Les Systèmes Urbains Cognitifs et l’écueil du déterminisme technologique

In the recent capitalism mutations, knowledge tends to replace natural resources and physical work as economic growth tools, and this deeply transforms modern cities. Progressively, contemporary cities fit their productive, spatial and organizational structures to new economy demands. One of the most evident sign of these mutations lies in the multiplication of projects such as ?technological district?, ?creative? or ?cultural clusters?, ?design districts? or ?cyber districts?. These projects are all developed on a same model, the model of ?Cognitive Urban Systems? (CUS). Those CUS emerge at the core of the cities as the consequence of strong public policies of socio-economic and urban revitalization, on areas of approximately 200 acres. The aim of the projects is to attract talents and innovative activities, paying an active role in the process of production of innovations. Another characteristic of the CUS is that they are built on the base of a strong technological determinism. The lay on the illusion that technological innovations would be able of stimulating by themselves the socioeconomic, urban and sustainable development of the cities. The object of this article is to discuss the impact and the limits of the CUS?s technological perspective, through an analysis of four CUS: 22@Barcelona (Barcelona), Distrito Tecnológico and Distrito de Diseño (Buenos Aires) and the project GIANT/Presqu?île (Grenoble).