The Smart Enough City

Nobody wants crime, but if preventing it means perpetuating discriminatory practices, what kinds of cities are we poised to create?

with a keen awareness of the many nontechnological barriers to using technology in government, Smart Enough Cities recognize that technology will have little impact unless it is thoughtfully embedded into municipal structures and practices.

problem with smart cities is not merely that technology is incapable of generating the promised benefits but also that attempts to deploy technology in pursuit of a smart city often distort and exacerbate the problems that are supposedly being solved.

the smart city in fact represents a drastic and myopic reconceptualization of cities into technology problems.

Companies see possibilities (and dollar signs), while municipal employees see hard financial trade-offs and a complicated path to translate technology into real public value. Moreover, it illustrates a fundamental difference in how people see the challenges facing cities.

Technologists can have big positive impacts on cities only by marrying deep technical skills with careful program design and an empathetic embrace of the complexity and contradictions of city life.

The smart city threatens to be a place where self-driving cars have the run of downtowns and force out pedestrians, where civic engagement is limited to requesting services through an app, where police use algorithms to justify and perpetuate racist practices, and where governments and companies surveil public space to control behavior.

Many believe that technological advancements in communication will support a bright new era of political engagement and dialogue, for example. But these dreams have not been realized, because the fundamental limitations on democratic decision making and civic engagement are not informational or conversational inefficiencies but rather power, politi

We become stuck asking a meaningless, tautological question—is a smart city preferable to a dumb city?—instead of debating a more fundamental one: does the smart city represent the urban future that best fosters democracy, justice, and equity?