Skip to main content

Background: Waking Up in a New Soft City

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Soft City Culture and Technology
  • 597 Accesses

Abstract

Mitchell’s “City of Bits” was soft in two ways: in adding software to the lexicon of urban infrastructures and in highlighting the ways in which IT-augmented urban systems and the use of the Internet as a new form of public space where social and public communication are not only accelerated but offer new affordances for new social formations subject in turn to constant reconfiguration driven by the ad hoc evolution of the digital ones. There may still be a town square in front of a building that is still called City Hall, but half of what they were built for has migrated online, and the Internet is subject to change without notice.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Alexander, C. (1996). The origins of pattern theory, the future of the theory, and the generation of a living world. Lecture transcript. In 1996 ACM Conference on Object-Oriented Programs, Systems, Languages and Applications (OOPSLA). Retrieved February 7, 2013, from http://www.patternlanguage.com/archive/ieee/ieeetext.htm

  • Bartle, R. A. (2006, September 4). Why Governments aren’t gods and gods aren’t governments. Command lines: The emergence of governance in global cyberspace. First Monday, (Special Issue #7). Retrieved July 1, 2013, from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1612

  • Clement, A., & van den Besselaar, P. (1993). A Retrospective look at PD projects. Communications of the ACM, 36(4), 29–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Constant, E. (1987). The social locus of technological practice: Community, system, or organization? In W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes, & T. J. Pinch (Eds.), The social construction of technological systems (pp. 223–242). Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Constant (Constant Nieuwenhuis). (1959). Le grand jeu à venir. In Potlatch/Informations intérieures de lInternationale situationniste, nouv. série, n 1 (pp. 3–5). Retrieved from http://www.notbored.org/great-game.html

  • Ehn, P. (1993). On participation and skill: Scandinavian design. In D. Schuler & A. Namioka (Eds.), Participatory design (pp. 50–52). Boca Raton: Taylor & Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, B., Borning, A., Davis, J. L., Gill, B. T., Kahn, P., Jr., Kriplean, T., et al. (2008). Laying the foundations for public participation and value advocacy: Interaction design for a large scale urban simulation. In Proceedings of the 9th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (pp. 305–314). Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Digital Government Society of North America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2–3), 87–105.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gelernter, D. (1993). Mirror worlds: Or, the day software puts the universe in a shoebox… How it will happen and what it will mean. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception (p. 127). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glen Cove. (2009). LOCAL law no. 8—2009 to create a new chapter 266 of the code of the city of Glen Cove, New York. Retrieved June 20, 2013, from http://www.glencove-li.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7B97547889-2E3C-450F-91CE-5ACB7838A981%7D

  • GSA (General Services Administration). (2013). 3D-4D building information modeling. Retrieved June 30, 2013, from http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/105075?utm_source=PBS&utm_medium=print-radio&utm_term=bim&utm_campaign=shortcuts

  • Hill, D. (2010). New soft city. Retrieved May 26, 2013, from http://www.ixda.org/resources/dan-hill-new-soft-city

  • Hoadley, C., & Kilner, P. (2005). Using technology to transform communities of practice into knowledge-building communities. SIGGROUP Bulletin, 25(1), 31–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Innes, J., & Booher, D. (2010). Planning with complexity: An introduction to collaborative rationality for public policy (p. 2). New York: Tayor and Francis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ivain, G. (1958). Formulaire pour un urbanisme nouveau. In Internationale Situationniste n.1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins, H., Clinton K., Purushotma, R., Robison, A. J., & Weige, M. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. An occasional paper on digital media and learning (p. 7). Chicago: MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved June 18, 2013, from http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF

  • Kensing, F. (1983). The trade union’s influence on technological change. In U. Briefs, C. Ciborra & I. Schneider (Eds.), Systems design for, with, and by the users. Proceedings of the IFIP TC9/WG9.1 Conference (p. 223). Amsterdam: North-Holland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kensing, F., & Jeanette B. (1998). Participatory design: Issues and concerns. In Computer Supported Cooperative Work 7 (pp. 167–185). Dordrecht: Kluwer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latowska, F. G., & Hunter, D. (2004). The laws of the virtual worlds. California Law Review, 92, 61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manetti, A. T. (1970). The Life of Brunelleschi. Introduction, notes and critical text [Catherine Enggass] (pp. 44–46) (H. Saalman Trans.). University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, W. (1995). City of bits (p. 44). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morningstar, C., & Farmer, F. R. (1990). The lessons of lucasfilm’s habitat. In M. Benedikt (Ed.), Cyberspace: First steps (p. 289). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nightingale, F. (1858). Notes on matters affecting the health, efficiency, and hospital administration of the British army. Founded chiefly on the experience of the late war. Presented by request to the secretary of state for war. Privately printed London: Harrison and Sons. Retrieved June 20, 2013, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nightingale-mortality.jpg

  • Norman, D. A. (1988). The psychology of everyday things (p. 9). New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Noveck, B. S. (2005). A democracy of groups. First Monday, 10(11). Retrieved June 26, 2013, from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1289/1209

  • O’Coill, C., & Doughty, M. (2004). Computer game technology as a tool for participatory design. In eCAADe2004: Architecture in the network society (pp.15–18).

    Google Scholar 

  • Paul, C. (2005, April). Digital art/public art: Governance and agency in the networked commons. Command lines: The emergence of governance in global cyberspace. First Monday, (Special Issue #7). Retrieved June 19, 2013, from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1616/1531

  • Playfair, W. (1801). The commercial and political atlas, 3rd edition and statistical breviary (pp. 3–4). London: J. Wallis. Cited in E. Tufte. (1983). The visual display of quantitative information (p. 32). Cheshire: Graphics Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sennett, R. (2012, December 4). No-one likes a city that’s too smart. Let’s hope Rio rather than Songdo or MAsar is the inspiration for the urbanists gathering in London this week. In The guardian. Retrieved June 30, 2013, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/04/smart-city-rio-songdo-masdar

  • Singer, N. (2012, March 3). Mission control, built for cities. IBM takes ‘Smarter Cities’ concept to Rio de Janeiro. New York Times, p. BU1. Retrieved June 30, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/business/ibm-takes-smarter-cities-concept-to-rio-de-janeiro.html?pagewanted=all

  • Techterms. (2013). Definition of “beta release”. Retrieved May 26, 2013, from http://www.techterms.com/definition/beta_software

  • Truffaut, F. (1954). Une certaine tendance du cinéma français In Cahiers du Cinéma n. 31. Retrieved June 28, 2013, from http://nezumi.dumousseau.free.fr/trufcahier.htm

  • Waddell, P. (2000). A behavioral simulation model for metropolitan policy analysis and planning: Residential location and housing market components of UrbanSim. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 27(2), 247–263.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weibel, P. (2006). The concept of culture. In M. Miessen & S. Basar (Eds.), Did somebody say participate? An atlas of spatial practice (p. 184). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity (p. 73). Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Skelton, C. (2014). Background: Waking Up in a New Soft City. In: Soft City Culture and Technology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7251-3_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7251-3_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-7250-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7251-3

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics