To be or not to be a Smart City

In 2017 the governor of the state of Puebla in Mexico, unveiled a statewide Barrio Smart (Smart City) initiative with the objective of constructing spaces that would benefit the citizens through the implementation of technology. This Smart City technology in Puebla was supposed to include features like safe crosswalks, free internet, video surveillance, seismic alarm, playground etc. However the response to this initiative in Santa Maria Tonantzintla, a sleepy town in Puebla, was lukewarm. The residents, by and large, equated being a smart city with westernization and a simultaneous loss of unique heritage features of their town like its centuries old cobbled roads, clock tower or the Stucco Bridge. Like the vast majority of Latin
American towns from the colonial era to the present, Tonantzintla’s centre – physically, civically and culturally – is a church set on a plaza. So when in 2017, the characteristic cobble stones were replaced by smooth, uniform stone tiles or the municipality knocked down the clock tower and Stucco Bridge, residents feared that the plaza and church would also experience unpalatable changes. These irked the residents and they complained against the smart city initiative and by pointing out that the municipality hadn’t taken requisite permission from the National Institute of Anthropology and History before making changes in the city, they filed an injunction. That put the project on hold and finally the municipality was forced to cancel the
smart city initiative. The residents, mostly Catholics and deeply rooted to their indigenous traditions returned to their old ways of life, unbothered by the demands of the times to move on. For them, Santa Maria Tonantzintla was about heritage, about one’s roots which shouldn’t be tampered with.