ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 reviews the theoretical debate and development history of urban sustainability and sustainability transition. A comprehensive and intensive literature review links the major concepts of this study and explains why the theoretical framework is applicable. It introduces epistemological debates over sustainability and how they relate to urban sustainability concepts. The evolutionary trajectory of sustainable urbanization globally and in China is then summarized. Sustainability transition theory and MLP are then introduced, and how and why they should be applied to the investigation of new towns in China is explained. When applying these theories to the sustainable new town practices, the authors also review the transitional land regime in China and how it might impact the transition trajectory of these sustainable urban experiments.
