Priority Issues for Future Cities: Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainable Development Research

Since the 1992 Rio Summit when the world endorsed Brundtlant Commission’s sustainable development as the framework for development policy and agenda around the world, development scholars, practitioners and policy makers have focused more on the economy pillar and, with the recent threats of climate change, the natural environment pillar of the Brundtland sustainability framework. Receiving inadequate attention is the social equity pillar. Meanwhile, cities are facing serious political, economic, environmental and social challenges resulting from pervasive inequity and injustices. The complex myriad of issues in the face of limited political, financial, environmental and other resources would require cities to prioritize their challenges. What would the priority issues be for future cities? What opportunities and challenges would the priorities pose for sustainability research? These questions were answered through an online global snowball survey, and the results were analyzed qualitatively using the nominal group technique with a research group of fifteen millennials. The chapter concluded by delineating the nexus and implications of future city challenges and sustainability research.