China Is Making Its Cities ‘Smarter.’ Can it Make Them Wiser?

The concept of a “smart” city — in which digital technologies like data are collected and used to improve urban planning and resident well-being — can be traced back to at least the 1970s, with the publication of the first urban big data project: “A Cluster Analysis of Los Angeles.”The idea was refined over the ensuing decades, as cities like Amsterdam experimented with “digital cities” and