Institutional Regimes for Sustainable Urban Development

Abstract

Sustainable development is not ‘manna from heaven’ which will automatically come into being. It requires active involvement of all actors and stakeholders in both the public and private domain. Cities are important players in this perspective, not only in an environmental context (as highlighted in Chapter 1), but also in an energy context. The increasing returns in urban agglomerations offer many opportunities for efficiency gains and economies of density in the energy sector (see Gilbert et al. 1996):

• relatively low per capita costs for the construction and maintenance of energy infrastructure provisions

• a sufficiently large critical mass of people and activities for an efficient reduction of energy consumption

• a sufficient density of people and workplaces to stimulate energy-efficient forms of public transport

• a seedbed for the development and implementation of creative forms of new environmental and energy strategies and policy approaches.