Enrique Ruz Bentué

For years we learned to call a city a Smart City if it could use technology to become more efficient, connected, sustainable, and competitive. It was an extraordinary advance, and I had the opportunity to participate in that transformation from its earliest stages.

But a city can be very smart and not necessarily be a good city.

Sensors, data, artificial intelligence, advanced mobility, and smart buildings can greatly improve its functioning. But no technology can decide for us what kind of city is worth building, how we want to live in it, or what it means to live well.

That’s why my perspective has evolved from Smart Cities to Human Cities: not to abandon technology, but to place it where it always should have been—at the service of people.

I WAS THERE

Long before Smart Cities became commonplace, I worked on the digital transformation of businesses, homes, and cities. I witnessed the transition from analog to digital, participated in the development of the Digital Home, and later, in some of the first initiatives that began to envision the Digital City and the Smart City.

Those years taught me the enormous potential of technology. They also taught me something even more important: that every new tool tends to become the main focus if we forget to ask ourselves what it’s for and, above all, who we’re using it for.

Over time, I came to understand that the true challenge for a city lies not in accumulating technology, but in integrating knowledge. Architecture, urban planning, mobility, energy, the economy, the environment, digitalization, education, culture, and community life are all part of the same reality: people’s lives.

This cross-cutting perspective changed my understanding of the city. I stopped asking myself only how to make it smarter and began to ask myself what makes a city a good place to live.

THE MISSING DIMENSION

For years we have learned to evaluate the progress of cities from three main dimensions: economic, environmental, and social. A city must generate opportunities and prosperity, use its resources responsibly, and foster cohesion, equity, and collective well-being.

All three are essential. But they are not enough.

There is a fourth dimension that we often assume is included in the others and that, precisely for that reason, ends up disappearing: the human dimension.

A city can be economically prosperous, environmentally sustainable, and socially advanced, and yet produce loneliness, alienation, anonymity, stress, or a loss of identity. It can function extraordinarily well and still fail to make people feel they belong.

The human dimension raises different questions: How does a city make us feel? Does it foster connection or isolation? Does it generate identity and a sense of belonging? Does it allow us to develop a life project? Is it understandable, livable, and beautiful? Does it help create community?

That is why I propose explicitly incorporating a fourth dimension into urban planning.

Not as just another dimension to add to a list, but as the one that gives meaning to the others. Because the economy, sustainability, technology, and urban design itself are means. The true purpose of the city is the life it makes possible.

HUMAN FIRST DOES NOT MEAN TECHNOLOGY LAST

Putting people at the center doesn’t mean relegating technology. It means the exact opposite: harnessing its full potential where it truly improves human life.

I deeply believe in technology, data, artificial intelligence, and the capacity for innovation to help us build more efficient, sustainable, safe, and livable cities. But none of these tools inherently possesses a purpose.

The relevant question isn’t how much technology a city can incorporate, but rather what human problems we want to solve with it.

A Human City uses technology to reduce friction, free up time, improve mobility, make better use of resources, anticipate needs, facilitate access to services, and expand people’s possibilities. The best urban technology is often that which works so well we stop noticing it.

The true leap from Smart City to Human City, therefore, isn’t about replacing technology with humanism. It’s about integrating both.

Because the more powerful the technology we put into our cities, the more important it becomes to be clear about what kind of city we want to build and for whom we are building it.

WHAT MAKES A CITY HUMAN?

A Human City is not defined by a specific technology, architecture, or urban model. It is recognized by the quality of the relationship it establishes between people, place, and community.

Many factors contribute to this, but six principles summarize my understanding of it:

THE NEXT CITY WILL NOT BE DEFINED BY HOW SMART IT IS

The cities of the future will have more technology than any city before. They will be more connected, automated, and increasingly capable of understanding and anticipating what happens within them.

But that won’t be enough.

The true measure of progress won’t be how many systems a city can connect, how much data it can process, or how sophisticated its infrastructure is, but rather the kind of life it can make possible.

It will be whether people can build their lives there. Whether they feel safe without feeling controlled. Whether they can find each other, recognize themselves as part of a community, and feel a sense of ownership over the place where they live. Whether technology provides them with more opportunities, more freedom, and perhaps more time for what truly matters.

The great challenge isn’t choosing between technology and humanity, but rather getting them to work together.

The next city will not be defined by how smart it is.

It will be defined by how human it becomes.