The rise of Uber over the last decade is a symbol of smartphone technology?s rise as the operating system for urban life. | Future via Getty Images

From Airbnb to Amazon In 2010, less than a third of American adults carried around smartphones. Ten years later, these devices, now owned by 80 percent of adults, seem ubiquitous. The rush of apps and services built off the proliferation of this technology may have left a bigger mark on our cities, for better or worse, than just about any other technological shift. Smartphones may well be the default way many of us experience and even see cities, helping us get around, plan a night out, book trips, and even shop for groceries.
Here are the tech giants, startups, and apps that have shaped the last decade of urban life. Uber: Tech?s terrible role model

Curbed

The ride sharing Goliath represents so many of the ways technology has changed our cities; it?s a symbol of smartphone technology?s rise as the operating system for urban life, a shorthand for the exploitative ?Uber-for-X? contract labor system, and a character study of the bold, boorish tech founder (Travis Kalanick) who sells utopian snake oil?in this case, a vision of a transportation revolution.
But perhaps the biggest impact Uber will have, in addition to failing spectacularly at reducing both congestion and emissions, is in setting a template for the way tech companies work with cities. For much of Uber?s existence, it collaborated with c...