The Sustainable City Becomes Climate Smart

The idea of smart cities has become enormously popular during the past decade. Environmental governance is one issue in which smart city ideas seem to hold potential. However, there is an incredible variety in what it means for a city to be ‘smart’. For some, it involves the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to solve problems; for others, it has more to do with economic growth and city branding. Many social science researchers have criticised the idea of smart cities. They worry that it might allow multinational corporations to take control of municipal governance and lead to an undue focus on technological solutions to societal issues. However, only a few previous studies have examined the influence on urban environmental governance in practice. This thesis investigates the influence of smart city ideas on urban environmental governance through a study of Hyllie, a climate-smart city district in Malmö, Sweden. It applies a theoretical perspective based on science and technology studies and the concept of assemblage. It combines participant-observation of inter-organisational meetings, interviews with professionals and document analysis. This thesis contributes a more comprehensive picture of which actors influence the direction of the climate-smart city—beyond the usual suspects of municipal governments and multinational companies. Still, it shows how ICT-based smart city solutions have taken precedence in urban environmental governance at the expense of energy efficiency and renewable energy.

The idea of smart cities has become enormously popular during the past decade. Environmental governance is one issue in which smart city ideas seem to hold potential. However, there is an incredible variety in what it means for a city to be ‘smart’. For some, it involves the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to solve problems; for others, it has more to do with economic growth and city branding. Many social science researchers have criticised the idea of smart cities. They worry that it might allow multinational corporations to take control of municipal governance and lead to an undue focus on technological solutions to societal issues. However, only a few previous studies have examined the influence on urban environmental governance in practice. This thesis investigates the influence of smart city ideas on urban environmental governance through a study of Hyllie, a climate-smart city district in Malmö, Sweden. It applies a theoretical perspective based on science and technology studies and the concept of assemblage. It combines participant-observation of inter-organisational meetings, interviews with professionals and document analysis. This thesis contributes a more comprehensive picture of which actors influence the direction of the climate-smart city—beyond the usual suspects of municipal governments and multinational companies. Still, it shows how ICT-based smart city solutions have taken precedence in urban environmental governance at the expense of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Smarta städer har blivit oerhört populärt koncept under det senaste decenniet. Miljöstyrning är ett område där smarta städer visar potential. Det finns dock många tolkningar av vad ordet ’smart’ betyder för städer. För vissa handlar det om tillämpning av informations- och kommunikationsteknik (IKT) för att lösa problem, för andra om ekonomisk tillväxt och marknadsföring av städer. Många samhällsvetenskapliga forskare kritiserar föreställningen om den smarta staden. De bekymrar sig över att multinationella företag tillåts ta makt över miljöstyrning och ett alltför stort fokus på teknologiska lösningar för samhällsfrågor. Få tidigare studier har undersökt påverkan på miljöstyrning i praktiken. Avhandlingen utforskar hur föreställningar om smarta städer påverkar miljöstyrning genom en studie av Hyllie, en klimatsmart stadsdel i Malmö. Den tillämpar ett teoretiskt perspektiv som bygger på teknik- och vetenskapsstudier samt begreppet assemblage. I avhandlingen används deltagande-observation av möten mellan olika organisationer, intervjuer med professionella och dokumentanalys. Avhandlingen bidrar med en mer mångsidig bild av vilka aktörer som påverkar utvecklingen av den klimatsmarta staden, utöver kommuner och multinationella företag. Den visar dock även att IKT-lösningar i den smarta staden blir viktigare i städers miljöstyrning på bekostnad av energieffektivitet och förnybar energi.

Living sustainably is not just about preserving the wilderness or keeping nature pristine. The transition to a green economy depends on cities. Economic, technological, and cultural forces are moving people out of rural areas and into urban areas. If we are to avert climate catastrophe, we will need our cities to coexist with nature without destroying it. Urbanization holds the key to long-term sustainability, reducing per capita environmental impacts while improving economic prosperity and social inclusion for current and future generations. The Sustainable City provides a broad and engaging overview of the urban systems of the twenty-first century. It approaches urban sustainability from the perspectives of behavioral change, organizational management, and public policy, looking at case studies of existing legislation, programs, and public-private partnerships that strive to align modern urban life and sustainability. The book synthesizes the disparate strands of sustainable city planning in an approachable and applicable guide that highlights how these issues touch our lives on a daily basis, including the transportation we take, the public health systems that protect us, where our energy comes from, and what becomes of our food waste. This second edition of The Sustainable City dives deeper into the financing of sustainable infrastructure and initiatives and puts additional emphasis on the roles that individual citizens and varied stakeholders can play. It also reviews current trends in urban inequality and discusses whether a model of sustainability that embraces a multidimensional approach to development and a multistakeholder approach to decision making can foster social inclusion. It features many more examples and new international case studies spanning the globe.

Smart Green Cities: is a comprehensive overview of what global cities are doing to become sustainable. Woodrow W. Clark II and Grant Cooke have produced a book that is both practical and visionary. They have examined the infrastructure needs - sustainable development, communications, energy, water, waste, and transportation to develop guidelines, processes and best practices. City leaders are key to mitigating climate change who must plan, design and implement solutions. Smart Green Cities (SGC) offers a global perspective that includes implementing the Green Industrial Revolution the title of their last book. SGC discusses innovative emerging technologies, and the new economics paradigm that move beyond the out-dated neo-classical economics. The authors present examples from around the world including Europe, the U.S, China and the Middle East, which discuss the best green technologies from renewable energy power generation to smart on-site grid development. The extraordinary shift from a rural to an urban world is described; national plans are analyzed; so that future cities will be designed, built and implemented now - not 50 years from now. The struggle for the planet’s survival is being waged by the world’s cities. Clark and Cooke argue that cities are the key to mitigating climate change and reducing toxic greenhouse gas emissions. SGC introduces sustainable technologies; discusses the economics for implementing the solutions; and offers numerous examples to serve as pathways for cities to become smart, green, and thus carbon neutral.

Climate change is one of the most significant global challenges facing the world today. It is also a critical issue for the world’s cities. Now home to over half the world’s population, urban areas are significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions and are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Responding to climate change is a profound challenge. A variety of actors are involved in urban climate governance, with municipal governments, international organisations, and funding bodies pointing to cities as key arenas for response. This book provides the first critical introduction to these challenges, giving an overview of the science and policy of climate change at the global level and the emergence of climate change as an urban policy issue. It considers the challenges of governing climate change in the city in the context of the changing nature of urban politics, economics, society and infrastructures. It looks at how responses for mitigation and adaptation have emerged within the city, and the implications of climate change for social and environmental justice. Drawing on examples from cities in the north and south, and richly illustrated with detailed case-studies, this book will enable students to understand the potential and limits of addressing climate change at the urban level and to explore the consequences for our future cities. It will be essential reading for undergraduate students across the disciplines of geography, politics, sociology, urban studies, planning and science and technology studies.

A sustainable city has been defined in many ways. Yet, the most common understanding is a vision of the city that is able to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Central to this vision are two ideas: cities should meet social needs, especially of the poor, and not exceed the ability of the global environment to meet needs. After Sustainable Cities critically reviews what has happened to these priorities and asks whether these social commitments have been abandoned in a period of austerity governance and climate change and replaced by a darker and unfair city. This book provides the first comprehensive and comparative analysis of the new eco-logics reshaping conventional sustainable cities discourse and environmental priorities of cities in both the global north and south. The dominant discourse on sustainable cities, with a commitment to intergenerational equity, social justice and global responsibility, has come under increasing pressure. Under conditions of global ecological change, international financial and economic crisis and austerity governance new eco-logics are entering the urban sustainability lexicon – climate change, green growth, smart growth, resilience and vulnerability, ecological security. This book explores how these new eco-logics reshape our understanding of equity, justice and global responsibility, and how these more technologically and economically driven themes resonate and dissonate with conventional sustainable cities discourse. This book provides a warning that a more technologically driven and narrowly constructed economic agenda is driving ecological policy and weakening previous commitment to social justice and equity. After Sustainable Cities brings together leading researchers to provide a critical examination of these new logics and identity what sort of city is now emerging, as well as consider the longer-term implication on sustainable cities research and policy.

It argues that the formation and implementation of local climate change policy has been limited by the resources and powers of local government, and by conflicts between economic and environmental objectives.

This book examines the extent to which the environment is addressed in the sustainability plans of Canadian cities. It assesses if and to what extent select leading environmental priorities are addressed in the sustainability plans of sixteen Canadian cities, followed by analysis of efforts towards each priority. It scores and ranks cities against each environmental priority and highlights what makes some cities lead and others lag in environmental sustainability. The book unravels the complexity, similarities, and differences in environmental sustainability planning across major cities in Canada. The project reflects what’s working, who’s leading, and which environmental priorities support the sustainable city model. Climate change has exacerbated the impacts of flood, droughts, wildfire and storms, urban centers must account for sustainability to mitigate and adapt to a changing and uncertain landscape. It begins with robust and integrative sustainability plans that prioritize the environment. This book will make a timely contribution to the on-going debate regarding the ways and means to become a sustainable city. It reflects the on-going sustainable development discourse and deliberations to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. It cut across many SDGs in particular SDG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities. What makes this study unique is its special attention to environmental priorities within urban sustainability planning. This subject is topical and would appeal to both scholars and practitioners at local, regional, national, and global scales.