Abstract Summary
In recent decades, there is an increasing realization that growth oriented economic models are harmful for sustained livability of our biosphere. This also holds for cities that continue to attract a growing share of the world population. The paradox of growing cities is that, while offering all kinds of social opportunities and environmental efficiencies, they tend to behave as central nodes in expanding economic networks and to destroy quality of life by rising inequalities and consumption-related pressures on ecosystems worldwide. In particular, urban patterns of economic agglomeration have been associated with more tenuous social networks and disconnection from family, social community and ecological life worlds. As such, cities both drive and receive the effects of social-ecological feedback loops, including impacts such as urban heat islands, poor air quality, risks of flooding, and increased vulnerability to global trade disruptions. To re-think the relationship between economic drivers, social relations and ecological feedback effects from an urban perspective, we propose the notion of “the nurturing city”. The word “nurturing” denotes an active attitude of caring responsibility, as opposed to one of careless consumption. This concept of nurturance emphasizes the creation of flourishing conditions for all urban inhabitants, in particular young people, as well as for the biosphere with(in) which the city co-evolves. Nurturance is its own reward, leading to a thriving population within safe limits of life sustaining ecosystems. The paper produces an emergent framework on the basis of interdisciplinary research and education activities of interdisciplinary urban economists, as an attempt to help solving the urban paradox from a plurality of perspectives.
