Synopses & Reviews
Today, more people live in cities than in the countryside; mobile broadband connections outnumber fixed ones; and machines outnumber people on a new Internet of Things. In this era of mass urbanization and technological ubiquity, what happens when computers take over the city? Urban planning expert Anthony Townsend explores this question in Smart Cities, a broad look at the people and historical forces that have transformed the design of cities and information technologies. From the great industrial metropolises of the nineteenth century to today’s sprawling megacities, wave after wave of new technologies have been invented to address the proliferating challenges posed by human settlements of ever-greater size and complexity. As a new generation of technology barons, entrepreneurs, mayors, and civic coders try to shape our future, Smart Cities explores their motivations, aspirations, and shortcomings, offering a new civics for building communities: together, one click at a time.
Review
"[A] timely and necessary guide to this age of the Franken-city." Daniel Brook
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"Anthony Townsend sifts through the hope and the hype of the latest system upgrade for our growing, and increasingly more elusively managed, metropolises -- digital technology -- emerging with an ambitiously wide-ranging, admirably clear-eyed, and ultimately humanistic guidebook to the connected city." New York Times Book Review
Review
"Today, it's not the height of the skyscrapers, but the depth of the code that drives the modern city. Anthony Townsend brilliantly frames the new forces shaping tomorrow's metropolises. Read and you'll never look at a skyline or walk down a city block the same way again." Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)
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"Our cities are in the first act of an unprecedented technodrama. At stake is nothing less than the survival of our urban species. Combining technological sophistication, deep humanity, and an urban planner's sensitivity to the nuances of places, is an essential guide to understanding the technologies changing urban life." Andrew Zolli, author of Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back
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"Powerful, readable prose." Andrew Blum, author of Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet
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"Of interest to urban planners and designers, tech leaders, and entrepreneurs, Townsend's globe-hopping study examines the trend toward smart cities while addressing pros and cons, as top-down corporate models develop alongside communitarian and entrepreneurial initiatives....The autobiographical passages and close readings of other scrappy innovators are the most enjoyable part of this impressive survey, which tries to secure democratic impulses amid a new gold rush." Franklyn Carter NPR
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"Compelling." Publishers Weekly
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"[Townsend] has written a generous book in clean prose, one that will engage both advanced geeks and cyber-dolts." Melanie Moses Nature
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"Powerful, readable prose." Franklyn Carter
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"Powerful, readable prose." Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)
Synopsis
An unflinching look at the aspiring city-builders of our smart, mobile, connected future.
Synopsis
We live in a world defined by urbanization and digital ubiquity, where mobile broadband connections outnumber fixed ones, machines dominate a new "internet of things," and more people live in cities than in the countryside.
About the Author
Anthony Townsend is an advisor to industry and government at the Silicon Valley-based Institute for the Future and directs urban research at New York University's Rudin Center for Transportation. He lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.