Speaker
Description
Today, all over the world many cities are applying smart solutions, and position themselves as Smart Cities, but how are Smart Cities conceptualized in different planning cultures? Spatial planning systems are based upon different institutional and cultural conditions. While these may present comparable features, these planning systems were designed to operate in distinct cultural, normative and spatial situations (Pallagst 2010). Research by Sorensen (2015) suggests that planning cultures might change when faced with “critical junctures of institutional change and innovation in planning systems” (Sorensen 2015). One of these critical junctures might be the context of digitalization. In order to conceptualize planning cultures and digitalization, the authors suggested a research frame involving digitalization in the facets and layers of planning culture (Pauly and Pallagst 2023). The research on changing planning cultures in view of digitalization is a novel field, and - in general - implementing Smart Cities already might have initiated changes in planning cultures, which is one of the main hypotheses of this paper.
When looking at the Japanese planning culture, the planning system is highly centralized with a focus on economic development and market orientation (Martinez-Fernandez et al. 2016; Pallagst et al. 2018). Plans, programs and policies are developed on national level, and the implementation appears to be strictly top down. Moreover, the Japanese planning culture is challenged by several societal transitions. In particular preparing for disasters and for demographic change and the path towards an ageing society have longstanding impact on policy-making in Japan. For this reason, the planning cultural context needs to involve societal aspects such as the aspect of ageing.
Yet how are smart cities conceptualized in the Japanese planning culture, what are the main drivers and goals, who are the main actors, and which policies are at hand? And – given the societal context of demographic change and ageing in Japan – how is the aspect of ageing taken into consideration in the concept of smart cites in Japan?
This presentation will shed light on conceptualizing smart cities in the Japanese planning culture. Starting with a brief introduction to the concept planning cultures with a special emphasis on Japan, it will present cases of smart cities in Japan, trying to answer the questions outlined above.
References
Martinez-Fernandez, C. et.al.: Shrinking cities in Australia, Japan, Europe and the USA: From a global process to local policy responses. In: Progress in Planning Vol. 105, pp. 1-48, 2016.
Pallagst, K. et al. (2018): PlanShrinking² – Trajectories of planning cultures in shrinking cities: the cases Cleveland/USA, Bochum/Germany, and Nagasaki/Japan, IPS Working Paper 2018 No. 1. Kaiserslautern.
Pallagst, K. (2010): Viewpoint. The planning research agenda: shrinking cities – a challenge for planning cultures. In: Town Planning Review 81:5, I-IV.
Pauly, J.; and Pallagst, K. (2023): The Potentials of Digital Tools to Contribute to Spatial Transformations – the Example of the Digital Twin of the City of Helsinki. In: REAL CORP 2023 Proceedings, 763-775
Sorensen, A. (2015): Taking path dependence seriously: An historical institutionalist research agenda in planning history. In: Planning Perspectives 30 (1): 17–38.
