Sometimes, looking at the city at night through a window or in a photograph, we catch ourselves thinking: what if somewhere among these lights there is another world, living by its own laws?
Virtual cities are exactly such worlds. Where the streets are not made of asphalt, but of code, and houses are not built of concrete, but of pixels and ideas. They are not just a backdrop for games, but complex digital universes where people meet, work, learn, and create.
Today, this is no longer pure fantasy. The technologies that enable the creation of virtual spaces are actively developing. They are beginning to penetrate our everyday lives, blurring the boundaries between the online world and what we are used to considering real.
This path is full of questions. Where is the line between an exciting digital future and a grim dystopia where people lose touch with the real world? Are these innovations similar to the plot of a science fiction novel, or have they already become our reality?
Let's try to figure out what virtual cities really are and how they can change our perception of life in the future.
Virtual cities are not just a fantasy from science fiction, but real projects that are gradually becoming part of our lives. These are digital copies of real cities where you can test transport, ecology, and infrastructure without affecting real people and buildings. Sometimes they look like a dystopia — with total control and no privacy — but with the right approach, they can help build comfortable, safe, and environmentally friendly cities of the future. It all depends not on the technology, but on how we use it.
City Zero in Russia: where to find it?
To implement the smart city concept in Russia, domestic universities have joined forces with Western academic institutions. The scientific activities of the Digital City will be carried out by Moscow State University of Civil Engineering and St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics. The initiative of Russian academics has been supported by Newcastle University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Partners include companies such as Huawei, Cisco, Yandex, Enel, and Schneider.
There are plans to create a smart city that will bring home and industrial IoT (Internet of Things) to the urban level. What will it look like? Let's look at examples of cities that are already successfully inhabiting the smart space.
Western experience: what are the advantages of a smart city?
The 21st century has been marked by technological development and great inventions. But at the same time, modernity has presented humanity with a number of challenges. Environmental disasters, natural disasters, increased crime rates, unsolvable social problems… Sometimes it seems that, in asserting its greatness, humanity is confronted with forces of nature that are beyond its control. To solve these issues, humanity turns to information technology, hoping that the IoT in smart cities will ensure universal well-being.
Currently, the most notable example of creating digital spaces is in New York City. The NYCx Challenges urban project supports entrepreneurs, technologists, and cybersecurity experts in addressing issues such as pollution, income inequality, and transportation costs as they arise.
Another example: LinkNYC cyber stations provide high-speed Wi-Fi, as well as a space for quick smartphone charging, allow users to make calls within the city, and serve as tablets with access to city services and maps.
When it comes to security, Cyber NYC keeps things running smoothly in New York's smart city. The organization has brought together representatives of 10,000 specialties in the field of cybersecurity. The essence of the experts' work is to respond quickly to hacker attacks. Cyber NYC was created in response to the Equifax hack, which resulted in the leak of personal data of 143 million users (including the theft of 200,000 credit card details).
Smart cities can also solve transportation problems in interesting ways. This has been proven in Amsterdam. The virtual city collects information about citizens' movements and transmits the data to developers. The developers, in turn, create applications with maps. Navigation has become simple and enjoyable.
In addition, Amsterdam has another manifestation of the IoT: autonomous boats that transport people and cargo (known as roboats). Since 25% of Amsterdam consists of water, the use of roboats has become an ideal ecological way to reduce traffic congestion.
The Internet of Things also connects homes to Amsterdam's electricity supply systems. Residents use apps to specify the amount of water they need, which is then drawn directly from the river, filtered, and made available for their use.
The developers of the smart city in Copenhagen also took care of the environment. On the initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a system of smart motorcycles is being introduced. Special sensors on vehicles provide information (as it becomes available) to drivers and administrators. This information is used to monitor air quality and pollution levels.
Dystopias warn us
But not everything is so smooth. Starting in December 2019, a project to create a smart city was developed in Toronto. As planned, every citizen entering the city must undergo a kind of online registration. Identity and personal data are determined by IP address. Everyone is required to turn on Bluetooth on their smartphone so that their location, occupation, and movements can be easily tracked.
Of course, the goal of the project is to ensure safety. It's hard to disagree: such an innovation will reduce crime rates several times over.
On the other hand, Toronto residents sounded the alarm: mandatory user tracking is, in essence, an invasion of privacy. In addition, given the human factor, there will certainly be those who will use “surveillance” for selfish purposes and to take revenge on their rivals. Therefore, in April of this year, the project was removed from the agenda.
However, a similar maneuver was “worked out” in Australia during the pandemic. Every resident was required to download the COVID Safe app to their smartphone, which tracked the person's condition. If a deterioration in health was observed, the data was transmitted to the hospital and the police. The potential patient was easy to track down using their IP address. In general, if Bluetooth is turned off, the system does not work, but the police were given the right to check smartphones and ensure that citizens did not go outside with their gadgets turned off.
Of course, these measures are justified by the global scale of the pandemic. But if we analyze the trend as a whole, it turns out that in virtual space, it is easier than ever to “calculate” a person's identity.
Another example is also related to the fight against COVID. Taiwan launched special flying robots (called drones) that tracked people without protective masks on the streets using their IP addresses. Again, it was not difficult to identify the “violator.”
Projecting these examples onto smart cities, we see that every person who owns digital devices is potentially open to surveillance. We will discuss what this looks like technically and whether there are ways to protect personal space later on.
Virtual cities are no longer the stuff of dystopian or science fiction novels. They are gradually becoming part of our reality. So far, they are mostly prototypes and digital platforms in metaverses, but they are developing rapidly.
This phenomenon carries enormous potential. Virtual spaces can become new centers for work, creativity, and communication, erasing geographical boundaries. They promise unprecedented freedom of self-expression and new forms of art.
However, this is also where the main risks lie. If such a city is controlled by a corporation or becomes a means of total surveillance, dystopian scenarios are not far off. It is important to prevent virtuality from becoming an escape from real problems or a tool for manipulation.
The future of virtual cities is still being written by us. It will depend on the values and rules we establish in them. The main question is not about technology, but whether we can use it to expand the human experience, rather than replace or limit it.
