Living smart in smart cities. Changing senses and changing insitutions

With the introduction of digital technologies in every area of our daily life, the way people conceive cities with their squares, streets and infrastructures has radically changed. In their race for sustainability and smartness, cities are adapting their urban models to new ways of life that are radically different from the past and that are inspired by principles connected to ecology, democracy and well-being. To change is not only the geographical or architectonic characteristic of the place, but also its sense in the individual and collective identity dimension. Alongside the changes produced in the senses, there is also a change in the way institutions are understood and lived both in their normative and community dimensions. Through the relational dimension, socially built cities are slowly and inexorably abandoning an identity based on history, symbols and emotional experiences to create a standardized model of urban social organization where, in accordance with the processes of culturalization carried out at the UN with the Agenda 2030, what counts is functionality, savings, efficiency. A project where there is no space for feelings, emotions, authentic sharing. This grey perspective of in authenticity leads us to wonder how much dangerous these changes in terms of urban well-being are, considering that the material dimension is constantly being reshaped and people are constantly moving.