Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a synthesis of urban visibilities and invisibilities in smart cities and regions as presented throughout this book. Key elements including dimensions, relationships, theory, and methods are presented in developing an integrated conceptual framework for the interweaving of the visible and invisible as InVisibilities in relation to the ambient in smart cities. Tables are included that enable summary and comparative views across chapters pertaining to findings, insights, ideas, exercise questions, and future directions for research and practice. This chapter makes a contribution to 1) emerging research and practice for ambient InVisibilities in smart cities; 2) the synthesizing of urban theory and methods pertaining to the visible and invisible dimensions of 21st century cities and urban regions; and 3) the extending of understandings pertaining to smart cities through of a conceptual framework for visibilities, invisibilities, and the ambient encompassing the physical and digital as a guide for theory and practice going forward.
Top1. Introduction
This chapter provides a summary and synthesis of emerging understandings of visibilities and invisibilities as fundamental elements of 21st century cities and regions. Dimensions of visibilities and invisibilities emerge across transparency and translucence in relation to the ambient in the context of smart cities and regions. The nature of theory and methods in support of the study and practice of working with visibilities and invisibilities takes form in this work and opportunities arise going forward for research and practice in smart cities and regions. A key contribution of this chapter is the formulation of a conceptual framework for visibilities, invisibilities, and the ambient in smart cities as an integration of frameworks presented in earlier chapters of the book. This chapter is significant in that it provides a taxonomy of visibilities and invisibilities in smart cities important for the advancing of ambient theory and ambient inquiries in support of the evolving of urban theory and methods.
Objective: The objective of this chapter is to integrate, summarize, and advance evolving perspectives on, and approaches to, understandings of visibilities and invisibilities in smart cities and regions through the presentation of images and tables, as follows: a conceptual framework, observations from the literature reviews, research questions and propositions explored, correlations between variables, insights, ideas, exercise questions, future directions as opportunities for research and practice, and a taxonomy of visibilities and invisibilities for smart cities.
1.1 Background
The notion of ambient InVisibilities is not new in that the concept was advanced in the research literature (McKenna, 2019) along with a framework “organized around aware people and aware technologies, encompassing the physical and digital in relation to ambiences, atmospheres, and augmentations.” What is new in this work is that additional explorations are provided contributing to a rich and evolving interdisciplinary perspective. Additionally, the theoretical perspective and methods and approaches offered in support of research and practice are presented in the form of a conceptual framework and a taxonomy for visibilities, invisibilities and the ambient in smart cities and regions.
1.2 Overview
A summary and synthesis of the interwoven nature of visibilities and invisibilities as InVisibilities is presented in this chapter in the context of smarter cities involving more aware people interacting with more aware technologies, contributing to contemporary renderings of the ambient.
Definitions are presented here, based on the research literature, for key terms used throughout this work. Additional terms with definitions, as articulated by this chapter, are included in the Key Terms and Definitions section at the end of this chapter.
Ambient InVisibilities: According to McKenna (2019), ambient InVisibilities derive from a combination of visibilities and invisibilities and pertain to “urban elements accommodating more aware people and aware technologies encompassing the physical and digital in relation to ambiences, atmospheres, and augmentations contributing further to the ambient turn.”
As with the other chapters in this book, the primary audiences for this chapter include city officials, community members, students, educators, researchers, policy makers, urban practitioners, city managers, urban planners, urban designers, businesses, engineers, architects, public administrators, and anyone concerned with opportunities for leveraging the potentials of visibilities and invisibilities for more aware people in smarter, more sustainable, and livable cities.
2. Visibilities, Invisibilities And The Ambient: Putting It All Together
This section provides an overview of key elements constituting the interweaving of visibilities and invisibilities as InVisibilities, in smarter more aware environments in support of the ambient, beginning with the various conceptual frameworks, followed by variables and their relationships, insights, ideas, exercises, and future directions as opportunities for research and practice.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Ambient Methodologies: Ambient methodologies refer to more adaptive approaches to explorations of awareness in relation to people and awareness-enabled and enabling technologies encompassing the physical, digital, and less tangible, but not limited to ambiences, atmospheres, augmentations, emotion/affect, and the like.
Ambient Theory: Ambient theory refers to an emerging new addition to existing theories for urban research that is more amenable to adaptive frameworks for smart, responsive, and future cities while enabling possibly more aware, dynamic, interactive, and evolving models in response to increasing complexities and uncertainties.
Ambient InVisibilities: Ambient InVisibilities refers to the increasing presence of more aware people together with awareness-enabled technologies in support of interactivity in the context of environments characterized by an interweaving of visibilities and invisibilities.
Smart Cities: Smart cities are urban areas and regions characterized by more aware and engaged people, interacting with each other and aided by the use of more awareness enhancing technologies for a wide range of purposes from communication to design to atmospheres to mobility to livability, to governance, to data generation and use for learning and informed decision-making.
Invisibilities: Invisibilities refer to elements that are rendered invisible or that may present as intangibles.
Visibilities: Visibilities refer to physical and other visible urban elements and infrastructures.
Awareness: Awareness is conceptualized in this work as the quality of being aware as it applies to people on the one hand, to the enabling of technologies on the other, and to the enhancing of awareness through people interacting with awareness-enabled and enabling technologies.