5373: ENERGETICS OF URBANIZATION URBAN THEORY LAB PRACTICUM SPRING 2018 COLLOQUIUM HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGN MAY 8, 2018
USER’S WARNING: “Not for the faint of heart or overextended”
Towards a study of the energetics of urbanization
Starting points: critique of ideology
Proliferating debates on ‘sustainable’ and ‘green’ urbanism—in social science and design The need for critical deconstructions of dominant neoliberal and technoscientific ideologies that block systemic change The need for alternative modes of analysis that illuminate the systemic sources and uneven (social and spatial) effects of ecological injustices
Beyond fuel-centric studies of energetics Beyond city-centric studies of urbanization
Beyond fuel-centric studies of energetics Beyond city-centric studies of urbanization
Energy ≠ Fuel
ALL ENERGY IS BY DEFINITION RENEWABLE. (avoid this tautology)
You can only transform energy and its dissipative structure.
ENERGETICS IS THE SPORT OF DIFFERENT QUANTITIES OF DIFFERENT QUALITIES OF ENERGY
Work on the correct order of magnitude.
WHAT IS YOUR SYSTEM BOUNDARY? AND WHY?
Buildings & Cities are (always and only) open systems.
• KM_diagram1_wlandscape.jpg
Energy dissipates in open systems.
Emergy Avoids isolated system thinking
Emergy is -Spatial
Emergy is -Spatial -Temporal
Emergy is -Spatial -Temporal Convergence
Emergy is -Spatial -Temporal Concentration -matter -energy
Emergy is -Spatial -Temporal Concentration -matter -energy Convergence
Emergy In the open systems that are the basis of life, urbanization, and architecture
Emergy is -Spatial -Temporal Concentration -matter -energy Convergence Feedback
Beyond fuel-centric studies of energetics Beyond city-centric studies of urbanization
‘Urban age’ 50% world urban population threshold LSE / Deutsche Bank research project / conference series
Rural Urban
U = P c / P t U = urbanization P c = population of cities P t = total population
Provocation Perhaps the city is not a settlement type or a spatial form—but one element in a broader, uneven process of urbanization (city vs. urban)
Provocation Perhaps urban restructuring is not simply a mutation of city space but a multiscalar process of ‘implosion’ and ‘explosion’ that encompasses diverse territories, landscapes and ecologies
Concentrated urbanization the moment of implosion: node, agglomeration, metropolis, region Extended urbanization the moment of explosion: operational landscapes that support and result from agglomeration.
INTENSITY of land use CONNECTIVITY infrastructures METABOLISM of socio-environmental relations
H I N T E R L A N D ENCLOSURE INFRASTRUCTURALIZATION INDUSTRIALIZATION O P E R A T I O N A L L A N D S C A P E
Proposition The specificity of contemporary planetary urbanization lies not in the generalization of “the” city to the world or in the “transition” to a majority-urban world.
Proposition Rather, it consists in the increasing industrial operationalization of erstwhile hinterland zones (of agriculture, extraction, logistics, waste management) to support the relentless metabolism of capital, as spatialized in the global metropolitan network.
Proposition Questions of energetics (and related issues of sustainability) require us to embed “cities” and metropolitan regions within the broader, increasingly planetary webs of life and metabolic transformations in which they are embedded and to which they actively contribute (metabolic rifts and shifts)
Towards a study of the energetics of urbanization: key concepts
Maximize Power & Production of Entropy Feedback Dissipative structures
Concentrated / extended urbanization Implosions-explosions of the capitalist urban fabric Metabolic rift; ecological load displacement
Towards a study of the energetics of urbanization: some key questions
How are energetic processes materialized in the multiscalar, unevenly woven infrastructures of the capitalist urban fabric?
In what ways do capitalist forms of urbanization intensify the dissipation of entropy, and with what consequences?
How do the infrastructures of capitalist urbanization mediate and exacerbate capital’s metabolic rifts, and with what consequences?
How does the (energetic) study of extended urbanization transform our understanding of the historical geographies of capital’s metabolic ‘rifts’?
In what ways might exploration of such questions reframe our understanding of ‘fossil capital’ and associated energetic and urban dynamics?
In what ways might exploration of such questions reframe contemporary debates on postcarbon energy ‘transitions’?
Towards a study of the energetics of urbanization: work flow in our research practicum
WORKFLOW 7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION
WORKFLOW 7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION -3000 WORD ANALYTICAL ESSAY
WORKFLOW 7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION -3000 WORD ANALYTICAL ESSAY
WORKFLOW 7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION -3000 WORD ANALYTICAL ESSAY 7 WEEKS: RESEARCH PROJECTS
WORKFLOW 7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION -3000 WORD ANALYTICAL ESSAY 7 WEEKS: RESEARCH PROJECTS -”TECHNOFOSSIL”
WORKFLOW 7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION -3000 WORD ANALYTICAL ESSAY 7 WEEKS: RESEARCH PROJECTS -”TECHNOFOSSIL” -WEEKLY PROBES AND DRILLS
WORKFLOW 7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION -3000 WORD ANALYTICAL ESSAY 7 WEEKS: RESEARCH PROJECTS -”TECHNOFOSSIL” -WEEKLY PROBES AND DRILLS -FINAL COLLOQUIUM
Distinguished Visitors Hannah Holleman Assistant Professor of Sociology at Amherst College Julie Klinger Assistant Professor of International Relations at Boston U. Damian White Dean, School of Liberal Arts, RISD
SCHEDULE 9:00-9:30am: Welcome and Introduction by Neil Brenner and Kiel Moe
SCHEDULE 9:00-9:30am: Welcome and Introduction by Neil Brenner and Kiel Moe (1) 9:30-10:50am: The unstable stability of soybean production under capitalism: analyzing the energetics of urbanization in Mato Grosso, Brazil , by Angeliki Giannisi and Anne Hudson
SCHEDULE 9:00-9:30am: Welcome and Introduction by Neil Brenner and Kiel Moe (1) 9:30-10:50am: The unstable stability of soybean production under capitalism: analyzing the energetics of urbanization in Mato Grosso, Brazil , by Angeliki Giannisi and Anne Hudson (2) 11am-12:20pm: How Bottled Water Intensifies the Metabolic Shift: A case study in the planetary urbanization of Fiji’s potable w ater through an energetic analysis, by Aurora Jensen and Pamela Cabrera
SCHEDULE 9:00-9:30am: Welcome and Introduction by Neil Brenner and Kiel Moe (1) 9:30-10:50am: The unstable stability of soybean production under capitalism: analyzing the energetics of urbanization in Mato Grosso, Brazil , by Angeliki Giannisi and Anne Hudson (2) 11am-12:20pm: How Bottled Water Intensifies the Metabolic Shift: A case study in the planetary urbanization of Fiji’s potable w ater through an energetic analysis, by Aurora Jensen and Pamela Cabrera (3) 1:40-3:00pm: Dissipatory Circuits of Pow er: A Systems Ecology Approach to Analyzing the Energetics of Urbanization, by Bohan Zhang, Iain Gordon and Zlatan Sehovic
SCHEDULE 9:00-9:30am: Welcome and Introduction by Neil Brenner and Kiel Moe (1) 9:30-10:50am: The unstable stability of soybean production under capitalism: analyzing the energetics of urbanization in Mato Grosso, Brazil , by Angeliki Giannisi and Anne Hudson (2) 11am-12:20pm: How Bottled Water Intensifies the Metabolic Shift: A case study in the planetary urbanization of Fiji’s potable w ater through an energetic analysis, by Aurora Jensen and Pamela Cabrera (3) 1:40-3:00pm: Dissipatory Circuits of Pow er: A Systems Ecology Approach to Analyzing the Energetics of Urbanization, by Bohan Zhang, Iain Gordon and Zlatan Sehovic (4) 3:10-4:30pm: Green Infrastructure as the Respatialization of Planetary Carbonscapes, by Peter Osborne and Ryan Beitz
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