The Synthetic City: An Introduction

Rodgers, Scott, Helena Atteneder, Lou Therese Brandner, Marcos Dias, Diogo Pereira Henriques and Sara Trentham-Black

Angular fragments of a nineteenth-century city plan, its regular chamfered blocks cut apart and rotated to different angles, radiating from a dense dark cluster at the centre. Hundreds of fine plotted lines, some red and blue, run across and through them: horizontal and vertical bundles, long sweeping curves, and stray marks trailing off toward the empty white edges.

Dossiers, no. 2, vol. 11September 7, 2026<September 9, 2026

The Synthetic City: An Introduction

Scott Rodgers, Helena Atteneder, Lou Therese Brandner, Marcos Dias, Diogo P. Henriques and Sara Trentham-Black

AI has arrived in cities, but rarely as spectacle. This introduction to The Synthetic City dossier asks how agency gets attributed, what AI models learn and thereby settle in advance, and why the synthetic city may turn out to be more banal than dramatic.

Dossiers, no. 2, vol. 11September 7, 2026<September 9, 2026

What If AI Systems Self-Operate Our Cities?

Leandry Jieutsa

What happens when municipal AI stops assisting decisions and starts making them? Drawing on scenario-based interviews with eleven Quebec city managers, Leandry Jieutsa traces a drift toward "self-operating governance", where officials supervise algorithmic infrastructures rather than run them.

Dossiers, no. 2, vol. 11September 7, 2026<September 9, 2026

Real-Time Is Too Late: NEOM’s Digital Air and the Pre-emptive Synthetic City

Mehdi Ghassemi and David Murakami Wood

NEOM promised a city with its own "digital air". Mehdi Ghassemi and David Murakami Wood read the cognitive-city's promotional artefacts to show how atmosphere, consent and the digital twin were settled before any resident arrived, and what persists now the that brand has receded.

Google Fiber office, within a 19th Century six-story brick office building located in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.

Mediapolis Now, no. 1, vol. 10April 29, 2025<April 29, 2025

Voices Episode 8: Burcu Baykurt on Google Urbanism

Scott Rodgers

In the latest episode of our Voices podcast series, Burcu Baykurt discusses with Scott Rodgers her longstanding interests in Google as an increasingly influential agent in urban affairs, as well as her efforts to rethink ‘test-bed urbanism’ through the local.

Mediapolis Now, no. 4, vol. 8November 22, 2023<December 14, 2023

Voices Episode 4: Monica Degen and Gillian Rose on The New Urban Aesthetic

Scott Rodgers

In the latest episode of our Voices podcast series, Monica Degen and Gillian Rose discuss with Scott Rodgers their recent book exploring the emerging and varied digitalisation of urban aesthetics.

no. 4, Q & A, vol. 8November 18, 2023<November 22, 2023

The Mediapolis Q&A: Monica Degen and Gillian Rose’s The New Urban Aesthetic

Scott Rodgers, Monica Degen and Gillian Rose

Monica Degen and Gillian Rose discuss their book The New Urban Aesthetic: Digital Experiences of Urban Change with Scott Rodgers.

Dossiers, no. 2, vol. 8June 8, 2023<June 8, 2023

Doing Good for Disability in Asian Smart Cities?

Kuansong Victor Zhuang, Tay Sze Hwee Jocelyn, Gerard Goggin, Meng Ee Wong and Chei Sian Lee

Victor Zhuang et al. interrogate the discourse of “doing good” for disabled people through smart city initiatives and digital technology, asking how we might move from “doing good” to “doing good better.”

Dossiers, no. 2, vol. 8June 5, 2023<June 5, 2023

Care-by-Algorithm in Tiong Bahru Social Club (2020): Imagining the Technification of Happiness in Singapore

Pei-Sze Chow

Pei-Sze Chow reads the science-fiction film Tiong Bahru Social Club in the context of Singapore’s Smart Nation policies, arguing that its satirical vision of care-by-algorithm offers insights into how individuals might reclaim agency and “hack” the algocratic state.

Dossiers, no. 1, vol. 8March 30, 2023<March 30, 2023

Corporate Afrofuturism: Development Strategies for African Smart Cities

Kola Heyward-Rotimi

Kola Heyward-Rotimi investigates the speculative aesthetics of “corporate Afrofuturism” as a mode of neoliberal world-building. For smart city projects such as Nigeria’s Eko Atlantic, international architecture firms render digital projections of the continent’s urban future.

Dossiers, no. 3, vol. 7September 29, 2022<November 1, 2022

Beyond 5G: fieldnotes from Finland

Towards Atmospheric Care

Advancing feminist and critically engaged considerations of atmospheric media technologies, this essay by Towards Atmospheric Care (Hanna Husberg and Agata Marzecova) provides a snapshot of their ongoing interdisciplinary investigation of 5G-based smart solutions and new electronic ecosystems emerging in Finland, a country that has positioned itself at the forefront of inventing the wireless communication of the future.

Dossiers, no. 3, vol. 7September 28, 2022<September 28, 2022

5G: The Next True or False Public Utility of the Future City?

Fiona McDermott

Who is 5G really for? Fiona McDermott urges closer consideration of the public use value of much-hyped 5G technologies through an examination of the potentially fraught public-private partnerships extolling the development of urban 5G infrastructure in the name of public good.

Dossiers, no. 3, vol. 7September 27, 2022<September 28, 2022

Antifascism and anti-5G conspiracies

Günter Gassner

Günter Gassner examines the relationship between antifascism and anti-5G conspiracies, arguing for a critical examination of 5G as a global capitalist tool that can expedite fascist tendencies.