Conceptualising Smart Cities in the Japanese Planning Culture

Pallagst, Karina and Pauly, Jonas and Stumpf, Marian (2024) Conceptualising Smart Cities in the Japanese Planning Culture. KEEP ON PLANNING FOR THE REAL WORLD. Climate Change calls for Nature-based Solutions and Smart Technologies. Proceedings of REAL CORP 2024, 29th International Conference on Urban Development, Regional Planning and Information Society. pp. 137-148. ISSN 2521-3938

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Abstract

Smart cities have been a field of action in spatial development for quite some time. Building on the societal trend toward digitalization, the nexus of digitalization and spatial development has been planned and researched since the turn of the millennium (Hollands 2008). In the highly competitive segment of smart cities, platform solutions from large IT and consulting companies are often applied (Hollands 2015). In addition, an international discourse emerged in research that critically reflects on the smart city concept itself (Grossi and Pianezzi 2017). 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? The Japanese planning culture is charcterized by strong centralization with the central government being the main actor in development (Pallagst et al. 2018; Martinez-Fernandez et al. 2016). In addition, the Japanese society is highly challenged by demographic change and ageing. Consequently, the aspect of ageing plays a role in all Japanese policies, also in the context of smart cities (interview with staff at the German Instiute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo, July 2023). 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 paper will shed light on conceptualizing smart cities in the Japanese planning culture. Starting with a brief introduction to the concept of planning cultures with a special emphasis on Japan, it will present two cases of smart cities in Japan, trying to answer the questons outlined above. The research presented here is part of the project ‘Ageing Smart’ carried out by a consortium at RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau funded by the Carl-Zeiss-Foundation. This particular part of the project aims at scrutinizing the application of smart cities in different planning cultures, among others Japan – discussing their potentials and detecting possible best practice examples.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Japan, planning, culture, governance, smart cities
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General) H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
Depositing User:	REAL CORP Administrator
Date Deposited:	25 Apr 2024 18:49
Last Modified:	25 Apr 2024 18:49
URI:	http://repository.corp.at/id/eprint/1081

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