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.
Table of Content
Introduction
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 centers
II. A globalized territorial continuum
Chapter 1. In the dense city
Chapter 2. In urban outskirts, growing digital zones
Chapter 3. Isolated in rural zones
Chapter 4. Growth, acceleration and digital productivism
III. Energy disturbances and conflicts of use
Chapter 1. Rising electricity consumption and territorial destabilization
Chapter 2. Île-de-France in quest of a strategy
Chapter 3. Infrastructural redundancies and difficult pooling
Chapter 4. The Dutch and Swedish examples: integrated urban approaches
IV. Another digital: rethinking the network and its infrastructures
Chapter 1. Cyberattacks and political intrusions: states seeking independence
Chapter 2. The peer-to-peer solution: organizing a system distributed among equals
Chapter 3. Self-management and technological sovereignty: the decentralized digital infrastructures
Chapter 4. Resilience and inclusion: systems faced with disconnection
Chapter 5. The ecological footprint of alternative digital infrastructures
V. Alternative futures: three possible digital worlds
Conclusion
About the author
Cécile Diguet is Director of Studio Degel.
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