Sustainable Urban Transformations Research Articles

Sustainable urban transformations based on integrated microgrid designs

The impacts of natural hazards on infrastructure, enhanced by climate change, are increasingly more severe emphasizing the necessity of resilient energy grids. Microgrids, tailored energy systems for specific neighbourhoods and districts, play a pivotal role in sustaining energy supply during main grid outages. These solutions not only mitigate economic losses and well-being disruptions against escalating hazards but also enhance city resilience in alignment with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11. However, disregarding socioeconomic factors in defining microgrid boundaries risks perpetuating inequalities and impeding progress towards other SDG 11 targets, including fair democratic participation. Our approach integrates social and technical indicators to bolster urban microgrid planning. Through a case study in a US county, we illustrate how integrated microgrid planning effectively intertwines urban resilience, well-being and equity while promoting sustainable development. This study underscores the importance of integrated microgrid planning for sustainable and resilient urban transformation amid environmental and societal challenges.

The 15-minute city concept: The case study within a neighbourhood of Thessaloniki.

Cities, crucial cultural hubs, mould individual and group identities. The global urban expansion, with over half the population in urban areas, presents interconnected challenges such as pollution, poverty, inequality, ageing infrastructure, resource overconsumption, land use changes, biodiversity impact and climate change. Addressing these demands ambitious actions targeting political, social and economic systems for transformative change. The theoretical framework guiding city transformation centres on an interdisciplinary approach influenced by the Smart and Green Transition. The '15-minute city' concept, emphasizing human scale and urban experience, proposes that cities enable residents to meet daily needs within a short walk or bike ride. The aim of this study was the exploration of its implementation in Greek cities, particularly Thessaloniki, which reveals inherent characteristics supporting the 15-minute concept. Through an interdisciplinary approach rooted in the Smart and Green Transition framework, the research provides concrete guidance for policymakers in tailoring urban planning strategies, allocating resources effectively and crafting policies conducive to successful and sustainable urban transformations. Moreover, prioritizing public engagement highlights the significance of community involvement in shaping urban development plans, ensuring that proposed initiatives align with residents' needs and desires. In essence, this research contributes tangible insights and actionable recommendations for Greek cities, paving the way for more liveable, resilient and sustainable urban environments.

Whose visions and goals for sustainability? Planning, participation and depoliticisation in new urban neighbourhoods in Sweden

Visions and goals for sustainability in new neighbourhoods aim to engage developers and citizens in the planning process. Against the backdrop of the market-oriented Swedish planning system, this article aims to deepen the understanding of how planners balance different interests in the formulation of visions and goals in new sustainability-profiled neighbourhoods, and the implications for sustainability. The concepts of politicisation and depoliticisation are used to understand how different interests are mobilised through the visions and goals in two new sustainability-profiled neighbourhoods in Sweden. Interviews with planners illustrate that the participation in the visionary planning largely targeted the developers. The article displays a form of depoliticised market-orientated sustainability planning. This is reflected already in the early formulation of visions and goals, as the planners facilitate the participation of developers at the expense of citizen participation. The article concludes with reflections on the role of the planner in planning for sustainable urban transformations.

Interplay of Engineering Skills, Aesthetic Creativity, and Ethical Judgement in the Creation of Sustainable Urban Transformations

This paper examines a PBL project module “Sustainable Urban Transformation” in an Urban Design master’s education. The module combines urban design and hydrology engineering. Within the module, students are supported by lectures and study circles on various dimensions of sustainability, especially vis-a-vis climate change. However, they are left with the freedom to choose how they balance between design and engineering approaches when they give a physical form for sustainability in the site transformation projects with which they work through the semester. This paper discusses the development of their skills building on three Aristotelean concepts: techne (engineering), poiesis (aesthetic form-giving), and phronesis (making of ethical judgments). The last two concepts, the paper argues, are especially important when at issue is design education. Based on an analysis of the student projects in Fall 2022, the paper examines whether and how the students manage to find a balance between engineering skills, on the one hand, and aesthetic creativity and ethical judgement, on the other hand, in their project work.

Critical pedagogical designs for SETS knowledge co-production: online peer- and problem-based learning by and for early career green infrastructure experts

Despite a growing understanding of the importance of knowledge co-production for just and sustainable urban transformations, early career green infrastructure experts typically lack opportunities to practice transdisciplinary knowledge co-production approaches within their normal training and professional development. However, using online collaboration technologies combined with peer- and problem-based learning can help address this gap by putting early career green infrastructure experts in charge of organizing their own knowledge co-production activities. Using the case study of an online symposia series focused on social-ecological-technological systems approaches to holistic green infrastructure implementation, we discuss how critical pedagogical designs help create favorable conditions for transdisciplinary knowledge co-production. Our work suggests that the early career position offers a unique standpoint from which to better understand the limitations of current institutional structures of expertise, with a view towards their transformation through collective action.

Opportunities and Challenges for the Creation and Governance of Productive Landscapes in Urban Transformations: The Case of Klosterøya Urban Fruit Forest Park

Former industrial areas in Europe are being redeveloped into residential and recreational spaces, often including sustainability initiatives. This study explores how the co-governance and management of a productive urban open space contributes to sustainable transformations, and aims to identify the opportunities and challenges that multi-actor design teams face when co-designing sustainable solutions. To achieve this goal, the landscape design process in Klosterøya urban park in Skien municipality, Norway, a privately owned yet publicly regulated park, is used as a case study in co-governance and analysed using the theoretical combined governance and management model developed. Data were collected through the observations of project meetings, document analysis and semi-structured interviews with the multi-actor design team. The results indicated that the working method, through co-creation, produced opportunities for sustainable urban agriculture, enhanced biodiversity, testbeds and water and resource circularities in the landscape, while ensuring a learning process and users’ involvement. Willingness to invest due to the lack of technical knowledge and soil contamination are revealed as key challenges. Conclusions emphasise the significance of co-creative landscape practices for productive urban open spaces and sustainable urban transformations, providing insights for an informed analysis of co-governance cases through the combined governance and management model.

Continuity and Change: Socio-Spatial Practices in Bamberg's World Heritage Urban Horticulture

The German city of Bamberg offers lessons in how continuity and change interact within the context of the inner-urban land use of commercial horticulture, thereby informing sustainable urban transformations in historic cities. The case of Bamberg shows that urban food production is not just well-established, but a consistent and centuries-old cultural structure that influences the fabric of today’s city. In this article, we discuss what forms of urban horticulture (and thus also food production) are evident from Bamberg’s past and which may prevail in the future. Two questions structure our analysis. First, how are historical sites and spatial structures of horticulture shaped in the tension between continuity and change? Second, which practices/forms of urban horticulture are taken up and how are they updated by which actors? Both the heritage and contemporary practices of urban horticulture, it is argued, can be conceived of as a resource to create sustainable places and ways of life for citizens. Two new contributions result from this work. First, the article highlights the ongoing cultural heritage dimensions of urban horticulture in a field still dominated by eco-technical contributions associated with post-industrial innovation in urban planning; in this respect, heritage should be recognised as a dynamic that shapes urban change. In addition, secondly, the application of Luhmannian concepts of evolution in social systems reinforces the interdependence of continuity and change in urban settings.

The Economic Evaluation of Projects as a Structuring Discipline of Learning Processes to Support Decision-Making in Sustainable Urban Transformations

This paper is based on the following research questions: i) In which way could the discipline Economic Evaluation of Projects contribute to conveying the sustainability concept in urban settings among master’s degree students? What are the methods/techniques that can support decision processes of sustainable urban transformation? In response to the two research questions, the paper proposes a multi-methodological framework as a design tool for students (future professionals) aimed at representing the decision problem from a sustainable planning perspective. Through a Problem-Based Learning approach based on a case study, the proposed framework considers: SWOT Analysis, Stakeholder Analysis (SA), Multicriteria Analysis (MCDA), Cash Flow Analysis (CFA), and the application of the Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment Tools (NSATools). The multi-methodological framework has been applied to an experimental teaching case study as part of the Economic Evaluation of Projects module demonstrating its effectiveness in terms of sustainable spatial planning and structuring of the decision process from a multi-actor perspective. Future directions of the research are aimed at tackling two major limitations of the multi-methodological framework as the need to closely reflect a real decision process through an iterative framework and the sometimes hard interpretation of some elements of urban sustainability.

Hybrid and Multi-Level Adaptive Governance for Sustainable Urban Transformations in the Global South: A Secondary City Case Study

The water governance crisis has critical implications for the transformation of cities through establishment of sustainable water management practices. Adaptive governance approaches, with their potential to address global water governance challenges, are emerging in the context of the global South (GS). A key feature of adaptive governance is its enabling context, or hybridized governance approach which bridges organizational and network activities across multiple implementation scales. Transforming urban water management toward sustainable water governance practices requires flexibility and agility, and a willingness to enable new ideas, features often associated with smaller and newer cities (secondary cities) which are less constrained than the major cities. However, unpacking their potentiality and the scope of such secondary cities to lead the way in transitioning to sustainable water governance remains under-researched. To address this gap, a qualitative study in a representative GS secondary city (Mymensingh in Bangladesh) was undertaken to investigate whether national and local strategies directed toward improving governance and management capacity of the local municipality are yielding sustainable transformations. We identified a significant shift within the governance regime that influences existing power dynamics and decision-making for the delivery of urban water services. Within the traditional state-led governance structure, a hybridized governance is emerging that builds both institutional and actor capacity. However, these hybridized governance activities are strongly dependent on (international) donor investment and guidance, therefore the presence or absence of donor support will likely determine the impact of these activities in the future.

How can green events accelerate urban sustainability transitions? Insights from eight German regional garden shows

ABSTRACT This paper builds on an acceleration mechanisms framework from transition studies and analyzes the role of green events for sustainable urban transformations. We study eight regional garden shows in German small and medium-sized cities, using interview and document data as well as on-site visits for an in-depth qualitative analysis. Our findings reveal that garden shows contribute to urban sustainability through implementing green projects and supporting small initiatives. We find that instrumentalizing and upscaling are crucial mechanisms for accelerating urban transitions, while replicating, partnering and embedding play a supporting role. The importance of these mechanisms, however, varies over time.

Impacts of the Sharing Economy on Urban Sustainability: The Perceptions of Municipal Governments and Sharing Organisations

By changing the institutionalised practices associated with resource distribution, the sharing economy could support sustainable urban transformations. However, its impacts on urban sustainability are unknown and contested, and key actors hold different perceptions about them. Understanding how they frame these impacts could help solve conflicts and outline what can be done to influence the development of the sharing economy in a way that fosters urban sustainability. This study explores the diversity of these frames across actors (sharing economy organisations and municipalities), segments (accommodation, bicycle, and car sharing), and cities (Amsterdam and Toronto). A framework of the impacts on urban sustainability was developed following a systematic literature review. This then guided the analysis of secondary data and 51 interviews with key actors. Results show that accommodation sharing is framed most negatively due to its impact on urban liveability. Bicycle sharing is surrounded by less conflict. Still, in Amsterdam, which has a well-functioning bicycle infrastructure, it is viewed less positively than in Toronto. Car sharing is the most positively framed segment in Amsterdam as its potentials to lower emissions align with municipal sustainability agendas. Practical insights for negotiations between sharing economy organisations and municipalities to advance urban sustainability are proposed.

Data-driven smart sustainable cities of the future: An evidence synthesis approach to a comprehensive state-of-the-art literature review

Abstract Sustainable cities are currently undergoing unprecedented transformative changes in light of the recent paradigm shift in science and technology brought on by big data science and analytics. These marked changes are motivated by the increased need to tackle the problematicity surrounding sustainable cities as quintessential complex systems in terms of their development planning, operational management, and fragmentary design strategies and technology solutions. That is to say, sustainable cities are increasingly embracing and leveraging what smart cities have to offer in terms of big data technologies and their novel applications in an attempt to effectively deal with the complexities they inherently embody and to monitor, evaluate, and improve their performance with respect to sustainability—under what has been termed “data-driven smart sustainable cities.” This new area is a significant gap in and of itself—as it is still in its infancy—that this paper seeks to fill together with to what extent the integration of sustainable urbanism and smart urbanism is addressed and what directions and forms it takes. Using a compelling evidence synthesis approach, this paper provides a comprehensive state-of-the-art literature review of the flourishing field of data-driven smart sustainable cities. This study corroborates that big data technologies will change sustainable urbanism in fundamental and irreversible ways, bringing new and innovative ways of monitoring, understanding, analyzing, planning, and managing sustainable cities. It reveals that the evolving development planning approaches and operational management mechanisms enabled by data-driven technologies are of crucial importance to increase and maintain the contribution of sustainable cities to the goals of sustainability in the face of urbanization. However, what smart urbanism entails and the way it functions raises several critical questions, including whether the policy and governance of data-driven smart sustainable cities of the future will become too technocentric and technocratic respectively, but also with regard to other aspects of social and environmental sustainability. Addressing these important contemporary concerns is of equal importance in achieving the desired outcomes of sustainability. This review and critique of the existing work on the prevailing and emerging paradigms of urbanism provides a valuable reference for scholars and practitioners and the necessary material to inform them of the latest developments in the burgeoning field of data-driven smart sustainable cities. In addition, by shedding light on the increasing adoption and uptake of big data technologies in sustainable urbanism, this study seeks to help policymakers and planners assess the pros and cons of smart urbanism when effectuating sustainable urban transformations in the era of big data, as well as to stimulate prospective research and further critical debates on the topic.

The Five I Model of Sustainability Leadership: Lessons from the Zibi One Planet Living sustainable urban development

Abstract In this paper, we explore the role of leadership in advancing sustainable and resilient construction and development projects. In contrast to leadership theories that focus on individual differences in leadership styles or competencies, we explore what leaders actually do to promote sustainable construction within a complex, multi-stakeholder context. Using the Zibi Development in Canada's capital as a case study, we uncover five specific leadership tasks required to drive more sustainable urban transformations: inspirational work, integrative work, identity work, implementation work and institutional work. Our primary contribution is therefore the development of the 5I model of sustainability leadership, grounded in practice, which describes the hard work of leadership required for One Planet Living.

Catalyzing sustainable urban transformations towards smarter, healthier cities through urban ecological infrastructure, regenerative development, eco towns and regional prosperity

This 'Call for Papers' (CfPs) for a Special Volume of Journal of Cleaner Production (SV) is focused upon various dimensions of sustainable urban transformations applied to the cities across different scales, which range from buildings, neighborhoods, cities and regions. Theme 1 calls for theoretical definitions, future visions or imaginaries, characteristics of catalyzing sustainable urban transformation (including smart city, healthy city, eco-city, regenerative city and related Concepts). Another theme is pathways towards urban models that support sustainable urban transformation. Another one is obstacles, benefits and enablers for the implementation of sustainable urban transformation. Authors intending to participate to this CfPs are informed that the editorial team and Elsevier staff will do their best to adhere to the time-schedule, but that is also dependent upon authors and reviewers co-working with us on this cooperative journey.

Global urbanization as a shifting context for applying ecological science toward the sustainable city

There is an abundance of conceptual frameworks relevant to sustainability in urban systems. However, to advance urban ecological science and its application to sustainable urban transformations, key existing frameworks must be synthesized. This paper is a conceptual synthesis cast in essay form in order to encompass a broad range of relevant ideas. It starts from the premise that the familiar models of metropolitan and megalopolitan urban structure, of industrially driven urban development, and of the contrasts between urban and non‐urban lands are manifestly inadequate representations of evolving global reality. Such inadequacy is illustrated with examples from the United States and from China. Both the form and the interactions involved in contemporary urbanization and urban change suggest the need for a new integrated framework synthesizing two existing yet still evolving concepts: (1) The urban megaregion framework accommodates the spatial extent, interdigitation of contrasting land uses, and the linked spatial relations between nominally urban and nominally rural areas. (2) The new concept of the continuum of urbanity emphasizes the shifts in livelihood and lifestyle driven by regional and global teleconnections and their joint effects on local environments and landscapes. Together these frameworks suggest a common conceptual structure for addressing urban areas of different ages, sizes, forms, and dynamics in both urbanizing and urbanized areas in developing and developed countries and regions. The synthesis of frameworks points to empirical research needs, and has the potential to better match sustainability plans and actions with the diverse urban forms and dynamics now appearing around the world.

Rebranding the Neoliberal City: Urban Nature as Spectacle, Medium, and Agency

Post-industrial sites are frequently seen as aesthetically sublime, considered as iconic reminders of an ongoing de-industrialization, and interpreted as symbols of the failure of the industrial age. Simultaneously they are also locations to re-imagine, reinvent and recover landscapes as agents for essential, sustainable, and environmentally-just urban transformations. The most visible discourses on post-industrial urban sites emphasize issues of environmental justice, pollution mitigation, adaptive reuse, and, in the context of urban redevelopment and renewal, benefits and performances based on ecological functions and processes. On the one hand, current concepts such as “landscape urbanism”, “sustainable urbanism” and “ecological urbanism” (as conceptual and practical alternatives to the mainstream forces of urban development) suggest ecology as a redemptive agent. Conversely, established and new hegemonial agendas of global development and neoliberal capitalization focus on political and economic interests involved in the complex processes of urban renewal, gentrification, redevelopment. These competing discourses construct post-industrial sites as highly contested terrains, and variously instrumentalize emergent ecologies and “urban nature”. Post-industrial sites themselves can be decoded as physical manifestations (material) – and representations (medium) – of such discourses. In this context, the present paper analyzes the High Line in New York City, one of the most recent iconic design projects on a post-industrial urban site. It draws on WJT Mitchell who frames city and urban space as “both represented and presented space, both a signifier and a signified and uses the idea that spaces operates simultaneously as real place and a way of seeing. It will argue that the agency of physical and material change in urban spaces extends beyond its economic, functional and ecological performances into the aesthetic-representational practices of “seeing” and “being seen”.

Urban development projects catalyst for sustainable transformations: the need for entrepreneurial political leadership

This article argues that lessons for sustainable urban transformations can be learned from a more precise understanding of urban political leadership in decision-making processes of far-reaching urban development projects. While urban governance networks and distributed forms of governing may be typical of contemporary urban political configurations, our results show the necessity of entrepreneurial political leadership in developing an agenda for sustainable urban transformations, in connecting policy streams and engaging stakeholders, and in aligning and deliberating between different interests. To map the role, impact and strategic behaviour of the dominant actors, especially the mayor, we reconstructed thoroughly the decision-making processes of three urban projects in the city of Kortrijk (Belgium). For this multiple case study we used a complexity-acknowledging perspective and opted for qualitative research techniques.

Co-creating sustainability: cross-sector university collaborations for driving sustainable urban transformations

Abstract This paper attempts to ‘connect the dots’ between several cases and provide a comprehensive global analysis of the trend of universities reaching across campus boundaries to form partnerships with government, industry and civic organisations to drive an urban sustainability transformation. We refer to this emerging and possibly new academic function as ‘co-creation for sustainability’. Our paper consists of three sections. In the first, we interpret this academic trend from a sociohistorical perspective based on previous social contributions of the university. Secondly, we conduct a macro-level empirical analysis based upon 27 partnerships from Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. Here we propose a framework for analysing and comparing key characteristics and commonalties across a large range of cases. We then supplement this with a micro-level study of two cases from Switzerland and the USA (2000 Watt Society Pilot Region Basel programme by Novatlantis and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) domain and Rust to Green Utica by Cornell University). Here we examine closer the specific characteristics, processes, key outcomes and challenges encountered in each partnership. It is expected that this study can provide a valuable contribution to what is potentially a new area of academic research and a powerful way of advancing urban sustainability transformations.