Sustainable urbanism: an evolving field of scholarship and professional practice

Abstract

Sustainable urbanism is an evolving field of scholarship and professional practice, especially across the Atlantic Ocean. This research note provides an individual account of how the field emerged and evolved at the turn of the millennium. It utilises some of Jane Jacobs’ thinking to introduce Sustainable Urbanism – History, Economic-Environmental Knowledge, and Professional Practice, while revealing ample future research avenues to strengthen and augment the field's place-based teaching and research dimensions. It does so by presenting a number of contrasting case studies in Portugal (the Iberian Peninsula), the United States (North America), and Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) (Southeast Asia) in terms of size, density, morphology, lifestyles and territorial governance practices, which are key to understanding the main arguments put forward. It is argued that communication of best practices and mutual learning of policy innovations across geo-spatial scales ought to be accentuated in order to improve Jane Jacob's relatively weary, nonetheless pivotal, view of urban planning's reputation to adequately, efficiently, and equitably resolve pressing urban complexities.