Culture in for and as Sustainable Development

Cultural Sustainability in European Cities.
Imagining Europolis
Edited by Svetlana Hristova,
Milena Dragićević Šešić, and Nancy Duxbury
Cultural Sustainability and Regional
Development. Theories and practices of
territorialisation
Edited by Joost Dessein, Elena Battaglini and
Lummina Horlings
European cities are contributing to the development
of a more sustainable urban system that is
capable of coping with economic crises, ecological
challenges, and social disparities in different
nation-states and regions throughout Europe.
This book reveals in a pluralistic way how European
cities are generating new approaches to
their sustainable development, and the special
contribution of culture to these processes. It addresses
both a deficit of attention to small and
medium-sized cities in the framework of European
sustainable development and an underestimation
of the role of culture, artistic expression, and
creativity for integrated development of the city
as a prerequisite to urban sustainability.
On the basis of a broad collection of case studies
throughout Europe, representing a variety of
regionally specific cultural models of sustainable
development, the book investigates how participative
culture, community arts and, more generally,
creativity of civic imagination are conducive
to the goal of a sustainable future of small and
medium-sized cities.
Meeting the aims of sustainability is becoming
increasingly difficult; at the same time, the call
for culture is becoming more powerful. This book
explores the relationships between culture, sustainability
and regional change through the concept
of ‘territorialisation’. This describes the dynamics
and processes in the context of regional
development, driven by collective human agency
that stretches beyond localities and marked-off
regional boundaries.
This book launches the concept of ‘territorialisation’
by exploring how the natural environment
and culture are constitutive of each other. This
concept allows us to study the characterisation
of the natural assets of a place, the means by
which the natural environment and culture interact,
and how communities assign meaning
to local assets, add functions and ascribe rules
of how to use space. By highlighting the timespace
dimension in the use and consumption of
resources, territorialisation helps to frame the
concept and grasp the meaning of sustainable regional
development. Drawing on a range of case
studies from all continents, the book addresses
both conceptual issues and practical applications
of ‘territorialisation’ in a range of contexts, forms,
and scales.
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