Urban Sustainability Transitions Research Articles

The role of place in shaping urban transformative capacity. The case of València (Spain)

This paper inquiries into the role of place in shaping urban transformative capacity to advance urban sustainability transitions. The urban transformative capacity notion developed by Wolfram (2016) provides us with a holistic framework to reconceptualize and address the specific contextual conditions that become relevant in a city to advance path-deviant changes towards sustainability. By comparing the energy and agri-food socio-technical systems in the city of València (Spain), insights have been gained into key contextual factors shaping urban transformative capacity; specifically, the previous local historical trajectories regarding each socio-technical system, the role of local social movements and local government as articulator of the different components of the framework. Additionally, the way different accounts of sustainability coexist and the interaction between different socio-technical systems at urban level appear as critical issues.

Creating careful circularities: Community composting in New York City.

While matters of food waste and soil have become vital research arenas, compost remains the Cinderella of human geographical enquiry. In response, this paper brings compost to the centre of debates at the intersection of diverse economies and circular economy. In particular, the concept of community composting and the care involved in such practices is used to offset and problematise the technoscientific bias in circular economy discourses. Extending feminist perspectives on care in soil studies, this paper focuses on the careful circularities that are realised through community composting in New York City. This case study provides not only a material space for examining community composting but also a unique opportunity to consider the colliding worlds of worth that operate in and around urban sustainability transitions to zero waste. Drawing empirical insights from interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, this paper argues for a sensitisation of circular economy policy and research to matters of care and diverse economies as a means to better understand motivations, justifications, and outcomes of efforts to reorient food systems onto more sustainable pathways. We argue that privileging care in this way helps to shift focus away from dominant narratives of "scaling‐up" towards sustainability to a more relational perspective that sees transformation in connecting, deepening, and even scaling‐down. This means attending to the micro as well as macro transformations needed to enact the required sustainability transitions.

The SDGs, Ecosystem Services and Cities: A Network Analysis of Current Research Innovation for Implementing Urban Sustainability

Ecosystem services are essential for cities and are key factors in achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Such services are best delivered through green infrastructure, which works in resourceful, multifunctional, synergistic, and environmentally sensitive ways to deliver ecosystem services and provide alternative cleaner pathways for the delivery of multiple urban services. It is unclear if current research supports the necessary linkages between ecosystem services, cities, and green infrastructure in order to achieve the SDGs. To answer this question, we conducted a systematic review analysing 3392 studies on the SDGs from the WoS database. The contents of 66 of those with relevance to ecosystem services and urban research were reviewed in depth. We applied network-analytic methods to map the relationships of different knowledge clusters of SDGs research (1) across time, (2) across disciplines, and (3) in relation to ecosystem services and cities. The results of our analysis show that research on the SDGs have developed stronger networks from 2010–2018, but this research has not been sustained. Further, whilst research on cities now occupies a central place in the SDGs literature, research on ecosystem services only shows tentative links to both green-infrastructure research and SDGs research. Such literature on urban green infrastructure remains peripheral to the central challenge of sustainable urban transitions. We conclude that when it comes to the SDGs, research articles typically consider urban services independently of green infrastructure. Further, it suggests that green infrastructure is not generally considered as a sustainable alternative to conventional urban infrastructures. To address this serious shortcoming, we recommend transdisciplinary approaches to link urban ecosystem and urban green infrastructure research to the 2030 global sustainability agenda.

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.

Sustainability transitions of urban food-energy-water-waste infrastructure: A living laboratory approach for circular economy

Urban areas often face versatile stressors (e.g., food security, congestion, energy shortage, water pollution, water scarcity, waste management, and storm and flooding), requiring better resilient and sustainable infrastructure systems. A system dynamics model (SDM), explored for the urban region of Orlando, Florida, acts as a multi-agent model for portraying material and energy flows across the food, energy, water, and waste (FEWW) sectors to account for urban sustainability transitions. The interlinkages between the FEWW sectors in the SDM are formulated with multiple layers of dependencies and interconnections of the available resources and their external climatic, environmental, and socioeconomic drivers through four case studies (scenarios). The vital components in the integrated FEWW infrastructure system include urban agriculture associated with the East End Market Urban Farm; energy from the fuel-diverse Curtis H. Stanton Energy Center; reclaimed wastewater treated by the Eastern Water Reclamation Facility, the Water Conserv II Water Reclamation Facility, and stormwater reuse; and solid waste management and biogas generation from the Orange County Landfill. The four scenarios evaluated climate change impacts, policy instruments, and land use teleconnection for waste management in the FEWW nexus, demonstrating regional synergies among these components. The use of multicriteria decision-making coupled with cost-benefit-risk tradeoff analysis supported the selection of case 4 as the most appropriate option as it provided greater renewable energy production and stormwater reuse. The SDM graphic user interface aids in the visualization of the dynamics of the FEWW nexus framework, demonstrating the specific role of renewable energy harvesting for sustainably transitioning Orlando into a circular economy.

Carbon emission and cost analysis of vehicle technologies for urban taxis

Our study compared vehicle technologies to reduce the carbon emissions of the Hong Kong taxi fleet. An environmental cost-benefit analysis was developed to measure the tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq) potentially abated and the incurred cost over the period 2021–2030 by the substitution of the current fleet with electric vehicles (EVs), fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), and more efficient internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). Our result highlights that FCEVs fueled with hydrogen from renewables and EVs with battery swap stations have lower abatement costs (i.e., cost incurred/carbon saved). The selection of a relatively low-cost option between EVs with battery swap stations and FCEVs with hydrogen from renewables depends on the reduction of electricity carbon intensity versus whether an economic and reliable import of hydrogen from renewables can be secured. Taxi miles traveled affect the vehicle technology abatement cost ranking. Overall, our study provides insight into sustainable urban taxi transition.

Integrated Management of Municipal Solid Waste in Brazil: A Case Study in São Paulo City

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Management Systems are constantly changing and innovating around the world. Thus, this work aimed to develop a methodology that allows identifying and understanding the main drivers, barriers and possible pathways for innovative waste management that accelerate the urban sustainability transition and how the political, social and institutional factors can impact operational, economic and environmental indicators in a municipality. The work was developed through a case study in the city of São Paulo (Brazil). It made it possible to identify the main actors involved in the processes of elaboration and conduct of public waste management policies, as well as operational impacts (97.79% of waste sent landfill), economic (US$126,51/ton.msw) and environmental (370.06 kg CO2eq/ton.msw), contributing to the definition of criteria for the construction of Integrated Solid Waste Management methodology. The results also made it possible to highlight guidelines and practices for the improvement of MSW public policies.

Scheduling wheel inspection for sustainable urban rail transit operation: A Bayesian approach

Scheduling the wheel inspection is critical to ensure the safety and sustainability of urban rail transit (URT) operation. The common wheel inspection is conducted on a fixed-interval basis, determined by empirical practices. However, the relationship between the distance of wheel travel and wheel wearing condition subject to track alignment is uncertain. A Bayesian model is developed to schedule the timings of wheel inspections which meet the safety thresholds for sustainable train operation. In the case study, the historic wheel inspection data of a real-world URT line was collected and analyzed, which indicates that wheel reprofiling follows a Weibull distribution. The suggested wheel inspection plan by the proposed model is compared with fix-interval inspection. The results show that the inspection frequency can be significantly reduced before yielding 180,900 km wheel travel, which satisfies the wheel reliability as 0.95.

The role of niche and regime intermediaries in building partnerships for urban transitions towards sustainability

ABSTRACT The recent literature on intermediaries in urban sustainability transitions has studied their role as a translator between innovative niches and incumbent regimes. In urban sustainability transitions, intermediaries from both civil society and public institutions seek to bridge diverging world views and communicate innovative lessons learned back to the incumbent regime. How these intermediaries are embedded in local governance contexts and how the political dynamics inherent to urban sustainability transitions play out remains a research gap. As these transitions require political consensus-building, we explore the interaction between Transition Town Initiatives (TTIs) as niche intermediaries seeking to transform society from below, and regime-based transition intermediaries operating from above. In a comparative study of four German cities, we analyse why and how niche and regime intermediaries build partnerships for urban transitions towards sustainability. While Transition Town Hannover and Bluepingu in Nuremberg have successfully established partnerships with the municipalities, Transition Town Göttingen and Transition Town Kassel have struggled in their efforts to do so. These differences can be explained by the interactions between structural conditions, political priorities and institution-building, as well as the proficiency of transition intermediaries.

Towards sustainable urban transition: A critical review of strategies and policies of urban village renewal in Shenzhen, China

Urban villages are typical informal settlements in Chinese cities where rural villages were gradually surrounded by urban built environments during urbanisation. In the era of urban renewal, these “urban enclaves” have been systematically demolished due to their “chaotic” building layouts and “backward” appearance. Existing policies related to the redevelopment of urban villages mainly follow a “demolish-rebuild” orientation, while lacking sufficient consideration of the mechanisms behind their environmental aspects and performances. In the long run, such a direction of urban redevelopment will hinder the achievement of sustainable development goals. This paper reviews the major municipal-level policies that relate to urban villages and urban renewal in Shenzhen through the adoption of systematic literature survey and content analysis. An analytical framework of “Three Contents and Six Instruments” is established to examine the highlighted and overlooked aspects of these policies. Results reveal that Shenzhen’s implemented policies aim to formulise, modernise, and consequently homogenise urban villages into “urban-like modern communities” through the following upgrades: urban infrastructure development, improvement of sanitation conditions, and building façade beautification. However, these approaches for “environmental enhancement” were not primarily based on identifying and understanding the real causes of the exhibiting “environmental problems.” Meanwhile, the inspiration and inheritance of informal rules, especially the involvement and participation of residents for the rehabilitation of urban villages have been entirely overlooked. These two overlooked crucial aspects should be introduced in policy-making and integrated with existing adopted strategies to match local contexts and resolve specific issues. The paper advocates to extend the connotation of the concept of environment from an infrastructural consideration to a mechanism-based and performance-orientation thinking during the making of urban renewal policies. It suggests that environment could be utilised as an inclusive medium to efficiently frame and link multiple aspects in the policies.

E-scooter regulation: The micro-politics of market-making for micro-mobility in Bergen

Micro-mobility market-making represents an under-studied but important aspect of urban transport sustainability transitions. Micro-mobility roll-out combines several critical elements: decarbonisation, digitalisation and public space interventions. We theorise the emergence of a micro-mobility market, drawing on innovation studies, micro-politics scholarship and commoning mobility literature, and critically discuss the relationship between innovation and regulation in this emerging market. We examine e-scooter roll-out in Bergen, Norway, using a structured analysis that interrogates knowledge, authority and power. Our empirical analysis employs expert interviews and focus group discussions with key transport sector stakeholders, including policymakers, practitioners and urban residents. We discuss insights in terms of implications for how micro-mobility markets are made and in turn make urban transport sustainability transitions. We argue that while micro-mobility can enable just low-carbon mobility transitions, market forces drive outcomes that may undermine urban sustainability agendas. We identify scope for dynamic regulation to engender low-carbon mobility in wider public interest.

Sustainable futures of agro-food? İzmir's sustainable agro-food transitions in the making

The city of İzmir-Turkey has recently attracted interest for a range of actions regarding agro-food and been perceived as a pioneer in providing alternatives to the practices of the incumbent agro-food regime. This paper builds on the multi-level perspective as a heuristic device to place these actions within discussions of sustainable agro-food transitions. Findings suggest that what could be considered as individual and isolated practices that diverge from agro-food regime may be viewed as sustainable niche alternatives from a transition perspective and hailed for sowing the seeds of an urban sustainability transition in the making. It is also demonstrated that making urban sustainability transitions in stabilized regimes such as agro-food, is as predicated on contestation and struggle as it is on policy devolution to localities, suggesting that sustainable agro-food transitions cannot be studied in isolation from the domain of urban policy and without incorporating adversarial struggle into the analysis.This paper comprises five sections. The introduction is followed by a conceptual section, outlining some of the key insights provided by the MLP and its application in an analysis of sustainability transitions. Following a description of the methodology employed, the focus turns to İzmir in the fourth section, offering empirical evidence that sustainable agro-food transitions are in the making in the city, which it does by addressing the generic pressures surrounding the agro-food regime and outlining the emerging local government-driven and bottom-up responses to these pressures that diverge from and run parallel to the prevailing agro-food regime. Finally, the paper reflects on the implications of the findings for the role of cities in terms of their contribution to the struggle for a sustainable future for agro-food.

Who buys certified firewood? Individual determinants of clean fuel adoption for promoting the sustainable energy transition in southern Chile

BackgroundTemuco and Padre Las Casas, Chile, have severe problems of air pollution due to the extensive use of firewood for heating. The local authorities have made various efforts to improve fuel quality and introduce greater regulation into the market. Certified firewood guarantees low levels of humidity (< 25%) and has better combustion, but its distribution is still limited and the variables that determine its purchase have scarcely been studied. The aim of this study is to identify the determinants of certified firewood consumption in urban southern Chile.MethodsThis study was conducted with a cross-sectional non-experimental design. Following a non-probability sampling by convenience, we applied 355 surveys to participants who use a firewood system. Nonparametric comparisons analyses were made to identify differences in the use of certified wood by socio demographic variables. In addition, an Ordinal Logistic Regression was used to analyze the relation between the use of certified firewood and various psycho-social variables.ResultsHalf of the users of wood-burning stoves participating in the study declared that they “never” (38%) or “almost never” (12%) used certified firewood to heat their home. Situational and product-related variables, such as price, availability, convenience and time are fundamental to people’s purchase behavior, partially explaining the low public interest shown in this product. On the other hand, the results indicate the influence of socio-demographic variables such as income level and the presence of older adults at home, as well as psycho-social variables which include how much participants pay attention to air quality, the information level they have about it, the feelings of discomfort due to air pollution and concern for its effects on health.ConclusionsFirst, increasing information levels and awareness among the population through communication campaigns is necessary to promote the sustainable urban energy transition in southern Chile. Second, information strategies may be complemented by boosting employment, driving investment, improving income, and strengthening the mechanisms of social protection, especially for the most vulnerable groups, to be effective. Finally, protecting and stimulating the formal trade in firewood could increase the points of sale of certified firewood, which would facilitate user access to cleaner fuels.

Urban Sustainability Transitions in the Global South: a Case Study of Curitiba and Accra

The existing literature is replete with examples of how sustainable urbanism unfolds in cities in the developed world. However, there is limited insight into how this concept is exemplified in the developing world. This paper poses the question, what strategies are appropriate for transitioning developing world cities towards greater sustainability. Drawing on insights from Curitiba and Accra, we argue that cities should not simply reproduce technical sustainability solutions successfully introduced elsewhere, but they should leverage indigenous potential to chart a sustainability path that is sensitive to conditions in the local context.

Optimization of Roof Greening Spatial Planning to Cool Down the Summer of the City

Knowing the optimal spatial distribution of urban green infrastructure (UGI) is vital to launch effective greening projects and formulate the promotion strategy for sustainable urban transition. But few studies have explored spatial organization of UGI on an urban scale to maximize its benefits for urban renewal. Here, we developed a spatial optimization method that combines an urban cooling model and a genetic algorithm to study the optimized geographical arrangement of roof greening in Kowloon, Hong Kong. Two objectives are compared regarding the optimized spatial pattern and cooling effects: maximize the mean air temperature reduction and minimize population heat exposure. Optimization can reduce more air temperature than random distribution when the roof greening coverage target ranges between 30% and 70%. When the target increases, the geographical locations of prioritized buildings with roof greening proportion ranking the top quarter move from the near-forest area to the inner city, while the lower greening proportions are mostly found on dense and small-rooftop buildings. The difference of prioritized buildings between the two objectives becomes significant when the target increases, which shows the trade-offs between the cooling potential and population exposure among regions. Our analytic approach contributes to transforming strategies into planning solutions toward large-scale implementation.

Shanghai’s Regenerated Industrial Waterfronts: Urban Lab for Sustainability Transitions?

In China, Shanghai often serves as a place to introduce and try out new ideas. This is certainly the case with experimental urban planning and design solutions and sustainability transitions. This article identifies and evaluates the role of pilot projects and demonstration zones along the Huangpu River. These clusters and zones are supposed to guide the urban regeneration of the former industrial waterfronts and to accelerate innovative development in Shanghai and the wider Yangtze Delta Region. The Huangpu River as a whole is considered an urban lab and a showcase of ecological civilisation policies, with a strong ‘people oriented’ focus on improving the overall quality and attractiveness of urban life. Following three decades of rapid urban expansion, Shanghai’s urban development model is shifting toward one that emphasizes densification and the reuse of existing elements. The motto of Shanghai’s latest master plan is “Striving for an Excellent Global City.” One of the pathways to realize this expectation is the creation of thematic clusters for creative industries, financial institutes, AI, and technology, media and telecommunication industries. These clusters are high-density investment projects meant to support and accelerate the transformation of Shanghai into a service economy. There are important similarities between these projects in Shanghai and the role of urban labs in theories of sustainability transitions. Drawing on these theories and those of ecological civilization, this article examines how these so-called ‘experimental’ urban megaprojects along the river contribute to Shanghai’s effort to take the lead in developing sustainable urban transitions.

Inclusion in urban environmental governance of small and intermediary cities of the global South

Urban sustainability is governed beyond the urban scale through trans-local networks and assemblages of actors and institutions. There is an emerging field of interest that aims to understand the outcomes of urban sustainability interventions, both from the environmental and social equity perspectives. This paper contributes to the literature on governing urban environmental sustainability transitions, with a distinct focus on small and intermediary cities of the global South. Actors in cities of the global South are adopting a variety of ways towards achieving urban sustainability transitions in the realm of disaster risk reduction, adaptation building, greenhouse gas emission reduction, and natural resource management. Our paper employs an analytical framework derived from Bai et. al. (2010) to chart the actors, drivers, finances, barriers, and the inclusivity and sustainability outcomes in seven interventions led by different actors. Five of the cases are drawn extensively from literature, while two case studies reflect on our primary engagement in the cities of Nakuru in Kenya and Udon Thani in Thailand. We find that the actors leading and financing the projects and the drivers of the intervention can explain differential outcomes in the inclusion processes and the framing of environmental solutions. We then delineate the opportunities and barriers to achieve multi-level governance approaches that are relevant to planning transformations in the South.

Social Innovation for Sustainable Urban Developmental Transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Leveraging Economic Ecosystems and the Entrepreneurial State

This study theorizes social innovation-based transitions to sustainable urban development from the perspective of the African urban condition, highlighting that large infrastructure and service provision deficits, poverty, inequality, heavy import dependence and the prevalence of dual formal–informal sector systems are key factors to account for in a just, sustainable urban African developmental transition. It identifies an opportunity space that can be leveraged for urban and broader transitions to sustainability on the continent by leveraging “economic ecosystems” for local scale social innovation-based development interventions. It theorizes that multi-level transitions to sustainability can be engendered by adopting an entrepreneurial state led approach at local scales by using economic ecosystems as the framework to (1) stimulate social innovation-based entrepreneurship that meets local and local–regional demands through decentralized, low cost, small-scale infrastructures, technologies and services, (2) leverage social innovation-based economic ecosystems for catalyzing multi-scalar transitions to sustainability, (3) recast the role of the entrepreneurial state, specifically in relation to social innovation and sustainable urban development (SUD) in Africa and (4) bridge formal–informal sector dualism. This framing prioritizes local economic development over centralized, state-led interventions that involve grand-scale masterplans, wholly new satellite cities and bulk infrastructure deployments in conceptualizing sustainable urban development transitions in Africa.

The role of the local government in China's urban sustainability transition: A case study of Wuxi's solar development

Recent studies on socio-technical transition have elaborated the multi-level perspective through a power-sensitive view of agency and a symmetrical approach to niche-regime relations. This paper adopts this modified framework of the multi-level perspective to unpack the mechanisms of urban sustainability transition in China. It develops two arguments through a case study of the role of the local government in solar development in Wuxi city. First, the evolving alignments between niche, regime and landscape processes of the socio-technical systems of Chinese cities are mediated by conflicts between local governments and their upper-level counterparts as they share power over urban development. Second, instead of being identified as either regime supporters or niche advocates, Chinese local governments are best described as embodying both roles in urban sustainability transition as they struggle to balance their economic and environmental objectives. These two arguments point to a need to examine sustainability transition in Chinese cities with attention to the leadership of the local government in aligning the actions of various actors in and beyond the city who can stabilise and disrupt existing socio-technical configurations.

Building resilient cities with stringent pollution controls: A case study of robust planning of Shenzhen City’s urban agriculture system

Building sustainable and resilient cities has become one of the most pressing development challenges facing the world today. Ever-increasing environmental pressures – from emission reduction to pollution prevention – underline the need to balance economic progress with the concern for the environment. Finding new ways of facilitating economic growth within environmental constraints is central to urban sustainable development. In this study, we develop a robust-optimization-based urban agriculture planning (ROB-UAP) model to help decision makers make decisions that are both economically viable and environmentally sustainable. The model enables consideration of more stringent pollution controls in response to the inherent uncertainty in the complex system. Shenzhen City, as the economic engine of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, also faces challenges of urban sustainability transitions. The proposed model is applied to the planning problem of Shenzhen City’s urban agriculture system to support environment-oriented agricultural restructuring. We produce six risk-based scenarios to help evaluate the trade-offs between economic returns and environmental impacts. The results show that under expected economic conditions the overall output of the system could be increased by at least 8%, indicating that agricultural restructuring could indeed contribute to the economic growth of the city. In addition, the total amount of the major pollutants could be more or less reduced in the risk-averse and risk-tolerant scenarios; thereby delivering robust decision-making is essential for enabling environmentally low-impact outcomes in planning practices.