Sociological analysis on how urban planning agents are developing expectations about the future

到2050年，预计还会有30亿人迁移到城市地区(联合国2016年)。2015年，全球智慧城市支出，即城市信息和通信技术投资，达到148.5亿美元，到2020年将达到343.5亿美元(Statista 2018)。这两项统计数据都有力地揭示了城市和数字之间的相互作用。更重要的是，它们说明了关注城市是如何塑造的重要性。这一跨学科的博士项目构成了一种社会学干预，以了解城市是如何形成的。本研究利用预期社会学中的一篇新兴文献(Brown等人，2000；Beckert 2013,2016；Beckert and Bronk，2018)，旨在批判性地参与一个特定的城市愿景，即爱丁堡和苏格兰东南部城市区域交易(CRD)。后者代表着苏格兰和英国政府以及地方合作伙伴在未来15年的13亿英镑投资，旨在通过为基础设施、技能和数据驱动的创新提供资金来加快包容性增长。至关重要的是，自2018年8月7日正式签署以来，CRD允许在预期的未来尚未到来的时候观察预期。换句话说，它提供了一个机会，在它成为(数字)基础设施之前，见证一个城市建设系统的萌芽生产。旨在将该城市区域打造为“欧洲数据之都”，将对未来的期望与城市规划联系起来。使用CRD作为一个单一的实证案例研究，这个博士项目是对城市规划机构如何发展对未来的期望的社会学分析。本课题的研究问题是关于城市规划背景下的项目代理问题。投射代理指的是“行为者对未来可能的行动轨迹进行的富有想象力的生成，其中接收到的思想和行动的结构可以根据行为者对未来的希望、恐惧和欲望进行创造性的重新配置”(Emirbayer and Mische，1998：971)。以后者为主要分析单位，本研究试图考察未来意象的建构和传播。换句话说，我打算调查城市规划机构如何想象未来，以及为什么某些未来变得足够可信，而另一些则不够可信。解开最重要的研究问题--城市规划机构如何发展对未来的预期？--我将提出以下核心研究问题：1)数据驱动的城市未来的内容和形式是什么？2)虚构的未来是如何单独和共同实践的？这项研究将直接受益于三组参与者。首先，这个项目对试图推进组织和市场中投射代理研究的概念和方法论基础的学者们很感兴趣。在这种背景下，社会学家、城市地理学家和政治经济学家将发现，这个博士项目产生的见解是有用的。第二，这项研究为参与执行《公约》的地方和区域一级的行为者提供了重要的工具影响。它的调查结果可以直接惠及爱丁堡议会规划委员会等政策制定者，为决策过程提供信息，并为进一步执行CRD提供反馈。最后，这项研究将为广大公众提供有益的见解。与非专业观众分享我的研究成果，并发起培训研讨会，我希望鼓励批判性反思和联合制作。认识到CRD在爱丁堡历史上的重要性，我将进一步向苏格兰政府的规划和建筑部提交一份关于我的调查结果的总结报告。

By 2050, another 3 billion people are projected to move to urban areas (UN 2016). In 2015, global smart city spending, i.e., investment in urban information and communication technology, reached 14.85 billion U.S. dollars and is set to reach 34.35 billion U.S. dollars by 2020 (Statista 2018). Both statistics powerfully bring to light the interplay of the urban and the digital. More importantly, they illustrate the importance of paying attention to how cities are shaped. This interdisciplinary doctoral project constitutes a sociological intervention into understanding how cities are shaped.Drawing on an emergent literature in the Sociology of Expectations (Brown et al., 2000; Beckert 2013, 2016; Beckert and Bronk, 2018), this study aims to critically engage with one particular urban vision, the Edinburgh and South-East Scotland City Region Deal (CRD). The latter represents a £1.3bn investment by the Scottish and UK governments and local partners over the next fifteen years, which is designed to accelerate inclusive growth through the funding of infrastructure, skills and data-driven innovation. Crucially, having been officially signed on 7 August 2018, the CRD allows to observe anticipation at a time when the expected future is still yet to come. Put differently, it provides the opportunity to witness the production of a system of city making in its nascence, before it becomes solidified into (digital) infrastructure. Aiming at establishing the city region as the "Data Capital of Europe", it connects expectations about the future with urban planning. Using the CRD as a single empirical case study, this PhD project is a sociological analysis on how urban planning agents are developing expectations about the future. The research problem of this project is concerned with projective agency in an urban planning setting. Projective agency denotes "the imaginative generation by actors of possible future trajectories of action, in which received structures of thought and action may be creatively reconfigured in relation to actors' hopes, fears, and desires for the future" (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998: 971). Taking the latter as the primary unit of analysis, this study seeks to examine the construction and diffusion of images of the future. In other words, I intend to investigate the ways in which urban planning agents imagine the future and the reasons why certain futures become sufficiently credible while others do not. Disentangling the overarching research question - How are urban planning agents developing expectations about the future? - I will ask the following core research questions:1) What is the content and form of data-driven urban futures?2) How are fictional futures practiced, individually and collectively?There are three groups of actors who will directly benefit from this research. First, this project is of interest to scholars attempting to advance the conceptual and methodological foundations for the study of projective agency in organizations and markets. Against this backdrop, sociologists, urban geographers and political economists will find the insights, generated by this PhD project, to be of use. Second, this research provides important instrumental implications for actors on the local and regional level, involved in the implementation of the CRD. Its findings can directly benefit policy-makers such as the Edinburgh Council Planning Committee by informing decision-making processes and feeding back into the further execution of the CRD. Finally, this study will provide helpful insights for the general public. Sharing my research with a non-specialist-audience and initiating training workshops, I want to encourage critical reflection as well as co-production. Recognising the CRD's significance in the history of Edinburgh, I will, furthermore, submit a summative report of my findings to the Scottish Government's Planning and Architecture Division.