Smart Urbanism

Download or read book Smart Urbanism written by Simon Marvin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-14 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smart Urbanism (SU) – the rebuilding of cities through the integration of digital technologies with buildings, neighbourhoods, networked infrastructures and people – is being represented as a unique emerging ‘solution’ to the majority of problems faced by cities today. SU discourses, enacted by technology companies, national governments and supranational agencies alike, claim a supremacy of urban digital technologies for managing and controlling infrastructures, achieving greater effectiveness in managing service demand and reducing carbon emissions, developing greater social interaction and community networks, providing new services around health and social care etc. Smart urbanism is being represented as the response to almost every facet of the contemporary urban question. This book explores this common conception of the problematic of smart urbanism and critically address what new capabilities are being created by whom and with what exclusions; how these are being developed - and contested; where is this happening both within and between cities; and, with what sorts of social and material consequences. The aim of the book is to identify and convene a currently fragmented and disconnected group of researchers, commentators, developers and users from both within and outside the mainstream SU discourse, including several of those that adopt a more critical perspective, to assess ‘what’ problems of the city smartness can address The volume provides the first internationally comparative assessment of SU in cities of the global north and south, critically evaluates whether current visions of SU are able to achieve their potential; and then identifies alternative trajectories for SU that hold radical promise for reshaping cities.

Download or read book Rethinking Smart Urbanism written by Prince K. Guma and published by Eburon Uitgeverij B.V.. This book was released on 2021-01-03 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rethinking Smart Urbanism is an empirical exploration of the multiple ways in which cities and infrastructures are constructed and reconstructed through ICT innovation and appropriation. Drawing on the case of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, the study explains existing infrastructure constellations through countervailing processes and rationalities in the context of splintered urbanism. In doing so, the study examines the relationship between urban plans and digital infrastructure development, place-based contexts that shape digital infrastructures, and the extent to which these infrastructures facilitate utility companies’ ambitions of extending centralized networks to new territories. It draws on the theoretical and empirical base of urban and infrastructure studies, particularly in the fields of smart urbanism, postcolonial urbanism, and Science and Technology Studies. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative research design and presents in-depth case studies that combine ethnographic methods with a thorough investigation of written sources. Ultimately, it is hoped to enhance our understanding of urban and digital possibilities, and add new insights to debates on technology and urbanity in Africa and beyond.

Download or read book Smart about Cities written by Maarten A. Hajer and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The discourse on "Smart Cities" is everywhere. It promises an era of innovative urban planning, driven by smart urban technologies that will make cities safer, cleaner and, above all, more efficient. Efficiency seems uncontroversial but does it make for great cities? In this book, Maarten Hajer, Director-general of PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and Ton Dassen, urban sustainability researcher at PBL, plea for a "smart urbanism" instead of uncritically adopting "smart cities". Such smart urbanism needs to find solutions for what modern 20th century urbanism has forgotten to take into account: the "metabolism" of cities - the variety of flows that connect city life to nature. What are we taking in, what are we discharging, and how efficiently are we doing that? Illustrated by 50 infographics, this book highlights both the challenges and opportunities for change. It calls for a "globally networked urbanism" that allows cities worldwide to learn faster and jointly identify effective strategies. A viable 21st century planning, rather than including top-down innovation, opts to embed technology in social innovations."--Contratapa.

Download or read book Inside Smart Cities written by Andrew Karvonen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-03 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The era of the smart city has arrived. Only a decade ago, the promise of optimising urban services through the widespread application of information and communication technologies was largely a techno-utopian fantasy. Today, smart urbanisation is occurring via urban projects, policies and visions in hundreds of cities around the globe. Inside Smart Cities provides real-world evidence on how local authorities, small and medium enterprises, corporations, utility providers and civil society groups are creating smart cities at the neighbourhood, city and regional scales. Twenty three empirically detailed case studies from the Global North and South – ranging from Cape Town, Stockholm and Abu Dhabi to Philadelphia, Hong Kong and Santiago – illustrate the multiple and diverse incarnations of smart urbanism. The contributors draw on ideas from urban studies, geography, urban planning, science and technology studies and innovation studies to go beyond the rhetoric of technological innovation and reveal the political, social and physical implications of digitalising the built environment. Collectively, the practices of smart urbanism raise fundamental questions about the sustainability, liveability and resilience of cities in the future. The findings are relevant to academics, students, practitioners and urban stakeholders who are questioning how urban innovation relates to politics and place.

Download or read book Frankenstein Urbanism written by Federico Cugurullo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-16 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tells the story of visionary urban experiments, shedding light on the theories that preceded their development and on the monsters that followed and might be the end of our cities. The narrative is threefold and delves first into the eco-city, second the smart city and third the autonomous city intended as a place where existing smart technologies are evolving into artificial intelligences that are taking the management of the city out of the hands of humans. The book empirically explores Masdar City in Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong to provide a critical analysis of eco and smart city experiments and their sustainability, and it draws on numerous real-life examples to illustrate the rise of urban artificial intelligences across different geographical spaces and scales. Theoretically, the book traverses philosophy, urban studies and planning theory to explain the passage from eco and smart cities to the autonomous city, and to reflect on the meaning and purpose of cities in a time when human and non-biological intelligences are irreversibly colliding in the built environment. Iconoclastic and prophetic, Frankenstein Urbanism is both an examination of the evolution of urban experimentation through the lens of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and a warning about an urbanism whose product resembles Frankenstein’s monster: a fragmented entity which escapes human control and human understanding. Academics, students and practitioners will find in this book the knowledge that is necessary to comprehend and engage with the many urban experiments that are now alive, ready to leave the laboratory and enter our cities.

Download or read book Making Massive Small Change written by Kelvin Campbell and published by Chelsea Green Publishing Company. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bookbuilders of Boston Winner -- Professional, Illustrated Category The key to fixing our broken patterns of urban development does not lie in grand plans or giant projects; rather, it lies in the collective wisdom and energy of people harnessing the power of many small ideas and actions to make a big difference. We call this making "Massive Small" change. In an increasingly complex and changing world where global problems are felt locally, the systems we use to plan, design, and build our urban neighborhoods are failing. For three generations, governments the world over have tried to order and control the evolution of cities through rigid, top-down action. Yet, master plans lie unfulfilled, housing is in crisis, the environment is under threat, and the urban poor have become poorer. The system is not broken: it was built this way. And governments alone cannot solve these problems. But there is another way--the Massive Small way--a concept developed by Kelvin Campbell, the innovative founder of Urban Initiatives, an internationally recognized urban design practice based in London, and curator of Smart Urbanism [Massive Small], one of the largest LinkedIn communities in the field of online urbanism. Making Massive Small Change, the first truly comprehensive sourcebook to come out of this work, showcases cities as they really are--deeply complex, adaptive systems. As such, it offers an alternative to our current highly mechanistic model of urban development. With roots in the work of great urban theorists such as Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander, and E. F. Schumacher, Making Massive Small Change integrates this thinking with Complexity Theory and a scientific understanding of sustainability and resilience in cities. It sets out the enabling protocols, conditions, and behaviors that deliver Massive Small change in our neighborhoods. It describes and illustrates the ideas, tools, and tactics being used to help engaged citizens, civic leaders, and urban professionals to work together to build viable urban society, and it will show how effective system change can be implemented. Highly illustrated with stunning graphics and photographs of cityscapes and urban life, this essential toolkit for the future can be called the next Whole Earth Catalog for twenty-first century urban planning and development.

Download or read book Advances in Urbanism, Smart Cities, and Sustainability written by Uday Chatterjee and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2022-04-21 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While technology is developing at a fast pace, urban planners and cities are still behind in finding effective ways to use technology to address citizen’s needs. Multiple aspects of sustainable urbanism are brought together in this book, along with advanced technologies and their connections to urban planning and management. It integrates urban studies, smart cities, AI, IoT, remote sensing, and GIS. Highlights include land use planning, spatial planning, and ecosystem-based information to improve economic opportunities. Urban planners and engineers will understand the use of AI in disaster management and the use of GIS in finding suitable landfill sites for sustainable waste management. Features Explains the process of urban heritage conservation, including the process of urban renewal and its regeneration and the role of citizens in urban renewal, planning, and management. Includes several case studies highlighting urban environmental problems and challenges in developed and developing countries and the ways for converting urban areas into smart cities. Focuses on urban resources, the supply of energy in smart cities, and their proper management practices. Introduces the role of remote sensing, GIS, and IoT in making a smart city and meeting sustainable goals. Analyzes unique case studies, their challenges and obstacles, and proposes a set of factors to understanding smart city initiatives and projects.