How are connected objects in cities perceived, represented and experienced? Do they influence our relationship with places and other people? Do they call into question our representations of the city and its quality?

In Ville numérique (éditions Mardaga), Emeline Bailly and Dorothée Marchant analyse the impacts of the digital city on our understanding of urban quality. Based on interdisciplinary empirical research, they explore how smartphones and urban digital objects create distance between us and places and other people and change our perception of urban landscapes. While digital technology is transforming our relationship with cities, forms of reterritorialisation appear. Places represent a strong unity of meaning, where nature encourages urban reanchoring. In this case, wouldn’t the challenge be to create links and come up with forms of urban living that combine urban and digital transitions with quality of living?

‘How can we talk about the quality of places when the digital city distance us from them? How are the digital objects that are connected to an urban space perceived and used? Do they form part of local amenities? Do they influence our relationship with places and their landscapes? ’

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