[sustran] Does a sensored city mean a censored city?

[Vinay Baindur]

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-22538561






Does a sensored city mean a censored city?
[image: Saskia Sassen]

The first phase of intelligent cities can be exciting. The city becomes a
living laboratory for smart technologies that can handle all major systems
- water, transport, security, garbage, green buildings, clean energy, and
more.

But at what point does this sensored city become the censored city? In many
ways, when we put together all the digitised systems that are at work in a
city we already have a sort of "turnkey" censored city in the making.

The diverse intelligent systems and sensors need to work within a
particular urban context and its multiple types of actors - from
neighbourhoods with their situated knowledge about the city, to building
managers who know the innards of their buildings.

All should be able to connect with the central controls/controllers of
intelligent systems that affect people.

This is one way in which the censoring capacities built into intelligent
systems can be tamed, contained.

All those sensors could lead to a new type of open-source city network.

*Saskia Sassen, urban expert*

*Columbia University*