City Hall. It's traditionally the place where technology gets stuffed into a drawer and forgotten. But as budgets recover from the Great Recession and smartphone-toting citizens prod municipal officials, cities are now more Boston Dynamics than Boss Tweed. Soon the pols will be promising sensor-driven pots that cook the chicken for you, just the way you like it. — wired.com
4 Comments
Architecture....absent from the list as always.
But drones that kill graffiti! Yay!
These are just tele-centric toys and gimmicks sponsored by tech-heads and PR overlords. Tech makes living simple (supposedly), and is designed and marketed as such to appeal to a broad customer base, but cities are not simple. The architectural features they do mention - permeable pavers and "cool" roofs - while beneficial, aren't at all futuristic - in some areas, especially in California, they are required by code. The only reason they weren't required decades ago was because people were ignorant to the reality that having a sea of heat-absorbing black roofs and impervious asphalt paving all over the ground after years of accumulating urban development could cause major environmental problems. It's almost like saying, those new electronic cigarettes are the best solution to the problem of smoking real cigarettes because they are so much better and cleaner for you than the old way of doing it, owing solely to their advanced technology. They forget that the best way to prevent smoking is not to start, and to educate each other not to start. Once again, the primary components of great cities that need the most attention - architecture, streets, sidewalks, frontage, public space, transit, landscaping, and most importantly, people - are neglected.
Architecture....absent from the list as always.
Maybe you missed those diagonal futuristic windows...or that shark fin spire?
Another corporate sponsored sales pitch for useless electronic gizmos made by slave labor.
Air-purifying billboards? Reduce energy consumption, move to renewable sources, and plant some fucking trees.
Assholes.
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