Agenda 2030 pursues a universal approach and identifies countries in the Global South and in the Global North that are in need of transformation toward sustainability. Therefore, countries of the Global North such as Germany have signed the commitment to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the SDGs need to be “translated” to the specific national context. Existing sustainability indicators and monitoring and reporting systems need to be adjusted as well. Our paper evaluates how three different initiatives translated SDG 11 (“Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable”) to the German context, given the specific role of cities in contributing to sustainable development. These initiatives included the official ‘National Sustainable Development Strategy’ of the German Government, a scientific initiative led by the ‘German Institute for Urban Affairs’, and a project carried out by the ‘Open Knowledge Foundation’, a non-governmental organization (NGO). This article aims to analyze how global goals addressing urban developments are contextualized on a national level. Our findings demonstrate that only a few of the original targets and indicators for SDG 11 are used in the German context; thus, major adjustments have been made according to the main sustainability challenges identified for Germany. Furthermore, our results show that the current contextualization of SDG 11 and sustainable urban development in Germany are still ongoing, and more changes and commitments need to be made.

The term ‘cities of the Global South’ has become an increasingly popular reference in urban studies and urban development practice. Notwithstanding, the term remains underexplored and the majority of research does not address whether the Global North/Global South dichotomy is a useful theoretical framework for urban studies. This article provides a more detailed analysis of the term Global South in urban research and presents benefits and pitfalls of applying a Southern perspective. Using the research field ‘cities as transnational climate change actors’ as an example, I highlight both advantages and problems of categorising urban areas as ‘cities of the Global South’. Structural differences between Northern and Southern cities regarding climate change action do exist, and theory building on cities as transnational actors is well advised to consider those differences in order to avoid a Global North bias. However, the categories Global North/Global South are only one possibility to analyse cities as transnational climate change actors and – depending on the research question – should be accompanied by analytical attention to additional factors such as geographical location, city size or political regimes.