The author examines the two most advanced eco-city projects: the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City in China, and Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. These are the most notable attempts at building new eco-cities to both face up to the 'crises' of the modern world and to use the city as an engine for transition to a low-carbon economy.

This book examines how contemporary urbanism is influenced by digital and low carbon transitions. From its infancy at the scale of individual buildings, a focus on ‘green’ agenda, energy, and resource efficiency has fostered research and policies for low carbon cities, eco-cities, and increasingly intelligent and smarter urban systems. Cities around the world are getting ‘smarter’ as more advanced technology is integrated into urban planning and design. People are relying more on digital and information and communication technology (ICT) in their daily lives, while cities are adopting more digital technology to monitor and gather information about people and their environment. This leads to Big Data collection, which is used to inform governance and improve urban performance. These transformations, however, raise critical questions, including whether emerging smart sustainable cities are too technocratic, but also with regard to citizen involvement. This brief addresses these important contemporary concerns through a review of literature and existing urban strategies. It should be of interest to everyone involved in advancing sustainable cities and smart cities. It should also be a relevant read for students and researchers in this area.

Current societies face unprecedented risks and challenges connected to climate change. Addressing them will require fundamental transformations in the infrastructures that sustain everyday life, such as energy, water, waste and mobility. A transition to a ‘low carbon’ future implies a large scale reorganisation in the way societies produce and use energy. Cities are critical in this transition because they concentrate social and economic activities that produce climate change related emissions. At the same time, cities are increasingly recognised as sources of opportunities for climate change mitigation. Whether, how and why low carbon transitions in urban systems take place in response to climate change will therefore be decisive for the success of global mitigation efforts. As a result, climate change increasingly features as a critical issue in the management of urban infrastructure and in urbanisation policies. Cities and Low Carbon Transitions presents a ground-breaking analysis of the role of cities in low carbon socio-technical transitions. Insights from the fields of urban studies and technological transitions are combined to examine how, why and with what implications cities bring about low carbon transitions. The book outlines the key concepts underpinning theories of socio-technical transition and assesses its potential strengths and limits for understanding the social and technological responses to climate change that are emerging in cities. It draws on a diverse range of examples including world cities, ordinary cities and transition towns, from North America, Europe, South Africa and China, to provide evidence that expectations, aspirations and plans to undertake purposive socio-technical transitions are emerging in different urban contexts. This collection adds to existing literature on cities and energy transitions and introduces critical questions about power and social interests, lock-in and development trajectories, social equity and economic development, and socio-technical change in cities. The book addresses academics, policy makers, practitioners and researchers interested in the development of systemic responses in cities to curb climate change.

This book examines the sustainability transition theory in the context of urbanization in China, tracing the development of eco and low-carbon cities. It examines how ideas on building eco-cities and low-carbon cities travel from nation to nation, how they are adopted in the Chinese administrative context and what role inter-scalar actors play in getting the ideas transferred, translated and operationalized on the ground. Offering an overarching theoretical framework that incorporates all urban sustainability experiments in China, the book conducts a comprehensive analysis of the master plans of these new towns and summarizes the normative transition targets of sustainable urban experiments. It explores how they differ from each other and how they influence transition dynamics in practice. By examining four eco and low-carbon new towns deemed representative of current major approaches to sustainability transition management in China, the book provides a detailed depiction of generic transition management and explains the different transitional trajectories for each type of sustainable urban experiment. It demonstrates how subnational-level and city-level transitions mediate the national transition. Through a thorough inquiry into inter-scalar dynamics, institutional arrangements and techno-social innovations in sustainable urban experiments, the book links generalized transition rules and specific contexts to present a full view of the challenges, failures and territorial problems of eco and low-carbon new towns. This book makes a novel contribution to the study of Chinese urbanization by revisiting issues and problems of contemporary urban China. The reflection on these urban issues will provide implications to policymakers, professionals and the common reader interested in the future sustainable urbanism in China.

Cities and Low Carbon Transitions presents a ground-breaking analysis of the role of cities in low carbon socio-technical transitions. Insights from the fields of urban studies and technological transitions are combined to examine how, why, and with what implications cities bring about low carbon transitions. The book outlines the key concepts underpinning theories of socio-technical transition and assesses its potential strengths and limits for understanding the social and technological responses to climate change that are emerging in cities. It draws on a diverse range of examples including world cities, ordinary cities and transition towns, from North America, Europe, South Africa and China, to provide evidence that expectations, aspirations and plans to undertake purposive socio-technical transitions are emerging in different urban contexts.

With a foreword from Paul King, Chief Executive, UK Green Building Council and Chairman, Zero Carbon Hub As concerns over climate change and resource constraints grow, many cities across the world are trying to achieve a low carbon transition. Although new zero carbon buildings are an important part of the story, in existing cities the transformation of the current building stock and urban infrastructure must inevitably form the main focus for transitioning to a low carbon and sustainable future by 2050. Urban Retrofitting for Sustainability brings together interdisciplinary research contributions from leading international experts to focus on key issues such as systems innovation, financing tools, governance, energy, and water management. The chapters consider not only the knowledge and technical tools available, but looks forward to how they can be implemented in real cities by 2050.

The problems related to the process of industrialisation such as biodiversity depletion, climate change and a worsening of health and living conditions, especially but not only in developing countries, intensify. Therefore, there is an increasing need to search for integrated solutions to make development more sustainable. The United Nations has acknowledged the problem and approved the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. On 1st January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda officially came into force. These goals cover the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. The Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals comprehensively addresses the SDGs in an integrated way. The Encyclopedia encompasses 17 volumes, each one devoted to one of the 17 SDGs. This volume addresses SDG 11, namely “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” and contains the description of a range of terms, which allows a better understanding and fosters knowledge. This book presents a set of papers on the state of the art of knowledge and practices about the numerous challenges for cities, solutions and opportunities for the future. Concretely, the defined targets are: Ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums Provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women, children, persons with disabilities and older persons Enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage Significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected and substantially decrease the direct economic losses relative to global gross domestic product caused by disasters, including water-related disasters, with a focus on protecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations Reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management Provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities Support positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas by strengthening national and regional development planning Substantially increase the number of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing integrated policies and plans towards inclusion, resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, resilience to disasters, and develop and implement, in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, holistic disaster risk management at all levels Support least developed countries, including through financial and technical assistance, in building sustainable and resilient buildings utilizing local materials Editorial Board Samuel Borges Barbosa, Luciana Londero Brandli, Elisa Conticelli, Erin A. Hopkins, Olga Kuznetsova, Astrid Skjerven, Hari Srinivas