Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Sustainable Metropolitan Development: Leveraging Fragmentation, Collaboration, and Managing for Co-Benefits

(Sustainable Urban and Metropolitan Development)

The New Urban Agenda has the capacity to transform cities and solidify a broad conception of sustainability as a guiding principle in public policy and decision making. This promise hinges on diverse sectors, institutions, and stakeholders within cities and across metropolitan regions working together to innovate and create win/win situations that leave no one behind economically, socially or environmentally. The pursuit of sustainable development, particularly in a regional context, often requires local decision-makers to balance a variety of factors - such as jurisdictions' individual functional or economic objectives, competitive incentives, and differential capacities - when deciding whether and how to work with other governments on shared sustainability goals. This panel brings together five papers that explore elements of local governance and policy making to better understand how sustainable development might emerge against the backdrop of regional fragmentation, collaboration and coordination challenges, and managing for co-benefits. The papers utilize inter-related foci on local economic health, energy and climate, public health, and the food-energy-water nexus as lenses through which to examine these regional governance dynamics.