Recasting urban sustainability in the south

Abstract

Edgar Pieterse offers a critique of the mainstream Brundtland inspired conception of sustainable cities. His alternative conceptual approach presents the critical dimensions of an alternative urban development framework. He looks at how three co-constitutive urban operating systems- infrastructural, economic and spatial- need to be transformed in order to achieve more sustainable lives and livelihoods. He argues that such transformations depend on grounded alternative visions and effective politics. © 2011 Society for International Development.