Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Telematics and Informatics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tele From smart cities to smart social urbanism: A framework for shaping the socio-technological ecosystems in cities Tali Hatuka a, ⁎ , Hadas Zur b a Head, Laboratory for Contemporary Urban Design (LCUD), Department of Geography and Human Environment Tel Aviv University, POB 39040, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel b Laboratory for Contemporary Urban Design (LCUD), Department of Geography and Human Environment Tel Aviv University, POB 39040, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Public sector Private companies Digitalization Strategic planning Smart governance ABSTRACT Advocated mostly by technology companies, the smart city concept promises participation, de- mocratization and innovative urbanism. Tracking these promises and ideas, this paper explores “smart urbanism” in ten cities from all over Israel. Based on interviews with leading figures in municipalities, smart city consultants and key figures in technological companies (n = 40), the aims of this paper are to assess the efforts of cities to become smart by responding to the fol- lowing questions: 1. What is guiding the decision-making process in developing technological initiatives? 2. Does context play a role in implementing technological initiatives? 3. How are the residents perceived, and what tools are being used to address residents' digital differences? The key argument of this paper is threefold: first, in the process of becoming a smart city, the roles of public and private actors are blurred, influencing the process of decision making. Second, despite contextual differences, cities adopt similar digital initiatives. Third, technological initiatives that focus on social needs and address inequality in the digital age are still at the margins. The final discussion suggests that most municipalities are still at an early stage of digitization im- plementation and have the ability to shape and form a vision for the cities as socio-technological ecosystems in a way that will serve their publics as a whole. The paper ends with a call for shifting the focus from the city to society in developing digital initiatives and cultivating smart social urbanism. ++ Cities today are influenced by the digital revolution. Context, funding and regulations play a key role in this dynamic process, which results in variations between cities. As a global uneven process, the key question is not whether digitization is penetrating cities, but what are the new types of socio-technological ecosystems being created? What are the departure points in implementing digitization projects in cities? Who is taking the lead in this formation process? Is there still a possibility to shape this process with an aim of creating an ecosystem that would serve the public good? This paper addresses these questions, under the premise that most municipalities are still at an early stage of digitization implementation and have the ability to shape and form a vision for the cities as socio-technological ecosystems in a way that will serve their publics as a whole. Digitization implementation and projects in cities are often entitled and branded as “smart city” projects. The “smart city” concept became common in the first decade of the twenty-first century. However, there is no consensus about what the term “smart city” means, despite its importance and its contribution to urban development (Albino et al., 2015; Angelidou, 2014; Nam and Pardo, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2020.101430 Received 23 January 2020; Received in revised form 17 April 2020; Accepted 30 April 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: hatuka@tauex.tau.ac.il (T. Hatuka). Telematics and Informatics xxx (xxxx) xxxx 0736-5853/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Tali Hatuka and Hadas Zur, Telematics and Informatics, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2020.101430