Transition towards Sustainable Urban Settlements

Dear Colleagues,

The current globalized world has generated massive trade exchanges between nations. This exchange of goods and services tends to be polarized between developed and developing countries, and between rural and urban areas. The consumption-oriented lifestyles in developed countries, especially in the cities or urban areas within, means that these areas are dependent on resources from outside their boundaries, both from rural areas as well as from other countries.

The current globalized consumption system has proven to be unsustainable due to its uneven social impacts, economic crises and environmental impacts, materialized, for instance, in ever-proceeding climate change and consequent biodiversity loss. Therefore, especially in the last decade, several social movements, research groups or policy makers, have underlined the need for a rapid transition towards sustainable models based on socio-ecological resiliency and even self-sufficient systems.

This Special Issue aims to capture the novel proposals for achieving restructured, resilient and sustainable cities, based on, for example, energy sovereignty, low carbon emission systems and circular economy. We would like to open a discussion in analyzing the following: current existing low impact exemplary cities, pathways to 1.5 degree warming compatible living, theoretical modelling of energy-efficient urban environments, and simulations of sustainable urban environments and their dialog with other areas. Also, contributions to contemporary urban sustainability concepts discussing the relationships and interdepency between different sustainability aspects, especially ecological and social, are welcomed.

Likewise, this Special Issue opens a discussion about the roles between developed and non-developed countries to better understand energy and other consumption dependency dynamics. In this context, the calculation of footprints (e.g. carbon footprint, energy footprint, water footprint, social footprint, etc) will allow to quantify the hidden consumptions that developed cities and countries are outsourcing to less regulated nations, and the respective environmental and social impacts of this consumption. The main goal is to share the responsibility of the generation of socio-environmental impacts in order to start out on the path to avoiding them.

We propose as a reference the following topics in order to guide the authors and trigger a better-orientated discussion of the scientific works that could partake in this challenge:

• Low-energy/low-carbon cities;
• Energy transition in low-carbon urban areas;
• Low-energy/low-carbon urban ecosystems;
• Footprint assessments of all aspects of sustainability;
• 1.5 degree warming compatible living;
• Resilient urban area modelling;
• Sustainable cities;
• Drivers and barriers for low-energy/low-carbon solutions; and
• Socio-ecological sustainability in cities.

Papers presenting research results with sound academic contributions and high societal impact potential are particularly welcomed.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ortzi Akizu-Gardoki
Prof. Dr. Jukka Heinonen
Assistant Prof. Dr. Sanna Ala-Mantila
Guest Editors

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