Ethics of Smart Cities: Towards Value-Sensitive Design and Co-Evolving City Life

Dirk Helbing, Farzam Fanitabasi, Fosca Giannotti, Regula Hänggli, Carina Hausladen, Jeroen van den Hoven, Sachit Mahajan, Dino Pedreschi and Evangelos Pournaras
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Dirk Helbing: Computational Social Science, Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
Farzam Fanitabasi: Department of Communication Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Fosca Giannotti: ISTI-CNR, 56124 Pisa, Italy
Regula Hänggli: Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Fribourg, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland
Jeroen van den Hoven: Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, TU Delft, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands
Sachit Mahajan: Computational Social Science, Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
Dino Pedreschi: KDD Lab, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy
Evangelos Pournaras: School of Computing, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 20, 1-25

Abstract: The digital revolution has brought about many societal changes such as the creation of “smart cities”. The smart city concept has changed the urban ecosystem by embedding digital technologies in the city fabric to enhance the quality of life of its inhabitants. However, it has also led to some pressing issues and challenges related to data, privacy, ethics inclusion, and fairness. While the initial concept of smart cities was largely technology- and data-driven, focused on the automation of traffic, logistics and processes, this concept is currently being replaced by technology-enabled, human-centred solutions. However, this is not the end of the development, as there is now a big trend towards “design for values”. In this paper, we point out how a value-sensitive design approach could promote a more sustainable pathway of cities that better serves people and nature. Such “value-sensitive design” will have to take ethics, law and culture on board. We discuss how organising the digital world in a participatory way, as well as leveraging the concepts of self-organisation, self-regulation, and self-control, would foster synergy effects and thereby help to leverage a sustainable technological revolution on a global scale. Furthermore, a “democracy by design” approach could also promote resilience.

Keywords: smart cities; digital democracy; participation; co-creation; sustainability; resilience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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