Jennifer Clark, associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy, gave the first plenary talk “Smart Cities: Remaking Markets and Manufacturing Open Innovation Spaces” at the Regional Studies Association’s 2017 Central and Eastern Europe Conference in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, on September 10.

Clark highlighted the myriad products, actors, processes, and geographies of smart city implementation, emphasizing that being “smart” also necessitates being complex. She outlined some regional policy implications for ‘smartening’ cities, including smart cities’ potential to exacerbate existing intercity inequality, and concluded by stressing that the smart cities problem was one of policy, not merely technology.

The conference Twitter hashtag is #RSACluj. For selected highlights by Clark, view the Georgia Tech Center for Urban Innovation Twitter account.

The School of Public Policy is part of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.