Braden Kay

Mitigating urban sprawl effects: a collaborative tree and shade intervention in Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Communities in Phoenix are confronted with numerous challenges that adversely affect human health and safety, with disproportionate impacts on low-income communities. While some challenges are being addressed at the city level, new alliances at the neighbourhood level are initiating community development programmes and projects. This article reports on an intervention study carried out in collaboration with community representatives, city staff, and non-profit organisations to mitigate adverse effects of urban sprawl in the Sky Harbour Neighbourhood in Phoenix. Participatory research was conducted to design and test a tree and shade intervention. Challenges associated with navigating community desires and broader principles of sustainable development are discussed. The study offers a replicable and adaptable intervention research design aimed at empowering communities to meet urban challenges.

Ideal and reality of multi-stakeholder collaboration on sustainability problems: a case study on a large-scale industrial contamination in Phoenix, Arizona

Multi-stakeholder collaboration among industry, government, the public, and researchers is widely acknowledged as a critical success factor for resolving sustainability problems. Proponents argue that pooling capacities and resources is necessary to cope with such wicked problems. Despite good intentions and attempts to follow best practices, the reality of multi-stakeholder collaboration is often flawed. We demonstrate this mismatch between the ideal and reality with a case study of a multi-stakeholder collaboration centered on a large urban area affected by industrial contamination (superfund site) in Phoenix, Arizona. The study indicates deficits in the collaborative process due to the lack of trust, power asymmetry, and other factors. Efforts have recently been undertaken to enhance the multi-stakeholder collaboration through novel engagement approaches. The study uses insights from stakeholder engagement approaches to demonstrate how the quality of multi-stakeholder collaboration on sustainability problems could be appraised and how common obstacles to such collaboration could be overcome, while reflecting on the role of transdisciplinary research in this process.

Worth the trouble?!: An evaluative scheme for urban sustainability transition labs (USTLs) and an application to the USTL in Phoenix, Arizona

© 2017 selection and editorial matter, Niki Frantzeskaki, Vanesa Castan Broto, Lars Coenen and Derk Loorbach; individual chapters, the contributors. 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.The global process of urbanization has left environmental, economic, and social consequences yet to be understood. One concern of scholars and urban administrators is the resilience of cities; how urban activities can ‘bounce back’ after a significant disturbance, and ‘bounce forward’ through learning and responding to these events (Seeliger and Turok 2013). This maintenance of urban function is salient in the context of cities, as their highly engineered landscapes can leave citizens vulnerable. With large socio-technical systems delivering essential services such as energy, water, transport, housing, and health care, there is an argument that urban populations in developed countries have moved from a modest level of self-reliance to high levels of technical reliance. Natural disasters provide the most frequent evidence of this vulnerability, exposing citizens when failure in large technocratic systems leaves them to provide for their own basic needs. In major cities in some developing countries, those without access to urban infrastructure services may be less reliant on central technologies, but their subsistence within the resources of the urban landscape is a daily struggle, made more difficult in times of crisis.In this concluding chapter, we draw insights from earlier chapters on (i) urban transitions as a key phenomenon and (ii) transition theory, especially the role of place and space therein.