Putting the Liberal Arts to Work in an Information Society
How can we collectively make good decisions about Smart City Projects?
The cost of sensors, algorithms, and databases steadily decline, giving cities new capabilities to address problems of energy use, traffic, pollution, crime, economic development, and social justice.
These capabilities often vary by neighborhood, so decisions about which areas gain resources and which neighborhoods are subject to intensified surveillance emerge, putting issues of equity and justice at the center of decision making.
These capabilities will also create new skills and new jobs, which also means new ways of life and new identities.
And because different groups in a city have different experiences, values, perspectives, and visions for the future, they have insights that ought to inform descision making beyond the perspective of technical experts.
We are creating this resource so that decision makers have a broader set of resources to draw upon to inform choices about Smart City projects. The liberal arts offers sophisticated frameworks for deliberating via a sophisticated form of rationality, representing identity in emotionally powerful ways, and assessing justice in a cosmoplitan world. We want to make this knowledge usable for Smart City decision makers.
This site offers three resources: