What is Smart for the Future City? Mobilities and Automation

Malene Freudendal-Pedersen, Sven Kesselring and Eriketti Servou
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Malene Freudendal-Pedersen: Department of Planning, Aalborg University, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark
Sven Kesselring: Faculty of Economics and Law, Nürtingen-Geislingen University, 73312 Geislingen, Germany
Eriketti Servou: mobil.LAB Doctoral Research Group, Chair of Urban Structure and Transport Planning & Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS); Technical University Munich, 80333 Munich, Germany

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-21

Abstract: Cities have changed their pulse, their pace, and reach, and the urban scale is an interconnected element of the global “network society” with new forms of social, cultural and economic life emerging. The increase in the amount and speed of mobilities has strong impacts on ecological conditions, and, so far, no comprehensive sustainable solutions are in sight. This paper focuses on the discussion around smart cities, with a specific focus on automation and sustainability. Discourses on automated mobility in urban spaces are in a process of creation and different stakeholders contribute in shaping the urban space and its infrastructures for automated driving in the near or distant future. In many ways, it seems that the current storylines, to a high degree, reinforce and (re)produce the “system of automobility”. Automobility is still treated as the iconic and taken-for-granted form of modern mobility. It seems that most actors from industry, planning, and politics consider it as being sustained through smart and green mobility innovations and modifications. The paper discusses the implication of these techno-policy discourses and storylines for urban planning. It presents preliminary results from ongoing research on policy promotion strategies of automated driving in the region of Munich, Germany.

Keywords: mobilities; smart cities; sustainability; discourses; automated driving; Munich (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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