New Urban Agenda and New Urban Studies: A Sustainable Planning Toolkit

Dear Colleagues,

The demand for effective sustainable development is becoming increasingly pressive for cities, as it is considered to be the primary engine of green transition.

While it is generally agreed among scholars, practitioners and decision makers that the general objective of making cities smart, green, inclusive and resilient should be pursued, during implementation, technical, economic and social issues and local conflicts demonstrate the fragility of the complex process of scaling global targets in local actions.

The UN New Urban Agenda draws out a “new” urban development roadmap where the citizen becomes (once again) the key actor.

However, there is not a predefined formula to ensure the success of an urban sustainable development strategy. Robust methodologies include the pervasive use of technologies in assessing urban flows, data-driven urban models exploiting city-sensor information and the structure of an updated toolkit to plan the sustainable future of cities. Local features are relevant as pillars to successfully structure an urban and territorial system toward more sustainable, inclusive and livable conditions. Case studies, success stories and applied research allow us to identify benchmark practices, general recommendations and transferable metrics for better strategic designs for urban futures.   Additionally, the metrics used to investigate metropolitan areas cannot be the same as those adopted in inland and remote areas and, therefore, a predetermined abacus of design solutions developed for major urban areas has to be scaled and adapted carefully in order to achieve results in small villages. These differences are evident in the most reliable applied research but do not have a normative enough basis to balance the differences between the main urban poles  and rural settlements, assuming  that citizens hold the same rights in sustainable development.

Therefore, a toolkit to tackle up-to-date planning challenges in applying NUA must be derived from outstanding practices. The Special Issue invites the submission of the latest high-quality theoretical and empirical research articles to uncover the latest developments in applied sustainability at the metropolitan and small-town scales.

Relevant topics:

• Applied New Urban Agenda;
• Policy making and sustainable government of green transition for the growing metropolis and/or the declining villages in rural areas;
• Planning paradigms for sustainable cities;
• Governance and management of sustainable cities;
• Green technologies for sustainable cities;
• Energy poverty vs. urban circularity;
• Sustainable mobility: from 15-minute cities to walkable cities;
• Urban regeneration;
• Nature-based solutions, urban green infrastructures and ecosystem services;
• Measuring territorial specialization and territorial competitiveness;
• Green energy and climate adaptation/mitigation: the urban design;
• Collaborative planning and co-design experiences in policy making;
• Technologies for clever urban management;
• “Slow” vs. “fast” urban development or decline;
• Spatial development processes and policies.

Dr. Francesco Scorza
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• new urban agenda
• sustainable planning
• smart cities
• urban studies
• regional science