In recent years, the role of cities in sustainable development has been acknowledged to a higher degree within both academic and development communities. There are however significant blind spots in the understanding of how urbanisation operates in metabolising nature and in the creation and distribution of risks, vulnerabilities and opportunities among urban dwellers. There is a need for a deeper understanding of urban responses to these challenges.
This cluster explores the so-called 'urban transitions' faced by the global south, by unearthing emerging relationships and contradictions between resilience and environmental justice in the contemporary geographies of capitalist urbanisation and accumulation.
This challenge is approached through the following cross-cutting core questions:
- Why and how does the 'urban' produce and reproduce environmental (in)justices?
- Under what conditions can resilience shift from coping to transformation?
- How can planning support synergistic relationships between resilience and environmental justice?
These questions are addressed through five specific focal areas of DPU research as follows: