Ambiente, território e sociedade. Novas agendas de investigação

A presente publicação reúne 26 contributos de membros do Grupo de Investigação Ambiente, Território e Sociedade do Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa. Criado em 2014, no âmbito da reorganização interna do Instituto que decorreu da aprovação do Programa Estratégico para 2015-2020, este grupo de investigação beneficiou do importante legado de conhecimentos e competências desenvolvidos nos últimos anos, sobretudo no contexto da Linha Temática SUSTAIN – Sustentabilidade: Ambiente, Risco e Espaço, e do OBSERVA – Observatório de Ambiente e Sociedade.

Low Carbon Economies and SEA in Asia

Position paper for a double session at IAIA 2010

Fear and Urban Planning in Ordinary Cities: From Theory to Practice

The paper complements Abu-Orf's theory about violent settings by setting out a theory of fear in urban planning in ordinary urban contexts around three arguments: spatialization of fear; (modernist) spatialities and the encounter and political economies of urban fear. The three theoretical arguments are used to re-frame the planning history of Chelas, an affordable housing district in Lisbon, Portugal, and debate the way fear shapes, and is shaped in turn by, planning practice. Confirming that (growing) fear in ordinary urban contexts is not just an effect of the contemporary organization of cities, the paper argues for a theorization of fear that combines global (hegemonic) and a local (discursive/contingent) perspectives in the theorization of urban fear, and advocates for the need to put fear, and its capacity to create a crisis in urban policy, at the heart of planners' agendas.

The "Eco" and "Low-carbon" promise: a critical review of China's experience

The scale and speed of China’s urbanization translate into major challenges for sustainability. Could the ‘eco-city’ and ‘low-carbon’ agendas, and the promotion of related pilot cities drive Chinese urban practice towards more environmentally sustainable solutions? We explore this question through a critical review of experience in China, identifying problems relating to the development of space, the treatment of scale and the pursuit of efficiency (the ‘space-scale-efficiency nexus’). China seeks sustainable solutions through eco and low-carbon agendas, but our review finds that current efforts fall short of expectations, and problematic patterns are repeated. We propose that a geo-administrative notion of functional regions could provide a strategic framework to address the range of design, physical and administrative planning problems, ensuring that eco-city and low-carbon city pilots result in comprehensive solutions that can be effectively replicated.