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John
Lorinc

John Lorinc is a journalist and editor who reports on urban affairs, politics, business, technology, and local history. His work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Walrus, Maclean’s, and Spacing, where he is senior editor. He won the 2019-2020 Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy for his research and reporting on politics and governance of smart cities around the world. Lorinc is the author of three books of nonfiction and co-editor of four anthologies. He lives in Toronto. 

Award History

2022 Winner

Balsillie Prize for Public Policy
for Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias

Jury Citation

“John Lorinc invites readers to consider how technology – specifically smart city tech – fits into the overall city-building equation. For him, smart cities are not a shiny new invention, but a continuation of an aspirational and historical trajectory toward ‘utopia.’ He argues that the pursuit of utopia must not be naively extracted from the political, socio-economic, spatial, physical, cultural layers that compose a city. Rather, drawing upon cases from around the world, he offers a framework for thinking about the future of urban living. Lorinc compels readers to consider the future of cities not only in the post-pandemic period, but also amid an accelerating and worsening climate crisis.”