Kudos to the residents - but since this article is not just about BCN: > People may not want everything monitored and who decides and shapes this agenda is a b

Kudos to the residents - but since this article is not just about BCN: > People may not want everything monitored and who decides and shapes this agenda is a big question for future urban democracy. That is actually my main problem with those fab labs: As collecting data becomes a means of power, the fabs are often an attempt to grab that power. I.e. the people running them are almost always heavily politically aligned towards one extreme of the spectrum and thus the labs themselves are ideological echo chambers (at least in my country). No wonder it produces agendas like these: > "We are trying to build a new productivity model for society, creating a new sustainable economy in cities where people can prototype and test ideas," Like this (an implied technical ability of the masses) is ever going to happen. Especially if the ones advocating it, are either shunning people outside their belief-system or "promoting" the ability with projects and agendas, no one outside their belief-system is even remotely interested in. Consider affluent neighbourhood residents going into these labs to print their own noise detectors because of their annoyance with the asylum-seeker-home next door. Not gonna happen. And since Detroit was mentioned: What if those youngsters in plaça del sol where the ones equipped with sensors?