Pedagogy for the City as an Emergent Cognitive System for Sustainability

Authors

  • Andrew Mitchell Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Media (CEM), De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
  • Muhammad U. Mazhar Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
  • Aladdin Ayesh Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Media (CEM), De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
  • Mark Lemmon Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Media (CEM), De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
  • Birgit Painter Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Media (CEM), De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

Keywords:

smart city, cognitive cities, complex adaptive systems, pedagogy, transdisciplinarity

Abstract

In this short paper, we develop the case for moving away from the concept of a smart city in which the focus tends to be on shifting managerial responsibility onto computers. We offer the alternative conception of the city as an ecosystem, a complex adaptive system, and draw upon the biology of cognition to construe cognition as the skilful adaptation to living sustainably. Such skilful adaptations necessitate human operators and managers themselves to both develop necessary systemic redundancy to withstand future shocks, but also to acquire skills in multi-faceted domains and disciplines, including the use of Artificial Intelligence, to simulate future scenarios and to plan accordingly. To attain such skills and competencies, we briefly outline a viable and relevant transdisciplinary pedagogy for future city managers to develop smart sustainable cities.

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Published

05-07-2022

How to Cite

Mitchell, A., Mazhar, M. U., Ayesh, A., Lemmon, M., & Painter, B. (2022). Pedagogy for the City as an Emergent Cognitive System for Sustainability. Sustainability Letters, 1(1). Retrieved from https://sustainabilityletters.net/article/view/18064

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2022): Inaugural Issue

Section

Letters-Learning and Education

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Andrew Mitchell, Muhammad U. Mazhar, Aladdin Ayesh, Mark Lemmon, Birgit Painter

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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