The body without organs is a poetic and philosophical concept used by Deleuze. A suggestive image that refers to freedom, desire and the quest for new ways to organize embodied complexity without organs. In this moment of systemic polycrisis, cities can be understood themselves as bodies, or else, the planet can be seen as a background network framing-in body-like cities.

City and sustainability are terms that belong to completely different scales but are inevitably intertwined. Although the city is no longer the limited urban space opposed to the open countryside, the idea of the city as a recognizable identity and place remains strongly ingrained in the collective imagination. In the realm of research, the city represents an identifiable and complex body where data can be obtained, experiments and studies conducted, and results evaluated. Sustainability is a cross-cutting concept that, at the risk of becoming overused, continues to evolve and transcends the boundaries of the urban and anthropogenic realms, serving as a necessary nexus to ensure the survival of the planet and our species.

In this special issue of Sustainable Cities, we aim to compile, almost as a manifesto, studies and research on the city that allow us to conceive, plan, and implement a future city capable of successfully addressing the problems induced by the global ‘polycrisis' (Davos Summit 2023) caused by climate change and other social and technological factors such as the impact of AI, a global increase in autocratic regimes, forced migrations and other planetary-level issues. We need cities where problems are understood in a much more collaborative and symbiotic manner, perhaps evolving the urban ecosystem itself towards behaviors more akin to those of an integral living organism. We also aim to emphasise the multidisciplinary dimension needed to address a crisis and a problem that affects all sectors and actors in society on a global scale.

In this regard, we gather research in any knowledge fields of research areas from which it is possible to address urban sustainability. An initial but non-exclusive list includes the following topics:

• Adaptation of the city to climate change; strategies based on technology, sensing, and new materials. Challenges and proposals for urban strategic planning to address climate change mitigation and/or adaptation.
• The city as a living organism and integral living ecosystem; post-anthropocentrism and strategies for multi-species readaptation within the city.
• The city and productive housing, and hybridization between food and traditional agricultural-livestock sectors in the rural-urban continuum.
• Activation of citizen collaboration strategies for adapting to the polycrisis.
• Research and studies on the adaptation of the city to possible sea-level rise and forced migrations.
• Visible and invisible aspects of the living city as a sentient organism.
• Mobility and connectivity as key aspects of the future of urban life.
• The street as a space for urban life and the need for behavioral changes.
• Proposals and strategies to promote the change of current urban models/paradigms.
• Energy and social transition for a fairer city.
• Proposals for multidisciplinary integration to address urban sustainability.
• Roles, possibilities and limits of green infrastructure and other active/passive implementations in achieving environmentally, economically and socially more balanced cities.

Submit your idea

Impact

Frontiers in Sustainable Cities

Submit your idea

Impact