Even when the architectural renderings were fabulous, the idea of the smart city has always had problems. Critics say it tends to overlook the importance of human beings in the quest for technological solutions.

The term was originally coined by IBM in hopes that technology could improve the way cities functioned, but as a strategy for city-building, it’s been most successfully deployed under authoritarian regimes (Putin is a fan). The smart city has been perhaps the dominant paradigm in urban planning over the past two decades. The project, located on the shores of Lake Ontario, aims to be zero-carbon and includes buildings by Alison Brooks Architects (1) and David Adjaye (2), an urban farm (5) atop a mass timber building, and acres of public green space (4) and more than 800 affordable housing units. More recently, the “15-minute city” is a global movement in favor of planning cities so that everyone has access to work, school, retail, and recreation within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. Le Corbusier’s rigid, high-density plan for the never-built Ville Radieuse (Radiant City) in Paris pursued urban utopia through architectural discipline.

The American version, the City Beautiful, sought to return beauty and grandeur to cities as a path to a more harmonious social order. In England, the “garden city” movement introduced by the urban planner Ebenezer Howard in 1898 aimed to merge the countryside and the city while avoiding the disadvantages presented by both.

Time and time again, we convince ourselves that the big idea of the moment will not only improve our daily lives but cure society’s ills.

Smarts canada