Urban Sustainability

The ongoing urbanization poses significant ecological, economic, technical and social challenges in society. The strategic research area Urban Sustainability aims to contribute to an urban development that is more sustainable and thus improves people's living environment and health.

Stephan Barthel, research leader for the area talks about Urban Sustainability and the research programmes within the area.

By 2050, nearly 70 per cent of the world’s population is expected to live in cities, and Sweden is also a country with a growing population and extensive urbanisation. This sets new demands on building the cities in an ecologically, economically and socially sustainable manner. Our goal is a more sustainable urban development that creates good living environments and contributes to improving people’s well-being without exceeding the limits of what our planet can handle.

We have to have a holistic perspective, where social, technical, financial and legal factors, among others, are linked together with the ecological factors since these parts are woven together with each other. We cannot live together in a dense environment where there are light years of difference in the living standards between individuals.

Stephan Barthel, Research Leader

The strategic research area Urban Sustainability addresses social challenges linked to goals 7, 11 and 13 in Agenda 2030.

A major societal challenge

One of the greatest societal challenges is that an extensive urbanisation is under way. In recent decades, focus has been on building the dense city to achieve climate goals and to develop strong urban economies, but this has taken place at the expense of green spaces and the health of people who live in the cities. Given the growing urbanisation, the cities’ development is crucial to our ability to create a sustainable future.

The goal of the strategic research domain, Urban Sustainability, is for the University of Gävle to become one of the best and most dynamic research arenas regarding sustainable urban development in Sweden.

It is an interdisciplinary and broad field that extends across environmental sciences, energy systems, social sciences, public health sciences, religious studies, engineering, and biology.