4S Abstract - Climate change and planning
An abstract I have submitted for the annual meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (Montreal, Oct. 11-13, http://www.4sonline.org/meeting.htm). The session is entitled “Towards a Socio-Technical Understanding of Architecture & Urbanism. 2) Reclaiming the city: An STS perspective on urban knowledge and activism.”
The paper stems from my inquiry into the intersection of urban planning theory and the field known as Science, Technology, and Society (aka Science and Technology Studies, STS). Drawing on the disciplines of political science, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, history, and others, STS considers how science and technology shape and are shaped by society.
Jeff Howard
Implications of rapid climate change for urban planning – A reconstructivist STS perspective
This paper focuses on a conundrum of urban planning theory and practice that in the early years of the millennium grows more conspicuous by the day: how to overcome the inertia of prevailing disciplinary concepts, institutions, and political-economic postures predicated on endless spatial, material, and economic growth in order to decisively confront the implications of rapid global climate change. Drawing on the theories of democratic expertise and intelligent trial and error, the paper offers a preliminary survey of the intersection of planning and the reconstructivist mode of STS.
