urban experiments and the strange epistemology of adaptation
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Urban Experiments and the Strange Epistemology of Adaptation. James Evans, University of Manchester. Storyline: urban adaptation is key. - Cities are chief perpetrators (50% of population, 75% energy use and 80% C emissions…) - Cities are chief victims - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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Urban Experiments and the Strange Epistemology of
Adaptation
James Evans, University of Manchester
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- Cities are chief perpetrators (50% of population, 75% energy use and 80% C emissions…)- Cities are chief victims- Cities are ideal test sites for solutions- Cities are ‘new state spaces’, that haven’t received much attention from and environmental perspective… (Hodson and Marvin, 2009, p. 198)
Storyline: urban adaptation is key
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Framing urban adaptation
• Resilience...Engineering versus Ecological
• Adaptive capacity• 2nd law of thermodynamics• Cities as Social-Ecological Systems
“the amount of disturbance that an ecosystem could
withstand without changing self-organized processes
and structures”
“return time to a stable state following a perturbation”
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Urban climatechange governance as adaptive
experimentation
Driver Process Practice Goal
Climate Change
Adaptation Experimentation Resilience
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Adaptive experimentsFabricated
Scale
Mazdar
Zaragoza
Oxford Rd.Manchester
North Desert Village
Urban Landscape
Lab
Queens Building
Non-fabricated
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Key characteristics
• Place
• Relevance engenders transformation
• Learning facilitates adaptation – hence experiments and knowledge institutions
• Changing world = adaptive epistemologies?
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An example: north desert village
• Central Arizona - Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP-LTER)
• North Desert Village “experimental suburb”• ‘Experimental study’ of interactions between
people and their ecological environment at the neighbourhood scale
• Manipulating vegetation types and irrigation methods
• Exploring how landscape interactions affect human perceptions and behaviours
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Adaptive experimentation
• A method that allows humans to adapt inside the experiment and alter its parameters
• Experimenting in situ produces “more accurate scientific models” (Cook et al. 2004, 467)
• Feedbacks between resident preferences and ecology used to drive management.
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Types of experiment
Agent of Change
Technology Science Planning Local knowledge
Example Masdar N. Desert Village
Oxford Rd. Corridor
Urban Landscape Lab
Types of data
E and S (use)
E and S (prefs)
E S
ICT use High High Selective Low
Commercial emphasis
High Low High Low
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Adaptive epistemology
• A new form of knowledge production? (placed, partnered, postmodern)
• Experiments as truth spots
• Adaptation as transformative or regressive mode of urban planning?
• Auto-adapting landscapes – the future is feedback?
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• Cook, W., Casagrande, D, Hope, D., Groffman, P. and Collins, S. (2004) 'Learning to roll with the punches: adaptive experimentation in human-dominated systems', Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 2, 467-74.
• Evans, J. (Forthcoming) Resilience, ecology and adaptation in the experimental city. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
• Evans, J.and Karvonen, A. (Forthcoming) Living Laboratories for Sustainability: Exploring the Politics and Epistemology of Urban Adaptation. In: H. Bulkeley, V. Castán Broto, M. Hodson and S. Marvin (eds.) Cities and Low Carbon Transitions. London: Routledge.
• Gieryn, T. (2006) 'City as truth-spot: laboratories and field-sites in urban studies', Social Studies of Science 36, 5-38.
• Gunderson, L. (2000) ‘Ecological resilience in theory and application’, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 31, 425-439.
• Hodson, M. and Marvin, S. (2009) 'Cities mediating technological transitions: understanding visions, intermediation and consequences', Technology Analysis and Strategic Management 21, 515-34.
• Kohler, R. (2002) Landscapes and Labscapes: Exploring the Lab-Field Border in Biology, Chicago: Chicago University Press.