Book Review of “A City Is Not a Computer” by Shannon Mattern

Eesa Gonzales

Environmental and Urban Change, York University

ENVS 3222

Prof. Steven Logan

March 1, 2023
Introduction

The book "A City Is Not a Computer" by Shannon Mattern is a critical examination of the ways

in which urban planning and architecture have been influenced by technological innovations and

computing. As the title suggests, Mattern proposes the argument that cities have often been

treated as machines, and have been designed according to the logic of computation and control.

She elaborates on the current trend of using digital technologies and computational systems to

design, manage, and govern cities, emphasizing the limitations and impacts it has had on our

understanding of the complexities and nuances of urban life. Mattern critiques the metaphor of

the "smart city," which is often used to describe the integration of digital technologies into urban

environments, arguing that it oversimplifies the complexities of urban life and reduces cities to

mere machines that can be optimized and controlled. Mattern counters this with the idea that

cities are complex systems with their own unique social, cultural, and physical characteristics.

This leads to the central thesis argument of Shannon Mattern's book, asserting the need to be

more critical and cautious in our approach to the use of digital technologies in cities, and that we

need to move beyond the metaphor of the "smart city" to embrace a more nuanced and

human-centered approach to the design and governance of urban environments. One of the major

strengths of Mattern’s book is her multidisciplinary approach to understanding the relationship

between cities and technology, drawing on specific case studies and historic examples to make

her arguments. The book is structured around several of these case studies of urban projects that

have attempted to apply computational methods to urban design, evaluating their successes and

failures.

Case Studies
Shannon Mattern examines a wide range of global case studies, each of which serves as an

example to a certain point pertaining to the central thesis. One of the more local case studies that

Mattern presented was The Sidewalk Labs Project in Toronto. In the second chapter of the book,

Mattern analyzes the Sidewalk Labs project, a partnership between Google's parent company

Alphabet and the city of Toronto to create a "smart city" neighborhood on Toronto's waterfront.

The project aimed to create a 12-acre neighborhood in Toronto that would be a model for how

technology could be used to create more efficient, sustainable, and livable urban environments.

The plan was to use a wide range of technologies, including sensors, cameras, and other

data-gathering devices, to collect information about the built environment, such as traffic

patterns, air quality, and energy usage (Mattern, 2021). This data would then be processed by

artificial intelligence and used to optimize the neighborhood's infrastructure and services, such as

transportation, waste management, and energy distribution. Mattern goes on to examine the ways

in which the Sidewalk Labs project reinforces and extends corporate control over urban space,

noting its heavy reliance on proprietary software and hardware, giving Alphabet significant

control over the neighborhood's infrastructure and data. There were also concerns about the

project's impact on privacy, as the data-gathering technologies could potentially be used to

monitor residents. The project was later canceled in May 2020, with Alphabet citing economic

uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as a factor in its decision, as well as ongoing

concerns about the project's viability and sustainability. The overall idea of urban cities and the

complexities found both in the physical infrastructure, and the integration of technological and

computational systems can be connected to the idea of Large Technical Systems, a concept

coined by historian and sociologist Thomas Hughes in his book "The Evolution of Large

Technological Systems" (1983). The concept refers to complex socio-technical systems that are
made up of interdependent technical, organizational, and social elements. These systems

frequently combine a variety of technologies to accomplish a single objective, such as the

creation of an energy infrastructure, a transportation network, or a communication system

(Gökalp, 1992). Large technical systems must be developed in order to integrate technology with

urban infrastructure such as transportation, electricity, and communication networks. In order to

implement a smart city effort, for instance, a sophisticated network of sensors, data analytics

tools, and communication technologies may need to be developed and connected with current

organizational and infrastructure systems. This necessitates the creation of a complex technical

system that can coordinate the actions of various stakeholders and guarantee the system's overall

effectiveness.

Urban City Metaphors

In "A City Is Not a Computer," Shannon Mattern uses several metaphors to illustrate her

argument about the limitations of a purely data-driven approach to urban design. One of the more

emphasized metaphors that Shannon Mattern suggests is using the concept of a library as a

model for thinking about urban design and governance. She proposes that a city should be

planned to encourage the gathering, sharing, and use of resources and information, much like a

library serves as a community's major archive for knowledge and resources. According to

Mattern, a library-inspired approach to urban design would put accessibility, inclusivity, and

transparency first. The city would be laid out around common areas and infrastructure that

encourages citizen cooperation and idea sharing. To achieve this, top-down, centralized types of

governance would have to give way to more democratic and participatory ones. Matterns

arguments against the technological and stereotypical “Smart City” however can also be a point

of contention in the book, as there is a need for more specific recommendations on how to move
past the idea of the "smart city" and towards a more human-centered method of urban planning

and governance. From the metaphor of the city as a library, an argument could be made that the

modern day library is just as reliant on technology as a smart city. Technology has made the

system of tracking and burrowing books significantly more efficient and accurate, while still

maintaining the community based infrastructure, sharing of ideas, and shared spaces.

Conclusion

A certain bias can be argued with relation to the book's stance on Smart Cities and limited

discussion of technical detail. While the book is critical of the smart city concept and its

technological underpinnings, it does not delve deeply into the technical details of how digital

technologies are designed and implemented in urban environments. The book could benefit from

more concrete proposals on how to move beyond the smart city concept towards a more

human-centered approach to urban design and governance. Overall, the book provides a clear cut

argument, backed by insights from a range of fields, including urban studies, design,

architecture, geography, and sociology, to offer a multifaceted critique of the smart city concept.
 References

Mattern. (2021). A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences (Vol. 2). Princeton

University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1h9dgtj

Gökalp, I. (1992). On the Analysis of Large Technical Systems. Science, Technology, & Human

Values, 17(1), 57–78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/689850