Governance and Design of Urban Infostructures

Information, communication and knowledge creation are at the core of urban stakeholder interactions enabling the identification of vulnerabilities and the design of adequate responses to them. Urban infostructures play a crucial role within these processes, interfacing between a city’s ecological, social, technical, economic and political networks. Against this backdrop, this paper discusses the governance and design of urban infostructures from a socio-technical systems perspective. It, therefore, reviews pertinent technology components, as well as institutional and discursive frameworks and their respective influence on the identification and assessment of vulnerabilities and resilience building in cities. It concludes that approaches to developing urban infostructures should be a major concern when addressing urban resilience. There is a need to fully account for the hybrid character of urban infostructures as socio-technical systems, while also seizing opportunities for targeted transformation.ZusammenfassungInformation, Kommunikation und Wissensgenese stehen im Mittelpunkt von Interaktionen städtischer Akteure, die zur Identifikation von Vulnerabilitäten und zur Gestaltung passender Gegenmaßnahmen führen. Dabei spielen urbane Informationsinfrastrukturen eine maßgebliche Rolle, da sie zwischen den ökologischen, sozialen, technischen, ökonomischen und politischen Netzwerken einer Stadt vermitteln. Vor diesem Hintergrund behandelt der vorliegende Aufsatz die Steuerung und den Aufbau urbaner Informationsinfrastrukturen als sozio-technische Systeme. Daher werden wesentliche Technologiekomponenten sowie institutionelle und diskursive Rahmenbedingungen betrachtet und hinsichtlich ihres Einflusses auf die Identifikation und Bewertung urbaner Vulnerabilitäten und auf den Aufbau urbaner Resilienz hin untersucht. Daraus wird gefolgert, dass Ansätze zur Entwicklung urbaner Informationsinfrastrukturen ein zentrales Anliegen sein sollten, wenn es um die Resilienz von Städten geht. Dies erfordert dem hybriden Charakter urbaner Infrastrukturen als sozio-technische Systeme umfassend Rechnung zu tragen, und gleichzeitig Gelegenheiten für eine gezielte Transformation zu nutzen.

[1]  J. Rotmans,et al.  Transition management: reflexive governance of societal complexity through searching, learning and experimenting , 2008 .

[2]  M. Hodson,et al.  Can cities shape socio-technical transitions and how would we know if they were? , 2010 .

[3]  P. V. Oosterom,et al.  GEO-INFORMATION FOR DISASTER MANAGEMENT , 2008 .

[4]  Thomas Brinkhoff.  Geodatenbanksysteme in Theorie und Praxis - Einführung in objektrelationale Geodatenbanken unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Oracle Spatial (2. Aufl.) , 2008 .

[5]  Giorgos Kallis,et al.  Environmental innovation and societal transitions: Introduction and overview , 2011 .

[6]  Binildas A. Christudas,et al.  Service Oriented Architecture with Java , 2008 .

[7]  Marcus Foth,et al.  Handbook of Research on Urban Informatics: The Practice and Promise of the Real-Time City , 2008 .

[8]  Karen Ruhleder,et al.  Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces , 1996, Inf. Syst. Res..

[9]  Amy Luers,et al.  Assessing the Vulnerability of Social-Environmental Systems , 2006 .

[10]  Stefan Henningsson,et al.  Inscription of behaviour and flexible interpretation in Information Infrastructures: The case of European e-Customs , 2011, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[11]  Gerhard Fischer,et al.  Seeding, Evolutionary Growth, and Reseeding: Enriching Participatory Design with Informed Participation , 2002 .

[12]  Sonja Deppisch,et al.  Given the Complexity of Large Cities, Can Urban Resilience be Attained at All? , 2011 .

[13]  Kathryn Foster,et al.  A Case Study Approachto Understanding Regional Resilience , 2007 .

[14]  Prakash Narayan,et al.  Implementing SOA Using Java EE , 2009 .

[15]  E. Ma.  Handbook of Research on Urban Informatics: The Practice and Promise of the Real-Time City , 2009 .

[16]  John Davidson,et al.  Ogc® sensor web enablement:overview and high level achhitecture. , 2007, 2007 IEEE Autotestcon.

[17]  R. Kemp,et al.  The Management of the Co-Evolution of Technical, Environmental and Social Systems , 2005 .

[18]  Adrian Smith,et al.  The governance of sustainable socio-technical transitions , 2005 .

[19]  Bernhard Müller,et al.  Urban and Regional Resilience – A New Catchword or a Consistent Concept for Research and Practice? , 2011 .

[20]  Thomas Herrmann,et al.  Socio-Technical Systems: A Meta-Design Perspective , 2011, Int. J. Sociotechnology Knowl. Dev..

[21]  D. Walburn,et al.  London/New York , 2009 .

[22]  Matthias S. Müller,et al.  Multi-criteria Evaluation for Emergency Management in Spatial Data Infrastructures , 2010 .

[23]  Egon Becker,et al.  Social-ecological Systems as Epistemic Objects , 2012 .

[24]  Andrew Kliskey,et al.  Toward a typology for social-ecological systems , 2009 .

[25]  Frank Plastria,et al.  Assessing Spatial Data Infrastructure Policy Strategies Using the Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis , 2009, Int. J. Spatial Data Infrastructures Res..

[26]  P. Schulze.  Engineering within ecological constraints , 1996 .

[27]  M. O'hare,et al.  Searching for Safety , 1990 .

[28]  R. Kasperson,et al.  Linking vulnerability, adaptation, and resilience science to practice: Pathways, players, and partnerships , 2007 .

[29]  Petra Wächter.  Transitions to sustainable development – new directions in the study of long term transformative change , 2012 .

[30]  Maarten A. Hajer,et al.  The Politics of Environmental Discourse , 1997 .

[31]  Jacek Malczewski,et al.  GIS-based land-use suitability analysis: a critical overview , 2004 .

[32]  Simon Marvin,et al.  From the Politics of Urgency to the Governance of Preparedness: A Research Agenda on Urban Vulnerability , 2005 .

[33]  B. Wisner,et al.  At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability and Disasters , 1996 .

[34]  J. Ahern.  From fail-safe to safe-to-fail: Sustainability and resilience in the new urban world , 2011 .

[35]  La Porte,et al.  Seeds of Disaster, Roots of Response: Organizational Strategies for Complex System Resilience, Reliability, and Adaptation , 2006 .

[36]  W. Bijker.  Vulnerability in Technological Cultures , 2009 .

[37]  F. Brand,et al.  Focusing the Meaning(s) of Resilience: Resilience as a Descriptive Concept and a Boundary Object , 2007 .

[38]  J.C.J.M. van den Bergh,et al.  Managing the Transition to Renewable Energy: Theory and Practice from Local, Regional and Macro Perspectives , 2008 .

[39]  L. Gunderson.  Resilience, Flexibility and Adaptive Management - - Antidotes for Spurious Certitude? , 1999 .

[40]  Esteban Zimányi,et al.  Advanced Data Warehouse Design: From Conventional to Spatial and Temporal Applications , 2010 .

[41]  George Basalla,et al.  The Evolution of Technology: Selection (2): Social and Cultural Factors , 1989 .

[42]  Mark Deakin,et al.  Creating smart-er cities , 2013 .

[43]  Sisi Zlatanova,et al.  Geographic Information and Cartography for Risk and CrisisManagement; Towards Better Solutions , 2010 .

[44]  Philip E. Auerswald,et al.  Seeds of Disaster, Roots of Response: How Private Action Can Reduce Public Vulnerability , 2006 .

[45]  T. P. Hughes,et al.  The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology , 1989 .

[46]  C. Folke,et al.  Navigating social–ecological systems: building resilience for complexity and change: Fikret Berkes, Johan Colding and Carl Folke (Eds.). Cambridge University Press, 2003. xxi + 393 pages. ISBN 0-521-81592-4 (hardback), £65 , 2004 .

[47]  Anders Gullberg,et al.  Images of the Future City: Time and Space For Sustainable Development , 2011 .

[48]  Matthias Weber,et al.  Towards Environmental Innovation Systems , 2005 .

[49]  Joseph Ferreira,et al.  The Future of Spatial Data Infrastructures: Capacity-building for the Emergence of Municipal SDIs , 2007, Int. J. Spatial Data Infrastructures Res..

[50]  I. Nonaka.  A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation , 1994 .

[51]  Henning Sten Hansen,et al.  Towards Spatially Enabled e-Governance: A Case Study on SDI implementation , 2011 .

[52]  Jon Norberg,et al.  Resilience Management in Social-ecological Systems: a Working Hypothesis for a Participatory Approach , 2002 .

[53]  José L. Abdelnour-Nocera,et al.  Socio-Technical Issues of Participatory Design in the Developing World , 2009, Int. J. Sociotechnology Knowl. Dev..

[54]  Zorica Nedovic-Budic,et al.  Technological and Institutional Interdependences and SDI - The Bermuda Square? , 2006, Int. J. Spatial Data Infrastructures Res..

[55]  David Thacher.  Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding Governance in the Network Society , 2005 .

[56]  A. Rajabifard,et al.  Future directions for SDI development , 2002 .

[57]  Erik De Man,et al.  Spatial Data Infrastructuring: praxis between dilemmas , 2010, Int. J. Spatial Data Infrastructures Res..

[58]  Thomas Erl,et al.  SOA Design Patterns , 2008 .

[59]  T. Elmqvist,et al.  Urban Transitions: On Urban Resilience and Human-Dominated Ecosystems , 2010, AMBIO.

[60]  C. Folke.  RESILIENCE: THE EMERGENCE OF A PERSPECTIVE FOR SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS ANALYSES , 2006 .

[61]  F. Geels.  Ontologies, socio-technical transitions (to sustainability), and the multi-level perspective , 2010 .