scholarly journals Heterotopia and the urban politics of climate change experimentation

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 350-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gareth A S Edwards ◽  
Harriet Bulkeley

Seeking to govern the city in relation to climate change is a political project that at once imagines the present in terms of the future and the future in terms of the present. The urban politics of climate change has brought multiple visions of the possibilities (and limits) of urban futures. In this context, we find urban responses taking experimental form – creating sites through which to explore and experience different futures. They provide spaces in which utopian visions can be imagined, enacted and contested. Conceptualizing urban climate change experiments as heterotopic sites seems fruitful in at least two regards. Firstly, it captures their provisional and ambivalent relationship with the broader urban milieu. Secondly, and even more critically, it opens up the dialogues between the future and present which are at the heart of the climate governance project, and highlights the spatial form of these politics. We examine both with reference to two examples of climate experimentation in Berlin and Philadelphia.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Fuller ◽  
Claire Scannell ◽  
Victoria Ramsey ◽  
Rebecca Parfitt ◽  
Nicola Golding

<p>In 2018, the UN estimated that around 55% of the world’s population currently live within urban areas, with this value projected to rise to 60% by 2030 (United Nations, 2018). High levels of urbanisation, coupled with an increasing trend in extreme weather under future climate change scenarios, combine to create significant challenges to increasing urban resilience for the future (Masson et al., 2020).</p><p>Urban climate services provide tools to support decision making at a range of scales across the city, from day-to-day operations to informing urban design over longer timescales (Grimmond et al., 2015). Whilst urban climate services may be developed at a range of scales (Grimmond et al., 2020), this presentation looks at a prototype climate service which provides long-term climate change projections at the city-specific scale. The ‘City Pack’ was developed through a process of co-production, in which project development aims to move away from a one-way push of scientific information, to a two-way collaborative process of knowledge construction and sharing (Vincent et al., 2019).</p><p>This ‘City Pack’ service was co-developed by the Met Office and Bristol City Council following an assessment of the Council’s climate information needs. The City Pack comprises of three non-technical factsheets which explain how the climate of Bristol has changed and will continue to change into the 21<sup>st</sup> Century based on the UKCP climate projections. The City Pack’s primary aims are to raise awareness of how a cities climate may change in the future and to inform the development of city resilience whilst also providing a tool to be used by city stakeholders to raise awareness of climate change across the council. The audience for the City Pack therefore includes city officials, city planners and the general public. The Bristol City Pack has since provided an evidence base for the Bristol City Council Climate Change Risk Assessment and informed Bristol’s Climate Strategy. In addition, the City Pack has been used to engage with the council’s wider stakeholders and also as a communication and training tool. As such, whilst the co-production of a climate service may be time and resource intensive, the process may also be rewarded with the production of a highly tailored and user-relevant tool.</p><p>Following the success of the prototype ‘City Pack’ service for Bristol City Council, the Met Office are continuing to produce City Packs for additional cities across the UK, and also in China. The project is seeking to ascertain if services which are co-produced with and bespoke to one set of stakeholders, may provide an equally valuable service for other cities and if so, how can we make these services scalable.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Pante

Quezon City was founded in 1939 as a planned city and envisioned as the future capital of the Philippines, which was anticipating its independence in a few years. Led by President Manuel Quezon, Philippine politicians conferred upon the city narratives of nationhood and social justice to make it the best spatial representation of a nation-in-waiting. However, underneath these state-centric ideologies was the authoritarianism of the Quezon regime, which used urban politics to centralise power. But far from being a symbol of the President's undisputed dominance, Quezon City's inherent contradictions became weak points in the city's official narrative.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Creasy ◽  
Matthew Lane ◽  
Alice Owen ◽  
Candice Howarth ◽  
Dan Van der Horst

Against the backdrop of increasingly fragmented and poly-centric urban climate governance, this article examines the establishment of city climate ‘commissions’ as an experimental means of addressing the challenge of climate change at the city-scale. In doing so it addresses the question: What constitutes diversity in voices and perspectives when trying to represent the city as a place for climate action? To answer this question, the article presents an analysis of the Edinburgh Climate Commission’s establishment, drawing on participatory ethnographic research carried out by a researcher embedded within the project team. The account of how this new mode of urban governance was both conceptualised and then put into practice offers a new institutional angle to the literature on urban ‘experimentation.’ Through our reflective analysis we argue that aspirations to ensure pre-defined ‘key’ industries (high carbon emitters) are accounted for in commissioner recruitment, and an over-emphasis on capturing discernible ‘impacts’ in the short term (by involving organisations already pro-active in sustainable development) hindered an opportunity to embrace new perspectives on urban futures and harness the innovative potential of cities to engage with the multifaceted nature of the climate challenge. Furthermore, new insight into the relationship between local authorities and other ‘place-based’ agents of change opens up important questions regarding how to balance the attainment of legitimacy within the political status quo, and the prospect of a new radical politics for urban transformation.


Author(s):  
Alix Dietzel

Chapter Five assesses to what extent multilateral actors enable the three demands of justice developed in Part I of the book. Taking each demand of justice in turn, the chapter focuses on normative commitments made in the Convention as well as assessing the policies set out in the Kyoto Protocol and examining what has been achieved so far by multilateral actors. Finally, the chapter assesses to what extent the Paris Agreement presents a shift from existing policies. In this way, the chapter provides a historical overview of multilateral climate change action, as well as looking to the future. Chapter Five puts forward that although there has been some progress made, none of the demands of justice come close to being met, and that there is an urgent need for change in the multilateral regime.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 679-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelos Alamanos ◽  
Stamatis Sfyris ◽  
Chrysostomos Fafoutis ◽  
Nikitas Mylopoulos

Abstract The relationship between water abstraction and water availability has turned into a major stress factor in the urban exploitation of water resources. The situation is expected to be sharpened in the future due to the intensity of extreme meteorological phenomena, and socio-economic changes affecting water demand. In the city of Volos, Greece, the number of water counters has been tripled during the last four decades. This study attempts to simulate the city's network, supply system and water demand through a forecasting model. The forecast was examined under several situations, based on climate change and socio-economic observations of the city, using meteorological, water pricing, users' income, level of education, family members, floor and residence size variables. The most interesting outputs are: (a) the impact of each variable in the water consumption and (b) water balance under four management scenarios, indicating the future water management conditions of the broader area, including demand and supply management. The results proved that rational water management can lead to remarkable water conservation. The simulation of real scenarios and future situations in the city's water demand and balance, is the innovative element of the study, making it capable of supporting the local water utility.


Author(s):  
Henry Yonanda ◽  
Rudy Trisno

Millennials have been touted as the generation that will do something about global warming. Conversely, some social scientists studying generational differences have found evidence that younger generations are less likely to engage in civic matters like environmental activism. Lack of civic engagement among Millennials may reduce their likelihood of engaging in collective action on global warming. On the other hand, the world is drastically changing. Within the recent years, climate change has become a growing concern worldwide. The various modes of destruction imposed on the environment are targeted to be the catalyst to these changes. According to climate scientists, sea level rise is one of the most important impacts of global climate change. Fishermen as one of the professions that depend their life on the sea, is affected so much by this condition. This condition might destroy their houses on the coastal area. Urban Kampong in Jakarta as the most dense human settlements in urban area has become one of the main economic generator for a city. With all the contradict characteristics and forms, urban kampongs are the part of the city that cannot be separated from one to another. The existence of kampong has become the main embryo of the development of Jakarta. Jakarta is one of the biggest coastal city in the world. The coastline of this city has become the main economic generator for the coty and the nations. The existence of fishermen’s kampong in Jakarta has also become an essential program for the city, in order to fullfill the needs of fresh catch of sea products. Therefore, The project is aimed to create a sustainable and adaptive coastal kampong community, that has the resilience to the rising sea level. By concerning on the kampong’s behaviour, and doing research of the typological transformation of the kampong, the design is also expected to serve as an archetype fot the future development of endagered coastal settlements all across the country. several sustainable approach and behaviourial approach are also injected in this project to create a contextual design that would help the kampong to grow, and adapt to all the conditions, and situation in the future. AbstrakGenerasi milenial dianggap sebagai generasi yang akan melakukan perubahan nyata terkait dengan pemanasan global. Akan tetapi, beberapa studi pun menunjukan bukti bahwa generasi millenial justru memiliki kesadaran serta kepekaan yang tidak lebih tinggi dibandingkan dengan generas-generasi sebelumnya. Pada satu sisi, bumi kian melakukan perubahan yang begitu derastis. Berbagai macam kerusakan pun terjadi dalam berbagai jenis yang menjadi generator dari perubahan iklim yang drastis ini. Nelayan sebagai salah satu profesi yang menggantungkan nasibnya pada lautan, kian terganggu dengan kondisi ini. Hal ini menyebabkan kerusakan pada rumah-rumah di kawasan pesisir pantai. Kampung kota di Jakarta, sebagai permukiman terpadat di daerah urban menjadi salah satu kenerator utama pada suatu kota. Dengan segala karakteristiknya yang berbanding terbalik dengan perkotaan, kampung kota merupakan bagian yang tidak dapat dipisahkan dari suatu kota. Eksistensi suatu kampung telah menjadi embrio dari perkembangan kota Jakarta. Jakarta merupakan salah satu kota pesisir terbesar di dunia. Daerah pesisir dari kota ini telah menjadi generator ekonomi utama dari kota itu sendiri dan juga nasional. Keberadaan kampung nelayan di Jakarta pun menjadi salah satu program penting yang perlu mendapatkan perhatian. Maka dari itu, proyek ini bertujuan untuk menciptakan suatu komunitas kampung pesisir yang berkelanjutan, adaptif serta memiliki ketahanan terhadap kenaikan permukaan air laut yang terjadi. Metode perancangan pada proyek ini dibagi menjadi 2 bagian utama yaitu analisis mikro yang membahas mengenai tipe dan perilaku, serta analisis makro yang membahas proyek dari segi perancangan urban. Dengan menitik beratkan pada studi perilaku, dan melakukan riset mendalam terhadap transformasi tipologi yang terjadi pada kampung, desain ini diharapkan dapat menjadi suatu arketipe untuk pengembangan kampung di daerah pesisir di masa depan di seluruh Indonesia. Sehingga dapat disimpulkan, bahwa dengan adaptasi tipe, perilaku serta sistem berkelanjutan yang sesuai dan tepat, desain dari kampung nelayan berkelanjutan ini dapat menjadi suatu respon yang tepat dalam menjawab permasalahan yang terjadi di kampung-kampung pesisir.


Urban Climate ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 100582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandro M. Oswald ◽  
Brigitta Hollosi ◽  
Maja Žuvela-Aloise ◽  
Linda See ◽  
Stefan Guggenberger ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-68
Author(s):  
Anna Bilska

Abstract Climate change may have severe consequences for urban areas and many cities, such as those situated on deltas, are already threatened. The paper claims that the solution for endangered areas is the embedding of urban climate resilience. The concept of resilience is put forward to bring a broad perspective to a city with an indication that the city is a complex system with developed relations, both inward and outward. Social and institutional aspects of these relations are highlighted as they have the highest potential to make the city resilient. The paper indicates three fundamental features of embedding the resilience of urban areas to climate change: network building, a strategic approach and implementing urban projects. A practical application of these fundamental features is evaluated using the case study of Rotterdam. The research shows the reliability of these bases and indicates key characteristics of each fundamental feature: the network should be multidimensional with solid institutional and interpersonal relations, the strategy should have a holistic approach and project implementation needs the engagement of all the city actors.


Author(s):  
Teresa Barata Salgueiro ◽  

We start with the question of city definition and we present the concept as it is normally accepted in geography. That means focusing in concentration, centrality and services, besides the fact that the city is a social-economic process and a spatial form. The first component however raises the question of territorial appropriation and identification of space by users. Urbanization implies transformation, thus in the second part we refer to the most important components of the urban change. They run between opposite trends that almost enable the prediction o f the future for the cityscapes, once they are concentration and descentralization, growth and decline, global homogeneity and place differentiation. We look at them through the modifications they have in the urban land or in the social structure.


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