Google’s plan to revolutionise cities is a takeover in all but name
Last June Volume, a leading magazine on architecture and design, published an article on the GoogleUrbanism project. Conceived at a renowned design institute in Moscow, the project charts a plausible urban future based on cities acting as important sites for "data extractivism" - the conversion of data harvested from individuals into artificial intelligence technologies, allowing companies such as Alphabet, Google's parent company, to act as providers of sophisticated and comprehensive services. The cities themselves, the project insisted, would get a share of revenue from the data.
Cities surely wouldn't mind but what about Alphabet? The company does take cities seriously. Its executives have floated the idea of taking some struggling city - Detroit? - and reinventing it around Alphabet services, with no annoying regulations blocking this march of progress.
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