The development or the circular economy can be described as a “sociotechnical imaginary”, a collective reimagining of social order, reflected in the design of scientific and technological projects and the political goals and strategies that accompany them. This project has the ambition to investigate in several cities how this imaginary takes shape in “the circular city”, which actors and choices become dominant in that process, and how this translates into transition pathways and policies (and which possibilities are marginalised).