The Future of the ‘Smart City’ (R)

Happy 4th of July from The Takeaway! As we celebrate America’s 240th birthday, we’re also looking ahead to what’s next. In a special re-broadcast, we’re exploring what the urban centers of the future will look like. This is what you’ll hear today:

• Hudson Yards is the largest private real-estate development in U.S. history, and is transforming a significant portion of the west side of Manhattan. We tour this massive testing ground for “smart city” urban data science with the brains behind Hudson Yards.

• When the United States Department of Transportation announced its Smart City Challenge, it was looking for a city that would greatly benefit from improvements to transportation, infrastructure, and technology in order to better serve city residents. Andrew Ginther, the mayor of Columbus, Ohio, joins The Takeaway to explain how $40 million in federal grants will change his city.

• Those who design “smart cities” rely on big data from urban infrastructure and city residents. Though data can make a city more efficient, it can also make it less diverse and open the door to predictive policing. Adam Greenfield, founder and managing director of Urbanscale and author of “Against the Smart City,” discusses the consequences of high-tech urban development.

• Data collection is a huge part of the “smart city” movement. For a look at how data is collected, implemented, and used in places like Hudson Yards, we turn to Constantine Kontokosta. He’s professor of urban informatics and head of the Quantified Community Research Lab at NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress.

• Do you live in a city? What do you love about it, and what needs to work better? Takeaway listeners from around the country weigh in on those questions today. 

• The “smart city” may be the latest trend in urban planning, but the fundamentals haven’t changed, at least not according to Roberta Brandes Gratz, an urban planner, founder of the Center for the Living City, and author of “We’re Still Here Ya Bastards: How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City.” She’s also a disciple and peer of Jane Jacobs, the mother of modern urban planning. 

• In New York City, community boards give voice to residents as development and investments shape neighborhoods for decades to come. Now, Community District 4 in Manhattan is home to Hudson Yards. Delores Rubin, vice chairwoman of Community Board 4, explains how the project is impacting the people in the neighborhood.