The City of Tomorrow: Sensors, Networks, Hackers, and the Future of Urban Life

The Future Series

by Carlo Ratti, Matthew Claudel

An internationally renowned architect, urban planner, and scholar describes the major technological forces driving the future of cities

Since cities emerged ten thousand years ago, they have become one of the most impressive artifacts of humanity. But their evolution has been anything but linear—cities have gone through moments of radical change, turning points that redefine their very essence. In this book, a renowned architect and urban planner who studies the intersection of cities and technology argues that we are in such a moment.
 
The authors explain some of the forces behind urban change and offer new visions of the many possibilities for tomorrow’s city. Pervasive digital systems that layer our cities are transforming urban life. The authors provide a front-row seat to this change. Their work at the MIT Senseable City Laboratory allows experimentation and implementation of a variety of urban initiatives and concepts, from assistive condition-monitoring bicycles to trash with embedded tracking sensors, from mobility to energy, from participation to production. They call for a new approach to envisioning cities: futurecraft, a symbiotic development of urban ideas by designers and the public. With such participation, we can collectively imagine, examine, choose, and shape the most desirable future of our cities.

Genres: Architecture, Nonfiction, Cities, Urban Planning, Urbanism, Technology, Science

192 pages, Hardcover

Published June 28, 2016

Reviews

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Q: In the words of Buckminster Fuller: “We are called to be the architects of the future, not its victims.” (c)

The main idea highlighted is futurecraft (or even fantasycraft or geeky-tech-craft?). All of the ideas are fun and innovative and very thinking out of the box (or even a city). Looks like we are looking not just at city dev but at society dev and even anthropologial dev. None of these should be surprising much but thoughts about them are a good catch in a book named 'The City of Tomorrow'. It could've been a lot less visionary than it is.

The digital urban ecosystems seem to be a hoot: we expect them to be inhabited by the weirdest members of our society.

We expect posthumans using all kinds of ubiquitous sensors (which seems to be an overkill: wouldn't the poshumans be already some-sort-of-smart-sensor-endowed?)

Sharing economy is a must. Ambient mobility would be go on another loop of development with an extra touch of sharing (of course, what's easier to share than transportation options?)

[Florin Pitea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Concise, clear and relevant.

[Annie Garry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting food for thought on the topic. It’s clear the book is there to spark discussion rather than provide a detailed argument and therefore it’s quite high-level.

[Phil Filippak · Rating 4 out of 5]

The core idea, futurecraft, is rather interesting and may be useful. Most of the examples are accurate, and the structure of the book is logical. The downside, like in many non-technical books referring to technical ideas, is the lack of understanding of how databases work, or what hackers are, or what—even metaphorically—bits of information stand for. Though I liked the book despite those little flaws.

[Nabeel Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent overview of urban futures. Highly recommended as a brief introduction for those who don't necessarily want to dive into the details, but just want to get a sense of what's coming. I especially appreciated the historical context, because so much of urban utopianism suffers from amnesia.

[Yates Buckley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good references, well written but does not really unlock anything new, nor really provide a strong enough case for how technology will solve citywide problems through futurecraft.

[Frances Sprei · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book felt shallow at times and extremely technology optimistic. Still it had some interesting thoughts and I learned some new things

[Preetisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

i mean i certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone

[Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This raises some interesting issues of the use of data in the context, of the daily lives of individuals in a city. What is collected? What could it be used for? What could it tell us? The key question, is whether the modern or smart city, will survive the biosecurity crisis, given the advent of technologies like synthetic virology?

[Alb85 · Rating 3 out of 5]

“La progettazione critica, generando alternative, è in grado di aiutare le persone a creare bussole, invece di mappe, per navigare attraverso nuovi sistemi di valori» .” Carlo Ratti

Raccolta di saggi brevi che parlano di tecnologia più che di urbanistica.

Mi è piaciuto il saggio sulle macchine: “Le auto restano in media ferme per circa il 95 per cento del tempo e sono quindi una risorsa ideale per la sharing economy (economia della condivisione, consumo collaborativo). Secondo le stime ogni auto in condivisione può rimpiazzare tra le dieci e le trenta auto private in circolazione.” E ancora: “negli Stati Uniti la percentuale di giovani patentati è diminuita drasticamente”

L’autore compara spesso l’approccio top-down con quello bottom-up: “I sistemi dall’alto o top- down, analoghi a quelli delle grandi multinazionali, non sono sufficienti; per trasformare gli spazi urbani servono azioni dal basso o bottom- up. Non può esistere smart city senza smart citizens.”

[A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Average book describing a scholar's practice and scope of work. Interesting for considering the future of urban space in a holistic sense, especially in regards to IoT and optimization of processes related to city function

[Joel Goh · Rating 3 out of 5]

My second attempt at reading this. A few interesting ideas throughout. However, not worth the price or the slog through filler text. You could gain equivalent utility from reading online blogs and websites, and they would be more current.

[Florian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh ... okay-ish collection of ideas relevant to the future of cities, but at times over-the-top highbrow language and in the end not really that insightful or novel thoughts on the potential evolution of the city

[Mario Breda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Niente da fare .... Carlo Ratti oltre che essere un ingegnere, architetto e urbanista di fama mondiale è anche un ottimo divulgatore. Il libro descrive in modo chiaro le dinamiche e il futuro delle nostre città, arricchendo l'argomento di particolari interessanti.

[Amun (Mohamed Elbadwihi) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.7/5.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but ultimately too vague in its predictions, making it slightly boring and disappointing.

[Paula Echeverri · Rating 5 out of 5]

The city of tomorrow

Eye opening discussion on the future of the city which generate space for the collective to raise ideas in the hybrid reality of the grounded and the virtual.

[Jacopo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept of "hacking" the city is interesting and so it's the analysis of the spatial modifications connected to the digital transformation of the world and cities

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

"le droit à la ville"

[Hussein Azher]

P44 23%