Suchergebnisse

British cities are now experiencing unprecedented competition for surface and subsurface urban space. Restructuring of the utilities sector has created privately owned companies that are now engaged in major programs of infrastructure renewal while massive investments are underway in retrofitting new forms of telecommunications, energy, and transportation infrastructure. Above the ground, increasing mobility has created new demands for urban road space for the movement of goods and people. Focusing on a case study of Sheffield, the article identifies the competing demands for space, examines the broader implications of these new tensions, and evaluates how far the city is able to mediate between competing demands. The article concludes by raising serious questions about the ability of urban policy to mediate between private companies' demands for urban space in the United Kingdom.

Privatisation of British water services has dramatically reconfigurcd both production and consumption intercsts. While critics such as John Ernst decry a growing service inequity, PeterSaunders and Colin Harris celebrate enhanced consumer benefits. Closer investigation of new styles of utility network management reveal spatially complex patterns of social, econornic and environmental change. While worries over the social and public health implications of water poverly grow, the environrnental dividends of privatised water supply become clearer. The paper identifies two recently emcrging logics of networks management; the first prioritises thc shaping of demand over the expansion of supply capacity; the second prioritises the recovery of water charges over the social am! health needs of low income households. These logics highlight powerful resonanccs and dissonances between the economic and environmental bencfits of the commodification process and the social and health costs associated with a sharpening polarisation in access to basic water services.

Privatisation of British water services has dramatically reconfigured both production and consumption interests. While critics such as John Ernst decry a growing service inequity, Peter Saunders and Colin Harris celebrate enhanced consumer benefits. Closer investigation of new styles of utility network management reveal spatially complex patterns of social, economic and environmental change. While worries over the social and public health implications of water poverty grow, the environmental dividends of privatised water supply become clearer. The paper identifies two recently emerging logics of networks management; the first prioritises the shaping of demand over the expansion of supply capacity; the second prioritises the recovery of water charges over the social and health needs of low income households. These logics highlight powerful resonances and dissonances between the economic and environmental benefits of the commodification process and the social and health costs associated with a sharpening polarisation in access to basic water services. (Prokla / FUB)

In Großbritannien, wo in den 80er Jahren das neoliberale Credo besonders gläubige Anhänger fand, wurde eine Vielzahl traditionell "öffentlicher" Bereiche privatisiert - so auch die Wasserversorgungsbetriebe. Die keineswegs eindeutigen Folgen dieser Privatisierung werden im vorliegenden Beitrag untersucht: während sich unter ökologischen Gesichtspunkten Verbesserungen im Umgang mit dem Wasser feststellen lassen, führt dagegen die auf den Gewinn der Versorgungsunternehmen zielende Preisgestaltung bei einkommensschwachen Haushalten zu einem bislang unbekannten Phänomen: die "Wasserarmut". (ICE2)

AbstractA set of software/hardware packages developed by IT companies for the urban market is transforming the way in which cities are imagined and configured. These urban operating systems (Urban OS) embody important presumptions about what constitutes appropriate knowledge and forms of decision making, pointing to how novel forms of 'smart' or 'computational' urbanism may govern urban life. Arguing that an analysis of the interface between the urban and IT requires a broader historical and theoretical perspective, the article traces the ways in which the city has been diagrammed as a space of power since the nineteenth century and highlights the antecedents of Urban OS present across different domains of life—particularly in military and corporate enterprises. Relaying the urban as an efficient logistical enterprise, and operating as a piloting device (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987), the Urban OS appears as an emerging urban diagram introducing an informational diagrammatic of control. We focus on five archetypal framings of how Urban OS envision the city, illustrating how a new corporate rationality of control based on functional simplification and heterogeneous reintegration seeks to take hold in the city (via re‐engineering, agility, modularity, flexibility and configurability).

Smart urbanism is emerging at the intersection of visions for the future of urban places, new technologies and infrastructures. Smart urbanism discourses are deeply rooted in seductive and normative visions of the future where digital technology stands as the primary driver for change. Yet our understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and implications of smart urbanism is limited. Research in this field is in its infancy, fragmented along disciplinary lines and often based on single city case studies. As a result, we lack both the theoretical insight and empirical evidence required to assess the implications of this potentially transformative phenomenon. Given the significant implications of smart urbanism there is an urgent need to critically engage with why, how, for whom and with what consequences smart urbanism is emerging in different urban contexts. The aim of this review is to unpack the different logics and rationales behind smart urbanism discourses and proposals, and in this way understand the ways by which imaginaries of urban futures are currently being constructed, along with their socio-technical and political implications for future research priorities.

Achieving sustainable energy and resource use is vital if cities are to thrive or even function in the long term. Focusing on cities in the United Kingdom, Germany and Denmark, this book examines the mounting pressures for changes in the management style of utility services in Europe, pressures that stem from a wide range of sources such as liberalization and privatization of markets, tighter environmental standards, new economic incentives, competing technologies and changing consumption patterns. The authors show how changes in the management of utility services can contribute to achieving greater sustainability in urban regions. Whilst more efficient technology has a part to play, truly significant improvements in quality of life will be delivered only when the flow of material and energy through cities is focused on the goal of sustainability in each local context.

This paper critically examines why urban studies should be interested in the emergence of controlled environment agriculture. Over the last decade, there has been significant commercial and urban policy interest in controlled environment agriculture systems for producing food in enclosed environments. Furthermore, there has been a significant expansion in research publications on urban controlled environment agriculture, stressing the novel character of these systems and the complex relationships with the conventional concerns of urban agriculture. The paper subjects these claims to critical scrutiny and then reconceptualises urban controlled environment agriculture as an emergent urban infrastructure of artificial, highly productive microclimates and ecosystems for non-human life designed to increase the productive use of 'surplus or under-utilised' urban spaces. We argue that controlled environment agriculture tries to secure food production through three spatial–temporal fixes: (1) the enclosure move – holding food closer by substituting the increasingly hostile outdoors for the controlled indoors in order to optimise yield, quality, efficiency and the 'cleanness' of the food; (2) the urban move – holding food closer to the city by substituting rural agricultural space for urban space to shorten supply chains and thereby help secure food production and improve its green credentials; and (3) combining 1 and 2, the urban interiorisation move – holding food yet closer still by moving food production into city buildings and intricate infrastructural systems, increasing control by securing total environments. In these ways, the paper shows how urban controlled environment agriculture selectively extends existing logics of urban and rural agriculture and identifies the future research challenges for urban studies.