Federico Cugurullo – författare

This book explores in theory and practice how artificial intelligence (AI) intersects with and alters the city. Drawing upon a range of urban disciplines and case studies, the chapters reveal the multitude of repercussions that AI is having on urban society, urban infrastructure, urban governance, urban planning and urban sustainability.

Contributors also examine how the city, far from being a passive recipient of new technologies, is influencing and reframing AI through subtle processes of co-constitution. The book advances three main contributions and arguments:

Artificial Intelligence and the City offers a state-of-the-art analysis and review of AI urbanism, from its roots to its global emergence. It cuts across several disciplines and will be a useful resource for undergraduates and postgraduates in the fields of urban studies, urban planning, geography, architecture, urban design, science and technology studies, sociology and politics.

This book explores in theory and practice how artificial intelligence (AI) intersects with and alters the city. Drawing upon a range of urban disciplines and case studies, the chapters reveal the multitude of repercussions that AI is having on urban society, urban infrastructure, urban governance, urban planning and urban sustainability.

Contributors also examine how the city, far from being a passive recipient of new technologies, is influencing and reframing AI through subtle processes of co-constitution. The book advances three main contributions and arguments:

Artificial Intelligence and the City offers a state-of-the-art analysis and review of AI urbanism, from its roots to its global emergence. It cuts across several disciplines and will be a useful resource for undergraduates and postgraduates in the fields of urban studies, urban planning, geography, architecture, urban design, science and technology studies, sociology and politics.

This book tells the story of visionary urban experiments, shedding light on the theories that preceded their development and on the monsters that followed and might be the end of our cities. The narrative is threefold and delves first into the eco-city, second the smart city and third the autonomous city intended as a place where existing smart technologies are evolving into artificial intelligences that are taking the management of the city out of the hands of humans.

The book empirically explores Masdar City in Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong to provide a critical analysis of eco and smart city experiments and their sustainability, and it draws on numerous real-life examples to illustrate the rise of urban artificial intelligences across different geographical spaces and scales. Theoretically, the book traverses philosophy, urban studies and planning theory to explain the passage from eco and smart cities to the autonomous city, and to reflect on the meaning and purpose of cities in a time when human and non-biological intelligences are irreversibly colliding in the built environment.

Iconoclastic and prophetic, Frankenstein Urbanism is both an examination of the evolution of urban experimentation through the lens of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and a warning about an urbanism whose product resembles Frankenstein’s monster: a fragmented entity which escapes human control and human understanding. Academics, students and practitioners will find in this book the knowledge that is necessary to comprehend and engage with the many urban experiments that are now alive, ready to leave the laboratory and enter our cities.

This book tells the story of visionary urban experiments, shedding light on the theories that preceded their development and on the monsters that followed and might be the end of our cities. The narrative is threefold and delves first into the eco-city, second the smart city and third the autonomous city intended as a place where existing smart technologies are evolving into artificial intelligences that are taking the management of the city out of the hands of humans.

The book empirically explores Masdar City in Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong to provide a critical analysis of eco and smart city experiments and their sustainability, and it draws on numerous real-life examples to illustrate the rise of urban artificial intelligences across different geographical spaces and scales. Theoretically, the book traverses philosophy, urban studies and planning theory to explain the passage from eco and smart cities to the autonomous city, and to reflect on the meaning and purpose of cities in a time when human and non-biological intelligences are irreversibly colliding in the built environment.

Iconoclastic and prophetic, Frankenstein Urbanism is both an examination of the evolution of urban experimentation through the lens of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and a warning about an urbanism whose product resembles Frankenstein’s monster: a fragmented entity which escapes human control and human understanding. Academics, students and practitioners will find in this book the knowledge that is necessary to comprehend and engage with the many urban experiments that are now alive, ready to leave the laboratory and enter our cities.

The era of the smart city has arrived. Only a decade ago, the promise of optimising urban services through the widespread application of information and communication technologies was largely a techno-utopian fantasy. Today, smart urbanisation is occurring via urban projects, policies and visions in hundreds of cities around the globe.

Inside Smart Cities provides real-world evidence on how local authorities, small and medium enterprises, corporations, utility providers and civil society groups are creating smart cities at the neighbourhood, city and regional scales. Twenty three empirically detailed case studies from the Global North and South – ranging from Cape Town, Stockholm and Abu Dhabi to Philadelphia, Hong Kong and Santiago – illustrate the multiple and diverse incarnations of smart urbanism. The contributors draw on ideas from urban studies, geography, urban planning, science and technology studies and innovation studies to go beyond the rhetoric of technological innovation and reveal the political, social and physical implications of digitalising the built environment.

Collectively, the practices of smart urbanism raise fundamental questions about the sustainability, liveability and resilience of cities in the future. The findings are relevant to academics, students, practitioners and urban stakeholders who are questioning how urban innovation relates to politics and place.