This issue brings together a congeries of case studies illustrating the myriad of concerns facing urban scholars and researchers. While papers on smart cities are inundating urban journals (including this one), it is important to note that other topics are receiving attention. In this issue, we present papers on games and planning, transportation hubs, bike sharing, and the Chinese use of analytical information in urban transportation planning.
The issue’s first article by Rui Mu, Niek Mouter, and Martin de Jong examines how the administrative mechanisms of Chinese planning structures cause Chinese policymakers to employ analytical information differently than do their Western counterparts. In their article, “Strategic Use of Analytical Information in Transport Planning in China: How Is It Different from Western Democracies?” the authors examine two urban transport projects in the Chinese city of Dalian. The first is the city’s light rail transit system (LRT-3) and the second is Dalian’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT-1). These two studies illustrate the ways information is used both strategically and symbolically by officials planning projects. As opposed to Western planning officials who have to use information to convince stakeholders and constituents, in the hierarchical Chinese context, that information is used to show high-ranking officials that tasks and targets have been met.
While Xueming Chen and Lin Lin examine two other transport systems in China—this time in Shanghai—they do not, like Mu et al., investigate the decision-making behind the different approaches to integrating air and rail technologies at Shanghai’s Hongqiao Intergrated Transport Hub. In their case study, they make the argument that with improvements that include joint ticketing, code sharing, luggage transfer, and fast and convenient connection between Hongqiao International Airport and Pudong International Airport, efficiency and ease of travel through one of China’s main transportation hubs could be significantly improved.
The next two articles in this issue examine case studies of countries exporting what they call “urban sustainability solutions.” In their article, “Green Cities and ‘IT 839’: A New Paradigm for Economic Growth in South Korea,” Paul D. Mullins and Sofia T. Shwayri investigate the rising influence of the Korean company, KT Telecommunications, and then demonstrate that the export of Korea’s u-eco-city model is driven primarily by a telecommunications industry seeking entry into foreign markets and is “creating a new paradigm for Korean economic growth.” In a similar vein, Santiago Mejía-Dugand explores, in his article, “The Evolution of Sweden’s Urban Sustainability Marketing Tool: A Comprehensive Study of Two Major International Events,” how the Swedish government identified exporting environmental urban technology as a central component of that country’s economic growth. The focus of this study is the ways in which Sweden’s approach to “selling” this technology, or rather the idea of the technology, has evolved to account for the historical and contextual conditions in targeted city-customers.
In their piece, “The Gamification of Civic Participation: Two Experiments in Improving the Skill of Citizens to Reflect Collectively on Spatial Issues,” Oswald Devisch, Alenka Poplin, and Simona Sofronie write that “The commercialization of the Internet, mobile communication devices, and sensing technologies precipitated a substantial increase in the development and use of games, gamified environments, and playful experiences, to the extent that scholars speak of the gamification of society.” Using that insight, the authors examine two cases in which games were used to increase citizen participation in urban projects, one in Germany and one in Belgium. Their goal in studying these cases was to investigate the potential of gamification to improve the skills of citizens to collectively reflect on spatial issues taking place in their daily environments. While the authors do realize the potential for manipulation in the game experience, they quote Dragona, who wrote, “If the elements of a game can facilitate exploitation, capitalization, and control, on this same ground, elements of play can assist in activation mechanisms of counter-gamification, revealing the functioning of network structures and raising awareness.” The authors argue that the games they studied support durable civic engagement.
In the final article in this issue, “Disassembling Bike-Sharing Schemes: Surveillance, Advertising, and Social Inequalities of a Global Technological Assemblage,” Fábio Duarte takes a critical look at the burgeoning number of bike share programs in cities around the world. What he sees are technological assemblages formed by “technical, cultural, economic, and social factors and actors.” While bike-sharing schemes have been promoted as programs for the improvement of urban environments and transportation systems, Duarte sees other consequences that result from the choices made regarding the ways bikes are secured, paid for, and located. In these, he sees an infrastructure of unwanted surveillance, unavoidable advertising, and undesirable social inequalities.