ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how built environments can and should support societal responses to the dynamics of demographic, ecologic and societal changes at local, regional and national levels. These societal challenges are consequences of the urban condition that warrant more attention by policy makers, practitioners, and researchers than they have received so far. The chapter presents a framework that distinguishes between adaptive and radical responses by individuals, groups and institutions. Both kinds of responses have been proposed by sustainability transition experiments including projects and prototypes in living laboratories. The chapter presents scenarios for land-use planning in the European region managed by the European Environment Agency and tested in Estonia, northern Italy and the Netherlands. People-environment interrelations are multidimensional, and framed by cultural, ecological, geographical, and temporal variables; they are generally in a dynamic equilibrium state.
