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Transforming urban energy demand: A timely challenge

27 May, 2020

Transforming urban energy demand: A timely challenge

Stefan Bouzarovski

Research paper   FAIR

Stefan Bouzarovski

Introduction

As I write this, most of the world is currently in some form of lockdown as a result of the Covid-19 crisis. With so many people confined to their homes, the issue of end-use energy demand has come to the fore of scientific and policy agendas. At no other point in time in recent history have people been more dependent on the social and technical infrastructures of the home to sustain their everyday social, emotional, and economic interdependencies. The pandemic has disproportionately affected urban dwellers, due to a combination of demographic, spatial, and political factors (Stier et al., 2020). This set of circumstances has vindicated the arguments made by a host of recent scholarly and policy-orientated contributions, who have emphasized the need for a deeper understanding of the technological and social forces that shape urban energy consumption so as to develop more comprehensive and determined responses to contemporary crises—epidemiological, environmental, and social alike (Moonen et al., 2012; Rutherford and Coutard, 2014; Elsner et al., 2019).

Publication details

Bouzarovski, S. 2020. Transforming urban energy demand: A timely challenge. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 2: 29. doi: 10.3389/frsc.2020.00029Opens in a new tab 

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