Ethical Future Environments: Smart Thinking about Smart Cities means engaging with its Most Vulnerable

Abstract

Over the past several decades the concept of smart cities has gained a lot of attention amongst researchers, the media, governments, civic groups and citizens. The literature shows that innovations have a more positive impact when they stimulate the development of cities and shape their space for a variety of participants, or when design is participatory. This ensures a non-technocratic approach, i.e., one that builds on the complexity of today's socio-technical systems and the consideration of their individual actors. Citizen-based approaches or one of the so-called Caring Community are possible answers to this. In this Design Fiction workshop, we take a critical view on the idea of smart cities by broadening participation to stakeholders who are still excluded from its concept and can be described as vulnerable and often marginalized, such as people who are (culturally) diverse (e.g. migrants, refugees, older adults, children, currently and formerly incarcerated people, homeless people and those with low income) or neurodiverse (e.g. people living with mental health challenges as autism or dementia or who suffer from functional impairments), and also animals and nature who are left behind in the whole digitization process. In this regard we will also address topics like sustainability and well-being. One of the expected outcomes of this workshop is the development of a holistic and sustainable smart city concept involving currently excluded stakeholders.