1st Edition
Urban Social Sustainability Theory, Policy and Practice
This ground breaking volume raises radical critiques and proposes innovative solutions for social sustainability in the built environment. Urban Social Sustainability provides an in-depth insight into the discourse and argues that every urban intervention has a social sustainability dimension that needs to be taken into consideration, and incorporated into a comprehensive and cohesive ‘urban agenda’ that is built on three principles of recognition, integration, and monitoring. This should be achieved through a dialogical and reflexive process of decision-making. To achieve sustainable communities, social sustainability should form the basis of a constructive dialogue and be interlinked with other areas of sustainable development. This book underlines the urgency of approaching social sustainability as an urban agenda and goes on to make suggestions about its formulation.
Urban Social Sustainability consists of original contributions from academics and experts within the field and explores the significance of social sustainability from different perspectives. Areas covered include urban policy, transportation and mobility, urban space and architectural form, housing, urban heritage, neighbourhood development, and urban governance. Drawing on case studies from a number of countries and world regions the book presents a multifaceted and interdisciplinary understanding from social sustainability in urban settings, and provides practitioners and policy makers with innovative recommendations to achieve more socially sustainable urban environment.
1. Social Sustainability Discourse: A Critical Revisit (M. Reza Shirazi, Ramin Keivani)
2. Social sustainability: Politics and Democracy in a Times of Crisis (Mark Davidson)
3. Urban Social Sustainability Policies in The Nordic Region – A Repackaging of the Welfare State Model? (Moa Tunström)
4. Social Sustainability and Transport: Making ‘Smart Mobility’ Socially Sustainable (Tanu Priya Uteng, Yamini Jain Singh and Oddrun Helen Hagen)
5. Social Sustainability and Urban Heritage: The Challenge of Conserving Physical Places and Sustaining Cultural Traces (Chris Landorf)
6. Spatiality of Social Sustainability: Social Activity and Neighbourhood Space (M. Reza Shirazi, Ramin Keivani)
7. The Social Effects of Architecture: Built Form and Social Sustainability (Vinicius M. Netto, Júlio Celso Vargas, Renato T. de Saboya)
8. Social Sustainability in Eco-urban Neighbourhoods: Revisiting the Nordic Model (Meg Holden, Annika Airas, Majken Toftager Larsen)
9. Social Sustainability and New Neighbourhoods: Case Studies from Spain and Germany (Iqbal Hamiduddin, Marco Adelfio)
10. Social Sustainability and Collaborative Housing: Lessons from an international comparative study (Richard Lang)
11. Social Sustainability as an Urban Agenda: Towards a Comprehensive Image (M. Reza Shirazi, Ramin Keivani)
Biography
M. Reza Shirazi is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at the Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD), UC Berkeley, and Senior Research Fellow at the School of the Built Environment, Oxford Brookes University, UK. His research and teaching interests lie in the field of urban justice, discourse studies, neighbourhood development, citizen participation, phenomenology of the built environment, sociocultural sustainability, and architectural and urban transformation in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) countries. Reza’s recent books include: Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in Iran: Tradition, Modernity, and the Production of ‘Space-In- Between’ (Springer, 2018), Citizens’ Participation in Urban Planning and Development in Iran; Challenges and Opportunities (Routledge, 2017); and Towards an Articulated Phenomenological Interpretation of Architecture: Phenomenal Phenomenology (Routledge, 2014).
Ramin Keivani is Professor of International Land Policy and Urban Development and Research Lead at the School of the Built Environment, Oxford Brookes University. He is an urbanist with a particular research interest in low-income and affordable housing policy, urban social sustainability, and the impact of land and property markets on urban development and urban equity in both developed and transition economies. He has worked on projects across the globe including UK, central/eastern Europe, the Middle East, India, Brazil, China and Asia Pacific, and southern Africa. He is the founding and managing editor of the International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development.
"Urban Social Sustainability is a valuable compilation of essays, many drawing on primary case-study research, that develop and discuss differing theories of social sustainability and their application to urban policy and practice. They are usefully introduced and drawn together in the opening and closing chapters by the editors, Reza Shirazi and Ramin Keivani. This critical and analytical book is of great value to scholars and urban policy-makers alike."
Patrick Wakely, Professor Emeritus of Urban Development, University of London. (formerly Director, Development Planning Unit (DPU), University College London UCL).
"This timely and significant book adds considerably to our knowledge over a wide range of issues. There is a wealth of information ranging from large issues of politics, welfare and culture to a focus on transport, neighbourhoods and housing. The many strands are neatly pulled together in a final chapter. This is essential reading towards our understanding of social sustainability."
Prof. Mike Jenks, Professor Emeritus, Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development, Oxford Brookes University.
"The social aspects of successful urbanism are regularly under-played. This book gives social sustainability the attention it deserves. While the social sustainability discourse can seem overly platitudinous, this book does a good job of positioning the debate in accessible terms, which will ultimately transfer to more fruitful policy-making and more progress on advancing the causes of social diversity, equity, and justice."
Emily Talen, Phd, Professor of Urbanism, University of Chicago
