Dracula Urbanism and Smart City Mania

David Wilson is Professor of Geography, Urban Planning and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on the restructuring of cities in the Global North and Global South and the urban transformation of the U.S. Rustbelt. He has published widely in many journals that span geography and the social sciences. His most recent book is Chicago’s Redevelopment Machine and Blues Clubs (Palgrave-MacMillan).Elvin Wyly is Professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia, unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territory, Canada. He studies the spatial dynamics of market processes and public policy with a special emphasis on racial discrimination in mortgage lending, the intensification of gentrification, and the algorithmic reanimation of 19th-century social Darwinist perversions of evolutionary science. Recent essays and articles have appeared in many social science journals and books.

"A riveting and intellectually sophisticated book that blends the analytical strength of critical urban studies with the evocative power of gothic literature. The prose is superb and Wilson and Wyly masterfully take the reader on a journey, across the Global North and South, to explore the darkest corners of smart urbanism. Dracula Urbanism and Smart City Mania will change the way you see smart cities."- Federico Cugurullo, Trinity College, Dublin"Wilson and Wyly’s Dracula Urbanism is a fascinating work of synthesis. In it, they excavate the intricate Stoker classic and apply it to contemporary urban processes, particularly the pursuit of smart cities. Like the classic novel, the smart cities discourse seeks to weed out the old with a moralizing tale of progress that obscures real processes of violence and exclusion. This is easily one of the most imaginative urban geography texts written in decades." - Jason Hackworth, University of Toronto"Using Dracula's techno-solutionist quest for a society that serves those deemed deserving and putatively punishing all others, Wilson and Wyly's compelling book makes the case that today's urban politics and governance produces monstrous cities. Bold and imaginative in vision, it invites us to rethink the quest for supposed smart cities."- Rob Kitchin, Maynooth University

• 1. Prologue: The Haunt of Dracula and This Book 2. The Labyrinthe of Dracula Urbanism 3. The Frame: Regimes of City Building 4. Miami: A Global North City Smartening 5. Mexico City: A Global South City Smartening 6. Resisting Dracula Urbanism and Smart City Development 7. A Complicated City Building: Dracula-Itis on the March