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Social Capital and Knowledge Cities: Emphasising New Epistemological Frameworks for Sustainable Societies in Urban Planning
Conference paper   Open access   Peer reviewed

Social Capital and Knowledge Cities: Emphasising New Epistemological Frameworks for Sustainable Societies in Urban Planning

Caroline Osborne
Proceedings of the 6th Knowledge Cities World Summit, pp.45-56
Knowledge Cities World Summit (KCWS), 6th (Istanbul, Turkey, 09-Sep-2013–12-Sep-2013)
Lookus Scientific
2013
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Abstract

Urban and Regional Planning knowledge cities and innovation local governance urban and regional planning social capital and measurement social sustainability
A Knowledge City can be defined as 'a region that bases its ability to create wealth on its capacity to generate and leverage its knowledge capabilities through knowledge-based extended networks formed by enterprises and people'. In bridging the gap between contemporary rational planning approaches and the sustainable cities of the future, knowledge cities and social capital can provide complementary epistemological frameworks to transcend some of the limitations of spatial governance in urban planning contexts. With the global trends of population growth, ageing and urbanisation looming large on the horizon, the mandate of the urban planner is to respond with strategies and approaches from the sustainable development domain. Whilst theory from knowledge-based cities recognises the "primacy of intangible assets" in the evolution of knowledge cities, efforts towards sustainability have often posited social sustainability in a sub-ordinate relationship with environmental and/or economic sustainability, failing to delve into the factors that sustain a community of people or value the intrinsic value of society in its own right. The Knowledge Cities of the future will require strong social capital due to the sophisticated relational networks implicit in knowledge cities theory. The objective of this paper therefore is to examine how social capital and knowledge cities can provide new epistemological frameworks for sustainable societies in urban planning theory, particularly the potential of mutually-reinforcing "spiralling-up" process in communities suggested by the community capitals approach.

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