‘Smart Cities’ book explores impact of big data, civic hackers

Check out a new book by Anthony Townsend, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers and the Quest for a New Utopia, as reviewed by this author:

Smart Cities explores how tech is changing cities, both on the entrepreneurial and on the nonprofit side. One story it tells that’s close to our work, is the downfall of Philadelphia’s attempt to build a citywide WiFi network in collaboration with EarthLink. You learn that it was not all for naught, because the infrastructure the company built is now used to run Emergency Services communications, a system Philadelphia got at a vastly better price than New York got theirs.

NextCity followed up its coverage of the book with an interview with the author. There’s an excerpt from the book about privacy on Salon now.