The City: From a “Social Laboratory” to a Digital Environment for Innovation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2025.5.3146Keywords:
city, social urban studies, urbanization, deurbanization, social ecology, urban studies, migration, smart city, digital environmentAbstract
The article opens a Special Issue of the Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes journal devoted to social urban studies. Since the emergence of social urban studies, both the spatial forms and the challenges that cities face today have changed significantly. In their article, the Issue's guest editors attempt to trace the evolution of social urban studies over the past century and identify the most pressing issues of interest to researchers today. The year 2025 is considered a milestone for social urban studies since a century ago was published the Chicago School's classic work The City and the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris attracted attention to the bold projects of Soviet architects. Furthermore, 2025 marks the 95th anniversary of Tamara Dridze's birth, and the 25th Dridze Readings will be held in memory of her scholarly legacy this year.
Urbanization is not only increasing the urban population of most countries around the world but also spreading urban practices and lifestyles to rural communities. The boundaries between city and village are gradually blurring, giving rise to new forms of settlement that are no longer easily classified as cities, suburbs, or rural areas. The boundaries of agglomerations are dissolving due to increasing mobility, and it is now difficult to definitively determine where the Moscow or St. Petersburg agglomeration end. The concept of the city dweller as a permanent resident is also changing, raising questions of commuting and "new citizens". The spread of digital technologies poses new questions for contemporary researchers and offers unusual perspectives on traditional problems, changing social urban studies and transforming cities into “living laboratories” for future innovation. Social urban studies continue the tradition of focusing on people and urban communities, issues of social inequality, the right to the city, migration, and public health. However, it naturally strives to expand its scope, drawing on ideas and methods from urban and visual anthropology, economic geography, management, architecture and landscape design, ecology, and urban planning, which contributes to the emergence of interdisciplinary research.
In the final part, the authors present the articles included in the Special Issue.
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