Reclaiming the human dimension in automated urban enforcement services

As urban environments increasingly adopt automated technologies for municipal enforcement, this paper interrogates the erosion of human judgment, discretion, and interaction in public space governance. Drawing on participatory design workshops within the “Human Values for Smarter Cities” project, the authors explore how automation—exemplified by license plate scan cars—amplifies efficiency while marginalizing ambiguity, context, and citizen voice. Through grounded case studies, the essay reveals how automation can produce unintended injustices by failing to accommodate lived realities and interpretative nuance. The paper proposes speculative redesigns aimed at reintroducing “human inefficiency” into automated systems, advocating for real-time interaction, interpretability, and civic negotiation. Situating their critique within broader debates on trust, control, and the human scale, the authors argue for a shift from technocratic solutionism toward relational urban technologies. Ultimately, the work contributes to civic technology discourse by outlining design principles that foreground empathy, discretion, and participatory governance in the age of the smart city.