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Abstract

This paper presents a near-future scenario for urban China, derived through application of scenario
planning techniques to extrapolate components of a possible urban future, based on analysis of
recent and current digitally-mediated urban spatial practice in Chinese cities. The scenario provides a
framework for exploring the interplay of top-down modes of control and bottom-up “performance” in the digital city; the co-forming relationship between urban spatial practices and the appropriation of digital communications networks for social and spatial experimentation; and the culturally and socially conditioned roles that digital technologies play in the formation and evolution of urban morphology and urban societies.