ABSTRACT
Urban planning looks back on a long history of using media to better describe, analyze, project, communicate, and visualize urban structures. While analogue media have been part of planning processes from the beginning (e.g. in the form of city models, posters, and exhibitions), digital technologies (such as geographic information systems or computer-aided design) were first introduced in the 1970s. The empirical questions are how digitalization processes have developed in urban planning, what changes they have brought about for the communicative action of planners, to what extent this has led to changes in spatial constructions for the city, and, not least, to what extent one can speak of a refiguration of spaces. The chapter presents the results of an empirical study that examines the above questions using the example of planning activities from selected cases in New York City (North America/USA), Lagos (Africa/Nigeria), and Frankfurt am Main (Europe/Germany). One of the results is that a comprehensive datafication of spatial realities can be observed. Urban spaces have entered the digital world and are further structured at the computer. In the context of planning activities, the computer has thus become a co-constructor of spatial constructions to a non-negligible extent.
