Today over half of the world’s expanding population live in cities. What does this mean for being an ‘urban human’? Answering this question requires knowledge of how technological, environmental, biological and political changes affect urban life. It is also necessary to understand how urban humans are imagined and how these framings inform city processes.
The theme advances our understanding of the distinctive nature of the 21st Century ‘urban human’ and examines implications for policy-making, planning and design.
Research Questions
– Do assistive technologies and architectures extend human capacities and functionality beyond existing human norms?
– How does urban life shape the corporeality and physical/mental health of bodies and does this produce a distinctive type of urban human?
– Does the need to live with others and deal with tensions, generate questions about specifically ‘urban’ human rights?
– What survival strategies are needed for the marginalised urban human that improvises on the edge of the formal economy?
News
New workshop series: The Urban Human – Conundrum and Interstices
The Urban Human and the Life at the Margins research themes at the Urban Institute are launching a series of internal workshop on ‘The Urban Human: Conundrum and Interstices’. The series is aimed at scholars within the University of Sheffield…
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Networks
Volumetric urbanism workshop (June 2017) – Joint with Rowland Atkinson and UWS
3
of the Earth’s surface has been urbanised
4
people currently living in urban areas
2.5
Number of people who voluntarily wear an electronic tracking device such as a smartphone
80