Towards intergenerational neutrality in urban planning and governance: Reflections on temporality in sustainability transitions research

In urban studies, ‘presentism’ – the prioritisation of present-day concerns at the expense of historical and future considerations – has emerged as a critical bias that is rarely challenged, either through governance structures, institutional frameworks and urban planning and design, or as the ethical basis for our communities and social relations. From the vantage of the historical social sciences, we problematise applications of presentism within the context of urban development and planning, arguing that a presentist bias in contemporary approaches to urban studies risks suppressing detailed understandings of how legacies of the past condition options in the present and narrow considerations of the future. In this introductory editorial, we introduce the scope of the special issue on ‘Long-Term Intergenerational Perspectives on Urban Sustainability Transitions’ and its eight contributing articles. Through reflecting on and contextualising the eight articles, we argue that historical and archaeological approaches to time can help promote better intergenerational outcomes. Linking to a transdisciplinary discourse on temporality in urban decision-making, we put forward the theory of ‘temporal neutrality’ as a boundary object that can help integrate and focus thinking on temporality and intergenerational trade-offs in urban planning. We draw upon research on environmental justice, ethics and humanities to advocate and articulate considerations of intergenerational neutrality in urban studies.