Cities and systemic change for sustainability: Prevailing epistemologies and an emerging research agenda (original) (raw)
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Cities, systems and sustainability: Status and perspectives for research on urban transformations
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 2017
Urban transformation research forms an emergent interdisciplinary field with open boundaries that combines complex system studies and urban studies. It explores patterns and dynamics of change linking cities and diverse socio-technical systems and social-ecological systems across levels and scales, and develops new forms of intervention to foster their sustainability. This paper identifies and maps out the current status in this field and derives strategic recommendations for future research. It delineates a spectrum of recurrent epistemologies concerned with either system change, urban change or urban/system interactions, linked to an emphasis on urban metabolism, resilient communities and ecosystems, grassroots innovations or urban innovation systems. Moreover, seven key factors co-shaping urban transformations are recognized (agency, politics, capacity, policy, experiments, foresight and geography). To better exploit potential synergies between existing strands and address gaps in the light of imminent urban sustainability challenges, future urban transformation research should 1) Share a relational perspective that connects the above epistemologies; 2) Identify and engage with the spatial-institutional challenges of urban transformations; 3) Move towards multi-system approaches linking various sectors and domains; and 4) Focus on transformative capacity and its agency components as an empowering lever and guide for systemic urban change.
The Role of Cities in Sustainability Transitions: New Perspectives for Science and Policy
Sustainable development at a global and local scale heavily depends upon the pathways taken by cities in the near future. Within scientific research, this frequently identified " urban challenge " has been recognized and addressed increasingly in urban studies, as well as in transformation studies. However, while both fields clearly overlap and effectively complement each other in this regard, the respective epistemic communities have largely remained separate so far. Therefore, this paper elaborates on the core concepts and approaches that dominate the emerging scientific debate on the role of cities in sustainability transitions. Based on a methodic literature review, it delineates the progressive convergence of the diverse disciplines involved over four major research perspectives. It equally derives key conclusions for future research and policy, highlighting the urgent need to connect the four fields identified, to link socio-technical and social-ecological system (SES) perspectives, to conceive of holistic innovations for developing new planning approaches, and to fully embrace transdisciplinarity by practicing science in society.
Cities, systems and sustainability: status and perspectives of research on urban transformations
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 2016
Urban transformation research forms an emergent interdisciplinary field with open boundaries that combines complex system studies and urban studies. It explores patterns and dynamics of change linking cities and diverse sociotechnical and social-ecological systems across levels and scales, and develops new forms of intervention to foster their sustainability. This paper identifies and maps out the current status in this field and derives strategic recommendations for future research. It delineates a spectrum of recurrent epistemologies concerned with either system change, urban change or urban/system interactions, linked to an emphasis on urban metabolism, resilient communities and ecosystems, grassroots innovations or urban innovation systems. Moreover, seven key factors co-shaping urban transformations are recognized (agency, politics, capacity, policy, experiments, foresight and geography). To better exploit potential synergies between existing strands and address gaps in the light of imminent urban sustainability challenges, future urban transformation research should (1) Share a relational geographical perspective that connects the above epistemologies; (2) Identify and engage with the spatialinstitutional challenges of urban transformations; (3) Move towards multi-system approaches linking various sectors and domains; and (4) Focus on transformative capacity and its agency components as an empowering lever for systemic urban change.
Intensifying or transforming sustainable cities? Fragmented logics of urban environmentalism
Local Environment, 2017
This paper analyses recent shifts in urban sustainability discourse and practice through a critical review of the historical development of the concept from the 1970s through to the global economic crisis in the 2007 and its fragmentation into the 2010s. Using this periodisation, the paper shows how the content of urban sustainability discourse has changed. First, it illustrates that the dominant assumption of sustainable cities' discourse was to utilise economic growth to ecologically modernise urban environments. Second, it examines how the global economic crisis has intensified this fix and led to a new, even narrower emphasis on the techno-economic value of those aspects of urban environment that have economic and market potential. Third, it analyses the fragmenting of sustainable cities' discourse into a set of competing logics that reflect this narrower agenda. This paper argues that the sustainable city has been absorbed into these new logics that are much more narrowly techno-economically focused and are squeezing out traditional concerns with social justice and equity.
Sustainability, 2017
This article evaluates if the increasing use of the term "urban transformations" in academic research and the widely acknowledged importance of cities in sustainability transformations has led to a transformative turn towards sustainability and Global Environmental Change (GEC) in urban-related studies. This is done through a systematic review of the scientific literature on urban transformations for the last six decades. This way, the multiplicity of uses of the term urban transformations is identified and a contextualization of the urban transformations to sustainability-debate within the wider sphere of urban-related studies is achieved. Our findings show that until now the term is very heterogeneously used in the scientific literature and that the number of articles referring to urban transformations to sustainability has significantly increased during the last five years. While first steps towards a transformative turn can be identified, empirical cases of successful urban transformations towards sustainability hardly appear in the articles. A gap between the theoretical concept and the empirical cases of urban transformations is clearly visible, which also has implications for future research on urban sustainability.
Eco-cities: the mainstreaming of urban sustainability – key characteristics and driving factors
International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning, 2011
Efforts to innovate in urban sustainability have in recent decades culminated in a new phenomenon: eco-cities. In recognition of the key role played by cites both as the cause of, and potential solution to, global climate change and rapid urbanisation, the concept and practice of eco-cities have since the early 2000s gained global signifi cance and become increasingly mainstream in policy-making. This study provides an analysis of contemporary eco-city developments by systematically mapping some 79 recent initiatives at global level; evaluating key characteristics (including development type, phase and implementation mode) and discussing the factors (such as technological development, cultural branding, and political leadership) that drive and condition innovation in this area. The article concludes by outlining a research agenda for addressing both the challenges and opportunities of future eco-city governance.
Governing Sustainability in Urban Ecosystems: Arguments for a Transdisciplinary Framework
Resilient and Responsible Smart Cities, Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation, Springer Nature, 2022
This paper points toward the need for transdisciplinary frameworks for understanding the nature and challenges of urban sustainability. It questions the conventional, anthropocentric approaches to sustainability, particularly their neglect to articulate the complex and material dimensions of sustainable endeavors. Anthropocentric sustainability is a controversial idea. It prevents us from being able to develop a sound analysis of ecological threats, and, therefore, it prevents us from elaborating effective proposals for sustainability and sustainable development. We need to step away from any conception of "the natural" as Nature. The meaning of "natural" is associated with sustainability, both in urban and non-urban contexts. Thus, we suggest that "ecology" and "nature" are concepts in opposition, and we elaborate a working definition of sustainability that is relevant for a situation of rapid urbanization in the Anthropocene. Accordingly, as discussed elsewhere (del Cerro Santamaría, Del Cerro Santamaría, G. (2019a). Megaprojects, Sustainability and Competitiveness in the United Arab Emirates, Unpublished Fulbright Scholar Project Proposal, New York City.), an urban context will be defined as sustainable "if it is planned and governed to account for the capacity, fitness, resilience, diversity and balance of its ecosystem. We take the view of sustainability as an organic process including environment, economy and community: form and efficiency (environmental factors in design, architecture, engineering and construction) as well as policy (urban plans and practices that explicitly aim at maintaining and improving the social and economic well-being of citizens)." We first explore the environmental challenges in a rapidly developing country (China), and we then assess the potentialities of innovation districts in the fostering of urban sustainability. After this analysis of empirical referents, we lay out the elements for a transdisciplinary framework that can guide the governance of sustainability in urban ecosystems.
Introduction ‘Green cities’ as urban models: contributing to new urban agendas, but how?
Town Planning Review, 2020
In this unprecedented era of increasing urbanization, and in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement, and other global development agreements and frameworks, we have reached a critical point in understanding that cities can be the source of solutions to, rather than the cause of, the challenges that our world is facing today. If well-planned and well-managed, urbanization can be a powerful tool for sustainable development for both developing and developed countries. Foreword to the New Urban Agenda, (UN HABITAT, 2017, p.IV, added emphases). The quote above taken from the foreword to the UN's New Urban Agenda (NUA) adopted in 2016 epitomises how, in the 'urban century', there is an increasing recognition that the sustainable planning and development of cities is no longer solely a matter of local, regional and national concern. What happens in cities in the remainder of this century will impact more widely on a host of international and global agendas, notably those relating to 'green' challenges such as responding to the climate emergency, biodiversity, resource use, public health (e.g. addressing air pollution), and, promoting greater environmental justice. Reflecting this, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 of the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN, 2015, p.26), focuses on making 'cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable', whilst many of the other goals will require particular attention to how urban places develop if they are to be achieved. Part 1 of the NUA-The Quito Declaration on Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements for All emphasises in its title the social goal that sustainable cities and human settlements should be 'for all'. Part 2, the Quito Implementation Plan for the New Urban Agenda, also reflects the three dimensions of sustainability including promoting 'Environmentally sustainable and resilient urban development'. The signatories recognise that 'cities and human settlements face unprecedented threats from unsustainable consumption and production patterns, loss of biodiversity, pressure on ecosystems, pollution, natural and human-made disasters, and climate change and its related risks, undermining the efforts to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions and to achieve sustainable development' (UN HABITAT, 2017, p.18). The wider significance of what happens in cities is again emphasised with the document stating that: 'Given cities' demographic trends and their central role in the global economy, in the mitigation and adaptation efforts related to climate change, and in the use of resources and ecosystems, the way they are planned, financed, developed, built, governed and managed has a direct impact on sustainability and resilience well beyond urban boundaries'. Other UN initiatives such as the International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning (UN HABITAT, 2015, p.20) similarly state: 'Urban and territorial planning contributes to increased human security by strengthening environmental and socioeconomic resilience, enhancing mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change and improving the management of natural and environmental hazards and risks'
A Cities Approach to Sustainability
2015
This thesis provides a response to the question of how we might achieve greater sustainability, and from that sustainable development. An engineering approach, or applied science (physical and social), integrated within a multi-stakeholder partnership, is proposed. A road map to a partial, or ‘shadow agreement’ is proposed, that would hopefully serve as the start of a global process leading to comprehensive sustainable development. An argument is made why cities are the most likely actors to design and bring about such an agreement. An agreement among the world’s larger cities (those urban areas with 5 million or more residents by 2050) is possible, and is likely a necessary, but not sufficient condition to achieve sustainable development. Each city is viewed as a unique system as well as collectively within a ‘system-of-systems,’ and more broadly within local and global ecosystems and economies. Global boundaries and objectives such as the Sustainable Development Goals are down-sca...