05 Nov 2025
On 17 and 18 October 2025, an international symposium on “Everyday Urbanism and People Centred Smart Cities in China and the Nordics”, was held at the Nordic Centre, Fudan University, Shanghai, with Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University as one of the co-organisers.
Funded by a grant from the Nordic Centre, the event was co-hosted by members of the Research Group on Everyday Urbanism and Digitalisation. The symposium organising committee included members from Lund, Gothenburg and Linnaeus Universities in Sweden, Aalborg University in Denmark, Fudan University and XJTLU in China, and Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
The symposium aimed?to invigorate discussion and support development of papers proposed for an International Journal of Urban Sciences special issue on “People-centred smart cities: Exploring the intersection between everyday urbanism and digitalisation”, while encouraging?the development of ideas, consideration of intersections, and advancement of transdisciplinary understanding.
The?multidisciplinary event brought together around 30 participants presenting both practice based and theoretical researchf?from the disciplines of architecture, urban planning and design, media studies, and marketing.?Participants discussed the entangled, dynamic,?and reciprocal relationships between digitalisation and everyday life,?and how these relationships interact with broader social dynamics, the transformation of human spaces, and impacts on human life within Sino-Nordic contexts.
Speakers research objects included city brands and logos, tourism, heritage, care, fitness, urban gardens, justice, cities, rural development, transport, and migrants, each brought into relationship with the question of the everyday, the impact on people, and how we live. This reframing of research, combined with input from multiple disciplines and perspectives, opened new ways of thinking for many participants. The design of the symposium with 10 minutes of presentation followed by 20 minutes of discussion allowed time for development this of thinking, through authentic inquiry, and supportive feedback.
The two keynote speeches exemplified the opportunity of the symposium. The first keynote speech, titled “Are smart cities inclusive? Are they circular? The ramifications of urban digitalisation for sustainable urban life”?by Martin de Jong, began with analysis of the way that city brand’s such as “smart city”?spread, being picked up by different cities, growing in popularity, only to be replaced with new concepts. Then, focused on the question of impact on life, the talk began to connect these city brands with the impact they might have had. A discussion which foregrounded the commitment to creation of sustainable and liveable places which, held by a range of stakeholders, underly city brands, and the changes to places which accompany these “stories”?about a place.
Martin de Jong
Another keynote speech, “QR codes and the Sentient City”?by Anna Greenspan, began with a discussion about the now ubiquitous QR code which can carry thousands of points of information. She noted that this technology enables the shared economy, because it allows individual items to be tracked, and attached to individual users. However, as this data is not able to be read by humans, it requires devices, and machine intelligence to translate it?- systems that increasingly operate through autonomous agents processing data and moving things throughout the city.
Anna Greenspan
Acknowledging the concerns by many scholars about surveillance and the centralising of control this could allow, Greenspan’s talk expanded to a consideration of where this concern comes from, and other ways that this phenomenon could be understood. Finally, she?asked?whether we have built a city capable of developing a kind of sentience?- one?that can act much like the city gods of ancient civilisations.
Dr Sophie Sturup, one of the organisers and a senior associate professor from XJTLU’s Department of Urban Planning and Design, said that the symposium demonstrated that there are many opportunities for productive Sino-Nordic research collaborations.
“As an affiliate member of the Nordic Centre, XJTLU researchers have a vehicle through which to continue to explore these collaborations. The research group on Everyday Urbanism and Digitalisation is planning future symposia to continue to explore different dimensions of the field, as they are expressed across different context.?In addition, a?paper is planned to follow our recent publication ‘Everyday Urbanism and Digitalisation - Where are we and who are we becoming?’ published in Urban Policy and Research?from the first Symposium held at XJTLU.”
Story and images provided by Dr Sophie Sturup
Edited by Yi Qian
05 Nov 2025