CITIES, TECHNOLOGY, AND CULTURE: EPISTEMIC DISPUTES IN SMART, CREATIVE, AND HYBRID CITIES

Abstract

This article critically analyzes the convergences, contradictions, and epistemological disputes among the models of smart cities, creative cities, and smart and creative cities (SCC), understanding them as distinct urban rationalities permeated by power relations, symbolic disputes, and sociotechnical dynamics. The research adopts a theoretical-analytical approach grounded in an integrative literature review, encompassing 16 national and international studies on smart cities, creative cities, and hybrid models of urban innovation. The findings reveal that smart cities tend to operate under a technocratic logic oriented toward digital infrastructure, algorithmic governance, and operational efficiency, often associated with surveillance, technological dependency, and digital exclusion. In contrast, creative cities prioritize culture, sociability, and the symbolic economy, while also presenting contradictions related to cultural gentrification, the precarization of creative labor, and the instrumentalization of creativity as a strategy of urban branding. The analysis demonstrates that these models, when implemented uncritically, may deepen sociospatial inequalities and reinforce hegemonic structures of power. In this context, the SCC emerges as an integrative proposal that articulates technology, creativity, participatory governance, and social innovation within a sociotechnical perspective more sensitive to territorial specificities. It is concluded that contemporary urban solutions require hybrid approaches capable of integrating technological intelligence, cultural vitality, citizen participation, and territorial justice, overcoming prescriptive and universalizing models.