Metaverse cities may look like a thing you see in movies, but what the “METACITY” network partners are doing during their planning stage, that started in January 2024, is no science-fiction or even urban fiction. It is pure reality and is already being tested in real urban environments with the participation of real people, while preparations for future larger-scale implementation of actions that will put technology at the service of the citizens will start during the next stage in early 2025.
The activation stage of the network, that took place in 2023, allowed all partners to set the scene and define their respective assets, challenges and ambitions before initiating a common discovery path towards a more digital future. The planning stage, that expanded throughout 2024 and will conclude in the first quarter or 2025, has been a time for mutual learning and sharing of experiences in network meetings, for seeking inspiration in study visits to benchmark cities outside the network and for intense reflection and testing in each city together with their local support groups.
Two core network meetings have been organized in this stage with the presence of all partners, the first in Újbuda, the XI district of Budapest, and the second in Campobasso, the capital city of the Italian region of Molise, putting city partners in contact with the ethical dimensions of the metaverse, as they are analyzed and shared with the citizens in the Ádapter centre in Újbuda, and with the dynamics of cooperation between urban players, knowledge centres, business and startups for developing new advanced solutions, in the Molise House of Emergent Technologies project, amongst other initiatives. In between, partners travelled to Tampere in Finland, for the “Imagine the Metaverse” conference, where they had contact with some of the most advanced best practices in digital cities, from Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi, and could hear what makes Tampere Metaverse Strategy so unique directly from the mouths of the policy officers that have developed it and are putting it into practice.
All this has then been shared back at local level in each city with the local support groups that represent the local ecosystem, and that have been instrumental both in defining what can be done in the future, i.e. the priority lines for the future actions, and what can be done already today, as a small-scale testing actions to see what can work and how, and what needs to be done and planned ahead, in order to bring citizens into this new reality. The city of Razlog, for instance, has developed a Media Lab in one of the city’s secondary schools and has organized a Masterclass on the use of Artificial Intelligence and digital tools for education from there, with an active participation of students. Following the success of the initiative, the Razlog Integrated Action Plan will now include the creation of similar Media Labs in all the eleven other secondary schools of the municipality, engaging students in the use of digital tools.
While in Härnösand,the project team together with its local support group stakeholders, several highest politicians and city management staff and other departments in the municipality, have decided to test an AI powered chatbot, available both physical and online, for receiving input from residents on urban planning in the municipality. The aims are to improve user experience, with faster and easier support in everyday life for all citizens and city staff, increase citizen engagement through simpler participation, increase security by making correct information available in a simpler and faster way and reduce administrative burden, by simplifying access to information. Just as in Razlog, if the measure is successful and impacts are up to expectations, the initiative will be included in the Integrated Action Plan in a scaled-up format, extended to other areas, services and departments of the city.
All these initiatives taking place in the METACITY network will culminate in a first version of the action plan per city, that will be presented at the next Core Network Meeting in Härnösand late March 2025 at the end of the planning stage. At that occasion, plans will be peer reviewed by other cities as well as by the network experts, in order to allow each city to move forward with the plans’ final development and start preparations for its implementation until the end of the project.
So as you can see, if you happen to live or visit one of the METACITY network city partners and come across a media lab in a school where students are entering the metaverse, or see people in the street talking to chatbots through their mobiles as if they were in a city council meeting or wearing virtual reality googles to see future buildings, it is not a kind of urban myth. Nor is it science fiction or urban fiction. With the development of the Integrated Action Plans to advance their presence in the metaverse, what it really is, is urban ambition. And we’ll all benefit from it as citizens at some point.