Data Flow in the Smart City: Open Data Versus the Commons

Much of the recent excitement around data, especially 'Big Data,' focuses on the potential commercial or economic value of data. How that data will affect people isn't much discussed. People know that smart cities will deploy Internet-based monitoring and that flows of the collected data promise to produce new values. Less considered is that smart cities will be sites of new forms of citizen action-enabled by an 'economy' of data that will lead to new methods of collectivization, accountability, and control which, themselves, can provide both positive and negative values to the citizenry. Therefore, smart city design needs to consider not just measurement and publication of data but also the implications of city-wide deployment, data openness, and the possibility of unintended consequences if data leave the city.