Beyond tabulated utopias: Action and contradiction in urban environments

In this commentary I reflect upon the possibilities for action to deliver sustainable and just urban environments. I depart from the questions that inspire this special issue: what is it about cities that enables them to make a substantial contribution to environmental dilemmas? And how did cities become the darling trope of the international environmental policy regime? I use the metaphor of ‘the Crystal Palace’ to situate proposals for sustainable urbanism in a spectrum of options between naïve idealism and full-fledged cynicism. I argue that between those two extremes there are multiple alternatives to advance sustainable futures. Urban political ecology (UPE) is in a privileged position to reveal the contradictions inherent in the current incarnation of sustainable urbanism. That is why UPE scholars cannot miss the opportunity to produce context-relevant research to change urban sustainability policies and beliefs. In the second part of this commentary, I explore a case study already presented elsewhere in the special issue. The case of the successive unsuccessful projects for Olympic candidacy in Jaca (Spain) shows the impact of a series of speculative design exercises to build a technocratic eco-city. However, Jaca’s Olympic dreams have historical and cultural roots in the town. Its inhabitants have both propelled and contested the Olympic project at different moments over the evolution of the project. Progressive forms of environmentalism also emerge from the encounter between urban history and utopian thinking.