More-than-human city-region foresight: multispecies entanglements in regional governance and planning
Hira Sheikh, Marcus Foth, Peta Mitchell
Abstract
Real-time data from urban and rural regions is increasingly being used by policymakers to achieve environmental sustainability goals within smart cities. At the same time, smart urban governance has been criticized for its technocratic and human-centric approach that sacrifices long-term planning for the here-and-now and overlooks the more-than-human in sustainability-related city-region foresight strategies. By reviewing two city-region foresight strategies employed in Australia – namely, the Atlas of Living Australia and Greenprints – this paper argues for the merits of including foresight strategies that account for multispecies entanglements. The paper mobilizes more-than-human perspectives to propose multispecies foresight for better urban and regional sustainability outcomes.