Urban sustainability and the governance of heterogeneous energy systems

Abstract

Abstract This special feature brings into dialogue debates that have evolved mainly separately: scholarship on infrastructural heterogeneity in Southern cities and research on distributed and decentralized energy transitions in the North. Drawing on empirical cases from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Australia, and North America, the contributions show that heterogeneity is no longer an exception but a defining feature of contemporary urban energy landscapes, characterized by varied technological configurations and diverse forms of (co-)provision and energy use. While acknowledging the fundamental differences between these contexts, urban energy landscapes reveal striking commonalities from which we draw key lessons: the contributions to this special feature show how heterogeneous energy systems emerge from diverse context-specific drivers, create new governance and spatial planning challenges, and are increasingly accompanied by processes of digital re-homogenization and coordination. The papers also demonstrate that heterogeneous energy systems yield uneven sustainability outcomes, raising critical questions about equity, accountability, and the distribution of costs and benefits. By moving beyond simplistic North–South binaries, this special issue advances a comparative and cross-contextual perspective on the governance of heterogeneous energy systems. Ultimately, we argue that heterogeneous energy systems have become a shared global condition whose governance requires comparative, context-sensitive approaches that explicitly confront coordination challenges, power asymmetries, and sustainability trade-offs across diverse urban settings.