Sustainability in an Urbanizing Planet Special Feature

Large-scale urbanization occurring simultaneously in multiple parts of the world has far-ranging consequences. This Special Feature focuses on the emergence of mega-urban changes in structure—be it of land use, infrastructure, or the economy—and their connections to resource use, environmental trade-offs, and human well-being and development. Each paper examines challenging shifts in human–environment interactions and posits opportunities for directing these relationships toward more sustainable outcomes.

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Sustainability in an urbanizing planet
Karen C. Seto, Jay S. Golden, Marina Alberti, and B. L. Turner II
PNAS August 22, 2017 114 (34) 8935-8938; first published August 7, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1606037114

Future urban land expansion and implications for global croplands
Christopher Bren d’Amour, Femke Reitsma, Giovanni Baiocchi, Stephan Barthel, Burak Güneralp, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl, Felix Creutzig, and Karen C. Seto
PNAS August 22, 2017 114 (34) 8939-8944; first published December 27, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1606036114

Global scenarios of urban density and its impacts on building energy use through 2050
Burak Güneralp, Yuyu Zhou, Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, Mukesh Gupta, Sha Yu, Pralit L. Patel, Michail Fragkias, Xiaoma Li, and Karen C. Seto
PNAS August 22, 2017 114 (34) 8945-8950; first published January 9, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1606035114

Global urban signatures of phenotypic change in animal and plant populations
Marina Alberti, Cristian Correa, John M. Marzluff, Andrew P. Hendry, Eric P. Palkovacs, Kiyoko M. Gotanda, Victoria M. Hunt, Travis M. Apgar, and Yuyu Zhou
PNAS August 22, 2017 114 (34) 8951-8956; first published January 3, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1606034114

Urban sustainability in an age of enduring inequalities: Advancing theory and ecometrics for the 21st-century city
Robert J. Sampson
PNAS August 22, 2017 114 (34) 8957-8962; first published January 6, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1614433114

Heterogeneity and scale of sustainable development in cities
Christa Brelsford, José Lobo, Joe Hand, and Luís M. A. Bettencourt
PNAS August 22, 2017 114 (34) 8963-8968; first published May 1, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1606033114