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Making a Smart City for the Smart Grid? The urban material politics of actualising smart electricity networks

Bulkeley, H.A.; McGuirk, P.; Dowling, R.

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Authors

P. McGuirk

R. Dowling



Abstract

In a growing debate about the smart city, considerations of the ways in which urban infrastructures and their materialities are being reconfigured and contested remain in the shadows of analyses which have been primarily concerned with the management and flow of digitalisation and big data in pursuit of new logics for economic growth. In this paper, we examine the ways in which the ‘smart city’ is being put to work for different ends and through different means. We argue that the co-constitution of the urban as a site for carbon governance and a place where smart energy systems are developed is leading to novel forms of governmental intervention operating at the conjunction of the grid and the city. We seek to move beyond examining the rationales and discourses of such interventions to engage with the ways in which they are actualised in and through particular urban conditions in order to draw attention to their material politics. In so doing, we argue that the urban is not a mere backdrop to transitions in electricity provision and use but central to its politics, while electricity is also critical to the ways in which we should understand the politics of urbanism.

Citation

Bulkeley, H., McGuirk, P., & Dowling, R. (2016). Making a Smart City for the Smart Grid? The urban material politics of actualising smart electricity networks. Environment and Planning A, 48(9), 1709-1726. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x16648152

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 7, 2016
Online Publication Date May 13, 2016
Publication Date Sep 1, 2016
Deposit Date May 5, 2016
Publicly Available Date May 6, 2016
Journal Environment and Planning A
Print ISSN 0308-518X
Electronic ISSN 1472-3409
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 48
Issue 9
Pages 1709-1726
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x16648152
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1405476

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Copyright Statement
Bulkeley, H.A. and McGuirk, P. and Dowling, R. (2016) 'Making a Smart City for the Smart Grid? The urban material politics of actualising smart electricity networks.', Environment and Planning A., 48 (9). pp. 1709-1726. Copyright © 2016 The Author(s). Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications.






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