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In an era of exponential digital growth, the physical impact of data flows is reshaping our cities and energy infrastructures.
This book uncovers the hidden world of data centres, from vast complexes in Virginia to digital suburbs in Paris and innovative facilities in Sweden. Through twenty insightful case studies from Europe and the US, it reveals how these often overlooked infrastructures influence urban change and energy consumption.
Written for readers interested in urban planning, sustainability and technology, this book sparks a vital dialogue on sustainable futures and provides crucial insights to help shape policies concerning digital and energy landscapes.
Fanny Lopez is Full Professor of History of Architecture and Technology at the Paris Malaquais School of Architecture, Paris Sciences et Lettres University.
Cécile Diguet is Head of Studio Degel with 20 years’ experience in urban planning and local public policies.
Introduction
Part I: The Smart City at Half-Mast: Storing Data to Counter Crises
Chapter 1. Modeling degrowth: the utopia of the informational and communicational city
Chapter 2. The Internet infrastructure: from dispersion to centralization
Chapter 3. An infrastructure without architecture?
Chapter 4. Scales, typologies and siting strategies of data centres
Part II: A globalized territorial continuum
Chapter 5. In the dense city
Chapter 6. In urban outskirts, growing digital zones
Chapter 7. Isolated in rural zones
Chapter 8. Growth, acceleration and digital productivism
Part III: Energy disturbances and conflicts of use
Chapter 9. Rising electricity consumption and territorial destabilization
Chapter 10. Île-de-France in quest of a strategy
Chapter 11. Infrastructural redundancies and difficult pooling
Chapter 12. The Dutch and Swedish examples: integrated urban approaches
Part IV. Another digital: rethinking the network and its infrastructures
Chapter 13. Cyberattacks and political intrusions: states seeking independence
Chapter 14. The peer-to-peer solution: organizing a system distributed among equals
Chapter 15. Self-management and technological sovereignty: the decentralized digital infrastructures
Chapter 16. Resilience and inclusion: systems faced with disconnection
Chapter 17. The ecological footprint of alternative digital infrastructures
Part V.
Chapter 18. Alternative futures: three possible digital worlds
Conclusion