Podcast Summary: UnHerd with Freddie Sayers – “Matthew Crawford: The Truth About 'Smart Cities'”
Date: November 19, 2025
Host: Freddie Sayers
Guest: Matthew B. Crawford (Philosopher and Author)
Episode Overview
In this thought-provoking episode, Freddie Sayers invites philosopher and author Matthew B. Crawford to discuss the concept of “Smart Cities”—urban environments increasingly managed and optimized by interconnected digital technologies. The conversation delves into the historical ambitions behind city planning, the political and existential implications of hyper-rationalized urban life, and poses fundamental questions about freedom, agency, and what it means to "live well" in modern society.
Main Discussion Points & Insights
1. What Is a ‘Smart City’? (03:34)
- Definition: Smart cities extend the logic of interconnected digital devices to entire urban landscapes, with a central ‘urban operating system’ optimizing infrastructure (energy, sewage, traffic, security, etc.) via real-time data science.
- Ambition: The goal is “frictionlessness” and efficiency, echoing historic high-modernist urban planning.
“Everything that takes place in the smart city will be optimized and orchestrated by a sort of urban operating system...all this will be massaged by data science.”
— Matthew B. Crawford (03:38)
2. Current and Historical Examples (04:31)
- Real-world implementations:
- US cities (e.g., Columbus, Chicago) using sensor networks for infrastructure management.
- Barcelona’s ‘superblocks’ for traffic and waste management.
- Google’s canceled Toronto smart city plan, halted by civic resistance over data privacy.
- Analogy to History: Modernist projects like Brasilia and Chandigarh—chosen for weak self-governing traditions—contrast with organic urban development or democratic resistance.
“...the citizens of Toronto nixed this plan over concerns about data privacy or data ownership. And...often [grand projects] have been cited in locations...where there is no robust tradition of self rule.”
— Matthew B. Crawford (05:44)
3. The Drive for Legibility and Control (07:06)
- Drawing on James C. Scott’s "Seeing Like a State", Crawford asserts that smart cities are about making urban life 'legible' for easier governance and, by extension, more amenable to engineering.
- Risk: Spontaneity and “unruly felicities” of city life (“the unplanned sort of irregularities”) could be lost to overdetermined, rationalized environments.
“[Smart cities] are all about collecting data and rendering…everything that's happening in this city sort of maximally legible…once you have such a picture in hand…the city becomes very attractive as an object to engineer some kind of vision.”
— Matthew B. Crawford (07:41)
4. The Dark Side of Optimization: Erosion of Agency (11:17)
- Technological Encroachment: From cars to urban mobility, there’s a shift from personal to centrally managed agency.
- Examples: Electric vehicles restrict features via remote software subscription; “ownership” becomes “access on terms of service, revocable at will.”
- Implication: Both individual sovereignty and the traditional concept of property are being eroded.
“The concept of ownership, like I just said, the concept of sovereignty. Both of these seem to be eroding under this vision of remote control.”
— Matthew B. Crawford (11:47)
5. Spontaneity, Play, and the Spirit of Urban Life (13:35)
- Crawford appreciates cities and “vital” urban experiences—urban skateboarding, alternative uses of public space—arguing these moments exemplify freedom, unpredictability, and human creativity that master-planned spaces stifle.
- He draws a line between useful safety features and overbearing, “nannying” surveillance that stifles joy and vitality.
“There's a taste for order that becomes its own kind of fetish to clamp down on the spirit of play...”
— Matthew B. Crawford (13:35)“Already spaces that feel unadministered feel like they're disappearing...It just feels like, I don't know, you can feel like you can breathe a little bit.”
— Matthew B. Crawford (15:09)
6. Freedom, Movement, and Embodied Joy (16:30)
- As children, growth and joy are linked to expanding mobility—walking, cycling, skating.
- Technology can amplify or restrict this freedom: “Joy is the feeling of your power increasing.” (16:30)
- Crawford warns of a world where movement is always managed, controlled, interrupted for safety, eroding that primal joy.
“Nietzsche said that joy is the feeling of your power increasing...The skateboard, they almost become part of your body once you get really competent at using them.”
— Matthew B. Crawford (16:30)
7. Progress, Politics, and the Smart City Vision (20:37)
- Sayers links smart cities to a particular political vision—progressive, rationalist, “Big Government”—but Crawford suggests the corporate dimension confuses traditional political lines (“Libertarians get confused by this…”).
- Governance by Corporations: Tech firms develop governmental functions, yet remain unaccountable to democratic processes.
“The distinction between government and corporate power seems like it's become just a merely sort of semantic tick…Mark Zuckerberg actually said that in a lot of ways we're more like a government setting policy for people.”
— Matthew B. Crawford (21:14)
8. ‘Safetyism’ and The Loss of Rich Public Life (22:46)
- The smart city’s promise is pitched as safety, circumventing arguments for broader definitions of the good life (echoing COVID policy debates).
- “Bare life” is prioritized, and richer experiences—community, play, meaning—fade from public consideration.
“Anyone making arguments about the sort of costs of locking everything down…the response was to label them pro death…questions about the good life fade from view…”
— Matthew B. Crawford (22:46)
9. Resistance, Political Alignments, and Realignment (29:31, 34:12)
- Sayers inquires whether resistance to smart cities is possible—will there be 'off-grid' cities or counterurban movements?
- New Political Alliances: Right-wing populism merges with tech oligarchs (like Elon Musk) and crypto evangelists, creating strange political bedfellows.
- Crawford doubts the efficacy of traditional market-based arguments—tech quasi-monopolies erode “the correcting mechanism” of free markets.
“It is political…I think what throws many people off is the fact that it is corporations doing the grand vision rather than governments. So libertarians get confused by this because they think the only threats to liberty are the government.”
— Matthew B. Crawford (21:14)“It becomes a question of what is the character of the particular elite that is ruling. [...] The ancient definition of tyranny...is a rule for private gain as opposed to rule for the common good.”
— Matthew B. Crawford (39:04)
10. The Root Problem: Loss of Custom, Community, and Human Scale (42:09)
- Crawford contrasts two models of order:
- Top down, rationalized (“Hobbesian”) governance
- Organic, bottom-up, customary order (“common law”, “Jane Jacobs city”)
- Master plans, he warns, require “heavy police work”—you forfeit voluntary compliance and familiarity that come from custom and true participatory community.
“Governing by a master plan requires heavy police work because again, you're forfeiting that sort of habitual deference to just these ways that are our ways and we feel a kind of ownership over them.”
— Matthew B. Crawford (43:59)
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On Agency:
“Ownership seems to be giving way to this subscription model, this dependent on terms of service that are unilaterally set and revocable at will.” (11:47) -
On Play and Spontaneity:
“There’s a tendency to want to clamp down on that, call security is the motto...to clamp down on the spirit of play.” (13:35) -
On The Joy of Movement:
“Nietzsche said that joy is the feeling of your power increasing.” (16:30) -
On Surveilled Modernity:
“I think there's a feeling of claustrophobia in much of modern life.” (18:05) -
On The Limits of Market Solutions:
“That whole logic of the free market I think is out the window...these are quasi monopolies.” (31:25) -
On Organic vs. Engineered Order:
“We follow customary laws or just social habits not out of fear, but because they are...part of us.”
“Governing by a master plan requires heavy police work…” (42:09, 43:59)
Key Timestamps
- 03:34 – What is a Smart City?
- 04:31 – Real-World Examples & Historical Analogies
- 07:06 – Making Cities Legible for Control
- 11:17 – Centralized Agency & Decline of Ownership
- 13:35 – Urban Play & Spontaneous Use of Public Spaces
- 16:30 – The Joy of Movement and Agency
- 20:37 – Political Implications & The Corporate Sovereignty Puzzle
- 22:46 – Safetyism, COVID, and The Sanitization of Public Life
- 29:31 – Resistance to the Smart City
- 34:12 – Political Realignment, Tech Alliance, and Populism
- 39:04 – Iron Law of Oligarchy & The Question of the Common Good
- 42:09–44:15 – Hobbes vs. Jacobs: Governing by Custom or Rational Masterplan
Closing Reflection
Crawford’s core message is both philosophical and practical: As cities become “smart,” we risk losing essential elements of agency, vitality, and spontaneous human community that define urban life. The episode is a clarion call to consider not just efficiency and safety, but the broader question of how we wish to live, and under what forms of authority—political, corporate, or otherwise.
“The burden of argument should be on those who want to carry out such a transformation…without revealing a certain nihilistic streak, a certain anti humanism.”
— Matthew B. Crawford (25:24)
This summary skips all advertisements and non-content segments and maintains the thoughtful, contemplative tone set by the host and guest.