Urban Sustainability is crucial. More than 4.2 billion people live in urban areas and there are currently 37 megacities around the world (with populations of more than 10 million).

Such large concentrations of people brings (equally) large challenges for municipal governments and everyone sharing these spaces for work and leisure. Grey city infrastructures devoid of green-blue spaces are now widely recognised as unsustainable.

We can no longer ignore the challenges our actions have dealt to our planet.

The key challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss cannot be viewed in isolation and must be acted upon alongside efforts to ensure social and environmental justice, inclusion and inequalities are not exacerbated.

An overarching roadmap to achieve urban sustainability is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Silent Spring Consultants can help you to accomplish these 17 targets.

If you require Research and Consultancy Services on urban sustainability then don’t hesitate to contact us. To find out more about our services click the link below.

Selected Publications and Research Projects on Urban Sustainability by Dr Andrea Armstrong:

  • Armstrong, A. (2010) Creating sustainable communities in NewcastleGateshead, PhD Thesis, Durham University, UK. 
  • Armstrong, A. & Pattison, B. (2012) Delivering effective regeneration: learning from Bridging NewcastleGateshead, Briefing Paper, Building and Social Housing Foundation, Coalville, UK.
  • Armstrong, A. (2012) Twentieth century urban regeneration policy in Britain: charting discourses of community and sustainability, Journal of Language, Public Administration and Qualitative Research, 3(1): 65-81.
  • Armstrong, A. (2012) British urban regeneration policy in the new century: towards sustainable communities, Journal of Language, Public Administration and Qualitative Research, 3(2): 55-71.

 

Creating Sustainable Communities in NewcastleGateshead, PhD (2010), Department of Geography, Durham University, UK. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Building and Social Housing Foundation (BSHF). Dr Armstrong's thesis focused on one of the most controversial and ambitious urban regeneration policies in the UK – the plan to create sustainable communities via Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders (HMRP). Announced as a ‘step change’ in urban policy to overcome problems of low demand and abandonment experienced most acutely in nine former industrial towns and cities in the north and midlands of England, the Sustainable Communities Plan (SCP) involved the demolition and relocation of mainly white, working class inner-urban communities. The thesis focused on a year long moment in the process of regeneration in one such HMRP in North East England, known as ‘Bridging NewcastleGateshead’ (BNG) and drew from rich, detailed ethnographic case studies of three former industrial communities.

The Sustainable Livelihoods and Exclusion project investigated the potential benefits of the sustainable livelihoods approach for people experiencing financial exclusion, fuel poverty and/or reduced mental wellbeing.