Upcoming! New book release: ‘Urban Sustainability Transitions’

Do you want to know how sustainability transitions unfold in different types of cities across the world and discover possible strategies for governing urban transitions? This upcoming publication, edited by Vanesa Castán Broto, Lars Coenen and DRIFT-ers Derk Loorbach and Niki Frantzeskaki, provides new insights and knowledge on this important topic.

The world’s population is undergoing a significant transition towards urbanization. The UN expects 70% of people globally to live in cities by 2050. Urbanisation has multiple political, cultural, environmental and economic dimensions that influence social development and innovation. Urban society’s technologies, infrastructures, culture and lifestyles will be realigned, as well as governance and institutional frameworks. Such structural systemic realignments can be referred to as urban sustainability transitions: fundamental and structural changes in urban systems through which persistent societal challenges are addressed, such as shifts towards urban farming, renewable decentralised energy systems, and social economies.

This book provides new insights into how sustainability transitions unfold in different types of cities across the world with case studies of mega-cities such as Seoul, Tokyo, New York and Adelaide, medium-sized cities such as Copenhagen, Cape Town and Portland, and nonmetropolitan cities such as Freiburg, Ghent and Brighton. The book explores possible strategies for governing urban transitions, emphasising the co-evolution of material and institutional transformations in socio-technical and socio-ecological systems. This way, the book provides an opportunity to reflect upon the comparability and transferability of theoretical/conceptual constructs and governance approaches across geographical contexts.

Do you want to read more? The book will be published on the 6th of June; a pre-order is possible for those who don’t want to miss out!