How can we make our cities better?

To answer this question, Barcelona publishing company LECOOL brought out a travel guide to a better city: A smart Guide to Utopia. The book, inspired by automotive company smart, the expert in urban mobility, presents 111 projects from across Europe that have made a positive, sustainable change to life in our cities. The projects range from urban farming to pop-up restaurants to sustainable design.

In the past two years, smart has demonstrated its commitment to urban themes – particularly through its “smart urban stage” series of exhibitions, where urban innovators in eleven different European cities presented their visions for the future of city life (www.smart-urban-stage.com). This project provided the impulse for the collaboration between smart and LECOOL. smart is the world’s expert in intelligent urban mobility. But transport is not the only important aspect of urban life; smart is also interested in the question of how people live and work in their cities.

In the book, over 30 renowned writers and creative minds like Ben Hammersley, Maria Popova and Adam Greenfield have provided answers to this question. They have contributed ideas, projects and initiatives that are presented in five separate chapters: “Live”, “Eat & Drink”, “Buy”, “Play” and “Work”. In the “open your mind” rubric at the start of each chapter, one visionary shares his or her ideas for the future of the city. The smart Guide to Utopia thus takes readers on a unique urban voyage of discovery.

Launched: May 2012