Digitalization in land-use planning: effects of digital plan data on efficiency, transparency and innovation

ABSTRACT

Digital transformation is shaping our lives and altering planning. Digitalization is closely linked to smart governance, through which administrative units such as cities and regions increasingly offer digital services related to spatial planning. However, the increasing digitalization of spatial planning has received little attention in academic planning literature, and few studies have analysed how digitalization affects planning practice. The aim of this study was to help fill this gap by developing an analytical framework based on efficiency, transparency and innovation, to explore how digital plan data affect land-use planning. The framework was applied in a multi-case study analysis of Austria, Germany and Switzerland. In this study, which is one of the first to shed empirical light on the digital transformation of land-use planning, we found changes in planning practice mainly in terms of efficiency and transparency, less in terms of innovation. We have identified a great need for further research to attend critically to digital transformation of planning in order to optimize the benefits for planning practice and to avoid an unreflective shift towards technocratic planning practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Geoportal
• standardisation
• open data
• digital transformation
• ICT
• planning practice

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the interviewees for their willingness to share their insights with us. Many thanks also to the entire ESPON DIGIPLAN project team and ESPON DIGIPLAN stakeholders for the fruitful discussions that supported the development of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by ESPON [Targeted Analysis DIGIPLAN].