Smart cities: atoms and bits assimilate, creating new possibilities. Complex, large-scale infrastructures become unlimited data sources: energy consumption, waste, mobility, health care, instruction.
Technologies, sensor webs, open databases and ubiquitous information accesses. Cities become aware and smart. But cities must also have a soul: this is why buildings and smart services need smart citizens, “active citizens.” A smart city isn’t made by people just responding to inputs, but by citizens performing an essential role: the leading role in the process of data collection and sharing. Connected citizens are the engine of urban change in the city of the future. Ratti takes us inside the secret heart of his Boston laboratory, where future becomes present, and then on a tour of the smartest cities of the world, in an exciting ride which, under his leadership, becomes an authentic journey of knowledge.
