cross-posted from: https://szmer.info/post/15945220
“This commentary is styled in the form of the “Warning to Humanity” series, a series of scientific declarations about the environmental crisis facing the planet that was initiated by a 1992 “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” (Union of Concerned Scientists, Citation1992). It calls for transformative approaches to smart cities and urban technology”. (…) "Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, this article establishes the need for three paradigm shifts necessary to guide future smart city innovation:
(1) by arguing for a transition from efficiency-driven models to nature-positive and climate-positive approaches that require systemic reforms in regulatory, economic, and governance frameworks;
(2) by highlighting the need to reconcile positivist urban science with constructivist epistemologies in urban studies with the goal of strengthening the value of local and Indigenous knowledge in creating more inclusive, just, and context-sensitive urban governance;
(3) by exploring a posthuman shift in design, which advocates for more-than-human perspectives that recognize the agency and needs of non-human life in cities. These paradigm shifts provide a conceptual foundation for rethinking the role of smart cities and urban technology in fostering more desirable futures that are oriented toward environmental regeneration, multispecies justice, and long-term planetary well-being".
That’s not a useful summary. I have no idea if this is “we should go all cyberpunk and adapt our cities to AI” or “modern cities are inherently unsustainable and should be smaller and greener.”
I’ll click through and report back if the text is any clearer.
Ah, it’s neither, but instead a screed against “smart” cities.
My aim with this piece is to present a counterargument that smart cities’ sustainability claims are largely mere greenwashing (de Freitas Netto et al., Citation2020) at best and even complicit in contributing to the planetary ecocide, at worst. I argue that we thus need to embrace life-centered design rather than human-centered design to bring about a climate-positive approach to cities if we want to be genuinely “smart” and sustainable