*The spectrum of control: A social theory of the smart city* /by Jathan Sadowski and Frank Pasquale/ First Monday, Volume 20, Number 7 - 6 July 2015 http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5903/4660 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v20i7.5903 This paper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. *Abstract* There is a certain allure to the idea that cities allow a person to both feel at home and like a stranger in the same place. That one can know the streets and shops, avenues and alleys, while also going days without being recognized. But as elites fill cities with “smart” technologies — turning them into platforms for the “Internet of Things” (IoT): sensors and computation embedded within physical objects that then connect, communicate, and/or transmit information with or between each other through the Internet — there is little escape from a seamless web of surveillance and power. This paper will outline a social theory of the “smart city” by developing our Deleuzian concept of the “spectrum of control.” We present two illustrative examples: biometric surveillance as a form of monitoring, and automated policing as a particularly brutal and exacting form of manipulation. We conclude by offering normative guidelines for governance of the pervasive surveillance and control mechanisms that constitute an emerging critical infrastructure of the “smart city.” *Contents* I. Introduction II. What is a smart city? III. The ideology of the smart city IV. Smart cities in societies of control V. The soft power of biometric surveillance VI. The hard power of policing technologies VII. Cyborg urbanization, blurred boundaries VIII. Taking back control