Search

Today’s smart city agendas are the latest iteration of urban sociotechnical innovation. Their aim is to use information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve the economic and environmental performance of cities while hopefully providing a better quality of life for residents. Urban planners have a long-standing tradition of aligning technological in- novation with the built environment and residents but have been only peripherally engaged in smart cities debates to date. However, this situation is beginning to change as iconic, one-of-a-kind smart projects are giving way to the ‘actually existing’ smart city and ICT interventions are emerging as ubiquitous features of twenty-first century cities. The aim of this thematic issue is to explore the various ways that smart cities are influencing and being influenced by urban planning. The articles provide empirical evidence of how urban planners are engaging with processes of smart urbanisation through projects, practices, and politics. They reveal the profound and lasting influence of digitalisation on urban planning and the multiple opportunities for urban planners to serve as champions and drivers of the smart city., QC 20200527

Today’s smart city agendas are the latest iteration of urban sociotechnical innovation. Their aim is to use information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve the economic and environmental performance of cities while hopefully providing a better quality of life for residents. Urban planners have a long-standing tradition of aligning technological innovation with the built environment and residents but have been only peripherally engaged in smart cities debates to date. However, this situation is beginning to change as iconic, one-of-a-kind smart projects are giving way to the ‘actually existing’ smart city and ICT interventions are emerging as ubiquitous features of twenty-first century cities. The aim of this thematic issue is to explore the various ways that smart cities are influencing and being influenced by urban planning. The articles provide empirical evidence of how urban planners are engaging with processes of smart urbanisation through projects, practices, and politics. They reveal the profound and lasting influence of digitalisation on urban planning and the multiple opportunities for urban planners to serve as champions and drivers of the smart city.

This concluding synthesis argues that practices of legitimation can empirically deconstruct any given energy transitions case to identify mechanisms that constrain or enable accountability to decarbonisation with social equity enhancement. The versatile analytical application of these practices can advance environmental governance research on steering energy transitions towards sustainability. This chapter explicates seven cross-cutting dimensions and indicates how practices of legitimation play out within them in five cases related to energy transitions, drawing on contextualised examples from two cases for each dimension. This illustrates how practices of legitimation (discursive, bureaucratic, technocratic and financial) can reframe wide-ranging cases from diverse perspectives, fields and disciplines. Applied researchers can choose customised dimensions and enlarge this indicative set to identify situated mechanisms that modulate accountable energy transitions., This concluding synthesis argues that practices of legitimation can empirically deconstruct any given energy transitions case to identify mechanisms that constrain or enable accountability to decarbonisation with social equity enhancement. The versatile analytical application of these practices can advance environmental governance research on steering energy transitions towards sustainability. This chapter explicates seven cross-cutting dimensions and indicates how practices of legitimation play out within them in five cases related to energy transitions, drawing on contextualised examples from two cases for each dimension. This illustrates how practices of legitimation (discursive, bureaucratic, technocratic and financial) can reframe wide-ranging cases from diverse perspectives, fields and disciplines. Applied researchers can choose customised dimensions and enlarge this indicative set to identify situated mechanisms that modulate accountable energy transitions.

This concluding synthesis argues that practices of legitimation can empirically deconstruct any given energy transitions case to identify mechanisms that constrain or enable accountability to decarbonisation with social equity enhancement. The versatile analytical application of these practices can advance environmental governance research on steering energy transitions towards sustainability. This chapter explicates seven cross-cutting dimensions and indicates how practices of legitimation play out within them in five cases related to energy transitions, drawing on contextualised examples from two cases for each dimension. This illustrates how practices of legitimation (discursive, bureaucratic, technocratic and financial) can reframe wide-ranging cases from diverse perspectives, fields and disciplines. Applied researchers can choose customised dimensions and enlarge this indicative set to identify situated mechanisms that modulate accountable energy transitions., This concluding synthesis argues that practices of legitimation can empirically deconstruct any given energy transitions case to identify mechanisms that constrain or enable accountability to decarbonisation with social equity enhancement. The versatile analytical application of these practices can advance environmental governance research on steering energy transitions towards sustainability. This chapter explicates seven cross-cutting dimensions and indicates how practices of legitimation play out within them in five cases related to energy transitions, drawing on contextualised examples from two cases for each dimension. This illustrates how practices of legitimation (discursive, bureaucratic, technocratic and financial) can reframe wide-ranging cases from diverse perspectives, fields and disciplines. Applied researchers can choose customised dimensions and enlarge this indicative set to identify situated mechanisms that modulate accountable energy transitions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the links between smart cities and urban energy sustainability. Because achieving a “smart city” is a wide agenda rather than a specific set of interventions, smartness itself cannot easily be measured or quantifiably assessed. Instead, we understand smart cities to be a broad framework of strategies pursued by urban actors, and ask whether and how smart city projects catalyze urban energy sustainability. We use case studies of three cities (Nottingham, Stavanger, and Stockholm) funded by the Horizon 2020 Smart Cities and Communities program and examine how urban energy sustainability was advanced and realized through the smart city initiatives. We find first that while sustainability is not always a major objective of local implementation of smart city projects, the smartness agenda nevertheless increases the ambition to achieve energy sustainability targets. Second, the sustainability measures in smart cities are rarely driven by advanced technology, even though the smart city agenda is framed around such innovations. Third, there is significant sustainability potential in cross-sectoral integration, but there are unresolved challenges of accountability for and measurability of these gains., QC 20190715

This paper presents an argument for considering issues of class in analyses of communicative planning projects. In these projects, class interests tend to be obscured by the contemporary preoccupation with the class-ambiguous category of “community”. Through a case study of a project of urban redevelopment at King’s Cross in London, we conceptualize and map class interests in an urban redevelopment project. Three aspects of the planning process that contain clear class effects are looked at: the amount of office space, the flexibility of plans, and the appropriation of the urban environment as exchange or use value. These aspects structure the urban redevelopment but are external to the communicative planning process. The opposition to the redevelopment has in the planning discourse been articulated as “community”-based rather than in class-sensitive terms. We finally present three strategies for reinserting issues of class into planning theory and practice.

In the various debates on globalization, it has often been understood as a process that empowers multinational capital vis-à-vis local communities and workers. This paper is an attempt to uncover some alternative effects of globalization, or more precisely, how globalization can also open political spaces for local communities to campaign and negotiate for their livelihoods. Through a case study of the conflicts around mining in Tambogrande, the paper shows how this community managed to stop a mining project that it considered destructive. The study explores the political strategies of narrative construction, and the way the opposition narrative was articulated across scales. The opposition narrative was strategically constructed to draw on the national identification with lemon-based dishes and the international strength of the democratization discourse. The Tambogrande case illustrates how a local community can be empowered by aspects of globalization that enables networking and rescaling of narratives., En los diversos debates sobre globalización, este se ha entendido a menudo, como un proceso que fortalece el capital multinacional en comparación de las comunidades y trabajadores locales. El presente artículo intenta revelar algunos efectos alternativos de la globalización, o más exactamente, de cómo la globalización puede también abrir espacios políticos donde las comunidades locales accionen y negocien su sustento. A través de un estudio de caso sobre los conflictos alrededor del proyecto de explotación minera en Tambogrande, se aborda el como esta comunidad logró evitar un proyecto de explotación minera que consideraba destructivo.El estudio explora las estrategias políticas de la construcción de narrativas, y la manera en que la narrativa de la oposición al proyecto minero fue articulada a través de escalas. Esta narrativa fue construida estratégicamente sobre la base de su identificación con caracteres de identidad nacional como los platos típicos basados en limón y con el uso del prestigio internacional del discurso sobre democratización. El caso de Tambogrande ilustra cómo una comunidad local puede ser fortalecida por aspectos de la globalización que permiten el establecimiento de una red y el uso de narrativas a diversas escalas.

In the various debates on globalization, it has often been understood as a process that empowers multinational capital vis-à-vis local communities and workers. This paper is an attempt to uncover some alternative effects of globalization, or more precisely, how globalization can also open political spaces for local communities to campaign and negotiate for their livelihoods. Through a case study of the conflicts around mining in Tambogrande, the paper shows how this community managed to stop a mining project that it considered destructive. The study explores the political strategies of narrative construction, and the way the opposition narrative was articulated across scales. The opposition narrative was strategically constructed to draw on the national identification with lemon-based dishes and the international strength of the democratization discourse. The Tambogrande case illustrates how a local community can be empowered by aspects of globalization that enables networking and rescaling of narratives., En los diversos debates sobre globalización, este se ha entendido a menudo, como un proceso que fortalece el capital multinacional en comparación de las comunidades y trabajadores locales. El presente artículo intenta revelar algunos efectos alternativos de la globalización, o más exactamente, de cómo la globalización puede también abrir espacios políticos donde las comunidades locales accionen y negocien su sustento. A través de un estudio de caso sobre los conflictos alrededor del proyecto de explotación minera en Tambogrande, se aborda el como esta comunidad logró evitar un proyecto de explotación minera que consideraba destructivo.El estudio explora las estrategias políticas de la construcción de narrativas, y la manera en que la narrativa de la oposición al proyecto minero fue articulada a través de escalas. Esta narrativa fue construida estratégicamente sobre la base de su identificación con caracteres de identidad nacional como los platos típicos basados en limón y con el uso del prestigio internacional del discurso sobre democratización. El caso de Tambogrande ilustra cómo una comunidad local puede ser fortalecida por aspectos de la globalización que permiten el establecimiento de una red y el uso de narrativas a diversas escalas.

Today’s smart city agendas are the latest iteration of urban sociotechnical innovation. Their aim is to use information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve the economic and environmental performance of cities while hopefully providing a better quality of life for residents. Urban planners have long-standing tradition of aligning technological innovation with the built environment and residents but have been only peripherally engaged in smart cities debates to date. However, this situation is beginning to change as iconic, one-of-a-kind smart projects are giving way to the ‘actually existing smart city’ and ICT interventions are emerging as ubiquitous features of twenty-first century cities. The aim of this thematic issue is to explore the various ways that smart cities are influencing and being influenced by urban planning. The articles provide empirical evidence of how urban planners are engaging with processes of smart urbanisation through projects, practices, and politics. They reveal the profound and lasting influence of digitalisation on urban planning and the multiple opportunities for urban planners to serve as champions and drivers of the smart city.

Automobility, including the infrastructures, technologies and institutions that created high dependence on private car use, has led to significant environmental and climate problems and notably high carbon emissions. Now cities are attempting to move beyond this failed regime by experimenting with a range of different new mobility innovations. In this paper, we examine whether emergent policy-led experiments and innovation processes in low-carbon mobility are learning from the past, or whether they are reproducing key elements of past policy failures. Through four case studies – Birmingham, Stavanger, Milton Keynes and Melbourne – we assess attempts to break out of high-carbon automobility through three key factors, namely diversification of travel options, a shift from individual to shared forms of mobility, and whether these aspects are implemented at scale. We find that while all cities show potential for diversification and sharing at scale, current modes of innovation exhibit features that may reproduce rather than reduce high-carbon automobility. Our analysis attributes this risk of continued failure to how policy-led experimentation and innovation are structured and themselves become locked in, thereby upholding the obdurate automobility regime.

Automobility, including the infrastructures, technologies and institutions that created high dependence on private car use, has led to significant environmental and climate problems and notably high carbon emissions. Now cities are attempting to move beyond this failed regime by experimenting with a range of different new mobility innovations. In this paper, we examine whether emergent policy-led experiments and innovation processes in low-carbon mobility are learning from the past, or whether they are reproducing key elements of past policy failures. Through four case studies – Birmingham, Stavanger, Milton Keynes and Melbourne – we assess attempts to break out of high-carbon automobility through three key factors, namely diversification of travel options, a shift from individual to shared forms of mobility, and whether these aspects are implemented at scale. We find that while all cities show potential for diversification and sharing at scale, current modes of innovation exhibit features that may reproduce rather than reduce high-carbon automobility. Our analysis attributes this risk of continued failure to how policy-led experimentation and innovation are structured and themselves become locked in, thereby upholding the obdurate automobility regime.

Today’s smart city agendas are the latest iteration of urban sociotechnical innovation. Their aim is to use information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve the economic and environmental performance of cities while hopefully providing a better quality of life for residents. Urban planners have long-standing tradition of aligning technological innovation with the built environment and residents but have been only peripherally engaged in smart cities debates to date. However, this situation is beginning to change as iconic, one-of-a-kind smart projects are giving way to the ‘actually existing smart city’ and ICT interventions are emerging as ubiquitous features of twenty-first century cities. The aim of this thematic issue is to explore the various ways that smart cities are influencing and being influenced by urban planning. The articles provide empirical evidence of how urban planners are engaging with processes of smart urbanisation through projects, practices, and politics. They reveal the profound and lasting influence of digitalisation on urban planning and the multiple opportunities for urban planners to serve as champions and drivers of the smart city.