I co-edited a special issue of Construction Management and Economics with Craig Thomson and Tina Karrbom Gustavsson on ‘Grand Challenges Facing Our Cities’. The collection includes five articles that explore the synergies and tensions between construction management and urban studies scholarship. Thanks to all of the contributors for their insights!
I published a review of Hannah Star Rogers’ MIT Press monograph Art, Science and the Politics of Knowledge on the LSE Review of Books website. In the book, Rogers describes the multiple overlaps between artistic and scientific knowledge production and provides intriguing examples of how artists and scientists can collaborate in creative and productive ways. An inspiring book!
I contributed an afterword to a new special issue in Territories, Politics, Governance on regional water infrastructure governance edited by Michael R. Glass, Jen Nelles & Jean-Paul D. Addie. They curated a wonderful collection of articles with new insights on how hydrologic flows and regions co-evolve. Great stuff!
The EmbedterLabs team met in Maastricht for a few days to discuss our recent research accomplishments and to strategise for 2024. Jake Wiersma (second from left) led us on a guided tour of the city centre and showed us some examples of mobility transitions over the last few decades. Thanks to Denver Nixon, Anique Hommels, and Marc Dijk for hosting us!
I co-edited a new book on Artificial Intelligence and Cities with Federico Cugurullo, Federico Caprotti, Matthew Cook, Simon Marvin, and Pauline McGuirk. The book includes 20 chapters on autonomous vehicles, urban robots, city brains and urban platforms, and urban software agents and algorithms.
I published a new article in Urban Studies on artificial intelligence and cities with Federico Cugurullo, Federico Caprotti, Matthew Cook, Pauline McGuirk, and Simon Marvin. We examine how AI is influencing the development of cities and conversely, how cities are influencing the development of AI. The article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980231203386
Tom Hargeaves and I co-edited a special issue of Buildings & Cities on ‘Data Politics in the Built Environment‘. The collection includes an introductory essay (Karvonen & Hargreaves) followed by research articles on an intersectional approach to smart city technologies (Sharma et al.), harvesting sociocultural data from local newspapers (Mello Rose & Chang), the social implications of decarbonising and digitilising energy infrastructures (Sareen et al.), and the platformisation of Dublin’s taxi industry (White & Larsson). All of the articles are open access.
I visited the Brunnshög development in Lund again with the students of my Urban Process course. It was a warm and sunny day and Daniel Wasden served as our tour guide. Daniel provided multiple insights on the visions and implementation of various urban design strategies. It’s great to have such an intriguing example of sustainable urban development within walking distance of the Lund University campus.
I attended the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference in London 29 August to 1 September. Jonas Bylund and I organised two paper sessions on ‘Catalysing Sustainable Urban Transformations’ and I served as respondent in a session on ‘Artificial Intelligences and Transformations to More Sustainable Urban Futures’ co-hosted by Matthew Cook, Pauline McGuirk, and Miguel Valdez. It was fun to meet up with colleagues again and see a bit of London.
Jonas Bylund and I contributed a chapter titled ‘Blessed mess: new modes of thinking, acting, and learning for sustainable urban transformations’ to a new compendium titled A Research Agenda for Sustainable Cities and Communities edited by Kes McCormick, James Evans, Yuliya Voytenko Palgan, and Niki Frantzeskaki. We discuss the potential for small and incremental actions to inform learning, democratic deliberation, and collective action in cities.
Andrew Karvonen 