City-Level Decoupling-Full Report

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

urban rail (like in Mumbai, India, and the Johannesburg-Pretoria complex in South Africa), or major new water efficiency infrastructures such as the Catskills development in New York. Each of these four ideal models has variations developed predominantly by environmental and/or community groups. These usually are outside the more corporate and policy oriented solutions, generally have a less technologically focused emphasis, or tend to be more focused on demand-side management and localised and small scale production technologies. These responses tend to give greater emphasis to social, cultural and behavioural change than technological solutions and a more household or local focus. Examples include the 'transition towns' movement, the 'global eco-village' movement, and some of the more grassroots oriented local government initiatives.

greenfields site, but here the focus is on one particular technology rather than an integrated approach. Examples include an ecological approach to water or energy management to deal with supply constraints. Alternatively, the new construction might not refer to a new property development per se, but rather to an entirely new infrastructure. An example is replacing the highway through Seoul with the river it had previously displaced. • 'Systemic urban transitions' refers to retrofits of existing urban infrastructures and/or buildings using an integrated network approach where new investments in low- or declining-value environments drive the application of new technologies. This can include the regeneration of central business districts, the conversion of underused industrial zones into new

mixed use zones, the conversion of previously low density suburban environments into high-density uses, or even the upgrading of low- income or informal settlements. Examples include the Barking Riverside development along the Thames in London, England, the Honeysuckle Urban Renewal Project in the Australian city of Newcastle, and the redevelopment of Western Harbour in Malmö, Sweden. Systemic urban transitions can also refer to urban movements, such as the Transition Towns Movement, the Low Carbon Cities movement, the movement of towns and neighbourhoods that would like to be fossil fuel free zones, or shackdweller movements in developing country cities.

• 'Urban urban networked infrastructures' refers to

retrofits that focus on a particular technology. This can include interventions like the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems that have become popular in Latin America, investments in rapid

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