| 1. |
- Ehnert, Franziska, et al.
(författare)
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The Acceleration of Urban Sustainability Transitions: a Comparison of Brighton, Budapest, Dresden, Genk, and Stockholm
- 2018
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI. - 2071-1050. ; 10:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- City-regions as sites of sustainability transitions have remained under-explored so far. With our comparative analysis of five diverse European city-regions, we offer new insights on contemporary sustainability transitions at the urban level. In a similar vein, the pre-development and the take-off phase of sustainability transitions have been studied in depth while the acceleration phase remains a research gap. We address this research gap by exploring how transitions can move beyond the seeding of alternative experiments and the activation of civil society initiatives. This raises the question of what commonalities and differences can be found between urban sustainability transitions. In our explorative study, we employ a newly developed framework of the acceleration mechanisms of sustainability transitions. We offer new insights on the multi-phase model of sustainability transitions. Our findings illustrate that there are no clear demarcations between the phases of transitions. From the perspective of city-regions, we rather found dynamics of acceleration, deceleration, and stagnation to unfold in parallel. We observed several transitions—transitions towards both sustainability and un-sustainability—to co-evolve. This suggests that the politics of persistence—the inertia and path dependencies of un-sustainability—should be considered in the study of urban sustainability transitions.
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| 2. |
- Ehnert, Franziska, et al.
(författare)
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Urban sustainability transitions in a context of multi-level governance : A comparison of four European states
- 2018
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Ingår i: Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions. - : Elsevier. - 2210-4224 .- 2210-4232. ; 26, s. 101-116
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Urban sustainability transitions have attracted increasing academic interest. However, the political-institutional contexts, in which these urban sustainability transitions unfold and by which they are incited, shaped, or inhibited, have received much less attention. This is why we aim at extending previous studies of sustainability transitions by incorporating a multi-level governance perspective. While multi-level governance has been a long-standing theme in political science research, it has remained under-explored in the study of sustainability transitions. This claim is the starting point of our comparative analysis of urban sustainability transitions in Brighton (UK), Dresden (Germany), Genk (Belgium) and Stockholm (Sweden). Our approach “brings the politics back in” by elucidating the dynamics of power concentration and power dispersion generated by different national governance contexts. In our analysis, we explore which opportunities and obstacles these diverse governance contexts provide for urban sustainability transitions.
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| 3. |
- Fazey, Ioan, et al.
(författare)
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Transforming knowledge systems for life on Earth : Visions of future systems and how to get there
- 2020
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Ingår i: Energy Research & Social Science. - : Elsevier. - 2214-6296 .- 2214-6326. ; 70
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent.
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| 4. |
- Frantzeskaki, Niki, et al.
(författare)
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Nature-Based Solutions Accelerating Urban Sustainability Transitions in Cities: Lessons from Dresden, Genk and Stockholm Cities
- 2017
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Ingår i: Nature‐based Solutions to Climate Change Adaptationin Urban Areas. - Germany : Springer. ; , s. 65-88
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Nature based solutions are amongst other practices that transition initiativeswork with when intervening in their place and change its fabric. Focusing on theactors establishing, driving and scaling these solutions in and across cities, we cometo evince that nature-based solutions have transformative social impact since theymediate new social relations and new social configurations contributing to socialinnovation in cities, and change nature perception and human-nature relations inurban contexts. We built from evidence in three city-regions that over the past yearsthey saw the proliferation of community-based and policy-based initiatives with theaim to improve sustainability, livability and the aspiration to foster inclusivity andsocial justice in their cities: the city of Dresden in Germany, the city of Genk inBelgium and the city-region of Stockholm in Sweden. We will elaborate on the differentways nature based solutions as practices of transition initiatives in cities getscaled and contribute to accelerating sustainability transitions in these city-regions.In line with this, we will draw cross-case lessons for urban planning on the tensionstransition initiatives that experiment with and institutionalize nature-based solutionsin their cities face when actively pursue acceleration strategies and pathways to scale.
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