What does the city of Dresden in Germany look like in 2030? 600.000 inhabitants living and working in a sustainable, green, and quiet metropolis. Cycle paths criss-crossing the city, across the Elbe river and essential supplies of the city come mainly from the region. Everyone lives democratically and respectfully, where local and global issues are addressed in practical real-world laboratories. That's what it should be according to the city and its inhabitants.
In 2015, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany named Dresden a Zukunftsstadt (“City of the Future”) alongside 50 other German cities as part of a national city competition. The aim of the three-stage competition is to develop a feasible and sustainable Vision 2030+ for each city.
In 2015 and 2016, citizens of Dresden put many individual visions for a sustainable city on paper in numerous workshops. Everyone was invited to ask: Where do I see myself in the city’s daily life? Where would I like to contribute or change something? These visions were brought together to form a common vision for the future, which served as a guide for projects, further developed with the scientific community. Some of these ideas were realised successfully by citizens with the help of the city administration.
One example is the "Edible neighbourhood of Plauen": The project investigated which food crops could be used to increase the self-sufficiency of a neighbourhood. A "mobile restaurant" could be set up, exclusively with discarded food. Another project asked how school grounds can be sustainably developed and utilised as a shared living space. Another initiative in the Neustadt city district tested a partially car-free neighbourhood.
An important part of the Zukunftsstadt initiative is the Bürgerlabor (“Citizen Lab”): As a physical space, the lab invites citizens to come by and be engaged by events, exhibitions, or just days where the lab is open for everyone to share their thoughts. Citizens, city administrators, politicians and business owners are brought together to jointly advance innovative, citizen-centred, and digital developments in Dresden.
The funding period of Zukunftsstadt Dresden ended in December 2022, marking the end of an experimental phase towards scenarios of a sustainable and future-ready city. The results and some aspects of the Zukunftsstadt project will be continued and incorporated into further city development.
You can find more about the Zukunftsstadt Dresden on its website.
(FG)
Literature:
Baykurt, Burcu; Raetzsch, Christoph (2020). “What Smartness Does in the Smart City: From Visions to Policy.” Convergence 26(4): 775-789. https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354856520913405.
de Waal, Martijn; Dignum, Marloes (2017). “The Citizen in the Smart City. How the Smart City Could Transform Citizenship.” IT- Information Technology 59(6): 263-273. https://dx.doi.org/10.1515/itit-2017-0012.
Myeong, Seunghwan; Park, Jaehyun; Lee, Minhyung (2022). “Research Models and Methodologies on the Smart City: A Systematic Literature Review.” Sustainability 14(3): 1687. https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su14031687 (open access).
