UCity: utopias and dystopias

Abstract

A part of the Third International Conference for Young Urban Researchers (TICYUrb) held in June 2018, the track UCITY was designed to help participants reflect on the roles of Utopias, Dystopias and Heterotopias in reflecting about and rethinking the city in the present, past and future. Particularly, utopian and dystopian literature have influenced the debate throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, helping to make the city the center of our most fertile imaginaries about the future, social progress and transformation. Cities evolved to symbolize the future of Humanity and thus utopian, dystopian and heterotopian scenarios became alternative reflections of who we wished to become. With the rise of the ubiquitous Smart Cities paradigm, it is extremely important that we collaborate with the Arts and Humanities to imagine and discuss alternative ideas for the future of our cities. From a collective project to an insurgent tool for urban inquiry, the term utopia is explored in the following discussions as a representation of the much needed space for dialogue about what is possible, desirable and valuable.