New publication: “Sustainable digitalization of cities? A spatiotemporal perspective on digital humanism”

Local governments, and here especially large cities, are the epicentres of the twin transition of sustainability and digitalization, as these challenges particularly manifest in the urban context. Emphasizing their interdependent character, the nascent scholarly theme of ‘digital sustainability’ suggests that innovative digital technologies help governments address sustainability issues. Digitalization and sustainability can reinforce each other but also clash, as unintended rebound effects resulting from digital technologies are often overlooked. Therefore, this commentary aims to stimulate critical reflection and advance a conceptual agenda on the possibility of ‘sustainable digitalization’ in cities. We suggest further developing the concept of ‘digital humanism’ as a heuristic device for the development and analysis of ‘smart’ solutions. This can help also to consider the unsustainable effects of digitalization that take shape in distant locations (e.g. affecting the far end of supply chains) and/or with a delay (e.g. affecting future generations). We thus offer a perspective that accounts for the global sustainability effects of local digital technologies and that avoids the pitfalls of presentism and solutionism by local decision-makers.

The research is published open access and can be retrieved under this [link].