Tesi sul tema "Urban sustainability transition experiments"

Les espaces délaissés urbains (EDU) (friches, vacants, délaissés...), historiquement sources de réappropriation citoyenne depuis la fin du XXe siècle, pourraient permettre d'interroger la fabrique de la ville actuelle autour d'enjeux de transition. Dans un contexte institutionnel davantage tourné vers les EDU de grande envergure, cette recherche à l’interface entre l'économie comportementale, les sustainability transitions et le champ de l'aménagement, repose sur le postulat suivant : l’intégration de parties prenantes citoyennes dans les décisions d’aménagement se montrerait bénéfique pour activer le vaste potentiel des EDU de faible envergure, en révélant, au-delà de la seule valeur marchande, certaines formes de valeur parfois propres au public comme des valeurs de lien social et de reconnexion à la nature. Dès lors il est nécessaire de révéler les systèmes d'acteurs et de gouvernance impliqués dans la mobilisation des EDU en tant que ressource, et notamment les jeux de valeurs qui leur sont propres et motivent la réalisation des comportements de transformation et de gestion des EDU. Ces valeurs, porteuses d’innovation sociale, se diffusent progressivement dans la société et se renforcent au travers de réseaux amorçant des transformations à une échelle plus large. Ce processus interroge alors le statut des EDU dans les stratégies des villes, comme potentiel d’expérimentation et d’adaptation d’un modèle urbain résilient. Cette thèse s’appuie sur une étude de cas multi-sites, combinant diagnostics territoriaux (approche spatiale, historique, socio-démographique, paysagère et environnementale, du projet de développement) et entretiens semi-directifs (d’habitants, d’acteurs de l’intermédiation, d’acteurs de l’aménagement). Elle porte sur deux expérimentations de transition urbaine sur des espaces délaissés, l’une à Nantes dans le cadre du dispositif des "15 lieux à réinventer", appel à la créativité des citoyens nantais pour s’approprier le "petit" patrimoine de leur ville et l’autre à Montréal dans le cadre du projet "Nos Milieux de Vie !", proposition post-développementaliste qui favorise l’expérimentation de formes alternatives de vivre ensemble
Urban leftover spaces, which have historically been a source of citizen reappropriation since the end of the 20th century, could be a way of examining how cities are made today in a context of sustainability transition. Against an institutional context that is focused more on large- scale brownfields, this research, at the interface between behavioural economics, sustainability transitions and the field of planning, is based on the following premise: the inclusion of citizen stakeholders in planning decisions could prove beneficial in unlocking the vast potential of small-scale urban leftovers, by revealing, over and above market value alone, certain forms of values sometimes specific to the public, such as the values of social inclusion and connection with nature. It is therefore necessary to reveal the systems of actors and governance involved in the mobilisation of urban leftovers as a resource, and in particular the sets of values that are specific to them and motivate them to engage in behaviours of transformation and management of urban leftovers. These values, bearing hallmarks of social innovation, are gradually being spread throughout society and strengthened through networks that lead to transformations on a wider scale. This process raises questions about the status of urban leftovers in city strategies, in terms of their experimentation and adaptation potential for a resilient urban model. This PhD thesis is based on a multi-site case study, combining territorial diagnoses (spatial, historical, socio-demographic, landscape and environmental approach to the project) and semi-structured interviews (with citizens, intermediation actors and city planning stakeholders). It focuses on two experiments in urban transition in urban leftovers, one in Nantes as part of the ‘15 lieux à réinventer’ programme, which calls on the creativity of Nantes residents to take ownership of their city's ‘small’ property, and the other in Montreal as part of the ‘Nos Milieux de Vie !’ project, a post-development proposal that encourages experimentation with alternative ways of living together

South Africa is undergoing a sustainability transition (ST) in its energy sector as part of its broader move towards a lowcarbon future. Past studies of the nascent ST using a multi-level approach have already proven obsolete after strong resistance from the incumbent energy regime almost derailed the fledgling renewable energy (RE) industry. After initially going to ground and contracting, the industry re-emerged strongly in South Africa’s cities, mostly in the form of rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. This study applies an integrated approach utilizing the Multi-level Perspective (MLP) to trace the current ST trajectory, whilst employing the Technology Innovation Systems (TIS) framework as a focal lens, recently adapted to the follower country context, to empirically investigate system development in the solar PV TIS. A survey was conducted to assess the drivers and challenges facing consumers of solar PV technology in cities, the results indicating that the rapid growth in distributed embedded generation (EG) was sparked by recent tax incentives and not the introduction of Feed-in Tariffs (FIT) offered by city municipalities. Whilst the RE sector and solar PV market have grown through consumer demand for EG, they still face resistance from the existing energy regime, needing further development in policy and regulation in order for South Africa’s ST to support a more complex web of distributed and embedded generation, mostly underpinned by RE technologies.

For the first time in history, the global urban population now exceeds the global rural population, meaning that more than 50 % of the world’s population now live in cities. Much attention has been paid to the discourse of sustainable development during the last decades, however, many environmental and social scientists point to an increasing problematic realted to climate change. Greehouse gas emissions are rising, water levels are rising and drought periods are becoming longer, and urban areas are becoming more and more populated. Due to an increasing urbanisation, cities now have the highest demand, compared to rural areas, for food, water, energy and healthcare. At the same time, cities are the biggest threats when it comes to environmental impacts, being responsible for 75 % of all resource consumption and 70 % of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. Drawing from sustainability transition theory, new modes of political governance theory and finally, pragmatist educational theory, this paper attempts to analyze the type of learning taking place in political spaces that exist within an institutional void. Learning, as a concept, is in this paper relating both to the type or learning the participants in the case study are experiencing, as well as what society can learn concerning Urban Sustainability Transitions (USTs). The aim of this paper is to explore theoretically and empirically how political spaces of USTs may function as educative spaces. It poses as its research question: How can pragmatist educational theory be used to understand transition for sustainability in institutional voids? As a case study, Housing Roar Uppsala is investigated as a political space where learning occurs. Two meetings have been recorded and four semi- structured interviews have been made in order to analyze the conversations using Practical Epistemology Analysis. A dramaturgical analysis has also been made in order to understand the setting and staging in which the meetings took place. The paper identifies as its results that there is a lingering gap, a lack of knowledge, occurring throughout the meetings, which in turn leads to another gap: that nothing is happening within the network. Furthermore, the ultimate purpose of the network does not always correlate with the proximate purposes of the participants. This is a source for the lingering gap. Through these findings, this paper suggests that the structure of the meetings might not always be the most beneficial one when trying to transition into sustainability, however, it might be the only one participants have when faced with complex, wicked issues. Wicked issues are problems that do not have a simple, single solution. It also finds that the type of learning taking place within the network might be a negotiation of purposes between participants. Finally, the paper concludes that, in relation to USTs, the type of learning that is taking place is that perhaps a totally open, nonhierarchical, network-type organization in a completely open setting, that bans political figures and private companies from entering into the conversation is not the most successful way of reaching sustainability.

Urban areas will play a decisive role in the sustainability of future societies. As such, there is a need to understand the processes through which cities can become more sustainable. Based on a qualitative case study of a community food waste initiative in Gothenburg, Sweden, this thesis explores the phenomenon of urban sustainability transitions in relation to learning. The thesis attempts to explain how learning at the level of socio-technical niches could be instrumental to broader systemic changes at the regime level. The theoretical framework for the thesis draws on the transactional perspective on learning developed from pragmatist educational philosophy, as well as practice theoretical approaches to studying sustainability transitions which have emerged in recent years. The empirical results gathered from the case are analysed using dramaturgical analysis and practical epistemology analysis. Based on these analyses, the thesis argues that the role and significance of learning in urban sustainability transitions can be understood in terms of educative practices, a concept which is elaborated in the discussion chapter. Thus, it is argued that learning through educative practices can contribute to urban sustainability transitions by challenging prevailing institutional norms and structures, and by establishing pathways through which unsustainable elements within the socio-technical regime can be reconfigured.
Wicked Problems and Urban Sustainability Transition

This thesis is about the current role of university campuses to contribute to a fair and sustainable transition towards a low-carbon society. The fundamental argument is that there is a serious gap between the aspiration of higher education institutions in relation to sustainability and the current reality. Whilst formally moving towards sustainability within their curricula and resources management, universities are still immersed in all the complexity, the uncertainty, the scarcity of resources and the leading green-washing paradigm of the cities they are in. This thesis uses the Politecnico di Torino as the main case study, compared with universities in Italy, the UK, Japan, and Mexico, to answer the following questions: (1) What are universities doing in their sustainability efforts that has the potential to be measurable and transferable? And (2) How can we evaluate if universities are truly sustainable? This thesis treats university campuses as small cities nested in bigger cities; heterotopies expressing otherness and maintaining reciprocal relationships within the context. It is proposed that the immediate impacts deriving from educating and practising a wiser use of waste, water, energy and the built environment in universities help to create long term effects toward resilient, fair, and environmentally aware communities. Comparable clusters of universities, bottom-up management schemes and transferrable lessons for the wider urban and global practices are presented and discussed across the different case studies. To facilitate the dialogue between the economic, the social and the environmental fields of action, embedded within university’s sustainability metrics and the attempts to operationalise urban resilience determinants in the campus management, this thesis helps in tailoring appropriate assessment methodologies and operative strategies towards truly sustainable university campuses.

Humanity is facing massive sustainability challenges, such as climate change and the associated loss of biodiversity, water scarcity and food insecurity. Capitalist urbanisation drives furthermore profound transformations in rural and urban areas and thus in the agriculture and food systems, presenting both challenges and opportunities. Urban agriculture as a part of a local food system, where food is produced in an urban area and sold to consumers in that area, presents a new food production model, generating innovative tools to lower agricultural land use, improving resource use efficiency and biodiversity. Consequently, great potential can be attributed to a sustainable transformation of the agri-food system through urban agriculture.  Like many cities around the world, Malmö has recognised the need for sustainable development. Therefore, the city of Malmö has been addressing environmental, social and economic challenges for several years and is committed to a holistic and sustainable urban development. Although the city is aware of the benefits of small-scale urban agriculture, there are no policies that enable the upscaling of urban agriculture in the city. Botildenborg, a sustainable urban farm and meeting place in Malmö, on the other hand, has recognised the potential for sustainable business and development through urban agriculture for several years, by setting itself the goal to increase the local and ecologically produced food within the city through this form of agriculture. Botildenborg serves therefore as a case study of this research.  In order to be able to provide indications for policies to shape the transformation steps towards sustainability within the agri-food system in Malmö, structures and patterns, as well as possible drivers and potential obstacles of a sustainable transition, are examined in the course of this research. The empirical results from qualitative and quantitative data are systematically processed using the multi-level perspective in combination with the urban political ecology.  The results indicate that the identified barriers tend to be structural and are predominantly located in the economic and especially the political sphere. It seems that the non-monetary added value from urban agriculture is not perceived to its full potential by the city of Malmö. Botildenborg is stabilising itself mainly through knowledge sharing and network building, and thus will sooner or later be able, through the movement behind the network, to change the dominant agri-food regime. The rapidity of the transformation depends on the political ii willingness of the city of Malmö to explicitly integrate urban agriculture into its policies and regulations.

Due to globalization and influx, Sweden is facing the challenge of fostering socially inclusive and non-segregated cities. To tackle this challenge, the implementation of social sustainability in urban development projects is crucial. Therefore, this study examines how leadership is perceived to facilitate this process. For this purpose, the authors propose a leadership approach consisting of three aspects (i.e., Communication of Vision, Stakeholder Engagement, Adaptation to the Transition Process) and a framework that makes social sustainability tangible in an urban context. The context of this descriptive case-study was Drottninghög, a multicultural district in Helsingborg, which was the focus of an ongoing urban development project during the conduction of this thesis. The study made use of a qualitative approach, consisting of semi-structured interviews with leaders and community members in Drottninghög and unobtrusive field observations. The data were analyzed using a directed content analysis. Among the main findings were the importance of the use of diverse communication strategies and channels and continuous information loops, to adequately reach all stakeholders while communicating the vision; the significance of empowering stakeholders to actively engage in the community by offering appropriate and diverse activities and creating a personal atmosphere as well as including stakeholders as early as possible in the processes; and the value of leaders being flexible and adaptive to individual needs through inside knowledge and personal involvement when supporting stakeholders to adapt to the transition process.

The modern dichotomy between the urban and the rural is increasingly affected by the superimposition of urbanisation processes on the rural landscape, usually contributing to the disappearance of the agricultural heritage. Thanks to a high degree of awareness towards the necessity of natural capitals in human life, today the interdependence between man and nature is progressively becoming of fundamental importance. Contemporary issues related to urban overgrowth, food supply and depletion of material resources increase the necessity for urban planning processes in rural areas to apply principles of integration with the existing context. It becomes the role of contemporary urban planners to carefully manage the natural capital and develop urban sustainable strategies to fulfill human needs in the respect of the eco-system.Particularly, this thesis investigates the controversial relationship between the urban and the rural in the case study of Cortijo de Cuarto in Seville, rural area in the southern suburb of the Spanish city currently subjected to traditional urbanisation processes of urban sprawling.The focus will be to highlight the potentiality of this land as agricultural heritage and propose a development strategy based on three hubs of transition from the urban to the rural landscape, looking at the features of the local context toward the preservation and valorisation of its identity. Therefore, AgriI-Cultura Urbana stands out as an urban development program that looks at agriculture as a landscape experience from a social, economic and environmental point of view, enhancing a culture of integration between local agricultural activities and urbanisation programs, taking into consideration the benefits of both citizens and the environment.

Purpose: Climate change and increased proportion of hard surfaces due to urbanization is causing problems with flooding. Although it has been known for a long time that traditional stormwater management needs to be complemented, progress towards Sustainable Drainage Systems, SuDS, is slow. Techniques to locally handle storm water are available for most situations, but there is a lack of knowledge and experience. The aim of this thesis is to present a proposal on how implementation of SuDS can be promoted in urban development projects in Jönköping municipality. Method: Using literature review, interviews, document analysis and observation a qualitative study was conducted in two urban development projects; Ekostaden Augustenborg in Malmö and Munksjöstaden in Jönköping. Findings: The majority of the stormwater management techniques available in Augustenborg have also been discussed in Munksjöstaden by Jönköping municipality. Only one third of the techniques which has been discussed will be realized. Jönköping municipality lacks clear goals and a vision that is integrated into the planning process, which can explain this. During the interviews the site conditions were presented as arguments to why SuDS is difficult to implement. However the analysis showed that it is the other conditions that are decisive, something that also the scientific studies indicated. In order to promote the implementation of SuDS general and project-specific actions were elaborated. Implications: The local plan is the municipality’s sharpest tool for control of the physical development and demands must be submitted in the local plan in order to promote SuDS. The municipality needs to reprocess a practice level and equate SuDS with traditional stormwater management in order to make relevant demands on developers. To promote the implementation of SuDS, the authors suggests that Jönköping municipality carry out a pilot project focusing on sustainable stormwater management in an upcoming urban development project. Limitations: Since the thesis only includes two projects, there is a limitation of the conditions treated. Since the other conditions and the recommended actions are based on the factors identified in a national survey, the applicability is considered to be good. Although the project-specific actions are based on Jönköping municipality, it is possible for other municipalities to apply the PDSA-wheel to the extent that is suitable for the municipality.
Syfte: Klimatförändring och urbanisering med ökad andel hårdgjorda ytor orsakar problem med översvämningar. Trots att det sedan länge är känt att den traditionella dagvattenhanteringen behöver kompletteras går utvecklingen mot Sustainable Drainage Systems, SuDS, långsamt. Tekniker för att ta hand om dagvattnet lokalt finns för de flesta situationer men det saknas kunskap och erfarenhet. Målet med arbetet är därför att presentera ett förslag på hur implementering av SuDS kan främjas i stadsbyggnads-projekt i Jönköpings kommun. Metod: Med hjälp av litteraturstudie, intervjuer, dokumentanalys och observation har en kvalitativ studie genomförts på två stadsbyggnadsprojekt; Ekostaden Augustenborg i Malmö och Munksjöstaden i Jönköping. Resultat: Majoriteten av de tekniker för dagvattenhantering som finns i Augustenborg har diskuterats även i Munksjöstaden från Jönköpings kommuns sida. Det visade sig dock att endast en tredjedel av det som diskuterats kommer att förverkligas. Detta kan bland annat förklaras av att Jönköpings kommun saknar tydliga mål och en vision som är integrerad i planeringsprocessen. Vid intervjuerna lyftes platsen förutsättningar fram som argument till varför SuDS är svårt att tillämpa. Analysen visade dock att det är de övriga förutsättningarna som är avgörande, något som även de vetenskapliga studierna pekat på. För att främja implementeringen av SuDS har därför generella och projektspecifika åtgärder riktade mot de övriga förutsättningarna utarbetats. Konsekvenser: Detaljplanen är kommunens skarpaste verktyg för att styra den fysiska bebyggelsen och för att främja SuDS är det därför viktigt att det finns krav i detaljplanen. Kommunen behöver upparbeta en praxisnivå och likställa SuDS med traditionell dagvattenhantering för att kunna ställa relevanta krav på exploatörer. För att främja implementeringen är författarnas förslag att Jönköpings kommun genomför ett pilotprojekt med fokus på hållbara dagvattenlösningar i ett kommande stadsbyggnadsprojekt. Begränsningar: Eftersom arbetet endast innefattar två projekt finns det en begränsning i vilka förutsättningar som behandlats. Eftersom de övriga förutsättningarna och de rekommenderade åtgärderna utgår från faktorer som identifierats i en nationell enkät-undersökning bedöms ändå tillämpligheten vara god. Även om de projektspecifika åtgärderna utgår från Jönköpings kommun, är det möjligt för andra kommuner att tillämpa PGSA-hjulet i den omfattning som passar den aktuella kommunen.

Diese Doktorarbeit untersucht die Rolle die Bürgerinitiativen an der Schnittstelle zwischen städtischen und digitalen Räumen spielen können. Sie folgt drei Untersuchungslinien. Zunächst wird untersucht, wie die Forschung zu aus Graswurzelbewegungen entstandenen Alternativen für nachhaltige und gerechte Städte von einer besonderen Art des digitalen Gemeinguts profitieren kann: des kollaborativen kartografischen Mappings. Zweitens wird die Verflechtung von digitalen Gemeingütern mit physischen städtischen Gemeingütern untersucht, um zu verstehen, wie die gemeinsame Nutzung zu transformativen Effekten in der Stadt führen kann. Drittens wird versucht, das transformative Potenzial der Gemeingüter als ein Narrativ des Wandels für nachhaltige und gerechte Städte im digitalen Zeitalter zu bewerten. Methodisch stützt die Arbeit sich auf Aktionsforschung, primäre Einzelfallstudien sowie eine vergleichende Fallstudienanalyse. Ein vorläufiges Ergebnis ist die Identifizierung von basisgeleiteten kollaborativen Mappings – hier betrachtet als Initiativen des gemeinsamen Wirkens (Commoning) – als wertvolle Wissensquellen zu alternativer Stadtökonomik. Die Hauptergebnisse zwingen uns dazu, das klassisch-naturalistische Verständnis des Gemeinguts in Frage zu stellen, welches dazu neigt, ein Gemeingut als gegeben zu betrachten. Stattdessen wäre es für die Forschung von Vorteil, einen gemeinsamen Prozess zu untersuchen: die Rückgewinnung, Schaffung und Nutzung gemeinsamer städtischer Ressourcen. Über die künstliche Trennung zwischen materiellen und immateriellen Facetten des Gemeingutes hinaus lässt sich (urbanes) Commoning am besten als eine relationale Praxis in Pflege und Aufbau von Partnerschaften für die Reproduktion von Leben in der Stadt definieren. Dies ist umso wichtiger, dass digitale Werkzeuge zwar neue Potenziale eröffnen können, aber im Gegensatz zu anderen Diskursen (Sharing Economy, Smart Cities) für das Commoning der Stadt nicht von zentraler Bedeutung sind.
This doctoral research investigates the role that citizen-driven initiatives can play at the intersection of the urban and digital spaces. It follows three lines of investigation. First, it explores how research about grassroots alternatives for sustainable and just cities may benefit from a particular type of digital commons: collaborative cartographic mappings. Second, it investigates the intertwin of digital commons with physical urban commons to understand how commoning may lead to transformative impacts in the city. Third, it seeks to evaluate the transformative potential of the commons as a narrative of change for sustainable and just cities in the digital age. Methodologically, it relies on action research, primary individual case-studies as well as a comparative case-study analysis. A preliminary result is the identification of grassroots-led collaborative mappings – seen as commoning initiatives – as valuable sources of knowledge about alternative urban economies. Main results compel us to question the classical/naturalist understanding of the commons that tends to consider it as a given. Instead, research would benefit to investigate a commoning process: the reclaiming creation, and use of shared urban resources. And, further, transcending artificial divides between the tangible and intangible facets of the commons, (urban) commoning is best defined as a relational practice of caring for and building partnerships for the reproduction of life in the city. This is all the more important that another significant result of the present work is that, while they may open new potential, digital tools are not central to commoning the city, in contrast other discourses (Sharing Economy, Smart Cities). Epistemologically, the author recommends aligning the effort of researching urban commoning to the Diverse/Community Economies research agenda which calls for performative studies of more-than-human urban commoning-communities.

This thesis explored design’s role in transitioning the Swedish food system to one that is more resilient to the shocks caused by climate change and in the context of the project duration, COVID-19. The project’s central question was: What does food citizenship look like in a resilient food system, and what design process is necessary to facilitate such a solution? The project collaborated with a local food ecosystem startup, Harvest, which has the mission to improve the local food supply chain so everyone can eat deliciously and sustainability. Together with Harvest, the project developed a vision of what the local food ecosystem will look like in a viable world. It proposes that collective action around food is a possible vehicle for systems transition. The resulting design is the proposition of a network that connects urban communities to local food producers while facilitating the support required to expand the production capability and stability of the local food ecosystem. The network is grounded in the design principles synthesized from the research conducted with the creative communities in Sweden that are working towards a resilient food system. The ideas of mutual aid and the permaculture ethics of people care and fair share have been guiding forces as supporting those living in transition is an essential element of food systems transition. From this proposition the project sets to explore what disruptive innovations need to occur in order to reach this vision. By framing the project in this way I aim to not only illuminate what the preferable future looks like and how it will function, but also illustrate how it is possible to reach this future.

La qualité de vie des citoyens est directement corrélée à l'énergie qui se transforme en travail et mouvement pour améliorer le IDH (indice de développement humain). En même temps, la production d'énergie détériore l'environnement, la santé humaine et l'écosystème global de la ville-santé. Cette thèse explore le dilemme énergétique, en étudiant l'impact de la transition vers des systèmes énergétiques à faible teneur en carbone sur la santé et les vulnérabilités urbaines. La recherche combine des méthodologies quantitatives, incluant la statistiques différentielle DOE (Design of Experiment) et la modélisation Monte Carlo (Stochastic), ainsi que des méthodes qualitatives comme post-phénoménologie pour étudier l'impact des systèmes énergétiques sur l'exposome urbain, en utilisant une étude de cas dans la ville de Oak Ridge, Tennessee. La thèse conclut qu'il existe un impact des systèmes de production d'énergie dans l'exposome urbain car des niveaux plus élevés de pollution peuvent être attribués à des populations à faible revenu et aider à établir cette corrélation. Le gradient médian du revenu des ménages suggère une relation négative entre la diminution de la richesse et l'exposition aux rejets toxiques et aux particules de diesel. La thèse souligne également 3 variables majeures, les émissions de CO2, la capacité énergétique et le LCOE, qui ont un impact sur les taux de mortalité dans la ville d'Oak Ridge, TN. Il suggérait que pour contrôler l'intensité en carbone d'une production énergétique donnée, nous pourrions réduire le taux de mortalité. Le modèle énergétique optimal 3D correspond aux émissions les plus faibles avec la capacité optimale du système et du LCOE. Pour pouvoir reproduire l'étude et les méthodologies appliquées dans cette thèse nous proposons 3 archétypes épistémologiques reproductibles (NOW-NEW-NEXT) afin de traiter le dilemme énergétique et son impact sur l'exposome énergétique urbain. Il appelle à une approche multidisciplinaire et humble pour intégrer les divers systèmes de connaissances. La thèse souligne le rôle de la post-phénoménologie dans la compréhension de l'exposome énergétique urbain et son impact sur la santé publique, suggérant que l'air non pollué est insuffisant pour créer des villes-santé. Le passage de la conscience et de l'expérience individuelles à une conscience collective est un mouvement transcendantal où passé, présent et futur contribuent à la prise de décision et à l'acceptabilité par la communauté. Ainsi, la thèse conclut qu'un équilibre entre les innovations technologiques et les approches humanistes sont nécessaires pour faire face au dilemme énergétique et préconise l'intégration de diverses épistémologies afin de faire progresser la compréhension de l'exposome énergétique urbain et son impact sur la justice environnementale
The quality of life of inhabitants is directly correlated with energy, which is transformed into work and movement to improve the Human Development Index (HDI). At the same time, the production of energy deteriorates the environment, human health, and the overall ecosystem of a healthy city. This thesis explores the energy dilemma, researching the impact of the transition to low-carbon energy systems on urban health and vulnerabilities. The research combines quantitative methodologies, including DOE (Design of Experiments) and Monte Carlo (stochastic) modeling, with qualitative methods such as postphenomenology to study the impact of energy systems on the urban exposome, using a case study in the City of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The thesis concludes that energy production systems affect the urban exposome, as higher pollution levels may place inhabitants with lower incomes at greater risk, establishing this correlation. The median household income gradient suggests a negative relationship between decreasing wealth and exposure to toxic releases and diesel particulate matter (PM). The thesis also identifies three major variables—CO2 emissions, energy capacity, and Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE)—as impacting mortality rates in Oak Ridge, TN. It suggests that controlling the carbon intensity of a given energy production could reduce the mortality rate. The 3D optimum energy model corresponds to lower emissions with the optimal capacity of the system and LCOE. To transfer the study and methodologies applied in this thesis, we propose three replicable epistemological archetypes (NOW-NEW-NEXT) to address the energy dilemma and its impact on the urban energy exposome. This calls for a multidisciplinary and humble approach to integrate diverse knowledge systems. The thesis underscores the role of postphenomenology in understanding the urban energy exposome and its impact on public health, suggesting that non-polluted air alone is insufficient for creating healthy cities. The transition from individual consciousness and experience to a collective one is a transcendental movement where past, present, and future contribute to community decision-making and acceptability. Thus, the thesis concludes that a balance between technological innovations and humanistic approaches is necessary to tackle the energy dilemma and advocates for the integration of diverse epistemologies to advance the understanding of the urban energy exposome and its impact on environmental justice

abstract: Urban areas face a host of sustainability problems ranging from air and water quality, to housing affordability, and sprawl reducing returns on infrastructure investments, among many others. To address such challenges, cities have begun to envision generational sustainability transitions, and coalesce transition arenas in context to manage those transitions. Transition arenas coordinate the efforts of diverse stakeholders in a setting conducive to making evidence-based decisions that guide a transition forward. Though espoused and studied in the literature, transition arenas still require further research on the specifics of agent selection, arena setting, and decision-making facilitation. This dissertation has three related contributions related to transition arenas. First, it describes a process that took place within Phoenix that focused on identifying, recruiting, and building the capacity of potential transition agents for a transition arena. As part of this, a first draft suggestion of plausible steps to take for identifying, recruiting, and building a team of transition agents is proposed followed by a brief discussion on how this step-by-step process could be evaluated in subsequent work. Second, building on such engagement, this dissertation then offers criteria for transition agent selection based on a review of the literature that includes the setting in which a transition arena occurs, and strategies to support successful facilitation of decision-making in that setting. Third, those criteria are operationalized to evaluate the facilitation of a specific decision (draft of a new transportation plan) in a specific transition arena: the Citizens Committee for the future of Phoenix Transportation. The goal of this dissertation is to articulate a first-draft framework for guiding the development and scientific evaluation of transition arenas. Future work is required to empirically validate the framework in other real-world transition arenas. A feasible research agenda is provides to support this work.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2015

abstract: Sustainability challenges with severe local to global impacts require fundamental shifts in what industrial societies aspire to, generate, consume, and represent, as well as how they function. Transition governance is a promising framework to support these transformational efforts. A key component of transition governance is the construction of transition strategies, i.e., action schemes for how to transition from the current state to a sustainable one. Despite accomplishments in building theory and methodology for transition governance, the concepts of what transition strategies entail and how they relate to specific interventions are still underdeveloped. This dissertation further develops the concept of transition strategies, and explores how different stakeholder groups and allies can develop and test transition strategies across different scales, in the specific context of urban sustainability challenges. The overarching research question is: How can cities build and implement comprehensive transition strategies across different urban scales, from the city to the organizational level? The dissertation comprises four studies that explore the dynamic between transition strategies and experiments at the city, neighborhood, and organizational levels with empirical examples from Phoenix, Arizona. The first study reviews and compares paradigms of intentional change, namely transition governance, backcasting, intervention research, change management, integrated planning, and adaptive management in order to offer a rich set of converging ideas on what strategies for intentional change towards sustainability entail. The second study proposes a comprehensive concept of transition strategies and illustrates the concept with the example of sustainability strategies created through a research partnership with the City of Phoenix. The third study explores the role of experiments in transition processes through the lens of the neighborhood-level initiative of The Valley of the Sunflowers. The fourth study examines the role organizations can play in initiating urban sustainability transitions using exemplary strategies and experiments implemented at a local high school. The studies combined contribute to the further development of transition theory and sustainable urban development concepts. While this research field is at a nascent stage, the thesis provides a framework and empirical examples for how to build evidence-based transition strategies in support of urban sustainability.
Dissertation/Thesis
Ph.D. Sustainability 2012

Green Urbanism evokes a wide range of ideas, images, and perceptions about how cities should be planned, developed, and/or governed to create a balance between human activities and the natural environment. In recent decades, Green Urbanism has attracted considerable research interest; however, these studies are mostly focused on defining a set of criteria for its application to cities based on the experiences of Western countries. Thus, there is a lack of adequate understanding of how Green Urbanism applies to the developing world. In addition, although the whats (criteria) of Green Urbanism are extensively discussed, the hows (transition processes) have received little treatment. Therefore, this study makes two major contributions to the existing literature on Green Urbanism. Firstly, it examines how different socio-economic contexts and local dynamics influence how Green Urbanism is conceived and applied. Secondly, it assesses the drivers of and barriers to green urban transitions, and what factors in cities provide potential sources of leverage for a transition towards Green Urbanism. It will be shown that these processes are not in general linear or predictable pathways of progress, but are complex and multifactorial. The cases of Freiburg (developed country context) and Curitiba (developing country) are analysed. Lessons from this analysis are applied to Accra-Ghana (developing country) to identify potential levers for stimulating transitions towards Green Urbanism in a developing world city. The study is based on a review of literature, questionnaire surveys, key informant interviews, GIS mapping, site observations, and a review of government policies. The factors that present opportunities and/or barriers to green urban transitions are analysed through the lens of relevant transition theory, in this case the Multi-level Perspective. Findings from the study show that Green Urbanism is not only about the physical greening of cities, but also about urban sustainability. Moreover, through the theoretical lens of the MLP, it was found that contextual socio-economic factors, known as landscape pressures, are important for creating windows of opportunity for green urban transitions to unfold. However, they must be effectively articulated to generate the needed responses from social actors, and also coalesce with developments at the niche level. The study notes two potential governance models for transition, namely top down and bottom up and debates the strengths and weaknesses of both. Given that cities are different in their social, economic, political, technological, and physical characteristics etc., the study recommends that Green Urbanism needs to be responsive to the specific requirements of its application domain.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Architecture & Built Environment, 2019

The Paris Agreement, the recent Special Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the Sustainable Development Goals are examples of United Nation’s facilitated calls for urgent climate action and more generally for a rapid transition of society towards sustainability. Since urban personal mobility is a significant contributor to society’s current sustainability challenges, and considering current trends of population growth and urbanisation, there is a strong need to develop enhanced support for urban planning for rapid transitioning to sustainable personal mobility. This thesis is part of a wider effort to develop methodological support for such planning and action. The aim of the thesis is to provide a partial foundation for that wider effort by: (i) identifying and organising prominent research themes related to the above topic; and since previous research points to benefits of a transdisciplinary, multisectoral and multicultural approach, (ii) exploring and addressing the complexity of co-production processes in such contexts; and (iii) analysing the appropriateness of some prominent planning approaches for the desired planning support. The aim is pursued through a systematic literature review, including bibliometric analyses, and two empirical case studies, including workshops, interviews, field studies and feasibility studies. One of the case studies included participants from several countries in the Southern Baltic region and the other case study tested the usefulness of different planning approaches in the local context of Kisumu, Kenya and Gothenburg, Sweden, respectively. The thesis provides a map of some prominent research themes and discusses their relevance to the field of urban planning for rapid transitioning to sustainable personal mobility. The analysis of the identified themes and their development over the past ten years shows that there has been a shift in mobility planning from ’predict and provide’ towards participatory visionary approaches. This, in turn, has led to new challenges, related to, for example, epistemic communities, language and culture. Furthermore, it is seen that sustainability considerations have become increasingly pronounced in the urban mobility planning literature. However, different dimensions of sustainability are often considered individually (e.g. the ecological and social dimensions) and coordinated approaches to sustainable mobility planning are virtually lacking. At the methodological level, the thesis provides a preliminary conceptual framework for analysing complexity in co-production processes with regard to epistemic communities, language and culture, as well as a discussion of the usefulness of four specific planning approaches for the desired planning support, namely the backcasting, transdisciplinary co-production of knowledge, foresighting and SymbioCity approaches. The overall conclusion is that there is a need for research that would show how mobility actors can contribute to resolve pressing issues related to climate change fast enough without compromising other aspects of sustainability, including how temporary trade-offs can be addressed in a strategic way.

Il tema sullo sviluppo urbano sostenibile ricopre un ruolo centrale nelle politiche urbane di molte città europee e non. Le indicazioni dei documenti programmatici dell’Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite (ONU), dell’Unione Europea e degli Stati Membri della Comunità Europea propongono linee guida al fine di «rendere le città e gli insediamenti umani più inclusivi, sicuri, resilienti e sostenibili». Ad una prima fase in cui il dibattito sulla sostenibilità ha riguardato la necessità di fronteggiare il rapido cambiamento climatico attraverso la salvaguardia e la tutela delle componenti ambientali e naturali, a partire dagli inizi del XXI secolo è seguita una fase in cui si è avvertita la necessità di indirizzare le trasformazioni insediative delle città considerando congiuntamente, quindi in chiave ecosistemica integrata, gli aspetti relativi sia alle risorse naturali e ambientali esistenti, sia ai servizi da essi generati, con gli effetti e le ricadute di tipo economico, sociale e culturale. La Commissione Europea propone iniziative volte a migliorare lo stato delle città per mezzo di ecologically sound urban design practices utili allo sviluppo economico del territorio, al benessere della collettività e alla salvaguardia della componente naturale esistente. L’integrazione di azioni di forestazione urbana e peri-urbana con gli aspetti urbanistici, architettonici, tecnologici, impiantistici, naturalistici e ambientali del progetto può contribuire ad innalzare il livello di qualità ambientale, sociale e culturale, nonché la capacità reddituale di porzioni di territorio urbanizzato. Si tratta di benefici plurimi per la collettività da valutare in termini di servizi eco-sistemici. La possibilità di progettare interventi ricomprendenti anche la forestazione urbana, definibili come Integrated Ecosystem Urban Projects (IEUP), richiede strategie d’azione volte alla sostenibilità urbana integrata. In questa prospettiva, s’intende proporre un protocollo di valutazione economica definito con logica multi-criteriale (integrated assessment framework). Si tratta di uno schema di analisi pluri-parametrico geo-referenziato a supporto dei meccanismi di progettazione e valutazione delle città in forza dei servizi ecosistemici generati dal verde urbano sul territorio. Il framework proposto fa da sfondo alla costruzione di modelli operativi a supporto delle decisioni di enti pubblici e/o privati all’atto di esprimere giudizi di convenienza in fase di programmazione e regolazione degli interventi per la crescita ecosistemica della città. Nello specifico, i modelli di cui vengono illustrate le componenti strutturali e metodologiche sono implementati con riguardo a contesti di analisi e di progetto differenti, rispettivamente a scala metropolitana ed urbana. Le relazioni funzionali tra obiettivi generali e specifici, indirizzi progettuali, targets e indicatori di sviluppo sostenibile di base a problemi valutativi pertinenti alla progettazione urbana ecosistemica sono costruite secondo gli stilemi della programmazione lineare propria della Ricerca Operativa. La valutazione, economica e non, dei servizi urbani ecosistemici è espletata ricorrendo ai Night-time lights data quale proxy di variabili socio-economiche ed ambientali. Nelle conclusioni si illustreranno limiti e potenzialità del integrated assessment framework, nonché dei modelli logicio-perativi proposti. Infine, si delineeranno prospettive di ricerca della tematica oggetto di tesi.