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Artificial intelligence (AI) is now mediating, and in some cases seen to be controlling, key urban services and infrastructures, thus becoming a prominent feature of the contemporary city. As portrayed in recent studies, the “autonomous city” can be understood as a city where urban artificial intelligences perform tasks and take on roles which have traditionally been the domain of humans. At stake in these debates are questions related to the meaning and ongoing role of intelligence, for both humans and machines. While autonomous cars transport people, service robots run shops, drones deliver goods and city brains govern entire cities, humans are redefining the meaning of what “smart” means in the city and what role the human being may play in future urban spaces. With humans shifted to new sectors of the economy or pushed aside by algorithms and robotic agents creating new ways of seeing and governing the city, we raise the question as to whether or not cities are becoming more autonomous from human experience in the sense that their operation does not rely as much on human inputs anymore.
This book focuses on urban "green infrastructure" – the interconnected web of vegetated spaces like street trees, parks and peri-urban forests that provide essential ecosystem services in cities. The green infrastructure approach embodies the idea that these services, such as storm-water runoff control, pollutant filtration and amenities for outdoor recreation, are just as vital for a modern city as those provided by any other type of infrastructure. Ensuring that these ecosystem services are indeed delivered in an equitable and sustainable way requires knowledge of the physical attributes of trees and urban green spaces, tools for coping with the complex social and cultural dynamics, and an understanding of how these factors can be integrated in better governance practices. By conveying the findings and recommendations of COST Action FP1204 GreenInUrbs, this volume summarizes the collaborative efforts of researchers and practitioners from across Europe to address these challenges.
With 29 percent of all trips made by bicycle, Copenhagen is considered a model of green transport. This book considers the underlying political conditions that enabled cycling to appeal to such a wide range of citizens in Copenhagen and asks how this can be replicated elsewhere. Despite Copenhagen’s global reputation, its success has been a result of a long political struggle and is far from completely secure. Car use in Denmark is increasing, including in Copenhagen's suburbs, and new developments in Copenhagen include more parking for cars. There is a political tension in Copenhagen over the spaces for cycling, the car, and public transit. In considering examples of backlashes and confli...
Urban forests, trees and greenspace are critical in contemporary planning and development of the city. Their study is not only a question of the growth and conservation of green spaces, but also has social, cultural and psychological dimensions. This book brings a perspective of political ecology to the complexities of urban trees and forests through three themes: human agency in urban forests and greenspace; arboreal and greenspace agency in the urban landscape; and actions and interventions in the urban forest. Contributors include leading authorities from North America and Europe from a range of disciplines, including forestry, ecology, geography, landscape design, municipal planning, environmental policy and environmental history.
An exploration of the multifaceted urban environmental issues in Singapore through a more-than-human lens, calling for new ways to think of and story cities. As climate change accelerates and urbanization intensifies, our need for more sustainable and livable cities has never been more urgent. Yet, the imaginary of a flourishing urban ecofuture is often driven by a specific version of sustainability that is tied to both high-tech futurism and persistent economic growth. What kinds of sustainable futures are we calling forth, and at what and whose expense? In Reimagining the More-Than-Human City, Jamie Wang attempts to answer these questions by critically examining the sociocultural, politica...
This book explores environments where art, imagination, and creative practice meet urban spaces at the point where they connect to the digital world. It investigates relationships between urban visualizations, aesthetics, and politics in the context of new technologies, and social and urban challenges toward the Sustainable Development Goals. Responding to questions stemming from critical theory, the book focuses on an interdisciplinary actualization of technological developments and social challenges. It demonstrates how art, architecture, and design can transform culture, society, and nature through artistic and cultural achievements, integration, and new developments. The book begins with...
The City is an Ecosystem maps an interdisciplinary, community-engaged response to the great ecological crises of our time—climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality—which pose particular challenges for cities, where more than half the world’s population currently live. Across more than twenty chapters, the three parts of the book cover historical and scientific perspectives on the city as an ecosystem; human rights to the city in relation to urban sustainability; and the city as a sustainability classroom at all educational levels inside and outside formal classroom spaces. It argues that such efforts must be interdisciplinary and widespread to ensure an informed public a...
With 29 percent of all trips made by bicycle, Copenhagen is considered a model of green transport. This book considers the underlying political conditions that enabled cycling to appeal to such a wide range of citizens in Copenhagen and asks how this can be replicated elsewhere. Despite Copenhagen’s global reputation, its success has been a result of a long political struggle and is far from completely secure. Car use in Denmark is increasing, including in Copenhagen's suburbs, and new developments in Copenhagen include more parking for cars. There is a political tension in Copenhagen over the spaces for cycling, the car, and public transit. In considering examples of backlashes and confli...
The Routledge Research Companion to Landscape Architecture considers landscape architecture’s increasingly important cultural, aesthetic, and ecological role. The volume reflects topical concerns in theoretical, historical, philosophical, and practice-related research in landscape architecture – research that reflects our relationship with what has traditionally been called ‘nature’. It does so at a time when questions about the use of global resources and understanding the links between human and non-human worlds are more crucial than ever. The twenty-five chapters of this edited collection bring together significant positions in current landscape architecture research under five br...
Performance Metrics for Sustainable Cities provides an overview of measurement systems and tools to enable communities to self-assess and benchmark their progress along a continuum of smart, intelligent, and sustainable development. It begins by explaining the importance of measurement and evaluation for cities and smaller communities, as well as future factors that will need to be considered and embedded into planning processes. Across 14 chapters, the book describes existing evaluation mechanisms that are being used for government funding decisions, awards of recognition, and new measurement systems to assess what makes a city smarter and more sustainable, such as broader sustainable goal ...