Marc Wolfram

• Professor
• Director at Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development

Concepts of ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent’ cities currently enjoy great popularity. They offer frameworks for interpreting certain linkages between information and communication technology (ICT) and urban development, and put forward a particular agenda for action. In this, they claim a broad legitimacy for guiding stakeholders, drawing on findings from...

This chapter juxtaposes the transition management approach with the rationalities and instruments of urban planning. Considering the historic evolution and current characteristics of mainstream urban planning in theory and practice, it identifies key challenges and opportunities for engaging with transition management. The discussion underlines the...

Over the past decade, diverse urban governance innovations and experiments have emerged with the declared aim to foster climate change mitigation and adaptation, involving actors at multiple levels and scales. This urban turn in environmental governance has been accompanied by normative claims and high expectations regarding a leading role of citie...

Urban transformations form a central challenge for enabling global pathways towards sustainability and resilience. However, it remains unclear what kind of capacity is needed to deliver urban change that is actually transformative. Against a backdrop of current claims and efforts to achieve urban transformations, this special issue reviews the rela...

Urban sustainability transitions research has emerged as a prominent field of study since the late 2000s. This chapter traces the historic evolution of the field, offering a concise overview of key debates. It defines key terms, explores epistemological entry points and examines methodological implications of studying urban sustainability transitio...

Disruptions (systemic disturbances) are crucial to initiate and accelerate sustainability transformations of large-scale social systems (be they socio-ecological, socio-technical, or socio-institutional). Their emergence, characteristics and effects strongly relate to the role of agents who aim to disrupt and transform the status quo, and which thu...

There is a growing recognition that responding to climate change necessitates urban adaptation. We sketch a transdisciplinary research effort, arguing that actionable research on urban adaptation needs to recognize the nature of cities as social networks embedded in physical space. Given the pace, scale and socioeconomic outcomes of urbanization in...

Gender is a vital factor of societal organisation and transformation, and figures prominently in global sustainability agendas. Its social construction and interaction with technological change have been studied extensively. Within the field of sustainability transition (ST) research, however, the complex roles gender plays in socio-technical chang...

Urban transitions and transformations research fosters a dialogue between sustainability transitions theory an inter- and transdisciplinary research on urban change. As a field, urban transitions and transformations research encompasses plural analytical and conceptual perspectives. In doing so, this field opens up sustainability transitions resear...

This special issue contributes to scholarly debates about the role of cities in global climate governance, reflecting on the promise, limits, and politics of cities as agents of change. It takes an empirically-informed approach drawing on multiple diverse geographical and political contexts. Overall, the special issue aims to stimulate reflection a...

Urban regeneration forms a key approach for coping with persistent sustainability problems in cities. In practice, however, it is often driven by motives other than sustainability transformation. This paper explores the preconditions that allow urban regeneration approaches to become transformative, and suggests a methodology to support this shift...

This paper explores the preconditions and social learning processes that allow urban climate governance innovations and the solutions they engender to be transformative. It does so by assessing the capacity available to prepare for, initiate and steer a path-deviant sustainability transformation of the urban energy systems in three cities in South...

This paper discusses the crucial role cities play in the emergence and formation of grassroots socio-technical niches for sustainability transitions. Drawing on research engaged with strategic niche management, grassroots innovations and urban social innovations, it conceptualizes the interdependencies between urban contexts and grassroots niche dy...

Urban transformation research forms an emergent interdisciplinary field with open boundaries that combines complex system studies and urban studies. It explores patterns and dynamics of change linking cities and diverse socio-technical systems and social-ecological systems across levels and scales, and develops new forms of intervention to foster t...

Sustainable development at a global and local scale heavily depends upon the pathways taken by cities in the near future. Within scientific research, this frequently identified “urban challenge” has been recognized and addressed increasingly in urban studies, as well as in transformation studies. However, while both fields clearly overlap and effec...

This paper discusses the crucial role cities play in the emergence and formation of grassroots socio-technical niches for sustainability transitions. Drawing on research engaged with strategic niche management, grassroots innovations and urban social innovations, it conceptualizes the interdependencies between urban contexts and grassroots niche dy...

Cities are key for sustainability and the radical systemic changes required to enable equitable human development within planetary boundaries. Their particular role in this regard has become the subject of an emerging and highly interdisciplinary scientific debate. Drawing on a qualitative literature review, this paper identifies and scrutinizes th...

Information, communication and knowledge creation are at the core of urban stakeholder interactions enabling the identification of vulnerabilities and the design of adequate responses to them. Urban infostructures play a crucial role within these processes, interfacing between a city’s ecological, social, technical, economic and political networks....

Die Verfügbarkeit und Nutzung kommunaler Geodaten unterliegt seit etwa zwei Dekaden einem äußerst dynamischen Wandel. Dabei greifen die gesellschaftliche Neubewertung von zentralen Herausforderungen für die Stadtentwicklung, Veränderungen der kommunalen Verwaltungen und des regulativen Rahmens sowie insbesondere die Entwicklung und Anwendung neuer...

Mit dem Projekt „Stuttgart21“ war eigentlich der große Wurf geplant: Es sollte der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart nicht nur einen neuen unterirdischen Bahnknoten bescheren, sondern durch die profitable Vermarktung freiwerdender Bahnflächen auch neue Perspektiven der Stadtentwicklung ermöglichen. Stattdessen wurde der von Stadt, Land, Bund und Bahn glei...

This paper analyses the usage of spatial data (SD) technologies in local governments in Germany. Against the backdrop of todays major urban development challenges and changing forms of urban governance, four dominant discourses framing SD technology adoption are identified and juxtaposed with the specific social and political implications of this p...

Zusammenfassung Nachhaltige Stadtverkehrsplanung ist ein modellhafter Mehr-Ebenen Steuerungsansatz, der darauf abzielt, Verkehrsentwicklung in größeren Agglomerationen effektiver und effizienter auf das Erreichen von Nachhaltigkeitszielen auszurichten, verstärkt mit anderen (Fach-) Planungen zu integrieren sowie insgesamt besser zu legitimieren und...

Situated precisely at the artificial borderline between transport and spatial policy, the concept of “accessibility” has a decisive influence on shaping cities, regions and entire continents – of which Europe may serve as an example. Since the origins of these policy domains, “accessibility” continues to mark strategies and regulations at local, re...

1 ABSTRACT With the proliferating conception and implementation of "spatial data infrastructures" (SDI) around the globe, the interaction of state transformation and technological innovation dynamics has entered a critical stage. Spatial reference provides a common ground on which the vast majority of public and private data can become directly int...