Can Technology Keep Cities Safe?

"Step by step, cities like New York must now learn to watch and track everything that moves... However much local governments may yearn for a one-stop federal solution to their new security problems, much of the initiative and innovation will almost certainly be left to them... Consider the way quite similar tools are currently solving the problem of highway congestion. The tollbooth transponders now spreading rapidly across the United States—New York’s E-ZPass system is an example—track cooperative targets very effectively and save willing cooperators a lot of time, compared with the toll collectors or coin baskets of old. The relatively primitive friend-recognition network to which E-ZPass belongs now extends across all of New York and from New England down to the Mid-Atlantic states. Other networks are more sophisticated, like the new beltway around Toronto, a toll road without tollbooths: transponders, cameras, and license-plate numbers provide the billing information."