Real-time democracy. Imagining the city of permanent innovation

This paper focuses on the relationships between innovation and democracy at city level.Focusing on the case of San Francisco, it discusses a particular way of imagining the city in theterms of permanent innovation. In the city of permanent innovation, individual urban problemsare to be solved by a permanent supply of technological solutions. Imagining the city in thoseterms has political implications, pertaining to the representation of social groups and publicconcerns on the one hand, to the public interventions deemed legitimate on the other hand.We contend that the democratic ordering at play in the city of permanent innovation is basedon the permanent reconstruction of social identities, and on local experimental interventions. InSan Francisco, these forms of urban action are controversial. Proponents of interest-baseddemocratic politics and anti-eviction activists voice counter-propositions for the definition ofurban democracy. By contrast, these counter-propositions help us characterize the politicalproject of the city of permanent innovation, which we label real-time democracy.