The future of the city from Science to Science Fiction and back (and beyond)

There are many ways of imagining the future of the city. We can start with the growth of urbanisation, which envisages that in 2050 more than two-thirds of the world population will live in cities. And from there calculate the increase in the ecological footprint that urban life will determine, the increase in consumption of the land, and the possible rise in inequality and segregation. Or reflect on the new role of the city in globalisation and in the nation-state crisis. Or refer to the new lifestyles or homologation produced by globalisation. Or look at the city from the standpoint of the country, of territory being abandoned, its desertification and the loss of biodiversity. Or try to classify the many types of city and the semi-urban settlements irradiated by the city. Background There are many ways of imagining the future of the city. We can start with the growth of urbanisation, which envisages that in 2050 more than two-thirds of the world population will live in cities (http://esa.un.org/unpd/ wup/unup/index_panel1.html). And from there calculate the increase in the ecological footprint that urban life will determine (http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/), the increase in consumption of the land (Van Camp et al. 2004), and the possible rise in inequality (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009) and segregation (Glasze et al. 2006). Or reflect on the new role of the city in globalisation and in the nation-state crisis (Sassen 2001; Sassen 2006). Or refer to the new lifestyles or homologation produced by globalisation (Giddens 1991). Or look at the city from the standpoint of the country, of territory being abandoned, its desertification (Geist 2005) and the loss of biodiversity (Pimm et al. 1995). Or try to classify the many types of city and the semiurban settlements irradiated by the city. We will try to reconstruct a somewhat atypical gaze over the future of the city, the one of the utopias linked with science fiction that picked out some doubts that Correspondence: [email protected] Department of Architecture, Design, Urban Planning (DADU) Palazzo del Pou Salit, Alghero University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy © 2014 Cecchini; licensee Springer. This is an O Attribution License (http://creativecommons.or in any medium, provided the original work is p the “scientific” utopias had put aside. These scientific utopias suggested – and did so, as we will mention, by two different methods – an ideal city, a “right” way to think of the organisation of society and the city, whereas these – in a cutting manner – describe the “real” ideal cities (in the sense that was given to the term when “real socialism” was referred to). As we know, science and utopia have been intertwined since the birth of the urban studies discipline: the first urbanists were often also social reformers and of many different types, but their approach was that of the engineers (hygiene engineers rather than social engineers) and not so much that of future-builders; if the lament was often radical, the solutions proposed were just as peacefully reformist. A summary of that position might be: science to cure the city and the utopia to imagine a new one. Obviously, in this article I do not wish to reproduce the well-nurtured debate on the concept of Utopia, a rather controversial one even if we limit it to the utopias involving the city (Bloch 2000; Bloch 1986; Choay 1965; Jameson 2005; Marcuse 1970; Mumford 1962; Nozick 1974; Reiner 1963; Tafuri 1976) I would just like to choose from a few science fiction works the traces of the evolution of urban utopias and above all those that refer to the aversion of the majority of utopians, with the partial exception of a share of pen Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons g/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction roperly credited. Cecchini City, Territory and Architecture 2014, 1:5 Page 2 of 9 http://www.cityterritoryarchitecture.com/content/1/1/5 modernists, towards the “big city” (la ville mal aimée [the unloved city] (http://www-ohp.univ-paris1.fr/TOC_Colloque/TOC_Def.htm)). There is an ancient tradition of urbaphobia, going back almost as far as the birth of the city, the place of physical and moral perdition. Science fiction utopias almost always belong to the urbaphobia trend.