Abstract
In the present chapter, a contribution will try to be offered to the debate on the project of contemporary cities, through a trans-disciplinary approach, starting from a central point of view that often, when dealing with a project of urban space, is taken into marginal account: the psychological one. Is the psyche of contemporary human beings sufficiently prepared to live well in the cities we have built? Does it make sense to talk about smart cities, if people are still expecting to see their basic individual and collective needs resolved in the urban fabric? The text starts from an examination of the research state of the art, then continues with an analysis of the characteristics that contribute to recognizing an urban space as a place, highlighting a series of behaviors that could be deepened or used as a driver for the re-appropriation of the city.
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Notes
- 1.
The use of the plural is deliberate, as it will be explained later; dealing with cities, one of the great ambiguities derives from using the term to indicate political, administrative and geographic territories. Although it is increasingly accepted that contemporary people live in a Territorial Pangea made of a single urban fabric, we continue to move from one city to another, without feeling (more and more often) a real sense of belonging to any of them. We use them rather than living them, and this creates an identity crisis.
- 2.
Sinusoids that can describe regular economic cycles within the modern capitalist system. Five waves have been recognized since 1771: the industrial revolution, the era of steam and railways, the era of steel and heavy engineering, the era of oil and automobile and the telematic era.
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Lonardo, E. (2020). Metropolis. Urban Mindscapes. In: Anzani, A. (eds) Mind and Places. Springer Series in Design and Innovation , vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45566-8_17
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