Prof Sharon Zukin: Place Making in the Metaverse

The Annual Sir Peter Hall Lecture 2022

Date: 26th May 2022

Speaker: Sharon Zukin, Professor Emerita of Sociology and of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Brooklyn College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York

The current explosion of interest in the “metaverse,” a loosely related assemblage of new technology, financial instruments, and user experiences, spurs deep skepticism among many observers and passionate advocacy from true believers. Will it really transform the cities and places where we live and work? Or does the shadow world of crypto finance, NFTs, and game-like graphics merely transport the power hierarchies that we know into another spatial dimension? In this talk, the sociologist Sharon Zukin expands the framework of her recent book, The Innovation Complex: Cities, Tech, and the New Economy, to enter the new world of metaverse speculation.