City-Level Decoupling-Full Report

City-Level Decoupling: Urban resource flows and the governance of infrastructure transitions

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include the dynamic processes of negotiating purpose, experience and learning; the variability of visions possible in relation to each context; the relationships between time envisaged and required, and the effect intended and achieved; extended coalitions of social interests that contribute to the possibility of these issues being addressed in a socially robust way; and effective appreciation of the context-specific strengths and weaknesses of each city. Chapters 2-5 consider urban sustainability through infrastructure, and examine options for more sustainable approaches to the issue. These scene-setting chapters start with an overview of the decoupling concept, and explain why it is a suitable lens through which to address the challenges of approaching resource limits, new potentials, and the ’second wave' of urbanisation. In order to understand how this can be practically applied, material flow accounting (MFA) is introduced as a means of quantifying urban resource flows in the pursuit of more sustainable infrastructures. This section concludes that each city is unique, and that sustainable infrastructure interventions need to be tailored to the set of challenges and opportunities present in each context. Beginning with Chapter 6, the paper considers planned transitions towards more sustainable infrastructure, and how they can unfold. It starts by framing infrastructure networks as socio-technical systems, extending the argument beyond technical solutions to consider how different visions of the future can shape the choices of infrastructure. A four- quadrant model is introduced as a means of

• Fourth, suggesting that innovations need to be networked into movements of strategic coherence. Coordinating the different interventions and projects, facilitating learning between them at various times, and deciding how and whether they should be integrated will become key challenges for the future. • Fifth, finding that understanding the dominant agents of change is essential, particularly given the narrow coalitions of interests that dominate different visions and the attempts to achieve them. Such agents may be businesses, urban or national political elites, or configurations dominated by community interests and local forms of expertise. Developing socially robust urban infrastructural responses require the creation of broader coalitions that integrate relevant expertise with the interests of key stakeholders. • And sixth, showing that the future of urban infrastructure systems and resource flows will depend on how existing infrastructure regimes in energy, water, sanitation, solid waste, transport, and other sectors respond to pressures for change given that these regimes tend to be comfortable with their own habitual behaviours and ingrained routines. The implication of these six themes is that social processes and dynamics need to be understood and integrated into any assessment of urban infrastructural interventions and the reconfiguration of resource flows. These

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