Our project team in China recently presented three papers at the ‘EU-Asian Sustainable Management’ conference in Taipei, 15-16 March 2017, drawing on fieldwork in Shenzhen and Ningbo this year. The Global Actors of Pingdi’s International Low Carbon City: An analysis of their Influences on the Planning Process China’s move towards a New Low-Carbon Development Mode? An Analysis …
News and Events
Fieldwork Update: Critical Reader Visits
We’ve been conducting fieldwork in each of our eight case study cities in Europe and China over the last few months. This primary research is being followed up by a series of ‘critical reader’ visits by other members of our international team, to provide feedback on the findings and to add further cross-comparative insights. Meanwhile, we’ve begun work …
New Article: The Smart City and Its Publics
9 March 2017 A new article drawing on the project’s research in the UK has just been published in Urban Research & Practice, and is available on open access. The smart city and its publics: insights from across six UK cities. Abstract: In response to policy-makers’ increasing claims to prioritise ‘people’ in smart city development, we explore …
Smart-Eco Cities in China 2016: New Report
26 January 2017 Our new report profiles twelve Chinese cities which stand out for their ‘smart-eco’ ambitions: Chengdu, Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Kunming, Nanjing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Wuhan and, Wuxi. It also includes an introductory section providing an overview of the current Chinese smart-eco ‘landscape’. Download report as pdf This report is part of a series, also …
New Article: Interrogating Urban Experiments
22 December 2016 In this new journal article, our project team members Federico Caprotti and Rob Cowley argue for a widening and deepening of critical engagement with the idea of ‘experimentation’ in the urban setting. A large number of local initiatives in cities around the world describe themselves as ‘living labs’, ‘future labs’, ‘citizen labs’, ‘urban …
Fieldwork Underway
18 October 2016 As we head further into Year 2 of the project, research work on our selected cities is now well underway – in Manchester, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Bordeaux, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Tianjin. Our European cities can be seen in the map below: …and our selected Chinese cities are below: During 2016-17, the project …
Conference Round-Up August-October 2016
19 September 2016 There is still time (just) to register for the first conference held by the Regional Studies Association’s Research Network on Smart City-Regional Governance for Sustainability, on the theme of ‘Experimental Smartness’. Simon Joss will be a keynote speaker, talking on the subject of ‘Smart Cities – so whither sustainability?’ The conference will …
Smart-Eco Cities in the Netherlands 2016: New Report
12 September 2016 Our new report, compiled by Frans Sengers (Utrecht University), profiles four Dutch cities which stand out for their ‘smart-eco’ ambitions: Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. It also includes an introductory section providing an overview of the current Netherlands smart-eco ‘landscape’. Download pdf This report is part of a series, also covering the …
Smart City Futures Conference Plenary
1 July 2016 Federico Caprotti delivered an invited plenary at an AHRC Network conference on ‘Smart City Futures and Social Justice’ at the University of Leeds, 29-30 June 2016. The talk, titled ‘Social Sustainability and the UK Smart City’, focused on the rise of the smart city in the UK in the 2010s, and was …
Spreading the Word Across Asia
28 June 2016 We’ve been sharing our thoughts far and wide during the last few weeks. During May, our team member Philipp Späth gave two lectures in China, at Tongji University (Shanghai), and the Swanport Café (Beijing), on the subject of ‘The Smart City in Germany? Reconsidering the Challenges of Sustainable Urban Development’ (德国智慧城市- 城市可持续发展挑战再考). …