From Smart Cities to the Urban Metatopias

Abstract

Taking the form of a theoretical essay inspired by an exploratory study, this article addresses, firstly, the urbanization crisis due to environmental and social problems. Second, it values new ways of designing and planning urban life. Then, it describes some practical experiments in a medium-sized Portuguese city, active and intelligent forms of urban citizenship using digital networks, rethinking the smart cities of datacracy. It is based on interviews with participants in a phenomenon that accompanies, as an unforeseen effect, the growth of urban centers: the paleopolitics of urban collectives that point to the metatopia of the ecological city governed by the common. Finally, some questions about the future of cities in a context of global crisis of our ecosystem are outlined.