Ontological Design for Cognitive Cities: The New Principle for Future Urban Management

Introduction

Due to growing urbanization, today’s cities face major challenges, such as the increasing scarcity of resources and the preservation of human well-being. The vision of a cognitive city is an important approach to meeting these challenges in the interests of the city and its stakeholders (e.g., inhabitants, companies and nonprofit-organizations) (Finger & Portmann, 2016). The cognitive city is based on the concept of the smart city and aims to compensate for its deficits. The focus often lies on technological possibilities, which represent a way to solve the problems of urban efficiency and sustainability; however, this strategy tends to be accompanied by a lack of stakeholder involvement to improve cities’ processes in line with stakeholders’ needs. However, as a sociotechnical system, the good functioning of a city depends on the well-balanced coexistence and cooperation of technology and human minds. It is therefore important to create an environment for collaboration to foster urban development, among other aspects, to create a cognitive city.

In terms of challenges to and problems of cities, there exist several scientific problem-solving approaches. If the problem is to be answered by identifying behavioral patterns or explaining a cause, empirical methods such as interviews or surveys can be applied. However, it is important to be aware that these approaches are useful for a specific class of problems but cannot entirely address the complex problems confronting a city. For instance, Krasnova, Abramova, Notter and Baumann (2016) carried out a survey about “why phubbing is toxic for your relationship” to understand the role of smartphone jealousy among “generation Y” users. This is an important topic in our society and we must address it, but it is very specific to an object (i.e., smartphone) and to a stakeholder group (i.e., generation Y). The findings of this study can be applied to urban development only to a certain extent. It helps draw the attention of the digital generation to certain points but addresses only one of many problems. It does not offer solution approaches to overcoming this problem. Another example is “The Swiss Software Industry Study 2017”. This study helps to obtain “in-depth information about the current state, emerging trends, and long-term developments of the Swiss software industry” (Hurni, Huber & Dibbern, 2017, p. 3). However, similar to the previous study, it is very limited (geographically, thematically and methodically) and can therefore hardly, or only to a certain extent, be applied to urban development.

Innovative approaches such as action design research (Sein, Henfridsson, Purao, Rossi & Lindgren, 2011) can be utilized to address a specific problem. However, even if they are future-oriented, these research venues also have limitations. For instance, Petersson and Lundberg (2016) applied action design research to develop working methods to “promote the technical development of turnouts” in the railway sector. Starting from the assumption that “failure of turnouts can lead to significant delays and societal costs”, solution approaches are developed by applying action design research. In comparison to empirical research, solution approaches are created to help to solve specific problems (including the consideration of stakeholder needs). However, the probability that the same approach can be transferred to other areas is rather low. The same applies to the prototype “personal digital assistant 2.0” developed by Kaltenrieder, Altun, D’Onofrio, Portmann and Myrach (2016), which was specifically designed for the mobility, as well as for the improved organization of busy people (i.e., improvement of calendar management). To a certain degree, their findings can be adapted to other areas, but adjustments will be necessary, depending on the target group, the application area and other aspects. Therefore, collaborative methods are vital to tackling multifaceted urban problems, and a well-considered mix of methods proves most promising in shaping the city of the future. It is vital to think outside the box and find new ways while avoiding conventional ones. This is where the fundamental idea of ontological design comes into play.