From the Daily Beast:
Smart Cities Are Creating a Mass Surveillance Nightmare
With a chip that can track your every move, New York’s city-issued ID cards are about to take a seriously dystopian turn.
More than a million New Yorkers could soon willingly agree to carry a government-issued tracking device, whether they realize it or not.*In a September Siena College Democrat Presidential candidate poll, shortly before de Blasio ended his campaign, he garnered 0% support among New York state pollees and 0% in New York City. The poll did note one supporter in upstate New York but statistically still 0%. In August he had stated he was in it for the long-run because "The vast majority of Democratic voters are going to make their decision late".
That’s the proposal from Mayor Bill de Blasio, who having recently returned from the cornfield-dotted campaign trail in Iowa, is setting his sights on transforming New York City into something out of a dystopian sci-fi novel. But some critics are urging caution about the move.
The fuss is about a tiny RFID chip that the mayor wants to embed into each and every municipal ID card for New York residents as part of the “IDNYC” program.
The latest proposal might seem modest, but the reality is that it potentially puts hundreds of thousands of us at greater risk of identity theft, stalking, and (for undocumented New Yorkers) deportation. And sadly it’s part of the global trend towards so-called “smart cities”—a series of high-tech undertakings that claim to improve municipal efficiency at the modest price of stripping us of our privacy and autonomy....MORE
On a slightly different topic we've had a few posts on the push to get mayors to bypass the powers of state, regional and national decision hierarchies (de Blasio's campaign may show why), the second link below is worth a glance.
"Mayoral Powers in the Age of New Localism"
One of the problems with politics is that the people attracted to power are exactly the ones who should not be allowed anywhere near it.Trends to Watch: "Can mayors actually rule the world?"
Go figure.
We've been watching the mission-creep trend in municipal governance for a while now, trying to get in front of it—"Il faut bien que je les suive, puisque je suis leur chef"*—to make a bucko or two but, to date, have only come up with the tautology that these people would rather jet off to Buenos Aires during the Northern Hemisphere winter for the Global Parliament of Mayors** than stay home and fix potholes.
It was ever thus, or at least has been since 1967 when John Lennon noted "4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire"
*Ledru-Rollin, 1848—schoolboy French translation: "I must follow them for I am their leader."
**This year the get-together was actually held in Stavanger in late September. Nice 'hood, nice time of year.
From CityLab:
U.S. mayors are on the front lines of major global and societal change. It’s time for them to lead beyond the limits of their formal powers....
In low-key but very persistent ways technocrats* have been aiming at this target for years and now it seems to be gathering some momentum. Here's a good introduction by Harvard's Diane Davis....
"Cities Are Rising in Influence and Power on the Global Stage"
A subject near and dear to our jaded hearts.
It's the manifestation of the age-old thirst for power, to make the world as you want it, and an acknowledgement that fixing potholes is boring.
Return of the City-State, Or: The End of the Nation State May Be Upon Us
"Gadabout Urbanist Richard Florida Has a New Book...
"It advises cities on what to do about problems that result from advice he gave them in his previous books...
