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Urban Experiments and the Strange Epistemology of Adaptation

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

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Urban Experiments and the Strange Epistemology of Adaptation

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  1. Urban Experiments and the Strange Epistemology of Adaptation James Evans, University of Manchester

  2. Storyline: urban adaptation is key - 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)

  3. 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”

  4. Urban climatechange governance as adaptive experimentation

  5. Adaptive experiments Fabricated North Desert Village Mazdar Queens Building Scale Oxford Rd. Manchester Urban Landscape Lab Zaragoza Non-fabricated

  6. Key characteristics • Place • Relevance engenders transformation • Learning facilitates adaptation – hence experiments and knowledge institutions • Changing world = adaptive epistemologies?

  7. 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

  8. 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.

  9. Types of experiment

  10. 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?

  11. Jp.evans@manchester.ac.uk • 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.

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