When satellite images of contemporary metropolises started to be accessible to architects and urbanists, a quite radical shock emerged. Modern history has for long time pushed forward the idea that the higher you could view a city/landscape, the most you could know about it. This “zenital myth” went into crises through satellite view because urbanscapes appeared as bizzare and unrecognizable objects. (At least) the Western conception of the city as a bounded entity with a clear division between the countryside and “nature” appeared as a complete non-sense looking from above. This epistemological shock has been one of the factors that led to the crisis of urban planning writ large.

However, in the last decade, a new urban actor is emerging with new potentials and capabilities of planning in (not only) Western metropolises: Amazon. Amazon urbanism is characterized by a profound knowledge on territories due to big-data management and the disseminated logistical infrastructures of the company, interconnecting huge facilities with the last mile logistics. In the last few years, with a radical acceleration thanks to the Covid pandemic, Amazon is progressively colonizing “air” a new strategic frontier for its operations.

Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, is a crucial player with Blue Origin in the “new Space race”. However, perhaps less known, Amazon operations are also increasingly focused on the sub- orbital aerial level. Amazon sees air as an infrastructure, the smoother one for an endless circulation. Therefore, Amazon is developing an urban intelligence aiming at creating a sort of “urban automation from above”, through an imaginary populated by multi-level drone fulfillment centers, flying warehouse facilities, delivery via drones “highways”.

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