Why does everyone think cities can save the planet?

Abstract

This article identifies and explains an underlying transition in global urban policy and discourse from the city as a sustainability problem to the city as a sustainability solution. We argue that contemporary policy discourses of cities saving the planet should be understood in the context of three major historical developments which have their roots in the 1970s and which intensified throughout the 1990s. The first is sprawl: the urban sustainability policy agenda in the Global North has been in large part a reaction to several decades of urban expansion and car-based planning. The second is informal settlements: since the introduction of UN-HABITAT in 1978, an international policy agenda has formed around addressing the environmental deficits associated with processes of informal urbanisation above all in the Global South. And the third is climate change, as the overarching concern that connects urban-environmental problems and policies in the North and South. We then contextualise the articles in this special issue by outlining a new research agenda for decoding the notion that cities can save the planet, which emphasises the need for an historical, multi-spatial, political and representational analysis of urban sustainability thinking and policy.

The density dilemma: there is always too much and too little of it

“…In the field of urban political ecology, I am influenced by scholars who have defied methodologically "cityist" understandings of sustainability politics and who have begun to ask "why everybody thinks cities will save the planet" (Angelo & Wachsmuth, 2020;Rosol et al, 2017). Instead, a more systemic understanding of the political ecologies of extended urbanization may be more appropriate and move the debate beyond the territorial or corporate notion of the city (but see also Kirby's (2019) reminder that the local state remains important in matters of urban sustainability).…”

Regional planning: an arena of interests, institutions and relations

“…Instead, we can see transformative and innovative practices of regional planning, albeit also unfruitful attempts for its renewal or revival, resulting in difficult deadlock situations. Nonetheless, at a time when a lot of responsibility is being put on cities and urban areas, for example, in the context of smart cities (Batty, 2016) or sustainable urbanism (Angelo & Wachsmuth, 2020), there is still a need for visionary regional perspectives to address wicked problems.…”

In Search for (the Lost) Smartness in the Evolution of the Smart Cities: Consumers or Citizens?

“…Since the modern age, social, technological and environmental developments are associated to a national or supranational entity while the last 50 years attribute the driver for innovation and sustainable development on the city. If the city turned from being a danger to be the solution to save the planet [27], one still needs to ponder on advantages and risks that such a change brings about for a SC. Table 2 summarizes and points to potential risks and opportunities in the debate over policies on SC after the pandemic.…”