Federico Cugurullo

Tan Yigitcanlar

Xiaoling Zhang

Sarah Barns

Natalie Marie Gulsrud

Vincent J. Del Casino Jr.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now mediating, and in some cases seen to be controlling, key urban services and infrastructures, thus becoming a prominent feature of the contemporary city. As portrayed in recent studies, the “autonomous city” can be understood as a city where urban artificial intelligences perform tasks and take on roles which have traditionally been the domain of humans. At stake in these debates are questions related to the meaning and ongoing role of intelligence, for both humans and machines. While autonomous cars transport people, service robots run shops, drones deliver goods and city brains govern entire cities, humans are redefining the meaning of what “smart” means in the city and what role the human being may play in future urban spaces. With humans shifted to new sectors of the economy or pushed aside by algorithms and robotic agents creating new ways of seeing and governing the city, we raise the question as to whether or not cities are becoming more autonomous from human experience in the sense that their operation does not rely as much on human inputs anymore.

The Governance of Artificial Intelligence in the “Autonomous City”

This book tells the story of visionary urban experiments, shedding light on the theories that preceded their development and on the monsters that followed and might be the end of our cities. The narrative is threefold and delves first into the eco-city, second the smart city and third the autonomous city intended as a place where existing smart technologies are evolving into artificial intelligences that are taking the management of the city out of the hands of humans. The book empirically explores Masdar City in Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong to provide a critical analysis of eco and smart city experiments and their sustainability, and it draws on numerous real-life examples to illustrate the rise of urban artificial intelligences across different geographical spaces and scales. Theoretically, the book traverses philosophy, urban studies and planning theory to explain the passage from eco and smart cities to the autonomous city, and to reflect on the meaning and purpose of cities in a time when human and non-biological intelligences are irreversibly colliding in the built environment. Iconoclastic and prophetic, Frankenstein Urbanism is both an examination of the evolution of urban experimentation through the lens of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and a warning about an urbanism whose product resembles Frankenstein’s monster: a fragmented entity which escapes human control and human understanding. Academics, students and practitioners will find in this book the knowledge that is necessary to comprehend and engage with the many urban experiments that are now alive, ready to leave the laboratory and enter our cities.

Eco, Smart and Autonomous Cities, Artificial Intelligence and the End of the City

Frankenstein Urbanism

Andrew Karvonen

Federico Caprotti

The era of the smart city has arrived. Only a decade ago, the promise of optimising urban services through the widespread application of information and communication technologies was largely a techno-utopian fantasy. Today, smart urbanisation is occurring via urban projects, policies and visions in hundreds of cities around the globe. Inside Smart Cities provides real-world evidence on how local authorities, small and medium enterprises, corporations, utility providers and civil society groups are creating smart cities at the neighbourhood, city and regional scales. Twenty three empirically detailed case studies from the Global North and South – ranging from Cape Town, Stockholm and Abu Dhabi to Philadelphia, Hong Kong and Santiago – illustrate the multiple and diverse incarnations of smart urbanism. The contributors draw on ideas from urban studies, geography, urban planning, science and technology studies and innovation studies to go beyond the rhetoric of technological innovation and reveal the political, social and physical implications of digitalising the built environment. Collectively, the practices of smart urbanism raise fundamental questions about the sustainability, liveability and resilience of cities in the future. The findings are relevant to academics, students, practitioners and urban stakeholders who are questioning how urban innovation relates to politics and place.

Place, Politics and Urban Innovation

Inside Smart Cities

Federico Cugurullo

Books

Your next favorite book is out there