| Title |
Promises and Techno-Politics: Renewable Energy and Malmo's Vision of a Climate-Smart City |
| ID_Doc |
38455 |
| Authors |
Parks, D |
| Title |
Promises and Techno-Politics: Renewable Energy and Malmo's Vision of a Climate-Smart City |
| Year |
2020 |
| Published |
Science As Culture, 29, 3 |
| DOI |
10.1080/09505431.2019.1705274 |
| Abstract |
Malmo aims to become Sweden's most climate-smart city and Hyllie, its newest city district, is to lead the way. This ambition is front and centre in the 2011 Climate Contract that envisioned Hyllie as a climate-neutral city district. Malmo signed the Climate Contract with Eon, a multinational energy company. But five years after signing the Climate Contract, Malmo and Eon gave up their goal of a making Hyllie climate-neutral by 2020. The Climate Contract resembles other smart city initiatives that many researchers have criticised for promoting technology-centric, corporation-controlled visions of cities. Assemblage urbanism and the sociology of expectations help to analyse the techno-political dynamics between organisations, visions and urban infrastructure. The realisation of a vision is a techno-political process that requires the coordination of multiple groups around multiple promises. At first, it was the Climate Contract that helped Eon and the city administration to coordinate their activities. Subsequently, Eon made a promise to build wind turbines, and that promise then took precedence in the coordination of their activities. But controversies arose with two publics that emerged in opposition to Eon's promise: neighbours to the site of the proposed wind turbine and the city's Property Department. Unable to resolve these controversies, Eon and Malmo acknowledged that they lacked the resources need to make Hyllie climate-neutral. They adapted their original promise to the current state of socio-material assemblages, and Hyllie was demoted from a role model for the climate-smart city to a source of lessons learned. |
| Author Keywords |
Smart cities; visions; assemblage urbanism; sociology of expectations; renewable energy |
| Index Keywords |
Index Keywords |
| Document Type |
Other |
| Open Access |
Open Access |
| Source |
Social Science Citation Index (SSCI); Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) |
| EID |
WOS:000504970100001 |
| WoS Category |
Cultural Studies; History & Philosophy Of Science |
| Research Area |
Cultural Studies; History & Philosophy of Science |
| PDF |
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09505431.2019.1705274?needAccess=true
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