Smart Cities for Bridging the Urban-Rural Divide: Designing Small Town Smart City Visions through Speculative Design Approach Led by Feminist HCI Values

Urbanization has increasingly drawn people to metropolises, leaving small towns struggling with declining populations and insufficient infrastructure. This contribution reflects on and evaluates the methodology utilised in the context of a study dedicated to exploring the potential of integrating feminist Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) principles within the framework of rural smart cities to address the infrastructural and social disparities between urban and rural areas. Through speculative design methodologies, the research aimed to identify the unique needs and challenges faced by residents in small cities and rural regions, and to propose innovative smart city solutions that incorporate feminist values. The study involved speculative workshops in Weimar, which engaged participants in activities designed to elicit visions of ideal urban environments. The findings highlight participants’ wishes for integrating nature, ensuring safety and comfort, and promoting social values such as direct democracy and freedom of expression. At the same time, dystopian views emerged around themes of excessive technology use, loss of human connection, and environmental degradation. We reflect on the effectiveness of speculative design as a research method and outlines plans for future research.