In the wake of globalization and State rescaling, cities are regaining relevance as social laboratories for new and innovative practices of social inclusion and participation. Within this trend cities are becoming again and more than ever a project. Policy‐makers, planners, inhabitants and mob le people build representations and idealizations that make a big part of the allure of urban life. Cities are imagined, made and remade “by design”. This has long tradition: from the grids of Roman cities to contemporary capitals like Brasilia, from Megalopolis like Shēnzhèn to living experiments like Soleri’s Arcosanti; from urban lives in the Renaissance to the Futurist vertical dreams; from, the 19th‐century garden cities to the current hype for smart cities.
RC21 | Research Committee on Urban and Regional Development