Abstract
This commentary on Maarten Hajer and Wytske Versteeg’s ‘Imagining the post-fossil city’ (2018) discusses some of the assumptions and implications of the authors’ two key formulations–‘techniques of futuring’ and the ‘post-fossil city’. It begins by scrutinizing the relationship between techniques of futuring and questions of spatial scale. It then unpacks the territorial assumptions of the post-fossil city, suggesting that the latter should be situated within broader spatial understandings of the contemporary urban condition. Finally, it discusses the politics of the post-fossil city, with an emphasis on the relationship between corporate-led smart-city sustainability schemes and local democratic governance.
David Wachsmuth
Canada Research Chair in Urban Governance
My research interests include urban governance, local sustainability, and the impact of short-term rentals on housing markets.