Redesigning urban studies? A commentary on Savannah Cox's “Climate Change and the Limits of Urban Thought”
Article
Grove, Kevin. (2026). Redesigning urban studies? A commentary on Savannah Cox's “Climate Change and the Limits of Urban Thought”
. Dialogues in Urban Research, 10.1177/27541258261472899
Grove, Kevin. (2026). Redesigning urban studies? A commentary on Savannah Cox's “Climate Change and the Limits of Urban Thought”
. Dialogues in Urban Research, 10.1177/27541258261472899
Savannah Cox’s article challenges urban scholars to take seriously the way climate change transgresses the limits of critical theory and the latter’s ethical, political, and epistemic investment in visions of a redeemable and improvable future. In doing so, Cox cuts to the heart of the limits of
poiesis
– making – as a form of human practice. In this commentary, I read Cox’s arguments alongside recent work in critical design studies that similarly engages with the limits of
poiesis
in a climate-change world. While certain movements such as ontological design and transition design attempt, in various ways, to reclaim the redemptive promise of
poiesis
, critical designers engaging with feminist, decolonial, queer and abolitionist thought have begun to transform the nature of
poiesis
itself. These critical interventions, I argue, may help us push Cox’s arguments even further, pointing towards destituted styles of urban thought and practice as problem-finding activities – whose problems are never determined in advance.
