Focus on sustainable cities: Urban solutions toward desired outcomes

• Main Authors: GEORGESCU, M., ARABI, M., CHOW, Winston T. L., MACK, E., SETO, K. C.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2021
• Subjects: Environmental Sciences; Place and Environment; Urban Studies and Planning
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3478; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4736/viewcontent/Georgescu_etal_2021_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Urbanization represents the single most impactful and long-lasting transformation of the Earth system since the dawn of civilization. Cities are simultaneously locations of innovation, social connectivity, and wealth, but they also create local-to-global environmental degradation and socioeconomic disparities. For example, food provision for cities has required significant land-use change and fertilizer input, has altered regional climate, biogeochemical cycles, and degraded marine and landscapes through biodiversity loss, algal blooms and fish kills. To maintain urban livelihoods and the provision of goods and services, cities require vast amounts of energy (e.g. to provide access to transport, cooling systems), which are massive producers of greenhouse gases, the main culprit of global change. Future urbanization will need to be transformative—wholly different from how we have designed, built, and powered cities and towns—so that they can be sustainable and resilient.