Who does the city work for?
Where do people play in cities?
What new inequalities are created in cities?
What are the emergent third places in cites?
What new technologies are built for cities?
How do future scenarios of cities seduce policy makers, planners, and designers?
This blog is where I track my interests in 1.) how people use cities, 2.) how cities use people, and 3.) the spatial production of knowledge that comes out of cities.
Urbanism refers to processes that drive people to live in cities. My idea of Digital Urbanisms refers to processes that drive people to online sociality. I am interested in how Digital Urbanism presents a new geography of constraints and mobilities where the materiality of living in cities and its digital infrastructures are becoming mutually constituted. Being urban is not an outcome, it is a process, and this process now takes place online just as much as it takes place offline.
I spoke about Digital Urbanism in China at SXSW, Sleeping in Internet Cafes: The Next 300 Million Chinese Users.
Digital Urbanism is also a term that architectural theorists use. While architects focus on the form of the city as a digital space, I employ digital urbanism to refer to the people that inhabit the city and are experiencing the shift where everyday urban life is increasingly mediated by digital tools.
I use Digital Urbanisms in the plural because I want to emphasize that there is more than one digital urban future. Also the url for singular Digital Urbanism wasn't available, so that is how I ended up with a domain name in Monstserrat (.ms), which conveniently makes Digital Urbanisms plural!
I write longer thought pieces on Cultural Bytes and Byes of China. I have like 20 other blogs where I put out more silly than thoughtful, you can find the full list on my website.
I curate a reading list on cities and technology that is continually being updated If you have any readings to add to this list that you or another person has written, please let me know!
email | twitter | website
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Urban China 2030: Heritage, Identity, and Sustainable Development Symposium
Monday, November 01, 2010 at 8:00 AM - to - Tuesday, November 02, 2010 at 5:30 PM
Studio-X Beijing A103, 46 Fangjia Hutong Andingmen Inner Street, Dongcheng District Beijing 100007 China
China today has overtaken Japan as the second largesteconomy in the world. Urbanization in China is urgent, incessant, and of gargantuan proportions. In the last two decades, cities and urban forms haveexperienced unprecedented transformation and development. A sense of speed,simultaneity, and complexity accompany the urban transformations. The processesof building and un-building have unleashed the creative power of architectureand city design in multiple ways: as an artistic endeavor exploring spectacularforms; as a global project expanding the boundaries of global flowsinvestments, technical expertise, and labor; as a productive enterprise testingthe limits of mass production and markets; as having the power to createsimultaneously, concrete jungles and ecologically sustainable cities; and as asymbolic force that constructs national narratives and local identities.
This two-day symposium will bring together experts,scholars, and critical thinkers of urbanism in China to explore urgent issuesfacing Chinese cities today, and to discuss the new challenges of developmentand urbanization they must confront in the coming two decades.
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