2: Inclusion in Post-Carbon Urban Experiments

Publication Date:
30 May 2024
Pages:
17–35
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529229479.ch002
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Urban sustainability experiments have drawn wide interest among scholars and practitioners of decarbonization. They often envisage agile local governments working with community initiatives, such as direct forms of exchange that shorten production-consumption chains and provide for human scale decarbonization practice. However, in reality, cities are entangled in globalized systems, whether they be ubiquitous digital technologies or data systems, or cultures and social rules associated with them. Moreover, national governments retain significant jurisdictional and financial power over city governments, and multi-level governance of post-carbon cities remains fraught and complex. This provides an overview of the diversity of urban experiments and networks that aim at enhancing urban sustainability. Drawing on a database of 80 projects in Australia and internationally, an empirical framework is proposed for situating post-carbon urban experiments within the broader field of urban experiments. So defined, post-carbon urban experiments focus on actions that deliberately aim to achieve inclusion and environmental sustainability, while practising for a post-carbon world. The considerable work done to date on ideas of socio-technical transitions and urban living labs is recognized. The conclusion reflects on prospects for urban post-carbon inclusion in practice.

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