On being smart about cities: Seven considerations for a new urban planning and design

Abstract

Cities periodically experience transitions. There have been at least two in the past 200 years. In the nineteenth century, Western cities transitioned from medieval to industrial city structures. In Europe, motivated by taming discourses derived from the logic of industrialism, city planners tore down the city walls to make way for a new infrastructure of factories, railways and housing. They installed elaborate sanitary infrastructures to combat diseases. In the twentieth century, the invention of the car initiated a second transition. This time motivated by the taming potential of urban modernity, the resultant large-scale readjustments resulted in ring roads, high-rise tower blocks, central business districts and the ‘suburb’. Today, there is a need, some argue, to re-tame the city by making a transition to eco-efficient city structures, or what some technology companies refer to as ‘smart cities’.