City planning doesn't exist by right. Like any other area of public policy, it needs to prove its worth, add something and make cities better (however defined) than if it didn't exist. City planning in the modern, comprehensive, open and accountable sense is a relatively new phenomenon and some, such as Churchill, preferred the ‘old ways’. Some still do. The flip side of the romantic, serendipitous, edgy nature of Churchill's flight of fancy was the disease-ridden, overcrowded, unequal reality for many.

Churchill was writing his own story of the city, and it's one that persists today in the views of many who would argue for the state to step back to let the market dictate and decide, a view that characterises the attitude of both left-leaning anarchists and right-wing neoliberals. The ‘smart city’ story is similar in many ways to Churchill's poetic image. Let the city be the sum of its parts. We don't need to direct cities because digital technology will provide the answers and a route to the future that it will shape. Yet, as I’ve argued throughout this book, not only is this assurance false, but smart also presents an existential threat to our cities and the future of humanity. It's time to write a new story of the city, one that reclaims a central part for collective, open, inclusive and future-looking management and action.