Enabling urban systems transformations: co-developing national and local strategies.

Area of Science:

• Urban Planning and Sustainability Science
• Transdisciplinary Systems Thinking
• Policy Development

Background:

• Transformative urban development is crucial for future sustainability and wellbeing.
• Effective urban transformation necessitates shared learning and context-specific solutions.
• Existing approaches often struggle with the complexity and emergent nature of urban systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the challenge of guiding urban development through transdisciplinary strategy co-development.
• To generate two novel frameworks as boundary objects for strategy development.
• To provide insights for developing urban transformation strategies from local to national scales.

Main Methods:

• Extensive transdisciplinary engagement and co-development of national urban strategy for Australia.
• Generation of an 'enabling urban systems transformation' framework.
• Development of a complementary 'knowledge for urban systems transformation' framework.

Main Results:

• The 'enabling urban systems transformation' framework includes four enablers and underpinning urban capacities.
• The 'knowledge for urban systems transformation' framework outlines key themes for an integrated systems approach.
• The frameworks support convergent, cumulative, and transdisciplinary urban science, incorporating stakeholder perspectives.

Conclusions:

• Generic frameworks can facilitate collaborative issue framing and responses for context-specific urban challenges.
• Co-developing an urban 'transformation imperative' and 'strategic response' is vital.
• Sustained national leadership and diverse engagement are key to driving effective urban strategies.