Urban technical networks and sustainability

Contemporary and future dynamics of the networked society

Concluding remarks

• Time for some concluding remarks on the course

• The next two sessions will be for your oral presentations & group work

• My remarks will be around the future of networks, in relation to matters of sustainability/resilience--- the future of the city

Our networked society• Society that is shaped by, and dependent on

networked systems• These are everywhere and part of all aspects of life• Though often hidden from view, repressed even• This explains that some of their social and

environmental impacts are not always obvious to us• Thus, what we have done here in the course is

trying to open our eyes to these systems

UTN as gateway to wider questions• UTN are an entry point into a wide range of

questions about the constitution and functioning of societies, and their relations to science, technology and the environment

• They are the basis for questions about what society is and how it functions today

Shaping the way we are in society

• Networks shape physical and mental maps of the world we live in by laying down pathways that it is hard to avoid or deviate from: roads, telecom networks, transport systems etc.

• determine to a certain degree our ways of circulating in the world

• Indeed, people who wish to live without networks, or cannot afford the services, are quickly called eccentric or marginal—the use of networks has become a social standard

Off-grid, out of society?

Dumpster living

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKr5Ku79doo&feature=youtu.be

• The dumpster project, by Professor Jeff Wilson, a radical experiment in sustainability

• “The average American has 12 pairs of shoes and the average American house is 2480-square-feet,” he said. “We can happily live with much less than that.”

• Dumpster is 1% size of average US home…

Shipping container housing too…

STS studies• Science, technology and society studies (STS)

offer a theoretical gateway into studying the interactions between tech, nature, society

• Approaches such as ANT, urban political ecology…• They all discuss our relationships to technologies,

science, the material world, nature.• At the junction of sociology, anthropology and

history of science/tech

Challenging the ‘unnaturalness’ of cities

• Cities are where we live, our habitat• In that sense, why are they less ‘natural’ than

an anthill or termites’ nest? • Many other species build, and transform the

‘natural’ into something else• Can you mention some, and what they do?

Challenging the naturalness of ‘nature’• A good place to start is the Scottish countryside• The hills and mountains were once covered in

forest, however they are now more or less barren

• This is due to human activity and transformation over millennia

• Yet, we see these places as ‘nature’ and often include them in ‘natural reserves’, as something to be ‘protected’

Natural?

Artificial?

How UTNs transform ‘natural’ into ‘social’, and vice-versa

• UTNs ,an interface between ‘nature’ and ‘society’

• These systems transform natural resources into the built environment

• Also create social relations (of domination, control, customer/provider etc.)

• These socio-political relations are naturalised, solidified (reified) through the links created by networks

Example: water• Key resource as it is essential to life• Seen as ‘free’ as it ‘falls from the sky’ but it’s actually a

highly transformed product• It needs to be collected, stored, treated, distributed, and

then wastewater needs to be evacuated, with sometimes stringent environmental/health regulations

• In this sense, water as we know it in our cities is as much a socio-technical construct as it is ‘natural’!

• wastewater contains a myriad of chemicals from chlorine, to antibiotics, contraceptives and other elements

• there is no ‘purity’ here, but, again, an entanglement of natural, social, technological

Not just the physical aspect• These transformations are not only on the material

level, a whole range of political and social relations are also created and transformed:

• One is the customer/provider relationship: how do we govern, regulate this? Fairness or profit?

• Another is the labour relations in the various water companies, regulators’ offices etc.

• Yet another are the political issues stemming from the control of resources, and these can be extremely tricky and fraught, culminating in international conflict

Southern California water system (reminder)

• Water brought in from hundreds of miles away• Some water is desalinated, from the ocean, and

therefore highly processed• Tens and tens of water agencies, from the

local/municipal level, to county, state, federal• Thus, the water system is an extremely complex

combination of natural, social, technological, admin, political etc.

• It is a set of relations between people and the natural/built environments

Open to change?• Such systems can become very hard to reform

or transform in the face of challenges, such as sustainability and resilience, or social change

• Notion of path dependency• An interesting example is that of networks and

their operation/governance in shrinking/decaying cities

• Former East German cities• Detroit and other rustbelt cities in USA• http://

michiganradio.org/post/detroits-infrastructure-crumbling-while-city-has-trouble-collecting-cash#stream/0

• Shrinking/decaying cities are now a big topic in planning

• Economic shocks, such as recent 2008 crisis• Slow death of old industries• Ageing populations• Throughout history, cities have grown and

shrunk, have been born and died…• How do we deal with this process in new

ways?

• How do shrinking, declining cities adapt their networked systems to the new reality?

• Do we abandon, destroy, or reconvert existing infrastructure?

• Is old infrastructure destined to become just waste, or can it form part of cities’ future in creative ways?

• Can it be an opportunity to build a more sustainable future on the ruins of the MII?

What to do with abandoned networked systems?

Abandoned cooling tower

Urbex• Urban explorers find the beauty in abandoned

spaces and infrastructure • It is one way of engaging creatively with

decline, of accepting the death of cities and their ever-changing nature

• Many websites are devoted to this• http://www.ukurbex.com/•

Reconversion of infrastructure• Into new, green infrastructure, which many of

our cities are lacking in

• E.G. Recent Glasgow plans• http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotla

nd-blog/2015/nov/16/glasgow-could-get-greener-by-reclaiming-its-motorways

• https://vimeo.com/138758190

From rustbelt to greenbelt?

• http://www.buzzworthy.com/how-detroit-is-working-to-be-an-innovator-in-green-infrastructure/

Not just green, but blue• Blue infrastructure is often neglected, but has

similar benefits than green infra in climate, beauty and wellbeing terms

• Managing urban water in new ways that work with the natural environment

• http://www.grabs-eu.org/casestudies.php

Adaptive infrastructure

• Shrinking cities need to adapt their infrastructure to the new demographic and economic realities

• Otherwise, this infrastructure can become a liability, such as fostering criminality in abandoned homes and streets

• Potential liabilities need to be turned into opportunities for new models of urban living

The future?

Changing relationships• Over the last 3 decades or so, new modes of

governance, new technologies• Neoliberalism, privatisations, unbundling etc.• Increasingly commodified and commercialised

systems• https://youtu.be/HwuZtjcPOeA

Links with urban dynamics• City growth• City form• Integration/fragmentation• All are linked to networks and their

governance

And also with questions of sustainability, resilience etc.

• UTNs are directly linked to our cities’ metabolisms, they allow us to tap into natural resources on a scale which is impossible without them

• They are therefore connected to our societies’ high resource consumption patterns—they embed these into our daily lives, create path dependency and habits, daily routines of high resource use

• This also produces a certain rigidity in living and production patterns, undermining cities’ resilience, for instance in the case of catastrophic events that knock out the networks

What is ‘sustainability’ anyway?• A very brief history of the concept • To sustain: to keep going, to maintain• Originated in forestry management in 1500s

Germany• Progressive era in USA in late 19C• Silent Spring (1962)• 1972: UN Habitat Conference• Bruntland report (1983)• Rio 1992—Agenda 21—cascaded to national/local

levels charged with implementing

3 pillars• Economy, society, environment• Harmonising the three, must grow together• Development today that doesn’t preclude

development tomorrow• Notion of intergenerational and interspecies

solidarity/responsibility

Critiquing the notion• Exactly what is being sustained, by whom and for

whom?• Too often blind to race, gender and other issues;

environmental realities need to be replaced in their socio-spatial and historical context

• E.g. Apartheid South Africa: very ‘sustainable’ for those dominating society

• Today, domination of the 1% seems very sustainable to them…and could go on indefinitely

• The notion is showing some fatigue• It has been coopted by politicians and

industry, and is becoming empty of meaning rapidly

• It has become a parody of itself, to a degree• E.g. ecological modernization and related

currents of thought • The craziness of some ‘sustainable’ projects

that don’t take into account wider socio-spatial realities, e.g. Chinese ‘eco-villages’ or Masdar City in Abu Dhabi

The turn to ‘resilience’• The last 10-15 years roughly• The capacity to bounce back; flexible, does

not break• Takes into account the reality of risks, shocks

and catastrophes that affect cities• How can they best deal with this state of

affairs? Maybe even turn shocks into opportunities?

So how do we harness UTNs for greater sustainability/resilience?

• As we have seen technology is not neutral, but neither is it deterministic

• Technologies can be harnessed in different ways to produce different outcomes

• What are the options to reconfigure urban tech networks so they are less resource intensive, less waste generating, more flexible and resilient?

• Could they also accomplish socio-political goals, such as fairness and equity?

Make the network a component of sustainability

• E.g. green and blue spaces: both networks and places of beauty, enjoyment, providing support for other species

• Re-use of obsolete networks in creative ways

De-centralised systems• Wind, solar, biomass etc. are forms of energy

production that are de-centralised• Greater resilience in case of catastrophe• Use of modern technologies, such as

smart/connected homes to optimise energy use

Each house, a self-sufficient power plant?

‘re-wired’ houses• Dual plumbing systems in houses to optimise

water use and save high quality potable water• Smart meters, smart appliances etc.• New energy technologies, such as Tesla home

batteries• These allow to imagine more consumer insight

into energy use, and less dependence on networked systems, for instance in case of catastrophe

Smart meters: much more information

Smart homes

Tesla PowerWall

Not just technological changes

• Remember, tech is never ‘neutral’ or ‘just a tool’

• It fits within socio-political systems that it also shapes, and is shaped by

• Therefore, tech changes require, and will lead to, social and political changes

Community involvement/management• The Fordist, networked society is an inherently

hierarchical and centralised one• The engineer is a god in this system, and is

flanked by the bureaucrat (and then the architect)

• People are expected to shut up and do what’s ‘good for them’

• Community involvement in responding to social and individual needs, instead of relying on networked systems and ‘the system’ more generally

• Permaculture/ urban gardens• (Local) loops rather than (centralised) linear

metabolism

Making the landscape edible and sustainable

Patrick Blanc and vertical gardens

• All surfaces can be greened and made useful for food production, storm water collection, animal habitat…

• Buildings become part of a continuous green infrastructure

• At the same time, they reduce the dependence on traditional networked systems, as food, energy can be locally dealt with

• Likewise, waste can be minimised at the point of production, reducing the dependence on sewage systems and water reprocessing systems

• All these elements, cumulatively, increase the sustainability and resilience of the city

SUDS: sustainable urban drainage systems

This is real, and part of planning now

A move towards a post-network society?

• With a combination of technological, social and political changes, we can imagine less dependence on the centralised networks that we are familiar with

• This can help boost sustainability and resilience, and reconnect us with the local

Your thoughts• Take a few minutes and reflect on the course

and your readings• What paths are possible to make the

networked society more sustainable/ resilient?• Think of the environmental, but also economic

and social dimensions of sustainability (cf. Bruntland)

• Are we moving towards a post-network society? Or are changes just marginal?