Cities 5.0, much more than Smart Cities

If we had to define today's world, we could well do so with the headline "the era of distrust." We all distrust everyone and almost everything. The emotional and individual and collective bond of trust has been broken, not only with institutions, but also with companies, NGOs, and the media. This is reflected in the prestigious Edelman Trust Barometer 2025 report, which reveals a scenario marked by deep discontent and a global loss of trust. Six out of ten people declare a moderate or high level of grievance towards governments and companies, while the acceptance of hostile protest and activism methods (even violent ones) is growing, especially among young people. A widespread generational pessimism because only a third of respondents believe that the next generation will live better than the current one. 

But there is a glimmer of hope. While the report shows this growing global distrust, it also indicates that trust is built locally. In a time of uncertainty and distrust in the present and future, it is more important than ever to deploy a new "politics of affections" and this is done efficiently from the community, the territory, and proximity. It is in this context that the social purpose of cities regains meaning to rebuild collective social legitimacy. It is in proximity where institutions and companies must demonstrate with actions—not just with words and speeches—that they can be part of the solution to social unrest, rebuilding the idea of progress. Progress based on an updated political, social, cultural, environmental, and technological agenda to face the challenges of the 21st century with ethics, transparency, and efficiency as critical factors for building a new legitimacy.

For some years now, we have mainly invested in only one leg of innovation, that of technology, popularizing the term Smart City, the intelligent city. A reference model for managing our cities through a wide range of digital technologies, with connectivity as the new mantra, in areas such as sustainability, mobility, or the management of public space to improve the quality of life in cities. A well-intentioned and necessary approach, but entirely insufficient. The new technological prophets proclaimed that a new technological determinism ---or technoutopia--- from cities would come to solve most of the problems and challenges we face in the era of the digital and knowledge society. But reality shows that technology without equity, and without a human focus and sensitivity, can generate, and already does, new gaps and inequalities.

The concept Smart City has thus become constrained by a technological concept that needs to be revisited and complemented with a human and much more sustainable approach from both a social and cultural point of view. That would be the vision of City 5.0. An urban vision that emanates from the concept of Society 5.0 introduced by the Japanese government in 2016 in the V Basic Plan for Science and Technology to define the emerging Super Smart Society ---the Super Smart Society---. It is a concept of society centered on the human being, and not so much on technology, in which economic development and the resolution of social problems are compatible with each other through a highly integrated system between physical and digital space. 

It is evident that smart cities can represent a quantitative and qualitative leap to provide greater efficiency to urban management, but technology is not neutral by nature. While it is an essential tool for the innovation of public policies, as well as for businesses, it can also exert an unwanted negative impact on important groups or citizens. Reality shows that some technological advances are not designed to benefit society or the common interest, but rather serve eminently the corporate interests of some companies. It is for this reason that it is necessary to introduce a new dimension in the reflection on the deployment of Smart Cities, giving a new centrality to the concept of "urban well-being."

The challenge lies in how to design cities where technology in cities is not only efficient but also human. Urban well-being policies, or City 5.0 policies, could be defined as the set of policies and actions from both the public and private sectors, which translates into a reasonable balance between the economic, environmental, cultural, and social needs of the people who live in or use the city. While the idea of the smart city has focused on sensors, data, and algorithms, City 5.0 is not only the most technologically connected city but also one that is connected in major value chains, as well as in emotional connectivity with its residents and visitors. It is not about improving processes, but about addressing people's needs, that is, their health, their safety, their sense of belonging, and their happiness.

In recent years, we have seen the birth of different megaprojects attempting to design the perfect city with futuristic, intelligent, green, and sustainable projects as the best dream of some political leaders or great magnates. These are cities built from scratch that promise to solve, with new technologies, new processes, forms, and materials, the great challenges that cities face such as overcrowding, mobility, pollution, inequality, insecurity, or the sustainability of water, energy, and waste. Driven by a new utopian urbanism, they are normally oriented towards the upper classes to offer them a new promised land where life would be perfect. 

"True urban intelligence is not measured in megabytes, sensors, processes, or algorithms, but in shared human well-being"

In short, the city of the future will never be a perfect city. Nor will they be the most automated, but rather those that manage to intelligently combine innovation and empathy, efficiency and coexistence. True urban intelligence is not measured in megabytes, sensors, processes or algorithms, but in shared human well-being. Technology can be a great ally of well-being, but always provided it is used with a clear social purpose.