The paper "The Real-Time City? Big Data and Smart Urbanism" by Rob Kitchin explores the concept of "smart cities," which are increasingly composed of pervasive and ubiquitous computing and driven by innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship. The author focuses on the former aspect, detailing how cities are being instrumented with digital devices and infrastructure that produce "big data." This data enables real-time analysis of city life, new modes of urban governance, and the potential for more efficient, sustainable, competitive, productive, open, and transparent cities. However, the paper also critically reflects on the implications of big data and smart urbanism, examining five emerging concerns: the politics of big urban data, technocratic governance and city development, corporatisation of city governance and technological lock-ins, buggy, brittle, and hackable cities, and the panoptic city. The paper concludes by highlighting the need for critical interrogations of smart urbanism to ensure that it reflects the desires of wider society rather than narrow corporate and state visions.The paper "The Real-Time City? Big Data and Smart Urbanism" by Rob Kitchin explores the concept of "smart cities," which are increasingly composed of pervasive and ubiquitous computing and driven by innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship. The author focuses on the former aspect, detailing how cities are being instrumented with digital devices and infrastructure that produce "big data." This data enables real-time analysis of city life, new modes of urban governance, and the potential for more efficient, sustainable, competitive, productive, open, and transparent cities. However, the paper also critically reflects on the implications of big data and smart urbanism, examining five emerging concerns: the politics of big urban data, technocratic governance and city development, corporatisation of city governance and technological lock-ins, buggy, brittle, and hackable cities, and the panoptic city. The paper concludes by highlighting the need for critical interrogations of smart urbanism to ensure that it reflects the desires of wider society rather than narrow corporate and state visions.