Predicting the future of the city is a lot like predicting the future of human society. Urban areas embody the physical infrastructure of our cultures and economies, and will house 70 percent of the world's population by 2050. They are too complex for detailed extrapolations, yet we can make insightful observations about their current behavior.

For example, in 1991 Saskia Sassen popularized the term “global city” to indicate a metropolis that is a critical node in the global economy. That definition stuck, but now urbanists, policymakers, and programmers are heralding the new “smart city.” The premise is simple: a smart city integrates hardware and software to improve living and working conditions. However, the broad debate on what “smart” means in practice only proves that the endgame scenario is still unknown.