Sustainable Urban Transformation as an Approach to Solving the Paradoxical Challenges of Contemporary Cities

Cities throughout history have faced and dealt with a myriad of urban challenges, yet the ones we are witnessing now seem multifaceted and paradoxical, with contradictory drivers and divergent targets. At the forefront of these contemporary challenges is the battle for sustainability, but it exists within a complex web of endogenous and exogenous factors. This introductory article critiques our understanding of the nature of these challenges by introducing the Paradoxical Challenges Model (PCM) that depicts what contemporary cities really face; a model by which sustainability is framed, and within which it is positioned. The article stresses that the only viable method to resolve the contradictory factors of this model and to successfully address sustainability is to embark on Sustainable Urban Transformation (SUT). The article concludes with the need to develop a Sustainable Urban Transformation Framework (SUTF) to better respond to the variables and changing situations surrounding PCM construction for different cities.