This book examines how contemporary urbanism is influenced by digital and low carbon transitions. From its infancy at the scale of individual buildings, a focus on 'green' agenda, energy, and resource efficiency has fostered research and policies for low carbon cities, eco-cities, and increasingly intelligent and smarter urban systems. Cities around the world are getting 'smarter' as more advanced technology is integrated into urban planning and design. People are relying more on digital and information and communication technology (ICT) in their daily lives, while cities are adopting more digital technology to monitor and gather information about people and their environment. This leads to Big Data collection, which is used to inform governance and improve urban performance. These transformations, however, raise critical questions, including whether emerging smart sustainable cities are too technocratic, but also with regard to citizen involvement. This brief addresses these important contemporary concerns through a review of literature and existing urban strategies. It should be of interest to everyone involved in advancing sustainable cities and smart cities. It should also be a relevant read for students and researchers in this area.

Autorentext

Dr Mary J. Thornbush is presently a researcher of the Ecological Footprint Initiative based in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, Canada. She has over 80 publications in the areas of applied geomorphology and environmental and urban sustainability. Her doctoral thesis at the University of Oxford addressed urban sustainability through a study of air emissions from transport in central Oxford and investigated their impacts on the weathering of its historical limestone buildings. Her relevant publications include a special journal issue on Geography, Urban Geomorphology and Sustainability in Area (2015) as well as books such as Vehicular Air Pollution and Urban Sustainability: An Assessment from Central Oxford, UK (2015, Springer) and a volume on Urban Geomorphology: Landforms and Processes in Cities (2018, Elsevier).

Dr Oleg Golubchikov is Reader in Human Geography at the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University. He previous worked as an academic at the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham. He has also held visiting academic positions in Sweden, Finland, and Russia. His research interests lie with urban political geography, sustainable cities, and energy geography. His recent research interrogates the relationships between spatial governance and urban and regional transformations in the context of major contemporary societal 'projects' including post-socialist and post-carbon transitions. He has developed research projects and collaborations across Europe and in the BRIC countries. His research also informs international policies. He has advised the United Nations on aspects of sustainable housing, urban development, and low carbon cities.

Zusammenfassung

This book examines how contemporary urbanism is influenced by digital and low carbon transitions. From its infancy at the scale of individual buildings, a focus on 'green' agenda, energy, and resource efficiency has fostered research and policies for low carbon cities, eco-cities, and increasingly intelligent and smarter urban systems. Cities around the world are getting 'smarter' as more advanced technology is integrated into urban planning and design. People are relying more on digital and information and communication technology (ICT) in their daily lives, while cities are adopting more digital technology to monitor and gather information about people and their environment. This leads to Big Data collection, which is used to inform governance and improve urban performance. These transformations, however, raise critical questions, including whether emerging smart sustainable cities are too technocratic, but also with regard to citizen involvement. This brief addresses these important contemporary concerns through a review of literature and existing urban strategies. It should be of interest to everyone involved in advancing sustainable cities and smart cities. It should also be a relevant read for students and researchers in this area.

Inhalt
Chapter 1: Introduction overview and relevant background, including published (cross-disciplinary) research that provides a context and justification for the study.
Chapter 2: Efficient buildings tracking the evolution of the concept from the building scale within initial urban sustainability studies.
Chapter 3: Up-scaling to the city the emergence of the concept from individual buildings to broader coverage in cities through intelligent and smart development.
Chapter 4: Becoming smart examples of piecemeal development as smarter cities and, ultimately, to smart cities.
Chapter 5: Smart energy cities considers most recent developments, including the contemporary approach to efficient, low-carbon cities.
Chapter 6: Technical issues critically reviews problems associated with the technical dimension of smart cities.
Chapter 7: Social issues addresses potentially emerging problems of self-governance in an automated city that is monitored and collects big data; also relays issues of cybersecurity and privacy.
Chapter 8: Conclusion highlights contributions and also considers potential future problems with the current trajectory of smart-city development, including issues stemming from automation and reporting.