Starting in early 2018, I’ve been editing a special project on how technology is changing cities, for better and worse. The series addresses urbanism, transit, computation, policing, inequality, climate change, commerce, development, and many more topics, through a lens that’s somewhat different from what you’ll find in publications focusing on technology alone, or architecture alone, or planning alone, or politics alone.
Featured authors include Darran Anderson, Susannah Breslin, James Bridle, Ingrid Burrington, Cory Doctorow, Tim Morton, Bruce Sterling, Kate Wagner, and many more (including yours truly).
Some selections:
Google’s Guinea-Pig City
Will Toronto turn its residents into Alphabet’s experiment? The answer has implications for cities everywhere.
by Molly Sauter
A Defense of the Suburbs
An architect immerses himself in residential production housing to learn why people like it—and what it can teach Americans about the future of urban design.
by Anthony Alofsin
New Mexico’s Sad Bet on Space Exploration
Spaceport America was supposed to bring a thriving space industry to the southern New Mexico desert—but for now it’s a futurist tourist attraction, not an operational harbor to the cosmos.
by Ingrid Burrington
China’s Dystopian Tech Could Be Contagious
The PRC’s “social credit” scheme might have consequences for life in cities everywhere.
by Adam Greenfield
The Cities That Never Existed
What if the urban visions of famous architects and planners had actually been built?
by Darran Anderson
Cape Town Is an Omen
Climate change is going to revolutionize politics in cities across the world.
by Vann R. Newkirk II
The series is ongoing, and you can read all the latest work at The Atlantic.