Our society needs a vision for a future that is made by and starts from people. Local communities are the foundation of human society and the way in which our cities and communities are governed determines how we look forward to our future.

The role of technology and the evolutions in digitisation can not be underestimated. But technology in any forms always has had an impact on the way that people interact. In the past the invention of steam engines, trains and automobiles revolutionalised our world. But all too often we forget why we use technology. It is the answer , but what was the question?

Smart cities are a hype in the field of thinking about and working on the city and the local community of the future. But smart cities can be dangerous. Especially when technology is only used with control as objective, or profit maximisation. Totalitarian regimes or corporatocracies can gratefully use new ways to monitor and even determine human behaviour. Information and knowledge can become the monopoly of those who have the power over the technology.

citiesofpeople wants to contribute to an open society. The future is certainly urban and the recipe for the future will have to be applied at a local level first. The ingredients of that recipe are simple, but only through a balanced mix will the result be edible. Every local community needs its own local 'flavour'.