In many ways, the United States did not enter the 1980s on a winning streak. Although the post–World War II economic boost continued through most of the 1960s, the 1970s were a series of setbacks, course corrections, and downright embarrassments for the US economy. Ever since 1945, when most of the developed world outside the United States lay in various states of ruination, and much of the rest was in one or another stage of emerging from colonialism, Americans had enjoyed the sense of being alone at the top of the world economy. Rapid growth, and relatively fair distribution of its benefits, opened the way not only to prosperity but to a strong sense that people were on an upward-ascending escalator whose top was as yet far ahead.

This chapter examines the case of institutional design for urban data governance in the City of Seattle as a collective action problem, referencing three prominent theoretical frameworks for examining institutional change and institutional economics. This work centers on the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework, which is adapted from Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework for natural resource commons and developed to study institutional arrangements for overcoming various social dilemmas associated with sharing and producing information, innovation, and creative works. Furthermore, this chapter notes the foundational integration of the IAD framework with Oliver Williamson’s transaction cost economics (TCE), highlighting the role of transaction costs in understanding the externalities associated with the governance of data.

Between 1880 and 1920 the US economy rode several transformative technologies into a new economic era.The transportation and communication revolutions that began earlier in the nineteenth century gained momentum: rail networks grew astronomically, and the telephone accelerated the communications revolution that the telegraph had begun. Meanwhile, although the corporate form as a legal entity was well established by 1880, it was in the years leading up to 1920 that very large, nation-spanning business enterprises came to dominate the economy. The cause was those famous Chandlerian twins, scale and scope.1 Corporations as a legal category were well known by 1880; but large, vertically integrated corporations as the prime mover of a rapidly expanding economy took over after that. This is the story of the corporatization of the American economy.

Pittsburgh is arguably one of the great twentieth-century urban success stories, but in the twenty-first century, Pittsburgh is unexceptional. That makes Pittsburgh a good case for examining governance of smart city technology, because Pittsburgh is neither behind some imaginary urban technology curve nor ahead of it. Like many cities, it doesn’t aspire to be celebrated as a “smart city”; instead, it merely hopes to do well, even to thrive. Pittsburgh has steadily accumulated and deployed a broad range of technology systems as part of its public administration practice, celebrating its advances as often and as much as it might. The case study documents what might be referred to as “ordinary” or “normal” governance of smart city technology and governance via smart city technology. The chapter offers a broad historical take on ICTs and smart technologies in Pittsburgh. It also dives more deeply into some specific examples. Its research and presentation are pluralistic in tone, style, and method.

Smart cities require much more than smart tech. Cities need trusted governance and engaged citizens. Integrating surveillance, AI, automation, and smart tech within basic infrastructure, as well as public and private services and spaces, raises a complex set of ethical, economic, political, social, and technological questions that requires systematic study and careful deliberation. Throughout this book, authors have asked contextual research questions and explored compelling but often distinct answers guided by the shared structure of the GKC framework. The Conclusion discusses some of the key themes across chapters in this volume, considering lessons learned and implications for future research.

The era that followed the founding period was characterized overall by very rapid population and GDP growth. The US population nearly doubled in twenty years from 1820 to 1840. It took until 1863 for GDP per capita to grow that much, and the economy actually shrank after that due to the devastation of the Civil War.1 By 1872, the post-War slump was over, however, and the US economy entered what one historian has called the “takeoff stage.”2 Figure 3.1 tells the basic story of this era.

To further explore the issues discussed in previous chapters, this chapter uses the city of Bloomington, Indiana, and its open data portal as a case study. As open data portals are considered to be an instantiation of digital commons, it is assumed that its design and governance would support cooperation and community participation and at least some forms of communal ownership, co-creation, and use. To test these assumptions, the GKC framework and its concepts and guiding questions are applied to this specific case to understand the actions around the portal and their patterns and outcomes.

Smart city technology has its value and its place; it isn’t automatically or universally harmful. Urban challenges andopportunities addressed via smart technology demand systematic study, examining general patterns and local variations as smart city practices unfold around the world. Smart cities are complex blends of community governance institutions, social dilemmas that cities face, and dynamic relationships among information and data, technology, and human lives. Some of those blends are more typical and common. Some are more nuanced in specific contexts. This volume uses the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework to sort out relevant and important distinctions. The framework grounds a series of case studies examining smart technology deployment and use in different cities. This chapter briefly explains what that framework is, why and how it is a critical and useful tool for studying smart city practices, and what the key elements of the framework are. The GKC framework is useful both here and can be used in additional smart city case studies in the future.

Over the years, a number of brilliant historical studies have appeared in my primary field of patent law. The nonprofessional but exceptionally devoted historian Edward Walterscheid comes first to mind.1 His history of the earliest years of patent law (1790–1836) is an invaluable resource. Zorina Khan’s economic history of intellectual property law during the “long” nineteenth century (1789–1910)2 is a tour de force of empirical and analytic rigor. Christopher Beauchamp’s history of the Bell telephone technology and legal controversy is a similarly outstanding book.3 Beauchamp’s article on the “first” patent litigation explosion is also one I refer to over and over.4 The same goes for Oren Bracha’s intellectual history of copyright and patent from 1790 to 1909, an essential reference for me.5 Likewise, research by the historian Kara Swanson on the evolution of the US Patent Office and the profession of patent agent/lawyer, among other topics, is the best and most thorough account of these crucial topics.6

This chapter explores various aspects of community land trusts (CLTs), focusing on how this governance model effectively functions as an ownership structure for common pool resources. Indeed, understanding the incentives facing the owners of any communal ownership structure is vital to successfully creating and managing a CLT. These resource commons aspects are conceptually explained and explored below through a descriptive account of current practices within the CLT sector.