Stylepark Building. Technology. Solutions
City of the future
Gabriela Beck: The Morgenstadt City Index was developed at the Fraunhofer Institute to measure the future viability of a city. What is it about?
Dr Steffen Braun: The Morgenstadt City Index is a tool to make the complexity of cities tangible. There is still too much thinking and planning in individual sectors: Energy systems are being further developed, mobility, supply – but no overarching action is being taken. Yet cities are systems in which many processes take place simultaneously and influence each other. The Morgenstadt City Index contains 28 indicators that are categorised into four pillars (liveable, environmentally friendly, innovative and resilient city). Thanks to their graphic representation, they provide an initial holistic picture of a city at a glance. The index serves as a tool to support mayors, city councils and stakeholders in the sustainable transformation of their city.
Gabriela Beck: So cities are complex adaptive systems. What are the biggest challenges when it comes to making them fit for the future?
Dr Steffen Braun: First and foremost, of course, it's about quality of life, about people. However, environmental parameters will play an even greater role in the future in the context of climate change. If a city wants to be innovative, it has to address the issue of value creation for local companies, especially with regard to digitalisation and the use of AI. Entire sectors are currently changing here, which raises questions such as: Do I still rely on traditional manufacturing industries or do I need to attract new tech industries? Then it's also about the provision of infrastructure and services with regard to an ageing society. In my opinion, however, the decisive factor is to become capable of acting in the first place. How does a city quickly get into a continuous change mode in the interaction between different decision-makers?
Gabriela Beck: You mean that transformation processes are too slow?
Dr Steffen Braun: Exactly, cities are very slow systems when it comes to change. But this is not solely the fault of the cities, because they are at the lowest federal level and have to deal with numerous conflicting objectives. Above them are the federal states, the regional parliaments, the federal government and the EU – all of which define guidelines and laws. And yet we can and should become faster for the cities of tomorrow.
Gabriela Beck: Where do you see potential?
Dr Steffen Braun: GovTech (government technology) can help us move forward, i.e. the use of modern technologies by governments and public bodies to improve government services, speed up administrative processes and enable participation and interaction with companies and citizens. Until now, this has been very much thought of at the state level, but we have realised that AI, for example, is also becoming increasingly important for local authorities, for example in the form of intelligent data platforms that provide all kinds of information across departments at the touch of a button. More and more cities in Germany are also relying on digital twins, i.e. virtual images that are based on real-time data and can be used for analyses, simulations and forecasts. This can be used, for example, to show the interdependencies between energy and transport or to map solutions for better water management or social factors in a neighbourhood.
Gabriela Beck: How tech-savvy are Germany's cities compared to other countries?
Dr.-Ing. Steffen Braun: The digitalisation of administration and smart city initiatives in particular have only received the attention they need in recent years. Other cities in Europe have been working on this for much longer and are now even experimenting with the metaverse.
Gabriela Beck: What does that mean?
Dr Steffen Braun: The urban metaverse is the further development of the digital twin. Instead of just looking at it from the outside, we can now also walk through the virtual city environment – virtual reality. Seoul was one of the pioneers. For a few years now, the city has had a virtual city hall whose services can be used around the clock with an avatar, for example to order a new ID card. However, new use cases like these also need to be designed so that these future technologies strengthen the urban pillars of quality of life, environmental justice and innovative capacity and do not simply end up enriching tech companies. Those responsible must also learn to better understand the issue of data and cyber security.
Gabriela Beck: Smart technology for more efficient management and better political decisions is one thing. What about practical implementation?
Dr.-Ing. Steffen Braun: In the Future District Alliance joint project, we are working with leading neighbourhood developers and local authorities to research how district planning can be accelerated. Our vision is to use AI and automation to change approval processes and construction methods in such a way that an entire neighbourhood can be realised or transformed in two years instead of ten years, with all the processes involved. We are in the process of developing a concept for a neighbourhood type Z – Z for future. Analogous to building type E, which focuses on simplification by dispensing with non-essential equipment and comfort standards in order to advance construction projects more quickly and cost-effectively. We need a similar approach at the neighbourhood level. Ultimately, this will also make it easier to fulfil larger goals for the preservation of urban living space. I'm thinking here of climate neutrality or services of general interest.
Gabriela Beck: Speaking of living space, how do we manage to arm our cities and thus the living environment of 78 per cent of Germans against heavy rainfall events and longer periods of heat?
Dr Steffen Braun: We are still building too many concrete jungles and paved-over squares. This is because we usually plan the urban fabric in a use-orientated way – residential, commercial, mobility – and only think afterwards about how the whole thing could be designed more sustainably in the ‘spaces in between’. I am in favour of a different understanding of land use, in which the interplay between green infrastructure and the built environment must be given more importance. The potential uses of all urban surfaces should also be given greater consideration. Unsealing and greening are essential when it comes to the absorption capacity of heavy rainfall or climate regulation via evaporation. And we need to think more three-dimensionally, because façades and roofs will play a key role in this context in the future.
Gabriela Beck: How do you convince investors and stakeholders to bear the additional costs of climate adaptation measures?
Dr Steffen Braun: You have to take stock honestly. If you add in the potential follow-up costs of not taking action, the result usually looks very different. Then it suddenly makes economic sense to implement projects in a climate-friendly way and to try out new concepts and ideas. The willingness to do so is there. We can see this in the partners we work with. The background: for a long time, the property industry was market-driven – prices only ever went up. As an investor, you didn't have to think much, I'd say. But that only works to a limited extent. The market has now stabilised.
Gabriela Beck: So if a city wants to be or remain attractive, it has to come up with something. What does innovative mean in this context?
Dr Steffen Braun: There are cities that, by chance or otherwise, have always been the first to implement something new. London, for example, was the first city in the world to invent and use an underground railway - that was unique and highly innovative. At the time, nobody knew what it was. The idea behind it: We can build tunnels and we invented the railway. Why don't we put them together underground? The question is: do I want to maintain the status quo or try something new? In the past, as today, this has a lot to do with openness to trends and technology and with close co-operation between the city administration, local business and research institutions. Copenhagen, for example, sees itself as a real-world laboratory and its urban neighbourhoods as a testing ground for new solutions.
Gabriela Beck: Can you give us a few examples of best practice from Germany?
Dr.-Ing. Steffen Braun: There are great neighbourhood projects in the Future District Alliance network that are exemplary for the overarching transformation of cities. For example, the mixed-use creative district Werksviertel Mitte on the former Pfanni production site in Munich or the energy self-sufficient technology district Behrens-Ufer Berlin or Frankfurt Westside with its innovative energy concept based on decentralised power generation through photovoltaics on roof surfaces and facades as well as the use of waste heat from data centres to heat the district. Energy will be one of the key issues in the future.
Gabriela Beck: Those were all examples from large cities. What about medium-sized and small towns?
Dr Steffen Braun: In my view, we have vital city networks in Germany made up of many small, medium-sized and large municipalities in every federal state that work closely together. And we can see from the 73 Smart Cities model projects funded by the federal government that creative solutions can also be developed in municipalities with just a few thousand inhabitants. There is a spirit of optimism in many towns and regions. That is encouraging.
Gabriela Beck: Will international city partnerships still play a role in the future?
Dr.-Ing. Steffen Braun: I think these partnerships are incredibly valuable, as they create synergies - whether in terms of implementing new technologies, organising processes or financial cooperation. However, we should think and live them differently for the joint transformation. Not everyone has to reinvent the wheel; we can also divide up tasks and share resources. This network approach is already being implemented in some funding programmes in Germany, but it could be intensified at European or international level. That is why we are also involved in innovative urban projects such as MasColonia in Uruguay, because we see great potential for cooperation between South America and Europe here - especially in view of the current global shifts. After all, Europe has strong cities with a high quality of life – a characteristic that we should value. Last but not least, it would be good for the European idea of community.
Steffen Braun has been Deputy Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO in Stuttgart since 2024. Prior to this, he was Head of the ‘Urban System Design’ research department at Fraunhofer IAO for many years and co-founder of the Fraunhofer Morgenstadt initiative. His applied research focusses on the question of how cities and urban systems can be designed to be climate-friendly, open to technology and adaptable.
