ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the handbook volume in the context of global sustainable development policy and practice. We begin by proposing three integrative concepts specific to the handbook’s temporal, geographic, and cultural scopes – health, infrastructure, and cultivation – and use them to situate sustainability as a place-based structuring around the needs and impacts experienced by people in city-regions throughout the Pacific Rim. We introduce three central themes of the handbook: city-landscape connections, equitable development, and climate change. These themes and their associated challenges are at the core of addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations in 2015, and they animate each of the sections of this volume, which draw upon connections to actual places around the Pacific Rim. After an overview of the handbook’s sections and the issues addressed, we focus on experiential co-learning as an approach to facing global challenges. The chapter concludes with a discussion of collaborative research, shared knowledge production, and implementation networks.
