Research guides: Future Cities: Get started

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The 2021 Environmental Sustainability Report, prepared by the President's Advisory Committee on Environmental Sustainability

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Future Cities: objectives and goals

Future Cities objectives and goals is designed with a focus on these main themes:

urban phenomena
social justice and the city
the economic and political context in which urban decisions are made
planning and engineering dimensions of sustainability
the interface between nature and the city
healthy cities and how to plan for future trends

An overarching framework to consider entails the following:

systems-thinking (perceived connections between different objects of study)
synergy (mutually favourable interactions between different bodies of knowledge and their practical effects on city planning, akin to the intersection between human behaviour, economic activities, and public policies)
scenarios (case studies that illustrate best practices on a world scale and how these ideas can be applied individually or jointly in different contexts)
simulation (the mapping out the overall effects and conceptualizing the relationships)
statecraft (an umbrella term for the range of resources and restrictions in an institutional context)

Subject areas include: