ABSTRACT

It is cities that must lead in building sustainable cities of the future where the majority of the world’s populations reside and where local performance is key to progress. For cities to lead, local governance plays a pivotal role in any progress towards a more sustainable future. There are three key thematic concentrations that point to the need for more robust policy frameworks if cities are to effectively lead in this context of global sustainable development. First is the challenge of governance and the complex nature of sustainability planning at the local scale. Here, considerations on scale for environmental governance in cities, as well as municipal government fragmentation across jurisdictional boundaries, are addressed as key challenges for governance and planning. Second is the challenge of localising (and making operational) what is often configured as a more remote global agenda for sustainable development. City mayors, city managers, city planners and designers, city engineers and citizens in their daily work and routines are all directly or indirectly driving policy change for more sustainable futures. Third is the local challenge of effective management and planning where evidence-based policy development and investment decision making are increasingly operating in the absence of high calibre city level data.