A New Agenda for Cities

Abstract

This chapter summarises the research conducted in this book and presents the author's conclusions. It reflects on the opportunity for and responsibility of cities to drive the needed transformative change by regenerating past damage to natural and social environments and seizing the opportunity to become greener, healthier and more equitable in the post-pandemic recovery and beyond. The study guided by the premise -integrating socio-ecological design approaches into planning strategies can lead to regenerative processes in cities- shed light on the importance of building social capital to establish healthy relationships with all living systems and sustain the continuity of regenerative projects where biophysical, social and cultural systems can coexist and progressively thrive together, adding value through nested interventions in place that promote the potential of human and ecological systems. To that purpose, it is necessary to broaden the scope of current urban planning and design thinking and its methodologies, integrating the concept of regenerative sustainability in all design strategies if we want cities to contribute effectively to a nature-positive world and build a culture of regeneration for present and future generations sustain their (re)integration in nature.