Smart Cities – Field of application for Planning Support Systems in the 21st Century?

Starting in the 60s and 70s, the potentials of computer use for scientists and urban planners in the upcoming years with Planning Support Systems (PSS) was considered very promising. After a time of euphoria, the following years had been a disillusionment of this prediction, however starting in the recent years, the circumstances changed dramatically. Cities are full of ubiquitous information technologies and they are understood increasingly as smart and connected urban areas. In order to turn the omnipresence of urban data into benefits for planners and citizens, they could be used within Planning Support Systems (PSS) which help to make the planning process more efficient and to handle complexity better. Whereas the potential for optimizing efficiency seems to be very promising, the rise of new bottom-up-movements in terms of participative and collaborative processes raises new questions for urban planners on their way to develop a transparent decision making and planning process to make cities smarter. _______________________________________________________ J.-P. Exner (Corresponding author) • Department of CAD & Planning Methods in Urban Planning and Architecture (CPE), University of Kaiserslautern, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany Email: [email protected] CUPUM 2015 131-Paper