Hygeia, city of health This is the proposal with which physician Benjamin Ward Richardson takes up the previous reforms in hygiene and extends to a new level the authority of public health experts, with the aim of definitively eradicating the urban diseases and discomforts associated with the emergence of industrial society.

Reflection on utopia and dystopia—their historical evolution, contemporary manifestations, and future potential—extends beyond historiographical or academic spheres. It constitutes an essential effort to recover a set of crucial conceptual materials for diagnosing the present.