Crisis, ciudad y tecnología ¿una solución inteligente?

In a context of austerity and economic recession, there are emerging new strategies that aim at rethinking the city through a technologically mediated urbanism. Both Smart City strategies and the alternatives proposed by the new citizen’s coalitions in Spain agree on the transformative role that information and communication technologies (ICT) can have in implementing new city models. However, we have detected the lack of studies exploring critically some of its implications. This article examines these implications through the deployment of the Smart city concept in Spain in a context of imposed austerity. From a critical reading of this concept, the article discusses about the technology-city dichotomy to debate how the 21st century city should be transformed and managed beyond merely technical questions (sensorization, apps, technological platforms, etc.).