides in urban areas, produces 60 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions and consumes 78 percent of the world’s energy. Critics of the Smart City decry it as an evocative slogan that high-tech companies, entrepreneurial politicians, and international consultants employ in order to advance their agendas. To gain a clearer understanding of this ambiguous concept, it is necessary to cut through the hyperbole and examine how existing smart city policies are actually assembled in specific places, how they are filled with meaning, and how they are implemented.