Urban Sustainability Transformations in lights of resource efficiency and resilient city concepts

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.04.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Resource Efficient and Resilient City are key for urban sustainability transformations.

  • Implementation gaps occur despite the existence of technical measures and political will.

  • To achieve the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City, people-centred approaches are central.

Based on a review of recent academic literature, this article looks at two interconnected urban concepts, the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City, which are related to Urban Sustainability Transformations (UST). These concepts, which we analyse with regard to implementation challenges in everyday urban life, particularly address the necessary transformations of cities in the light of climate change. The reviewed articles emphasise that technical measures, as well as the political will to address both concepts, often exist. Nevertheless, implementation gaps still remain. We argue that people-centred approaches that acknowledge perceptions, behaviour, needs and fears of the different actors involved play a decisive role. This calls for joint action by urban actors to foster UST based on deliberative governance processes.

Section snippets

Introduction on content and methodology

Within current global development agendas, for example, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, cities are acknowledged as key players for active engagement towards sustainability pathways [1]. This often implies fundamental changes in terms of transforming the way cities work [2, 3]. Urban transformations towards sustainability are considered as non-linear expressions of complex interactions and consequences of a wide range of processes [4]. This acknowledges sustainability as a

The Resource Efficient City

As a consequence of ongoing urbanization processes, there is increasing competition for resources such as land, drinking water, energy, or ecosystem services [10]. In response to these phenomena, the concept of the Resource Efficient City, first of all, deals with the relationship between a growing percentage of urban dwellers, with their specific demands, and the intensive use of resources [11]. In response, a more just and sustainable form of living and consumption is needed [12••].

The Resilient City

Urban resilience targets the strengthening of the urban system against disturbances, and at constructing functions and structures that are less vulnerable in case of crisis or extreme events [9]. Resilience ‘is framed as an explicitly desirable state’ to be achieved ‘and, therefore, should be negotiated among those who enact it empirically’ [26:39]. Further on, creating resilience in complex systems, such as a city, involves trade-offs. Achieving resilience at one scale can reduce resilience

Underpinning the merit of people-centred approaches

Summing up from the findings of the literature review, it is obvious that both concepts, the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City, still have not achieved full implementation in everyday life, despite existing knowledge on possible technical solutions and, at least in some cities, the presence of political will. We found that the implementation gap evolves around the appropriate engagement and information of the local population.

In positive terms: Addressing the impacts of necessary

General conclusions on UST

Coming back to our initial statement that UST, in general, call for deliberative governance processes between a wide range of actors and the consideration of targets and power relations, we come to an overall conclusion from the insights about the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City: In particular, it is the combination between political will and local, people-centred approaches that drives the success of UST. One example is provided by grass root initiatives that engage with local

References and recommended reading

Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as:

  • • of special interest

  • •• of outstanding interest

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