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Cultural and creative industries (CCIs) have been argued to play an important role in achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, the mechanisms through which CCIs contribute to the attainment of SDGs remain underexplored. In this study, the authors adopt a network perspective to examine how the structure of a local CCI network relates to its local sustainability performance. By examining a database of 210,182 networked firms out of 1.34 million CCI firms across 294 cities in China, the authors conclude that both the scale and the density of a local CCI network improve the city’s performance in terms of attaining SDGs 8–12. The authors discuss the implications of these findings and propose future research avenues in international business.

Creating high quality, liveable urban settings that facilitate a transition to lower carbon living and work environments is central to achieving more sustainable cities and communities. For over two decades, city builders and planners have advocated compact growth to facilitate these transformations. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has heralded a conceptual shift in debates on urban density, mobility and accessibility with the idea of the ‘15-minute city’ (Moreno, 2016) gaining increased prominence and traction among policymakers. Popularised by Mayor Anne Hidalgo of Paris, proximity and accessibility, together with density, underpin an ideal that privileges the relocalisation of work, home and leisure activities. Broadly described, the concept centres on the (re)development of urban neighbourhoods where basic services – access to public transport, grocery, social and healthcare, leisure and amenity – can be provided within a 10-, 15- or 20-minute walk or cycle from home. Since the publication of the National Planning Framework in 2018, more compact urban growth has become a core principle underpinning spatial planning at a range of scales in Ireland and the development of low-carbon and vibrant urban centres is now a key objective of Irish policymakers. The Southern Regional Assembly has been promoting the ‘10-minute town’ ideal through its Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy (RPO 176) and pilot projects in 3 medium sized towns (Carlow, Tralee and Ennis). However, scaling up the concept to accommodate the region's larger cities is relatively unexplored. As the smallest of the three cities in the southern region, and with significant redevelopment potential at the heart of the urban core, Waterford is in a dynamic position to accommodate the 15-minute concept. Furthermore, Waterford's more recent population growth suggests the need to cement the 15-minute city concept as a baseline for the design of the city as it develops and evolves in both new and emerging neighbourhoods. This chapter examines the potential and challenges of embracing the 15-minute city concept in Waterford as a way to meet the objectives set out in the National Planning Framework, Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy and by Waterford City Council, and discusses lessons for the Irish context more broadly. The chapter concludes that while the framework conditions for success appear to be largely in place, whether the governance and political system at the metropolitan and local levels is courageous enough to embrace and harness these opportunities remains to be seen.

Nowadays, sustainable, clean, inclusive, innovative, and smart mobility in addition to urban transformation is required to achieve sustainable development as a path to preserve the world for future concerns and improve quality of life at the present, even to be kept up with growing citizens' needs. Mobility as an infrastructure component plays fundamental roles in urban transformation, and economic development. In this chapter, and based on the 5^th wave theory, related theories, models, and concepts, modern, clean, and inclusive mobility founded on high future of 4th technologies (which is called 5th technologies), digitalization, smartness, sustainability, and CSR 2.0 strategies is declared as proper clean mobility technologies to create sustainable and smart cities. Such smart cities are able to deal with challenges made by rapid, unplanned urbanization and globalization to achieve sustainable development. In this research, roles of inclusive and smart mobility systems as path to create modern and sustainable urban areas to make the world more sustainable and livable for living are declared. Literature reviews, case studies, interviews, and questionaries are applied as main methods to recognize inclusive and modern mobility and its roles in urban transformation to achieve sustainable development. This chapter is based on know-how and do-how of the author Prof. Hamid Doost on sustainability such as cooperating with Danish Sustainable Platforms Company, working with Erasmus Plus as an academic leader in Germany since 2017, cooperating with Copenhagen's former mayor and researching on sustainability. In this chapter, impact of sustainable mobility, sustainable buildings, and smart cities on CSR 2.0 and social responsibility, how these parameters improve sustainable development and sustainability in social responsibility, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and how social responsibility could influence humanities are explored.

The notion of sustainability broadly builds upon the development of the present without hampering the needs of the future generation. Accordingly, the contemporary development programmes, in general, emphasise on minimising the adverse bearings of climate change and arresting the irreversible ecological degradation following the implementation of the growth-oriented economic models. While such idea of sustainable development is expected to be applied across different sectors, the traditional urban development projects such as the Integrated Development of Small and Medium Towns (IDSMT) (1979), the Mega-City Scheme (1993), and the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) (2005) focussed mainly on physical infrastructure with inadequate emphasis on the ecological aspects and sustainability. However, with the experiences of globalisation and the negative impact of changing climate, the recent urban development initiatives across the world have gone through considerable redesigning, and the idea of eco-city, compact city, sustainable city, etc., have taken the central place in the project proposals. In this connection, the Smart City Mission (SCM) (2015) of the Government of India has emerged as an important initiative to facilitate improvement in the standard of living along with economic growth through the development of urban infrastructure and integration with intelligent technologies. This chapter attempts to understand how the projects under the SCM have incorporated various ecological aspects to transform the cities into liveable and sustainable ones for the future generation. Using secondary data and carrying out a comparative analysis of selected smart city proposals, this chapter finds that there is still a lack of adequate emphasis on ecological sustainability in many smart city proposals. This chapter suggests revisiting the smart city proposals, and initiatives should be made towards the development of urban areas in a sustainable way.

Purpose – The net increase in China's urban population in the last 50 years equals the current total population of the European Union. The scale and speed of urbanization in China requires a sustainable solution to unprecedented energy demands and elevated carbon emissions. As low-carbon development emerges in urban China, it offers a unique vantage point to examine some fundamental theoretical questions of the environmental state. How do structural socioeconomic changes affect the environmental state? Does the rise of the environmental state offer a basis for regulatory reform on a broader scale?

Methodology/approach – Case study of five low-carbon cities in China provides the empirical evidence for the analysis. The five cities represent a continuum in their levels of postindustrialization. I compare low-carbon development strategies in postindustrial cities with those strategies in industrial cities. Evidence is collected primarily by way of interviews with planning bureau officials, urban design professionals, involved NGOs, academics, and private sector individuals familiar with the matter.

Findings – First, in cities where the level of postindustrialization is high, state resources support innovative low-carbon development strategies that attempt to achieve emission reductions in a variety of sectors. In industrial cities, however, the environmental state's regulative power is limited to one or two (sub)sectors. Second, and more importantly, a new pattern of governance is emerging in postindustrial cities. Low-carbon development in postindustrial cities is a much less centralized process, having local levels of governments as key players of low-carbon policy making. When the environmental state intersects with the postindustrial city, it gives birth to a new urbanism that has profound implications for political structuring in China.

Research limitations – The analysis in this chapter is based on evidence from a purposefully selected set of Chinese cities, which may render the results biased. Future studies should aim for a more systematic analysis of cities in order to establish more generalizable conclusions. In addition, given the increasing availability of quantitative data at the city level in China, future studies should also seek to incorporate quantitative analyses to better substantiate existing knowledge derived from qualitative sources of evidence.

Originality/value of chapter – First, this chapter challenges the Western bias in the existing literature on the environmental state. The role of the civil society is far from salient in the Chinese context, and yet the environmental state demonstrates a robust level of activity despite the weak civil society. It therefore seems that a general theory of the environmental state can be built from existing literature, but needs to be sensitive to non-Western social conditions that might falsify parts of the theoretical claims. Second, the environmental state literature can be consolidated and further developed when examined in conjunction with other literatures in the modernity tradition. I have demonstrated the connection between the environmental state and the postindustrial city. More studies are needed to examine other facets of the environmental state, as it intersects with a multitude of (post)modern conditions.

This chapter investigates the geographical variations and approaches that shape the implementation of smart city projects on a global scale. Recognizing the significant influence of contextual factors on smart city initiatives, this chapter aims to comprehend the dynamics that drive the objectives and approaches of smart city projects across different countries. This chapter provides an overview of the strategic and geographical factors that impact smart city implementation, considering organizational drivers and practices, such as the Hofstede model in context. It explores the role of citizen-based, technology-based, and decision-making-based development in smart city implementation. Moreover, this chapter examines the strategic, cultural, socioeconomic, and geographical differences that influence smart city projects worldwide. It analyzes the geographical influence and internal drivers of smart city projects, focusing on Europe, North America, Latin America, and East and South Asia. This analysis offers insights into diverse approaches to smart city development, encompassing top-down and bottom-up approaches. By examining various perspectives and experiences from smart city initiatives worldwide, this chapter sheds light on the challenges and opportunities associated with implementing smart city strategies in different contexts.

Since the publication of the 1987 Brundtland Report, discussions about sustainable development have been nothing short of a buzz among politicians and academics. This chapter takes stock of an emerging strand of the sustainable city literature that recognizes local political dynamics, conflicts of interest, and power struggles.

The review is organized into three sections. The first section reviews how past studies have utilized sustainable urban development as an opportunity for advancing theories of urban politics, highlighting recent developments in the growth machine, regulatory state, and risk society theses. The second section examines a range of studies that place the questions of scale, unit, and boundary at the center of inquiry. The third section draws together a body of research that interrogates different meanings of sustainability.

The first section discusses the extent to which social and political processes in the sustainability age exhibit a pattern consistent with established theoretical accounts. The second section focuses on studies that address how urban sustainable development has brought challenges to existing configurations of spatial relations. These studies pose important methodological and epistemological questions for studying environmental politics. In the third section, the focus is placed on political implications of urban sustainable development, which is subject to multiple interpretations.

This chapter ends with a review of an emerging thesis – strategic urbanism, which draws attention to the patterns of change in urban politics. Much of the contributions to this thesis are based on urban sustainability politics in recent years.