Sidewalk Toronto and the discursive politics of the real-time city

As communities around the world invest in new digital technologies, many are guided by enthusiasm for what Rob Kitchin calls ‘the real-time city’. From connected traffic lights that adjust to the flow of vehicles to digital platforms that allow residents to track snowplows in their area, these ‘smart city’ technologies promise ‘real-time’ updates and ‘real-time’ control. But what does it mean for a technology or a city to operate in ‘real-time’, and what is the relationship between ‘real-time’ and the utility or intelligence of digital systems? What does excitement over ‘real-time’ overlook? To answer these questions, this paper explores the discursive function of ‘real-time’ within the context of Sidewalk Toronto, Canada's most prominent foray into smart city development. Drawing on the project's initial proposal and subsequent development plan, it suggests that the discursive function of ‘real-time’ was threefold. First, references to ‘real-time’ affirmed the immediacy or objectivity of ‘smart city’ technologies. Second, enthusiasm for ‘real-time’ affirmed the objectification and commodification of time itself. Third, references to ‘real-time’ aided in the de-contextualization and de-politicization of algorithmic decision-making, collapsing urban governance into a ‘perpetual present’ in which ‘real-time’ constituted no time (or space) at all. The paper closes by exploring the politics of this ‘real-time city’, and the hierarchical and technocratic forms of governance that characterized the Sidewalk Toronto project.