IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i20p11162-d652747.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ethics of Smart Cities: Towards Value-Sensitive Design and Co-Evolving City Life

Author

Listed:
  • Dirk Helbing

    (Computational Social Science, Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
    Complexity Science Hub Vienna, 1080 Wien, Austria
    Current address: Stampfenbachstrasse 48, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland.)

  • Farzam Fanitabasi

    (Department of Communication Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

  • Fosca Giannotti

    (ISTI-CNR, 56124 Pisa, Italy)

  • Regula Hänggli

    (Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Fribourg, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland)

  • Carina I. Hausladen

    (Computational Social Science, Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland)

  • Jeroen van den Hoven

    (Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, TU Delft, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands)

  • Sachit Mahajan

    (Computational Social Science, Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland)

  • Dino Pedreschi

    (KDD Lab, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy)

  • Evangelos Pournaras

    (School of Computing, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK)

Abstract

The digital revolution has brought about many societal changes such as the creation of “smart cities”. The smart city concept has changed the urban ecosystem by embedding digital technologies in the city fabric to enhance the quality of life of its inhabitants. However, it has also led to some pressing issues and challenges related to data, privacy, ethics inclusion, and fairness. While the initial concept of smart cities was largely technology- and data-driven, focused on the automation of traffic, logistics and processes, this concept is currently being replaced by technology-enabled, human-centred solutions. However, this is not the end of the development, as there is now a big trend towards “design for values”. In this paper, we point out how a value-sensitive design approach could promote a more sustainable pathway of cities that better serves people and nature. Such “value-sensitive design” will have to take ethics, law and culture on board. We discuss how organising the digital world in a participatory way, as well as leveraging the concepts of self-organisation, self-regulation, and self-control, would foster synergy effects and thereby help to leverage a sustainable technological revolution on a global scale. Furthermore, a “democracy by design” approach could also promote resilience.

Suggested Citation

  • Dirk Helbing & Farzam Fanitabasi & Fosca Giannotti & Regula Hänggli & Carina I. Hausladen & Jeroen van den Hoven & Sachit Mahajan & Dino Pedreschi & Evangelos Pournaras, 2021. "Ethics of Smart Cities: Towards Value-Sensitive Design and Co-Evolving City Life," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-25, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:20:p:11162-:d:652747
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/20/11162/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/20/11162/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dirk Helbing & Wenjian Yu & Karl-Dieter Opp & Heiko Rauhut, 2014. "Conditions for the Emergence of Shared Norms in Populations with Incompatible Preferences," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-14, August.
    2. Joke Kenens & Michiel Van Oudheusden & Go Yoshizawa & Ine Van Hoyweghen, 2020. "Science by, with and for citizens: rethinking ‘citizen science’ after the 2011 Fukushima disaster," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-8, June.
    3. Ethan Mollick & Ramana Nanda, 2016. "Wisdom or Madness? Comparing Crowds with Expert Evaluation in Funding the Arts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(6), pages 1533-1553, June.
    4. Ahn, David S. & Oliveros, Santiago, 2016. "Approval voting and scoring rules with common values," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 304-310.
    5. Marcus Pivato, 2016. "Asymptotic utilitarianism in scoring rules," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(2), pages 431-458, August.
    6. Dirk Helbing & Peter Seele, 2017. "Turn war rooms into peace rooms," Nature, Nature, vol. 549(7673), pages 458-458, September.
    7. Krassimira Paskaleva & Ian Cooper & Per Linde & Bo Peterson & Christina Götz, 2015. "Stakeholder Engagement in the Smart City: Making Living Labs Work," Public Administration and Information Technology, in: Manuel Pedro Rodríguez-Bolívar (ed.), Transforming City Governments for Successful Smart Cities, edition 127, pages 115-145, Springer.
    8. Dirk Helbing & Anders Johansson, 2010. "Cooperation, Norms, and Revolutions: A Unified Game-Theoretical Approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(10), pages 1-15, October.
    9. Nicola Jones, 2018. "How to stop data centres from gobbling up the world’s electricity," Nature, Nature, vol. 561(7722), pages 163-166, September.
    10. Martí Rosas-Casals & Sandro Bologna & Ettore F. Bompard & Gregorio D'Agostino & Wendy Ellens & Giuliano Andrea Pagani & Antonio Scala & Trivik Verma, 2015. "Knowing power grids and understanding complexity science," International Journal of Critical Infrastructures, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 11(1), pages 4-14.
    11. Donovan Finn, 2014. "DIY urbanism: implications for cities," Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(4), pages 381-398, December.
    12. Dirk Helbing & Evangelos Pournaras, 2015. "Society: Build digital democracy," Nature, Nature, vol. 527(7576), pages 33-34, November.
    13. Peter Seele & Christoph D. Jia & Dirk Helbing, 2019. "The new silk road and its potential for sustainable development: how open digital participation could make BRI a role model for sustainable businesses and markets," Asian Journal of Sustainability and Social Responsibility, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 1-7, December.
    14. Gordon Tullock, 1959. "Problems of Majority Voting," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(6), pages 571-571.
    15. S. Lämmer & R. Donner & D. Helbing, 2008. "Anticipative control of switched queueing systems," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 63(3), pages 341-347, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Songling Chang & Melanie Kay Smith, 2023. "Residents’ Quality of Life in Smart Cities: A Systematic Literature Review," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-17, April.
    2. Dashkevych, Oleg & Portnov, Boris A., 2024. "How can generative AI help in different parts of research? An experiment study on smart cities’ definitions and characteristics," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    3. Sachit Mahajan & Ming-Kuang Chung & Jenny Martinez & Yris Olaya & Dirk Helbing & Ling-Jyh Chen, 2022. "Translating citizen-generated air quality data into evidence for shaping policy," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Solène Guenat & Phil Purnell & Zoe G. Davies & Maximilian Nawrath & Lindsay C. Stringer & Giridhara Rathnaiah Babu & Muniyandi Balasubramanian & Erica E. F. Ballantyne & Bhuvana Kolar Bylappa & Bei Ch, 2022. "Meeting sustainable development goals via robotics and autonomous systems," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Postl, Peter, 2017. "Évaluation et comparaison des règles de vote derrière le voile de l’ignorance : Tour d'horizon sélectif et analyse des règles de scores à deux paramètres," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 93(1-2), pages 249-290, Mars-Juin.
    3. Zhang, Wei & Brandes, Ulrik, 2023. "Conformity versus credibility: A coupled rumor-belief model," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    4. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    5. Douglas Cumming & Lars Hornuf & Moein Karami & Denis Schweizer, 2023. "Disentangling Crowdfunding from Fraudfunding," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(4), pages 1103-1128, February.
    6. Núñez, Matías & Laslier, Jean-François, 2015. "Bargaining through Approval," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 63-73.
    7. Marco Alberto De Benedetto, 2014. "Incumbency Advantage at Municipal Elections in Italy: A Quasi-Experimental Approach," Birkbeck Working Papers in Economics and Finance 1408, Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics.
    8. Tyrefors Hinnerich, Björn, 2009. "Do merging local governments free ride on their counterparts when facing boundary reform?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 721-728, June.
    9. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    10. Te Wu & Feng Fu & Long Wang, 2011. "Moving Away from Nasty Encounters Enhances Cooperation in Ecological Prisoner's Dilemma Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(11), pages 1-7, November.
    11. Sylvain Dejean, 2020. "The role of distance and social networks in the geography of crowdfunding: evidence from France," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(3), pages 329-339, March.
    12. François Durand & Antonin Macé & Matias Nunez, 2019. "Analysis of Approval Voting in Poisson Games," Working Papers halshs-02049865, HAL.
    13. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy, 2014. "Reciprocity and resistance to comprehensive reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 411-428, September.
    14. Ana Salomé García-Muñiz & María Rosalía Vicente, 2021. "The Effects of Informational Feedback on the Energy Consumption of Online Services: Some Evidence for the European Union," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-14, May.
    15. Stephan Michel & Ignacio N. Cofone, 2017. "Majority Rules in Constitutional Referendums," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(3), pages 402-424, August.
    16. Dilla, Diana, 2017. "Staatsverschuldung und Verschuldungsmentalität [Public Debt and Debt Mentality]," MPRA Paper 79432, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Bernd Frick & Franziska Prockl, 2018. "Information Precision In Online Communities: Player Valuations On Www.Transfermarkt.De," Working Papers Dissertations 37, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    18. Paskaleva, Krassimira & Cooper, Ian, 2021. "Are living labs effective? Exploring the evidence," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    19. Whitney Buser, 2011. "The impact of fiscal decentralization on economics performance in high-income OECD nations: an institutional approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(1), pages 31-48, October.
    20. Dhillon, Amrita & Kotsialou, Grammateia & Xefteris, Dimitris, 2021. "Information Aggregation with Delegation of Votes," SocArXiv ubk7p, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:20:p:11162-:d:652747. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.