The city as a software. A paradigm shift in the era of global crisis

The transition from an industrial society to one of information has had huge impacts on the development of the contemporary city. The latter can now be seen more like a software than hardware. A vast and complex urban digital ecosystem extract, aggregate and analyze big data in order to predict citizens’ behavior and to provide better services to them. When the city is software and everything is information, the IT corporations can easily start transforming the physical space of our cities with new products and services or through the design, construction, and management of new smart neighborhoods. The Covid-19 outbreak clearly showed the power of new digital technologies, and so the opportunities and the risks related to their diffusion. The pandemic must be seen not like an exceptional event, but more like a manifestation of the wider environmental crisis. From this perspective, how the city seen as software can help us to achieve sustainability, understood here in its three meanings: economic, social, and environmental? How can we use new technologies to contribute to the creation of a more sustainable and more inclusive society