I am spending the month of March as a guest researcher at Linköping University in the Department of Thematic Studies. I look forward to engaging in discussions with Harald Rohracher, Dick Magnusson, and colleagues on infrastructure networks and cities. I will also engage with Sara Gustafsson and Spilios Iliopoulus on our new project on Energy Resilient Cities. And I will probably spend a lot of time watching this driverless shuttle navigate the campus.
Two influential urban thinkers passed away in the last few days. Donald Shoup, a professor of urban studies at UCLA, was an ardent critic of free parking. His 2005 book, The High Cost of Free Parking, delineated the negative impacts of parking and served as inspiration for policymakers in multiple cities to change their local regulations and policies to improve environmental conditions and quality of life for urban residents. Meanwhile, Dickson Despommier inspired vibrant debates about the relationship between agriculture and cities by promoting the notion of vertical farming. A professor at Columbia University’s School of Public Health, his 2010 book, The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century, spurred venture capitalists to fund multiple high-tech urban farms over the last decade (many of which failed). Interestingly, neither Shoup nor Despommier had formal training in an urban discipline. Shoup had a PhD in economics but mainly focused on cities while Despommier was a microbiologist who got involved in urban food issues by chance. Both will be missed.
I wrote a review of the Handbook of Infrastructures and Cities edited by Olivier Coutard and Daniel Florentin. This is an excellent addition to the sociotechnical study of urban infrastructures with multiple theoretical and empirical insights from around the world. Recommended!
I met with the Humanity’s Urban Future team, a programme funded by CIFAR (The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research), at the Central European University in Vienna. We had a wide ranging discussion on what makes a good city of the future. I contributed with some ideas about the technopolitics of urban AI and look forward to seeing how the work develops in the coming years.
I published a short commentary in Buildings & Cities journal titled ‘Unmaking Cities Can Catalyse Sustainable Transformations‘. I challenge the current ‘innovation imperative’ in cities and suggest that we also need to dismantle and remove outdated and unsustainable elements to realise improved urban futures. This is one of several commentaries that are celebrating the 5th anniversary of the journal.
I delivered a guest lecture at HafenCity University Hamburg on ‘Streets as catalysts of urban transformation‘ as part of their public lecture series on Urban Future-Making. In my talk, I summarised the findings from our EmbedterLabs project on how the summer streets programme in Stockholm in changing the governance of the public realm. Thanks to Joachim Thiel, Gernot Grabher, and colleagues for hosting me and my EmbeterLabs colleagues for several days. Lots of great stuff happening at the university and in the city! Photo credit: Clara Mross
I am starting a new Vinnova project titled ‘Gatulabba 2045: Framtidens gator för aktiv mobilitet (Streetlab 2045: future streets for active mobility)’ with partners from Växtverket and SLU. We will work with children to develop sustainable street spaces for the future. Stay tuned for project updates!
I attended the City Streets 6 conference in Skopje, North Macedonia where the theme as ‘Architecture as Infrastructure – Toward Sustainable, Inclusive and Beautiful City Streets.’ I gave a talk titled ‘Streets as Catalysts of Urban Transformation’ and discussed some of our preliminary findings from the EmbedterLabs project about the summer streets programme in Stockholm. The brutalist architecture in Skopje is fantastic!
It was great to return to London for the Royal Geographical Society Annual International Conference. I participated in a book launch of Artificial Intelligence and the City: Urbanistic Perspectives on AI with Federico Cugurullo, Simon Marvin, Mark Whitehead, Ayona Datta, Matthew Gandy, Alan Wiig, and Jennie Day. And then we hosted two paper sessions on ‘Spaces of AI: Artificial Intelligence and Urban Imaginaries. Lots of intriguing discussions about how AI is changing cities and how cities are changing AI!
I am starting a new project titled ‘Energy Resilient Cities (Staden som resilient energisystem)’ with Sara Gustafsson and Dick Magnusson (Linköping University), Filip Johnsson and Maria Taljegård (Chalmers University of Technology), Ulla Janson (Lund University), and Kersti Karltorp (City of Gothenburg). The five-year project is funded by the Swedish Energy Agency (Energimyndigheten) and is part of the Graduate School in Energy Systems. We will engage with stakeholders in Gothenburg to co-create context-specific approaches to energy system resilience.
Andrew Karvonen 