Social and Spatial Experiences in the Cities of Tomorrow

Emanuele Giorgi,Andrea Bosio,Angelo Bugatti

doi:10.3390/soc10010009

Abstract

As described by the strong academic literature, (Vattimo, Bauman, Mumford, Simon, Haraway, Meschiari, Florida) the contemporary society is going through new challenges, such as the friction between youth, technology, and productivity. These challenges affect the way people live and experience the cities, but also the way cities need to evolve. An anthological analysis and a study of secondary sources is used to analyze the new spatial and social experiences, while the analysis of Milan (Italy) as a case study of a creative city is used to understand the rapid shift towards the virtualization of cities, in which consumption is progressively induced by a projected image of the city rather than its actual physical fabric. This manuscript opens a research front, with the goal to understand how architecture and urban design should leave the traditional typologies to propose a new way of creating and living architecture, caught in the middle between the real and the virtual.

Highlights

Nowadays, in our contemporary society, creativity and technology play a central role not just in the development of economic phenomena, and in the way people manage their inter-personal relationships and image their being in the environment
Assuming virtuality to be a space practiced today by young people in their everyday lives, the Assuming virtuality to be a space practiced today by young people in their everyday lives, the authors retrace in history, even in antiquity, potential precursors of such habit of considering the authors retrace in history, even in antiquity, potential precursors of such habit of considering the virtual space as a valid alternative to its physical counterpart
As discussed in the first section, the present research observes significant changes, within the last decades and especially since the advent of the Internet, over the spatial and the social experiences of people living in contemporary cities

Summary

Introduction

In our contemporary society, creativity and technology play a central role not just in the development of economic phenomena, and in the way people manage their inter-personal relationships and image their being in the environment. According to the current online sources related to the UN and ONU organizations, there are two trends that characterize today’s society: (1) Young people, who mainly live in urban areas (but not in central areas) are becoming a more and more powerful segment of society, due to their numbers and their new abilities, (2) technology is characterizing more and more the physical and digital world the youth will increasingly be immersed in In this respect, the authors consider, in particular, the work of Richard Florida, who argues the “creative centers provide the integrated ecosystem or habitat where all forms of creativity, artistic and cultural, technological and economic, can take root and flourish” [1] In order to better describe the situation of this vast slice of the population, is the fact that “the majority of the world’s youths have many obstacles to engage in productive activities” [3]

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