The study "New Media and Urban Development" analysed the effects of new information and communication technologies (ICT) and the services and applications based on them on the city and its sub-areas, the hierarchical system of cities and the fields of application and challenges of new ICT technologies for municipal planning and urban planning instruments. In addition to a literature and document analysis, the methodological approach of the study includes expert workshops, the comprehensive presentation of good examples and a survey of urban planning organisations in German cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants.

The focus was on the consequences of the new ICT technologies on urban development processes, spatial consequences for the city and its sub-areas, changing requirements for residential and commercial spaces and supply facilities, as well as the significance and consequences of ICT technologies for the city as a place of experience and as a place of communication and exchange. Another focus was on the fields of application and challenges of the new ICT technologies for municipal planning and urban planning instruments.

The study came to the conclusion that ICT technologies do not constitute spatial development trends, but rather reinforce them. Possible consequences for the urban system include a push towards hierarchisation of national and international city networks, disparities between the control centres and the dependent regions and a further concentration of functions in the cities. These urban development processes have a comparable effect on urban sub-regions.