Augmenting the Smart City. A “new view” for the urban planning

n recent years, Augmented Reality has gained interest both for being a technology that offers many possibilities of interaction with mobile devices (smartphone and tablet) and for its potentialities of being used in outside contexts. The recent transition of Augmented Reality from the virtual context of the Video Games -within an indoor ambiance- to the real urban space -within an outside ambiance- is providing new perspectives for urban planning processes, as a result. Referring to this transition, the paper tries to investigate the possibilities of proposing a new view for the urban planning process taking into account the potentialities of the recent applications of the Augmented Reality. At the same time, the paper wonders on the possibility of new perspectives that the Augmented Reality can offer to the research in the sector of the town planning. Using a methodology based on a systemic approach, the paper intends to underline the relations existing between urban subsystems and the use of technology. In these relations, the social subsystem plays a central role, as its components (people living and using the city) can improve the urban smartness by the adoption of responsible and aware behaviors. AR applications in the fi eld of the game (e.g. the phenomenon of PokemonGo) has shown how people are willing to be involved in new ways of fruition of urban spaces as long as they can use their mobile devices and they can share their own experiences on the social networks. This attitude can be properly taken into account within the process of urban governance both to improve the participative procedures and to explore new paths for the aware use of technologies. These innovative research dimensions should be explored carefully and quickly, considering the possible contribution of these values to the urban smartness.