Coming megatrends in the city of tomorrow

The public sector and in particular the municipal economy takes care of the foundations of social cohabitation. It provides a functioning infrastructure to enable students to be transported, roads stay intact, garbage picked up, and much more. In addition to these well-known and daily visible tasks of providing public services and infra-structure, the municipal economy is concerned with the future of cities and municipalities and their development. This means that today it must address serious social developments and disruptive changes of tomorrow, the so-called megatrends. These megatrends are the subject of a series of articles in the specialist magazine Kommunalwirtschaft, titled "Coming Megatrends for Municipalities – Thinking about Tomorrow Today".

The first part of the article series appeared in the current issue Kommunalwirtschaft 6-7 / 2017. In the editorial, Hauke Fischbeck, managing director of the BÜRO DR. VOGEL GMBH, presents a logical and historical classification of megatrends and how these act and have acted on the cities. The series will be continued with the analyses of three megatrends and their impact on cities and municipalities: change of mobility, smart city and e-government. The next article on the topic of change of mobility appears in issue 8/2017.

Read the article (German):

Kommende Megatrends für die Kommunalwirtschaft – Kommunalwirtschaft, Heft 6-7 / 2017