Cognitively enabled urbanisms: a critical commentary on the emerging governance of the mind

As neurotechnology, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science increasingly shape urban imaginaries, new visions of the ‘cognitive city’ are emerging. This commentary identifies and critically reflects on three distinct modes through which urban life is being cognitively enabled: (1) neurourbanism, where cities are redesigned to promote brain health and emotional well-being; (2) consultancy-led cognitive urbanism, which advances a post-smart city paradigm of reflexive, learning cities underpinned by AI and data analytics; and (3) neurotechnical governance, where infrastructures of thought and emotion are being operationalised through state-led experimentation, exemplified by recent developments in Chinese cities. Rather than treating these as empirical categories, we interpret them as competing socio-technical imaginaries that project different futures of urban governance, subjectivity, and intervention. Across all three, the figure of the citizen as a cognitive subject becomes central, being measured, modulated, and responsibilised through new forms of expertise and infrastructure. We examine who is shaping these imaginaries, what claims they make, and how they differently reconfigure urban life. The commentary concludes by proposing a critical research agenda for urban studies that takes cognition seriously without succumbing to neurohype and that focuses on power, ethics, and the right to mental sovereignty in the future city.