The Smart Enough City: Lessons from the Past and a Framework for the Future

Abstract

We have, at this point, discredited many promises of the smart city and demonstrated the perverse effects of tech goggles. But perhaps some lingering doubt remains. After all, today's technology is remarkable in many ways: we can gather data about phenomena that were previously opaque, predict outcomes that once appeared unforeseeable, and interact with others on a historically unimaginable scale. Is it not possible, as Sidewalk Labs founder and CEO Dan Doctoroff asserts, that "digital technologies [will] bring about a revolution in urban life" on par with the upheavals introduced by the steam engine, the electric grid, and the automobile?1