Corporatization and Smart Cities: Creating a debate about economic interests in future urban infrastructure.

Sammanfattning: Smart cities are seen as the answer for specific problems, that we will face in the future: overpopulation, shortage of resources, demographic change, etc. At the same time more people than ever will live in cities. This creates huge difficulties for governmental institutions on the one side, but also profit promising opportunities for companies on the other. This thesis will have a close look at this tension and unpack the vision of the smart cities, as they are created with the help of integrators and service companies. Through the lens of Critical Design, it will result in a fictional artifact to trigger the imagination and a debate about a possible future in which corporate interests changed the relationship between the city and its citizens.