For a few years now, Berlin has been in a transformative process into a Smart City. In this context, many projects are already being developed and implemented. The vision behind this is to shape Berlin into an intelligently networked, post-fossil and resilient city. To be a sustainably liveable and future-proof metropolis.
This means that Berlin – like many other cities around the world – is facing new challenges that entail considerable changes in the living and working environments of all those involved. A growing city has to deal with the impact of climate change, the energy and mobility transitions, more sustainability and efficiency, increasing demands on infrastructures of all kinds as well as demographic and administrative issues. This requires new forms of cooperation and new ways of thinking and acting. Future-proof – in Berlin this means: to achieve a significantly higher, more sustainable quality of life with equal or fewer resources. This can only be attained through the smart and targeted use of innovative information and communication technologies.
The first Smart City strategy for Berlin was developed and passed in 2015. The strategy comprises six key fields of action within which politics, business and science can advance the Smart City Berlin together with the city’s citizens. The fields of action cover: Smart Administration and Urban Society; Smart Living; Smart Economy; Smart Mobility; Smart Infrastructures; and Public Safety.
As a federally funded “Smart City Model Project”, the Smart City Berlin entered a new stage in 2020. Since then, the city has developed a new Smart City Strategy in a transparent process which was open to all; the strategy was combined with the Berlin Digital Strategy under the name of “Going Digital Together: Berlin” in 2022. The merged strategy defines both the city-wide framework as well as the set of instruments required to reach the strategic goals. The Digital Strategy contributes implementation competencies, while the Smart City Strategy contains the vision for Berlin – ensuring urban development and digitisation are always considered together.
A first draft of the new “Going Digital Together: Berlin” strategy (German only) was publicly accessible and open for comments until 24 July 2022.