Conclusions: Creating More Liveable and Sustainable Urban Places

Abstract

All of the new urban themes that have developed in the last two or three decades focus upon particular sets of problems of towns and cities and suggest ways of resolving these difficulties, through either general strategies, or through specific polices. However all of the themes can be seen as contributing to two broader issues, namely improving the sustainability and liveability of cities. In combination they can be seen as creating a new phase in the history of urban literature that has five distinctive features: they originate from a wider variety of sources than previous new approaches; they make more attempts to resolve the problems of policy and management fragmentation; they deal with a wide scope of problems and solutions; they have led to the creation of many more city networks; and have the potential to be part of a more organized city-learning process. These new urban concepts and their associated policies have often had considerable impact on particular cities. But far too many urban places are not applying known and evidence-based solutions to problems, so that progress is slower than the advances that are possible, given our knowledge and technology.