Smart Urbanism

Author: Simon Marvin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317549325
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Book Description
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.

Smart Urbanism

Author: Simon Marvin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317549333
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Smart about Cities

Author: Maarten A. Hajer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789462081482
Category : Cities and towns
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"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.

Rethinking Smart Urbanism

Author: Prince K. Guma
Publisher: Eburon Uitgeverij B.V.
ISBN: 9463013253
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 213

Book Description
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.

Inside Smart Cities

Author: Andrew Karvonen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351166182
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 453

Book Description
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.

Frankenstein Urbanism

Author: Federico Cugurullo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317313623
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
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.

Making Massive Small Change

Author: Kelvin Campbell
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781603587754
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
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.

Smart Cities and Smart Spaces: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications

Author: Management Association, Information Resources
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1522570314
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 1742

Book Description
As populations have continued to grow and expand, many people have made their homes in cities around the globe. With this increase in city living, it is becoming vital to create intelligent urban environments that efficiently support this growth and simultaneously provide friendly and progressive environments to both businesses and citizens alike. Smart Cities and Smart Spaces: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is an innovative reference source that discusses social, economic, and environmental issues surrounding the evolution of smart cities. Highlighting a range of topics such as smart destinations, urban planning, and intelligent communities, this multi-volume book is designed for engineers, architects, facility managers, policymakers, academicians, and researchers interested in expanding their knowledge on the emerging trends and topics involving smart cities.

Architecture and Urbanism: A Smart Outlook

Author: Shaimaa Kamel
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030525848
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 500

Book Description
This proceedings addresses the challenges of urbanization that gravely affect the world’s ecosystems. To become efficiently sustainable and regenerative, buildings and cities need to adopt smart solutions. This book discusses innovations of the built environment while depicting how such practices can transform future buildings and urban areas into places of higher value and quality. The book aims to examine the interrelationship between people, nature and technology, which is essential in pursuing smart environments that optimize human wellbeing, motivation and vitality, as well as promoting cohesive and inclusive societies: Urban Sociology - Community Involvement - Place-making and Cultural Continuity – Environmental Psychology - Smart living - Just City. The book presents exemplary practical experiences that reflect smart strategies, technologies and innovations, by established and emerging professionals, provides a forum of real-life discourse. The primary audience for the work will be from the fields of architecture, urban planning and built-environment systems, including multi-disciplinary academics as well as professionals.

Smart Urban Development

Author: Vito Bobek
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 178985041X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Book Description
Debates about the future of urban development in many countries have been increasingly influenced by discussions of smart cities. Despite numerous examples of this "urban labelling" phenomenon, we know surprisingly little about so-called smart cities. This book provides a preliminary critical discussion of some of the more important aspects of smart cities. Its primary focus is on the experience of some designated smart cities, with a view to problematizing a range of elements that supposedly characterize this new urban form. It also questions some of the underlying assumptions and contradictions hidden within the concept.