Is a City a Computer?

Paris Marx is joined by Shannon Mattern to discuss what we miss when we see the city solely through the lens of the computer, and how other institutions and ways of knowing can help inform richer ways of understanding the city.

Shannon Mattern is a professor of anthropology at The New School for Social Research and President of the Board at the Metropolitan New York Library Council. She is the author of “Code and Clay, Data and Dirt” and “A City Is Not a Computer.” Follow Shannon on Twitter at @shannonmattern.

📚 Get 30% off “A City Is Not a Computer” when you buy it from Princeton University Press and use the code “TWSU” at checkout before the end of September 2021!

🚨 T-shirts are now available!

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Ursula K. Le Guin ranted about the meaning of the word “technology.”
• Google wanted to build a smart city in Toronto, but activists killed it.
• Gökçe Günel wrote “Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change, and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi” about the Masdar smart city project.
• Songdo was supposed to be South Korea’s city of the future. It didn’t work out.
• Kevin Rogan wrote about the human labor Sidewalk Labs was hiding.

Support the show