RE-TURN CITIES: THE FUTURE OF THE PAST
The future of the past
According to World Urbanization Prospects by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs ONU (2014), the percentage of people living in the cities is predicted to rise to 75% by 2050.
The population migration has always diven political aspects including the design process of the cities. So, which would the future of post-productivist transition be?
I was a small country city, I was founded hundreds years ago on one of the oldest roads of Italy. I have been populated for centuries and generations lived into my streets, protected by my boundary walls.
It was 2050, and as already theorized in the past years by the ONU, the contry cities were depopulated in favor of the bigger urban centres, with services, large squares and futuristic infrastructures. All my inhabitants left, the houses remained empty, and in the alleys, no more noise was heard. I was alone for a long time, enough to make me forget how it felt to be inhabited, but my situation was not isolated: many other villages like me suffered the same fate…
…Until, slowly, someone began to return. At the beginning it was mostly about tourists or scholars, who stayed for a while. Sometimes a few hours and very rarely for whole days. But soon, the visits became longer and longer…
…Because of the large densification of urban centers, which could no longer accommodate all those people and that had lost their human dimension.
I like to think that it was the inhabitants who wanted to return, to re-establish a relationship with their origins, but retaining the technological and social progress that they had known in the big cities.
And I was very happy to adapt to that new needs with roads, architectures and the refurbishment of ancient buildings. The process lasted a few years, when my inhabitants and I worked together and consolidated our relationship.
Now, January 3, 2118, I am the future of my past, a RE-TURN CITY like many others, readapted to the new needs of my inhabitants.
