In recent years, the concept of the "smart city" has gained a prominent position in global policy discourses as a technological solution to governance crises and a pathway to achieving sustainable development. This article critically evaluates the capacity of the smart city paradigm to address governance challenges by addressing the fundamental question of what discursive affinities link the idea of smartness to neoliberalism, and to what extent it succeeds as a model of governance in the digital age. Employing a critical approach grounded in political economy and ideological critique, the article analyzes the underlying assumptions, discourses, and embedded policies of the smart city concept. Focusing on the intersection of power, technology, and political economy, it examines the conceptual and practical gaps within this model. The first section reviews three dominant paradigms of the urban future—the digital city, the entrepreneurial city, and the sustainable city—and analyzes how they converge within the neoliberal discourse of the smart city, a discourse that depoliticizes urban development and reproduces unequal power relations. Subsequently, five structural tensions between smartness and sustainability are examined: (1) unsustainable economic growth; (2) unequal distribution of digital benefits; (3) the weakening of citizens' political agency; (4) the inefficacy of technology in environmental protection; and (5) the promotion of techno-consumerism. An analysis of case studies reveals that most smart city projects, rather than advancing social justice or environmental protection, perpetuate market-driven neoliberal logics and optimization agendas. The article concludes that, while the smart city appears on the surface to offer an innovative and emancipatory agenda, in practice it largely aligns with neoliberal urban development strategies. Consequently, the future trajectory of the smart city lies in the reconceptualization of the relationship between technology, politics, and the biosphere.