A member of the German parliament had invited to an open discussion round. It was to be about the digitisation of cities, i.e. Smart Cities. I took part in the discussion because I wanted to deal with topics like digital authorities, intelligent traffic concepts or similar things. But it soon turned out that most of the participants were more interested in how to prevent rents from rising due to digitisation. A concrete example was the installation of SmartHome systems in rented flats, which would count as modernisation. On the sidelines, the topic of digitisation was also discussed and I advocated that the Federal Government should focus more on this issue and centralise it. The easiest way to do this would be through a Minister for Digitisation. There was a strong headwind, especially from the mostly older party members present. Digitalisation was already a prioritised topic and a […]