THE CITY OF TOMORROW
SENSORS, NETWORKS, HACKERS,
THE CITY OF TOMORROW AND THE FUTURE OF URBAN LIFE
CARLO RATTI AND MATTHEW CLAUDEL
Copyright © 2016 by Carlo Ratti and Matthew Claudel. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail
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[email protected] (U.K. office). Designed by Nancy Ovedovitz and set in Scala and The Sans types by Integrated Publishing Solutions. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Control Number: 2015955547 ISBN 978-0-300-20480-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Frontispiece: New York Talk Exchange (detail; see chapter 2)
CONTENTS
PART I THE CITY OF TOMORROW (AND TODAY) 1 Futurecraft 2 Bits and Atoms 3 Wiki City PART II METROPOLITAN INFORMATION FLOWS 4 Big (Urban) Data 5 Cyborg Society 6 Living Architecture PART III SENSEABLE CITY 7 Mobility 8 Energy 9 Knowledge PART IV LOOKING FORWARD 10 Hack the City 11 Epilogue
Notes Acknowledgments Credits Index
PART I THE CITY OF TOMORROW (AND TODAY)
We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims. R. Buckminster Fuller, 1969
ONE FUTURECRAFT On December 24, 1900, the Boston Globe ran a piece imagining what Boston would look like at the turn of the millennium. The lavishly illustrated article by Thomas F. Anderson painted an elaborate vision of a city with moving sidewalks, airships soaring high above the streets, and pneumatic tube delivery of everything from newspapers to food. The author’s pre