As the popularity of smart cities has risen over the past decade, alternatives and counterpoints have emerged to challenge its focus on function and utility at the expense of human needs and experiences. As a result, playable cities emerged in opposition to early technology-driven approaches to smart cities to focus instead on people and place, often making urban environments and infrastructure literally ‘playable’. While governments and corporations were installing sensors, trackers and cameras on every street corner, a mix of creative technologists, public artists and game designers took to the streets to experiment with alternative strategies for public engagement and participation in cities around the world.

This research report explores strategies that connect people and place, developed by creatives working with playable cities who advocate for the democratic use of technology and data driven by the needs of citizens. Play sets up conditions sympathetic to participation and co-creation and starts conversations around what the city-as-it-could-be rather than the city-as-it-is.