Author(s) Name: Anthony M. Townsend
As technology barons, entrepreneurs, mayors, and an emerging vanguard of civic hackers are trying to shape this new frontier, the book titled “Smart Cities” considers the motivations, aspirations, and shortcomings of them all while offering a new civics to guide our efforts as we build the future together, one click at a time.
Smart Cities is an often exhilarating romp through what is possible, from networked traffic signals that can be adjusted from afar to electric grids that respond to usage; from the location-aware Foursquare app to mashing up restaurant reviews with health-inspection data.
Townsend is savvy enough to know that, until now, the “smart city” conversation has been driven largely by companies like IBM and Cisco. You can hardly make it through an airport without seeing ads from the former saying things like, “In Singapore, smarter traffic systems can predict congestion with 90 percent accuracy.”
Midway through the book, Townsend describes a telling moment when he asked Red Burns, the director of NYU-s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ground zero for the exploration of networked urban living) to predict what cities will look like after this stage of haphazard experimentation.
ISBN: 9780393349788
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Year of Publication: 2014
Book Link: Home Page Url
