For residents of European cities – with their snarled traffic, draughty old buildings, creaking public services and grey winters – it’s easy to see the appeal of moving to a brand-new, high-tech metropolis.

Enter Dunia Cyber City, a new special economic zone in Zanzibar aimed at attracting tech workers (real and virtual) and companies with its low taxes. Backed by former Apple executive Florian Fournier and the Zanzibar government, the proposed development is inspired by so-called network states – autonomous, digitally crowdfunded micronations or city states – and is meant to bring together like-minded individuals to focus on technological experimentation and cryptocurrency.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has recently scaled back its own massive and controversial experiment in smart cities. The Line was envisioned as a metropolis for up to 9 million people stretching in a straight, 170-kilometre line across the desert and mountains.

While these projects, and similar past attempts such as South Korea’s Songdo, differ in scale and ambition, one of the elements that links them is the conviction that deploying technology – the more the better – is the key to the cities of the future.

This is not a minor issue, as the world’s cities are its future – 55% of the global population currently lives in a city, a figure expected to grow to 68% by 2050.

Urban centres account for a growing portion of global GDP and are drivers of innovation and creativity. But they are also plagued by quality-of-life problems related to crime, pollution and income inequality, and a lack........

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