What do you see if I say "party"? What do you visualize if I say "conference"? What about "intentional community"?
Defining types of gatherings is hard, but it is critical since they attract the right people based on their description. This is why today I want to explore the description of Popup cities ... what is this?👀
Most say it all started with Zuzalu, an experiment in Montenegro, with the goal of having fewer people than at a conference, but more than in a co-living, for a time that is also in between a conference (usually a few days) and a shared house (a few years). The idea of a conference for a month with a few hundred people was kind of new, but it also worked out really well because of the spontaneous organization and organic invite-only planning for it. Gathering the experts from the latest technological fields always makes for a nice event 😜
From there, the concept was copied and replicated around the world, with many different perspectives on what it should be, how it should be, how much it should cost. Similar to how new scientific discoveries led to many new branches of science, the popup city movement is creating a very big tree of interconnected events 🌳
At the current stage, it is fair to say they appeal to a specific population that we will call the builders. Usually nomads, sometimes remote workers, the builders love to explore new ideas and new technologies. What better place than a month-long co-living with techno-optimists talking about the latest AI, the latest protocol, or the next bio-enhancement?
The complexity of the ecosystem keeps on increasing as there are more options and diversity, which is why we are starting to see more privacy focused popup cities (more Lunarpunks) while others make tech-focused popup cities (more Solarpunk). But usually the idea is pretty clear: come and build with your peers! Ideally, build in public! 🧑🏼💻
Why would any of this matter? 🤔
These gatherings are long enough to effectively build a routine while working and enjoying life at the same time. I want to make the case that popup cities are building a new human lifestyle that will slowly spread to the rest of humanity 🌎
A new generation of builders is growing where the key metrics are not about money anymore, but relationships, care, passion and many more personal choices: such as staying in good health so they can do more for longer Choose what you want to care about, and make it your new KPI: the real "choose your own adventure"!
So let's clarify: popup cities are social experiments where builders of the future of society come together as a community to design their own lifestyle.
Now, a popup city is a small bubble that rarely interacts with society for the duration of a program ... but what if you joined popup cities all the time? Would you always be outside of society? What if a popup city became permanent and hosted a rotating schedule of events to foster an ever-changing community of builders? Would you live with a better lifestyle all year long?
As new popup cities emerge, connect and share resources, they develop more services and build more resilience into the system. A high-tech infrastructure is slowly emerging to sustain a growing community looking for more meaning, developing the lifestyle of the future. The ecosystem of popup cities will bring to life a network society of self-sufficient nodes where people can live, work, and party 🤩
