UC San Diego

This paper analyzes how smart city infrastructures are planned, implemented, and scaled, even when they fail. Understanding how these processes unfold is critical for technology researchers committed to creating equitable public infrastructures. In this paper, we focus on an urban smart mobility solution called FRED, put in place to increase connectivity within downtown San Diego. We analyze it through a decade of public meetings, contract renewals, planning documents, and media coverage. Our findings show that FRED’s intervention was a cover for scaling neoliberal transit privatization in San Diego. This is facilitated by the "charisma" of smart mobility technology – framed as clean and green, app-based, algorithmically optimized, and innovative – to upper-class actors like tech entrepreneurs, property developers, business leaders, and city officials. Reflecting on these insights, we explore alternative strategies that could have produced different outcomes and discuss how our case study informs new design sensibilities in civic contexts.