Suchergebnisse

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record ; The smart cities agenda has garnered considerable interest recently as the spread of mobile technologies and notions of 'big data' have opened possibilities for promoting greater efficiencies in urban metabolisms. This has been particularly prominent in the realm of environmental sustainability, where smart technologies have been viewed as a way of reducing traffic congestion and delivering energy efficiencies. Key to these aspirations is the way in which technologies are seen to interact with human behaviour and how digital technologies can promote behavioural change through the provision of 'better' information. However, smart city programmes adopt a particular intellectual and pragmatic framing of behavioural change that we argue is fundamentally narrow and unambitious, raising concerns about how behavioural science is mobilised, by whom and its potential to promote sustainable urban futures. First, we propose that the focus in smart city narratives on quantitative data and insights from 'big data' is methodologically narrow and is representative of a highly individualised, libertarian paternalist perspective that privileges rationalistic and atomised understandings of behaviour. Second, we argue that the logic of smart cities leads city governments towards a focus on superficial change and the language of 'encouraging' shifts in individual behaviour that presents a distraction from the urgent need to reconfigure city infrastructures for low carbon forms of living. Third, we explore how such behavioural change approaches are fundamentally didactic and often lapse into assuming that publics are the passive receivers of 'smarter' information rather than active citizens who can question, campaign and present alternative visions to those of corporate-government interests. In this way, we argue that the suffusing of the smart cities and behavioural change agendas act as a neo-liberal distraction to the ways in which cities can develop to support the priorities of human and ecological wellbeing. ; Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record ; Shared mobility spaces have become increasingly popular internationally as attempts to increase the uptake of active travel modes (walking, cycling and running) have turned pavements, shopping streets and public spaces into multi-mode mobility spaces. From a sustainability perspective, policy makers in the UK have argued that shared spaces afford greater opportunities for cycling off-road in areas with busy traffic, whilst in public spaces they provide greater accessibility and connectivity to a wider range of users. Yet there has been little conceptual critique and empirical research on the impacts of how individuals and groups negotiate what are new forms of public space in the UK. Accordingly, in this paper we use insights from the new mobilities paradigm and social practice theories to analyse data gathered from qualitative research with different travel mode users in the city of Exeter (South-west England) to demonstrate the complexity of shared spaces, the tensions they produce and the challenges they may pose for promoting sustainable mobility. First, we explore the practices that unfold within shared spaces and demonstrate how researchers need to appreciate the social complexity of negotiating new and conflictual sites of practice. Second, we examine how a fragmented approach to the design of shared spaces may compromise the development of sustainable mobility practices through representing a partial and dysfunctional approach towards sharing space in cities. Third, we demonstrate the problematics of deploying shared spaces as short-term and politically expedient devices for delivering individually-focused behavioural goals instead of radical alternatives that embed sustainable mobility infrastructure into urban fabrics. We conclude by suggesting that to realise the benefits of collectively sharing mobility space in the UK requires long-term changes in urban infrastructure that can embed practices, and a shift away from the political dominance of the private vehicle as the axis around which urban development pivots. ; Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)

Profound societal change along with continued technical improvements will be required to meet our climate goals, as well as to improve people's quality of life and ensure thriving economies and ecosystems. Achieving the urgent and necessary transformations laid out in the recently published IPCC report will require placing people at the heart of climate action. Tackling climate change cannot be achieved solely through technological breakthroughs or new climate models. We must build on the strong social science knowledge base and develop a more visible, responsive and interdisciplinary-oriented social science that engages with people and is valued in its diversity by decision-makers from government, industry, civil society and law. Further, we need to design interventions that are both effective at reducing emissions and achieve wider societal goals such as wellbeing, equity, and fairness. Given that all climate solutions will involve people in one way or another, the social sciences have a vital role to play.