Governing Urban Sustainability

Cities, and the built environment more broadly, are key in the global response to climate change. This groundbreaking book seeks to understand what governance tools are best suited for achieving cities that are less harmful to the natural environment,

The world’s population is currently undergoing a significant transition towards urbanisation, with the UN expecting that 70% of people globally will live in cities by 2050. Urbanisation has multiple political, cultural, environmental and economic dimensions that profoundly influence social development and innovation. This fundamental long-term transformation will involve the realignment of urban society’s technologies and infrastructures, culture and lifestyles, as well as governance and institutional frameworks. Such structural systemic realignments can be referred to as urban sustainability transitions: fundamental and structural changes in urban systems through which persistent societal challenges are addressed, such as shifts towards urban farming, renewable decentralised energy systems, and social economies. This book provides new insights into how sustainability transitions unfold in different types of cities across the world and explores possible strategies for governing urban transitions, emphasising the co-evolution of material and institutional transformations in socio-technical and socio-ecological systems. With case studies of mega-cities such as Seoul, Tokyo, New York and Adelaide, medium-sized cities such as Copenhagen, Cape Town and Portland, and nonmetropolitan cities such as Freiburg, Ghent and Brighton, the book provides an opportunity to reflect upon the comparability and transferability of theoretical/conceptual constructs and governance approaches across geographical contexts. Urban Sustainability Transitions is key reading for students and scholars working in Environmental Sciences, Geography, Urban Studies, Urban Policy and Planning.

Cities, the world over, are increasingly recognised to be both a principal source of the environmental and social sustainability challenges facing contemporary society and a critical site for addressing these challenges. Socio-technical systems are at the heart of these challenges as they configure central aspects of urban life: from mobility and energy infrastructures to leisure activities and patterns of mobility. This observation has led to substantial interest in how societies might initiate and actively steer radical transitions in these systems in the pursuit of sustainable urban futures. This book contributes to emerging debates on the politics of urban transitions by examining the intimate interlinkages between knowledge, power and governance. Drawing upon real-world examples of urban governance, the authors explore the strategies, struggles and controversies involved in configuring knowledge and how knowledge constructions influence governance by rendering some concerns and issues visible and valuable, while obscuring others. The book draws attention to how novel ways of conceptualising, knowing and observing socio-technical systems may be harnessed productively in redefining the power relationships underpinning unsustainable practices. Understanding these dynamics can ultimately inform and enable new approaches to support much-needed urban transitions. This book provides a compelling examination of urban knowledge politics for the twenty-first century that will be of great value to academics, policy-makers and practitioners working in the social sciences, urban studies, geography, urban governance or sustainability transitions.

Achieving urban sustainability is amongst the most pressing issues facing planners and governments. This book is the first to provide a cohesive analysis of sustainable urban development and to examine the processes by which change in how urban areas are built can be achieved. The author looks at how sustainable urban development can be delivered on the ground through a comprehensive analysis of the different modes of governing for new urban development. Governing for Sustainable Urban Development: considers a range of policy tools that influence urban development and that constitute different modes of governing provides an innovative conceptual emphasis on learning within governing processes draws on a wide range of existing research, policy and literature together with case study material focussing on London is above all concerned with demonstrating how sustainable urban development can be delivered in practice. This title be essential reading for students, academics and professionals in planning, urban design and architecture world-wide working to achieve sustainability.

Reading this book will lead to new insights compelling to an international audience into how cities address the sustainability challenges they face. They do this by not repeating old patterns but by searching for new and innovative methods and instruments based on shared principles of a transitions approach. The book describes the quest of cities on two continents to accelerate and stimulate such a transition to sustainability. The aim of the book is twofold: to provide insights into how cities are addressing this challenge conceptually and practically, and to learn from a comparison of governance strategies in Europe and Asia. The book is informed by transition thinking as it was developed in the last decade in Europe and as it is increasingly being applied in Asia. The analytical framework is based on principles of transition management, which draws on insights from complexity science, sociology, and governance theories. Only recently this approach has been adapted to the urban context, and this book is an opportunity to share these experiences with a wider audience. For scholars this work offers a presentation of recent state-of-the-art theoretical developments in transition governance applied to the context of cities. For urban planners, professionals, and practitioners it offers a framework for understanding ongoing developments as well as methods and instruments for dealing with them. The content is potentially appealing to post-graduate and graduate students of environmental management, policy studies, and urban studies programs.

Cities, the world over, are increasingly recognised to be both a principal source of the environmental and social sustainability challenges facing contemporary society and a critical site for addressing these challenges. Socio-technical systems are at the heart of these challenges as they configure central aspects of urban life: from mobility and energy infrastructures to leisure activities and patterns of mobility. This observation has led to substantial interest in how societies might initiate and actively steer radical transitions in these systems in the pursuit of sustainable urban futures. This book contributes to emerging debates on the politics of urban transitions by examining the intimate interlinkages between knowledge, power and governance. Drawing upon real-world examples of urban governance, the authors explore the strategies, struggles and controversies involved in configuring knowledge and how knowledge constructions influence governance by rendering some concerns and issues visible and valuable, while obscuring others. The book draws attention to how novel ways of conceptualising, knowing and observing socio-technical systems may be harnessed productively in redefining the power relationships underpinning unsustainable practices. Understanding these dynamics can ultimately inform and enable new approaches to support much-needed urban transitions. This book provides a compelling examination of urban knowledge politics for the twenty-first century that will be of great value to academics, policy-makers and practitioners working in the social sciences, urban studies, geography, urban governance or sustainability transitions.

For the first time in human history, more than half the world’s population is urban. A fundamental aspect of this transformation has been the emergence of giant cities, or megacities, that present major new challenges. This book examines how issues of megacity development, urban form, sustainability, and unsustainability are conceived, how governance processes are influenced by these ideas, and how these processes have in turn influenced outcomes on the ground, in some cases in transformative ways. Through 15 in-depth case studies by prominent researchers from around the world, this book examines the major challenges facing megacities today. The studies are organized around a shared set of concerns and questions about issues of sustainability, land development, urban governance, and urban form. Some of the main questions addressed are: What are the most pressing issues of sustainability and urban form in each megacity? How are major issues of sustainability understood and framed by policymakers? Is urban form considered a significant component of sustainability issues in public debates and public policy? Who are the key actors framing urban sustainability challenges and shaping urban change? How is unsustainability, risk, or disaster imagined, and how are those concerns reflected in policy approaches? What has been achieved so far, and what challenges remain? The publication of this book is a step toward answering these and other crucial questions.

Urban governance and sustainability are rapidly becoming key issues around the world. Currently three billion people - half the population of the planet - live in cities, and by 2050 a full two-thirds of the world's population will be housed in ever larger and increasingly densely populated urban areas. The economic, social and environmental challenges posed by urbanization on such a large scale and at such a rapid pace are staggering for local, regional and national governments working towards sustainability. Solutions to the myriad problems plaguing the quest for sustainability at the city-level are equally as diverse and complex, but are rooted in the assumptions of the 'sustainability agenda', developed at the Rio Earth Summit and embodied in Local Agenda/Action 21. These assumptions state that good governance is a necessary precondition for the achievement of sustainable development, particularly at the local level, and that the mobilization of local communities is an essential part of this process. Yet until now, these assumptions, which have guided the policies and programmes of over 6000 local authorities around the world, have never been seriously tested. Drawing on three years of field research in 40 European towns and cities, Governing for Sustainable Cities is the first book to examine empirically the processes of urban governance in sustainable development. Looking at a host of core issues including institutional and social capacity, institutional design, social equity, politics, partnerships and cooperation and creative policy-making, the authors draw compelling conclusions and offer strong guidance. This book is essential reading for policy-makers, politicians, activists and NGOs, planners, researchers and academics, whether in Europe, North America, Australasia or transitional and developing countries, concerned with advancing sustainability in our rapidly urbanizing world.