Co Producing Knowledge For Sustainable Cities

At the current time, many issues and problems within sustainable urban development are managed within traditional disciplinary and organizational structures. However, problems such as, climate change, resource constraints, poverty and social tensions all exceed current compartmentalization of policy-making, administration and knowledge production. This book provides a better understanding of how researchers and practitioners together can co-produce knowledge to better contribute to solving the complex challenges of reaching sustainable urban futures. It is written for academic and professional audiences working with urban planning and sustainable cities around the world. Co-producing Knowledge is presented, by way of introduction, as a non-linear, collaborative approach to knowledge production which combines interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, cross sector and policy approaches to societal problem solving. Examples are taken from Cape Town, Gothenburg, Kisumu, Manchester, Melbourne and a selection of cities in Southeast Asia. Each city chapter discusses the drivers and motivations behind knowledge co-production and gives concrete examples of activities and approaches that have been used to promote sustainable urban futures. Each chapter is written to promote mutual learning from the approaches that are already in use. Building upon these city cases, the conclusions outline an international practice and research agenda aimed at strengthening the promotion and implementation of the knowledge co-production for sustainability across diverse urban development contexts. This book provides an overview of the diverse driving forces behind co-production, and their specific contexts and constraints in a variety of cosmopolitan urban contexts. Some of these include institutional and cross-sector barriers to co-production, the need for learning across diverse levels and contexts, and strategies for balancing scientific excellence with the needs of societal change. This book offers valuable lessons regarding the concrete implications and potential impact that co-production processes can have for different user groups, such as planners, politicians, researchers, business interests and NGOs in different urban development contexts.

How can we create appropriate practices for research collaboration in the face of climate change, widening inequalities, decreasing biodiversity and untenable consumption levels? Transdisciplinary co-production focuses on real-world problems through collaborative processes that include a wide variety of knowledge and expertise.

At the current time, many issues and problems within sustainable urban development are managed within traditional disciplinary and organizational structures. However, problems such as, climate change, resource constraints, poverty and social tensions all exceed current compartmentalization of policy-making, administration and knowledge production. This book provides a better understanding of how researchers and practitioners together can co-produce knowledge to better contribute to solving the complex challenges of reaching sustainable urban futures. It is written for academic and professional audiences working with urban planning and sustainable cities around the world. Co-producing Knowledge is presented, by way of introduction, as a non-linear, collaborative approach to knowledge production which combines interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, cross sector and policy approaches to societal problem solving. Examples are taken from Cape Town, Gothenburg, Kisumu, Manchester, Melbourne and a selection of cities in Southeast Asia. Each city chapter discusses the drivers and motivations behind knowledge co-production and gives concrete examples of activities and approaches that have been used to promote sustainable urban futures. Each chapter is written to promote mutual learning from the approaches that are already in use. Building upon these city cases, the conclusions outline an international practice and research agenda aimed at strengthening the promotion and implementation of the knowledge co-production for sustainability across diverse urban development contexts. This book provides an overview of the diverse driving forces behind co-production, and their specific contexts and constraints in a variety of cosmopolitan urban contexts. Some of these include institutional and cross-sector barriers to co-production, the need for learning across diverse levels and contexts, and strategies for balancing scientific excellence with the needs of societal change. This book offers valuable lessons regarding the concrete implications and potential impact that co-production processes can have for different user groups, such as planners, politicians, researchers, business interests and NGOs in different urban development contexts.

The world’s population is currently undergoing a significant transition towards urbanisation, with the UN expecting that 70% of people globally will live in cities by 2050. Urbanisation has multiple political, cultural, environmental and economic dimensions that profoundly influence social development and innovation. This fundamental long-term transformation will involve the realignment of urban society’s technologies and infrastructures, culture and lifestyles, 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 and explores possible strategies for governing urban transitions, emphasising the co-evolution of material and institutional transformations in socio-technical and socio-ecological systems. 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 provides an opportunity to reflect upon the comparability and transferability of theoretical/conceptual constructs and governance approaches across geographical contexts. Urban Sustainability Transitions is key reading for students and scholars working in Environmental Sciences, Geography, Urban Studies, Urban Policy and Planning.

This is a unique book that provides rich knowledge on how to understand and actively contribute to urban sustainability transitions. The book combines theoretical frameworks and tools with practical experiences on transition management as a framework that supports urban planning and governance towards sustainability. The book offers the opportunity to become actively engaged in working towards sustainable futures of cities. Readers of this book will be equipped to understand the complexity of urban sustainability transitions and diagnose persistent unsustainability problems in cities. Urban planners and professionals will build competences for designing transition management processes in cities and engaging with multidisciplinary knowledge in solution-seeking processes. The heart of the book marks the variety of very different local case studies across the world – including, amongst others, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, La Botija in Honduras, Sydney in Australia and Cleveland in the US. These rich studies give inspiration and practical insights to young planners on how to create sustainable urban futures in collaboration with other stakeholders. The case studies and critical reflections on applications of transition management in cities offer food for thought and welcome criticism. They also introduce new lenses to understand the bigger picture that co-creation dynamics play in terms of power, (dis-)empowerment, legitimacy and changing actor roles. This will equip the readers with a deep understanding of the dynamics, opportunities and challenges present in urban contexts and urban sustainability transitions.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Reporting on the innovative, transdisciplinary research on sustainable urbanisation undertaken by Mistra Urban Futures, a highly influential research centre based in Sweden (2010-19), this book builds on the Policy Press title Rethinking Sustainable Cities to make a significant contribution to evolving theory about comparative urban research. Highlighting important methodological experiences from across a variety of diverse contexts in Africa and Europe, this book surveys key experiences and summarises lessons learned from the Mistra Urban Futures' global research platforms. It demonstrates best practice for developing and deploying different forms of transdisciplinary co-production, covering topics including neighbourhood transformation and housing justice, sustainable urban and transport development, urban food security and cultural heritage.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Reporting on the innovative, transdisciplinary research on sustainable urbanisation being undertaken by Mistra Urban Futures, a highly influential research centre based in Sweden, this book builds on the Policy Press title Rethinking Sustainable Cities to make a significant contribution to evolving theory about comparative urban research. Highlighting important methodological experiences from across a variety of diverse contexts in Africa and Europe, this book surveys key experiences and summarises lessons learned from the MUF’s global research platforms. It demonstrates best practice for developing and deploying different forms of transdisciplinary co-production, covering topics including neighbourhood transformation and housing justice, sustainable urban and transport development, urban food security and cultural heritage.

This open access book addresses the way in which urban and urbanizing regions profoundly impact and are impacted by climate change. The editors and authors show why cities must wage simultaneous battles to curb global climate change trends while adapting and transforming to address local climate impacts. This book addresses how cities develop anticipatory and long-range planning capacities for more resilient futures, earnest collaboration across disciplines, and radical reconfigurations of the power regimes that have institutionalized the disenfranchisement of minority groups. Although planning processes consider visions for the future, the editors highlight a more ambitious long-term positive visioning approach that accounts for unpredictability, system dynamics and equity in decision-making. This volume brings the science of urban transformation together with practices of professionals who govern and manage our social, ecological and technological systems to design processes by which cities may achieve resilient urban futures in the face of climate change.

This handbook addresses a growing list of challenges faced by regions and cities in the Pacific Rim, drawing connections around the what, why, and how questions that are fundamental to sustainable development policies and planning practices. These include the connection between cities and surrounding landscapes, across different boundaries and scales; the persistence of environmental and development inequities; and the growing impacts of global climate change, including how physical conditions and social implications are being anticipated and addressed. Building upon localized knowledge and contextualized experiences, this edited collection brings attention to place-based approaches across the Pacific Rim and makes an important contribution to the scholarly and practical understanding of sustainable urban development models that have mostly emerged out of the Western experiences. Nine sections, each grounded in research, dialogue, and collaboration with practical examples and analysis, focus on a theme or dimension that carries critical impacts on a holistic vision of city-landscape development, such as resilient communities, ecosystem services and biodiversity, energy, water, health, and planning and engagement. This international edited collection will appeal to academics and students engaged in research involving landscape architecture, architecture, planning, public policy, law, urban studies, geography, environmental science, and area studies. It also informs policy makers, professionals, and advocates of actionable knowledge and adoptable ideas by connecting those issues with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. The collection of writings presented in this book speaks to multiyear collaboration of scholars through the APRU Sustainable Cities and Landscapes (SCL) Program and its global network, facilitated by SCL Annual Conferences and involving more than 100 contributors from more than 30 institutions. The Open Access version of chapters 1, 2, 4, 11, 17, 23, 30, 37, 42, 49, and 56 of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003033530, have been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.