Future Cities Digest #42 (11/12/2014) – Grand Finale

by Lukasz Alwast

Media stories:

• Urbanism: the new ideas for city living – Financial Times, 28 November
• Chancellor puts science at heart of Northern Powerhouse – GOV.UK, 8 December
• Test-tube government  – Economist, 6 December
• Techs-mex: A Laboratory for Mexico City – The Long+Short,  8 December*
• ‘UK Autodrive’ consortium wins competition to develop driverless cars – Arup, 3 December
• How GPS and smart card data is used to reduce city transport congestion – The Guardian, 7 December – BostInno, 11 November*
• We can’t trust Uber – New York Times, 7 December*
• A Planet of Suburbs  – Economist, 6 December*

Reports and publications:

• Urban Innovation and Investment: The Role of International Financial Institutions and Development Banks – Future Cities Catapult, December*
• Good growth for cities: Report on Economic Wellbeing in UK Cities – PWC, December
• Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories – WRI/C40, December*
• World Development Report 2015: Understanding Mind, Society and Behaviour – World Bank, December*
• Understanding Alternative Finance: The UK Alternative Finance Industry Report – Nesta, November
• Future of Highways – Arup, December

Future Cities Digest #41 (27/11/2014)

by Lukasz Alwast

Media stories:

• Why business clusters are an increasingly urban affair – City Metric, 25 November*
• Opening up smart cities: A report on the Smart City Expo World Congress – The Programmable City, 22 November*
• New York City’s ambitious free Wi-Fi plan sounds great, unless you live in a poor neighborhood – The Verge, 24 November
• Cambridge Approved a 6-months Pilot Programme for Bridj [pop-up bus service] – BostInno, 11 November
• Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram design car-sharing programme for Audi – Dezeen, 12 November*
• Car Camera Network Could Produce Virtual Maps of Pedestrians – IEEE Spectrum, 24 November
• Is It Really Possible To Trick Waze To Keep Traffic Of Your Street? – Gizmodo, 18 November
• Google Glass is Dead; Long Live Smart Glasses – MIT Tech Review, 26 November

Reports and publications:

• Delivering the Smart City: Governing Cities in the Digital Age – Arup, November*
• The Smart/Connected City and Its Implications for Connected Transportation – Transport Research Board, October
• Experience the Future of Automobility – IDEO, November*
• The Future of Retail 2015 – PSFK, November
• The New Climate Economy: Working Papers on Cities and Economic Transition – The New Climate Economy, November
• Proceedings of the Big Data and Urban Informatics workshop – University of Illinois, Chicago / National Science Foundation, October*

Books: 

• The Making of a World City: London 1991 to 2021 – Greg Clark, November
• Leading the Inclusive City: Place-based innovation for a bounded planet – Robin Hambleton, November
• Healthy Cities: Public Health through Urban Planning – Chinmoy Sarkar, June

Future Cities Digest #40 (5/11/2014)

by Lukasz Alwast

Media reports:

• Data-driven cities: city slicker – Economist, 1 November
• A city is more than just the sum of its previous behaviours (by DH) – Dezeen, 30 October*
• Citizens as sensors – Nesta blogs, 27 October 2014*
• The traffic signal knows you’re there – Carl Alviani (Medium), October 2014*
• Augmented Reality Helps Drivers See Around Blind Spots – IEEE Spectrum, 31 October
• Should we be concerned about Placemeter – an app which monitors street views from apartment windows? – Guardian, 27 October 2014
• Four theses on mass surveillance and privacy negotiation – Antonio Casilli (Medium), 26 October 2014*
• IPCC: rapid carbon emission cuts vital to stop severe impact of climate change – 2 November, The Guardian
• Can Sucking C02 Out Atmosphere Really Work? – MIT Tech Review, 7 October
• ‘Playing catch up’: UK warned to invest more in innovation and technology – 5 November, The Guardian [about the Catapults)

Reports and publications:

• Tackling the world’s affordable housing challenge – McKinsey Global Institute, October
• Big Data in Action for Development – World Bank, October
• Unleashing Metro Growth: Final Recommendations of the City Growth Commission – City Growth Commission, October
• Here be startups: exploring’s ‘Tech City’ digital cluster – Environment and Planning, October
• New Playgrounds: An Introduction to Hacks in the Arts – FutureEverything, October
• Future of Travel – PSFK, October
• Future of cities: the cultural dimension – Government Office for Science, October

Future Cities Digest #39 (10/10/2014)

by Lukasz Alwast

Media stories:

• The Urbantech Startup Space – Urban.US, 14 October*
• Venture Capitalists Return to Backing Science Start-ups – NYT Bits, 12 October
• How 3D printing is Revolutionising the Display of Big Data – MIT Tech Review, 8 October
• On the cultural ideology of Big Data – The New Inquiry, 9 October*
• Race is on to build the world’s first driverless car – Financial Times, 13 October*
• London’s new Tube train come from the Future – The  TechCrunch, 20 September
• Google says Amazon is biggest search rival – Financial Times, 13 October
• Why climate change should signal the end of the city state – The Guardian, 9 October*
• Can canals save coastal cities from climate change? – FastCoExist, 13 October

Reports and publications:

• Future Cities: comparative urban governance – Government Office for Science, October
• Winning in Growth Cities 2014-2015 – Cushman & Wakefield, October
• OECD Regional Outlook – Regions and Cities: Where Policies and People Meet – OECD, October
• Governments for the Future: Building the Strategic and Agile State – SITRA, August
• Future of Labour – Data & Society Institute, October
• Digital Life in 2025: Killer Apps in the Gigabit Age – Pew Research, October

Future Cities Digest #38 (30/09/2014)

by Lukasz Alwast

Media stories:

• No More Trickle Down Civic Tech – Laurenellen McCann (Medium), 30 September*
• California questions legality of ride-sharing apps – Financial Times, 26 September
• Tommorow’s cities – the lamp-posts watching every move – BBC, 25 September*
• Build Cargo drones, get rich – J. Ledgard (Medium), 23 September*
• The Demons of On-Demand – TechCrunch, 20 September
• Larry Page wants a Google 2.0. that will build cities and airports – The Verge, 18 September
• Making Innovation: hubs of advanced manufacturing – MIT Tech Review, 16 September
• The Great Decoupling – Do Humans Need Insurance Against Job Automation? – McKinsey Quarterly, September
• The State of Climate Change – And What We Might Do About It – Nick Stern TEDtalk, September*

Reports and publications:

• Towards the All Age Friendly City  – Future Cities Catapult, September
• Data-Driven Business Models: Challenges and Opportunities of Big Data – Oxford Internet Institute, September
• Future Cities: A visual history of the future – Government Office for Science, September
• Cities and Climate Change: National government enabling local action — OECD & Bloomberg Philanthropies, September
• Computer Society 2022 Report – IEEE, September
• Future of Travel – PSFK, September
• Removing Roadblocks to Intelligent Vehicles and Driverless Cars – Mercatus Research, September
• Charting the Course: How Mainstream Investors Can Design Visionary and Pragmatic Impact Investing Strategies – World Economic Forum, September

Future Cities Digest #37 (16/09/2014)

by Lukasz Alwast

Media stories

• Keiichi Matsuda to “explore the future of the city” in new film for Design Week – Dezeen, 15 September
• BERG, the design company behind Little Printer to close – Dezeen, 9 September
• Map some noise: how your smartphone can help tackle sound pollutions – The Guardian, 12 September
• Smartphone movements could reveal empty parking spots – MIT Tech Review, 15 September
• Londoners can now pay for commutes by waving their cards – no apple card required – Quartz, 16 September
• London’s Garden bridge: barking up the wrong tree? – The Guardian, 14 September
• How Google’s autonomous car passed the first US state self-driving test – IEEE Spectrum, 10 September
• Two studies show why Uber makes cities more productive and less congested – VentureBeat, 3 September

Reports:

• Power to Grow – City finance and governance – City Growth Commission (September)
• Hollow Promise: How London fails people on modest incomes and what should be done about it – Centre for London (September)
• Better Growth, Better Climate: The New Climate Economy Report – The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate (September)
• Connecting the senior generation: ICT usage habits amongst seniors in the US – Ericsson ConsumerLab (August)
• Future of Rail 2050 –  Arup Foresight (Jul.)
• Smart Cities: A New Dynamic for the Middle East – McGraw Hill (Jun.)

Books & publications:

• The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance – Susan Crawford, Wiley
• The Epic Struggle for the Internet of Things – Bruce Sterling, Strelka Press
• The Imaginary App – Paul Miller & Svitlana Matviyenko, MIT Press
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future – Peter Thiel & Blake Masters, Crown Business

 

Future Cities Digest #36 (04/09/2014)

by Lukasz Alwast

Media stories:

• Are Cities Ready To Host Their Own Crowd-funding Platforms – Co.Exist, 13 August *
• The Power of Public-Private Partnerships: Mobile Phone Apps and Municipalities – Planetizen, 25 August
• How the Napa Earthquake Affected Bay Area Sleeper – Jawbone Blog, 25 August *
• UK catapult centre works on vision of windowless aircraft – Financial Times, 25 August *
• Emerging technologies hype cycle 2014 – Economist, 27 August *
• Hidden Obstacles for Google’s Self-Driving Cars – MIT Tech Review, 28 August
• Are Google’s drones the future of search and rescue? – BBC, 29 August
• Calico, Google’s Anti-Ageing Company, Announces New Research Facility – New York Times, 3 September

Reports and publications:

• Cities and the Youth Unemployment Challenge – Centre For Cities, August 2014
• The Maker’s Manual – PSFK, August 2014
• Making Sense of the UK Collaborative Economy – Nesta, September 2014
• People Helping People: The Future of Public Services – Nesta, September 2014
• The Future of Urban Water: Scenarios For Urban Water Utilities in 2040 – Arup, September 2014

+ Gartner 2014 Hype Cycle

Future Cities Digest #35 (20/08/2014)

by Lukasz Alwast

Media stories:

• The Social Laboratory – Foreign Policy, 29 July *
• Uber and Lyft challenge public transport with carpooling – Financial Times, 7 August *
• Siri’s Inventors Are Building a New AI (Viv) – Wired, 12 August
• SketchFactor city app sparks accusations of racism – The Guardian, 12 August *
• Here’s a Terrible Idea: Robot Cars With Adjustable Ethics Settings – Wired, August 18
• Researchers Hack into Michigan’s Traffic Lights – MIT Tech Review, 19 August
• Delivery Start-Ups Are Back Like It’s 1999 – New York Times, 19 August *

Reports and publications:

• AI, Robotics and the Future of Jobs – Pew Research, August 2014
• The Competitiveness of Cities – World Economic Forum, August 2014
• New Lenses on Future Cities: A New Lens Scenarios Supplement – Shell, June 2014
• City energy: A new powerhouse for Britain – IPPR, July 2014
• What hold’s back high-growth firms? Evidence from UK SME’s – Neil Lee (LSE), July 2014

Future Cities Digest #34 (16/07/2014)

by Lukasz Alwast

Media headlines:

• Meet the Man Who Turned NYC Into His Own Lab [about CUSP] – 29 July, TIME
• UK to allow driverless cars on public roads in January – 30 July, BBC News
• Winning Google’s Little Box Challenge Will Take a ‘Holistic Approach’ – 30 July, IEEE Spectrum
• Airbnb Pushes to Modify San Francisco Housing Laws – 1 August, New York Times *
• Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities – 3 August, New York Times
• Is There Any Way to Avoid Standards Wars in Emerging Internet of Things – 4 August, IEEE Spectrum *
• How giant websites design for you (and a billion others, too) – 5 August, TED.com

Recent book publications:

• A History of the Future in 100 objects – A. Hon, Dec. 2013
• Smart City: How to Create a Public and Economic Value with High Technology – R. Dameri et al., Jul. 2014
• Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire and the Internet of Things – D. Rose, Jul. 2014
• The Anthropology of Security: Perspectives from the Frontline of Policing, Counter-Terrorism and Border Control – M. Maguire et a., Jul. 2014
• Superintelligence: Paths, Danger, Strategies – N. Bostrom, Jul. 2014

Future Cities Digest #33 (16/07/2014)

by Lukasz Alwast

Media headlines:

• City of Helsinki considers a future without car ownership – 10 July, The Guardian
• (French) electric car-sharing scheme to open its branch in London – 9 July, The Guardian
• Google launches its European venture capital arm in Clerkenwell – 10 July, The Financial Times
• Nest and Samsung partner on a new home automation standard – 15 July, The Verge
• Amazon wants to test new 50 mph delivery drones  – 7 July, The Verge
• Yahoo scientists develop ‘scenic path-finding’ algorithm –  8 July, MIT Tech Review
• TSB launches its new Urban Living Innovation Platform – 14 July, InnovateUK

Reports and publications:

• Future of Cities (living in the city; people in cities; urban form and infrastructure) – June 2014, Government Office For Science
• Future Energy Scenarios – July 2014, National Grid
• Future of Government Smart Toolbox – June 2014, World Economic Forum
• Managing data talent – July 2014, Nesta
• China’s urban dreams, and the regional reality – June 2014, Economist Intelligence Unit
• Smart about Cities: visualising the challenge for 21st century urbanism – June 2014, T. Dassen & M. Hajer (PBL)