reclaiming the utopian vision
toward a new synthesis in urban planning
Hello! I haven’t been able to write much due to the energy magnet whirlpool that is graduate school however, I’ve decided to publish my school papers here instead of leaving them in a google drive to whither away (much inspired by the smell PhD girl).
This is a paper I wrote for a course on expanding the architectural / urban planning canon. It’s a meaty read at 25 minutes but if you get through it fully we should probably chat and mind meld (hit me up).
I wrote this paper to gnaw at the following questions:
How can we redefine utopian thinking in urban planning to avoid the pitfalls of past rigid, top-down models while still inspiring transformative change?
How has the concept of utopia evolved in the last 20 years? How can new conceptions of utopia, like pre-figurative utopianism, apply to urban planning today?
What do examples like Auroville and Bhutan teach us about balancing utopian ideals with iterative, flexible, and practical experimentation?
How can cities reclaim utopian ideals to foster human-centered, resilient urban environments that align with long-term social and cultural aspirations?
Reclaiming the utopian vision
History of Utopia
Utopian ideals have always influenced urban planning. The sociologist G. Simmel is supposed to have said that ‘there is no utopia without a design of a utopian space’. Utopia, in its phenomenal dimension, encompasses two distinct areas: the place and the promise. It is the manifestation of an ideal place, not only in physical terms, but also in social, economic, and political terms, effectively defining a non-place that does not exist immanently, but is strived for. In other words, cities are intentionally constructed environments, embodying humanity's most aspirational ideas about how societies should cohabitate and interact within shared spaces. In the east, Confucius depicted the ideal city and society in a book called “World of Great Harmony”, and mandala-inspired layouts espousing a universal order have shaped ancient cities like Ankor Thom, Lhasa, and Jaipur. In the West, Plato and his predecessors imagined the ideal polis as one that enabled the conditions for civic engagement and politics and in 1516 Sir Thomas More critiqued 16th century Europe though writing the first depiction of utopia as a detailed social and urban blueprint. At the turn of the 20th century, radical proposals for Modernity like the Garden City Movement sought to create social and commonwealth-oriented cities as an alternative to overcrowded industrial cities, while Le Corbusier’s ‘functional city’ of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne aspired to be ‘a city of salvation’.
However, in recent times, sentiment towards utopic thinking has garnered considerable criticism and skepticism, especially in its application to urbanism. The commentator Joachim Fest contends that the 'failure of socialism' in particular marks the end of the 'over two hundred years old belief that the world can be radically changed through an imaginary image’. A sentiment also echoed in urbanism by David Harvey: “No one believes any more that we can build that city on a hill, that gleaming edifice that has fascinated every Utopian thinker since Plato and St Augustine. Utopian visions have too often turned sour for that sort of thinking to go far.” Much of this sentiment stems from the overall contentious project of Modernist planning and architecture which has been criticized for being overly idealistic in its authoritarian execution, rigid functionalism, and exacerbation of social inequalities. This is echoed in Jane Jacobs' influential critique that the sweeping directives of grand modernist utopian visions caused ‘the downfall of thriving American cities’ and resulted in numerous 'great planning disasters' in urban areas around the world. By the 1990s critics proclaimed ‘The End of Utopia’ and the ‘death of urban visions’. Planning became more at ease with accommodating the ‘normalized “today”’ rather than pursuing ‘the transformation of reality’ . Noting a popular view, sociologist Elizabeth Wilson comments: “Then, utopians, planners, and architecture believed that the only solution was to scrap the existing unplanned, irrational cities and build new, planned ones. Today, by contrast, planning, planners and architects are blamed for having caused the current state of our cities by their overweening interference”.
In reaction, some of the ‘postmodern urbanism’ in the 1970s was ‘understood from the beginning as anti-utopian’ with philosophical roots that emerged ‘from the modest, anti-utopian impulse, and a belief in incremental movement rather than cataclysmic change’. The subsequent ‘Disneyfication’ of urbanism, (or commercialization, standardization, and spectacle of the built environment) has become characterized by ‘the projection of a muzzy and spurious past authenticated by putative links to local tradition’, rendering ‘visionary roles [as being] coopted or renounced’. Utopian ideals are redefined in terms of the global market and capitalism, where the ideal city is envisioned as one of seamless free exchange, consumer satisfaction, and the unimpeded flow of money, all driven by commercialized desires. Like Disneyland, ‘utopias of social space could no longer be taken seriously; they are commercial ventures, nothing more’ . The retreat from utopian ideals in modernist planning sparked a backlash, leading to a call for more organic, participatory approaches. Thinkers like Christopher Alexander and Jane Jacobs championed adaptive, bottom-up urbanism, advocating for cities that evolve naturally and reflect the spontaneous intermingling of communities.
Re-thinking Utopia
The evident decline of utopian urbanism in recent times invites a critical reassessment of its relevance for contemporary urban planning: can utopian ideals still serve as valuable frameworks for addressing the multifaceted challenges of modern cities? On one hand, their waning loosens the hold of fixed ideals and teleological notions of historical progress that are imposed from above, welcoming critical and potentially emancipatory approaches to thinking about urbanism from diverse canons. At the same time, entirely dismissing utopian thinking risks stifling imaginative and bold explorations of alternative futures, potentially leading to reactionary complacency and fragmented, short-term urban development. While modernist utopianism has lost its appeal, some argue ‘the Utopian impulse’ has remained ‘an irrepressible part of human spirit’. Critical social theory has long incorporated an anticipatory-utopian dimension, essential for envisioning more humane and equitable societies. If this dimension is diminished or lost in urban studies, the field’s very raison d'être risks becoming constrained and fundamentally altered. Echoed by Pinder, “There is a need for forms of utopian urbanism that work to challenge, to estrange taken-for-granted assumptions about the organisation of space and time to open up unrealised possibilities in the present”, In this way, utopian planning is differentiated from just visioning, as the latter is often rooted in incremental improvements that are realistic given current constraints, whereas the former invokes a radical reconception and transformation of those very constraints. This is not to suggest that socially just planners lack inspiration from visions of a better future. Like conventional planners, they often engage with visioning and future scenarios. However, they seldom adopt the same critical perspective on time that more imaginative visioning exercises demand—what Lefebvre advocates for, where planning begins by envisioning the future and works backward to inform the present, rather than being limited by it.
The evolving answer to the question of utopianism’s relevance in urbanism emerges in the enduring presence of its contemporary forms. While the grand, modernist visions of utopian cities may have declined, the orientation of utopian driven urbanism remain alive in eco-cities (Masdar City, Songdo, Copenhagen), intentional communities (Auroville, Findhorn), alternative modernities (Curitiba, Bhutan) and participatory and tactical urbanism projects (superblocks, community land trusts, pop-ups) that emphasize sustainability, equity, and community well-being as the primary telos. Specifically, utopian projects like Auroville and Bhutan's urban application of its Gross National Happiness framework are pioneering a fundamentally new conception of utopian urbanism that emphasizes process over destination. Rather than the classic, closed, fixed form or blueprint to be realised, [utopia] becomes ‘an approach toward, a movement beyond set limits into the realm of the not-yet-set’ and a social project concerned with ‘living together in difference’ that is open to dialogue, change and contestation. It’s reflected in Harvey’s notions of a ‘dialectical utopianism’ that is ‘rooted in present possibilities at the same time as it points towards different trajectories’ where ‘emancipatory politics calls for a living utopianism of process as opposed to the dead utopianism of spatialized urban form’.
This spirit can perhaps be best captured in the recent revival of political prefiguration practices and its potential application to urbanism. Prefigurative politics refers to a range of social experiments that critique the status quo, while at the same time pursuing future ‘alternative or utopic social relations in the present’. In other words, the collective emulates in the present the attitudes, social relations, culture and organization it envisions for the future through ‘experimental and experiential’ means. In 1977, the term ‘prefiguration’ was first used to define ‘the embodiment within the political practice of a movement, of those forms of social relations, decision-making, culture, and human experience that are [its] ultimate goal’ Since the post-2008 social movements, such as Occupy, it has gained a growing currency in a wide range of literature from politics, psychology, and more recently, planning. The utopias of prefigurative planning are praxis-oriented and take shape through experimental projects which begin with critiquing the present, rather than affirmation of a predefined and predetermined future. Ernst Bloch writes that while abstract utopia is a ready-made utopia, concrete utopia is of an anticipatory kind that rejects both abstract utopian dreaminess and immature utopian socialism and critiques the existing situation by prefiguring a different, not-yet reality. Advocating for prefiguration in planning is a call for the revival of a ‘philosophy of the possible’ in planning. It is a reconceptualization of utopia on the basis of the Blochian ‘ontology of not-yet’ from "The Principle of Hope” - a philosophical concept that envisions utopia as an open-ended, evolving possibility rather than a fixed outcome. The discovery, through the creation of concrete utopias, is praxis oriented. Unlike the command and control approaches of modernist planning, prefigurative planning resists stage-managed closures and operates within the democratic bounds of agonistic pluralism in which dissenting voices are not muffled by the pressure to achieve consensus. Its focus is not always on problem-solving, but on what Paulo Freire calls ‘problemposing’ by which he means seeing ‘the world not as a static reality but as a reality in the process of transformation.’ Thus, unlike the predetermined and static utopia of modernist planning, the utopia envisioned in prefigurative planning is one of continual becoming, where ongoing evolution, learning, and the inevitable failures in interpreting utopian ideals are not just integral to the process but the essential point. In other words prefiguration in urbanism refers to the practice of building and organizing urban spaces in ways that embody the social relations, values, and ideals a community envisions for the future. Rather than merely planning for a distant goal, prefigurative urbanism creates small-scale, real-time experiments in the present that reflect these future aspirations, such as inclusive decision-making, ecological sustainability, or community self-governance. This approach allows for the testing and adaptation of these ideals within the urban environment, bringing imagined possibilities into lived reality as an ongoing, participatory process.
The concept of prefigurative planning gestures toward a middle way between, on one hand, rigid utopian idealism, and on the other, bottom-up and emergent processes. How can we conceive of the city as an organic, living system that evolves over time, while remaining anchored in foundational guiding principles? How do we shift systems thinking beyond the management of existing complexity to the intentional design of both emergent possibilities and structured control? How can physical and social infrastructures remain adaptable and interpretive while being embedded within an inter-generational framework of utopian ideals? Furthermore, how can a long-term strategic vision that decisively guides urban evolution coexist with emergent, flexible development processes? Although recent scholarship has addressed these questions from both extremes, there remains an open provocation on how planning can integrate the rigor of top-down planning with the dynamism of bottom-up urbanism. Approaches like complex adaptive systems theory provide a lens through which to understand how cities evolve through decentralized processes, which can lead to spontaneous development, but often lacks a unified, future-oriented perspective. Similarly, resilience and sustainability planning emphasize adaptability to environmental shocks, yet focus predominantly on ecological resilience rather than the socio-cultural evolution of cities over generations. Participatory planning and emergent urbanism, while empowering local communities, risk fragmentation and lack the strategic coherence necessary for guiding cities toward a shared long-term vision. Theories like tactical or incremental urbanism often prioritize short-term, localized interventions without integrating them into a broader generational framework. As such, while these approaches offer valuable insights, they do not fully resolve the challenge of balancing structured control under utopic objectives with emergent possibilities, leaving prefigurative planning as a provocational, yet tactically underexplored and underdeveloped, synthesis. To advance this discourse, we can examine two case studies of prefigurative planning that are actively navigating this integration: Auroville, an experimental township project in India, and Bhutan’s application of the Gross National Happiness framework to urban planning and development.
Auroville as a Prefigured Utopia
Auroville was founded in Tamil Nadu in South India in 1968, based on the utopian vision of Mira Alfassa, or “The Mother”, and the Integral Yoga philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. Now, over five decades since its founding, Auroville's sustained existence offers valuable longitudinal insights, especially considering that 80% of intentional communities fail within their first two years. With a current population of 3,500 people from at least 60 different nationalities it hopes to eventually become a city of 50,0000. Its residents include a mix of Indians and foreigners from the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in nearby Pondicherry, Westerners seeking alternative lifestyles, and local Tamil families attracted by work opportunities. Although there was no rigid societal blueprint for Auroville's realization, The Mother outlined her vision of an ideal society in A Dream (1954). She later provided a brief, four-point framework in The Auroville Charter (1968) and a guiding document for individuals, To Be a True Aurovilian (1970). Amongst the principles for social organization contained in the charter are the notion that Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole rather than anybody in particular, that Auroville is a site of material and spiritual research toward a living embodiment of human unity, and that it is a place for “unending education” that draws on diverse sources of knowledge to “spring towards future realisations.” The intentional absence of a defined approach to realizing Auroville’s ideals and exhortation that Auroville be a place of research has fostered a plural and experimental environment that seeks to prefigure these ideals. As such, prefiguration is central to utopian practice in the Auroville context, as it is a radical, embodied exercise in redefining society according to alternative values, both of the present and for the future. In other words, the premise of the Auroville project is to evolve into a spiritualized society through the transformational practice of informing everyday life and activities with spiritually enlightened ideals, values and consciousness. Auroville's prefigured interpretation of utopia is grounded in practice and process rather than a fixed ideal of perfection, with ongoing experimentation and adaptation serving as central tenets of its evolution. Furthermore, while utopian communities were historically based on ideal blueprints that predetermined how society should be organized, Auroville was to be a prefigurative polity, destined to develop in tandem with the progressive spiritualization of its members as echoed by The Mother: “Men must become conscious of their psychic being and organise themselves spontaneously, without fixed rules and laws – that is the ideal”.
The absence of a fixed societal blueprint, combined with the clarity of its utopian and spiritual aspirations as outlined by its founders, facilitated the practice of prefiguration, allowing for a process-oriented approach to take root, particularly evident in the domains of governance and urban planning. During its foundational phase (1968-1980s), Auroville prioritized establishing basic infrastructure and regenerating the landscape through extensive reforestation efforts, fostering collective stewardship among residents in an experimental environment without a strict urban plan. In the 1990s, as the population grew, the Galaxy Plan, a flexible framework symbolizing unity, was introduced, envisioning a city for 50,000 people organized around a central "Peace Area" and various functional zones which was specifically created for adaptive development. The Perspective 2025 Master Plan, adopted in the early 2000s built on the principles of the Galaxy Plan, but was reinterpreted by the current generations' belief that sustainability and community-driven planning were key to actualizing Auroville’s charter. This materialized into substantial sustainability initiatives (Auroville Earth Institute, Sustainable Lifelihood Institute, etc.), green belt development, energy efficient housing projects, and governance structures to enable participatory planning where “policies are proposed, criticized, protested, ignored, reworked and amended by overlapping groupings of community members virtually continuously”.
Across all sectors, from urban planning and housing to governance and social development, Auroville fosters a grassroots approach to experimentation, primarily through resident-led working groups and community-driven projects. The Town Development Council (TDC), a key working group within Auroville, played a pivotal role in facilitating urban planning initiatives by incorporating resident input and ensuring that development plans aligned with the broader objectives of the community. Monthly community meetings and gatherings, known as Residents’ Assemblies, are held to discuss ongoing urban planning decisions. Furthermore, resident created committees like the Sustainable Architecture Group, Water Group, Waste Management Team, and Forest Group address specific infrastructure needs and environmental challenges. Another group, known as The Dreamcatchers, established a more informal space for visioning, conceptual sketches, and "heart-storming" sessions aimed at translating the philosophical aspirations of the Galaxy Plan into open-source planning initiatives that embodied the collective consciousness of the community’s residents. This bottom-up process is balanced by the oversight of the Auroville Foundation, the city’s overarching administrative body, and the Future of Auroville working group, amongst others, all of which ensure that new developments and initiatives remain aligned with Auroville’s founding principles and adhere to the vision articulated in Mother’s charter. The inherent adaptability, continuous experimentation, and inter-generational reinterpretation of the Auroville Project not just coexist with pre-established utopian principles but are also bolstered, unified, and guided by them, offering a durable yet flexible foundation for each urban initiative, while remaining open to reinterpretation across generations. Indeed, over many decades, Auroville has not remained immune to conflict, controversy, and upheavals, but with the lens of prefigurative utopianism this becomes a feature, not a bug, in the process of continual becoming to continuously refine and materially embody the charter of the Auroville experiment.
Bhutan as a Prefigured Utopia
Bhutan offers another potential example of a prefigured utopia; however, unlike Auroville, which operates largely outside formal governmental structures, Bhutan has institutionalized its utopian ideals directly within its governance framework, as exemplified by its Gross National Happiness policy, which reflects a systemic embedding of utopian values into national governance, making it an institutionalized form of prefiguration. This is an important contrast to other nations, which largely abstract away idealistic visions from their governance models. The GNH policy was instituted shortly after Bhutan began its modernization and gradual opening to the world in the early 1960s as one of the last nations in the world to embrace modernity . In the mid 1970s, the fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuk, “proclaimed” that GDP is less important than GNH because “GDP alone could not deliver happiness and well-being”. In doing so, he mandated that the framework be the foundational ethos to all domains of governance, and produced 33 measures of happiness that would help the government measure its ability to balance material prosperity with spiritual attainment through four pillars: equitable economic development, conservation of the environment, preservation of culture, and good governance. Although definitions of “happiness” vary, it’s important to understand that the Bhutanese conception of it is fundamentally intertwined with Buddhist beliefs that happiness means creating the conditions for the enlightenment of all beings. As former Prime Minister Thinley specified in 1998: “In the Bhutanese context, development meant enlightenment of the individual and not solely an object of religious activity. Enlightenment is the blossoming of happiness. It is made more probable by consciously creating a harmonious psychological, social, and economic environment.” However, in line with prefiguration percepts, how this objective goal gets translated into governance is subject to the interpretation of each generation and regime. In 2010, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rimpoche advocated finding ‘the need to initially consciously and carefully select ‘the true core values and principles in our ancient traditions that are timeless and genuinely contribute to our well-being’ and then discard or adapt ‘forms, traditions and practices’ that are no longer serviceable or responsive to current needs. To facilitate this process, The Gross National Happiness Commission continuously evaluates, solicits citizen feedback, and reinterprets the framework through various urban planning initiatives to ensure its principles are integrated into national policies and development plans like Bhutan’s Five-Year Plan.
Two prominent manifestations of Bhutan's prefigurative approach to the built environment can be seen in the conceptualization and ongoing implementation of the Thimphu City Structure Plan, which seeks to harmonize modernization with the core principles of Gross National Happiness, and the ambitious Mindfulness City Project in Gelephu, representing a novel experiment in integrating spiritual values into urban development. In 2002, the Bhutanese government wanted to create a development plan to turn Thimpu into “a capital city of our dreams”. A prominent Indian architect, Christopher Charles Benninger, was chosen to integrate his philosophy of “intelligent urbanism” with the principles of GNC through the Thimphu Structural Plan (2002-2027). For Benninger, Thimphu represented a unique opportunity—a 'clean slate'—to apply principles that were considered ambitious, if not utopian, for the time. The Thimphu Structure Plan was one of the earliest large-scale attempts to integrate the Principles of Intelligent Urbanism (PIU), which had not yet been widely implemented, particularly in the context of rapid urbanization in developing countries during the 2000s. He wrote in his preamble to the plan: ‘This is surely one of the most ecologically fragile areas under urbanization, as well as one of the richest treasure troves of cultural artifacts! To me, this would be the appropriate testing ground for the Principles of Intelligent Urbanism!’. The result was a charter that established foundational values intended to endure across generations, rather than overly focusing on tactical plans. It begins with the statement: 'This Structure Plan of Thimphu proposes that a unique set of civil principles, guiding urban growth, planning, and management over the coming century, be rooted in approaches we may call Intelligent Urbanism.’ It goes on to emphasize the goal of the city as an equalizer and matrix for opportunities through “free time to develop one’s own human resources, to pursue business, gainful employment.. the arts, community work, politics and social work.’ Central to the plan are principles of balance—with nature, tradition, and community. It advocates for the preservation of the valley as an eco-corridor protected by chortens, prayer wheels, and monasteries. The urban core is seen as an ‘convivial society’ in which a nested system of fractal spaces comprise an ‘urban village’ and reflect the harmonious interconnection between self, friendship, communities, and serendipitous public domains. Furthermore, human scale buildings, mixed-use settlements, and efficient transportation are recommended to reduce the need for cars and ‘enhance the ‘health of the city as a living organism’. Relative to other rapidly developing cities in South East Asia at the time, Benninger envisioned Thimpu as a model for a more humane, resilient, and balanced form of urban development.
Much like Auroville’s Charter, the Thimphu Structure Plan reads as a manifesto guided by 'north star' principles, allowing room for interpretation, failure, and ongoing learning in its execution. While the plan set a utopian framework, key elements remained either delayed or unrealized over time. As noted by The Druk Journal in its 2020 issue on urban planning: “The vision for our capital did, indeed, sound like a dream. After two decades of neglect... the Thimphu dream is now more of a Thimphu nightmare.” By 2023, the need for a revised plan became evident due to challenges such as inadequate data, lack of review mechanisms, and poor coordination among agencies. The resulting Thimphu Structure Plan 2023-2047 sought to address these tactical issues while retaining the original principles, this time incorporating Doughnut Economics—a framework that, like the Principles of Intelligent Urbanism, emphasizes development that prioritizes sustainability, equity, and human well-being over short-term growth. This same vision is reflected in Bhutan’s new urban initiative, the Mindfulness City in Gelephu, which is described as a 'new translation' of Gross National Happiness into urban planning and economic strategies. The project aims to create a vibrant economic hub that attracts foreign investment while establishing major infrastructure and urban centers within a framework of mindful living, sustainability, and cultural preservation. Although still in early stages, Prime Minister, Tshering Tobgay, asserts it “will not only reflect Bhutanese cultural values but also offer a model for the world—demonstrating how urban living can be harmonized with spiritual and environmental consciousness.” Although substantial work on the city has yet to commence, and critiques persist that it risks devolving into a Special Economic Zone dominated by capitalist imperatives, Bhutan’s approach to its planning so far demonstrates a deliberate and thoughtful integration of economic priorities with the principles of Gross National Happiness. This approach also embodies the utopian philosophical foundations initially articulated in Benninger’s vision for Thimphu—emphasizing cultural preservation, community conviviality, and sustainability as core tenets. Whether in Thimpu or Gelephu, Bhutan’s planning efforts remain grounded in an iterative commitment to translating its core values and “dream city” into built form, thereby embedding the values of Mahayana Buddhism into the fabric of everyday life. While not scholastically framed as prefigurative practice, Bhutan's approach exhibits significant affinities with this ethos. Its aim to realize 'utopian' ideals in the present is reflected in an approach defined by formalizing and prefiguring that vision into governance and civic projects overtly, setting up governance models for intergenerational interpretation and accountability, and a commitment to process and evolution over fixed blueprints.
Comparative Analysis: Bhutan and Auroville
Both Bhutan and Auroville present compelling models for understanding how prefigurative utopian ideals can be actualized. Both are grounded in strong spiritual mandates articulated through a charter or manifesto, which are continually reinterpreted by successive generations. In Auroville, The Charter and the original Galaxy Plan serve as guiding frameworks, providing a "north star" for subsequent generations to embody its ideals through built form and governance. Similarly, in Bhutan, the Thimphu Structure Plan developed by Christopher Benninger and the principles of enlightenment within Mahayana Buddhism—formalized through the directive of Gross National Happiness—fulfill a parallel role. These frameworks derive their enduring relevance from their foundation in universal, humanist, and spiritual principles. They articulate aspirational ends without prescribing rigid means, thereby avoiding the pitfalls of dogmatic modernist planning. In this sense, utopia is not to be interpreted literally, but rather symbolically. Through grokking the underlying, metaphorical, or abstract meanings that words represent, this essence is then translated through the lens of contemporary political and cultural paradigms. This dynamic process allows utopia to remain “alive” rather than “dead”, guiding interpreters towards self-discovery, insight, and realization of its fruition, rather than imposed through caracasses long outdated.
The vitality of these utopian visions is further sustained by institutionalized governance structures that (in the case of Bhutan) measure their embodiment (qualitatively and quantitatively) and foster grassroots experimentation (in the case of Auroville). For instance, Bhutan’s measurement of Gross National Happiness evaluates lived experience as an indicator of societal well-being, while Auroville’s Town Development Council facilitates local stewardship and adaptive experimentation. Moreover, prefigurative utopian projects maintain longevity by integrating with, rather than isolating themselves from, the larger world. Whereas 80% of utopias and intentional communities fail within their first 2 years, Auroville has sustained for over 50 years. This longevity can, in part, be attributed to the Indian government's support, which includes grants allocated through the Ministry of Education and legal protections established by the Auroville Foundation Act of 1988. Similarly, Bhutan’s codification of Gross National Happiness as a unifying principle within its governance solidifies its longevity by aligning spiritual values with the nation’s overarching administrative structures.
Furthermore, prefiguring utopia practices in urban form is most possible when urban planning and architecture are seen as important vessels by which society can realize utopia’s aims. As David Wachsmuth articulates, the city can be conceived not as a "real object" but as a "thought object," a "category of practice" rather than a "category of analysis". This perspective shifts focus from static analyses of urban form to the experiences, interpretations, and performances of what the city symbolizes as a horizon of possibility. For Aurovillians then, architectural discourse and planning rationality are the performative enactment of Auroville's promise, its futurity. For the Bhutanese, this is evident through the strategic national prioritization of the Gelephu Mindfulness City as proclaimed by King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck’s speech during the 116th National Day celebration in 2023. In this way, urban planning and architecture become iterative platforms for societal transformation, not as static blueprints but as living frameworks that evolve alongside the aspirations of their inhabitants.
Finally, the realization of prefigured utopias depends on urban planning and architectural practices that embrace temporality, adaptation, and experimentation. Building materials, zoning policies, and usage laws must prioritize flexibility, ensuring that the built environment evolves alongside the ideals it seeks to embody. Modular building techniques, as seen in some of Auroville’s sustainable housing projects, allow for physical spaces to expand, contract, or be reconfigured based on changing societal needs, while Bhutan’s emphasis on maintaining eco-corridors and integrating traditional architectural styles with modern infrastructure in the Thimphu Structure Plan reflects its commitment to harmonizing cultural preservation with sustainable urban growth.
Conclusion
Reflecting on the historical influence of utopian thinking in urban planning, it becomes evident that while past models frequently failed due to rigid, top-down implementation, we should not abandon utopian orientations towards planning altogether. Instead, there is a growing need for discourse that embraces new forms of synthesis, balancing visionary ideals with the adaptability of emergent, flexible, and participatory processes. Rather than perceiving utopias as static, predefined endpoints, recent scholarly discourse reframes utopia not as the realization of perfection, but as a dynamic process where ideals inform ongoing experimentation and gradual societal transformation, as exemplified by the case studies of Auroville and Bhutan. In this context, it attributes to utopianism a heuristic function, one that enables us to discover new methods for interpreting and transforming the world as we know it. That is, instead of exclusively formulating final goals, social dreaming involves the creation of diverse methods for better comprehending and changing the status quo.
However, the critical question confronting cities today is: What is that social dream? Who gets to dream it? And what fundamental values inform it? In the vacuum left by modernity, that dream is increasingly co-opted and fragmented by capitalistic, short-term, and privatized interests. In this context, the imperative for cities to reclaim a compelling and cohesive vision of the future becomes clear. As innovation and economic growth have not only a rate but also a direction, the role of the public sector in this market co-creation process is to create public value through providing public purpose. However, the visions articulated in the majority of contemporary city plans tend to prioritize practical and infrastructural concerns over genuinely utopian, visionary, or transformative ideals. When such aspirations are mentioned, they often remain superficial and abstracted away from the underlying systems that drive and quantify urban development, rendering them disconnected from the mechanisms needed to meaningfully implement and measure their impact. In the absence of a compelling or impactful vision, it becomes crucial to initiate discussions across all spatial scales, shifting the focus from purely economic and growth-oriented rationales toward the more fundamental question of ends: what is all this growth ultimately for?
Establishing a clear, humanist—if not spiritual—answer to this question, one that emphasizes sustainability, equity, happiness, pluralism, and well-being, as seen in the case studies of Auroville and Bhutan, represents a reorientation that challenges the dominant telos of western urban development. Embedding iterative feedback mechanisms and systems for citizen engagement further ensures that these ideals are continuously translated into the built environment, fostering a dynamic, didactic process oriented toward evolving, adaptive forms of urban actualization. Furthermore, the articulation of such visions not only encourages long-term outlooks in planning, capable of addressing systemic issues over generations, but also confers a continuous process of reinterpretation of an evolving ideal, rather than a directionless or short-sighted rejection of the present.
In The Symbolic Construction of Community, Cohen argues that while a repertoire of symbols held in common is what enables members to construct and maintain a sense of community, ‘the sharing of the symbol is not necessarily the sharing of the meaning’. Thus, a community could contain a diversity of interpretations and relationships to communal symbols, so that it effectively ‘incorporates and encloses difference,’ while espousing common ideals. An interpretation of this reading could suggest that balancing utopian ideals with bottom-up emergence, especially in increasingly pluralistic cities, is not an inherently contradictory endeavor. While detailed expounding on the tactical implementation of this balance lies beyond the scope of this paper, it is evident that history often operates like a pendulum, swinging between extremes. Our current shift towards predominantly capitalistic paradigms and anti-utopian approaches to urban planning may be approaching its zenith. In this liminal period, between paradigms, it is crucial to reconceive a synthesis that harmonizes utopian imaginaries, with economic growth and emergent bottoms-up development, paving the way for a more holistic, humanist, and emergent urbanism.
Provocations
What if cities created utopian objectives and manifestos based on humanist principles? Cities like New York, Dubai, and Mexico City, while incorporating some high-level goals, tend to emphasize practical, tactical solutions for infrastructure and development needs. Meanwhile cities like Copenhagen, Singapore, Bhutan (Thimphu), and Barcelona often incorporate deeper values and utopian visions in their master plans, focusing on sustainability, equity, happiness, and well-being.
What if these utopian frameworks were reassessed and interpreted every generation? Instead of one master plan, the city would be guided by evolving interpretations of a utopian vision. Utopia here isn’t a fixed blueprint but rather a set of high-level guiding principles (e.g., equity, sustainability, community well-being, spiritual growth). Each generation, based on its needs, technological advancements, and social structures, reinterprets how these principles should manifest physically (through architecture, zoning, public spaces) and socially (through institutions and interactions).This framework ensures that cities can adapt, evolve, and experiment while always pointing toward an ideal, shared future vision.
What if we created Generational Councils for re-interpretation? These Councils are formed every 10-20 years, tasked with reinterpreting the core principles for their era. They could include architects, urban planners, sociologists, environmental scientists, and community representatives. These councils would examine new technological, ecological, and social conditions and update the physical interpretation of the utopian principles. Furthermore, the establishment of an urban lab or research body can continuously evaluate emergent trends and technologies, and advise the Generational Utopia Council on how the top-down framework can be refined to stay relevant and future-proof.
What if we created utopian benchmarking metrics? where urban planners set long-term goals tied to foundational principles (e.g. Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness measure). These benchmarks would act as the overarching guideposts for any new urban development but would be adaptable based on emergent needs. The city would periodically assess whether new developments, policies, or community-driven projects align with these benchmarks. Each project would be evaluated through a flexible feedback loop, allowing for course correction while staying true to the core vision.
What if Utopian visions could co-exist with increasingly pluralistic societies? What if utopian visions focused on the why and underlying universal values vs. being overly-prescriptive? To embrace pluralism, what if we designated parts of the city as "cultural crossroads" where different community groups experiment with cross-cultural exchanges, blending architectural styles, public art, and food markets. These areas could reflect evolving, pluralistic interpretations of utopian principles, encouraging mutual learning and collaboration among different communities. Furthermore, what if we had rotating community-curated public spaces maintained by different community groups? These groups could re-envision and redesign spaces like parks or town squares based on the needs of their communities at different times, ensuring public spaces are continually responsive to changing societal dynamics.
What if vision and modularity could co-exist? City master plans should outline macro-level goals (e.g., a 50-year sustainability target, green energy infrastructure, decentralized communities), but leave flexibility at the neighborhood or district level. Each module (e.g., eco-districts, pedestrian zones) should have flexible zoning laws that allow for community-driven changes over time, so new developments can be added or modified without compromising the overarching vision.
What if there were zones of utopic experimentation? The built environment would not be created in one fell swoop. Instead, you’d establish "zones of experimentation" or "flexible districts" where smaller-scale experimental designs that embody aspects of the utopian vision can be implemented. Like Copenhagen’s Nordhavn or Auroville’s zones of experimentation, where communities, architects, and urban designers can trial small-scale innovations in housing, public spaces, or green infrastructure. These can be evaluated and scaled into longer-term infrastructure.
What if we enabled micro-community utopias? Instead of focusing utopian ideals on entire cities, create micro-community utopias—self-contained neighborhoods designed around specific values (e.g., sustainability, creativity, social equity) that operate semi-autonomously but remain connected to the larger city. For example, each micro-community could experiment with different forms of governance, sustainable technologies, or social structures while being interconnected through shared infrastructure like transport, digital services, or energy systems. These districts would serve as test beds for various utopian ideals, with successes scaled city-wide.
What if zoning was dynamic and architecture / space was adaptable? What if we used dynamic zoning that allows buildings or neighborhoods to change use over time? These dynamic zoning regulations encourage adaptability in function—allowing spaces to shift between residential, commercial, or community purposes as needs evolve. These zones should receive feedback from residents to determine if they continue or change direction. This could include adaptive architecture - structures designed to change or grow with shifting needs. Furthermore, we could implement multi-purpose spaces that can be easily repurposed without significant construction, allowing generations to reinterpret their functions (e.g., a building might serve as a market today, a tech hub tomorrow, and a community center in 20 years). Buildings and public spaces could be designed with modular or flexible components that can shift functions over time based on needs, allowing for continual reconfiguration
What if data collection informed emergence and vision? Build real-time feedback loops that connect local experiments with the overarching masterplan. This ensures that emergent patterns from the grassroots level can influence and refine the broader vision. Set up urban sensors, surveys, and community reporting tools that collect data on traffic patterns, energy usage, air quality, public health, and social well-being. Data from local experiments should be aggregated and reported to Generational Utopia Councils every 5-10 years. This allows the council to update the guiding principles and adjust the masterplan based on what’s working or failing at the grassroots level.