In downtown Kansas City, there is a streetlight at 12th and Main that illuminates more than just the sidewalk. A tiny blue sensor the size of a deck of cards and a small grey box shaped like the letter H are mounted on its pole. Anyone standing close to the box can use free Wi-Fi. Every single person who passes by is counted by the sensor in silence and without any fanfare. The majority of passersby are unaware that any of this is taking place.
The Chief Innovation Officer of the city, Bob Bennett, made these observations while standing outside a coffee shop where the employees were already familiar with his order. His background as a former strategic planner for the U.S. Army seems appropriate. There are some similarities between mapping a territory and deploying sensors throughout an urban core. Depending on how you feel about being counted, Bennett’s enthusiasm for the 328 Wi-Fi nodes dispersed throughout downtown is either contagious or a little frightening.
By most accounts, the Kansas City smart city project is the biggest of its kind in North America. A two-and-a-half-mile streetcar corridor at its heart acts as the framework for a multi-layered network of sensors, cameras, digital kiosks, and wireless internet infrastructure. About $3.7 million of the $15 million investment came from the city itself, with additional contributions from Cisco, Sprint, and other private businesses. The remaining funds came from corporate partners who receive access to the data those systems produce in return for their investment. The majority of Kansas City residents did not vote on the trade.
The purpose of the sensors installed on lampposts and embedded in the pavement was not merely to facilitate commuting. The light poles were explained simply by Cliff Thomas, Cisco’s managing director for the project: “We are using lighting and light poles as a Trojan Horse to provide real-time information about the community at large.” It’s an honest statement. It’s worth spending a little time with.
A portion of that information is actually helpful. According to reports, a restaurant named Plowboys was using foot traffic counts to determine where to open a new location, selecting a location based on pedestrian data rather than just intuition. Lamppost cameras are intended to warn streetcar drivers of potential hazards. An app that informs drivers of available spaces is fed data from parking sensors. These are not insignificant comforts. However, it’s also important to remember that, with a software update, the same infrastructure designed to count pedestrians can also count something else.
Amy Glasmeier, a professor of urban planning at MIT, raises this issue, which is more difficult to ignore than it may seem. She examines smart city initiatives around the nation and contends that cities have effectively turned into enormous experimental labs, with it sometimes unclear what is being tested or for whom. “We’re trying to sell something called ‘Smart Cities’ and we don’t even have a definition of what they are,” she replied. That’s not a criticism from the fringe. That person, who has spent years observing these projects come to fruition, is stating the obvious.
A more grounded version of the same concern is expressed by Erika Brice, who oversees Blue Hills Community Services in a section of Kansas City far from the streetcar corridor. She discussed the communities that weren’t included in the initial smart city footprint while standing close to a basic bus stop at 50th and Prospect, which had only a small sign on a pole and no shelter. She wants the features to truly benefit the people living along the Prospect corridor when the city eventually expands its technological infrastructure. Not only do tourists look up streetcar schedules, but locals also want to know what’s happening in their neighborhood, what’s on sale nearby, and which new business recently opened. It’s not an irrational request. Whether the system being developed is intended to hear it is still unknown.
There is a functional version of all of this. Wi-Fi that allows people without home internet to stay connected, sensor networks that lessen traffic accidents, and platforms that assist small businesses in understanding foot traffic are all real possibilities, not just dreams. The majority of mid-sized American cities haven’t even attempted what Kansas City has built. According to Aaron Deacon of KC Digital Drive, Kansas City’s technological discourse is on par with that of cities three times its size. That could be the case. It may also be a reflection of the fact that more uncomfortable questions are asked in cities three times larger.
Kansas City is constructing more than just infrastructure. Owned in part by corporations whose main goal is not to improve civic life, it is a layer of data layered over a living city. The project is not flawed because of this. However, it does introduce uncertainty into the result that cannot be resolved by sensor data alone.
