Large urban systems: Towards a sustainability framework

The concept of sustainability has become increasingly influential in the urban planning field and is internationally recognized and aspired to, as affirmed in the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. The objective of this chapter is to reflect on the interaction between sustainability and performance pertaining to the preceding challenges (previous chapters), with an emphasis on the larger urban systems (LUS). The intermingled relationship between sustainability and related concepts - that is, resilient cities, smart cities, compact cities, green cities, liveable cities, etc. - will be explored and built upon to arrive at an encompassing conceptual understanding of what sustainability in the LUS entails. The focus then shifts to how sustainability is recognized in the LUS spatial planning environment of South Africa as a developing country and the City of Cape Town as an LUS case study. The chapter concludes with a framework that is geared towards enhanced sustainability and addresses related challenges within the LUS through policy strategies and sub-strategies from a spatial planning and policy viewpoint underpinned by the concept of explicit place-based policy.