Connecting the fragments: Looking at the connected city in 2050

New technologies enable new urban patterns and new connections within and between cities. This paper reviews new and emerging technologies that are impacting cities internally and in their relations within larger networks. Policy and social attitudes also must change to incorporate and integrate new technologies. Forecasts and visions of urban futures are now more complicated by new technologies and by the global networks within which urban economies and urban dwellers operate. •Reviews research on the future structure and dynamics of cities and urban systems.•Reviews forecasts of cities internally and their relations in larger networks.•New technologies stretch space and fragment activities in space.•Needed: new policies and attitudes to effect change in urban movements and connections.