Shama Hyder’s article on urban digital transformation, packed with examples of what smart cities from Austin to Dublin are doing, kindled some memories for me. Eight or nine years ago I was helping run a website called “Future Cities,” created by a British publisher, UBM (it’s no longer online, sadly). It was a great opportunity to solicit and edit contributions from journalists all over the world who were learning about how smart cities applied digital solutions to things like the availability of parking spaces to remotely controlled plant watering systems. I think that was long before anyone coined the term “phygital” to describe the digitally charged environment in which we’re now so much at home. Kim Davis Editor at large |