Doing Global Urban Research

This book first attempts to explore the nexus between urban innovation and sustainable development goals (SDGs). It puts together global examples of urban innovation initiatives, highlighting practical, policy-oriented, social, and technological interventions. The case studies are divided into four clusters of ‘green cities’, ‘inclusive cities’, ‘resilient cities’, and ‘healthy cities’. In doing so, the book maps various global examples of urban innovation for sustainable pathways and directions. It also highlights means of implementation of tool and technologies, data, financing, and governance. The overarching aim is to provide a holistic overview of urban innovation sustainable development nexus, which would help future policy development, paradigm shifts, and technological applications.By summarising a selection of successful initiatives, interventions, and projects, this book highlights how urban innovation could accelerate achieving SDGs.

This book has a primary focus on inclusions for solutions to problems and not just more on the nature of the current and emerging problems that most other competing titles present. The book is also a true global representation of challenges and opportunities that have been encountered, addressed, and critiqued from a wide variety of contributors rather than academicians per se. In doing so, rather than focusing on techno-centric prowess and associated case studies of the west (as is the case in most competing titles), the book also equally emphasizes upon the vulnerabilities and mitigating solutions being developed and tested in the under-developed and developing nations. Besides this, the book also acquires an ‘Equity’ oriented focus and hints upon sustainable, inclusive modes of shaping our built environment throughout the contributing chapters. The book is also unique in the way it combines the chosen themes to provide a holistic coverage of the broader determinants of urban health and wellbeing, thus being better positioned to address SDG3 within one compact volume. The book also differs from a typical conference proceeding or a non-peer reviewed book since the book’s highly theme specific approach is curated by a scientific peer review committee to carefully maintain diversity of contributions to the book.