WINNER OF THE 2022 WRITERS' TRUST BALSILLIE PRIZE FOR PUBLIC
POLICY
Is the 'smart city' the utopia we've been waiting for?
The promise of the so-called smart city has been at the forefront of
urban planning and development since the early 2010s, and the tech
industry that supplies smart city software and hardware is now worth
hundreds of billions a year.
But the ideas and approaches underpinning smart city tech raise tough
and important questions about the future of urban communities,
surveillance, automation, and public participation. The smart city era,
moreover, belongs firmly in a longer historical narrative about cities
-- one defined by utopian ideologies, architectural visions, and
technological fantasies.
Smart streetlights, water and air quality tracking, autonomous vehicles:
with examples from all over the world, including New York, Los Angeles,
Boston, Portland, and Chicago, Dream States unpacks the world of smart
city tech, but also situates this important shift in city-building into
a broader story about why we still dream about perfect places.
"John Lorinc's incisive analysis in Dream States reminds us that the
search for urban utopia is not new. Throughout the book, Lorinc
underscores the fact that a gamut of urban innovations - from smart city
megaprojects to e-government to pandemic preparedness tools - only
provide promise when scrutinized together with the political, economic,
social, and physical complexities of urban life." - Shauna Brail,
University of Toronto
"Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban
Utopias takes us on a fascinating journey across world cities to show
how technology has shaped them in the past and how smart city technology
will reshape them in the future. This book is essential reading for
policy makers, researchers, and practitioners interested in
understanding the opportunities and challenges of smart city technology
and what it means for city building." - Enid Slack, University of
Toronto School of Cities
""Utopia may be the oldest grift in the city-building business, but
Dream States shows that technology is a timeless tool for turning the
most ordinary of urban dreams - clean air and water, safe streets, and
decent homes - into reality. As digital dilettantes try to sell us on a
software overhaul, John Lorinc provides us an indispensable and flawless
guide to the must-haves and never-agains of the smart city." - Anthony
Townsend, Urbanist in Residence, Cornell Tech, author of Smart
Cities
