Smart As a City The Politics of Test-Bed Urbanism

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baykurt, Burcu

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley University of California Press 2026

Summary:

Smart as a City provides a rich ethnographic investigation into how smartness is received and negotiated in a midsize US city. Burcu Baykurt follows the work of civic entrepreneurs, local residents, and city officials in Kansas City, Missouri, where Google tested a citywide gigabit service and the local government launched a series of smart city pilot projects in transportation, public housing, and municipal services. Baykurt redefines smartness as a collective effort to spotlight a city's enduring local problems and align solutions with the often buggy, partially developed systems offered by tech companies. She shows that success in matching civic concerns with flawed tech systems is hard-won and ambiguous, and that the techniques of data capitalism extract value from urban inequalities rather than solve them

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Becoming a Test Bed

2. Technocracy on a Hill

3. The Ignorant City

4. (Dis)Connecting the Smart City

5. Spinning Wheels

6. Avoiding the F-word

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources

ISBN:

9780520413269

0520413261

OCLC:

1581947217

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license