URBAN POLICY OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION: EXPERIENCES OF DIGITAL CITIES IN BRAZIL

Abstract

Digital city is an urban public policy that sees in the technological innovation a possibility to promote digital inclusion, to foment strategies of governance, to democratize the participation of the population and to impel the urban development. It is a public policy of the 1990s, which initially takes place in the central countries, but since the years 2000, it reaches different countries and in different formats. In Brazil, such experiences are suggested by local administrations seeking to modernize the bureaucratic state apparatus and provide public services through digital technologies. The breakthrough comes with the digital inclusion that introduces different social strata into the information society. The purpose of this article is to present experiences of digital cities implemented in Brazilian cities. The starting point is a reflection around the concept of digital city according to levels, characteristics and objectives. Subsequently, we immerse ourselves in the experiences that happen in Brazilian territory, seeking to recover the trajectory of the digitalization policy, identifying similarities and specificities, weaknesses and potentialities of experiences in cities of different levels (small, medium and metropolitan) and located in different regional realities of the country.