The oppressive boot of corporate tyranny smashing into the face of humanity. Forever?
[apologies to the Orwell literary estate]
No?
Let's try K@W:
A new phase of pause and double-check assumptions seems to have gripped the three-decades-old global movement of overstressed urban centers transitioning to so-called smart cities with innovative, technology-led promises. The latest phase is marked by scattered, local-level resistance by residents to smart-city programs in big cities like Toronto and New York to small towns such as Ross, California — near San Francisco — with less than 2,500 residents.
Other cities have banned specific technologies such as facial recognition software, amid doubts over its accuracy or concerns over cities stealthily collecting such data on their citizens through video surveillance. In some cases, they see technology companies forming opaque partnerships with city-level agencies to profit from projects at their expense, using public resources such as land and development rights.
Fears over privacy intrusions in today’s digital age and unbridled development compromising the public interest have been heightened by the erosion of trust between residents, city administrations and private companies leading “smart” projects. With increased transparency, and stronger citizen engagement, the smart-city movement could regain lost credibility and continue its growth, according to experts who spoke with Knowledge@Wharton.
For the most part, residents are wary about how city governments and big technology companies involved in the projects will track and collect data about their daily activities while not compromising their privacy and security by selling data without their consent. In several cases, legislators in many U.S. states have enacted or are considering laws to ban or limit the erection of 5G cell towers because of health concerns.
Data privacy and security issues are more sensitive in some settings than others. “Smart cities mean different things to different people, but big data is intrinsic to these initiatives and thus privacy concerns arise,” notes Susan Wachter, Wharton professor of real estate and finance. “However, some initiatives such as coordinated traffic lights are high on efficiency and low on privacy issues — and they are no brainers. Others, such as tracking people — much as is done in private places such as malls — provoke a backlash because they undermine the anonymity privilege of public spaces.”
“There are many concerns around the world about surveillance and privacy — and rightly so,” says city planner Eugenie L. Birch, co-director with Wachter of the Penn Institute for Urban Research. She is also a professor of urban research and education and chair of the graduate group in city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania. “We need to work on how we manage the information about these things, and how we educate the youth and regular citizens. It has to be integrated into what is taught in schools right from the beginning.”....MUCH MORE
Trouble in Toronto
The Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto is an example of how perceived gaps in communication can potentially backfire. An “urban innovation” company in 2018 announced its plan to develop a 12-acre lot on the waterfront called Quayside as “a global hub for urban innovation.” The project was intended to create 3,900 direct jobs and a one-time construction impact of $1.6 billion for the Canadian economy.
The project was a textbook model of a smart city. It included digital technology deployments such as sensors to capture data to inform better decisions in housing and traffic policies, trash management and delivery of other city services; environmentally friendly public transit options including autonomous cars, biking and walking trails; high-speed public Wi-Fi; parks and recreation spaces, and more. It also promised a rigorous data privacy and governance regime and agreed not to sell citizen data without consent unless it was aggregated and anonymized.
Despite those proclamations, the Quayside project is now threatened because of what Sidewalk Labs had dreamed of beyond that but had kept under wraps. Residents and local leaders became suspicious after the Toronto Star in February reported that Sidewalk Labs had plans that extended beyond Quayside to a much larger area estimated at 350 acres. That bigger plan included opportunities to generate revenues from real estate development and advisory services, financing for a light-rail extension and underground infrastructure on that property.....
We have quite a few posts on "smart cities" including, most recently, November 8's:
"It’s time to get rid of the ideological misnomer 'smart cities.'”
Following up on yesterday's "Sidewalk Labs' Smart-Cities Will Create A For-Profit Social Credit System" (GOOG)", a tweet from LSE sociologist David Madden back in July:
The smart city appellation really is some first rate branding. That we can choose to accept or reject.It’s time to get rid of the ideological misnomer “smart cities.” What would be a more accurate way to describe this approach to city making—Corporate-controlled surveillance urbanism (CCSU)? Digital urban technocracy? Tracked cities? Big data towns?— David Madden (@davidjmadden) July 17, 2019
And some others:
Google Spinoff Sidewalk Labs Now Has a Spinoff of Its Own
It's like a family, generation on generation.
Or a cancer metastasizing....
Mayor deBlasio Wants To Track New Yorkers, Whether They Know It or Not
"Google city sparks fresh controversy" (GOOG; Sidewalk Toronto)
"The Google city that has angered Toronto" (GOOG)
Yes, yes Alphabet.
Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs. Stupid name, Alphabet....
The Real Real Estate State and Artificial Scarcity, Technology and Planning
Henry George had this stuff nailed, see after the jump....
"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..."
"Capitalism’s New Clothes"
Evgeny Morozov writing at The Baffler, Feb. 4:
Shoshana Zuboff's new book on “surveillance capitalism” emphasizes the former at the expense of the latter
And the big Daddy:
"The Spectrum of Control: A Social Theory of The Smart City"
One of the more important—and surprisingly popular—pieces we linked to in the past year..
There are many more, and if you add in the tech-focused posts, IoT, 5G, chips etc there are at least a couple hundred.
Here's an example of one of the tech posts, about a company whose stock treated us very, very well:
NVIDIA Wants to Run Your City: Smart City Control Centers (NVDA)
First off, let's make something crystal clear. From The Register, September 7, 2017:
Smart cities? Tell it like it is, they're surveillance cities
Apparently I get cranky when thinking about this stuff.
