It is a recurring trend, occasionally rising to craze, to imagine that cities will be transformed by technology into entirely different places. Seattle has been participating since its world fair in 1962 (monorails and jetpacks anyone?) and most recently with a tech advisory board to tap into the expertise of local wizards at Amazon, Microsoft, Zillow, etc. The phenomenon is by no means restricted to Seattle, with “Smart City” conferences and articles abounding, breathless descriptions of automated vehicles, and a growing number of city-corporate partnerships to tap into big data and the internet of things.

It’s time to take a deep breath and reflect on the all the “dumb” things that make cities great, because shared data and information is only part of the puzzle. And this is said with no malice towards what technology can add—as Seattle mayor from 2009-2013 we opened up data portals, posted an accountability dashboard, championed municipal broadband, launched a “Find-it, Fix it” app, as well as real time maps on freezing roads, rainfall, and “where’s my snowplow.” We even held the first “civic hackathon.” Shared information matters in cities. It is one of the reasons cities form—to be close to the knowledge and activity of others. But it is far from the only one. And investing in a supposedly smart future won’t overcome the failure to get the dumb technologies right.

So here is my list of critical dumb technologies—tried and true, nothing fancy, but supremely important:

Walking

Not technically a technology, but everything trying to replace it is a technology—so play along here. In fact, walking upright may be the ur disruptive technology. A city that prioritizes fast moving vehicles on its streets is dangerously interfering with the exchange of ideas and goods that are at the heart of places. It’s not just that people on foot are pushed to the edges or into cars. The space taken up by cars moving or being stored separates destinations. And all those lights increase delay. (By the way, why is that never measured as destroying productivity for pedestrians in the way that traffic jams destroy productivity for drivers)? Plus, walking is healthy, has no carbon emissions, no smog, and no particulates that cause cancer. Show us a place full of people walking, and it is almost by definition low impact and economically productive in relation to the space it occupies.

The Wheel

It’s the technology that every school kid recognizes, along with fire, as one of our greatest technologies. I’m not talking about cars, just wheels without a massive engine attached. Wheelchairs, strollers, bikes, skateboards, scooters, and yes, even those dang solo wheels. Curb cuts, wide safewalks, protected bikeways, along with intersection design that prioritizes them, is another highly effective way to connect humans to each other—to share information, conduct commerce, create art, and decide matters of civic importance. Successful places soon outgrow their capacity to make those connections if everyone is encapsulated in a car, endlessly circling the block for a space, or spiraling upwards or downwards in the parking garage. But you can add a lot of wheels powered by people or lightweight electric motors—particularly if you take away some of the space occupied by cars.

Streets and Public Squares