SmartCity.exe - Update Required

When Stanisław Lem wrote those words, he was warning us — not just about space exploration or alien contact, but about the dangers of chasing illusions dressed as progress. He understood that the real mystery wasn’t out there, but right here: how we build systems that reflect who we are, and how easily we can be seduced by the versions of ourselves they show back to us.

Today, our cities are beginning to reflect us back in new ways — not through fiction or metaphor, but through data. Through mirrors made of maps, sensors, and simulations. Welcome to the Citiverse.

But unlike the synthetic realities of The Futurological Congress or the recursive psychology of Solaris, the Citiverse isn’t an escape. It’s something far stranger: a version of the real world made more visible, more malleable, more alive — if we build it right.

So, What Actually is the Citiverse?

If you’ve already read Bas Boorsma’s thoughtful take or Outi Valkama’s on-the-ground example from Tampere (and if you haven’t, I would highly recommend that you do), you’ll know the Citiverse isn’t a virtual theme park or a metaverse offshoot with better PR.

It’s not escapism — it’s interface. It’s not a replica — it’s a reflection. It’s a collection of real-world systems, tools, and technologies designed to make cities more responsive, legible, and humane.

Think of it like a new layer of city life. Part infrastructure, part imagination.

At the heart of it are things like:

• Digital Twins — living, breathing models of cities that sync with reality in real-time. Not just maps, but predictive, collaborative environments.

• Immersive platforms — think AR for civic engagement, VR for planning, interfaces that let you walk through a proposal rather than squint at a PDF or endure death-by-PowerPoint..

• AI-driven city services — not because it’s on trend, but because it’s faster, more adaptive, and increasingly less annoying than physically calling someone. (“God forbid!” says my Millennial mind.)

• Citizen-led feedback loops — digital channels that don’t just collect opinion, but shape policy.

Where it Works

If you want to see the Citiverse in action without the fireworks, look at Tampere. No fanfare, no headset hype. Just solid, practical civic tools that happen to be revolutionary. Or the Urban Metaverse of Montgomery, in Alabama, where citizens are empowered to learn about their cultural history through a living and breathing metaverse experience.

Residents in these cities are helping shape the built environment via immersive consultations. 

Developers and planners are using digital twins to walk stakeholders through proposed changes — not renderings on a wall, but spatially accurate, data-rich, collaboratively editable environments.

This isn’t “public engagement” in the classic sense (think of the classic town hall meeting that you’ve seen on TV…because if you’re like me, you’ve never actually attended one). It’s participatory city-making that respects your time and your brain.

It’s a far cry from the tokenistic checkbox exercises of the past. Here, citizens aren’t just being heard — they’re being handed the tools.

And that’s important. Because when you give people the means to see how the machine works, they stop being passengers and start becoming co-pilots.

Blinded by Science?

Now, it’s easy to get carried away. You’ve seen the renders: glass towers, drones in the sky, HUD displays, kids in AR goggles designing the next metro station. Part-fascinating, part-dystopia.

Some of it’s exciting but a lot of it is make-believe.

The Citiverse isn’t about turning your city into a video game. It’s not about impressing conference rooms. It’s about solving real problems in complex places with messy histories and uncertain futures.

We should be wary of being blinded by science — flashy interfaces that look great in a demo but have no actual users, no ongoing support, no connection to real decisions.

And we should be even more wary of proprietary platforms masquerading as public infrastructure. Because when the Citiverse becomes a product, it stops being a place we all belong to.

As Stanisław Lem warned us decades ago:

Okay, he said “cosmos,” not city. But I won’t miss a chance to quote Lem again, even if incorrectly.

Weirdness-as-a-Service

One of the things I love about cities is that they’re unpredictable. Organic. Contradictory. That’s what makes them human.

And weirdly, the Citiverse, done right, preserves that weirdness.

Because what we’re talking about here isn’t just high-spec digital overlays — it’s the ability to encode memory, emotion, history, and even friction, into the urban fabric.

Imagine a psychogeographic layer of the city you can tap into: stories, past decisions, hidden routes, former waterways, protest sites, forgotten gardens — a digital archaeology of place, curated by the people who live there.

Imagine a city that remembers.

That’s the bit that excites me. Not just the dashboards and digital twins, but the possibility of a city that grows with us, that reflects who we are, not just what we optimise.

Future? Or Next Draft?

Here’s the truth, though: no one has the full picture yet. The Citiverse isn’t finished. It’s being prototyped in fragments — in Tampere, in Rotterdam, in Montgomery, in Kiev. It’s not a uniform solution…yet.

But it’s happening. And unlike some of the digital snake oil we’ve seen over the years, this one’s got traction.

Why? Because it’s useful. It saves time. It shows things we couldn’t otherwise see. It gives people a say. And when it’s built well, it disappears into the background — like kerbs, lifts, and broadband. Just infrastructure that works.

We’re still working out the rules, the ethics, the governance. But the early signs are good. We’re seeing more open standards, more public-sector ownership, more citizen control.

We’re learning how to design interfaces that don’t just work for the digitally fluent, but for everyone. And we’re starting to think about the UX of cities — how a city makes you feel, and how digital tools can support that.

Is it moving too slowly? Yes, there’s a school of thought that suggests that. However, we’re living in a time of rapid technological advancement, and in some verticals we’re seeing untamed innovation being deployed without the necessary safeguards in place. The Citiverse project, hand-in-hand with other metaverse initiatives, is about putting the safety rails in place first so that we don’t fall into a technological trap later on.

Let’s Co-Author the City!

Here’s the bit we can’t forget: the Citiverse isn’t just something cities build. It’s something we inhabit, shape, challenge, play with, and remake.

And that means we’ve got to stay involved — not just as users, but as authors.

We need to keep asking:

• Is this making the city more transparent, or less?

• Who’s benefiting? Who’s being left out?

• Is this genuinely helpful, or just aesthetically impressive?

Because in the end, the Citiverse isn’t an end goal. It’s a civic process.

It’s the moment we stopped seeing digital and physical as opposites and started treating them like layers of the same place.

The city you walk through. The one you tap into. The one that listens back.

Article by Guest Author Joe Appleton

How does the Citiverse sound?

In our special IMAGINE the Citiverse series on Smart in the City – The BABLE Podcast, our host Tamlyn Shimizu speaks directly with the Partner Cities participating in the IMAGINE Challenge. These cities are not just imagining the Citiverse—they’re aiming to shape it by tackling real urban challenges with digital innovation, inclusion, and sustainability at the core:

• #110 IMAGINE the Citiverse: Rotterdam & Genova

Roland van der Heijden and Viglienzoni, Alfredo explore how Gemeente Rotterdam, Netherlands, and Comune di Genova, Italy are addressing pressing challenges—flood resilience and total digital inclusion, respectively—through the Citiverse lens. Their conversation touches on digital twin technologies, accessibility, and how human-centred design ensures no one is left behind.

• #115 IMAGINE the Citiverse: Aurora & London's Thames Freeport

Michael Pegues and Tom White share how the IMAGINE Challenge entries of the City of Aurora, IL, USA and Thames Freeport , London, UK seek to create a zero-carbon Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform and identify & support vulnerable residents through preventative digital public services. Both cities spotlight how immersive technologies, AI, and real-time data help build smarter, more caring communities.

• #119 IMAGINE the Citiverse: Phoenix & Valencia

Michael Hammett and Arturo Castello discuss how the City of Phoenix, USA and Ajuntament de València, Spain use citizen co-creation and technology to rethink civic participation and develop sustainable, inclusive urban spaces as part of their challenge contributions.

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