Speaker
Description
Over the last decade, Frankfurt and the surrounding Rhein-Main region in Germany, experienced vast investments of the data centre economy, around the DE-CIX, the world’s largest and fastest internet exchange point. This resulted new planning regulation and new relevance for the region for data centres. On the other hand, the German lignite mining region “Rheinisches Revier” faces enormous structural changes with the end of mining being set for 2030. Thus, over the last five years, plans and according planning legislation for establishing several hyperscale data centres have paved the way for implementation.
This contribution aims to contribute to theoretical discourses on infrastructure regionalism (Addie, Glass & Nelles 2022) by comparing these two cases as data centre regions, asking the questions How and why do these regions attract data centre development, what are the challenges and what is the role of spatial planning?
Findings, using mappings, document analyses and interviews with involved actors from the planning field and data centre industry, will be presented and discussed.
References
Addie, J.-P.D., Glass, M.R. and Nelles, J. (2020) Regionalizing the infrastructure turn : a
research agenda. Regional Studies, Regional Science, 7 (1). pp. 10-26.
| Keywords | infrastructures; region; data centres; planning |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
