Urban Sustainability Transitions: An Emerging Hybrid Research Agenda

Abstract

This chapter takes stock of the fourfold ambition of this book, namely: • To introduce transitions scholars and practitioners to urban studies • To introduce urban scholars and practitioners to transitions studies • To collect and present case studies based in Australian cities that intersect urban and transitions themes and present these in a global setting of climate emergency and urbanization • To introduce a wider, global audience to urban transitions ideas, scholarship and practice as it is emerging in various ways across Australia. It also introduces the Australia-based Sustainability Transitions Researchers Alliance (ASTRA) as the network that provided the basis for the book. In reflecting on the above ambition we pose the rhetorical question: "How can urban and transitions perspectives assist understandings of change towards sustainability using examples relevant to Australian cities?" In answer, we describe how urban studies can be enriched by the exuberance offered by a newly emerging field of transition studies. In turn, we show how transition studies can benefit from spatial, political and urban perspectives of dynamic city processes. The perspectives presented throughout the book are placed in the context of contemporary urbanization, in a still unfolding post-Global Financial Crisis era when increasing questions are being asked of globalization, neo-liberalism, and the unequal and unsustainable outcomes of urban governance processes.