Cockpit Social Infrastructure

Abstract

Web-based geographic information systems (GIS) and planning support systems are widely adopted as digital tools to support planning practices. The respective solutions tend to be isolated implementations aimed at a single planning purpose due to the specific requirement concerning their data, methodology, involved stakeholders etc. With data platforms, GIS infrastructures and the possibility to use web-based software that relies on open standards, creating a planning support infrastructure is more feasible than ever. Such infrastructures can create opportunities for governments to draw on existing systems and create the potential to improve planning practices through enhanced information and analysis. This paper describes the development of the Cockpit Social Infrastructure, a planning application that serves as an interface between Hamburg’s Urban Data Platform and the municipal planners of social infrastructure. Its unique institutional setting as well as its reliance on an open standard software architecture make it a unique case for potential planning support infrastructure.

Transformative Research in Digital Twins for Integrated Urban Development

“…We designed the prototypes and tools ourselves, on the basis of our experience with digital tools and infrastructure for urban planning and our normative assumptions about how a transformation process of urban systems towards sustainability and resilience can be promoted with the help of digital tools. A key assumption was that a digital development which pays no regard to social processes could have non-sustainable effects and decrease urban systems resilience, at least concerning social aspects such as equity, accessibility, and empowerment of vulnerable groups (Ravid & Aharon-Gutman, 2022; Degkwitz et al, 2020;Allen et al, 2020;Meerow & Newell, 2016). For this reason, we followed our research approach in particular by trying to make the Hamburg twin infrastructure more integrative for social processes in terms of their representation as well as their collaborative data collection.…”

“…On the one hand, a focus on efficiency, pursuit of profit and proprietary technology in smart city projects hinders the development of resilience principles, such as redundancy, diversity and adaptivity (Berbés-Blázquez et al, 2021) and oftentimes overlooks social aspects of urban planning. On the other hand, the deployment of digital technology could ultimately also contribute to increasing urban resilience and sustainability, as examples of social digital twins show (Degkwitz et al, 2020;Ravid & Aharon-Gutman, 2022). It is thus up to the people commissioning, developing, implementing, and managing such technology to find best practices in their application.…”