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Welcome, to the Wiki on Sustainable Just Cities!

This Wiki is an ongoing, open-ended collaborative database and knowledge source for city-makers including activists, policy workers, and scientists. The Wiki aims to create a knowledge exchange both as a place to share information and knowledge(s) and as a place to learn from. At its core, it hosts resources for sustainable and just cities, an overview of approaches, insights, and initiatives.

Resources for sustainable and just cities

To address the issue of considerable amounts of knowledge remaining fragmented or inaccessible, this Wiki brings together approaches, instruments, toolboxes, good practices, and inspirations for making cities more sustainable and just. Follow the links to find more information and resources.

• Key principles to support cities to be more sustainable and just

• Key drivers of injustice in cities
• Enabling factors for just and sustainable urban governance
• Overview of approaches

• Overview of governance arrangements

• Overview of actors and organisations
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• Overview of people involved
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• Innovative good practices for urban energy transitions
• Just Sustainability Research & Innovation Projects
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• Database of scientific articles related to just and sustainable cities
  • to be created
• Cities, justice, sustainability and covid-19

A call for co-creation

This Wiki on Sustainable Just Cities is part of a knowledge commons that serves as a resource for everyone who wants to contribute to more sustainable and just cities. It is not only for everyone to use the knowledge there, but also for everyone to share and add their own knowledge and experience. The idea of a knowledge commons is that it is owned and governed by all of those who use it.

You are warmly invited to edit and adapt any of the current pages, by e.g. adding examples, correcting or complementing information. And/or to add your own approaches, projects, initiatives and user profiles. Becoming a Wiki-user is very easy and quick.

For information on how to contribute, please check out the User guide. This guide includes links to tips on formatting and editing wiki pages.

In the video below UrbanA researcher Flor Avelino explains the importance of the wiki to UrbanA's knowledge co-creation processes.

About the Wiki

The Wiki on Sustainable Just Cities was conceived under the assumption that actionable knowledge is needed to transform our cities into more sustainable and just environments. This knowledge is to be both relevant and accessible to as many people as possible.

The Wiki is organized as a knowledge commons based approach for its greater potential to promote sustainability and justice. Knowledge commons are shared information resources, governed by a community of users according to an agreed set of rules, conventions and procedures. Such a decentralized approach to knowledge co-creation and information sharing uses the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ to support inclusive, co-creative, open-access and open-source approaches to knowledge generation. In order to transform our cities into more sustainable and just environments, we need actionable knowledge that is relevant and accessible to as many people as possible.

The UrbanA (Urban Arenas for Sustainable and Just Cities) project, an EU Horizon 2020 project, aimed to further develop and translate knowledge into action through the Wiki on Sustainable Just Cities. With the UrbanA project having ended in March 2022, the Just Sustainability Transitions in Cities Network of the Vital Cities and Citizens initiative of the Erasmus University Rotterdam has taken over the curation of the wiki, in partnership with ICLEI Europe[1]

About UrbanA and the Community of Practice

The UrbanA (Urban Arenas for Sustainable and Just Cities) project's aim was to consolidate and communicate the knowledge and experience related to urban social (in)equality and ecological (un)sustainability as well as on understanding the connections, tensions and contradictions between the two. The UrbanA project then synthesized these learnings into the Wiki on Sustainable Just Cities.

Further information on UrbanA, a major EU-funded project on urban sustainability and justice, can be found on the project's page and public website.

About Vital Cities and Citizens

Vital Cities and Citizens (VCC) aims to enhance the quality of life in urban areas through scientific research and advice, knowledge sharing and networking. Globalisation, technological change, international migration and growing inequality are increasing the complexity of the social structure and cultural makeup of cities worldwide. Within this initiative the researchers from various fields of science work closely together with professionals from different cities to identify conditions for equal living opportunities, safe living environments, and the harmonious coexistence of an increasingly diverse population. In vital cities, residents can achieve their life goals through education, meaningful work and participation in public life. A vital city is a platform for creativity and diversity, and a safe meeting place for various social groups. VCC has four sub-themes: Inclusive Cities and Diversity, Resilient Cities and People, Smart Cities and City Communities, and Sustainable and Just Cities.

Why this Wiki

In order to transform our cities into more sustainable and just environments, we need actionable knowledge that is relevant and accessible to as many people as possible. Currently, too much knowledge remains fragmented and inaccessible. Through the UrbanA project, we aim to synthesize and broker existing knowledge as well as further develop and translate knowledge into action. One important way in which we do this is through the UrbanA Wiki Database on Sustainable Just Cities.

A Wiki is a decentralized approach to knowledge co-creation and information sharing. The ‘wisdom of the crowd’ is in the lead (instead of top-down development by a central manager). It supports inclusive, co-creative, open access and open source approaches to knowledge generation.

Drivers of change

Mapping of Approaches for UrbanA project during Rotterdam Arena Event

• Overview of UrbanA keys

• Overview of approaches

• Overview of drivers of injustice

• Overview of governance arrangements

• Overview of projects & initiatives

• Overview of actors and organisations

• Overview of people involved

• Overview of innovative governance projects

The covid-19 crisis has exposed severe inequities in European urban areas while showing the fragility of an unsustainable growth-oriented economic system. The UrbanA Community of Practice has collected resources that intersect the covid-19 crisis with issues of justice, sustainability and urbanization.

• Cities, justice, sustainability and covid-19

The UrbanA Community of Practice

A central element of UrbanA is the Community of Practice (CoP). The CoP is an open network of individuals committed to taking constructive action on urban social inequality and ecological unsustainability in the ambition to create more just and sustainable cities.

Since April 2020 the CoP has held (near) bi-weekly, online Community Conversations (CoCos). An UrbanA Community of Practice case study was written in September 2020.

Read more about the CoP and how to get involved here.

Disclaimer

This site holds an ongoing, open-ended online collaborative database, which attempts to collect relevant approaches that can be used by city-makers to tackle unsustainability and injustice in cities.

Until now, the pages are based mainly on knowledge generated in EU-funded projects, distilled and summarised by consortium members.

The database touches on fast-changing fields. As such, this page makes no claims of authoritative completeness and welcomes your suggestions and input.

Copyright

Reuse of content for non-commercial purposes is permitted, with attribution, under Creative Commons Licence BY-NC 4.0.

Further information is available on our copyrights page.