Cities are responsible for up to 70% of global carbon emissions and 75% of global energy consumption. By 2050 it is estimated that 70% of the world's population will live in cities. The critical challenge for contemporary urbanism, therefore, is to understand how to develop the knowledge, capacity and capability for public agencies, the private sector and multiple users in city-regions (i.e. the city and its wider hinterland) to re-engineer systemically their built environment and urban infrastructure in response to climate change and resource constraints. To inform transitions to urban sustainability, key stakeholders' perceptions were sought though a participatory backcasting and scenario foresight process in order to illuminate challenging but realistic socio-technical scenarios for the systemic retrofit of core UK city-regions. The challenge of conceptualizing complex urban transitions is explored across multiple socio-technical ‘regimes’ (housing, non-domestic buildings, urban infrastructure), scales (building, neighbourhood, city-region), and domains (energy, water, use of resources) within a participatory process. The development of three archetypal ‘guiding visions’ of retrofit city-regional futures developed through this process are discussed, along with the contribution that such foresight processes might play in ‘opening up’ the governance and strategic navigation of urban sustainability. Les villes sont responsables de près de 70 % des émissions mondiales de carbone et 75 % de la consommation mondiale d’énergie. L'on estime que 70 % de la population mondiale vivra dans les villes en 2050. Le défi crucial pour l'urbanisme contemporain est par conséquent de comprendre comment développer les connaissances, les capacités et les aptitudes qui permettront aux organismes publics, au secteur privé et aux multiples utilisateurs dans les villes-régions (c'est-à-dire la ville élargie à son arrière-pays) de remanier de manière systémique leur cadre bâti et leurs infrastructures urbaines en réponse au changement climatique et aux contraintes en matière de ressources. Afin de documenter les transitions vers la durabilité urbaine, les perceptions des principales parties prenantes ont été recherchées via un processus participatif utilisant le backcasting [analyse rétrospective normative] et la prospective par scénarios de manière à apporter un éclairage sur des scénarios sociotechniques difficiles mais réalistes pour la rénovation systémique des villes-régions situées au cœur du Royaume-Uni. Le défi d'une conceptualisation de transitions urbaines complexes est examiné à travers une multiplicité de « régimes » sociotechniques (logements, bâtiments non résidentiels, infrastructures urbaines), d’échelles (bâtiment, quartier, ville-région), et de domaines (énergie, eau, utilisation des ressources) dans le cadre d'un processus participatif. Il est discuté du développement de trois « visions directrices » archétypales de l'avenir des villes-régions en matière de rénovation, élaborées à travers ce processus, ainsi que de la contribution que de tels processus prospectifs pourraient apporter en termes d’« ouverture » concernant la gouvernance et le pilotage stratégique de la durabilité urbaine. Mots clés: adaptation, villes, changement climatique, rénovation, durabilité, transitions, urbain, visions

(2013). Scaling up: the challenges of urban retrofit. Building Research & Information: Vol. 41, Urban retrofitting for the transition to sustainability, pp. 499-503.

In the UK and elsewhere the use of the term ‘sustainable brownfield regeneration’ has resulted from the interweaving of two key policy themes, comprising ‘sustainable development’ and ‘brownfield regeneration’. This paper provides a critical overview of brownfield policy within the context of the emerging sustainable development agenda in the UK, and examines the development industry's role and attitudes towards key aspects of sustainable development and brownfield regeneration. The paper analyses results from a survey of commercial and residential developers carried out in mid‐2004, underpinned by structured interviews with eleven developers in 2004–2005, which form part of a two‐and‐half‐year EPSRC‐funded project. The results suggest that despite the increasing focus on sustainability in government policy, the development industry seems ill at ease with precisely how sustainable development can be implemented in brownfield schemes. These and other findings, relating to sustainability issues (including the impact of climate change on future brownfield development), have important ramifications for brownfield regeneration policy in the UK. In particular, the research highlights the need for better metrics and benchmarks to be developed to measure ‘sustainable brownfield regeneration’. There also needs to be greater awareness and understanding of alternative clean‐up technologies to ‘dig and dump’.

(2002). U.K. Retail Real Estate and the Effects of Online Shopping. Journal of Urban Technology: Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 19-47.

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