CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 32

The DOI matches its Crossref record.

Sustainability transitions to circular cities: Experimentation between urban vitalism and mechanism

Winslow, Julia, Coenen, Lars·2023·Cities
DOI 10.1016/j.cities.2023.104531
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

The “circular city” is a recent addition to a string of urban sustainability concepts that call for transformative changes in the way we plan, build and (re-)shape cities. However, it is often criticised for its ambiguity. Experimentation is a prevalent mode of urban governance for realising transformative ambitions in the face of deep uncertainty and ambiguity, yet it is highly malleable for diverse (and vested) interests. This conceptual article explores the circular city as a boundary object which can have multiple translations amongst actors working toward a seemingly common goal. Based on examples of circular experimentation in the existing literature, we characterise mechanistic and vitalist worldviews of the circular city—where the former views the city as a controllable mechanical system while the latter likens the city to a living being. We identify contradictions between mechanistic and vitalist tendencies within the visions, networks and learning processes of circular experimentation. We argue that boundary objects can be a useful tool for facilitating a productive dialectic between worldviews in urban experimentation, using contradiction as a driver of change. We conclude with recommendations for facilitating a dialectical approach to experimentation and suggestions for further research.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.cities.2023.104531

Cites

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

No references could be resolved yet.

Research works printed but not linked: 105

  1. Abson, 2014, Ecosystem services as a boundary object for sustainability, Ecological Economics, 103, 29, 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.04.012 · DOI
  2. Adams, 2007, Introduction to the special issue: The vital city, The Town Planning Review, 78, 671, 10.3828/tpr.78.6.1 · DOI
  3. Allen, 2005, Mechanism, vitalism and organicism in late nineteenth and twentieth-century biology: The importance of historical context, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36, 261, 10.1016/j.shpsc.2005.03.003 · DOI
  4. Augenstein, 2020, From niche to mainstream: The dilemmas of scaling up sustainable alternatives, GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, 29, 143, 10.14512/gaia.29.3.3 · DOI
  5. Bassens, 2020, Placing cities in the circular economy: Neoliberal urbanism or spaces of socio-ecological transition?, Urban Geography, 1–5
  6. Bauwens, 2020, Circular futures: What will they look like?, Ecological Economics, 175, 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106703 · DOI · Paper page
  7. Beamer, 2023, Island and indigenous systems of circularity: How Hawaiʻi can inform the development of universal circular economy policy goals, Ecology and Society, 28, art9, 10.5751/ES-13656-280109 · DOI
  8. Berry, 2022, Is convergence around the circular economy necessary? Exploring the productivity of divergence in US circular economy discourse and practice, Circular Economy and Sustainability.
  9. Bradley, 2022, Community repair in the circular economy – Fixing more than stuff, Local Environment, 1–17
  10. Brons, 2022, A tale of two labs: Rethinking urban living labs for advancing citizen engagement in food system transformations, Cities, 123, 10.1016/j.cities.2021.103552 · DOI
  11. Bulkeley, 2013, Government by experiment? Global cities and the governing of climate change, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38, 361, 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00535.x · DOI
  12. Bulkeley, 2016, Urban living labs: Governing urban sustainability transitions, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 22, 13, 10.1016/j.cosust.2017.02.003 · DOI
  13. Bulkeley, 2019, Urban living laboratories: Conducting the experimental city?, European Urban and Regional Studies, 26, 317, 10.1177/0969776418787222 · DOI
  14. Castán Broto, 2015, Contradiction, intervention, and urban low carbon transitions, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 33, 460, 10.1068/d13050p · DOI
  15. Castán Broto, 2012, Interdisciplinary perspectives on urban metabolism, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 16, 851, 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00556.x · DOI
  16. Chen, 2021, Clarifying rebound effects of the circular economy in the context of sustainable cities, Sustainable Cities and Society, 66, 10.1016/j.scs.2020.102622 · DOI
  17. Cugurullo, 2013, How to Build a Sandcastle: An Analysis of the Genesis and Development of Masdar City, Journal of Urban Technology, 20, 23, 10.1080/10630732.2012.735105 · DOI
  18. Cuomo, 2020, Transformative urban living labs: Towards a circular economy in Amsterdam and Turin, Sustainability, 12, 7651, 10.3390/su12187651 · DOI
  19. De Klerk, 1979, Mechanism and vitalism. A history of the controversy, Acta Biotheoretica, 28, 1, 10.1007/BF00054676 · DOI
  20. Ezeudu, 2022, Circular economy and frugal innovation: A conceptual nexus, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 29, 29719, 10.1007/s11356-022-18522-6 · DOI
  21. Fastenrath, 2021, Future-proof cities through governance experiments? Insights from the resilient Melbourne strategy (RMS), Regional Studies, 55, 138, 10.1080/00343404.2020.1744551 · DOI
  22. Florez Ayala, 2022, Urban living labs: Pathways of sustainability transitions towards innovative City systems from a circular economy perspective, Sustainability, 14, 9831, 10.3390/su14169831 · DOI
  23. Franco-Torres, 2020, A framework to explain the role of boundary objects in sustainability transitions, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 36, 34, 10.1016/j.eist.2020.04.010 · DOI
  24. Fratini, 2019, Exploring circular economy imaginaries in European cities: A research agenda for the governance of urban sustainability transitions, Journal of Cleaner Production, 228, 974, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.04.193 · DOI · Paper page
  25. Friant, 2020, A typology of circular economy discourses: Navigating the diverse visions of a contested paradigm, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 161
  26. Friant, 2023, Sustainable circular cities? Analysing urban circular economy policies in Amsterdam, Glasgow, and Copenhagen, Local Environment, 1–39
  27. Fusco Girard, 2019, Moving towards the circular economy/City model: Which tools for operationalizing this model?, Sustainability, 11, 6253, 10.3390/su11226253 · DOI
  28. Garmendia, 2016, Biodiversity and green infrastructure in Europe: Boundary object or ecological trap?, Land Use Policy, 56, 315, 10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.04.003 · DOI
  29. Geels, 2006, Non-linearity and expectations in niche-development trajectories: Ups and downs in Dutch biogas development (1973–2003), Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 18, 375, 10.1080/09537320600777143 · DOI
  30. Genovese, 2019, The circular economy at a crossroad: Technocratic eco-modernism or convivial Technology for Social Revolution?, SSRN Electronic Journal., 10.2139/ssrn.3459180 · DOI
  31. Girard, 2019, Matera: City of nature, city of culture, city of regeneration. Towards a landscape-based and culture-based urban circular economy, Aestimum, 5
  32. Greco, 2021, Vitalism now – A problematic, Theory, Culture & Society, 38, 47, 10.1177/0263276419848034 · DOI
  33. Hadfield, 2022, Contemporary financial capitalism and sustainability transitions in urban built environments, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 42, 285, 10.1016/j.eist.2022.01.004 · DOI
  34. Hargrave, 2017, Integrating dialectical and paradox perspectives on managing contradictions in organizations, Organization Studies, 38, 319, 10.1177/0170840616640843 · DOI
  35. Hawkins, 2017, Boundary objects, power, and learning: The matter of developing sustainable practice in organizations, Management Learning, 48, 292, 10.1177/1350507616677199 · DOI
  36. Hein, 1972, The endurance of the mechanism: Vitalism controversy, Journal of the History of Biology, 5, 159, 10.1007/BF02113490 · DOI
  37. Hickel, 2020, Is green growth possible?, New Political Economy, 25, 469, 10.1080/13563467.2019.1598964 · DOI · Paper page
  38. Hobson, 2016, Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy, Progress in Human Geography, 40, 88, 10.1177/0309132514566342 · DOI
  39. Hobson, 2020, From circular consumers to carriers of (unsustainable) practices: Socio-spatial transformations in the Circular City, Urban Geography, 41, 907, 10.1080/02723638.2020.1786329 · DOI
  40. Hobson, 2020, ‘Small stories of closing loops’: Social circularity and the everyday circular economy, Climatic Change, 163, 99, 10.1007/s10584-019-02480-z · DOI
  41. Hodson, 2017, Reconfiguring urban sustainability transitions, Analysing Multiplicity. Sustainability, 9, 299
  42. Houston, 2018, Make kin, not cities! Multispecies entanglements and ‘becoming-world’ in planning theory, Planning Theory, 17, 190, 10.1177/1473095216688042 · DOI
  43. Hubmann, 2022, The socio-spatial effects of circular Urban Systems, IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 1078
  44. Jones, 2018, Winning hearts and minds: A commentary on circular cities, Journal of Public Affairs, 18, 10.1002/pa.1726 · DOI
  45. Kębłowski, 2020, Circular economy and the city: An urban political economy agenda, Culture and Organization, 26, 142, 10.1080/14759551.2020.1718148 · DOI
  46. Kemp, 1998, Regime shifts to sustainability through processes of niche formation: The approach of strategic niche management, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 10, 175, 10.1080/09537329808524310 · DOI
  47. Kirchherr, 2017, Conceptualizing the circular economy: An analysis of 114 definitions, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 127, 221, 10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.09.005 · DOI · Paper page
  48. Klinke, 2019, Vitalist temptations: Life, earth and the nature of war, Political Geography, 72, 1, 10.1016/j.polgeo.2019.03.004 · DOI
  49. Korhonen, 2018, Circular economy as an essentially contested concept, Journal of Cleaner Production, 175, 544, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.12.111 · DOI · Paper page
  50. Koskinen, 2005, Metaphoric boundary objects as co-ordinating mechanisms in the knowledge sharing of innovation processes, European Journal of Innovation Management, 8, 323, 10.1108/14601060510610180 · DOI
  51. Lestar, 2020, Ecospirituality and sustainability transitions: Agency towards degrowth, Religion, State and Society, 48, 56, 10.1080/09637494.2019.1702410 · DOI
  52. Lofthouse, 2018, Human-Centred Design of Products and Services for the circular economy – A review, The Design Journal, 21, 451, 10.1080/14606925.2018.1468169 · DOI
  53. Loorbach, 2020, Transformative innovation and translocal diffusion, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 35, 251, 10.1016/j.eist.2020.01.009 · DOI
  54. Maller, 2021, Re-orienting nature-based solutions with more-than-human thinking, Cities, 113, 10.1016/j.cities.2021.103155 · DOI
  55. Marin, 2018, Interpreting circularity. Circular City representations concealing transition drivers, Sustainability, 10, 1310, 10.3390/su10051310 · DOI · Paper page
  56. Marin, 2020, A materials Bank for Circular Leuven: How to monitor ‘messy’ Circular City transition projects, Sustainability, 12, Article 24, 10.3390/su122410351 · DOI
  57. Markard, 2012, Sustainability transitions: An emerging field of research and its prospects, Research Policy, 41, 955, 10.1016/j.respol.2012.02.013 · DOI
  58. McCann, 2010, Relationality/territoriality: Toward a conceptualization of cities in the world, Geoforum, 41, 175, 10.1016/j.geoforum.2009.06.006 · DOI
  59. McCann, 2008, Expertise, truth, and urban policy Mobilities: Global circuits of knowledge in the development of Vancouver, Canada’s ‘four pillar’ drug strategy, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 40, 885, 10.1068/a38456 · DOI
  60. Mehmood, 2010, On the history and potentials of evolutionary metaphors in urban planning, Planning Theory, 9, 63, 10.1177/1473095209346495 · DOI
  61. Mohamad, 2012, Role of religious communities in enhancing transition experiments: A localised strategy for sustainable solid waste management in Malaysia, Sustainability Science, 7, 237, 10.1007/s11625-012-0169-1 · DOI
  62. Moreau, 2017, Coming full circle: Why social and institutional dimensions matter for the circular economy, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 21, 497, 10.1111/jiec.12598 · DOI
  63. Newell, 2015, The boundaries of urban metabolism: Towards a political–industrial ecology, Progress in Human Geography, 39, 702, 10.1177/0309132514558442 · DOI
  64. Niskanen, 2020, Local conflicts and national consensus: The strange case of circular economy in Sweden, Journal of Cleaner Production, 261, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121117 · DOI
  65. OECD, 2020, The circular economy in cities and regions: Synthesis report, OECD.
  66. Ortega Alvarado, 2023, The role given to citizens in shaping a circular city, Urban Geography, 0, 1
  67. Oswick, 2009, Boundary objects reconsidered: From bridges and anchors to barricades and mazes, Journal of Change Management, 9, 179, 10.1080/14697010902879137 · DOI
  68. Paiho, 2020, Towards circular cities—Conceptualizing core aspects, Sustainable Cities and Society, 59, 10.1016/j.scs.2020.102143 · DOI
  69. Parrique, 2019, Decoupling debunked: Evidence and arguments agains green growth as a sole strategy for sustainability, European Environmental Bureau.
  70. Petcou, 2015, R-URBAN or how to co-produce a resilient city, Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organisation, 151, 249
  71. Petrescu, 2016, Co-producing commons-based resilience: Lessons from R-urban, Building Research & Information, 44, 717, 10.1080/09613218.2016.1214891 · DOI
  72. Pfotenhauer, 2022, The politics of scaling, Social Studies of Science, 52, 3, 10.1177/03063127211048945 · DOI
  73. Pitkänen, 2023, How to measure the social sustainability of the circular economy? Developing and piloting social circular economy indicators in Finland, Journal of Cleaner Production, 392, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136238 · DOI
  74. Pløger, 2006, In search of urban Vitalis, Space and Culture, 9, 382, 10.1177/1206331206292312 · DOI
  75. Prendeville, 2018, Circular cities: Mapping six cities in transition, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 26, 171, 10.1016/j.eist.2017.03.002 · DOI · Paper page
  76. Rask, 2022, An intersectional reading of circular economy policies: Towards just and sufficiency-driven sustainabilities, Local Environment, 27, 1287, 10.1080/13549839.2022.2040467 · DOI
  77. Reike, 2018, The circular economy: New or refurbished as CE 3.0? — Exploring controversies in the conceptualization of the circular economy through a focus on history and resource value retention options, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 135, 246, 10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.08.027 · DOI
  78. Rödl, 2022, Performing the circular economy: How an ambiguous discourse is managed and maintained through meetings, Journal of Cleaner Production, 360, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132144 · DOI
  79. Rohracher, 2023, Mission incomplete: Layered practices of monitoring and evaluation in Swedish transformative innovation policy, Science and Public Policy, 50, 336, 10.1093/scipol/scac071 · DOI
  80. Rosenlund, 2017, Improving regional waste management using the circular economy as an epistemic object, Environmental Sociology, 3, 297, 10.1080/23251042.2017.1323154 · DOI
  81. Savini, 2023, Futures of the social metabolism: Degrowth, circular economy and the value of waste, Futures, 150, 10.1016/j.futures.2023.103180 · DOI
  82. Savini, 2019, Urban experimentation as a politics of niches, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 51, 831, 10.1177/0308518X19826085 · DOI
  83. Schot, 2008, Strategic niche management and sustainable innovation journeys: Theory, findings, research agenda, and policy, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 20, 537, 10.1080/09537320802292651 · DOI
  84. Schot, 1994, Strategies for shifting technological systems, Futures, 26, 1060, 10.1016/0016-3287(94)90073-6 · DOI
  85. Schröder, 2019, Degrowth within – Aligning circular economy and strong sustainability narratives, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 146, 190, 10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.03.038 · DOI
  86. Schutter, 2021, The blue economy as a boundary object for hegemony across scales, Marine Policy, 132, 10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104673 · DOI
  87. Seyfang, 2010, Community action for sustainable housing: Building a low-carbon future, Energy Policy, 38, 7624, 10.1016/j.enpol.2009.10.027 · DOI
  88. Smith, 2012, What is protective space? Reconsidering niches in transitions to sustainability, Research Policy, 41, 1025, 10.1016/j.respol.2011.12.012 · DOI · Paper page
  89. Solesbury, 2014, How metaphors help us understand cities, Geography, 99, 139, 10.1080/00167487.2014.12094407 · DOI
  90. Star, 2010, This is not a boundary object: Reflections on the origin of a concept, Science, Technology, & Human Values, 35, 601, 10.1177/0162243910377624 · DOI
  91. Star, 1989, Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39, Social Studies of Science, 19, 387, 10.1177/030631289019003001 · DOI · Paper page
  92. Termeer, 2019, More than peanuts: Transformation towards a circular economy through a small-wins governance framework, Journal of Cleaner Production, 10
  93. Thackara, 2019, Bioregioning: Pathways to urban-rural reconnection, She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 5, 15
  94. Torrens, 2021, Experimentation or projectification of urban change? A critical appraisal and three steps forward, Urban Transformations, 3, 8, 10.1186/s42854-021-00025-1 · DOI
  95. Torrens, 2019, Seedbeds, harbours, and battlegrounds: On the origins of favourable environments for urban experimentation with sustainability, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 31, 211, 10.1016/j.eist.2018.11.003 · DOI
  96. Vanhuyse, 2021, The lack of social impact considerations in transitioning towards urban circular economies: A scoping review, Sustainable Cities and Society, 75, 10.1016/j.scs.2021.103394 · DOI · Paper page
  97. Vanhuyse, 2021, Circular cities: An evidence map of research between 2010 and 2020, Discover Sustainability, 2, 50, 10.1007/s43621-021-00059-2 · DOI
  98. Visconti, 2021, Degrowing circular cities: Emerging socio-technical experiments for transition, TECHNE - Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, 201–207
  99. Voytenko, 2016, Urban living labs for sustainability and low carbon cities in Europe: Towards a research agenda, Journal of Cleaner Production, 123, 45, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.08.053 · DOI
  100. Wallsten, 2015, Toward social material flow analysis: On the usefulness of boundary objects in Urban Mining research: Toward social MFA, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 19, 742, 10.1111/jiec.12361 · DOI
  101. Williams, 2019, Circular cities, Urban Studies, 56, 2746, 10.1177/0042098018806133 · DOI
  102. Williams, 2021, Circular cities: What are the benefits of circular development? Sustainability, 13(10), Article, 10
  103. von Wirth, 2019, Impacts of urban living labs on sustainability transitions: Mechanisms and strategies for systemic change through experimentation, European Planning Studies, 27, 229, 10.1080/09654313.2018.1504895 · DOI
  104. Wolfram, 2018, Cities shaping grassroots niches for sustainability transitions: Conceptual reflections and an exploratory case study, Journal of Cleaner Production, 173, 11, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.08.044 · DOI
  105. Wuyts, 2022, “Nobody” matters in circular landscapes, Local Environment, 27, 1254, 10.1080/13549839.2022.2040465 · DOI

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Metadata

Authors
Winslow, J., & Coenen, L.
Venue
Cities
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2023-11
Volume
142
Pages
104531
ISSN
0264-2751
DOI
10.1016/j.cities.2023.104531
Cited by
32
References
0
Language
en
Licence
Funders
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review