The Urbanocene: cities in the Anthropocene

This chapter explores the socio-political dimensions of urban sustainability. Cities play a pivotal role in sustainability, particularly in addressing climate change through mitigation and adaptation strategies and as hubs for progressive, environment-friendly policies. However, cities are also limited in their capacities for environmental governance due to institutional and political constraints and lack of authority to enforce broader changes or implement large-scale initiatives like a ‘green new deal’. Cities’ ‘non-sovereignty’, we argue, is both a strength and a weakness. Thus, while cities are crucial actors in addressing environmental challenges, their efforts must be complemented by state-level and global political system reforms. Ultimately, enhancing cities’ political autonomy is necessary but insufficient. We conceptualise this complexity as the ‘Urbanocene’, suggesting that it is analogous to human agency in this geological epoch. Like humanity, the city has transformative powers, and like human agency in the Anthropocene, these powers are ultimately circumscribed.