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    Beware of Smart People! [Conference]

    Redefining the Smart City Paradigm towards Inclusive Urbanism

    Research

    The current debate about Smart Cities is strongly influenced by technological and application-oriented hard perspectives that predominantly materialize through the insertion of smart infrastructures into existing urban systems. Citizens (as individuals) and urban societies (as bodies) remain passive beneficiaries, end users or consumers.

    This smartification of urban management is contrasted by increasing demands made by civil society and urban social movements towards greater inclusion in decision-making: New urban actors acquire new agency through local knowledge, expertise, creativity, social networking skills and collaborative capabilities, or social entrepreneurship.

    The symposium addresses the conflictual reality in which Smart City approaches are currently unfolding. International scholars and practitioners will

    • Reflect on the “Smart City” as a contested paradigm;
    • Shift the discourse towards the notion of the urban as co-produced by many voices;
    • Attempt to redefine “Smart City” by putting ordinary citizens as “Smart People” at the core of the debate.

    The symposium is organized by
    TU Dialogue Platform Smart People & Urban Commoning

    Jörg Stollmann, Chair for Urban Design & Urbanization
    Sybille Frank, Chair for Urban and Regional Sociology
    Angela Million, Andreas Brück, Chair for Urban Design & Urban Development
    Philipp Misselwitz, Habitat Unit- Chair for International Urbanism and Design
    Johanna Schlaack, Center for Metropolitan Studies
    Carolin Schröder, Center for Technology and Society

    In coordination with the scientific workshop „Smartology as new urban utopia“ organized by Martina Löw, Gunter Weidenhaus and Martin Fuller, IfS, TU Berlin
    For free admission send an e-mail to: konrad.wolf@mailbox.tu-berlin.de