Social housing futurism

Picture the cities of the future. The image might resemble the mechanical conurbations of H.G. Wells or Fritz Lang, the neon-noir density of Neuromancer or Blade Runner, or the cities shaped by biomimicry or autonomous robotics found in more recent iterations of science fiction. A technical way of imagining the urban future is also found in those industries that see themselves as the agents charged with delivering it, including promoters of smart city and smart home applications, practitioners of parametric architecture, or proponents of artificial intelligence, extended reality and ubiquitous computing. For these groups, the urban future is defined by the popular uptake of their products. What we can refer to generally as the techno-futurist ideal in urbanism supposes that the arrival of the city of tomorrow will be heralded by the pervasive deployment of advanced technology throughout urban space and everyday life.