Smart lighting in the parisian territory - Historic network and numeric infrastructures

City lights are more than the sum of contingent points of light; they constitute our object of study, a networked urban whole whose functions today tend to go beyond the primary emission of a luminous halo. Street lighting (or urban lighting ) has not always enjoyed its current urban appeal. As a de facto network (to which we'll return later), it has received little or no study in comparison with other major urban networks, such as water, electricity or even transport. Often relegated to the last material element to be inserted into the urban space, it is quickly forgotten, even if its absence will quickly remind the user of its necessity and ubiquitous illumination.

The aim of this article is to understand how and why this network is at the heart of so many expectations in what we'll call the construction of the "smart city" (a term of course yet to be defined or analyzed). First, we'll explain each of the terms used (lighting, public, city, smart and network). Then, our object of study will be placed in a spatial (the city of Paris) and temporal context (from its creation to the present day). We will also illustrate our thinking with concrete examples of new ways of lighting and using the lighting network. Finally, in the last section, we'll try to understand how these new ways of managing the network fit in with old technical-political dynamics, while at the same time modifying them.