High demand, low awareness: Smart city push risks leaving many behind

Familiarity with smart city technologies remains low across much of the population. Awareness varies sharply by application type. Highly visible technologies such as security cameras, smart bicycles, and pollution sensors are widely recognized, while systems designed to promote inclusion, such as mobility and navigation sensors for people with disabilities, are largely unfamiliar to most respondents. This uneven awareness reflects how certain technologies are embedded visibly in public space, while others remain hidden or poorly communicated.

Cities across Europe are accelerating investments in artificial intelligence, sensor networks, and data-driven infrastructure to manage traffic, energy, safety, and public services. Marketed as tools to make urban life more efficient, sustainable, and inclusive, smart city technologies are rapidly becoming embedded in everyday environments. Yet a new large-scale social science study finds that public enthusiasm for these technologies masks deep inequalities in awareness, access, and trust that could limit their legitimacy and long-term success.

The study, titled Unfamiliar but Desired: Citizens’ Attitudes Toward Smart City Applications and published in the journal AI & Society, reveals a striking disconnect between widespread public support for smart city applications and limited understanding of how these systems work or whom they benefit.

High Support, Low Awareness Defines Public Attitudes

The research examines public familiarity with and desirability of eleven smart city applications across four domains: mobility, public safety, energy supply, and social inclusion. These include technologies such as smart grids, pollution sensors, adaptive lighting, smart public transport, parking sensors, security cameras, and navigation systems designed to assist visually impaired residents.

Familiarity with smart city technologies remains low across much of the population. Awareness varies sharply by application type. Highly visible technologies such as security cameras, smart bicycles, and pollution sensors are widely recognized, while systems designed to promote inclusion, such as mobility and navigation sensors for people with disabilities, are largely unfamiliar to most respondents. This uneven awareness reflects how certain technologies are embedded visibly in public space, while others remain hidden or poorly communicated.

Despite this limited familiarity, public desire for smart city technologies is consistently high. Most respondents express positive attitudes toward the majority of applications, particularly those related to energy efficiency, environmental monitoring, and adaptive lighting. This combination of low awareness and high approval reveals a key tension. Citizens appear to support the idea of smart cities as symbols of progress and improvement, even when they lack detailed knowledge of the technologies themselves.

The authors argue that this pattern suggests that desirability is driven less by concrete understanding than by broader aspirations for better urban living. Smart city technologies are perceived as tools for solving pressing problems such as climate change, congestion, and safety, regardless of whether citizens are familiar with their technical operation or governance implications.

Inequality Shapes Who Knows and Who Supports

While overall support for smart city technologies is strong, the study finds that attitudes are far from uniform. Using latent class analysis, the researchers identify distinct groups based on familiarity and desirability, revealing how social characteristics shape public engagement with urban technology.

In terms of familiarity, the population divides almost evenly into two groups. One group, labeled self-declared novices, reports low awareness of most smart city applications. The other group, self-declared insiders, demonstrates broad familiarity across technologies. Membership in these groups is strongly associated with gender, education, and income. Men, individuals with higher levels of education, and higher-income respondents are significantly more likely to be familiar with smart city technologies. Women and middle-income groups are more likely to fall into the low-awareness category.

When it comes to desirability, three distinct profiles emerge. The largest group consists of cautious supporters, who generally welcome smart city technologies but express reservations about surveillance-oriented applications such as traffic cameras. A second group, strong supporters, shows high enthusiasm across nearly all applications. A smaller group, reluctant skeptics, exhibits broad resistance, particularly toward technologies associated with monitoring and control.

These desirability patterns are shaped most strongly by gender and urbanicity. Rural residents are far more likely to belong to the skeptic group, while urban residents are more likely to be strong supporters. Gender differences are also pronounced. Women are more likely to express cautious support, while men are overrepresented among both strong supporters and skeptics, indicating more polarized attitudes.

The study highlights that these differences are not simply matters of personal preference. They reflect structural inequalities in how urban spaces are designed, governed, and experienced. Smart city technologies are often planned and implemented in ways that prioritize efficiency and economic performance, values that may align more closely with the experiences and interests of already privileged groups.

Smart Cities Risk Reproducing Existing Inequality

The study raises broader concerns about the social consequences of smart city development. The authors argue that smart cities do not emerge in a neutral vacuum. They are shaped by political, economic, and institutional forces that influence which problems are prioritized and whose needs are addressed.

Many smart city initiatives are driven by private technology companies working closely with urban administrations under fiscal pressure. This dynamic can sideline citizen participation and reduce public engagement to consultation exercises with limited influence over decision-making. As a result, smart city technologies may reinforce existing power structures rather than democratize urban governance.

The research finds that applications designed to enhance social inclusion are among the least familiar to the public, suggesting that inclusion-oriented technologies receive less visibility and promotion than systems aimed at efficiency or surveillance. This imbalance raises questions about whether smart cities genuinely serve marginalized groups or primarily benefit those who already enjoy greater access to resources and influence.

Gender disparities are particularly significant. The study situates its findings within a broader body of research showing that urban planning and technological design have historically prioritized male experiences of public space. Women’s lower familiarity with smart city technologies and their tendency toward cautious support may reflect concerns about safety, surveillance, and lack of representation in design processes.

Rural skepticism further underscores how smart city narratives are often urban-centric. Residents outside metropolitan areas may see fewer tangible benefits from smart city investments, while facing similar risks related to data collection and governance. Without clear relevance to daily life, smart city technologies can appear disconnected from the needs of non-urban communities.

The study also challenges the assumption that positive attitudes equate to informed consent. When citizens support technologies they do not fully understand, democratic accountability becomes fragile. Public approval based on abstract promises of improvement may evaporate if technologies produce unintended consequences or exacerbate inequality.

The authors argue that these findings have direct implications for policymakers, urban planners, and technology developers. Smart city strategies that rely on public enthusiasm without addressing disparities in awareness and participation risk losing legitimacy over time. Inclusive urban innovation requires more than technological deployment. It demands transparency, meaningful citizen involvement, and attention to how social inequalities shape technological outcomes.

The study calls for a shift away from top-down implementation toward participatory approaches that treat citizens as political stakeholders rather than passive users. This includes actively engaging underrepresented groups, addressing gender and income disparities in access to information, and ensuring that inclusion-oriented technologies receive equal visibility and investment.