reshape urban form. These include local capacity-building programmes, grass-roots organizational development initiatives, local and regional visioning exercises, participatory land-use planning, community-based visioning and budgeting, and microfinance programmes designed to provide sustainable livelihoods and access to capital for informal businesses. Examples of initiatives that could be adapted in pursuit of a just transition to more sustainable urban form include the Climate Budget of Oslo (Municipality of Oslo 2019), REDE 9 URB-AL (n.d.), the network for local finance and participatory budgeting in Latin American cities sponsored by the European Commission and local participatory budgeting schemes, such as those in New York and Buenos Aires (New York City Council n.d.; Buenos Aires Ciudad n.d.). These examples confront a number of challenges, such as the ability of participatory institutions to engage and retain volunteers, and the ability of constituents to substantively shape priorities and propose concrete solutions (Su 2018).


b) Urban access and mobility The second area is urban access and mobility. This involves sustainable, low-carbon transportation infrastructure, efficient public transit and freight handling, non-motorized mobility and an appropriate mix of land-use patterns and densities. Policies to achieve this include:


v Investment in clean public transit and freight handling, powered by electrification and battery systems that do not export pollution from power generation. This would help to eliminate pollution hotspots associated with heavy traffic congestion, freight train terminals and seaports and airports, improving air quality and public health (Khreis et al. 2018; Sclar et al. 2020). Transit should link job centres with housing, civic spaces, health facilities, schools and retail districts, joining up urban and suburban communities. Service quality, comfort and speed are key to ensuring preference for transit;


v Developing urban transport infrastructure and land-use planning that encourages non-motorized forms of mobility (walking and cycling). These strategies include walkable streets, dedicated bike lanes, safe routes to school programmes and secured and attractive pedestrian trails and pathways to promote physical activity and health (Poswayo et al. 2019; Koszowski et al. 2019);


v Urban design plans that promote mixed land-use patterns and transit-oriented development to increase access and connectivity between origins and destinations (Ibraeva et al. 2020; Knowles, Ferbrache and Nikitas 2020; Liang et al. 2020). This contributes to the goal of “15-minute cities” as articulated by Paris, reducing travel times for daily activities to a quarter of an hour. These types of urban design strategies can preserve historical buildings and cultural heritage (Renne and Listokin 2019) and, if guided by universal design principles, allow cities to become more accessible to people with disabilities, as well as to other groups (Inturri et al. 2017; Kębłowski et al. 2019; Lah 2019; Raman and Roy 2019);


v Measures that address affordable transportation access, such as subsidies for low-income commuters or fare-free transit access (Shin 2020).


76 GEO for Cities


Transitional measures are critical, particularly in cities that require extensive redesign, retrofitting and new transit infrastructure on a large scale to increase use of mass transit or non-motorized modes of travel. Mandates for the production of electric cars and motorcycles powered by renewable energy, such as in the Netherlands and Norway, may also be needed, although this measure will primarily be confined to countries that can afford and technically support it. Regulatory incentives and disincentives such as congestion pricing, access restrictions for polluting vehicles, fuel taxes and fuel portfolio standards to reduce car use can also play a role in the transition. Cities can also encourage the use of alternative transportation and car and truck drive fleet efficiencies in energy use and pollution reduction (Jephcote, Chen and Ropkins 2016; Gu et al. 2018; Steinsland et al. 2018; Tscharaktschiew and Evangelinos 2019; Yu et al. 2019).


c) Resilient built environments The strategies of this third area of work primarily relate to infrastructure:


v Development of redundant renewable energy systems that can handle shocks and stresses, and can be adapted as populations migrate to different habitable areas and smaller cities expand;


v Infrastructure reinvestment programmes to repair, maintain and extend existing water, renewable energy, municipal waste, air quality management and flood control infrastructure for all residents and communities, regardless of socioeconomic status, degree of informality or status of tenancy or land occupation;


v Infrastructure monitoring and assessment technologies to alert risk managers, as well as disaster prediction and warning systems to alert vulnerable populations (Grimmond, Xu and Baklanov 2014; World Meteorological Organization [WMO] 2019; International Telecommunications Network [ITU] 2020);


v Green and blue infrastructure investment in the construction and maintenance of green roofs, bioswales, parks, rehabilitated streams, mangroves, wetlands and floodplains to build in redundancy with stormwater and flood controls and mitigate urban heat island effects and associated energy use. Investment in education and skills development for technicians and engineers to build and maintain these systems (Sanchez and Reames 2019; Delgado Ramos et al. 2020);


v Biodiversity infrastructure to allow multiple species access to land and water while simultaneously encouraging physical activity, socializing, community activities and connecting with nature. This also supports multiple organisms and biocommunities in the urban landscape (Connop et al. 2016; Frantzeskaki 2019; Hunter, Cleary and Braubach 2019);


v Equity in infrastructure distribution and maintenance, ensuring that benefits are shared equitably by all urban residents (Nesbitt et al. 2019; Mulligan et al. 2020);


v Urban design innovation that is adapted to either hotter or colder regions and increased extreme weather events, along with equitable long-term strategies and finance for urban retreat or resettlement as necessary.


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