Digital capital and social inequality in smart cities: The case of Kadıköy

With the rapid urbanization and the emergence of socioeconomic, environmental, and governance difficulties as well as the spread of the global innovation network, the development of smart cities has become the primary discourse of cities. Smart cities are seen as a possible solution to the difficulties of urbanization and as a provider of a sustainable and livable urban future. Technology and the use of the internet, taking an essential place in the smart city discourse, make the understanding of a new form of inequality important as it spreads to more and more areas of social life as a necessity. In this context, where technology dominance is inevitable, the smart city discourse brings along an increase in technology dependence. At this point, digital inequalities come into prominence as one of the important parameters of inequalities in cities today. The basic approach of the study is to deal with digital inequalities in the context of smart city applications through the degree of having digital capital. Based on this approach, the study examines the relationship between digital capital and the use of smart city applications in the context of Kadıköy (Istanbul), to move the focus to the social basis of the city and to look at the digital inequalities that arise in the process of providing solutions to urban challenges from a sociological perspective, by considering the effect of digital capital on the use of urban technologies. For this purpose, the research deals with the differences in the use of smart city applications by associating them with the Digital Capital Index scores, gender, age, education, income, and spatial belonging variables. The study was carried out using the quantitative research method. The sample of the study consists of 418 people living in four neighborhoods (Caddebostan, Suadiye, Fenerbahçe Acıbadem, Koşuyolu, Caferağa, Merdivenköy, Sahrayıcedid, Eğitim, Dumlupınar, Fikirtepe, Hasanpaşa) type determined according to the socioeconomic status index of Kadıköy district. At this stage, the Digital Capital Index developed by Ragnedda and Ruiu (2019) was used as a data collection tool. The findings obtained from the research as a result of the statistical analyzes support the main hypothesis of the study and show that there is a significant relationship between digital capital and smart city uses. At the same time, it has been determined that there is a significant relationship between the level of digital capital and sociodemographic characteristics. Keywords: Smart city, digital capital, digital inequality, social inequality, Istanbul, Kadıköy