Metropolitics

Urban Public Transit: A Choice Between Two Models

Arnaud Passalacqua & Philippe Poinsot & translated by Oliver Waine — 2025-12-02T06:00:00Z

Public transportation has a decisive role to play in any meaningful ecological transition. And yet key players in the sector continue to prioritize technical innovations that consume huge quantities of resources. Arnaud Passalacqua and Philippe Poinsot re‑examine past experiences in France in order to identify solutions that are more technically modest and available in the shorter term.
Urban public transportation is considered an important tool for public policies aimed at promoting a

- Essays / funding, innovation, mass transit, mobility, model, public transportation, resources, technical innovation, transport, urban technical networks

Fablabs in Africa: Digital Innovation for Sustainable Cities?

Armelle Choplin & Martin Lozivit & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-04-16T05:00:00Z

In a context where “smart cities” are being promoted in urban projects in Africa, Armelle Choplin and Martin Lozivit examine the role “fablabs” can play in cities' futures. They show that their emergence can be an opportunity to design a frugal African city, by making use of inhabitants' ingenuity.
The next Africa-France summit—initially to be held in June 2020, now to take place in July 2021—will focus on the “sustainable city” with digital technology and innovation at the heart of debates.

- Essays / innovation, Global South, fablab, Africa, West Africa, technology, digital city

New York Tech Dossier: “Innovation Districts” in New York: Contentious Geographies of Growth

Sharon Zukin — 2020-01-07T06:30:00Z

Sharon Zukin analyzes how city government in New York has supported concentrations of tech firms—“innovation districts”—and how communities have pushed back.
---- Series: New York Tech Dossier: The Dark Side of New York's Tech Economy Since the Great Recession of 2008, New York City has emerged among the biggest “startup ecosystems” in the world (Mulas and Gastelu-Iturri 2016; Startup Genome 2019). Public- and private-sector investment, growth in tech jobs, and agglomeration of companies and

- Essays / Big Tech, tech economy, tech sector, information technology, United States, New York, innovation, innovation districts

Cities transformed by hygienism: 100 years of local innovation

Sabine Barles & translated by Oliver Waine — 2015-03-27T05:55:00Z

Hygiene is a “battle”, and the “hygienist revolution” of the 19th and early 20th centuries transformed our urban societies. This battle, which has been charted by the historian Stéphane Frioux, spread from city to city, based on “applied science” that was taken up by a variety of public and private stakeholders, reflecting the inventiveness and competence of the local authorities of the time.
Hygiene and hygienism have long attracted the attention of historians – historians of urban issues,

- Reviews / France, innovation, environment, water, sanitation, waste, utilities, urban public service, hygienism, salubrity, urban technical networks, urban services, health

The sustainable metropolis: when night enlightens day

Luc Gwiazdzinski & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-03-05T05:50:00Z

The night-time, long a neglected dimension of the city, can no longer be dismissed. Luc Gwiazdzinski invites us to explore this nocturnal realm and together imagine the contours of this particular form of metropolitan urbanity, as he believes the night has a lot to tell us about the daytime and the future more generally.
The night is a wonderful space for renewal and replenishment, for invention and new projects for our changing cities, and for their inhabitants in search points of reference.

- Essays / public space, sustainable development, innovation, territorial development, metropolis, night, urban temporalities, chronotopia

Water, sanitation, energy, waste: the dawn of the network-free city?

Sylvain Petitet & translated by Oliver Waine — 2012-04-18T04:45:00Z

Negative externalities, changes in society and technological innovation all call into question the industrial model used to organise urban services and utilities. For Sylvain Petitet, it is high time to consider new models and new complementarities for the provision of these urban services.
For almost two centuries, an industrial model characterised by the creation and operation of major urban networks has fashioned the development of cities and has established itself as the only service

- Debates / innovation, energy, water, public–private partnership, sanitation, waste, networks, territorial development, utilities, urban public service, urban technical networks, urban services