The Smart {Enough} City: A conversation with Ben Green

The author talks policing, shifting the conversation, and lessons learned in The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future

Technology can’t save us. Why do we think it can?

This is a pervasive theme throughout Ben Green’s technology-as-cautious-tool diagnostic, The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future. With so many problems to choose from, and so many options to help alleviate them, city officials often look to technology, first, and policy, well, also first. The issue is in how those in charge of the city’s operations prioritize what works, what they think will work, and what absolutely doesn’t work.

Technology tools are identifiable and easy to communicate to a public hungry to shorten commutes and increase public safety, among other problems facing each city in the United States. Policy prescriptions are much more challenging to demonstrate, but without a fair combination of both, cities will become machine havens. Dumb enough for you?

Here’s the full conversation, below, edited for clarity.