Cities are increasingly using “smart” technology to manage and maintain infrastructure, reduce energy use, expand public services, and foster safe and healthy neighborhoods. A “smart city” might have sensors and cameras that monitor traffic flow and adjust traffic lights to reduce congestion; apps that help residents find parking or track public transit in real time; smart energy grids that reduce power consumption, and AI-powered digital twins that simulate the costs and benefits of development proposals.

Unfortunately, some geographies are inevitably overlooked and communities that could most benefit from these new tools get bypassed by innovation. And when technology does arrive, it often carries embedded values from elsewhere.

Consider how many cities regulate housing conditions through complaint-based systems. Residents report problem properties, inspectors investigate, and enforcement follows. This sounds reasonable until you recognize the pattern. Whiter, wealthier neighborhoods with higher rates of homeownership consistently report more issues because residents have the time, knowledge of city systems, and confidence that complaints will produce results. Meanwhile, in lower-income neighborhoods, problems may go unreported until they’re catastrophic.

Smart city tools offer a possible solution. Remote sensing (cameras and drones that periodically record images of building and neighborhood conditions) and machine learning (computers trained to read these images and recognize signs of disinvestment) could objectively detect building code violations across all neighborhoods, catching minor issues before houses become candidates for demolition. No complaint required. Just neutral, algorithmic fairness.

But as Dr. Ruha Benjamin argues, algorithms are never neutral, and objectivity without context isn’t actually equitable. Technology can reproduce and amplify racial inequality under the guise of digital neutrality.

Imagine a smart city system that identifies code violations uniformly across a city. A low-income homeowner might receive the same citation as a corporate landlord. The algorithm sees two violations. It doesn’t see that one owner lacks resources while the other lacks accountability. The result? Technology that scales enforcement without scaling support. This penalizes residents who are already struggling, while absentee owners find ways to game the system, accelerating the very problems the system was intended to prevent.

Some residents might embrace new technologies for the efficiencies they offer. But in Black and Brown communities, residents have legitimate, historical reasons to be skeptical, including urban renewal programs that destroyed thriving neighborhoods in the name of progress and revitalization efforts that caused displacement instead of stability. When smart city technologies arrive with a promise to improve things, residents might reasonably ask: “Improve for whom? At what cost to us?”

Rather than asking communities to adapt to predetermined technological solutions, we need what Benjamin calls abolitionist tools – technologies designed not to optimize existing systems but to fundamentally reimagine them. Community members aren’t just consulted after the technical specifications are set; they help define the problems technology aims to solve and the values it should embody. In the smartest of smart cities, residents define priorities and cities use deep data to guide investments in neighborhoods where structural racism created the conditions for decline. In Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Portland, and Tucson, communities are developing their own data tools and ecosystems to support their own community’s housing, employment, youth services, and environmental justice needs. In Cleveland and Detroit, DigitalC “greenlines” neighborhoods that were historically redlined from digital access. Digital C’s network is built for communities, by communities and combines digital infrastructure, low-cost broadband service, and skills training in a holistic approach to community development. In early 2025, the City of Cleveland invested $2.76 million in DigitalC, demonstrating that smart city technologies can be economically viable when aligned with community values.

Building equitable technology requires expertise and moral imagination. Beyond the sensors and algorithms, we need to expand community capacity and develop support systems that allow technology to serve rather than surveil. That’s the real test of whether technological progress advances community values or just automates inequality at scale.

Terry Schwarz is a city planner, community designer, and urban researcher driven by the conviction that everyone deserves to live in a neighborhood where they can be safe, prosperous, and well. As director of the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative at Kent State University, she partnered with community development corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations to transform how the region approaches urban design and regeneration.