The Arctic regions are warming at least four times faster than the rest of the world and experience a strong urbanisation trend. The SUDEA research team shows why a lack of alignment across governance levels hinders sustainable urban development – and how local empowerment and institutional learning can help address these challenges.
Cities account for 70 per cent of energy use. Exploratory research conducted by the SUDEA-research team provides new answers to the question why are policies for sustainable urban development not well aligned across governance levels?
Since the beginning of the research project in 2020, the SUDEA research team with Dr Dorothea Wehrmann and Dr Jacqueline Wingens from IDOS, Arne Riedel (Ecologic Institute), Dr. hab. Katarzyna Radzik-Maruszak and Dr. hab. Michał Łuszczuk from the Maria Curie-Skłodowska-University investigated cooperation dynamics shaping sustainable urban development of seven cities located in the European Arctic.
In their new book they show that while the Arctic has often been framed as an ‚exceptional region‘, in the context of sustainable urban development many challenges visible in the (European) Arctic also apply to other remote regions. For example, participatory processes are often seen as superficial and knowledge transfer beyond the local level are limited. To overcome these challenges they provide evidence for why local empowerment, institutional learning and the opening up of closed networks is crucial.
This video summarises the project’s main results and all other project publications can be accessed via the SUDEA website.
