| 1. |
- McPhearson, Timon, et al.
(author)
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A social-ecological-technological systems framework for urban ecosystem services
- 2022
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In: One Earth. - : Elsevier BV. - 2590-3330 .- 2590-3322. ; 5:5, s. 505-518
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- As rates of urbanization and climatic change soar, decision-makers are increasingly challenged to provide innovative solutions that simultaneously address climate change impacts and risks and inclusively ensure quality of life for urban residents. Cities have turned to nature-based solutions to help address these challenges. Nature-based solutions, through the provision of ecosystem services, can yield numerous benefits for people and address multiple challenges simultaneously. Yet, efforts to mainstream nature-based solutions are impaired by the complexity of the interacting social, ecological, and technological dimensions of urban systems. This complexity must be understood and managed to ensure ecosystem-service provisioning is effective, equitable, and resilient. Here, we provide a social-ecological-technological system (SETS) framework that builds on decades of urban ecosystem services research to better understand four core challenges associated with urban nature-based solutions: multi-functionality, systemic valuation, scale mismatch of ecosystem services, and inequity and injustice. The framework illustrates the importance of coordinating natural, technological, and socio-economic systems when designing, planning, and managing urban nature-based solutions to enable optimal social-ecological outcomes.
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| 2. |
- Chester, Mikhail V., et al.
(author)
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Sensemaking for entangled urban social, ecological, and technological systems in the Anthropocene
- 2023
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In: npj Urban Sustainability. - 2661-8001. ; 3:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Our urban systems and their underlying sub-systems are designed to deliver only a narrow set of human-centered services, with little or no accounting or understanding of how actions undercut the resilience of social-ecological-technological systems (SETS). Embracing a SETS resilience perspective creates opportunities for novel approaches to adaptation and transformation in complex environments. We: i) frame urban systems through a perspective shift from control to entanglement, ii) position SETS thinking as novel sensemaking to create repertoires of responses commensurate with environmental complexity (i.e., requisite complexity), and iii) describe modes of SETS sensemaking for urban system structures and functions as basic tenets to build requisite complexity. SETS sensemaking is an undertaking to reflexively bring sustained adaptation, anticipatory futures, loose-fit design, and co-governance into organizational decision-making and to help reimagine institutional structures and processes as entangled SETS.
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| 3. |
- McAslan, Devon, 1984, et al.
(author)
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Pilot project purgatory? Assessing automated vehicle pilot projects in US cities
- 2021
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In: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2662-9992. ; 8:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Pilot projects have emerged in cities globally as a way to experiment with the utilization of a suite of smart mobility and emerging transportation technologies. Automated vehicles (AVs) have become central tools for such projects as city governments and industry explore the use and impact of this emerging technology. This paper presents a large-scale assessment of AV pilot projects in U.S. cities to understand how pilot projects are being used to examine the risks and benefits of AVs, how cities integrate these potentially transformative technologies into conventional policy and planning, and how and what they are learning about this technology and its future opportunities and risks. Through interviews with planning practitioners and document analysis, we demonstrate that the approaches cities take for AVs differ significantly, and often lack coherent policy goals. Key findings from this research include: (1) a disconnect between the goals of the pilot projects and a city's transportation goals; (2) cities generally lack a long-term vision for how AVs fit into future mobility systems and how they might help address transportation goals; (3) an overemphasis of non-transportation benefits of AV pilots projects; (4) AV pilot projects exhibit a lack of policy learning and iteration; and (5) cities are not leveraging pilot projects for public benefits. Overall, urban and transportation planners and decision makers show a clear interest to discover how AVs can be used to address transportation challenges in their communities, but our research shows that while AV pilot projects purport to do this, while having numerous outcomes, they have limited value for informing transportation policy and planning questions around AVs. We also find that AV pilot projects, as presently structured, may constrain planners' ability to re-think transportation systems within the context of rapid technological change.
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| 4. |
- McAslan, Devon, 1984, et al.
(author)
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Planning for uncertain transportation futures: Metropolitan planning organizations, emerging technologies, and adaptive transport planning
- 2024
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In: Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives. - 2590-1982. ; 24
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In the U.S., Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) play a pivotal role in regional transportation planning. Emerging transportation technologies present new challenges for transportation planning practice, which is experiencing growing uncertainty not only from these new technologies and other uncertainties, and MPOs must increasingly plan for the needs of new technologies and innovation. This study investigates how MPOs are currently planning for emerging technologies by analyzing regional transportation plans (RTPs) of the 50 largest MPOs and interviewing planning staff from 17 MPOs. We examine the extent to which anticipatory governance and responsible innovation, which come from science and technology studies (STS), are integrated into MPO planning efforts, shedding light on trends in transportation planning theory and practice. Findings reveal limited integration of anticipatory governance and responsible innovation into their planning processes. Some include aspects of foresight and engagement, but reflexivity, flexibility, and responsiveness are much less developed. Key actions being taken include more comprehensive thinking about region-specific impacts of technologies, developing policies, piloting technologies, building partnerships, and creating new tools and planning models. The extent to which these practices are creating adaptive capacities within MPOs is still limited. To address this, we propose an adaptive transportation planning model that combines anticipatory governance and responsible innovation with long-range transport planning. This integration is crucial for aiding MPOs and other planning agencies in developing robust governance systems, methodologies, and public policies to effectively manage technology within urban environments and navigate the increasingly complex challenges posed by emerging technologies and other uncertainties.
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