ИСТИНА

The “smart city” discourse is one of the most influential in actual urban agenda. It is based on the idea that human contacts and connectivity play a crucial role in peoples’ involvement, engagement, participation, as well as creation of mutual trust and social innovations. All these aspects are directly associated with urban development, urbanity, social solidarity, cities’ identities and communities. Nevertheless, the smart city concept is treated differently by different scholars. First, it is seen as a tool of urban marketing referring to the cities’ competition and promotion. However, the principle of digital connectivity (“to be smart, citizens should be connected”) looks as a top-down and master-planned vision, focused on the needs of technology suppliers, and contrasts with the ideas of Lefebvre, Jacobs and Harvey who were referring to the right to the city and to social transformation (“a right to change ourselves by changing the city”). Second, it is considered as a way towards the improvement of life standards and modernization which are leading to emergence of the new global pattern independent of pressure, both of the State (borders and sovereignties) and of locality. This approach assumes that equality of access to digital world and information is a kind of compensation for all other numerous inequalities. From the third point of view, the smart city is regarded as a challenge for sustainable urban development since it completely transforms the ideas of community, leaderships, and participation. In doing so, attention is paid to the fact that new technologies open doors for different kinds of populism and mass mobilization. The presentation is shortly dealing with all of these topics. The author believes that the impact of universities on formation of smart cities is quite obvious and at the same time is exaggerated in the discourse. The higher education and compulsion “to be smart” are not always a way to smartness, and often turn out into frustration and marginalization of university graduates.