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Urban Sustainability Transformations in lights of resource efficiency and resilient city concepts
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ScienceDirect Urban Sustainability Transformations in lights of resource efficiency and resilient city concepts Kerstin Krellenberg, Florian Koch and Sigrun Kabisch
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. Address Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology, Permoser Str. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany Corresponding author: Krellenberg, Kerstin ([email protected])
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 22:51–56 This review comes from a themed issue on System dynamics and sustainability Edited by Niki Frantzeskaki, Dagmar Haase, Michail Fragkias and Thomas Elmqvist Received 05 July 2016; Revised 23 March 2017; Accepted 05 April 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.04.001 1877-3435/ã 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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 www.sciencedirect.com
process, and not an endpoint, and thus, even as a constantly shifting target [5]. Therefore, we stress that the objectives of UST may vary also from city to city. They range from changes in infrastructure and transportation systems [6], over food security [7] or health issues, [8] to climate change [9]. This means that UST should be understood as an umbrella framework, rather than as a clearly defined pathway. It must consider specific local contexts, involve a wide range of actors, and lead to dignified living conditions. To exemplify this approach, we focus this article on climate change. We argue that, to achieve UST in the light of climate change, out of the several available urban concepts, two, in particular, need to be implemented: The Resource Efficient City, in terms of mitigation, and the Resilient City, in terms of adaptation. Today, a consensus exists that the ambitious but necessary climate targets can only be reached by following both mitigation and adaptation strategies in parallel. As a consequence, the concepts of the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City also display synergies and interlinkages. Their implementation requires far-reaching changes of existing urban development paths. Accordingly, the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City showcase the main characteristics of UST. Insights on how these two concepts are applied help us to understand central mechanisms and procedures of UST in general. Besides ‘narrow’ definitions of the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City as strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change, both concepts can also be understood more broadly, and can refer, for example, to financial resource efficiency or resilience against political turmoil. In order to shed light on how UST are promoted by the concepts of the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City, we present and discuss findings stemming from current debates. For the review, we analysed two databases: the ISI Web of Science and Scopus. Additionally, we searched for books on this topic that have been published in recent years. Our overall focus is on contributions that investigate UST in everyday life. We centre, particularly, on the conceptual framing, on how technical feasibility and political will are addressed, on the extent to which perceptions, behaviour, and needs of civil society are included, and on the challenges or even obstacles that arise. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2016, 22:51–56
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We stress that UST are context-specific and place-specific and that general conclusions need to be drawn very cautiously. However, comparing cases from diverse kinds of cities on different continents helps us to define key issues, including transferable insights for expediting UST. In the following, we scrutinize the two UST concepts Resource Efficient City and Resilient City to characterize their particularities. Subsequently, we draw attention to their similarities, in particular those related to implementation strategies, and with a focus on peoplecentred approaches.
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]. Consequently, the way in which resources are used, for example, in terms of the water-energy nexus, is decisive for ongoing and emerging urban transformations [5]. With regard to climate change mitigation, this can be illustrated by the use of low carbon forms of energy supply, which predominantly addresses the question of how to achieve a transformation of existing urban structures towards less CO2 emissions. Low carbon initiatives deal with the topics of energy infrastructure, buildings and people, using a combination of techno-efficiency and economic measures, and behaviour change [13]. Considerable knowledge on the appropriate technological aspect exists, and the respective tools are available and affordable [14–16]. Nevertheless, the implementation remains challenging [17,18]. In this context, empirical research on transformations towards low carbon cities emphasizes the problems of transferring the normative goal of UST into urban practice. For example, existing policy and regulatory processes have only recently begun to consider how to transform socio-technical systems [19]. Thus, different cities have placed objectives such as climate-neutrality [20,15], energy efficiency targets for new buildings [16], as well as retrofitting the building stock to reduce energy consumption [21], on their political agendas. This underpins that, in a range of cities worldwide, the political will for resource efficiency is present. Official policy documents addressing a Resource Efficient City with respect to ambitious CO2 reduction targets exist. Nevertheless, even in cities that have made these declarations of intent, practical experience shows that the progress of the low carbon transition is often ‘minimal and prone to rapid reversal or stalling’ [13]:2450, ‘points towards a need to revisit the strategies of climate and Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2016, 22:51–56
energy plans’ [21]:9076, and is seen as ‘overambitious’ and ‘perceived as unrealistic’ by many actors [16]:299. Hence, if the political will is present and the technologies are available, why are current transformation processes towards a Resource Efficient City rarely labelled as successful? One aspect is finance: Policies in European countries addressing low carbon transformations often assume that investments are included within general government budgets and/or paid by the market, that is, as private costs [21]. In Germany, it is expected that technical improvements, such as energy-oriented modernisations, result in lower financial burdens for households, but only in the long-run [22]. As research from South Africa shows, a positive attitude of developers towards the construction of ‘green buildings’ does not automatically lead to the implementation of broader principles of urban sustainability in the construction sector. These include the energy-efficient refurbishment of existing buildings, inclusionary housing, mixed uses and density. Developers worry that these investments will not be recouped and argue that these kind of measures are public goods and therefore beyond the companies’ scope [23]. Similarly, empirical findings from Sweden reveal that developers doubt that the proposed outcomes and expected returns with regard to energyoriented construction will turn into reality: Companies argue that the ambitious municipal energy efficient goals could be only realized in a profitable way at the expense of comfort for the inhabitants. Therefore, developers undermine the municipal energy efficiency goal and refuse to apply new, more expensive and more experimental technologies in order to secure the marketability of the construction [16]. Another aspect why current transformation processes towards the Resource Efficient City can hardly be labelled as successful is the lack of co-production with people: The implementation of technological measures often neglects behavioural traits of the urban citizens. Benefits are, in many cases, not clearly visible and problems of mobilizing people arise [15]. Additionally, negative outcomes, such as ‘energy poverty’, the result of rising rents after energy-oriented modernisations, complicate the realization of energy efficient solutions in practice [22]. We therefore argue that more thorough considerations of the fears and needs of the affected population, their active involvement in the process, as well as their provision with the necessary information, through people-centred approaches, would enhance the appropriate step-wise implementation of measures to reach the Resource Efficient City. In this vein, other authors discuss the potential of Urban Transition Labs to achieve resource efficiency in terms of climate neutrality [20]. We follow this up and argue that, although the lab approach, as a concrete example for a www.sciencedirect.com
Implementation of urban sustainability transformations Krellenberg, Koch and Kabisch 53
people-centred approach, does not yet provide enough solid ground for fundamental UST, it possess the potential for achieving backing from society with regard to the required changes. Furthermore, the labs offer the opportunity to tackle a number of unsustainable issues in terms of selected incremental transition steps, which again call for more system thinking [24]. Bridging between quantitative system modelling, multi-level perspectives and practice-based action research, tales into account the experimental character of the local low-carbon city. Including local knowledge of actors from society, politics, and private sector seems a promising approach for navigating these labs towards UST [25].
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 be desirable state’ to be achieved ‘and, therefore, should 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 at other scale [27]. In general, consolidating the resilience of a city is seen as a crucial element of urban transformations [28–32]. Persistence, transition, and transformation are often considered the three mechanisms or pathways towards urban resilience, denoting a continuum of actions from resistance to change to radical transformation [26]. The Resilient City is, today, often discussed with reference to climate change [33–35], with an increasing appeal for resilience to be used as a holistic concept [36,37]. In the context of climate-related disasters and risks, cities are beginning to move towards transformative adaptation, where adaptation is recognized for its potential to address gaps in sustainable development. This type of adaptation is understood as non-linear change to entire systems—in contrast to incremental adaptation, which seeks to maintain existing systems [9]. However, little is known about fully executed adaptation processes [38]. Nevertheless, a huge body of practical solutions for resilient cities exists, and measures, in the form of experiments, urban design show cases, and individual actions, are being implemented [39–41]. Thus, these measures are not necessarily formalized or included in the overarching adaptation strategies, and are, similarly, not necessarily linked to UST [42,43,29]. Accordingly, technical measures, such as dykes and dams, water recycling, or an improved waterenergy nexus to adapt successfully to climate change impacts, as well as innovative approaches that include the valuation of ecosystem services to increase resilience exist [44,45,31,46]. Toolboxes on how to implement a resilient-to-climate change city have been developed on local but also on international levels [47,48]. A rising number of municipalities in the Global North, but also www.sciencedirect.com
less affluent municipalities in the Global South, elaborate sectoral climate change plans or mainstream adaptation issues in their development plans [49–51]. This underscores that, even if the Resilient City is far from being a common element in urban politics worldwide, the political will to issue adaptation plans can be found in a rising number of cities. Similar to the findings about the Resource Efficient City, there is no shortcoming of possible technical and urban planning ideas and visions about what the Resilient City should look like. Increasingly, political will and leadership for the Resilient City is evident. Boyd and Juhola [52] found that technical experiences are the most prominent, and thus argue that, in the context of urban climate governance, neither technological nor political nor ecoalone are sufficient. In the same direclogical solutions tion, Ref. [5 :324] argue that ‘due to various inertias that characterize urban systems’, a one-size-fits-all approach to urban resilience does not exist; instead, a combination of factors such as ‘self-organizational features, adaptive learning, positive feedbacks, and diversity in processes, institutions, and culture’ is needed [5]. However, even in cities where the political will and the capacity to apply existing toolboxes for the Resilient City exist, considerable implementation gaps are visible, particularly in terms of their successful embedment in overall sustainable urban development strategies [53]. Furthermore, the effective adoption of measures by people in everyday life is also challenging, as exemplified in the following. It was found, for some German municipalities, that ‘adaptation mainstreaming in general, and eco-system-based adaptation in particular, are still in their infancy’ [54:no page numbers]. In Mozambique, ‘moving beyond good intentions into transformative practices is one of the major challenges of climate policy’ [55:9], and, in South Africa, path-dependent urban planning practice ‘considerably limits the realization of novel adaptive planning’ [56:896] by not observing synergies between adaptation and other political goals [57]. These examples provide some interesting insights, but they do not allow us to draw a comprehensive picture for generalization. Here, more detailed, context-specific views on the various cases would be necessary. Nevertheless, success stories also exist. One example is the transformation of the water management system in neglected neighbourhoods in Mexico: The transformation of the entire system from a centralized to a more resilient, decentralised system was only possible with the active involvement of local residents [58]. This also holds true for approaches to climate adaptation in Ecuador and India that included civil society actors and built on local communities’ needs [59]. We therefore argue that, in the successful forms of transformative adaptation, civil society involvement through people-centred approaches is Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2016, 22:51–56
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crucial. This, again, emphasizes the interrelation between local community knowledge, civil society actors, and official adaptation measures [55].
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 changes towards the Resource Efficient City or the Resilient City on the living conditions of urban residents, and communicating and promoting them explicitly, can increase awareness and acceptance, and also facilitate the final implementation of resilience and resource efficiency. Examples exist that demonstrate successful implementation, if processes are based on inclusive approaches and involve or are initiated by the local population [60]. We understand these people-centred transformation processes as a promising alternative to smart or green city paradigms, which are ‘mainly prothrough top–down and technocratic approaches’ moted [61 :1]. Even more, the aspirations of local residents for better living conditions for themselves and future generations can be the main driver and requirement for UST towards the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City [52]. Including local population actively to achieve fundamental changes towards a more sustainable form of urban development should therefore be considered, even in a systematic way. In our understanding, this goes beyond the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City, and holds true for all kinds of fundamental transformations. Returning to the example of the transformation from a centralized to a decentralized water management in Mexico [58], its organization along educational measures will hopefully lead to more sustainable forms of water management, and may, at the same time, influence the living conditions of the urban residents through awareness raising related to empowerment and local solutions. Following this up, new concepts, such as the ‘right to infrastructures’ [62], which relates to Lefebvre’s essay, ‘The right to the city’ [63], also present interesting starting points. Even more, expanding the concept of the right to infrastructure to the ‘right to sustainable infrastructures’ seems promising. This also links to the idea of co-creation spaces, such as Urban Living Labs [64] – platforms that engage stakeholders in real-life contexts to test breakthrough concepts and assess their potential value for society as a whole [11] – where users themselves Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2016, 22:51–56
are becoming producers, so-called ‘prosumers’ [65]. Such experiences can provide evidence of positive effects in the everyday life of the local population. This way, behavioural changes have the potential to become an enduring element of UST.
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 power structures and contribute more to a low carbon city than does civil society action that takes place in a space separated from the state [66]. Furthermore, we emphasise the importance of considering different concepts such as the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City as additive and synergetic. We found that people-centred approaches can also play a decisive role in more fundamental changes in infrastructure systems that go beyond the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City. Whether this is also the case for transformations of health or transportation or other systems, remains to be confirmed. What is clear is that not all envisaged synergy effects may always be actually achieved in UST. Examples exist where UST were designed by narrow coalitions of interests but they led more to a reproduction of the economic and political status quo than to fundamental changes towards more sustainability [67,68]. Overall, putting people-centred approaches in the focus of UST reminds us also of its main objective: It is neither merely about the development of new technologies nor about the implementation of a political will but about the deep conviction that, through urban transformations towards sustainability, it is possible to improve living conditions, also for future generations.
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ScienceDirect Urban Sustainability Transformations in lights of resource efficiency and resilient city concepts Kerstin Krellenberg, Florian Koch and Sigrun Kabisch
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. Address Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology, Permoser Str. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany Corresponding author: Krellenberg, Kerstin ([email protected])
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 22:51–56 This review comes from a themed issue on System dynamics and sustainability Edited by Niki Frantzeskaki, Dagmar Haase, Michail Fragkias and Thomas Elmqvist Received 05 July 2016; Revised 23 March 2017; Accepted 05 April 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.04.001 1877-3435/ã 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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 www.sciencedirect.com
process, and not an endpoint, and thus, even as a constantly shifting target [5]. Therefore, we stress that the objectives of UST may vary also from city to city. They range from changes in infrastructure and transportation systems [6], over food security [7] or health issues, [8] to climate change [9]. This means that UST should be understood as an umbrella framework, rather than as a clearly defined pathway. It must consider specific local contexts, involve a wide range of actors, and lead to dignified living conditions. To exemplify this approach, we focus this article on climate change. We argue that, to achieve UST in the light of climate change, out of the several available urban concepts, two, in particular, need to be implemented: The Resource Efficient City, in terms of mitigation, and the Resilient City, in terms of adaptation. Today, a consensus exists that the ambitious but necessary climate targets can only be reached by following both mitigation and adaptation strategies in parallel. As a consequence, the concepts of the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City also display synergies and interlinkages. Their implementation requires far-reaching changes of existing urban development paths. Accordingly, the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City showcase the main characteristics of UST. Insights on how these two concepts are applied help us to understand central mechanisms and procedures of UST in general. Besides ‘narrow’ definitions of the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City as strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change, both concepts can also be understood more broadly, and can refer, for example, to financial resource efficiency or resilience against political turmoil. In order to shed light on how UST are promoted by the concepts of the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City, we present and discuss findings stemming from current debates. For the review, we analysed two databases: the ISI Web of Science and Scopus. Additionally, we searched for books on this topic that have been published in recent years. Our overall focus is on contributions that investigate UST in everyday life. We centre, particularly, on the conceptual framing, on how technical feasibility and political will are addressed, on the extent to which perceptions, behaviour, and needs of civil society are included, and on the challenges or even obstacles that arise. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2016, 22:51–56
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We stress that UST are context-specific and place-specific and that general conclusions need to be drawn very cautiously. However, comparing cases from diverse kinds of cities on different continents helps us to define key issues, including transferable insights for expediting UST. In the following, we scrutinize the two UST concepts Resource Efficient City and Resilient City to characterize their particularities. Subsequently, we draw attention to their similarities, in particular those related to implementation strategies, and with a focus on peoplecentred approaches.
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]. Consequently, the way in which resources are used, for example, in terms of the water-energy nexus, is decisive for ongoing and emerging urban transformations [5]. With regard to climate change mitigation, this can be illustrated by the use of low carbon forms of energy supply, which predominantly addresses the question of how to achieve a transformation of existing urban structures towards less CO2 emissions. Low carbon initiatives deal with the topics of energy infrastructure, buildings and people, using a combination of techno-efficiency and economic measures, and behaviour change [13]. Considerable knowledge on the appropriate technological aspect exists, and the respective tools are available and affordable [14–16]. Nevertheless, the implementation remains challenging [17,18]. In this context, empirical research on transformations towards low carbon cities emphasizes the problems of transferring the normative goal of UST into urban practice. For example, existing policy and regulatory processes have only recently begun to consider how to transform socio-technical systems [19]. Thus, different cities have placed objectives such as climate-neutrality [20,15], energy efficiency targets for new buildings [16], as well as retrofitting the building stock to reduce energy consumption [21], on their political agendas. This underpins that, in a range of cities worldwide, the political will for resource efficiency is present. Official policy documents addressing a Resource Efficient City with respect to ambitious CO2 reduction targets exist. Nevertheless, even in cities that have made these declarations of intent, practical experience shows that the progress of the low carbon transition is often ‘minimal and prone to rapid reversal or stalling’ [13]:2450, ‘points towards a need to revisit the strategies of climate and Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2016, 22:51–56
energy plans’ [21]:9076, and is seen as ‘overambitious’ and ‘perceived as unrealistic’ by many actors [16]:299. Hence, if the political will is present and the technologies are available, why are current transformation processes towards a Resource Efficient City rarely labelled as successful? One aspect is finance: Policies in European countries addressing low carbon transformations often assume that investments are included within general government budgets and/or paid by the market, that is, as private costs [21]. In Germany, it is expected that technical improvements, such as energy-oriented modernisations, result in lower financial burdens for households, but only in the long-run [22]. As research from South Africa shows, a positive attitude of developers towards the construction of ‘green buildings’ does not automatically lead to the implementation of broader principles of urban sustainability in the construction sector. These include the energy-efficient refurbishment of existing buildings, inclusionary housing, mixed uses and density. Developers worry that these investments will not be recouped and argue that these kind of measures are public goods and therefore beyond the companies’ scope [23]. Similarly, empirical findings from Sweden reveal that developers doubt that the proposed outcomes and expected returns with regard to energyoriented construction will turn into reality: Companies argue that the ambitious municipal energy efficient goals could be only realized in a profitable way at the expense of comfort for the inhabitants. Therefore, developers undermine the municipal energy efficiency goal and refuse to apply new, more expensive and more experimental technologies in order to secure the marketability of the construction [16]. Another aspect why current transformation processes towards the Resource Efficient City can hardly be labelled as successful is the lack of co-production with people: The implementation of technological measures often neglects behavioural traits of the urban citizens. Benefits are, in many cases, not clearly visible and problems of mobilizing people arise [15]. Additionally, negative outcomes, such as ‘energy poverty’, the result of rising rents after energy-oriented modernisations, complicate the realization of energy efficient solutions in practice [22]. We therefore argue that more thorough considerations of the fears and needs of the affected population, their active involvement in the process, as well as their provision with the necessary information, through people-centred approaches, would enhance the appropriate step-wise implementation of measures to reach the Resource Efficient City. In this vein, other authors discuss the potential of Urban Transition Labs to achieve resource efficiency in terms of climate neutrality [20]. We follow this up and argue that, although the lab approach, as a concrete example for a www.sciencedirect.com
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people-centred approach, does not yet provide enough solid ground for fundamental UST, it possess the potential for achieving backing from society with regard to the required changes. Furthermore, the labs offer the opportunity to tackle a number of unsustainable issues in terms of selected incremental transition steps, which again call for more system thinking [24]. Bridging between quantitative system modelling, multi-level perspectives and practice-based action research, tales into account the experimental character of the local low-carbon city. Including local knowledge of actors from society, politics, and private sector seems a promising approach for navigating these labs towards UST [25].
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 be desirable state’ to be achieved ‘and, therefore, should 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 at other scale [27]. In general, consolidating the resilience of a city is seen as a crucial element of urban transformations [28–32]. Persistence, transition, and transformation are often considered the three mechanisms or pathways towards urban resilience, denoting a continuum of actions from resistance to change to radical transformation [26]. The Resilient City is, today, often discussed with reference to climate change [33–35], with an increasing appeal for resilience to be used as a holistic concept [36,37]. In the context of climate-related disasters and risks, cities are beginning to move towards transformative adaptation, where adaptation is recognized for its potential to address gaps in sustainable development. This type of adaptation is understood as non-linear change to entire systems—in contrast to incremental adaptation, which seeks to maintain existing systems [9]. However, little is known about fully executed adaptation processes [38]. Nevertheless, a huge body of practical solutions for resilient cities exists, and measures, in the form of experiments, urban design show cases, and individual actions, are being implemented [39–41]. Thus, these measures are not necessarily formalized or included in the overarching adaptation strategies, and are, similarly, not necessarily linked to UST [42,43,29]. Accordingly, technical measures, such as dykes and dams, water recycling, or an improved waterenergy nexus to adapt successfully to climate change impacts, as well as innovative approaches that include the valuation of ecosystem services to increase resilience exist [44,45,31,46]. Toolboxes on how to implement a resilient-to-climate change city have been developed on local but also on international levels [47,48]. A rising number of municipalities in the Global North, but also www.sciencedirect.com
less affluent municipalities in the Global South, elaborate sectoral climate change plans or mainstream adaptation issues in their development plans [49–51]. This underscores that, even if the Resilient City is far from being a common element in urban politics worldwide, the political will to issue adaptation plans can be found in a rising number of cities. Similar to the findings about the Resource Efficient City, there is no shortcoming of possible technical and urban planning ideas and visions about what the Resilient City should look like. Increasingly, political will and leadership for the Resilient City is evident. Boyd and Juhola [52] found that technical experiences are the most prominent, and thus argue that, in the context of urban climate governance, neither technological nor political nor ecoalone are sufficient. In the same direclogical solutions tion, Ref. [5 :324] argue that ‘due to various inertias that characterize urban systems’, a one-size-fits-all approach to urban resilience does not exist; instead, a combination of factors such as ‘self-organizational features, adaptive learning, positive feedbacks, and diversity in processes, institutions, and culture’ is needed [5]. However, even in cities where the political will and the capacity to apply existing toolboxes for the Resilient City exist, considerable implementation gaps are visible, particularly in terms of their successful embedment in overall sustainable urban development strategies [53]. Furthermore, the effective adoption of measures by people in everyday life is also challenging, as exemplified in the following. It was found, for some German municipalities, that ‘adaptation mainstreaming in general, and eco-system-based adaptation in particular, are still in their infancy’ [54:no page numbers]. In Mozambique, ‘moving beyond good intentions into transformative practices is one of the major challenges of climate policy’ [55:9], and, in South Africa, path-dependent urban planning practice ‘considerably limits the realization of novel adaptive planning’ [56:896] by not observing synergies between adaptation and other political goals [57]. These examples provide some interesting insights, but they do not allow us to draw a comprehensive picture for generalization. Here, more detailed, context-specific views on the various cases would be necessary. Nevertheless, success stories also exist. One example is the transformation of the water management system in neglected neighbourhoods in Mexico: The transformation of the entire system from a centralized to a more resilient, decentralised system was only possible with the active involvement of local residents [58]. This also holds true for approaches to climate adaptation in Ecuador and India that included civil society actors and built on local communities’ needs [59]. We therefore argue that, in the successful forms of transformative adaptation, civil society involvement through people-centred approaches is Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2016, 22:51–56
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crucial. This, again, emphasizes the interrelation between local community knowledge, civil society actors, and official adaptation measures [55].
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 changes towards the Resource Efficient City or the Resilient City on the living conditions of urban residents, and communicating and promoting them explicitly, can increase awareness and acceptance, and also facilitate the final implementation of resilience and resource efficiency. Examples exist that demonstrate successful implementation, if processes are based on inclusive approaches and involve or are initiated by the local population [60]. We understand these people-centred transformation processes as a promising alternative to smart or green city paradigms, which are ‘mainly prothrough top–down and technocratic approaches’ moted [61 :1]. Even more, the aspirations of local residents for better living conditions for themselves and future generations can be the main driver and requirement for UST towards the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City [52]. Including local population actively to achieve fundamental changes towards a more sustainable form of urban development should therefore be considered, even in a systematic way. In our understanding, this goes beyond the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City, and holds true for all kinds of fundamental transformations. Returning to the example of the transformation from a centralized to a decentralized water management in Mexico [58], its organization along educational measures will hopefully lead to more sustainable forms of water management, and may, at the same time, influence the living conditions of the urban residents through awareness raising related to empowerment and local solutions. Following this up, new concepts, such as the ‘right to infrastructures’ [62], which relates to Lefebvre’s essay, ‘The right to the city’ [63], also present interesting starting points. Even more, expanding the concept of the right to infrastructure to the ‘right to sustainable infrastructures’ seems promising. This also links to the idea of co-creation spaces, such as Urban Living Labs [64] – platforms that engage stakeholders in real-life contexts to test breakthrough concepts and assess their potential value for society as a whole [11] – where users themselves Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2016, 22:51–56
are becoming producers, so-called ‘prosumers’ [65]. Such experiences can provide evidence of positive effects in the everyday life of the local population. This way, behavioural changes have the potential to become an enduring element of UST.
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 power structures and contribute more to a low carbon city than does civil society action that takes place in a space separated from the state [66]. Furthermore, we emphasise the importance of considering different concepts such as the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City as additive and synergetic. We found that people-centred approaches can also play a decisive role in more fundamental changes in infrastructure systems that go beyond the Resource Efficient City and the Resilient City. Whether this is also the case for transformations of health or transportation or other systems, remains to be confirmed. What is clear is that not all envisaged synergy effects may always be actually achieved in UST. Examples exist where UST were designed by narrow coalitions of interests but they led more to a reproduction of the economic and political status quo than to fundamental changes towards more sustainability [67,68]. Overall, putting people-centred approaches in the focus of UST reminds us also of its main objective: It is neither merely about the development of new technologies nor about the implementation of a political will but about the deep conviction that, through urban transformations towards sustainability, it is possible to improve living conditions, also for future generations.
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