| Popis: |
In this thesis I investigate how subjective truths and realities about the field of urban computing and citizenparticipation reveal themselves through stories told by practitioners in the realm of urban planning. This beingrepresentatives of the municipality (Borgerservice, Aarhus), private sector (arki_lab) and a citizen grassrootorganization (OK Lab). With these truths and realities revealed I seek to place these findings in the contextwithin the development of a democratic and human value based urban space.Today our urban space is seamlessly being filled with technology that will impact how citizens will experienceand use this urban space in the future. 5G is on the verge of roll out with 1000 of new sensors being deployedin the city space, our use of public transportation is being aggregated in a huge digital database and surveillancetechnologies are as normal as traffic lights. However, it cannot be predicted how this technology drivenapproach will impact on our later society and future generations. This space of common ownership is withinthe field of urban computing, or in buzz word terminology smart city, today mainly being utilized for businessprofits and ambiguous municipality tasks and planning when looking from a citizen perspective. The Law ofPlanning in Denmark obligates city planners to apply a citizen participatory approach to urban planning.However the field of urban computing is not included in this law, making it a highly relevant and necessarydimension of urban planning to investigate with the risk of losing a more direct human value based digitalurban space.The findings of this thesis show that all actors consider it of great importance to apply a democratic and humanvalue based approach. However when it comes to the actual practice of citizen participation within urbancomputing only the grassroot organization OK Lab apply a truly citizen value based approach. BothBorgerservice and arki_lab are “only” able to apply a participation through technology approach. This beingdone on the basis of truths that technology does “something in itself” and that citizens without a somewhatprofessional skillset within technology, computing and/or programming are uncapable of participating in theactual development and integration of urban computing into the city space. |
