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Veronika Anna Neumeier, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany
“Nothing about cities in the twenty-first century is insignificant; the stakes are always high in pinning down what cities are, in thinking about what to do with cities and in acting on/in/through the city, especially if one wants to bring to life more liberating and just futures. For this reason it is extremely difficult to find a conceptual path that cuts through the vicissitudes of the city without losing one’s way in blind alleys and dead ends.” (Pieterse 2008: 12)
The growing importance of cities and their future role for the 21th century has initiated much discourse within public and academic spheres. A great majority of published texts on this matter start by introducing the pressing issues and challenges as well as the opportunities cities might provide for us. In particular, the subjects of economic development, ecology, and social change seem to be highly dominant in discourses about cities. However, one important question stands out: what roles do cities play for us now and which ones will they take in the future?
Regarding the rapid changes of cities and urban structures, extensive research has been conducted in the fields of both the social and natural sciences in the past few years. From a viewpoint of social geography (which I will take), it is important to examine the role of urban planning strategies and urban development concepts as the basis for a majority of planning activity in urban contexts. Such urban development concepts try to formulate common principles for a city, mostly developed by urban governers in top-down logics, in order to establish long-term goals and positive urban development over several decades. However, in times of growing digitalisation, increasing opportunities of civic participation and global change issues, is it still appropriate to establish such prescriptive urban development guidelines? On this note, this blog will specifically examine the idea of the so-called ´smart city´ in relation to aspects of sustainability, increasing digitalisation, and possible positive urban developments in the future.
Smart city: a booming approach to urban development
The idea and application of the ‘smart city’ approach has rapidly emerged since the early 2000s. With its strong focus on technological advance and ‘smart’ innovations, the concept generally aims “to make [a city] more efficient, sustainable, equitable and livable” (NRDC, in: Chourabi et.al. 2012: 2290). Thus, the ‘smart city’ approach can be applied to:
“[a] specific region, achieving the informational and integrated management of cities. It can also be said to be an effective integration of smart planning ideas, smart construction modes, smart management methods, and smart development approaches. Through the digital grid management of urban geography, resources, environment, economic, social and other systems, as well as the digital and informational processing and application of