Green in their own way
Pragmatic and progressive means for cities to overcome institutional barriers to sustainability
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10865005 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ana González (0000-0002-4823-5357), Ana María Cabo González (0000-0002-9754-1406, The University of Chicago, USA, corresponding author), Christof Brandtner (0000-0002-7484-464X, École de management de Lyon) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue | 13 |
| Pages | 2513-2530 |
| Publication date | 2024-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Urban Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0042-0980 • E-ISSN: 1360-063X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00420980241239788 |
| OpenAlex | W4395037917 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 41 |
To realise their potential to lead in sustainability development, cities require both symbolic resources such as social capital and legitimacy and material resources such as financial and technical support. Recent research in urban studies has shown that cities overcome institutional barriers to urban sustainability by drawing on support from their wider environment. However, we argue that resource needs vary depending on whether cities spotlight or sideline sustainability. Drawing on in-depth interviews with sustainability managers in cities with variable seriousness about sustainability, and representatives of city networks and support organisations, we show that cities express different symbolic and material resource needs as well as means to acquire them. When cities express pragmatic needs, they seek to demonstrate political feasibility and look to peer cities for legitimation; when cities express progressive needs, they aim to push the boundaries of technical possibility and broadcast their achievements to the world. Since cities require dissimilar external support, skewed attention towards ‘leading’ cities in extant research limits our understanding of how cities can overcome institutional barriers to climate action, especially when these barriers are high. Our findings offer contributions to the literature on city strategies for climate change on the institutional drivers of urban sustainability
Business · Environmental planning · Geography · Legitimacy · Legitimation · Political science · Politics · Resource (disambiguation · Sustainability · Sustainability organizations · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Public Policy and Administration Research · Sustainable Building Design and Assessment
Cities lead the way in climate–change action
Organizational Legitimacy
Explaining Progress in Climate Adaptation Planning Across 156 U.S. Municipalities
Cultural entrepreneurship
Managing Legitimacy
Policy Innovation, Intergovernmental Relations, and the Adoption of Climate Protection Initiatives by U.S. Cities
Not so polycentric
Cities and the Governing of Climate Change
Pragmatism or idealism? An urban perspective onto the politics of interurban cooperation for sustainability in the EU
An Assessment of the Impact that Participation in Local Climate Networks Has on Cities’ Implementation of Climate, Energy, and Transportation Policies
Global Cities and Transnational Climate Change Networks
Missing the Housing for the Trees
The Structure of City Action
Unpacking the heterogeneity of climate city networks
Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously
Understanding the global ecosystem of city networks
Enacting governance through strategy
Branding the City
Institutionalising city networking
Making meaningful commitments
Remaining the same or becoming another?’ Adaptive resilience versus transformative urban change
Rescuing Aunt Sally
The legitimacy of regional governance networks
Expertise, Representation and the Common Good
Government by experiment? Global cities and the governing of climate change
Cities, Europeanization and Multi‐level Governance
Immigrant integration beyond national policies? Italian cities’ participation in European city networks
Cities as leaders in EU multilevel climate governance
Institutional Motivations in the Adoption of Innovations
Climate change and the city
Green and Gray
Green American City
World Society and the Nation-State
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |