Urban sustainability: participation as a tool to involve citizens in transformation and empowerment processes

Abstract

Urban sustainability is one of our society's most current and urgent challenges. The 2030 Agenda (UN, 2015) sets as one of its goals to make cities inclusive, sustainable and participatory by emphasising the role of citizens as critical agents of change. A narrative review of the literature (Popay et al., 2006) highlighted that sustainability issues are often perceived as individual learning issues whereas, as they lie in a field of tension between the personal and the political, they require democratic participatory pedagogical approaches to be addressed (Van Poeck & Vandenabeele, 2012). In this sense, cities can prove to be places of lifelong learning through the revival of real participation in community life and decision-making processes, fostering the empowerment of citizens.