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As a computer scientist once said, there's a fine line between smart and smart-ass. Why is it so hard to build a smart city? It's not a new idea—we've been making our cities smart for centuries. And for as long as we've had computers, we've used them as models and tools for making our cities smarter.

So where exactly does "smart" come from? In this solo session, we'll look at episodes in the history of smart cities, from computers to postal services to pneumatic tube systems to cybernetics, to name a few. We'll examine why cities try to be intelligent, how they fail, and where they succeed. What can we learn from these lessons? Where might they lead us in the future? And what exactly is that line between smart and smart-ass?