Rhetoric of the Smart City and smart villages. Technology without intelligence?

Smart city concept has quickly reached a high degree of popularity and started a broad spectrum of urban applications. Smart cities are configured as highly technological contexts, but also more sustainable and with a balanced management of natural resources and the urban environment. More recently, under the impetus of various EU (2016, 2017) initiatives , the concept of smartness has also been extended to many smaller towns. The assumption is that thanks to digital innovation, areas that are particularly vulnerable and have few future development prospects could experience a revitalization of their services and places. In particular, the focus on the digital divide issue between urban and rural areas has led to the need to bridge this gap through policies for the digitization of essential services. In European policies, it is the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) in inland areas and small towns that has fueled the idea of "Smart Villages." According to a European Commission (2020) definition, smart villages are rural areas and communities whose traditional networks and services are enhanced through ICTs and better use of knowledge (knowledge), for the benefit of inhabitants and businesses In the smart perspective, technological component assumes a decisive importance for searching innovative solutions, however this vision also presents possible risks related to an interpretation focused solely on the dimension of information technology as tool for improving the quality of life in cities. The risk is that we focus too much on technology and infrastructure, losing sight of the meaning of intelligence, which is sometimes the most important concept. In this perspective, the paper proposes a less emphatic vision of the smart city, highlighting the critical issues related to rhetoric of the smartness of cities. Particularly, the study considers that technological components, however important, do not produce by themselves benefits in social and environmental terms, but they always need to be developed and used in an integrated way through partnerships between promoting actors (such as institutions) and users (such as citizens).