The Sustainable Cities Initiative recognizes that the contemporary urban form, and the lifestyles it shapes, play a central role in global environmental challenges. However, cities also hold the potential to drive change and bring about profound transformations, particularly in response to the climate crisis. Such transformations require a paradigm shift in which cities and their residents become powerful actors in the transition to sustainable, resilient urban environments.
The Initiative supports research areas that underpin the concepts of sustainability and urban resilience. In a world where neoliberal practices seem to dominate many aspects of urban life, from employment and housing to mobility and planning, what are the features of an urbanism that is resilient and tackles environmental challenges? The Initiative focuses on the natural, human, economic, technological, political and organizational qualities of cities and how these elements interact.
This research initiative is especially focused on innovative approaches that adopt a social and/or humanistic lens to examine how urban environments can be transformed and how city people adapt to environmental changes.
