Whose 'City of Tomorrow' is It? On Urban Computing, Utopianism, and Ethics

UrbComp 2013: The 2nd ACM SIGKDD International Workshop on Urban Computing

6 Pages Posted: 5 Jul 2013

Date Written: 2013

Abstract

In this article I discuss some ethical and moral ramifications of the future envisioned by urban computing. In doing so, I make analogies to twentieth century utopian visions of the “city of tomorrow,” so that we might see the historical context of a similar field with similar utopian instincts. I hope this context helps us better understand how our work might affect the lives of city dwellers in profound ways that we may never fully foresee. I discuss ethical questions related to using urban computing for policy making, for real-estate development, and for surveillance. I also define the concept of distributed sensing, and discuss some difficult regulatory questions that surround it. I hope this work inspires urban computing researchers to think critically in order to assess societal implications of the technologies they develop.

Keywords: urban computing, smart cities, ethics, utopias, urban design, architecture

Suggested Citation

Cranshaw, Justin, Whose 'City of Tomorrow' is It? On Urban Computing, Utopianism, and Ethics (2013). UrbComp 2013: The 2nd ACM SIGKDD International Workshop on Urban Computing, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2289964

Justin Cranshaw (Contact Author)

Carnegie Mellon University ( email )

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