Smart city

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Smart City is a collective term for holistic development concepts that aim to make cities more efficient, technologically advanced, greener and more socially inclusive . These concepts include technical, economic and social innovations. The term is also used in city ​​marketing and by large technology groups.

Even if the holistic or holistic character of such concepts is unanimously emphasized again and again, certain partial aspects or individual "dimensions" (see below) are often given greater weight in concrete implementation, in particular also depending on which - e.g. B. economic interests are in the background. Much of the criticism (see below) starts at this point with the argument that the alleged holistic character of this concept would be lost or not even sought.

definition

Smart City is a term that has been used by various actors in politics, business, administration and urban planning since the 2000s to summarize technology-based changes and innovations in urban areas. The idea of ​​the smart city goes hand in hand with the utilization of digital technologies and at the same time represents a reaction to the economic, social and political challenges that post-industrial societies are confronted with at the turn of the millennium. The focus here is on dealing with environmental pollution , demographic change , population growth , the financial crisis or scarcity of resources . In a broader sense, the term also includes non-technical innovations that contribute to better and more sustainable life in the city. These include, for example, concepts of sharing ( share economy ) or public participation in large-scale construction projects.

Various characteristics were defined for the purpose of comparing cities in the area of ​​“smartness”: Smart Economy (economy), Smart People (population), Smart Governance (administration), Smart Mobility (mobility), Smart Environment (environment) and Smart Living (life ). The potential of the Smart City only unfolds within the framework of a "cooperative network of relationships between citizens, city ​​administration , business, science and politics."

According to some stakeholders, the highly developed Smart City is an Internet of Things and Services : The entire urban environment is equipped with sensors that make all recorded data available in the cloud . This creates a permanent interaction between city residents and the technology that surrounds them. The city dwellers thus become part of the technical infrastructure of a city. There is disagreement about the assessment of such scenarios.

Dimensions of Smart City

economy

Smart economy describes the increase in economic productivity by networking various actors at local, regional and global level. It is characterized by a special entrepreneurial spirit, from which innovative and promising ideas emerge. The foundation of the smart economy is human capital , i.e. the individual knowledge of each actor. This knowledge is continuously acquired, developed and passed on through formal and informal knowledge transfer among workers, which in turn increases workers' productivity. The smart economy is often associated with concepts and terms such as creative class and the knowledge society .

Various private actors have come together under the title Smart City Projects in order to create synergies in the marketing of their own products and services. The cities commit themselves to one provider in this field over a period of several years. Among other things, IBM is a pioneer in this field and advises municipal players such as the city of Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, the energy company Vattenfall is presenting various offers for regulating the energy consumption of private households and building intelligent networks under the title " Smart Home " and Cisco Systems is also presenting a number of areas of life that can be controlled by communication networks under the title "Internet of Everything": From energy networks to Traffic to shopping in the supermarket. The globally operating Siemens group also bundles advisory services to cities with the sale of various group products and services. Economic support for citizen projects can be created through a citizen budget .

Governance, politics and administration

The Leipzig Charter , adopted in 2007, introduced a paradigm shift in urban development that created the basis for an integrated and sustainable European urban policy. Building on the Leipzig Charter, the “Smart Cities Dialogue Platform” in Germany, consisting of representatives from the federal government, the federal states, the municipalities, the municipal umbrella organizations, various scientific organizations, business, social and professional associations, developed the “Smart City Charter ”. As part of this dialogue process, guidelines and recommendations for action for the German municipalities on the way to smart cities were developed on the initiative of the federal government.

The EU's Horizon 2020 program is currently intended to promote the development of European cities into “smart cities”. With the aim of making the EU more competitive on a global level, some “smart” showcase projects are being funded. One example of a pilot project funded by the EU is Open Cities . Against this background, various EU programs promote cities that see themselves as smart cities in their efforts to develop smart cities. The cities funded by the programs include: Copenhagen , Vienna , Amsterdam and Berlin .

When developing smart technologies, municipal actors often work with universities (e.g. Berlin, Barcelona , Vienna) and private research institutions. Problems of sustainability and the technical feasibility of smart technologies, forms of participation and amounts of data are to be solved here.

However, what characterizes a smart city policy is disputed, especially at the political level. One feature of smart urban policy that is frequently cited in the debate about the smart city is “smart governance”. This is intended to ensure citizen-friendly political decision-making through the strong involvement of the civilian population in urban development processes. The aim of smart governance is to make measures, planning and decision-making processes more transparent (open data) and more participatory (public participation). Technologies such as the open data principle and forms of open government and e-participation play a major role here. The digital implementation and expansion of democracy is also known as e-democracy . The aim of these new forms of participation is to enter into dialogue with city residents and to allow all residents to participate in the policy making process.

Civil society

A special form of civil society is a fundamental component of the smart city. The citizens, the “smart people”, are characterized as particularly creative, flexible, socially heterogeneous and networked. The Smart City and its population are interdependent , which means that the lives of the residents are made easier and better through technical innovations, while the residents in turn shape the city through their own initiative. This includes civil society initiatives that deal socially or creatively with urban space, and political decision-making processes in which all social groups can participate and thus influence the development of their city. This form of political thinking has its origin in the urban planning movements of New Urbanism and Smart Growth. A broad willingness to form a coalition and the involvement of many different actors should lead to a wide variety of topics. In principle, development should take place “from below”. Although the public is involved in the informal network-like organization of many control processes, it is still not a decision-maker.

Smarter Together Munich-Neuaubing: Opening of a neighborhood box for delivery services and for the exchange of equipment between citizens

This special form of urban civil society can be seen in practice, for example, in phenomena such as the sharing culture. This can be commercial or non-commercial. The sharing culture is about the common use or joint use of equipment and infrastructure for the purpose of ecological and economic benefits. Examples of this are car-sharing or carpooling, as well as initiatives that encourage people to share local public transport tickets or household appliances and tools. Furthermore, urban horticulture projects can be counted among the private or civil society initiatives ( integration gardens ). Food is grown on balconies and in public places in a sustainable decentralized manner. In addition to financial and ecological aspects, social and integrative aspects also play a role here.

Following on from that of Elinor Ostrom developed commons - or common theory and cities can with their resources and spaces as " Urban Commons be understood." If the Smart City is understood as common, all decisions in the Smart City must also be understood as a joint negotiation process for all those who use the city. All decisions that affect the Smart City must therefore be made jointly and consensually by all commoners . The decisions and the decision-making process can take place at different levels, for example in the context of neighborhood associations, at the district level or at the city-wide level. However, as soon as the decisions to be made go beyond a certain level, e.g. that of the neighborhood organization, and refer to a comprehensive level, e.g. that of the metropolitan region , it is more difficult to ensure equal participation of all in the decision-making processes and to work out a consensus decision. As a solution to this problem, Ostrom proposes a polycentric control system that coordinates and brings together the decision-making processes on the smaller scales. The residents of a smart city can therefore also be understood as commons who organize the city themselves and manage it according to their own rules in the interests of the common good. The aim of the Commons can be defined as overcoming private property in order to offer all people equal access to essential resources such as housing, mobility, energy and food. The way in which the Commons are organized is based on the assumption that “what people need for their daily life [...] must not become private property”.

Marleen Stikker advocates greater citizen involvement in smart city concepts. “Technology determines our society. But it is not neutral. It is important to make sure that systems are open and give citizens the opportunity to participate in shaping and co-determination. "

sustainability

Smart city visions are largely based on topics that were formulated and implemented in the course of the discourse on sustainability and the sustainable city. Since the 1990s, sustainable development , i.e. development that meets the needs of the present without endangering the needs of later generations, has determined the urban development discourse. This rethinking is triggered by challenges such as climate change and the limits to growth .

The idea of ​​the sustainable city is primarily based on an ecological, economic and socio-cultural approach. The goals of a sustainable city or urban development and urban policy can be: sustainable use of renewable resources and minimal use of non-renewable resources (ecological dimension); Emphasis on a regional circular economy , minimal transport intensity and a sustainable economy (economic dimension); the socio-cultural mix of the city, shared responsibility and democratic participation of the population (socio-cultural dimension)

Topics from this sustainability debate are now networked within the Smart City discourse with overarching topics and the corresponding stakeholders from research, politics, society and business and finally implemented in practice in the city. Smart city visions, for example, contain ideas for regional product cycles based on the premise that things should be produced where they are consumed. Examples from the energy sector are solar thermal energy (for the local production of hot water), photovoltaics (solar cells for electricity production) or geothermal energy (for heating buildings). In the food sector, for example, experiments are being carried out with urban roof and facade gardens. The local production of goods should not only save energy, but also make sense from the point of view of resilience and awareness of these goods.

A major challenge of the Smart City lies in realizing the socio-cultural dimension of sustainability. The point here is to ask which residents of the city are not included in the Smart City and thus the risk of exclusion arises. On the other hand, against the background of resilience, urban actors have to ask themselves how sensible it is to completely technologize urban space and what dangers it might harbor.

mobility

Smarter Together Munich-Neuaubing: Opening of the Westkreuz mobility station with e- car sharing , rental bicycles, rental pedelecs , rental e-cargo bikes

“Smart” mobility is characterized by the fact that it is (energy) efficient , low in emissions , safe and inexpensive. The existing infrastructure will be improved by using information and communication technologies. For example, they help to monitor and control the traffic using video cameras and give users the option of taking a different route via a mobile app . A turn towards smart mobility can also be seen in local public transport, for example, tickets can be obtained via apps in many major German cities. In addition, the exact travel time can be determined through the exact location determination via the app. Cars can be shared through car sharing services, bike rental systems or e-scooter rental systems. By Intelligent Transport Systems such as Intelligent roads the traffic to be digitized and optimized.

health

Health care is a significant factor for the quality of life in cities and in rural areas. The “smart” city or region therefore also addresses digital applications in the fields of medicine and care. Particular importance is attached to “smart” health care against the background of socio-demographic change and the associated sharp increase in expenditure in the health sector.

Smart health care is characterized by quick, uncomplicated and cheaper access to health services and medicines. At the same time, data from nursing, supply and medicine are networked to ensure more efficient and better patient care. Telemedicine or video consultation is a core element of smart health care, which is a significant benefit, especially in rural areas. This enables a quick and uncomplicated medical consultation, since long journeys and waiting times are eliminated. Other applications include electronic patient files , health apps or electronic prescriptions that are automatically sent to pharmacies. In Germany, there are already isolated telemedicine offers, such as in Schleswig-Holstein.

Since the need for care will increase significantly and there are personnel and financial hurdles for care services, smart solutions are also aimed at assistive solutions in apartments. In addition to floor sensors for fall detection, this also includes innovative technologies to support maintenance processes.

energy and Environment

The basis of life in every modern city is a sufficient supply of energy and drinking water as well as a functioning disposal of waste materials (garbage or sewage). This already applies to ancient cities such as Rome , where without the availability of drinking water from a large spatial catchment area and the installation of large sewers, the basis for the high population density would have been missing. The concept of smart cities provides for a high proportion of regenerative energy for their supply, in addition to the important heating and cooling requirements, the focus here is primarily on the provision of electrical energy. So-called smart grids are intended to ensure the required balance between generation and consumption of electrical power at all times. In addition to the strongly fluctuating consumers of classic power grids (consisting of private, public and industrial users), local producers are now increasingly being added, whose feed-in power correlates strongly with the locally available solar radiation and other indirectly dependent forms of energy (such as wind in particular). In addition to the installation of large electrical energy storage facilities, this can ultimately only be managed with generators and consumers that can be forcibly operated by a network operator depending on the network status. For this purpose, heat pumps and cooling units are currently particularly suitable as part of technical building infrastructures . Here, the physical energy storage takes place through the heat capacities of the heated or cooled parts of the building. This works especially with large systems or buildings. For the plant or building operator, however, this always means a loss of control, as an external energy manager actively intervenes in his internal boundary flows. However, such local network structures are also of interest in order to minimize the effects of disturbances and terrorist or military attacks on the infrastructure of the power supply. Instead of a large network with a few easily identifiable central switching points and feed-in points, there are many decentralized and largely independent island networks that can better ensure the functionality of a smart city that is extremely vulnerable when it comes to power supply.

Smart City Promotion

There are numerous international and national financial subsidies for the implementation of smart city concepts. The large number of different funding programs results from the fact that cities in numerous countries have a high degree of self-determination in their urban development. In Germany, the self-government guarantee 2 manifested in Art. 28 para. 1 sentence Basic Law , the local self-government of cities and towns. Federal levels (e.g. the federal government) can therefore only create incentives to work towards a city or regional development in the sense of a smart city / region.

Financial support is a chapter made available from the funds of the public budget, which is intended for the implementation of political or economic goals. To promote smart city concepts, there are different funding programs in Europe at the level of the European Union , the federal government and the level of the federal states . Due to its complexity in terms of origin, scope, funding conditions, funding areas, funding purposes and funding goals, the number of financial state funding in the area of urban development can now hardly be overlooked and is also described by cities as a hindrance.

Through various ministries, the federal government is pursuing various funding programs for the digitization of cities and regions. However, critics criticize the lack of coordination of the programs, which does not have a beneficial effect on the digital transformation. The funding programs have different priorities.

The Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Home Affairs has been running the “Smart Cities made in Germany” funding program with a funding volume of 750 million euros since 2019. (Note: The funds were increased by EUR 500 million as part of the economic stimulus package.) The funding program is advertised in three seasons and supports model projects for digitization and urban development. As part of the first season (2019), 8 model projects qualified. The announcement of the model projects of the second season on the subject of “Common Good and Network City / City Network” will take place in October 2020. In parallel, the “Heimat 2.0” funding program for rural, structurally weak regions will take place in 2020. The program supports model projects that use digitization to improve opportunities and living conditions in rural regions. The “ City of the Future” funding program is run by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and promotes modern urban development concepts on the topics of digitization, urban mobility and urban climate. The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture , on the other hand, is addressing digital change in rural areas by promoting 61 model concepts as part of the “Land.Digital” project.

index

The management consultancy Roland Berger (company) has published an annual Smart City Strategy Index since 2017, which contains the published Smart City strategies with regard to buildings, energy and the environment, mobility, education, health, public administration, legal framework, infrastructure, stakeholders, coordination, plan and Compare budget with each other. According to the index, the cities of Vienna , London and St. Albert lead the way . Other European cities in the top 15 are Birmingham (7), Paris (10) and Santander (13).

In 2019, the Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (Bitkom for short) published a Smart City Index for 81 German cities with over 100,000 inhabitants, which was divided into 7800 data points on the subjects of administration, information and communication technology, energy and the environment, mobility and society were rated. The following cities top the list: Hamburg , Karlsruhe , Stuttgart , Berlin , Munich , Heidelberg , Bonn , Cologne , Dortmund , Darmstadt .

criticism

Advocates of the Smart City concept often refer to new (information) technological achievements that are supposed to make life easier. This is strongly reminiscent of the belief in technology of the 1960s - technology as a panacea.

Smarter Together Munich-Neuaubing: sensors in public spaces on lampposts with weather and pollutant measurements

Market strategists are accused of the fact that the smart city is nothing more than a fashionable term that, despite concepts for sustainability and climate change, also harbors potential hazards - especially in the possibility of surveillance by cameras and sensors or the misuse of these technologies. In the People's Republic of China , for example, there are plans to evaluate the social behavior of citizens (“ social credit system ”).

On the part of the humanities , the efforts of cities and the offers of economic actors are scrutinized, especially with regard to their actual benefits for society. Scientists differentiate between technical innovations that are used to support informalities in the city and those innovations that want to formalize informal characteristics as undesirable. Richard Sennett writes: “Informal social processes are the heart of the city. [...] Technology must be part of the process of giving the city that informal energy [...] "(" Informal social processes are the heart of the city. [...] Technology must be part of the process that provides the city with this informal energy [ ...] "). Saskia Sassen also warns that technology must actually serve the residents and not the other way around: "It is the need to design a system that puts all that technology truly at the service of the inhabitants - and not the other way around."

Saskia Sassen (2012a: 14) also warns against censorship and that new technologies are not yet sufficiently “urbanized”. Richard Sennett (2012: 1) also notes that in the history of technology tools were used before they could be used properly. This is also the problem with the tools of the Smart City (ibid.): They have the potential to dumb down the urban population instead of supporting innovations (ibid .: 4).

The information architect and author of the pamphlet Against the Smart City (2013) Adam Greenfield presents the Smart City as an abstract model, as a “market in which technology companies can sell their products and services”. Greenfield examines public relations brochures and marketing materials from exemplary Smart City projects. His criticism primarily concerns the absence of people in the conception of cities: “There is little to be read about city dwellers in the concepts of tech companies. At best they appear on the edge. As consumers , whose habits are observed and tampered with by technical systems. "

Jens Libbe from the German Institute for Urban Studies (Difu) points out other dangers of the reckless use of the label “Smart City” in an economic context : He considers the efforts of national standardization organizations to enforce Smart City standards to be problematic when it comes to the impact of multinational corporations on cities : "The interests of globally active corporations are being pursued more or less bluntly." When asked about the reasons for these activities, the driving actors referred to international efforts to harmonize standards. Its aim is to remove obstacles in international competition and to ensure that technological innovations can be transferred to other countries. The desired “standardization roadmap ” is based on the feasibility of technologies. Cities would be seen solely as marketplaces for technology applications: [...] "The intention of implementing seemingly voluntary standards ultimately threatens to miss the interests of the people living in cities, especially since the general public hardly knows about these activities."

Critics point out that the participation of citizens in specific smart city concepts is apparently only a minor matter, while the actual focus is on technological aspects. This is expressed, among other things, in the fact that large numbers of corporations are represented in the EU's smart city advisory bodies, but civil society initiatives are hardly represented.

Smart City is a concept that is based on a certain principle of competition between cities - here, too, it is mostly about economic growth (see rebound effect ) - and is therefore strongly controlled by economic interests. For example, the model of the post-growth society / economy contributes to the fact that it is not just a question of an attached label and competition between cities, but rather a really sustainable concept that induces a rethink in economic, ecological and social terms - away from a still consumer-oriented one A growth society that has a negative impact on climate change? In this sense, many strategies and concepts declared as part of Smart City only superficially offer a point of contact with a post-growth society, while in fact they are only still subject to a growth logic.

The strong focus on data-driven urban technologies has not only brought criticism from a completely different direction since 2014: Scientists (e.g. at the Fraunhofer Institute IESE under the collective term "Smart Rural Areas") are trying to as well as interdisciplinary expert groups (e.g. of the "Internet & Society Collaboratory" under the collective term "Smart Country") to explore the potential of "smart" technologies also in the extra-urban area and to focus increasingly as the "counterpart" to "Smart City" the debate, mostly with the arguments that a significant part of the population still live there and that a large number of middle classes are at home in the countryside, and that digital technologies and networking could also help stimulate rural areas.

In 2018, the “Smart City” concept received the German Big Brother Award in the PR & Marketing category . In her laudation, Rena Tangens judged : A “Smart City” is the perfect combination of the totalitarian surveillance state from George Orwell's “ 1984 ” and the standardized, only apparently free consumers in Aldous Huxley's “ Brave New World ” .

Theoretical approaches to the smart city

The academic smart city discourse includes aspects from various theories and concepts. These can therefore offer access to a more in-depth discussion of the Smart City:

Examples

See also

Sources / bibliography

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Giffinger et al., 2007
  2. ↑ Jäkel / Bronnert 2013: 16
  3. ↑ cf. http://smartercitieschallenge.org/smarter-cities.html?year=2014
  4. ↑ http://corporate.vattenfall.de/nachhaltigkeit/energie-der-zukunft/nachhaltige-energielosungen/smart-home/
  5. ↑ http://www.cisco.com/web/DE/tomorrow-starts-here/index.html
  6. ↑ Hartmann 2012
  7. ^ [1] Website of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, for Building and Home. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
  8. ↑ Proof of Open Cities 2014b: - ( Memento of the original from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.opencities.net
  9. ↑ ticketteilen.org .
  10. ↑ pumpipumpe, 2014 - ( Memento of the original from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pumpipumpe.ch
  11. ↑ Helfrich 2012: 66
  12. ↑ cf. Harvey 2013: 151ff.
  13. ↑ Exner / Kratzwald 2012: 8
  14. ↑ Patrick Dax: The great "Smart City" swindle. In: Futurezone . June 13, 2014, accessed October 13, 2016 .
  15. ↑ Gl. Vanolo, 2013, p. 3
  16. ↑ See Brundtland report, p. 51; Section 49
  17. ↑ Dierk Fricke, Benjamin Henkel, Caecilie von Teichman, Bernhard Roth: Business model of decentralized series production: Additive manufacturing as the basis for microfactories . Ed .: Roland Lachmayer, Rene Bastian Lippert, Stefan Kaierle. ISBN 978-3-662-56462-2 .
  18. ↑ Health expenditure . Retrieved August 6, 2020 .
  19. ↑ The electronic patient record (EPR). Retrieved August 6, 2020 .
  20. ↑ UKSH: Virtual diabetes clinic for children and adolescents. Retrieved August 6, 2020 .
  21. ^ German Caritas Association e V: Care. January 27, 2020, accessed August 6, 2020 .
  22. ↑ a b Smart City: Chaos in funding. Retrieved July 20, 2020 .
  23. ↑ Model projects Smart Cities - KfW competition "Smart City". Retrieved July 20, 2020 .
  24. ↑ The buzz for digital administration? Retrieved July 20, 2020 .
  25. ↑ BBSR - BULE - Heimat 2.0. Retrieved July 20, 2020 .
  26. ↑ BMBF Internet editorship: Zukunftsstadt - BMBF. Retrieved July 20, 2020 .
  27. ↑ publisher: Land.Digital: 61 innovative projects are funded. Retrieved July 20, 2020 .
  28. ↑ https://www.rolandberger.com/en/Publications/Smart-City-Strategy-Index-Vienna-and-London-leading-in-worldwide-ranking.html
  29. ↑ Smart City Index: These are the most progressive cities in the world. Retrieved October 25, 2019 .
  30. ^ Smart City Index. Retrieved October 25, 2019 .
  31. ↑ welt.de , December 8, 2015: Smart City Concept - Perfidious surveillance is an economic factor in China.
  32. ↑ see Vanolo 2012: 2 or Sennet 2012: 4
  33. ↑ Sennet 2012: 4
  34. ↑ Sassen 2012b
  35. ↑ a b c futurezone.at, April 13, 2014, Patrick Dax: The big smart city swindle (October 8, 2016)
  36. ↑ a b Difu reports 2/2014 , Jens Libbe, difu.de: Standpunkt: Smart City: Challenge for urban development , October 8, 2016
  37. ↑ see also World in Transition - Social Contract for a Great Transformation
  38. ↑ smartcountry.collaboratory.de: Smart Country - Digital strategies for regions  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / smartcountry.collaboratory.de  
  39. ↑ stadt-und-netz.blogspot.de
  40. ↑ Rena Tangens (laudator): The BigBrotherAward in the “PR & Marketing” category goes to the “Smart City” concept! In: bigbrotherawards.de. Retrieved April 22, 2018 .