A SMART future? A look back at the ARL Congress 2022!

Digital developments already determine all of our lives. Looking to the future, quality of life, social participation and economic development options will depend crucially on how further digitisation succeeds. 

The ARL Congress 2022, which the Academy organised together with the REGIONALE 2022 UrbanLand team on 30 June and 1 July 2022 in Bielefeld, highlighted many aspects of digitalisation and its impact on spaces and spatial planning. 

Whether it is digital education or health services, working in a home office or new mobility concepts: especially for rural and remote areas, which are particularly affected by demographic change, digital technologies offer new participation potential and important opportunities for future value creation. 

However, this is not an automatism, on the contrary! In addition to the opportunities, there is the risk that existing or new inequalities will develop in the sense of a digital divide. At the same time, the Corona pandemic has accelerated the dynamics of digitalisation, which makes the deficits all the more visible.

The participants of the congress advocated for more cooperation and innovation, for a digitalisation that focuses on people, and for specific, regionally adapted solutions.

• www.arl-international.com/activities/arl-congress-2022-smart-future-digitalisation-challenges-spatial-development
• Visual impressions on the German ARL website: www.arl-net.de/fotogalerie-arl-kongress-2022