De l'audace technique à la conformation politique ? Quelques hypothèses de retour de la Silicon Valley

International audienceTo their promoters, « smart cities » are clean, safe, and sober. They come as an obvious remedy for some of the most critical problems of the cities worldwide. Their opponents do not share such optimism. They do not want of a technocratic discourse held by economic elites. To them, digital devices and sensors won’t solve any political or social problems in the cities. This paper calls for a detailed analysis of both approaches. More precisely, it is an invitation to analyze the core sources of the current discourse on smart cities. Under which circumstances was it created? Who are its main pro¬moters? How do they push now for their own agenda? The hypotheses presented here were developed after a series of interviews and ethnographical research in California, in February 2016. They shed light on a process through which social issues became a priority for some key actors of the digital economy. It led to a profound redefinition of the technocratic ideal of the smart city, to overcome some initial resistances expressed by local bureaucrats. The analysis not only puts the emphasis on the institutional constraints faced by the economic actors of the digital industry. It also underlines the key resources they now try to use to conform to what they perceive as the rules of the political field.Pour ses promoteurs, la « ville intelligente » constitue une solution idéale aux problèmes politiques et sociaux des villes actuelles et futures. Le présent article vise à interroger les conditions de production du discours des industriels sur le sujet. De premières hypothèses se dessinent après une enquête exploratoire menée au cœur de la Silicon Valley. Elles invitent à ne pas céder trop rapidement aux facilités de la dénonciation technocratique, pour interroger la possibilité d’une conformation tacite des industriels à un jeu politique dont ils cherchent en fait à maîtriser les règles