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"Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias" by John Lorinc is a comprehensive analysis of smart cities technology and its historical and conceptual development within the field of urban studies. The book explores the complexities of defining smart cities and examines the array of technologies that contribute to their development. It also delves into the connection between smart urbanism and utopian thought, as well as the role of technology and planning during the Covid-19 pandemic. The book emphasizes the importance of urban governance and the need for a balanced understanding of the positive and negative impacts of new technologies in urban landscapes. While the book could benefit from further exploration of the utopian origins of smart cities and post-colonial analysis, it is a valuable resource for researchers interested in the intersection of technology and urban planning. [Extracted from the article]

The current legal and political practice of human rights invokes entitlements to freely chosen work, to decent working conditions, and to form and join labor unions. Despite the importance of these rights, they remain under-explored in the philosophical literature on human rights. This article offers a systematic and constructive discussion of them. First, it surveys the content and current relevance of the labor rights stated in the most important documents of the human rights practice. Second, it gives a moral defense of these rights arguing that their support involves an appropriate response to important human interests and to the human dignity of workers. Finally, it explores central normative issues about the relation between labor rights and human dignity. It responds to some objections about the importance of work, explains why labor human rights may not exhaust the demands of dignity regarding labor and arbitrates a common tension between independence and solidarity within our practical affirmation of human dignity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]