Our society seems to be locked into a position in which the choice of the user and the voter determine our future ways of living. A disturbing forecast of a collective urban life in a giant Big Brother House looms; a material and social world in which the sensational media and its commercial translation is prevalent. Our sense of what is real and what is quality is on the verge of collapse. The practice and education of the engineers of this society is determined by short term effect instead of social responsibility. Culture is market, politics its façade and the city its stage. Instead of reviving old school high modernist social engineering or claiming here the need for an intellectual Junta, we solicit for new forms of social engineering. Where does this lead you? Several forms of social engineering are addressed. James C. Scott in an interview airs his fundamental critique on State driven large-scale social engineering Desmond Kwame shows the slum removal and clearing operations in Harare and other Zimbabwean cities Eyal Weizman describes how the Israeli military literally engineered the invisible Palestinian enemy using architectural theory as inspiration Neville Mars displays how fear is becoming dominant in Chinese planning and how the Chinese dream is being constructed as a fortress. Reinier de Graaf reveals in an interview OMA’s new architectural quest, namely to be an incubator of cultural resistance. Steven Wassenaar gives evidence of how in Paris the eradication of ideals both political and urbanistic is in full swing Michel Bauwens advocates that the ‘peer 2 peer’ concept is not simply a technology but a radical new way of democratic living. Table of Contents: Planning Paradise Arjen Oosterman Principles of Great Stories Dick de Lange User City in a Voter World Christian Ernsten and Joost Janmaat Society Seeing Like a Society Interview with James C. Scott Operation Murambatsvina Desmond Kwame Engineering Trust Jan Willem Duyvendak The Space of Experience Bill Thompson Epistemological Attack! Eyal Weizman Amateur as Pioneer Christian Bunyan Disperse and Rule Justus Uitermark The Mighty Model Gaby Heindl and Drehli Robnik Manifesto Christian Ernsten and Joost Janmaat Media Labs and Open Societies Andrew Bullen Designing Society: Peer 2 Peer Michel Bauwens Utopian History of Architecture City Up-TempoUrbanism Interview with Reinier de Graaf Packaging Utopian Sustainability Matt Lewis Chinese Dreams Neville Mars Manifesto or City Interview with Pier Vittorio Aureli Free Urbanism Jeroen Heester Slums and Slabs Steven Wassenaar 1 in 23 Urban Think Tank A Retroactive Lens on the Bijlmermeer Wouter Vanstiphout Smart Governance Erik Gerritsen and Jeroen de Lange Gaming Who’s in Charge Arjen Oosterman How Sim City Changed the Game of Planning Edwin Gardner A New Arena for Collective Activisme Jeremy Hight Dossier Social Engineering in the Amsterdam Metropolis Office for Social Engineering From the Volume Archive