The Sustainability of Cities: Determining an Appropriate Model

With the prediction by the United Nations that 60% of the world’s population will live in cities by the year 2030, it is apparent that the immediate global future is one of urbanisation. Central to the issue of sustainability must therefore be the increasing domination of the city. Determining the sustainability of a city and the affect the city has on global sustainability must be considered from two perspectives that are largely analogous to Castells’ bi-polar conflict between the Net and the Self (Castells, 1996). Cities must reconcile the conflict between being part of a competitive global city network and satisfying the day to day requirements of their own inhabitants. A sustainable city must recognise the environmental, social and economic impacts it has on not only its internal development but also through its linkages to other regions around the world. If a city sustains itself by exploiting other regions, then they are adopting parasitic sustainability practices which, from a holistic perspective, cannot be considered sustainable. The second perspective considers a city’s ability to continue to develop and function in a manner that meets the daily needs of its inhabitants in a sustainable way. This aspect considers the city as a system nested within the world city system and its ability to evolve and adapt in response to externalities over which it has little or no control. This dual perspective of cities and sustainability is examined in this paper with a view to determine an appropriate model for what may constitute a contemporary sustainable city. What are the defining characteristics in terms of structure, policy and form that would ensure that a city could not only survive into the future in a way acceptable to its inhabitants but also in a way that would not undermine the abilities of other cities and regions around the world to also remain sustainable.