City-Level Decoupling-Full Report

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

5. Treasure Island, San Franciso, USA – developing a mixed-use eco-island; 6. Vauban, Freiburg, Germany – living sustainably in a low energy, low car district; 7. Accra, Ghana – utilising wastewater for urban agriculture; 8. Bangkok, Thailand – investing in public transport; 9. Beijing, China – recycling water with on-site wastewater treatment; 10. Durban, South Africa – closing loops in solid waste management; 11. Kampala, Uganda – re-using organic waste to reduce landfill impact; 12. Karachi, Pakistan – collaborating with the poor to extend sanitation services; 13. Lagos, Nigeria – rapidly implementing a public bus system in Africa; 14. Lilongwe, Malawi – developing waterless sanitation solutions for informal settlements; 15. Medellín, Colombia – building social inclusion with cable cars; 16. Finnish municipalities – pursuing carbon neutrality; 17. Kitakyushu, Japan – collaborating to achieve zero waste; 18. Melbourne, Australia – strategising for a carbon neutral future; 19. Portland, USA – preparing for climate change; 20. San Jose, USA – building a green vision; 21. Singapore – doing more with less water; 22. Totnes, United Kingdom – transitioning towns towards sustainability; 23. Växjö, Sweden –using renewable resources to provide heat and electricity; 24. Buenos Aires, Argentina –growing food locally to feed the city; 25. Cape Town, South Africa – retrofitting low- income housing for energy efficiency; 26. Chennai, India – harnessing rainwater to enhance water supply; 27. Curitiba, Brazil – incentivising citizens to get involved in recycling; 28. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam –encouraging cleaner urban environments;

29. Lingköping, Sweden –fuelling public transport with waste; and 30. Seoul, Korea – reintroducing nature to address city problems. The case studies are used to provide examples of initiatives that are responding to the need to manage resources more sustainably or limit environmental impacts (such as CO2). Anecdotal evidence and some common trends reinforce and illustrate rather than ‘prove' the importance of decoupling. The case studies have not been compiled to 'prove' the core argument of this report, which is that more sustainable resource flows will depend on the reconfiguration of infrastructures. Currently, no case study research exists that will prove this. What currently exists, are case studies of infrastructure reconfigurations without a quantitative analysis of the consequences for the socio-metabolic flows through the urban system. Nevertheless, it remains valid to refer to these infrastructure reconfigurations as examples of how stakeholders are responding to the need for more sustainable resource flows through urban systems. Figure 6.2 organises the 30 case studies into four types of urban networks, on the basis of two dimensions. The first dimension, aligned on the horizontal axis, indicates whether urban responses focus on new construction and new networked infrastructure or are concerned with the 'retrofitting' of existing cities and already installed networked infrastructures. The former is much easier for introducing innovations because it can start with a clean slate; the latter presents more complex problems of vested interests and higher costs. The second dimension, on the horizontal axis, indicates whether urban responses are concerned with the development of integrated (systemic) change or mainly concerned with a particular category of infrastructure network, such as water, or energy or transport. Network-based solutions focus primarily on either shifts in the socio-technical configuration of existing infrastructures, or on the development of entirely new infrastructures located within the city. These tend to be concerned with narrower

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