The emerging ‘grand challenges’ of climate change, resource scarcity and population growth present a risk nexus to cities in the Anthropocene. This article discusses the potential that rapid urbanisation presents to help mitigate these risks through large-scale transitions if future urban development is delivered using evidence-based policies that promote regenerative urban outcomes (e.g. decarbonising energy, recycling water and waste, generating local food, integrating biodiversity). Observations from an Australian case study are used to describe urban governance approaches capable of supporting regenerative urbanism. The regenerative urbanism concept is associated with macro-scale urban and transport planning that shapes different urban fabrics (walking, transit, automobile), as the underlying infrastructure of each fabric exhibits a different performance, with automobile fabric being the least regenerative. Supporting urban systems based upon regenerative design principles at different scales (macro, meso and micro) can deliver deep and dramatic outcomes for not just reducing the impact of the grand challenges but turning them into regenerative change. In combination, these approaches form the cornerstone of regenerative cities that can address the grand challenges of the Anthropocene, while simultaneously improving livability and urban productivity to foster human flourishing.

In recent decades, the concept of resource efficient cities has emerged as an urban planning paradigm that seeks to achieve sustainable urban environments. This focus is upon compact urban environments that optimise energy, water and waste systems to create cities that help solve climate change and other resource-based sustainability issues. In parallel, there has been a long-standing tradition of ecological approaches to the design of cities that can be traced from Howard, Geddes, McHarg and Lyle. Rather than resource efficiency, the ecological approach has focused upon the retention and repair of natural landscape features and the creation of green infrastructure (GI) to manage urban water, soil and plants in a more ecologically sensitive way. There is some conflict with the resource efficient cities and ecological cities paradigms, as one is pro-density, while the other is anti-density. This article focusses upon how to integrate the two paradigms through new biophilic urbanism (BU) tools that allow the integration of nature into dense urban areas, to supplement more traditional GI tools in less dense areas. We suggest that the theory of urban fabrics can aid with regard to which tools to use where, for the integration of GI and BU into different parts of the city to achieve both resource efficient and ecological outcomes, that optimise energy water and waste systems, and increase urban nature.

This paper presents a case study about embedding sustainability into a local government in Perth, Western Australia, through the introduction of a sustainability policy and the accompanying education and culture change program. This longitudinal case study describes the approach and impact of the program initiated and delivered by internal officers between 2011 and 2016. The use of personal experience, document review and staff interviews present an ethnography of a bureaucracy that casts some light upon the seldom seen inner workings of a local government organisation as it introduced a sustainability program over a period of more than 5 years. The case study provides evidence of the potential power of learning as a key leverage point for transformational sustainability change.

The benefits of ecosystem services to cities are well documented; for example, water-sensitive urban design to mitigate stormwater flows and purify run-off, the cooling benefits provided by tree shade, and psychological benefits of urban greening. Cities tend to displace nature, and in urban environments where nature exists it tends to be as highly altered ecosystems. This paper sets out how it is possible to regenerate nature in cities. We outline the principles of how to do this through a study on a new regenerative urban development in Perth, Australia, where urban planning is intended to support the regeneration of a bioregional habitat within the city. The authors, drawn from sustainability, property development and ecological backgrounds, describe how urban regeneration can potentially facilitate the regeneration of endemic habitat within the city. This builds on the original ecosystem functionality to provide an urban ecosystem that enables biodiversity to regenerate. Perth lies on the Swan Coastal Plain, a biodiversity hotspot; it is home to 2.1 million people and numerous endemic species such as the endangered Black Cockatoo. Low reproduction rates and habitat loss through agricultural clearing, fire and urban expansion have greatly reduced the Black Cockatoo’s range and this continuing trend threatens extinction. However, the charismatic Black Cockatoos enjoy passionate support from Perth’s citizens. This paper describes a range of strategies whereby new urban development could potentially harness the popularity of the iconic Black Cockatoo to build momentum for urban habitat regeneration (for the cockatoos and other species) on the Swan Coastal Plain. The strategies, if systematically operationalised through urban planning, could allow city-scale ecological gain. The authors suggest a framework for nature-positive design and development that offers multiple benefits for human and non-human urban dwellers across scales, from individual gardens, to city/regional scale habitat corridors. Collectively, these strategies can increase the capacity of the city to support endemic species, simultaneously enhancing a bioregional “sense of place”, and numerous associated ecosystem services to increase urban resilience in the face of climate change.

This paper presents a case study of a transdisciplinary scenario planning workshop that was designed to link global challenges to local governance. The workshop was held to improve stakeholder integration and explore scenarios for a regional planning project (to 2050) in Blekinge, Sweden. Scenario planning and transdisciplinary practices are often disregarded by practitioners due to the perception of onerous resource requirements, however, this paper describes a ‘rapid scenario planning’ process that was designed to be agile and time-efficient, requiring the 43 participants from 13 stakeholder organizations to gather only for one day. The process was designed to create an environment whereby stakeholders could learn from, and with, each other and use their expert knowledge to inform the scenario process. The Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) was used to structure and focus the scenario planning exercise and its subsequent recommendations. The process was evaluated through a workshop participant survey and post-workshop evaluative interview with the regional government project manager to indicate the effectiveness of the approach. The paper closes with a summary of findings which will support those wishing to conduct similar rapid scenario planning exercises to inform policy planning for complex systems.