mCenter Director Mimi Sheller discusses her forthcoming book Aluminum Dreams: Lightness, Speed, Modernity (MIT Press, 2014)
For more information please contact mimi.sheller@drexel.edu
* please note that the European pronunciation of “aluminium” has been used throughout for a global audience
Posted in Research
Tagged Aluminum, Caribbean, Sustainability, Technology, Tourism, Transport
The artist team Ecoarttech (Leila Nadir and Cary Pepperment) will be presenting a Philadelphia premier of their work Indeterminate Hikes+ as part of the class Urban Vitality & the Arts, taught by Mimi Sheller and Hana Iverson. Ecoarttech work on the overlapping terrain between “nature”, built environments, mobility and electronic spaces and technologies. They will be in conversation with Dr. Christian Hunold, Associate Professor of Political Science in Drexel’s College of Arts and Sciences, whose research interests revolve around sustainability and the politics of renewable energy; and writer Bernard Brown, who writes the Urban Naturalist column for GRID Magazine.
You can find more information on ecoarttech and their other work at http://www.ecoarttech.net/
This event is free and open to the public, but is part of an instructional course so please to attend please contact: Mimi Sheller, director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, mimi.sheller@drexel.edu.
Posted in Events
Tagged Art, Events, Mobile Media, Sustainability, Technology, Urbanism
We are pleased to announce that Professor John Urry will be speaking at Drexel University’s Center for Mobilities Research and Policy on the following topic:
JOHN URRY is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University, UK. He is the author of various works including After the Car (2009), Mobile Lives (2010), Climate Change and Society (2011), Societies Beyond Oil (2013). He is currently writing Offshoring (2014). He is co-editor of the journal Mobilities, with Mimi Sheller and Kevin Hannam.
This talk is free and open to the public, however due to limited space we do require registration through Event Brite, at this link:
http://johnurry.eventbrite.com/
Co-sponsored by the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, Drexel Green, the Drexel University Sustainability Council and the Urban Sustainability Forum, Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
For more information please contact: mimi.sheller@drexel.edu
Typical bike space in Philadelphia. Credit: Jacob Bjerre Mikkelson
Bike to Work Day is an important way to demonstrate the demand for better cycling infrastructure in Philadelphia. Washington D.C.’s September 2010 launch of Capital Bikeshare, has put more than 1,000 red rental bikes on the streets, accounting for nearly 2 million trips to date, and contributing to a 169% increase in the number of people commuting to work by bike (now at 3.1%). New York and Los Angeles have begun to implement even larger bike-sharing systems, along with new bike lane infrastructure, and it is crucial that Philadelphia also do so in order to support a better urban environment and the kind of innovation economy that Drexel University hopes to develop here.
Philadelphia’s Greenworks 2035 plan specifically calls for efforts to be made to increase trips made by bicycles, and that this should be done by expanding infrastructure. It also explicitly calls for better bicycle connections to 30th St. Station, where Drexel University can be crucial to bringing this plan to life through its Strategic Plan. On average, 5 of every 100 commuters in Center City, West Philly and South Philly is on a bicycle (5.4%, 4.15% & 4.73% commuting by bike, respectively). 2 out of every 5 cyclists, is a woman.
The Spruce Street and Pine Street buffered bicycle lanes are the first the City has installed at the cost of a travel lane. As reported in the “Crosstown Connection | Pilot Project Findings” from MOTU by Andrew Stober (December, 2009), the Spruce and Pine street bike lane implementations of 2009/2010 have slowed the fastest driving cars, while simultaneously creating a safe cycling environment, and increasing order and smoothness of automobile vehicle flow. Ridership increased, and both serious vehicular crashes and fender benders saw significant decreases, while enabling the same average motor vehicle speed. Yet, two years later, in 2011, when the City tried to parlay those successes into support for two more buffered bike lanes (cutting through the East side of Center City on 10th and 13th Street), the plan was met with great resistance. It is time for Philadelphia to catch up with other major cities in the USA in implementing a modern bicycle infrastructure that will have beneficial economic and quality of life impacts across the city.
Dr. Sheller, Director of the mCenter, supervised two University of Arts students, Nicolas Coia and Dominic Prestifillipo, in their thesis for the Masters in Industrial Design on bike infrastructure in Philly, who will be hosting a panel discussion at Next American City’s Storefront for Urban Innovation (2816 W. Girard Ave) on May 31st, 6:30-8pm. The event on “The State of Cycling in Philadelphia” will have a short presentation on the challenges and opportunities of implementing bike infrastructure in Philadelphia. For more info:
http://americancity.org/events/detail/bringing-bike-share-to-philly
How Americans Get to Work - US Census Bureau 2007
Dr. Mimi Sheller, Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, gave a talk on “Emerging Cultures of Mobility: Stability, Openings, Prospects” at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, New York University, on April 7th, 2011, 8:30-10:00am in the Puck building, 295 Lafayette Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY. The talk is based on her chapter in the forthcoming book:
Automobility in transition? A socio-technical analysis of sustainable transport, Eds. René Kemp, Geoff Dudley, Frank Geels, and Glenn Lyons (Routledge, 2011)
Link: View a Trailer for the book here
Abstract:
In recent years there have been significant shifts in the planning, design and funding of major urban infrastructure projects to include “sustainable mobility” systems, including improved bicycling infrastructure; congestion charging and dynamic road pricing; new investments in energy-efficient public transport systems, light-rail systems and high-speed railway; the emergence of car-sharing and public bike-sharing schemes; and the design of pedestrian-friendly streets and smaller electric vehicles. Yet arguably none of these niche-level changes has seriously challenged the existing system of automobility, which continues to be the dominant mode of transportation, especially in the United States. The USA especially trails behind other advanced economies in bringing about a transition in its transportation and mobility systems. Building on previous work on cultures of automobility, this talk argues for a culturally-based understanding of the problems of system lock-in and potential transition. It aims to assess the openings and prospects for the emergence of new cultures of mobility in the United States, while also being realistic about the stabilities in the current mobility system. It begins with a model of culture as a combination of practices, networks, and discourses, each of which is enacted across multiple levels in the transition process. The next section turns to examples of cultural mechanisms that have stabilized the dominance of automobility in the United States, as well as instances of openings in the regime at both the national and urban scale. Finally, it concludes with some speculative ideas about the emergence of a more far-reaching technological – and cultural – transition arising out of the dynamics of new information and communication technologies entering the realm of transportation planning, design, and innovation.
For more information please contact:
Marilyn Lopez Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management New York University Robert F. Wagner Graduate School 295 Lafayette St, 2nd Floor New York, New York 10012 P: 212.992.9865 F: 212.995.4166 http://wagner.nyu.edu/rudincenter/Posted in Events
Tagged Automobility, Bicycling, Mobilities Theory, Sustainability, Transport, Urbanism
A PDF of the Powerpoint Slides from Dr. Schipper’s talk available here: [co2-scenarios-drexel]
Global trends in CO2 emissions by region
This study presents a set of two low carbon transportation scenarios, Globalization and Glocalization, where carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could be heavily reduced in North American and Latin America. The scenarios illustrate how different policy assumptions and energy intensities could reduce emissions through a long-term projection approach. Three main policy groups, transportation technologies and strategies, land use planning and pricing instruments design, are assumed to trigger modal shifts and trip reductions. In Globalization, strong international cooperation to decrease CO2 emissions leads to innovations in vehicle technologies and stricter standards, while in Glocalization, local concerns for reducing transportation problems lower distance traveled and create modal shifts to less CO2 intensive modes, through significant changes in land use and transportation planning. Under Glocalization, total transportation CO2 emission in 2050 is approximately 78 percent less than in the “Business as Usual” (BAU) scenario for North America. Similarly for Latin America, CO2 emission in 2050 is 76 percent less than BAU. The changes envisaged in these scenarios differ for the highly motorized North America and the currently less motorized Latin America. North America must bring about reductions in total distance traveled by automobiles and air, whereas Latin American is still able to expand automobile use and air travel, yet not at its existing rate. Both regions must adopt low-carbon technologies, which may be easier for Latin America, since there is less capital sunk in a carbon intensive transportation system.
Dr. Lee Schipper
Lee Schipper joined the Precourt Institute of Energy Efficiency at Stanford in September, 2008 to develop his research and policy studies of efficient energy use in transport systems into a unique course, “Sustainable Mobility”. Dr. Schipper earned his B.A. in music and Ph.D. at Berkeley in astrophysics, but has devoted his career to earthly problems of transport, energy and environment. He is also currently Senior Project Scientist at Global Metropolitan Studies, UC Berkeley. From 2002 to 2007, Dr. Schipper was Director of Research for EMBARQ, the World Resources Institute (WRI) Center for Sustainable Transport, which he helped found in April, 2002. He came to EMBARQ from the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, where he had been visiting Scientist from 1995 to 2001. Previous to that he was Staff Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for two decades. He worked in Group Planning at Shell International Petroleum Company in the 1980s and again in 2001, where he worked on two sets of Shell Scenarios. He has been a guest researcher at the World Bank, VVS Tekniska Foerening (Stockholm), the OECD Development Center, and the Stockholm Environment Institute. Dr. Schipper has authored over 100 technical papers and a number of books on energy economics and transportation around the world.
See more interesting data here on global carbon dioxide emissions: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121240453
The Mobilities Visiting Speaker Series is a forum for leading scholars invited by the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy to present new research in the fields of mobilities research, tourism studies, migration and border studies, mobile communications, new mobile media, and related interdisciplinary areas. The talks are open to the entire Drexel community and invited guests from the region. For more information about this free series, please contact Mimi Sheller at mimi.sheller@drexel.edu.
The Office of International Programs will present the fourth annual Student Conference on Global Challenges, “Urban Spaces,” Thursday, February 24, 2011, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Behrakis Grand Hall, Creese Student Center (32nd and Chestnut Streets).
Flows of people, capital, knowledge, information, and culture converge in cities and metropolitan corridors. These spaces host both embedded centers of power and new challenges to existing political authority and territoriality; they are spaces in which extremes of wealth and poverty grow side-by-side, but also spaces of artistic creation, technological and scientific innovation, and human vitality; they are hubs of transnational capital and immigration, incubators of violence and disease, and hosts to creative solutions, sustainable infrastructure, and democratic engagement.
The conference will bring together undergraduate and graduate students to discuss these global challenges in student panels on Global Media, Global Business Trends, Global Social and Economic Issues, Global Health, Global Science, Technology and Society, and Global Justice and Human Rights. Students will lead the panel discussions and faculty experts will moderate them.
Students: To apply, visit http://www.drexel.edu/international
To register, visit http://www.drexel.edu/international/.
For more information, contact Jennifer Hayes at oip@drexel.edu or 215-895-1204.
From April 7th-8th, 2011, the mobil.TUM research center at Technische Universitaet Muenchen will be hosting a joint international conference of mobil.TUM and the Cosmobilities Network. We invite abstracts (300 words) to be submitted to sven.kesselring@cosmobilities.net or mobil.TUM2011@mobil-tum.de by November 22nd, 2010, for papers addressing the following themes:
1. Sustainable mobilities: theories, concepts, methodologies
* E.g. sustainable mobility and the quality of life; operationalizing sustainability and mobility; key performance indicators for sustainable mobility
2. Sustainable mobilities: strategies, instruments
* The built environment (E.g. interdependencies between spatial structures, transport supply and mobility patterns; compact city; mobile architectures)
* Transport planning and engineering (E.g. designing sustainable transport systems, sustainable mobility technologies, transport engineering solutions)
* Economic instruments and regulations (E.g. financing and organization of transport infrastructure provision and public transportation, road pricing, parking management, cost benefit analysis and project appraisal, evaluation beyond cost benefit analysis)
* Everyday mobility & travel behavior (E.g. mobility and lifestyles, beyond the car, new/mobile methods, GPS tracking etc.)
3. Sustainable mobilities: institutions, policies, discourses and governance
* Mobility policies and governance (E.g. cities and urban regions, companies and institutions, risk and uncertainty in policy processes and project evaluation)
* Discourses of sustainable mobilities (E.g. public and media discourses, policy discourses, corporate mobility policies etc.)
Papers topics should work within the context of sustainable development and should make clear how this concept is defined in the specific case.
In addition, posters are welcome, but there is no room for an explicit poster session. Posters can be pinned in an open space conference location.
John Urry (Lancaster University)
Margaret Grieco (Napier University, Edinburgh)
Andreas Kopp, (World Bank, Washington)
David Banister (Oxford University)
Conference Website: http://www.mobil-tum2011.de/
Contact for further information: Dr. Sven Kesselring Chair of Traffic Engineering and Control mobil.TUM – project group mobility & transport Technische Universität München Arcisstr. 21 D-80333 München tel: +49 89 289.28598 fax: +49 89 289.22333 http://www.mobil-tum.de
