Simon Marvin - Urban Living Labs: Experimenting With City Futures

All cities face a pressing challenge how can they provide economic prosperity and social cohesion while achieving environmental sustainability? In response, new collaborations are emerging in the form of urban living labs sites devised to design, test and learn from social and technical innovation in real time. The aim of this volume is to examine, inform and advance the governance of sustainability transitions through urban living labs. Notably, urban living labs are proliferating rapidly across the globe as a means through which public and private actors are testing innovations in buildings, transport and energy systems. Yet despite the experimentation taking place on the ground, we lack systematic learning and international comparison across urban and national contexts about their impacts and effectiveness. We have limited knowledge on how good practice can be scaled up to achieve the transformative change required. This book brings together leading international researchers within a systematic comparative framework for evaluating the design, practices and processes of urban living labs to enable the comparative analysis of their potential and limits. It provides new insights into the governance of urban sustainability and how to improve the design and implementation of urban living labs in order to realise their potential.

Simon Marvin is Director of the Urban Institute and Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Harriet Bulkeley is Professor of Geography at Durham University, UK.

Lindsay Mai is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Geography at Durham University, UK.

Kes McCormick is an Associate Professor and Assistant Head at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE) at Lund University, Sweden.

Yuliya Voytenko Palgan is an Assistant Professor at Lund University, Sweden.

Experimenting with City Futures

Edited by
Simon Marvin, Harriet Bulkeley,
Lindsay Mai, Kes McCormick and
Yuliya Voytenko Palgan

First published 2018
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2018 selection and editorial matter, Simon Marvin, Harriet Bulkeley, Lindsay Mai, Kes McCormick and Yuliya Voytenko Palgan; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Simon Marvin, Harriet Bulkeley, Lindsay Mai, Kes McCormick and Yuliya Voytenko Palgan to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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ISBN: 978-1-138-71472-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-71477-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-23064-1 (ebk)

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PART I
Design of ULL

PART II
Practices of ULL

PART III
Processes of ULL

Janice Astbury is a Research Associate at Durham University, UK, where she has contributed to the Governance of Urban Sustainability Transitions (GUST) project and worked with the London Borough of Haringey to address energy vulnerability. She is particularly interested in the role of citizens and community organisations in socially just sustainability transitions.

Vanesa Castn Broto is a Professorial Fellow at the Urban Institute and the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her research focuses on the governance of climate change in urban areas. She is currently leading a British Academy project studying sustainable energy transitions in urban Mozambique.

Harriet Bulkeley is Professor of Geography at Durham University, UK. Her research focuses on the politics of environmental governance. She currently leads the NATURVATION H2020 project, examining innovative nature-based solutions and the politics of urban sustainability. Her recent books include An Urban Politics of Climate Change (2015) and Accomplishing Climate Governance (2016).

Sarah Burch is Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Sustainability Governance and Innovation and an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Through her research, writing and teaching, she explores transformative responses to climate change at the community scale, innovative strategies for governing sustainability, and the role that small businesses can play in accelerating urban sustainability transitions.

Anna Davies is Professor of Geography, Environment and Society at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, where she directs the Environmental Governance Research Group and is on the Steering Committee for the Trinity Centre for Future Cities. She has published more than 80 peer reviewed books, book chapters and journal articles.

Megan Davies is a PhD candidate based at the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Her research looks into the spatial and urban governance implications of the utility scale renewable energy programme in South Africa. She completed her MPhil in Sustainable Development at Stellenbosch University in 2016. Her previous qualifications were also awarded through Stellenbosch University a Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainable Development in 2013 and BA Knowledge Management and Decision Making in 2011.

James Evans is a Professor of Geography at the School of Environment, Education and Development, University of Manchester, UK. His research interest is in urban environmental governance with a focus on how cities learn to become more sustainable. His research projects focus on urban living labs, smart cities and resilience.