Questions of sustainability continue to play a major role in urban development and governance discussions and debates. As the locus of most of humanity’s production, consumption, and mobility practices, cities cannot be anything other than major contributors to our inter-connected social, economic, and environmental crises. Yet, it does not necessarily follow that because cities are a major part of the sustainability problem, they are also the primary locus of sustainability solutions.
Urban sustainability policy has long had a localist focus, proceeding from a city-centric localist ontology that often leads to attempts to achieve “sustainability in one place”. These policies, while well-intentioned and indeed effective in some regards, can nonetheless produce unintended consequences such as eco-gentrification, socio-spatial polarization, and more and longer commuting. At the heart of the problem is the tendency to treat cities (or neighborhoods) as entities unto themselves, while the spatial constitution of the processes that shape cities—and their sustainability challenges—is multi-faceted and diverse, often reaching far beyond municipal boundaries and far ‘above’ municipal government.
Rather than understanding cities as discrete places or territories in charge of their own destinies, urban scholars increasingly look to understand cities relationally—as nodes of interaction in multiple fields of spatially articulating processes. If one moves away from the notion of cities as discrete entities to cities as relationally produced, one also has to rethink urban governance. The concept of urban governance cannot be limited to the territorially bounded politics and policies of city councils or neighborhood associations. Rather, urban governance has multiple scales, territories, networks, and places. It articulates in complex ways with profound consequences for greener development strategies. The implications of this broader relational conceptualization for urban sustainability governance is the focus of this Research Topic.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
• New forms of regional politics that recognize the interdependencies of cities and suburbs in carbon mitigation and adaptation efforts
• NGO activism around ‘regionalizing’ urban sustainability policies and programs
• Green deployment of smart city technologies for regional economies and major services (utilities, transit, air quality, etc.)
• Novel theoretical critiques of ‘methodological cityism’ in sustainability discourses
• Multi-scalar mappings of “local” carbon action
• Influence of transnational climate networks on metropolitan-scale sustainability policies and programs
• Role of regional service provides and authorities in addressing uneven local geographies of sustainability
• Sustainable and active transportation initiatives and their effects on land and housing markets
• Sustainability initiatives in relationship to racial, gender, and spatial divisions of labour
• The role of multi-scalar state relationships in advancing sustainability policy
• Multi-scalar state relationships and social housing provision
• Social movements, sustainability policy, and the geographically differentiated state
• The causes of, and alternatives to, eco-gentrification
• Successful sustainability policy in a relational world
Questions of sustainability continue to play a major role in urban development and governance discussions and debates. As the locus of most of humanity’s production, consumption, and mobility practices, cities cannot be anything other than major contributors to our inter-connected social, economic, and environmental crises. Yet, it does not necessarily follow that because cities are a major part of the sustainability problem, they are also the primary locus of sustainability solutions.
Urban sustainability policy has long had a localist focus, proceeding from a city-centric localist ontology that often leads to attempts to achieve “sustainability in one place”. These policies, while well-intentioned and indeed effective in some regards, can nonetheless produce unintended consequences such as eco-gentrification, socio-spatial polarization, and more and longer commuting. At the heart of the problem is the tendency to treat cities (or neighborhoods) as entities unto themselves, while the spatial constitution of the processes that shape cities—and their sustainability challenges—is multi-faceted and diverse, often reaching far beyond municipal boundaries and far ‘above’ municipal government.
Rather than understanding cities as discrete places or territories in charge of their own destinies, urban scholars increasingly look to understand cities relationally—as nodes of interaction in multiple fields of spatially articulating processes. If one moves away from the notion of cities as discrete entities to cities as relationally produced, one also has to rethink urban governance. The concept of urban governance cannot be limited to the territorially bounded politics and policies of city councils or neighborhood associations. Rather, urban governance has multiple scales, territories, networks, and places. It articulates in complex ways with profound consequences for greener development strategies. The implications of this broader relational conceptualization for urban sustainability governance is the focus of this Research Topic.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
• New forms of regional politics that recognize the interdependencies of cities and suburbs in carbon mitigation and adaptation efforts
• NGO activism around ‘regionalizing’ urban sustainability policies and programs
• Green deployment of smart city technologies for regional economies and major services (utilities, transit, air quality, etc.)
• Novel theoretical critiques of ‘methodological cityism’ in sustainability discourses
• Multi-scalar mappings of “local” carbon action
• Influence of transnational climate networks on metropolitan-scale sustainability policies and programs
• Role of regional service provides and authorities in addressing uneven local geographies of sustainability
• Sustainable and active transportation initiatives and their effects on land and housing markets
• Sustainability initiatives in relationship to racial, gender, and spatial divisions of labour
• The role of multi-scalar state relationships in advancing sustainability policy
• Multi-scalar state relationships and social housing provision
• Social movements, sustainability policy, and the geographically differentiated state
• The causes of, and alternatives to, eco-gentrification
• Successful sustainability policy in a relational world
