Autonomous vehicles cruise our city streets and highways. Now what? 

Join Anthony Townsend PhD '03 and Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT Senseable City Lab, for a discussion of how cities and urban innovation are poised to change in the years ahead with the advance of driverless vehicles.

The two will discuss current projects underway in the Senseable City Lab and the research behind Townsend's new book Ghost Road, ​published in spring 2020 - and take questions from alumni in this interactive forum. Moderator: Anil Ananthaswamy KF '20.

About Anthony Townsend PhD '03

Dr. Anthony Townsend works at the intersection of urbanization and digital technology. His first book, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers and the Quest for A New Utopia was published by W.W. Norton & Co. in 2013. In Ghost Road: Beyond the Driverless Car, Townsend argues convincingly that the driverless car is a red herring. When self-driving technology infects buses, bikes, delivery vans, and even buildings, a wild, woollier, future awaits...[read more]

About Carlo Ratti

An architect and engineer by training, Professor Carlo Ratti teaches at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he directs the Senseable City Lab, and is a founding partner of the international design office Carlo Ratti Associati. He graduated from the Politecnico di Torino and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, and later earned his MPhil and PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK...[read more]

Learn More

Book review: Ghost Road, by Anthony M Townsend (The Scotsman)

How Will Autonomous Vehicles Impact Cities? (ArchDaily)

The Social Nexus (Scientific American)