Lost in Transition? Directions for an Economic Geography of Urban Sustainability Transitions

Abstract

Socio-technical transitions towards more sustainable modes of production and consumption are receiving increasing attention in the academic world and also from political and economic decision-makers. There is increasing demand for resource-efficient technologies and institutional innovations, particularly at the city level. However, it is widely unclear how processes of change evolve and develop and how they are embedded in different socio-spatial contexts. While numerous scholars have contributed to the vibrant research field around sustainability transitions, the geographical expertise largely has been ignored. The lack of knowledge about the role of spatial contexts, learning processes, and the co-evolution of technological, economical, and socio-political processes has been prominently addressed. Bridging approaches from Transition Studies and perspectives of Economic Geography, the paper presents conceptual ideas for an evolutionary and relational understanding of urban sustainability transitions. The paper introduces new perspectives on sustainability transitions towards a better understanding of socio-spatial contexts.

Urban Resilience in Action: the Resilient Melbourne Strategy as Transformative Urban Innovation Policy?

“…Based on our insights, we argue that resilience actions can be conceptualized as 'governance experiments' that aim to re-construct established urban governance This resonates with the call for collaborative urban experimentation to govern transition pathways towards more resilient and sustainable cities [20][21][22][23][24]. Academics and city practitioners generally agree that 'learning by doing' in so-called living labs, urban transition labs or real-world experiments have the potential to catalyse innovative socio-technical outcomes (e.g., [25][26][27][28][29]). Interactions between grassroots-driven ('bottom-up') and policy-driven ('top-down') can provide spaces for transformational change apart from established urban policy making [22,23,27].…”

“…Academics and city practitioners generally agree that 'learning by doing' in so-called living labs, urban transition labs or real-world experiments have the potential to catalyse innovative socio-technical outcomes (e.g., [25][26][27][28][29]). Interactions between grassroots-driven ('bottom-up') and policy-driven ('top-down') can provide spaces for transformational change apart from established urban policy making [22,23,27]. Fuenfschilling et al describe urban experimentation as "a way to seed change that over time may lead to a fundamental transformation of a system" [20] (p. 2).…”

The geography of socio‐technical transitions: Transition–periphery dynamics

“…Within the recent literature on the geography of sustainability transitions, there has been a focus on cities and urban networks, as noted by Geels et al (2018) (Affolderbach & Schulz, 2016;Fastenrath & Braun, 2018;Frantzeskaki et al, 2017;Loorbach et al, 2016;Schwanen, 2015). This urban bias is exemplified by the focus on what is termed "urban sustainability transitions," where the periphery's part in sustainability transitions seems largely ignored Loorbach et al, 2016).…”

Urban Sprawl and Sustainable Urban Policies. A Review of the Cases of Lima, Mexico City and Santiago de Chile

“…Thus, there are a multiplicity of public sustainable agendas and programs centered on the urban [5,6]. Besides, there is an important academic interest to the topic, centered among other elements on the definition of alternative models of urban sustainable transition [7,8]. Finally, there is a growing economic impact of sustainable actions, because the search for models of sustainable urban growth, associated with the maintenance of certain standards of living is an increasingly important element in competition among cities for ventures and investments [9].…”

“…Additionally, in different cities and territorial contexts, the starting conditions, the existing institutional structures, as well as the ways of understanding the concept of sustainability and its associated policies are very different [7,8]. Thus, it is recognized the relevance of historical path dependencies in the processes of biosocial construction of sustainability [10,11].…”