Places Books

Shannon Mattern is professor of anthropology at the New School for Social Research. Her books include Code and Clay, Data and Dirt: Five Thousand Years of Urban Media and The New Downtown Library: Designing with Communities. She lives in New York City. Website wordsinspace.net Instagram @atlas.sounds Twitter @shannonmattern A bold reassessment of "smart cities" that reveals what is lost when we conceive of our urban spaces as computers Computational models of urbanism-smart cities that use data-driven planning and algorithmic administration-promise to deliver new urban efficiencies and conveniences. Yet these models limit our understanding of what we can know about a city. A City Is Not a Computer reveals how cities encompass myriad forms of local and indigenous intelligences and knowledge institutions, arguing that these resources are a vital supplement and corrective to increasingly prevalent algorithmic models. Shannon Mattern begins by examining the ethical and ontological implications of urban technologies and computational models, discussing how they shape and in many cases profoundly limit our engagement with cities. She looks at the methods and underlying assumptions of data-driven urbanism, and demonstrates how the "city-as-computer" metaphor, which undergirds much of today's urban policy and design, reduces place-based knowledge to information processing. Mattern then imagines how we might sustain institutions and infrastructures that constitute more diverse, open, inclusive urban forms. She shows how the public library functions as a steward of urban intelligence, and describes the scales of upkeep needed to sustain a city's many moving parts, from spinning hard drives to bridge repairs. Incorporating insights from urban studies, data science, and media and information studies, A City Is Not a Computer offers a visionary new approach to urban planning and design. "Shannon Mattern's new book A City Is Not a Computer holds an important caveat: A city isn't just a computer. While artists and urbanists have sought to describe it in its messy totality, an oversimplified logic that has reduced urban reality to singular narratives. . .blinds us to its 'prismatic complexity'. . . . A City Is Not a Computer is, most fundamentally, a push to "inject history and happenstance" into our appreciation of urban life, and a reminder to respect the impossibility of summarizing our messy cities with neat, tidy narratives."---Annie Howard, Metropolis "A City is Not a Computer digs into the data, dashboards, and language that keep people from building better, safer communities. . . . The book reflects the ways a bunch of academic disciplines refract the idea of urbanism, of how to make a city that supports everyone who lives there. . . . Mattern's deft dissection of metaphors for cities shows that when they're misguided, they point to a failure not only of imagination but of a city's ability to carry out its chief function-as a bulwark against disaster."---Adam Rogers, Wired " A powerful perspective on types of intelligence that technocratic visions of smart cities unduly diminish. "---Evan Selinger, Los Angeles Review of Books "A City Is Not A Computer puts forth a much needed, audacious argument about the limitations of data-driven, computational thinking currently supported by countless municipalities and 'smart city' advocates. Accessible and provocative, Mattern is at her best, succinctly weaving constructively critical insights with wide ranging examples towards an urbanism of wisdom that tempers its focus on efficiencies with environmental justice, social sensitivity, and indigenous knowledge. Truer words have not been spoken when she describes such a city being 'smarter than any supercomputer.'"---Erick Villagomez, Spacing Canada "A City is Not a Computer by Shannon Mattern is a compact little book that packs a punch when you open its pages. From its eye-catching design to how easy it

Despina Stratigakos is associate professor and interim chair of architecture at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. She is the author of Hitler at Home and A Woman's Berlin: Building the Modern City. A timely and important search for architecture's missing women For a century and a half, women have been proving their passion and talent for building and, in recent decades, their enrollment in architecture schools has soared. Yet the number of women working as architects remains stubbornly low, and the higher one looks in the profession, the scarcer women become. Law and medicine, two equally demanding and traditionally male professions, have been much more successful in retaining and integrating women. So why do women still struggle to keep a toehold in architecture? Where Are the Women Architects? tells the story of women's stagnating numbers in a profession that remains a male citadel, and explores how a new generation of activists is fighting back, grabbing headlines, and building coalitions that promise to bring about change. Despina Stratigakos's provocative examination of the past, current, and potential future roles of women in the profession begins with the backstory, revealing how the field has dodged the question of women's absence since the nineteenth century. It then turns to the status of women in architecture today, and the serious, entrenched hurdles they face. But the story isn't without hope, and the book documents the rise of new advocates who are challenging the profession's boys' club, from its male-dominated elite prizes to the erasure of women architects from Wikipedia. These advocates include Stratigakos herself and here she also tells the story of her involvement in the controversial creation of Architect Barbie. Accessible, frank, and lively, Where Are the Women Architects? will be a revelation for readers far beyond the world of architecture. "A splendid book."---Carol Tavris, Times Literary Supplement "All too timely."---Carol Tavris, Wall Street Journal "[A] slim but sharp volume on problems women face in the architecture profession. . . . [A] concise, accessible book." "An excellent introduction to the recurring question that serves as the volume's title. . . . Compact but thorough." "Where Are the Women Architects? . . . explores the reasons why female designers have struggled to gain a foothold in the profession, despite recent efforts and campaigns, and why the attrition of women in the profession continues. . . . From a look at Mattel's architecture Barbie, an intervention in popular culture, to an exploration of the campaign to pressure the Pritzker committee to give equal recognition to Denise Scott Brown (partner and wife of Pritzker laureate Robert Venturi) [Stratigakos] explores numerous facets of architecture's gender imbalance."---Patrick Sisson, Curbed "The book is an excellent primer if you already are concerned about the topic--but especially if you are not."---Anthony Paletta, Urban Land "Stratigakos does not analyze inequalities from afar. She documents interventions and, in some cases, she is among the main instigators. Though Stratigakos is an academic architectural historian, her own agency is a wonderful departure from the typical academic's distance from their subject." "'Male-dominated' is an understatement in architecture. . . . In this slim chronicle, architectural historian Despina Stratigakos incisively catalogues the setbacks." "The insidious and hidden nature of . . . internalized bias is perhaps the most compelling reason why all architects--especially those that don't think that gender equity affects them--ought to examine this issue in greater depth to see if they may unwittingly be taking part. Many architects strive to create socially-minded physical places that encourage access for all. It's imperative to ensure that the same kind of equity is being built into the profession itself."---Elsa Lam, Canadian Architect "[A] concise, highly