Synopses & Reviews
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.
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"Townsend has collected fascinating stories of urban renewal and innovation from around the globe and packaged them into lessons that are neat and digestible" Sarah Rothbard
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"[A] timely and necessary guide to this age of the Franken-city." Slate
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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." Daniel Brook New York Times Book Review
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"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." Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)
Synopsis
From Beijing to Boston, cities are deploying smart technology--sensors embedded in streets and subways, Wi-Fi broadcast airports and green spaces--to address the basic challenges faced by massive, interconnected metropolitan centers. In Smart Cities, Anthony M. Townsend documents this emerging futuristic landscape while considering the motivations, aspirations, and shortcomings of the key actors--entrepreneurs, mayors, philanthropists, and software developers--at work in shaping the new urban frontier.
Synopsis
An unflinching look at the aspiring city-builders of our smart, mobile, connected future.
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.