HUMAN SMART CITY: PERSPECTIVES AND CONTRADICTIONS IN NATAL /RN
built environment; opportunity structures; smart human Layers; socio-spatial inequality; Natal human smart city.
Urban planning and management have historically undergone different understandings that have changed the way cities are perceived and designed. Currently, the smart paradigm stands out globally, which materializes in projects such as the smart city. Focused on technological innovations, the model promises inclusive and sustainable growth, improving people's quality of life through the intense use of intelligent infrastructures that improve services and optimize the city's resources. In Brazil, the smart content has been assimilated and expanded with the inclusion of the 'human' component, which is essential in the development of public city policy from this perspective. As criteria, the national model contains the adoption of the methodology of the quadruple helix innovation ecosystem (government, academia, businesses and citizens) and the implementation of Smart and Human Layers, which are essential for socio-economic growth and the reduction of social vulnerability. Having observed the initiatives within the scope of the smart human city project in Natal/RN, the research examines it as a public policy by investigating its beneficiaries. Structured in five chapters, the main objective of the thesis is to analyze the transformations (or continuities) in municipal public services, the development of the advanced tertiary sector and the inequality situation based on the opportunity structures for technological innovation added to the built environment in Natal. The analysis focuses on the perspectives set out in society by this project and the contradictions that are inexorably perceived in its implementation. Each chapter presents the methodological path on which the thesis is structured. Based on mostly qualitative procedures, the methodology involves the theoretical frameworks of the research, especially the authors who support the dialectical pair of built environment and opportunity structures, chosen to support the investigation; the collection of information constituted by the intersection of primary data obtained from document research, tabulation of surveys and transcription and analysis of semi-structured interviews. It relies on secondary data accessed through normative frameworks, legislation, government plans, official websites and journalistic articles. The research also explores the field, presenting photographic and cartographic productions that help to understand the phenomena analyzed. For each group of actors investigated, a theme was developed for the inquiries, namely: formation of the public agenda; public policy for technological infrastructure; park and advanced tertiary; park, companies and their surroundings and; smart human city, public services and digital government. Notably, the strength of the advanced tertiary sector was identified, strengthened by legislation and tax incentives that benefited it significantly with the establishment of the municipal technology park. On the other hand, the weight of socio-spatial inequality and the unequal conditions of access to the internet and consumption of digital technologies has exacerbated the contradictions already present in Natal. The cartography developed shows the historical overlapping of advantages promoted by public authorities in the city's South and East Administrative Regions, and the small reduction in the recurring inequalities imposed on the North and West Administrative Regions. The conclusion is that the Intelligent and Human Layers (which become opportunity structures for technological innovation) added to services related to education, health and digital government (e-Gov), aimed at urban mobility, social assistance and civil defense, have not effectively transformed them to the point of benefiting society as a whole, as promised by the paradigm in question. The data shows that, despite the promises of inclusion, the intelligent human city in Natal has not effectively lived up to these prospects, showing the continuity of persistent contradictions.