The «Smart City» – an urban metaphor, a trend, or reflection of everyday life

The article examines the phenomenon of a «smart city» from the point of view of the objective need for the modern process of digital transformation of the urban environment, as well as a kind of urban metaphor that determines our attitude to this process. In turn, the concept of metaphor is analyzed within the framework of classical, philosophical and urban discourses. In this vein, the relevance of applying the definition of «smart» to a city is considered, and examples of successfully implemented «smart city» projects are given. Digitalization of cities is an inevitable process of their development. Cities will not be able to provide comfortable living for the population, and, accordingly, withstand competition with each other, if they do not begin to implement modern digital technologies. In our country, the federal project «Smart City» was developed to improve housing and communal services, education, urban development and other spheres, which literally forces cities to develop. Nevertheless, the question arises about the independence of the process of urban digitalization – is a smart city a metaphor or reality? We believe that Christopher Alexander’s classic metaphor of the «tree city» is still relevant because both the contradictions of the human, institutional and technological dimensions, which seem particularly relevant in our time, and the supposed logic of their algorithmic representation belong to the same archetype.