Are we in the age of the smart city? Will everyday existence be transformed by big data and its broad scale application to a range of public services and other central issues? This thoughtful set of meditations was released in June 2014 by scholars at the Wilson Center's Urban Sustainability Laboratory. The cities profiled in this report are New York, Ahmedabad, Sao Paulo, and Beijing, and scholars with first-hand knowledge of each metropole present their own findings in this 24-page report. There's much to think about here as the scholars make reference to public space transformation, urban agriculture, and economic development strategies of note.