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Urban green infrastructure is critical for creating garden cities, promoting public health, environmental quality, and building resilience to climate change. While these spaces are increasingly recognised as valuable ecological and environmental assets, the state of urban green infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) cities is concerning. Rapid urbanisation, weak enforcement of development controls, and informal settlements have reduced the availability of green infrastructure, which has implications on the sustainability of African cities. This paper provides a review of the state and challenges associated with urban green infrastructure in SSA, focusing on the loss of green spaces, urban planning challenges, and the need for policy and citizen action. Drawing on extensive literature (secondary data), the paper highlights the importance of integrating greeneries into the urban fabric of SSA cities to promote resilience to climate change and enhance environmental sustainability. It argues that concrete steps are needed at all levels of society - from policymakers to citizens - to ensure that SSA cities can regain their status as garden cities and promote a healthier, and more resilient ecological landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nature – based solutions (NBS) are increasingly being positioned within global discourses concerning how urban sustainability challenges can be addressed. To better understand to what extent, how, by whom and with what potential implications NBS are promoted in urban Africa, this paper focuses on transnational actors and presents a dataset covering 40 NBS initiatives in 57 cities across 19 African countries. A framing analysis is undertaken to understand to what degree NBS are mobilised in accordance with global discourses. To that end, the paper builds on existing work by Tozer et al. (2022, "Transnational Governance and the Urban Politics of Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change." Global Environmental Politics, 1–23) on globally circulating frames of urban nature. In further contributing to their framework, we delve into the underlying values or shades of green that are being signified through the frames by applying the IPBES Nature Futures Framework. Results indicate that urban nature comes to be seen as a solution within a climate resilience – integrated benefits nexus through which various types of transnational actors are bringing nature into the city. Two important findings can be highlighted: First, the deployed frames offer opportunities to address major African urban sustainability challenges, but initiatives may not yet be configured to adequately address their scope and magnitude. Second, the configurations of frames are predominantly informed by instrumental values that put "Nature for Society" perspectives in focus, missing opportunities for NBS to build on relational values, or "Nature as Culture" perspectives and for accommodating a plurality of worldviews on desirable futures for urban nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As cities increasingly adopt diverse ethnic, social, and cultural characteristics, there is an emerging logic for planning and policy to reflect this hyper-diversity (inclusion) while resolving the looming sustainability-related challenges. However, what is not adequately addressed in the current literature on urban planning – which could also solidify the justification for more citizen inclusion – is what happens when citizens are involved in planning from the perspective of sustainability. In response, this paper asks a key question: "What are the implications, in the case of urban foodscape, when citizens are involved in planning from the perspective of sustainability?" This question is investigated in this paper in the domain of urban foodscapes and through qualitative interviews, with the support of maps, in the Dutch city of Almere. A novel theoretical combination of just sustainabilities and social licence to operate (SLO) was utilised to frame citizen inclusion in foodscape planning. The findings showed that based on everyday practical experiences of food access in the city, citizens were more concerned about social interaction, the representation of food from cultural origins, and local food production. This theoretical combination, as a way of deepening inclusion, would help avoid the tendency of urban planning being used as an instrument for glossing over social injustice under the guise of citizen participation. This paper, therefore, argues that SLO can be a key pathway for actualising just sustainabilities in both urban planning research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a collaborative effort between academic researchers and practitioners to consider the conditions under which global benchmarking may be used as a tool for supporting urban transformation. Reflecting on WWF's One Planet City Challenge and UN-Habitat's Guiding Principles for City Climate Action Planning, the paper suggests that the practice of global benchmarking can be transformative through encouraging organisational learning and reflection, building relationships between cities and global and trans-local organisations, and governing for structurally transformative qualities. However, the practice of benchmarking is not without potential tensions: they may reify existing practices rather than reforming them, be less usable for or accessible to cities in lower income countries, and may neglect issues of climate justice, which are not easily reduced to comparative measures of success or failure. This suggests that a wholesale reliance on benchmarking as a mode of governing climate change might risk marginalising certain issues and amplifying others. We conclude by recommending improved material and technical support for urban data collection and suggest that benchmarking should be combined with a broader suite of performance indicators and reflective practices in order to support urban transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waste is the visible outcome of socioeconomic processes such as urbanisation and industrialisation. Yet the negative impacts of waste mismanagement are often externalised and invisibilised in the metabolism of cities, in which informal waste labourers often assume the heaviest burden. In this paper, we approach cities as sociocultural arenas in which agents work within and around structural constraints to allow transformation to take place. Our paper analyses how grassroots activism, NGO-municipality collaboration, and women's empowerment led to realising transformative potential for both solid waste management and social inclusion in the Indian city of Pune. We analyse the case of SWaCH Pune Seva Sahakari Sanstha (SWaCH), a predominantly-female social cooperative of waste pickers, to show how supporting and enhancing informal labour can produce multiple positive outcomes. Our analysis also examines the role that the women waste pickers themselves played in bringing about change. We consider the structural constraints for achieving deeper and broader impact and assess what these indicate for the long-term success of this initiative. We also illustrate how power structures tend to constrain bottom-up transformation approaches, regardless of their transformative potential. Above all, SWaCH's story shows how working with informality rather than seeking to eradicate it can result favourably in moving towards the legitimisation and gradual institutionalisation of a pro-poor urban solid waste management system in which women's empowerment is expressed not only for their benefit but also for the states, the citizens and the environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanisation is increasingly recognised as one of the pressing global issues. As a result, managing contemporary and future urban processes to produce sustainable outcomes has become a preoccupation of policy analysts, academics, and urban planners. Urbanisation can either produce positive or negative outcomes depending on how authorities and stakeholders at all levels manage it. In African context, several national governments have formulated and implemented National Urban Policies (NUPs) as a way of curbing urban challenges associated with urbanisation. This paper provides a content analysis of Ghana's NUP. The objective of this paper is two-fold: to evaluate the (a) dominant themes that are covered in Ghana's NUP and why the emphasis on those themes; and (b) the extent to which rural–urban migration is factored into the policy document. The latter is more critical because in Africa's context, besides natural population increase and reclassification of rural settlements as urban areas, rural–urban migration is one of the fundamental drivers of urbanisation. Our analyses revealed that the dimension of rural–urban migration is ignored in the policy document. This neglect, we argue, is problematic because rural–urban migration is one of the drivers of urbanisation in Ghana. Policy recommendations, including the need to minimise the push and pull causes of rural–urban migration, the need to give proper meaning to the decentralisation concept, and the need for the government to focus on rural development interventions are proffered to strengthen the overall goal of Ghana's NUP in the context of urbanisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities play a central role in the circular economy (CE) as they are important centres of production and consumption, responsible for 80% of global GDP. European cities are particularly important due to their position of power in the global economy as major markets, and places of industrial and social innovation. Yet urban CE policies and discourses remain poorly researched and understood. This paper addresses this research gap by analysing and comparing the CE policies and discourses in different European cities to draw critical insights and recommendations. It does so by first reviewing academic literature on urban CE policies to develop a new conceptual framework to analyse CE discourses and policies. This framework is then used to analyse and compare the CE policies of three European cities: Glasgow, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. Results show that technocentric approaches to CE are dominant in the three cities. Moreover, they have very limited social justice policies for a fair distribution of the costs and benefits of a CE transition. Key policy recommendations to address these shortcomings are thus proposed. The insights brought about by this paper are valuable for both practitioners and academics seeking to improve urban CE policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the existence and significance of transnational municipal networks (TMNs) in the realm of environmental governance have been well documented, the implementation and impacts of their local programmes, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, remain underexplored. This paper contributes to addressing this gap of knowledge by examining what obstructs or facilitates TMNs' local actions and the extent to which they can catalyse wider transformative impacts on local environmental governance. We focus on an urban wetlands programme implemented by ICLEI Africa from 2015 to 2018 in 9 district and 2 metropolitan municipalities in South Africa – the Local Action for Biodiversity: Wetlands SA (LAB Wetlands SA) Programme. From an insider perspective, this paper reviews the implementation of the LAB Wetlands SA Programme in three locations, namely the Overberg, iLembe, and Frances Baard District Municipalities of South Africa. Based on comparative analysis, the paper identifies three key influential factors – political buy-in, policy champions and institutional capacity – that interact in combination to affect the practices of the LAB Wetlands SA Programme. These three factors are closely interlinked and strongly depend on the social, economic, political and cultural aspects of local context. In advancing local environmental actions and promoting transformative environmental governance, the design and practices of TMNs' local programmes and projects must be informed by, tailored to, and able to adapt to the local context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past five years, there have been growing calls for transformative responses to sustainability challenges, supported by increased transformative action in the pursuit of environmental justice. In parallel to this development within the policy arena, the concept of transformation and its potential is also attracting more attention within the research community. This paper uses the example of the Urban Natural Assests for Africa (UNA) programme to explore what transformative change might mean for cities and how this might be achieved through enacting just processes. It explores in some more detail different approaches to transformative change to explain how and why an enabling perspective on transformation is considered to be fruitful in developing the understanding of transformative capacity for change. The paper then explores how the programme was able to foster this capacity, with what consequences for the African cities and what it implies for the nature of change for urban social and environmental justice in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nature-based solutions (NBS) is a relatively novel concept and real-world application has only started to proliferate in cities, which motivates addressing early attempts of cross-boundary collaboration for implementing NBS. The aim of this paper is to reflect about the process of transdisciplinary research-practice collaboration on NBS and its associated learnings, potentials and challenges. To do so, this paper reflects on one of the local urban-regional innovation partnerships within the Naturvation research project, which included urban planning practitioners, researchers and public and private organisations, and aimed to understand what NBS can achieve in cities and how to advance implementation through collaboration. This paper is based on embedded research and uses participant observation as methodological inspiration. It draws on two streams of literature to frame the reflections; (a) transdisciplinary research, to reflect on the collaborative process of research and practice engaging in learning and knowledge co-production and (b) boundary concepts, to capture the boundaryspanning nature of NBS. Observations, grey literature and the "network compass" [Schneider, F., T. Tribaldos, C. Adler, R. O. Biggs, A. de Bremond, T. Buser, C. Krug et al. 2021. "Co-Production of Knowledge and Sustainability Transformations: A Strategic Compass for Global Research Networks." Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 49: 127-142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2021.04.007] were used expost to identify and map fields of action and associated potentials and challenges. The process included joint problem understanding and building relations, visioning and creation of roadmaps, targeted collaboration and horizontal learning. This paper suggests that future research-practice collaboration on NBS should focus on relational capacities and communicative skills, and integrating joint reflection and learning as central components for co-producing knowledge. Furthermore, transdisciplinary collaboration requires facilitation and management skills, which should be considered an area of expertise and not taken for granted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approaches to solid waste management (SWM) in African cities have gone through various phases. Each phase is shaped by a range of factors, including population growth, urbanisation, government policies and political willingness to invest in SWM infrastructure as well as SWM services. In the Ghanaian context, the latter factor is said to be subject to public perceptions of SWM as a welfare service and hence the reluctance of people to pay for SWM services even though “others” are paying. In this paper, an attempt has been made to investigate how approaches to SWM in Ghana have transitioned over time and its consequences on willingness to pay for SWM services in the Kaneshie, Madina and Kantamanto open-air markets in Accra. Based on the study findings and the vital role that open-air markets (OAMs) play in African cities, a system of standardising SWM fees is recommended for SWM service providers in both formal and informal sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the intersection between degrowth and urban planning and contributes to a deeper understanding and a sharper concretisation of how a strong sustainability concept such as degrowth can be taken into planning practice. Taking the Swedish municipality of Södertälje as a case, this paper uses empirical material from interviews with municipal urban planners and urban planning policy. The findings put current planning in relation to degrowth ideas, gather insights about the possible role of planning actors in a degrowth transition, and includes proposals for how planning practice can facilitate a degrowth future. This study finds that integrating a degrowth approach in planning practice means that urban planning needs to be subordinated to overarching social and environmental goals. Producing urban planning that is measured and conditioned by overarching goals would most likely imply completely different ways of planning, and goal-oriented backcasting scenarios are suggested as a tool to overcome this challenge. This paper also gathers strategies, like Södertälje's Cultivation Strategy, that can facilitate a degrowth transition within current planning practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With climate change increasingly threatening people in uneven and disproportional ways, community-based solutions and interventions have become critical to ensure equitable, just, and inclusive climate action in cities. This paper examines community-based climate action in San Francisco (USA) through the lens of climate justice and intersectionality. Through a qualitative analysis of community-based organisations (CBOs) and their justice-oriented adaptation and mitigation efforts, our research examines the contributing factors and pathways by which CBO climate action leads to intersectional climate justice. Our analysis examines how CBOs 1) recognise and rectify historical and compounding vulnerabilities; 2) plan and act in ways that are people-centric and place-based; and 3) work collectively with organisations and government through alliances, coalitions, and participatory processes. We find that CBOs have the potential to work collectively to ensure processes are just and outcomes are equitable for those most at risk of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks how the pandemic has affected climate governance, with a specific focus on just transition in cities. We respond to Westman and Castán Broto's (2021) challenge that three assumptions are frequently reproduced in the urban climate governance literature and ask: (1) Are social justice and environmental sustainability separated? (2) Does a sectoral perspective on cities constrain conceptions of climate justice? and (3) Is there action rather than just plans? We address these questions by studying three cities in the South West of England (Bristol, Bath, and Exeter) that have expressed aspirations for rapid and just transition to net zero. There are promising signs of climate action, although the pandemic slowed it down somewhat. Climate justice is not sufficiently embedded in plans or actions. Commitment to just transition is present but partial and often unspecified. Social justice and ecological sustainability are too often treated as separate goals, more likely to come into conflict with each other, than addressed jointly. Too much climate work in cities takes place in silos around energy and transport but separate from other sectors. There is a notable failure to engage with civil society for a just transition. We conclude that for cities to truly implement a just transition, better engagement with grassroots actors from across sectors and parts of society is necessary. The development of tools which support cities to analyse the complex interplay of distributional, recognitional, participatory and restorative aspects of justice could be an important part of delivering this change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many forms of sharing occurring in local communities that can help reduce overconsumption and mitigate the continuous growth of climate emissions. Lately, traditional forms of local sharing have been supplemented with internet-based peer-to-peer sharing applications. This paper applies a social capital perspective to explore the relational basis for different forms of sharing in local communities, and to inform a discussion on how local sharing can be scaled up. Based on a survey of citizens in four municipalities in Norway, four key forms of sharing are explored including p2p-sharing, sharing schemes organised in the community, sharing of time through voluntary work, and informal sharing among friends, family and neighbours. Results indicate that bridging social capital is particularly important for all sharing activities, and that time-sharing is most strongly sustained by social capital. In addition to social capital dimensions, environmental motives also contribute to people's engagement in face-to-face local sharing. p2p-sharing, however, is to a much lesser degree related to social capital and environmental motives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities, with their increasing populations, are host to a range of issues including non-climatic factors due to the prevailing development paradigm, discriminatory urbanisation patterns, and weak governance structures. Climate change poses an additional challenge and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities affecting cities and its people, especially the urban poor. This paper highlights the barriers and enablers to climate change-related adaptation experienced in some of Bengaluru's informal settlements. The barriers described in the paper include economic, social, governance and information related issues that impede local actions and increase vulnerabilities. Enabling factors such as improving social and human capital, gaining formal recognition and most importantly support from agencies (e.g. local government, civil societies, and community leaders), help overcome some of the barriers or challenges. Hence, local level adaptation measures mainstreamed with local developmental agendas help address some of the structural causes of vulnerability. Contextual policies and interventions can facilitate successful local level adaptation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ushuaia, one of five Antarctic gateway cities worldwide, is one of the most prosperous places in Argentina. However, its initial impression to visitors as a highly affluent town can be misleading. Since the mid-2000s, informal settlements have sprung up in the forest belt above the city with an estimated 14% of Ushuaia's population. These contrasting representations, polar opposites in some ways, are integral parts of Ushuaia and its positioning as a forward-thinking, culturally differentiated Antarctic gateway city. This paper explores this tension through a case study of two settlements in the northwest of the city, including informal settlers' lived experiences and aspirations; representations and processes of urban development, and the views of the formally tenanted population. Ethnographically exploring a topic that has divided Ushuaia for decades and giving a voice to inhabitants of informal settlements adds depth to an otherwise incomplete and top-down understanding of Ushuaia as a tourist town. Informal settlements are an integral part of the city that could, potentially, add value to tourism enterprises and enrich the tourist gaze by providing a less polarised, more inclusive perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban agriculture (UA) has the potential to expand beyond the grassroots level to meet the social, cultural, economic and food needs of urban dwellers. At its core, UA represents an alternative use of urban space that occurs with or without government support or approval. The experiences of community gardeners and their views of, and engagement in, community gardens as a form of UA, or local “alternative food networks”, is a focal point of this paper. Relying on Australian city case studies, this paper explores community gardens, using critical urban approaches concerning “rights to the city” and diverse economies. Findings from this study reveal how community gardeners understand and participate in diverse economies and extended local food networks. They also identify respondents’ views of local councils as barriers to the emergence of community gardens, and other forms of UA, as a local response to growing concerns over impacts of the global food chain on food security. In contrast to other Western cities, effective city–community relations for community garden growth have yet to emerge in Australian cities, as key policy areas for urban sustainability and social cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses recent shifts in urban sustainability discourse and practice through a critical review of the historical development of the concept from the 1970s through to the global economic crisis in the 2007 and its fragmentation into the 2010s. Using this periodisation, the paper shows how the content of urban sustainability discourse has changed. First, it illustrates that the dominant assumption of sustainable cities’ discourse was to utilise economic growth to ecologically modernise urban environments. Second, it examines how the global economic crisis has intensified this fix and led to a new, even narrower emphasis on the techno-economic value of those aspects of urban environment that have economic and market potential. Third, it analyses the fragmenting of sustainable cities’ discourse into a set of competing logics that reflect this narrower agenda. This paper argues that the sustainable city has been absorbed into these new logics that are much more narrowly techno-economically focused and are squeezing out traditional concerns with social justice and equity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Public parks are important to urban environments, residents, and visitors. Among other functions, they provide environmental services, such as air and water purification, and they increase both recreational opportunities and the attractiveness of the urban environment. Because of their importance, urban parks serve as public spaces that provide visitors and urban residents with rights to the city. This paper identifies the dearth of urban public parks in Accra-Tema city-region as worrying. TheAccra Plan 1958underscored the significance of green spaces and designated the coastal strip for parks development but the areas have been lost to various urban uses. We argue that the continual neglect of public parks within urban planning and community development schemes in the Accra-Tema city-region is a major concern because it is depriving the citizens a right to the city and its public spaces. A number of factors have worked adversely against the provision of public parks and green spaces in the city-region. These include development pressures, undue political interference, a complex land delivery system, and ad hoc planning. The paper concludes by offering policy suggestions as to how to resolve the dearth of parks and green spaces in the city-region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban development has been one of the advanced world's most significant characteristics. Within many parts of the world, economic growth, technological innovations, and socio-cultural change are visible attributes. Nonetheless, Ghana and many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa has been faced with limitations rendering cities and urban areas incapable to perform effectively in the national development agenda. Measures implemented to achieve proper urban planning and sustainability are considered to be those that can offer long-lasting solution and balance environmental benefits with socioeconomic growth. All things being equal, there is an expectation of little or no flaws for urban sustainability, yet findings from previous studies indicate recurring environmental challenges in urban Ghana with a hike in the depletion of natural resources. This paper evaluates the efficiency of the "reactive" measures used to tackle urban environmental challenges in Ghana and advocates for the adoption of "proactive" measures after a meticulous review of literature. With the study findings suggesting inefficiencies and unsuitability in the "reactive" measures, the end goal is for the building of stronger institutions and enhancing environmental governance for better urban growth in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities have increasingly become the focal point for climate change initiatives. However, how cities respond to climate change challenges and through what mechanisms have remained largely unexplored. This paper develops a framework for local governance to examine and explain climate change initiatives in cities. Based on the analysis of 20 climate change initiatives in major cities and a detailed case study of Hong Kong, this paper has two main findings. First, local governments at the city level have an important role to play in climate change policies by embracing some key strategies (such as deliberation and partnership) and values (such as equity and legitimacy) of good governance. Second, by comparing and contrasting the experience in other cities, our case study of Hong Kong provides insights about the barriers that may limit a city's ability to adapt to new forms of governance that would enable it to better respond to climate change. The paper concludes by exploring the potential role of local governance as a model to strengthen climate change initiatives at the city level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As one of the most ambitious national energy transition initiatives worldwide, the German Energiewende is attracting a huge amount of attention globally in both policy and research circles. The paper explores the implementation of Germany's energy transition through the lens of organisation and ownership in urban and regional contexts. Following a summary of the principal institutional challenges of the Energiewende at local and regional levels the paper develops a novel way of conceptualising the institutional to urban and regional energy transitions in terms of agency and power, ideas and discourse, and commons and ownership. This analytical heuristic is applied to a two-tier empirical study of the Berlin–Brandenburg region. The first tier involves a survey of the organisational landscape of energy infrastructures and services in cities, towns and villages in Brandenburg. The second tier comprises a case study of current, competing initiatives for (re-)gaining ownership of the power grid and utility in Berlin. The paper draws conclusions on the diverse and dynamic organisational responses to the Energiewende at the local level, what these tell us about urban and regional energy governance and how they are inspired by – or in opposition to – new forms of collective ownership resonant of recent debates on reclaiming the commons. It concludes with observations on how relational approaches to institutional research and the notion of the commons can guide and inspire future research on socio-technical transitions in general, and urban energy transitions in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in a range of interlinked factors, in social, economic, environmental and climatic conditions, require adaptation in many communities. This paper explores how place attachment affects adaptive responses to a changing social context through analysing adaptation in two coastal municipalities in Northern Norway. The main challenge in these municipalities is declining populations and the consequences accompanying this trend, including livelihood uncertainties and decreased provision of public services. This paper discusses the role of place attachment in motivating adaptation to these changes to contribute to a growing body of literature within climate change adaptation on “subjective” (values, culture and place) dimensions. The findings suggest that people are motivated to act based on their emotional connection with place, and the paper argues that place attachment may offer a better starting point for climate change adaptation than an emphasis on climate change impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we develop a new approach to mapping food access in the U.S. We compare the standard USDA approach to a method that examines differences between actual food outlet locations and optimal locations, as defined by a covering model. We find that the new approach places more weight on rural areas, in contrast to the USDA method, which places more weight on urban areas. We contend this covering model approach is superior to the USDA approach in three ways: (1) it explicitly examines what commodities are available a different categories of store, (2) it allows the comparison of real distributions with an idealised surface or set of locations, elucidating where interventions make most sense, (3) it allows flexible inclusion of target populations (i.e. households experiencing economic barriers to food access) by not setting Census Tract-level limits on definitions of low-income, and (4) it provides a flexible analytical tool that can be recalibrated in response to the demands of local policy, politics and changes in the food landscape over time. Provided adequate data and computing power, this new approach can scale to align with a region's purview and definition of healthy food access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sorsogon City is a rapidly urbanising coastal area in the Philippines. Its location, combined with a rapidly changing and growing urban fabric, leaves it vulnerable to both incremental climate change and associated extreme weather events. In this paper, UN-HABITAT data are used to draw out the climate change vulnerabilities and policy responses in Sorsogon City. Vulnerability “hotspots” highlight the spatial intersection of socio-economic justice concerns, particularly in terms of vulnerability to increased cyclone activity. We discuss vulnerabilities of Sorsogon City and its citizens to climate change and measures undertaken through various social, environmental and technical systems and interventions to increase resilience. The paper also attempts to unpick the relationship between the neat, concise reported city and the complexities of urban life using the Sorsogon experiment to consider the limitations of such approaches to governing climate change. We group these under four headings: social simplification in the absence of data; over-governance (and under-representation); quick wins versus strategic investment; and stretching the ecological and vulnerability footprints of the city. The experience of Sorsogon City is then extended to reflect on issues of governance and planning in other Asian coastal cities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Climate change processes pose significant challenges to development in cities across West Africa. These processes shape and mediate urban vulnerability across urban areas and hinder wider development efforts across these cities. This paper reviews these emerging perspectives within the context of UN-Habitat's work in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso and Saint-Louis, Senegal. It argues that policy-makers and researchers need to engage with issues of climate change and development at an urban scale and across “ordinary cities” through exploring the range of vulnerabilities inherent in each city. Specifically, the paper illustrates the diversities and similarities of climate change processes that exist across these two medium sized, or ordinary West African cities, the intersections with existing economic profiles and potential impacts and the emerging urban governance responses to these issues. It demonstrates the need to move beyond constructions of an archetypal “West African” city, and illustrates the emerging work by UN-Habitat and local partners in developing localised knowledges about urban vulnerabilities and the multiple and divergent ways in which these issues are beginning to be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents results from a study on the present needs for and management of environmental information in three Swedish municipalities. It was found that there are considerable differences between the municipalities studied, regarding needs for environmental information as well as approaches and tools used for providing the information needed—differences that seem closely related to the structures of the municipalities. The paper ends with a discussion on some general requirements for municipal environmental information management. Besides a need for analytical tools, it is argued that municipalities would have to pay more attention to political aspects of the environmental situation in environmental decision making, and thus in environmental information management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a special issue ofLocal Environmentthat has arisen through collaboration between academic researchers and the Urban Planning and Design Branch of UN-Habitat, focused on how we can understand and respond to the challenges of urban vulnerability, adaptation and resilience in the context of climate change. The paper establishes the existing state of the art in the field, and considers critical challenges that are emerging in the research-based literature. In this context, it introduces UN-Habitat's Cities and Climate Change Initiative and reflects on the lessons learnt and challenges ahead, drawing on insights from across the papers in the special issue. In conclusion, it identifies the role of international/transnational co-operation, the relation between adaptation and mitigation, issues of multi-level governance and the ways in which change in urban socio-technical systems might be achieved as critical issues across the science/policy interface where increased dialogue and the co-production of knowledge needs to focus in order to advance this agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the legitimacy of the organisation and the design of a stakeholder workshop undertaken as part of an interdisciplinary academic project researching the redevelopment of urban river corridors. Beetham's [1991. The legitimation of power. Basingstoke: Macmillan] conceptual framework of legitimacy is adopted as the lens through which the workshop's organisation and design is viewed and through this a critique of Beetham's framework is developed. The organisation and design of the workshop was legitimate insofar as it conformed to established rules, that these rules were justifiable and there was consent from members of the research project. However, an appreciation of context and different, sometimes conflicting, meanings of legitimacy found among members of the project only partially acknowledged in Beetham's framework is integral to a deeper understanding of the legitimacy of the workshop's organisation and design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changing public attitudes and behaviour is key to achieving the UK target of a 60% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Top-down campaigns that have provided information to a passive public have not necessarily resulted in pro-environmental behavioural change. This paper examines the use of a personalised social marketing approach to engage the public in changing their personal travel. It provides the results of a project in the City of York to foster voluntary travel behavioural change. Using face-to-face discussions, personalised information and incentives, a statistically significant reduction in car use and an increase in cycling and the use of public transport were achieved over a six-month period. However, this change was not sustained 12 months later. The paper explores the contrasting perspectives on behavioural change and examines the possible lessons that can be learnt to foster voluntary behavioural change in other aspects of household consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this special issue is to address a conceptual and empirical gap in the existing literature on sustainable cities. Uniquely, it brings together questions about the “what” (in this case, the content and representation of urban policy) of research on urban sustainability with “how” (the social organisation of knowledge and action) through the results of collaborative and comparative work. The special issue contains curated contributions that draw upon the findings of a comparative international project funded by Mistra (Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research) through the Mistra Urban Futures Centre, based in Gothenburg. The project sought to bring together two questions that are usually treated as separate in existing research approaches. They are the “what” and “how” of sustainable cities’ debates. By working in partnership with local policy-makers, practitioners and universities, each local area entered into a process of collaborative design in order to examine assumptions, expectations, processes and the outcomes of knowledge co-production. This paper introduces the conceptual ideas behind this initiative and so provides a frame for the reader to situate the contributions. It then outlines those articles to draw connections between them and concludes with a short summary of what research and societal lessons can be learnt from the project. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Urbanisation is truly a global phenomenon. Starting at 39% in 1980, the urbanisation level rose to 52% in 2011. Ongoing rapid urbanisation has led to increase in urban greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Urban climate change risks have also increased with increase in climate-induced extreme weather events and more low-income urban dwellers living in climate sensitive locations. Despite increased emissions, including GHGs and heightened climate change vulnerability, climate mitigation and adaptation actions are rare in the cities of developing countries. Cities are overwhelmed with worsening congestion, air pollution, crime, waste management, and unemployment problems. Lack of resources and capacity constraints are other factors that discourage cities from embarking on climate change mitigation and adaptation pathways. Given the multitude of problems faced, there is simply no appetite for stand-alone urban climate change mitigation and adaptation policies and programmes. Urban mitigation and adaptation goals will have to be achieved as co-benefits of interventions targeted at solving pressing urban problems and challenges. The paper identifies administratively simple urban interventions that can help cities solve some of their pressing service delivery and urban environmental problems, while simultaneously mitigating rising urban GHG emissions and vulnerability to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Urban parks in India are often discussed as positive environmental projects, and their creation appears as unproblematic in public discourse. This paper presents the creation of a municipal park in a small city in Gujarat, India. Using insights from history and architecture, we stress the importance of reading parks as political and to some extent ideological projects in the larger context of city-making. The political ecology and history of the particular park studied here allow us to problematise the socio-ecological project of urban “beautification” via park creation. The municipal park, established in the centre of a small urban agglomeration after displacing a slum settlement from the site, is – as we argue – an integral part of a local geography of power. As such it expresses several registers of values upheld by local elites and brings into focus highly conflictive social relations. The case study contributes to further developing a situated urban political ecological approach that starts theorising cities from the South. It moreover offers a critical perspective on the understudied urban nature of small towns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Child-Friendly Cities were conceived as a means to integrate children's rights into city decision-making and governance. Participatory research about child-friendly cities consistently finds overarching themes across ages and regions: children desire access to services, nature, and play; freedom from physical danger; and opportunities for inclusion within the city. This article explores a two-year visioning and participatory design process that engaged approximately 225 young people, aged 4–16, in the planning and design of a prominent public space in the City of Boulder. While participatory research with children has received much attention in the academic literature, much less attention has been given to what can be achieved through sustained integration of children into municipal planning processes, particularly in the USA. This paper thus moves children's participation beyond rhetoric and into the challenging reality of planning a city with children as a valued constituent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we reflect on the role of cities in responding to climate change over the two decades since the historic agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We find a growth in the scale and nature of municipal responses to climate change that has been one of the most significant features of the changing climate governance landscape over the past two decades. We suggest that this has not been a static or uniform process, and reflect on the changing nature of urban responses to climate change over the past two decades, the emergence of new politics of low-carbon urbanism, and challenges that lie ahead for research and policy as this agenda begins to take shape on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Urban environments are key to mitigating the effects of climate change, contributing to sustainability and improving people's lives. A significant part of the commitment to sustainable development is made by assuming the vital role played by local governments as the administrations closest to citizens and responsible for providing most of the essential services for the community. Therefore, knowing local governments' levels of spending efficiency in urban environments, as well as the exogenous factors that explain these levels, will allow us to analyse the management carried out in this area and propose improvements to achieve the commitments made (Agenda 2030, the Green Deal, Fit for 55). One of the novelties of our research is considering climate as an exogenous variable in explaining efficiency levels. We find that cities with more extreme climates are more efficient in managing environmental expenditure, and densely populated municipalities are less efficient. We also conclude that local governments with more revenues or where tourism is one of the main economic activities improve efficiency, while the gender of the mayor (in our case, women) and political fragmentation reduce it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the narrowing interpretation of community when governmentalised: that of community's elision with local. First it surveys five broad academic and policy interpretations of the community implied in low carbon transitions. These demonstrate the persistence of community's broad and open-ended polysemy today. Second it looks more closely at the role community plays in UK environmental governance today, including specific evidence from two such government-funded community initiatives used to meet global environmental challenges: Transition Towns and Carbon Conversations. Third it provides a critique of community governance-beyond-the-state. It argues that community used to “jump scales” in response to global challenges like climate change, is often at its most narrow: local and governmentalised. Doing so helps contextualise the governmentalisation of (local-) community in UK environmental governance. Often it is localised in order to delegate (perceived) agency and responsibility onto individual actors at a local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The housing policy of Barcelona, the Plan for the Right to Housing (2015–2020), implemented by the anti-austerity local government of Barcelona en Comú, relates closely to degrowth imaginaries and norms. It incorporates vacant housing to the public housing stock, develops a special unit for attending evictions and other residential emergencies, and introduces support for promising yet marginal tenure forms such as co-housing or leasehold estate. However, a critical analysis of this policy reveals strong contradictions and limitations. Given the existing uneven socio-spatial dynamics of a global city such as Barcelona, the well-established power relations in the production of urban space, and the still-dominant discourse of austerity, the local government's actions remain precarious. However, albeit both promising and contradictory, Barcelona's housing policy proves to be a useful case for developing degrowth planning principles and tools for urban housing policy and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solid waste management (SWM) has become a heavy burden in developing countries. In Africa, most urban centres consist of a large part of the waste produced by the inhabitants. This often becomes problematic and leads to poor SWM. South Africa faces the challenges of SWM that are mainly due to population growth and the lack of integrated programmes between local authorities and community members. It is in this context that this study focuses on the roles of local authorities and communities in SWM in Alexandra, Johannesburg, South Africa. Using a qualitative research methodology inspired by the traditional participatory research approach, it finds that a large proportion of urban areas face SWM problems, due to many factors. These factors include poor communication between community members and local authorities, lack of community participation, lack of local government strategies to involve the community, which complicates the situation. This study indicates that both stakeholders (the community and local authorities) do not play their roles sufficiently in the management of solid waste in Alexandra. As a result, the problem is too widespread and difficult to control, often being too costly for the community. The study highlights the importance of community participation in SWM to ease the burden on local authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of organic regeneration, sustainable development, or the credit crunch to urban areas. It states that the financially devastating effects of the credit crunch have stopped the regeneration programs in housing markets for sustainable development. It notes that the negative effects of the financial crisis have hit the poorest urban inhabitants, however, it is in the cities that new ideas and opportunities of the future can emerge.

In response to anthropogenic climate change, many governments are adopting policies to reduce carbon emissions. In Canada, federal and provincial governments have implemented carbon pricing. One of the effects of putting a price on carbon is increasing the cost of using private vehicles, which may reduce mobility and increase the risk of social exclusion, especially in contexts where car dependence is high. In this article, we analyse how municipal governments in Canada frame the challenges of climate change and reducing emissions, and examine whether they link these challenges to issues of mobility and social exclusion. Focusing on policies from four of Canada's largest cities – Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Vancouver – we identify four main frames used in planning documents: "the Growing City", "If You Build It, They Will Come", "Better City for All", and "the Resilient City". The Growing City frame is used to support status quo urban development, with climate mitigation options (including sustainable travel modes) optionally included for more concerned residents. This is the dominant frame in Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. Conversely, Vancouver uses the Resilient City frame to indicate that climate mitigation and adaption strategies are essential, and all citizens must be prepared for change. Vancouver presents changes to mobility as necessary for all, rather than an option for some. Social exclusion is not explicitly addressed in the frames, though it is presented as a reason to support building alternative transportation or more public spaces. Social exclusion receives little consideration as a potential consequence of climate mitigation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Siting controversies have become familiar in windpower development. Process and outcome fairness in the form of economic benefits to local communities and inclusion in decision-making processes are recognised as important elements in local acceptance of windpower installations. To these, we add the concept of "relative fairness" influencing perceptions of overall fairness. In this article, we examine why Norwegian municipalities agree to host windpower, and the role of process, outcome and relative fairness in this decision. Municipalities are central in providing welfare services, and in ensuring a viable local economy and local workplaces. Process fairness is important, as is evident when municipalities have little influence in the detailed planning of the plants. Also, outcome fairness, in the form of economic compensation – particularly through property tax – is decisive for positive attitudes towards windfarms, as municipalities can strengthen their role as welfare providers and boost local economic activities. Less emphasised are the effects on global climate and national climate goals. However, effects on local landscape and nature are also important for municipalities, as became clear when the national government proposed withdrawing the municipalities' possibilities of levying property taxes. The municipalities argue that it is only fair to receive something in return for hosting windmills, and relative fairness is important to their argument for equal treatment regarding hydro- and wind-power electricity production in the form of a natural resource tax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Community energy" (CE) is argued to be an opportunity to transition to low-carbon energy systems while creating additional benefits for local communities. CE is defined as energy initiatives that place a high degree of emphasis on participation of local community members through ownership and control, where through doing so, benefits are created for the community. The trend has seen considerable growth in many countries over the last decade. Occurring simultaneously is a trend for local communities (e.g. municipalities) to create their own Local Energy Plans (LEPs) – a planning process that articulates energy-related actions (i.e. expected outcomes). While CE and LEPs both address energy activities in a local context, any further connection between these trends remains unclear. This research develops a framework, based on CE and LEP literature, to assess LEPs for their relevance to CE. The research analyses 77 LEPs from across Canada for the ways in which they address the three components that define CE: community participation, community ownership, and community capacity. The main findings are that LEPs have emerged as a process that is both relevant to CE and capable of strategically addressing its components. Despite this, LEPs do not appear to reveal a radically different approach to the "closed and institutional" models of traditional community involvement practices. The investigation suggests that for CE advocates, LEPs may be considered to be an important avenue to pursue CE ambitions. LEPs could increase their relevance to CE by improving the processes and actions related to all three CE components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing urban sustainability challenges requires changes in the way systems of provision and services are designed, organised and delivered. In this context, two promising phenomena have gained interest from the academia, the public sector and the media: "smart cities" and "urban sharing". Smart cities rely on the extensive use of information and communications technology (ICT) to increase efficiencies in urban areas, while urban sharing builds on the collaborative use of idling resources enabled by ICT in densely populated cities. The concepts have many similar features and share common goals, yet cities with smart city agendas often fail to take a stance on urban sharing. Thus, its potentials are going largely unnoticed by local governments. This article addresses this issue by exploring cases of London and Berlin – two ICT-dense cities with clearly articulated smart city agendas and an abundance of sharing platforms. Drawing on urban governance literature, we develop a conceptual framework that specifies the roles that cities assume when governing urban sharing: city as regulator, city as provider, city as enabler and city as consumer. We find that both cities indirectly support urban sharing through smart agenda programmes, which aim to facilitate ICT-enabled technical innovation and emergence of start-ups. However, programmes, strategies, support schemes and regulations aimed directly at urban sharing initiatives are few. We also find that Berlin is sceptical towards urban sharing organisations, while London took more of a collaborative approach. Implications for policy-makers are discussed in the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban public spaces are important areas for leisure, recreation and physical activity and therefore contribute to the quality of life in cities. In particular, for adolescents they provide important spaces to meet with their peers, away from parental or school control. In many cities worldwide, public spaces have undergone severe developmental processes, and often a withdrawal from public space is noted. With regard to the opportunities those spaces provide for adolescents, it is necessary to investigate their current meaning for adolescents in a leisure context. In this article, qualitative research methods were used to investigate factors affecting adolescents’ use of public spaces in Vienna, Austria. In total 45 adolescents were interviewed. Results show that public open spaces are not regarded as important leisure spaces, and data reveal a strong retreat to private areas for leisure purposes. Perceived insecurities and fears support these processes and often result in avoidance of public spaces but also the wish for more control by authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the spatial and statistical relationships between social vulnerability (SV) and neighbourhood walkability across three large U.S. cities with different urban typologies and development patterns: Charlotte, NC (a low-density, fast-growing “Sunbelt” city); Pittsburgh, PA (a moderate density, shrinking “Rust Belt” city); and Portland, OR (a progressive West Coast city known for its sprawl-containment policies). Binary logistic regression, independent-samplest-tests, and mapping techniques are employed to determine whether neighbourhoods with high SV (i.e. older populations, higher poverty rates, more service occupations, lower educational attainment, and a higher proportion of minorities) are as likely as those with low SV to exhibit a high degree of walkability. The publically available Walk Score® metric, based on proximity to amenities, street network connectivity, and density, was used as a proxy for neighbourhood walkability. The results indicate significant variability among cities, with Charlotte exhibiting the greatest potential for inequitable access to walkable urban environments and the most prominent concentration of “walk-vulnerable” block groups (BGs) with high SV and low walkability. Both Portland and Pittsburgh exhibited more equitable access when comparing BGs with high and low SV; however, they each presented unique spatial patterns, visualised using a series of maps. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Urbanisation is the proportionate increase in the urban population with respect to the total population. In India urbanisation was never a result of a strong economic base of cities. It was distress and poverty in rural areas that resulted in a huge influx of rural migrants into urban areas. The pace of urbanisation gained momentum after 1941 with the percentage of people living in urban areas increasing to 31.16% in 2011. The pattern of urbanisation is characterised by continuous concentration of population in the megacities and in Class I cities. India’s urbanisation is best described as pseudo-urbanisation, a condition in which a large city is formed without a functional infrastructure to support it. Migration and pseudo-urbanisation lead to demographic explosion and a progressive concentration of poor migrants in the cities, followed by misery, poverty, unemployment, exploitation, rapid growth of slums and degradation in the quality of urban life. Slums are usually characterised by poor housing conditions, inadequate physical infrastructure, deprivations in socio-economic conditions, health, hygiene and lack of safety and security. Two slums were chosen within the Kolkata Municipal Corporation for assessing the quality of life. Despite government initiatives the condition of the slum dwellers has not improved much. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the conditions required for producing knowledge for just urban sustainability. It highlights a need to review the current social organisation of knowledge within cities and the implications for academic practice – in other words, whose interests are being served? Whose knowledge claims are being supported and justified? The article considers how the knowledge practices of cities and universities often exacerbate urban problems that are perpetuated by a limited imaginary and selectivity. It is argued that a gap exists between the content of knowledge and the context of its application. What is required are new ways of practising collaborative research that do not compromise critique, but open it up to engagement with forms of knowledge that are currently excluded from the representations and categorisations that constitute dominant practices. By bringing the “what” and “how” of knowledge together in a process of active intermediation, it is possible to contribute to more just, sustainable urban futures for the many, not the few. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]