The seminar “The Just City: Transformational Justice in Urban and Regional Planning” examines how urban transformation processes can be deliberately shaped towards greater social, spatial, and environmental justice. It addresses key contemporary challenges as differentiated in current urban planning and urban sociological debates:

• The Housing Question and Urban Inequality
  In the context of increasing housing financialization, the seminar addresses affordability, displacement (gentrification), and sociospatial segregation, with a focus on the roles of markets, state regulation, and alternative housing models.
• Climate Change and Socio-Ecological Transformation
  The seminar examines the uneven spatial impacts of climate change alongside strategies of mitigation and adaptation, situating these within broader debates on planetary urbanism. Particular attention is given to just transitions, climate-resilient urban development, and the nexus of ecological and social justice.
• Infrastructures and Public Service Provision
  Focus is placed on the accessibility, distribution, and governance of technical and social infrastructures (e.g., mobility, energy, water, healthcare), addressing issues of infrastructural justice, resilience, and systemic transformation.

Students engage with practice-oriented planning questions and develop the ability to systematically analyze patterns of inequality, mechanisms of exclusion, and power relations in urban space. Particular emphasis is placed on diversity-sensitive and inclusive planning approaches that conceptualize gender relations as well as socio-cultural and economic differences as constitutive dimensions of urban development and transformation processes.

The course is designed as a research-based studio. Students conduct independent empirical investigations using qualitative methods, particularly mapping and counter-mapping techniques. Based on their findings, they develop concrete spatial and governance-oriented strategies, including policy recommendations, spatial interventions, and justice-oriented planning tools. The seminar aims to equip students with the ability to translate theoretical approaches from critical urban studies into actionable planning strategies, while preparing them for professional practice in urban design, planning, and urban policy.

The Transformation Planning II module equips students with further key competencies, knowledge, and skills from specific disciplinary perspectives regarding the major transformation challenges facing urban and regional planning, including how these challenges can be addressed. Students acquire in-depth knowledge for engaging with planning theory and practice, as well as developing their own perspective on transformation challenges in urban and regional planning.

The modules “Transformation Planning I” and “Transformation Planning II” are not sequential and may be taken in either order. The content of the “Transformation Planning II” module in the summer semester is generally taught by the departments of Infrastructure and Mobility Planning, Urban Design and Planning, Urban Design & Urban Studies, and Construction and Planning Law:

• Circular economy, energy transition, transportation transition, and climate protection or adaptation as planning challenges of the Great Transformation with regard to infrastructure and mobility
• The Great Transformation and climate justice as urban design tasks; the construction transition
• The Great Transformation in rural areas, transformation planning in the Global South, planetary urbanism
• Transformation goals and planning law (particularly aspects of climate protection

Algorithms have become a powerful element of contemporary urban transformation. From platform-mediated mobility and delivery to housing portals, welfare systems, predictive policing, and “smart” infrastructures, algorithmic systems increasingly shape how cities are planned, governed, accessed, and lived. This seminar examines the relationship between cities and algorithms from a critical perspective that does not start from the assumption that algorithms are simply “good” or “bad.” Instead, we approach algorithms as socio-technical assemblages embedded in institutions, markets, and infrastructures, participating in the production of urban space and social order in ways that are often uneven, contested, and difficult to see. We ask how algorithmic systems rework key planning and policy concepts such as the common good, sustainability, and inequality. We explore how techniques such as scoring, ranking, verification, geo-fencing, and automated decision-making shape visibility and invisibility, access to services and spaces, and everyday experiences of place-making and belonging—who is recognised and trusted, who is excluded, and how people navigate these systems through compliance, resistance, and workaround practices. At the same time, we situate cities-and-algorithms debates within wider political-economic transformations, including platform capitalism, post-neoliberalism, and shifting power relations between public authorities and private infrastructures.

The Transformation Planning II module equips students with further key competencies, knowledge, and skills from specific disciplinary perspectives regarding the major transformation challenges facing urban and regional planning, including how these challenges can be addressed. Students acquire in-depth knowledge for engaging with planning theory and practice, as well as developing their own perspectives on transformation challenges in urban and regional planning.

The modules “Transformation Planning I” and “Transformation Planning II” are not sequential and may be taken in either order. The content of the “Transformation Planning II” module in the summer semester is generally taught by the departments of Infrastructure and Mobility Planning (Prof. C. Eisenmann), Urban Development and Design (Prof. V. Schmidt), Urban Design & Urban Studies (Prof. J. Binder), and Construction and Planning Law (Prof. B. Weyrauch):

• Circular economy, energy transition, transportation transition, and climate protection or adaptation as planning challenges of the Great Transformation with regard to infrastructure and mobility
• The Great Transformation and climate justice as urban design tasks; construction transition
• The Great Transformation in rural areas, transformation planning in the Global South, planetary urbanism
• Transformation goals and planning law (particularly aspects of climate protection)

The first session will take place on April 15, 2025, at 1:45 p.m. in Building 2C, Room 313.

First class: 15.04.2025, 10.00-13 Uhr, room 313, LG 2C

Smart cities, driven by information and communication technologies, promise to enhance urban efficiency and connectivity, but they also raise concerns about surveillance, data security and data management. The participatory mapping practice of countermapping offers a critical response by empowering communities to challenge dominant narratives in urban planning. In the context of smart cities, it helps expose the power dynamics and hidden power structures shaping urban life. Our Master’s seminar will focus initially on smart cities and their governance in the Global North. Additionally, a postcolonial approach to countermapping in the Global South interrogates how smart city agendas often replicate colonial patterns of control and exclusion. The course is further enriched with expert inputs from Berlin, Brandenburg and Brazil.

1. Meeting: Tuesday, April 16th, 10am, room 313, building 2C

Moodle: SoSe 24 | 643104 | Introduction to Smart Cities

How do we shape our future cities? Can digital strategies in a transformative region create new sustainable visions for addressing local challenges in a peripheral border region? To what extent can the use of ICT lead to an improvement in quality of life? The notion of the Smart City is a guiding principle that is omnipresent in urban planning. However, data as a new resource also raises questions about data protection, data security and data sovereignty, which are addressed in critical urban research. Smart city strategies emerge from the interaction of public, private, and civil society actors, which are to be researched, analyzed, and accompanied in the real-world laboratory in Guben.

The master seminar "Introduction to Smart Cities" imparts both theoretical and practical knowledge. In planning theory, knowledge about sustainable urban development and smart cities is conveyed by reading and analyzing German and English language texts. The practical planning knowledge revolves around the question of what challenges arise in the implementation phase of digital measures in a peripheral border city. The seminar is offered in cooperation with the Model Projects Smart Cities (MPSC) Guben, including a workshop, with day trips planned to Cottbus and Berlin. Additionally, a stegreif in Guben is offered. It is aimed at master's students in urban planning, architecture, and heritage studies.

How do we shape our cities of the future? Can digital strategies in a transforming region create new sustainable visions for tackling local challenges? To what extent can the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) lead to an improvement in quality of life? The smart city is a guiding principle that is omnipresent in urban planning. However, data as a new resource also raises questions about data protection, data security and data sovereignty, which are addressed in critical urban research. Smart city strategies emerge from the interaction between public, private and civil society actors, which are to be researched, analyzed and accompanied in the Guben real-world laboratory. As a shrinking border town in a peripheral location, students will have the opportunity to shape and support transformative agendas over the course of two semesters.

The Master's seminar Introduction to Smart Cities imparts theoretical and practical knowledge. In planning theory, knowledge on sustainable urban development and smart cities is imparted by reading and working on texts in German and English. The practical planning knowledge revolves around the question of what challenges are faced in the implementation phase of digital measures in a peripheral border city. The seminar is offered as part of a cooperation with the Model Projects Smart Cities (MPSC) Guben including a workshop, day excursions to Cottbus and Berlin are planned. An impromptu seminar and summer academy will follow in Guben in the 2024 summer semester. It is aimed at Master's students of urban planning, architecture and heritage studies.