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Adam Greenfield

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Against the smart city (The city is here for you to use Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Adam Greenfield (Author), Nurri Kim (Illustrator) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 66 ratings

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*Named one of Verso's Best Books of 2013!*

From the smartphones in our pockets and the cameras on the lampposts to sensors in the sewers, the sidewalks and the bike-sharing stations, the contemporary city is permeated with networked information technology.

As promoted by enterprises like IBM, Siemens and Cisco Systems, the vision of the "smart city" proposes that this technology can be harnessed by municipal administrators to achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency, security, convenience and sustainability. But a closer look at what this body of ideas actually consists of suggests that such a city will not, and cannot, serve the interests of the people who live in it.

In this pamphlet, Everyware author Adam Greenfield explores the ways in which this discourse treats the city as an abstraction, misunderstands (or even undermines) the processes that truly do generate meaning and value — and winds up making many of the same blunders that doomed the High Modernist urban planning of the twentieth century. “Against the smart city” provides an intellectual toolkit for those of us interested in resisting this sterile and unappealing vision, and lays important groundwork for the far more fruitful alternatives to come.

PRAISE FOR "AGAINST THE SMART CITY":

"Adam Greenfield does for 'urban renewal' in the twenty-first century what Jane Jacobs did for it in the twentieth."
- Ian Bogost, Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology.

"A critical inquiry into the constrained reality of the smart city and its free-floating narratives. Adam Greenfield’s vast knowledge about the subject allows him to pinpoint the extreme moment where 'the ideology of the smart city finds its purest expression.' A great piece of analysis, a sharp exegesis — and great writing."
- Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, author of The Global City.

"For those who believe technology's finest, most broadly-empowering urban applications have not yet been deployed, this book is for you. It is less 'against' the dominant smart city narrative than a foundation for what we might yet assemble from the parts and pieces that remain after Greenfield's done deconstructing it."
- John Tolva, Chief Technology Officer, City of Chicago.

"Adam cuts the smart city marketing game to the quick. He reminds us, like the great urbanists before him, that cities are about people — people who shape their city from the bottom up with their character, agency, independence and yes, intelligence."
- Benjamin de la Peña, The Rockefeller Foundation.

"A cogent debunking of the smart city. Adam Greenfield breaks down the term with wit and clarity, exposing that the smart city may be neither very smart nor very city at all. An insightful, timely and refreshing read that will make you rethink the city of tomorrow."
- J. Meejin Yoon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, architect and designer.

"Every 'Smart City' advocate in the world should read this short book. Read it now, before people show up at the City Council and start quoting it."
- Bruce Sterling, author of Shaping Things.

Print length

147 pages
Language

English
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On Kindle Scribe
Publication date

December 20, 2013
File size

527 KB
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00FHQ5DBS
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Do projects; 1.3 edition (December 20, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 20, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 527 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 147 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,631,051 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #111 in Architecture Criticism
- #244 in Urban & Land Use Planning (Kindle Store)
- #1,027 in Architectural Criticism

Customer Reviews:
4.4 66 ratings

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Adam Greenfield

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ADAM GREENFIELD lives in London. Previously Senior Urban Fellow at LSE Cities, at various points in his career Adam has also been head of design direction for Nokia in Helsinki; an information architect in Tokyo; a rock critic for SPIN Magazine; a medic at the Berkeley Free Clinic; manager of a coffeehouse in West Philadelphia; and a PSYOP sergeant in the US Army's Special Operations Command.

You can sign up for Adam's weekly dispatches at tinyletter.com/speedbird

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Petri Saarikko

We need a language

Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2014

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This book is a novel chapter for urban life taken for granted. Going against the prosumer mainstream in the age of total surveillance represents bravery among rest of us who mostly run the urban machine without slightest conscience regarding the complexity and consequence of our digital traces. Mr. Greefield's salty optimism remain as an unbeatable case against technological totalitarianism, and his battles and victories prove true knowledge based on experience in understanding the logic of faceless technocracy.

As an aspiring urbanist Adam's writings reminded me of a recent quote by Ash Amin: "We need a language that effectively counter the language of apocalypse. A new set of keywords around which a politics of hope can be constructed."

Having designed systems of surveillance, and seeing how little room is left for individual intent and joy, Adam's writing is an early yet significant voice among technologists who still manage to discover true humanism in their rigour and practice.

2 people found this helpful

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Alexandre Enkerli

Cutting through the Hype: Greenfield Enables New Discussions

Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2013

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Even before finishing reading the book, I could notice changes in the ways people have been talking about the “Smart City”. Not that the concept has been fully discredited. But we've already started the conversation Greenfield makes necessary with this book. Instead of setting a new agenda, this pamphlet prepares the field for a broader variety of conversations on the future of networked cities.
A remarkable thing is the honesty of the approach, the unapologetic assertiveness in style coupled with a certain sense of intellectual modesty. Readers could take issue with several aspects of this pamphlet, from its length to the fact that it “fails” to provide concrete solutions to municipal administration and administrators. Yet, as a pamphlet, it may be doing its work with remarkable efficiency.
Numerous endnotes found in this pamphlet could serve as starting points for further analysis, revisiting. Some of them may be classics, in the relevant fields’ literature, but bringing those to bear on issues from other issues should prove useful. In other words, this pamphlet could serve as the introductory text for a seminar on the Smart City. Without being peer-reviewed or couched in academese, it sparks the kinds of thoughts which make seminars such stimulating contexts for intellectual work.
This pamphlet could also serve ammunition to certain activists. Diverse passages could be quoted to “decision-makers” in accusative tone. The issue there is that bureaucrats and technocrats are unlikely to listen very carefully, as this pamphlet isn't for -crats. After all, a pamphlet is designed as a tool in “preaching to the choir”.
Personally, my main gripe as to the content of this pamphlet is in its “design” orientation. Surrounded by a number of designers (including an urban designer), as well as engineers, I came to understand a few years ago that design is by its very nature “overspecified”. Sure, there are open designs which allow for significant adaptation after the fact. But designers still perceive their work as a planning of future usage. Even “co-design” may end up dismissing citizen-driven design as mere “input”. For instance, a well-known designer effectively told a User Experience crowd not to worry about the effects of experiments in co-design since we still know who the real designers are. Even when it tries to be closer to the grassroots, design ends up being more “top-down” than “bottom-up”. Greenfield may propose new ways for citizens to drive city planning. But the proposal retains some of the strictures of… planning.

2 people found this helpful

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Jon Husband

A must-read if you're at all interested in whatever smart cities may become

Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2013

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Adam Greenfield unpacks the conventional wisdom about "smart cities", much of which has been led by large IT and infrastructure vendors like IBM, Cisco and Siemens, and reminds us in a range of articulate ways that cities' key ingredient and foremost concern is humans .. how they live, work and play, and how cities have grown based on the messiness, inconsistencies and layers of history that humans create and live in.

He warns us against overly-enthusiastic centralization and the predominance of imprecise (and mainly marketing-oriented) language used to date in the conversations about "smart cities" and offers a thoughtful and profoundly human perspective on how the opportunities and challenges might be addressed.

I will read it several times.

7 people found this helpful

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Francis Gosselin

Enlightening

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2013

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I just finished reading the 100-pager essay (I couldn't put it down) and feel like I was just smashed with a ton of bricks. Based on a semantic analysis of the various materials published around the idea of so-called "smart cities", Greenfield deconstructs the concept for what it is: a futurist account of a city governed by overspecified installations connected into channels of communications that aim at centralizing information in order to yield pre-determined "efficiencies" whose foundations are never to be discussed.
I wrote that on our blog, as some sort of "book review".
> http://fand.be/1bAZlKF
f.

2 people found this helpful

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Oscar Martinez Ciuro

Good

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2014

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This book is a good perspective from citizenship. The city policies don't look on the real core of citizens and neighborhod`s.

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2014

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This is an interesting perspective on smart cities, pushing towards the bottom up emergent people-centric development aspect, yet acknowledging the value of top down tools for more quantifiable specific city processes.

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Mahesh Rangarajan

Truth is somewhere in between the extremes...

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2014

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The author definitely showcases a very different stream of thought in challenging the whole host of marketing driven commentary delivered by the various vendors. Each OEM vendor surely wants to sell 'what-we-have-in-store-today' and definitely package everything to their convenience. The author does a decent job of questioning their vision, mission and implementation statements while putting forward a different perspective of "what a real city was meant to be' and how various failures were seen by similar attempts in the past. However, the entire concept of a smart city cannot just be wished away purely on the basis that they are technology driven. I believe the application of technology could do both good and bad - based on the primary motivations of the program and the stakeholder leadership. The truth of a smart city vision could surely be somewhere between both extremes...

4 people found this helpful

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Jay Rodgers

Beyond the smart city

Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2015

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Hopefully, we now have the knowledge and guidance to move our urban environments forward holistically for the benefit of those choosing to live here.

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Top reviews from other countries

Scott

A must have text on smart cities

Reviewed in Australia on February 14, 2022

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Great book, one of the most important on smart cities, but why no hardcopy? Kindle is such a pain if you don't have one.

Cris Hernández - CEO de Mapoteca.

Cities for People and not Sensors

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 28, 2014

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Adam makes the point in terms to not giving our agency to a central command in cities. Technology can solve a lot of problems, but we need to maintain cities for people, not for sensors.

2 people found this helpful

Lorenzo Fresh Franchini

Greenfield rocks with academic spirit on a controversial theme, but...

Reviewed in Italy on June 19, 2015

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The Pamphlet is not a book, first of all.
Doc. Greenfield is a passionate researcher and the thesis is direct and clear. Written with style and an acute eye.
Unfortunately he works with elements of 2013 and he focuses only on the first three experiments of Smart Cities.
Nowadays the whole Theme is much broader and even more controversial.
He is the only one that with influential voice wants to open our eyes and give us tools not to be teased by a too much positive mainstream wave.
Big Data, Corporations and Progress will help our life...Will they?
Let's use the sharp analysis of Uncle Adam and let's push beyond the debate.
Very good initial reading to have a wise point of view on a topic which results will surround our lives sooner than what you can imagine.
And please, let's be smarter than those cities and than the rhetoric of our leaders that may wish to design them without us.
Kindle up!
Fresh

Mark D

a good counter argument

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 8, 2013

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For once someone is prepared to look at the latest technology hype and say "the emperor has no clothes". The ideals for smart cities carry merit, in that they carry potential for how we may live in a better way in the future. However, one can't get away from the fact that the main proponents are the usual high tech corporations, who have spotted a new market to sell their "re-purposed" products into.