ABSTRACT
Design must take three major factors into account: first, that the individual scope of action has been significantly enlarged and will grow in future; second, that knowledge plays an increasingly important role in the economy; and third, that the globalization in the economy goes along with the individualization of society. The fact that knowledge has become the most important productive force, and that capital today as human capital, that means as fantasy and eagerness to learn, is more important than material capital, shows how far the basis for “the individual as protagonist, as designer, as juggler and director or stager of his biography, his identity, his social networks, his relationships, his convictions” (Beck 1993) has matured. This also shows in the urban design of many middle-sized cities.
