ABSTRACT
‘Sustainability’ is a key promotional strategy for many ‘world class’ cities – because, after all, who could imagine a ‘world class’ city that was not aspiring to be ‘sustainable’? Sustainability with its emphasis on the social, economic and environmental dimensions of development is presented as an antidote to many of the less desirable impacts of globalization on various localities (both urban and rural) across the world. For instance, ‘world class’ cities are often associated with highly polarized labour markets. This polarization is reflected not only in terms of income distribution, and increasing income insecurity for the less well off, but is also played out spatially, where low income people are either forced into unaffordable housing at the centre or by necessity to the periphery along with the industries not associated with the global economy (Fainstein, 2006, p. 116). These processes are clearly evident in Australia ‘… where opportunity and vitality has become more localized in a smaller part of the country’, particularly in the major capital cities, and where ‘… reduced or more limited opportunities have meant that many people and places have suffered’ (O’Connor et al., 2001, p. 60). Sustainability in rhetoric at least provides frameworks that suggest that these, and other, inequitable impacts can be addressed or ‘solved’ while ensuring economic growth without neglecting environmental care. The centrality of ‘environment’ in sustainability discourse is also identified as holding out the possibility of addressing ‘… the un-ecological conduct and anti-environmental practice of living in global cities’ (Luke, 2006, p. 281).
