“Smart cities” built from scratch have so far failed to live up to their much-hyped promise. Some critics argue that rather than grafting a new city onto the landscape, it is better to integrate high-tech for clean, efficient energy and transportation into existing cities.
Chicago's leaders have poured billions into ambitious programs to keep water away from roads and buildings. But urban flooding continues—overwhelmingly in communities of color—forcing experts to turn to new solutions.
A robust, rail-centric network should remain the backbone into which other transportation modes, like autonomous shuttles, ride-sharing and scooters, can feed.
Across the globe, urban developments conceived by corporations have been pitched as technological and eco-friendly utopias, but many are prohibitively expensive and catalysts for land dispossession and social inequality.
The urge to build cities from scratch is not new – but this time they are being conceived by private multinational corporations as gilt-edged tax-exempt gated communities
