Abstract
In Texas and elsewhere, the looming realities of rapid population growth and intensifying effects of climate change mean that the things we rely on to live—water, energy, dependable infrastructure, social cohesion, and an ecosystem to support them—are exposed to unprecedented risk. Limited resources will be in ever greater demand and the environmental stress from prolonged droughts, record-breaking heat waves, and destructive floods will increase. Existing long-term trends and behaviors will not be sustainable. That is our current trajectory, but we can still change course. Significant advances in information communication technologies and big data, combined with new frameworks for thinking about urban places as social–ecological–technical systems, and an increasing movement towards transdisciplinary scholarship and practice sets the foundation and framework for a metropolitan observatory. Yet, more is required than an infrastructure for data. Making cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable will require that data become actionable knowledge that change policy and practice. Research and development of urban sustainability and resilience knowledge is burgeoning, yet the uptake to policy has been slow. An integrative and holistic approach is necessary to develop effective sustainability science that synthesizes different sources of knowledge, relevant disciplines, multi-sectoral alliances, and connections to policy-makers and the public. To address these challenges and opportunities, we developed a conceptual framework for a “metropolitan observatory” to generate standardized long-term, large-scale datasets about social, ecological, and technical dimensions of metropolitan systems. We apply this conceptual model in Texas, known as the Texas Metro Observatory, to advance strategic research and decision-making at the intersection of urbanization and climate change. The Texas Metro Observatory project is part of Planet Texas 2050, a University of Texas Austin grand challenge initiative.
Highlights
An array of scientific, policy, and planning agendas have been launched in recent decades in response to the increasingly urban planet
Urban areas are the intellectual and economic engines of our society, generating 80% of global gross domestic product (GDP) and housing 55% of the global population (80% in U.S.), and rising
With rapid urbanization and growing infrastructure demands, the paths taken for urban development in the decade will have long-term implications for social, ecological, and technical systems. This is reflected in the inclusion of ‘sustainable cities and communities’ as one of the 17 global sustainable development goals (SDGs) for 2030
Summary
Policy, and planning agendas have been launched in recent decades in response to the increasingly urban planet. With rapid urbanization and growing infrastructure demands, the paths taken for urban development in the decade will have long-term implications for social, ecological, and technical systems. This is reflected in the inclusion of ‘sustainable cities and communities’ as one of the 17 global sustainable development goals (SDGs) for 2030. In response to the challenges and multidimensional demands, urbanization brings about a unique window of opportunity for the co-creation and diffusion of innovative sustainable solutions This parallels the growing recognition among policy- and decision-makers that cities have an important role to play in local and global sustainability.
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