Tag Archives: Alexander Aylett

Remembering Dr. Alexander Aylett

alex aylettIt is with great sadness that we share with you news that our colleague, Dr. Alexander Aylett, passed away last Saturday, July 23rd after a long battle with cancer.

Alex was Professor of Urban Sustainability Governance and Innovation at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) in Montreal, and co-founder of ecoHackMTL.  He was also a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT, where he worked under long-time UGEC associate JoAnn Carmin on the Urban Climate Change Governance Survey.  Alex participated in the UGEC Workshop, “Transitions to a Low Carbon Urban Future in an Era of Extreme Events” in July 2014, and wrote one of the most popular articles on the UGEC Viewpoints Blog: Green cities and smart cities: The potential and pitfalls of digitally-enabled green urbanism.

He was a kind, intelligent, generous man, and a pleasure to work with.  The UGEC International Project Office and Scientific Steering Committee wish to express our deepest condolences to all of his family, friends, and colleagues during this difficult time.

Obituary: Dr. Alexander C.E. Aylett

Viewpoints: Top Ten Most Viewed Articles of 2015

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  1. Dana Boyer, Stefanie Brodie, Joshua Sperling, Eleanor Stokes & Alisa Zomer | Implementing the Urban Sustainable Development Goal in Atlanta and Delhi
  2. Federico Caprotti | Building the smart city: Moving beyond the critiques 
  3. Alexander Aylett | Green cities and smart cities: The potential and pitfalls of digitally-enabled green urbanism
  4. Chiara Certoma and Francesco Rizzi | Smart cities for smart citizens: Enabling urban transitions through crowdsourcing
  5. Patricia Romero-Lankao and Daniel Gnatz | Do cities have the institutional capacity to address climate change?
  6. Harini Nagendra | Ecologically-smart cities: Keeping urban ecosystems centre stage in India’s Smart Cities programme
  7. Emma Arnold and Karen O’Brien | The Art of Urban Transformations
  8. Olivia Bina and Andrea Ricci | Building scenarios for sustainable urbanisation: Balancing ‘can’, ‘need’ & ‘want’ 
  9. Andres Luque-Ayala | Urbanization and global environmental change: A matter of politics?
  10. Tracey Holloway | What’s next for air quality in the United States?

A huge thank you to our generous authors and dedicated readers!

Call for Papers: Smart + Sustainable? A critical look at digitally-enabled green urbanism

Conveners: Alexander Aylett (National Institute for Scientific Research, INRS-UCS) and Andrés Luque-Ayala, (Durham University)

American Association of Geographers 2016 Annual Meeting
San Francisco, California, USA
March 29 – April 2, 2016

Is the “smart cities” movement delivering on its aspirations of creating environmentally sustainable cities? One of the pillars of smart urbanism has been the claim that smart cities can also be radically more sustainably. New urban digital technologies, data-driven governance, and digitally-enabled citizenship are celebrated for their ability to increase resource efficiency and enable innovative shifts towards more deeply sustainable cities. But no sustained critical attention has been paid to the potential and pitfalls of this digitally-enabled green urbanism.

This session provides a critical overview of the successes and challenges of creating cities that are both smart and sustainable. It looks at how digital processes—and the urban embedding of computational logics—affect the environmental capabilities of cities and citizens. It also explores the broader socio-political implications of creating an interface between sustainability and digital narratives as a driving force behind current approaches to urban issues. Continue reading →