Spatializing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
The role of urbanization in SDGs localization across spatial scales
Nikos Katsikis (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Pier Paolo Saraceno (European Commission - Joint Research Centre)
Iraklis Stamos (European Commission - Joint Research Centre)
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Abstract
This paper examines the question of localizing SDGs by linking them to the variegated spatialities of urbanization. The guiding hypothesis is that the processes underlying SDGs are connected to dominant urbanization processes that characterize subnational regions, i.e. processes of concentrated, or extended urbanization, according to the Planetary Urbanization literature. It focuses on the relationship of a selection of 6 Sustainable Development Goals and 52 associated targets with the scales and landscapes produced through concentrated and extended urbanization processes, aiming to contribute to a systematic understanding on the degree to which they can be effectively monitored and achieved at subnational levels. As these processes are inherently multiscalar, and connect variegated landscapes across and within territories, the implementation of SDGs would need to acknowledge, contextualize, and transform this diversity of scales and landscapes. The paper develops a theoretical and conceptual apparatus for comprehending and assessing the relationship of SDGs with core urbanization processes that largely shape the production of space and its social and ecological inequalities, thus spatializing, and ‘urbanizing’ them in order to question the capacity for localizing them.
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