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Sustainability in Small States: Luxembourg as a Post-suburban Space Under Growth Pressure in Need of a Cross-National Sustainability

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Abstract

A vast literature on urban sustainable development and sustainability recounts local place-based actions as best practices, and not seldom rests on examples in Europe. Not seldom, however, these recipe-oriented instructions overlook specific sociopolitical and economic conditions that would hinder policy transfer of sustainability initiatives. Also, while the maxim small is beautiful is repeated, rarely are the network of spaces and flows that constitute those small places considered. Small states exemplify this situation and contradiction. This chapter presents the case of post-suburban Luxembourg—a small sovereign state—that under growth pressure has developed an urban morphology that is profoundly dependent on international, cross-borders flows. It is a place where policy-makers need to rethink the orthodoxies of sustainability and find new ways to address these challenges.

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Carr, C. (2018). Sustainability in Small States: Luxembourg as a Post-suburban Space Under Growth Pressure in Need of a Cross-National Sustainability. In: Brinkmann, R., Garren, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71389-2_39

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