Smart Cities

A ranking of the 10 most civic-minded companies holds some surprises -- mainly that the list is dominated by financial services firms.

September 30, 2013 - Future Cities

PlanIT Valley, Masdar City, Songdo - the names of these bold visions elicit past promises of a smart and sustainable future. Eric Jaffe rounds up the latest news on the progress of the world's new urban utopias.

September 11, 2013 - The Atlantic Cities

Carl Skelton argues that the public needs new tools of citizenship to participate fully in the digital cities of the near future.

June 28, 2013 - Places Journal

If you only listened to the IBMs of the world, you'd think the path to building better cities was through high tech solutions. But old fashioned dialogue and discussion, facilitated by some low tech platforms, works best, argues Alec Appelbaum.

June 3, 2013 - The New York Times

Steve Lohr profiles New York University's Center for Urban Science and Progress, which is beginning to generate dividends in its study, and application of, smart city technology.

February 25, 2013 - The New York Times

What do you get for the smart city that thinks it has everything? Lauren Drell lists the 25 technologies every smart city should have.

December 30, 2012 - Mashable

For those of you who've been anxiously waiting since Boyd Cohen published his list of Europe's smartest cities last month...wait no longer, North America's top 10 smartest cities have been revealed.

December 3, 2012 - Fast Company Co.Exist

A new web-based software, described as a "Google Analytics for local governments," allows smaller cities to get involved in the Gov 2.0 revolution, reports Ariel Schwartz.

November 15, 2012 - Fast Company Co.Exist

Does a smart city have to pursue sustainability goals? Does it have to utilize the internet to involve citizens? Boyd Cohen tries to put some parameters around the discussion of smart cities - a nebulous term that means many things to many people.

September 20, 2012 - Fast Company Co.Exist

Steve Lohr reports on the new I.B.M. research lab in Kenya, which will work to tailor technological solutions to the prominent issues in Africa's major cities.

August 16, 2012 - The New York Times

In New Mexico, construction will begin this summer on a fully functioning 15-square mile new town, designed "to test everything about the future of smart cities, from autonomous cars to new wireless networks," reports Emily Badger.

May 24, 2012 - Fast Company

Boyd Cohen takes us through a brief tour of the Lion City's many progressive and wildly successful programs, from affordable housing to traffic management and beyond.

May 17, 2012 - Fast Company

A group of high technology firms, led by IBM and Cisco, are plunging into the city management business to offer super-efficient new-generation computerized information and control systems.

January 9, 2012 - Citistates Group

Before there were "smart cities", there was R. Buckminster Fuller.

July 30, 2011 - The New York Times

Making urban data available is important, but not as important as presenting that data in a digestible way, according to this piece from Change Observer.

July 10, 2011 - Change Observer

Technology must be harnessed in cities to allow citizens to "talk back" to cities and enable more user-driven change, according to this op-ed from economist Saskia Sassen.

June 30, 2011 - domus

Cities are becoming smarter, as buildings and infrastructures become retrofitted with sensory technology. The question this raises is how this will change our perception of the public sphere, according to Martijn de Waal.

May 7, 2011 - The Mobile City

Google announced that it had chosen Kansas City, Kansas as the launching site for an experimental fiber-optic network with speeds of up to 1 Gb per second.

March 30, 2011 - TechCrunch

Kaid Benfield says that the current trend towards "intelligent cities" is driven by large corporations, and "futuristic technology won’t fix many of our basic urban problems."

March 7, 2011 - NRDC Blog

The cities of the future should be "smart" -- equipped with data-collection tools and technologies to improve city functionality -- but being smart also means being a good listener, writes Saskia Sassen.

February 3, 2011 - What Matters