IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v50y2018i1p73-92.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exposing smart cities and eco-cities: Frankenstein urbanism and the sustainability challenges of the experimental city

Author

Listed:
  • Federico Cugurullo

Abstract

In recent years, the world has seen the emergence of a number of urban projects which, under the banner of experimentation , have promoted alternative models of city-making capable, in theory, of creating sustainable built environments. Among these supposedly experimental models, the smart city and the eco-city stand out in terms of geographical diffusion, and are hailed by their advocates as the mark of an innovative urbanism based on a scientific approach to urban development. Through the analysis of Hong Kong and Masdar City, examples of a smart-city agenda and an eco-city project respectively, this paper questions the sustainability of so-called smart cities and eco-cities , by investigating the extent to which they are developed in a controlled and systematic manner as their developers claim. More specifically, the paper counterclaims mainstream understandings of smart and ecological urbanism, arguing that what are promoted as cohesive settlements shaped by a homogeneous vision of the sustainable city, are actually fragmented cities made of disconnected and often incongruous pieces of urban fabric. Theoretically, these claims are discussed through the concept of Frankenstein urbanism which draws upon Mary Shelley’s novel as a metaphor for unsuccessful experiments generated by the forced union of different, incompatible elements.

Suggested Citation

  • Federico Cugurullo, 2018. "Exposing smart cities and eco-cities: Frankenstein urbanism and the sustainability challenges of the experimental city," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(1), pages 73-92, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:50:y:2018:i:1:p:73-92
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X17738535
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X17738535
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X17738535?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Coletta, Claudio & Heaphy, Liam & Kitchin, Rob, 2017. "From the accidental to articulated smart city: The creation and work of ‘Smart Dublin’," SocArXiv 93ga5, Center for Open Science.
    2. I-Chun Catherine Chang & Eric Sheppard, 2013. "China's Eco-Cities as Variegated-super-1 Urban Sustainability: Dongtan Eco-City and Chongming Eco-Island," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 57-75, January.
    3. Luis Bettencourt & Geoffrey West, 2010. "A unified theory of urban living," Nature, Nature, vol. 467(7318), pages 912-913, October.
    4. Igor Calzada & Cristobal Cobo, 2015. "Unplugging: Deconstructing the Smart City," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 23-43, January.
    5. Martin de Jong & Dong Wang & Chang Yu, 2013. "Exploring the Relevance of the Eco-City Concept in China: The Case of Shenzhen Sino-Dutch Low Carbon City," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 95-113, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carmen Antuña-Rozado & Justo García-Navarro & Pekka Huovila, 2019. "Challenges in Adapting Sustainable City Solutions from Finland to Different Contexts Worldwide: A Libyan Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-20, May.
    2. Paola Panuccio, 2019. "Smart Planning: From City to Territorial System," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-15, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heaphy, Liam James, 2018. "Interfaces and divisions in the Dublin Docklands 'Smart District'," OSF Preprints xbrgt, Center for Open Science.
    2. Yigitcanlar, Tan & Lee, Sang Ho, 2014. "Korean ubiquitous-eco-city: A smart-sustainable urban form or a branding hoax?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 100-114.
    3. Anna Hult, 2015. "The Circulation of Swedish Urban Sustainability Practices: To China and Back," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(3), pages 537-553, March.
    4. Andreas Exner & Livia Cepoiu & Carla Weinzierl & Viviana Asara, 2018. "Performing Smartness Differently - Strategic Enactments of a Global Imaginary in Three European Cities," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2018_05, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    5. Chung-Shing Chan & Lawal M. Marafa, 2018. "Knowledge-Perception Bridge of Green-Smart Integration of Cities: An Empirical Study of Hong Kong," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-19, January.
    6. Heaphy, Liam James, 2018. "Interfaces and divisions in the Dublin Docklands 'Smart District'," SocArXiv z2afc, Center for Open Science.
    7. Huang, Siyu & Shi, Yi & Chen, Qinghua & Li, Xiaomeng, 2022. "The growth path of high-tech industries: Statistical laws and evolution demands," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 603(C).
    8. Joao Meirelles & Camilo Rodrigues Neto & Fernando Fagundes Ferreira & Fabiano Lemes Ribeiro & Claudia Rebeca Binder, 2018. "Evolution of urban scaling: Evidence from Brazil," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-15, October.
    9. A. Haven Kiers & Billy Krimmel & Caroline Larsen-Bircher & Kate Hayes & Ash Zemenick & Julia Michaels, 2022. "Different Jargon, Same Goals: Collaborations between Landscape Architects and Ecologists to Maximize Biodiversity in Urban Lawn Conversions," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-18, September.
    10. Hossein Hassani & Kujtim Avdiu & Stephan Unger & Maedeh Taj Mazinani, 2023. "Blockchain in the Smart City and Its Financial Sustainability from a Stakeholder’s Perspective," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-21, September.
    11. Varga, Levente & Tóth, Géza & Néda, Zoltán, 2017. "An improved radiation model and its applicability for understanding commuting patterns in Hungary," MPRA Paper 76806, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Brinkley, Catherine & Raj, Subhashni, 2022. "Perfusion and urban thickness: The shape of cities," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    13. Peña, Guillermo & Puente-Ajovín, Miguel & Ramos, Arturo & Sanz-Gracia, Fernando, 2022. "Log-growth rates of CO2: An empirical analysis," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 588(C).
    14. Ermal Shpuza, 2017. "Relative size measures of urban form based on allometric subtraction," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 44(1), pages 141-159, January.
    15. I-Chun Catherine Chang, 2017. "Failure matters: Reassembling eco-urbanism in a globalizing China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(8), pages 1719-1742, August.
    16. Xu, Gang & Xu, Zhibang & Gu, Yanyan & Lei, Weiqian & Pan, Yupiao & Liu, Jie & Jiao, Limin, 2020. "Scaling laws in intra-urban systems and over time at the district level in Shanghai, China," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 560(C).
    17. Christian Düben & Melanie Krause, 2021. "Population, light, and the size distribution of cities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 189-211, January.
    18. Bipashyee Ghosh & Saurabh Arora, 2022. "Smart as (un)democratic? The making of a smart city imaginary in Kolkata, India," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 40(1), pages 318-339, February.
    19. Chiara Certomà, 2020. "Digital Social Innovation and Urban Space: A Critical Geography Agenda," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(4), pages 8-19.
    20. Pierre-Alexandre Balland & Cristian Jara-Figueroa & Sergio G. Petralia & Mathieu P. A. Steijn & David L. Rigby & César A. Hidalgo, 2020. "Complex economic activities concentrate in large cities," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(3), pages 248-254, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:50:y:2018:i:1:p:73-92. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.