• Co-ordinator: Dr. rer. nat. Stephan Lingner, Dipl.-Geol.

• Duration: 07/06–06/07

• Funding: Technische Universität Kaiserslautern

• Documentation: S. Lingner, S. Allin, G. Steinebach (Eds.): Gesellschaftliche Randbedingungen der Virtualisierung urbaner Lebenswelten (Graue Reihe 42)

In recent years, modern information and communication technology (ICT) have become an inevitable factor of human life. The emergence of IT into communal life and the development of urban and rural regions is increasingly becoming a challenge for the public. For example, the growing markets for e-shopping or e-working will significantly change respective demands for mobility and housing. This must be considered in the course of rational spatial planning, together with other probably interfering mega-trends, such as the consequences of demographic change in Europe.
This interference might substantially influence the above mentioned demands for spatial planning. Moreover, spatial planning, IT and social politics will have to deal with the growing virtualisation of daily life. The ambiguity of citizens’ expectations towards privacy and societal participation seems to be central here. Critical reflections of this ambiguity might offer normative knowledge which could then enable decision makers and planners not to push potentially undesirable developments.
This study was part of an umbrella project of the Technische Universität Kaiserslautern (Professor Dr. G. Steinebach) on the spatial impact of virtualisation and its technological and societal preconditions. The project was supported by the programme “Wissen schafft Zukunft” of the Federal State Rheinland-Pfalz. However, rearrangement of the funding scheme restricted the analysis to a critical survey of societal framework conditions regarding the virtualisation of urban life worlds.