The Smart Enough City
Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future
Smart cities, where technology is used to solve every problem, are hailed as futuristic urban utopias. We are promised that apps, algorithms, and artificial intelligence will relieve congestion, restore democracy, prevent crime, and improve public services. In The Smart Enough City, Ben Green warns against seeing the city only through the lens of technology; taking an exclusively technical view of urban life will lead to cities that appear smart but under the surface are rife with injustice and inequality. He proposes instead that cities strive to be “smart enough”: to embrace technology as a powerful tool when used in conjunction with other forms of social change—but not to value technology as an end in itself.
The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future By Ben Green, MIT Press 2019. The full details about the book (including several ordering options) are available at https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/smart-enough-city. The book is also released fully open source via PubPub: https://smartenoughcity.mitpress.mit.edu.
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