An NGO we write about often called “Smart Growth America” is now bragging that they are the new experts on ‘form based code’. Recall that they have claimed that millennials prefer city living with no cars or homes of their own, to rural living and ownership of homes and automobiles. We suggest they doth protest too much.

“Form-based codes often serve as the regulatory framework for smart growth in communities across the country,” Scot Spencer, Smart Growth America’s board chair and Associate Director of Advocacy and Influence at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, noted in the official press release announcing the merger.

The nerve of these people to speak about ethics!

Hildebrant says: “Hildebrandt broke down the smart city model into five main tenets. Firstly, a smart city uses a digital infrastructure that is standardized and safe. Secondly, it provides room for research and experimentation, allowing for collaboration between the public and private sectors. Thirdly, it requires a new government system, where officials work directly with citizens to achieve goals. Fourthly, it will ideally promote and improve education and increase employment. Finally, the smart city will work as a network with other smart cities, and using this regional collaboration, it will be more effective and efficient at creating change and progress.”

As we and others have written about before, ‘smart’ cities are less about your needs and desires, and more about the desire to regionalize and eventually globalize American government, government under the corporations.

The “public/private partnerships” seen in an expanded view are truly rule by corporations, nothing more. America will be seen and divided as economic regions and people will be used and exploited for the government. Now you know why education geared to ‘workers’ and property is referred to as ‘settlements’.