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As Lewis Mumford remarks: “Our choice is not between eutopia and the world as it is, but between eutopia and nothing —or rather nothingness.’ His conclusion resounds: ‘Our most important task at the present moment is to build castles in the air. Mumford referred to what he called a reconstructive utopia, which he described as ‘a reconstituted environment that is better adapted to the nature and aims of the human beings who dwell within it than the actual one’. In the present context, the idea of human nature is too problematic, and the reconstructive utopia hence does not make claim on human nature but believes in the power of reality- transcending eutopian images can be termed “retopia”. It could be that the most fertile ground for reality-transcending concepts in the retopian mode are the places that were left behind by the global markets, or, to recall the comments of Mumford: It should not surprise us therefore if the foundations for eutopia were established in ruined countries; that is, in countries where metropolitan civilization has collapsed and where all its paper prestige is no longer accepted at paper value’. In the present context, the topos of the retopia could thus be abandoned villages in Spain, derelict industrial areas in Latvia, or post-industrial metropolitan areas such as Detroit. The retopian experiments in these places could be based on a return to the commons and thereby practically reanimate the idea of society on a small scale. While the island of Nauru has lost its core and is doomed to vanish, the islands of retopia are yet to take shape”