Climate change causes global effects on multiple levels. The anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases increases the atmospheric mean temperature. It furthermore leads to a higher probability of extreme weather events (e.g., heat waves, floods) and thus strongly impacts the habitats of humans, animals, and plants. Against this background, research and innovation activities are increasingly focusing on potential health-related aspects and feasible adaptation and mitigation strategies. Progressing urbanization and demographic change paired with the climate change-induced heat island effect exposes humans living in urban habitats to increasing health risks. By employing scientometric methods, this scoping study provides a systematic bird’s eye view on the epistemic landscapes of climate change, its health-related effects, and possible technological and nature-based interventions and strategies in order to make urban areas climate proof. Based on a literature corpus consisting of 2614 research articles collected in SCOPUS, we applied network-based analysis and visualization techniques to map the different scientific communities, discourses and their interrelations. From a public health perspective, the results demonstrate the range of either direct or indirect health effects of climate change. Furthermore, the results indicate that a public health-related scientific discourse is converging with an urban planning and building science driven discourse oriented towards urban blue and green infrastructure. We conclude that this development might mirror the socio-political demand to tackle emerging climate change-induced challenges by transgressing disciplinary boundaries.

Against the backdrop of multiple ongoing crises in European cities related to socio-spatial injustice, inequality and exclusion, we argue for a smart right to the city. There is an urgent need for a thorough account of the entrepreneurial mode of technocapitalist smart urbanism. While much of both affirmative and critical research on Smart City developments equate or even reduce smartness to digital infrastructures, we put actual smartness—in the sense of social justice and sustainability—at centre stage. This paper builds on a fundamental structural critique of (1) the entrepreneurial city (Harvey) and (2) the capitalist city (Lefebvre). Drawing upon Lefebvre’s right to the city as a normative framework, we use Smart City developments in the city of Graz as an illustration of our argument. Considering strategies of waste and mobility management, we reflect on how they operate as spatial and technical fixes—fixing the limits of capitalism’s growth. By serving specific corporate interests, these technocapitalist strategies yet fail to address the underlying structural causes of pressing urban problems and increasing inequalities. With Lefebvre’s ongoing relevant argument for the importance of use value of urban infrastructures as well as his claim that appropriation and participation are essential, we discuss common rights to the city: His framework allows us to envision sustainable and just—actually smart—alternatives: alternatives to technocapitalist entrepreneurial urbanisation. In this respect, a smart right to the city is oriented towards the everyday needs of all inhabitants.

Der Trend zur Urbanisierung und Verdichtung von Wohnraum in Kombination mit der globalen Erwärmung zeigt immer deutlichere Auswirkungen auf das Stadtklima. Zur Reduktion der Belastungen für die Stadtbevölkerung sind gebäudegebundene Begrünungsformen eine wirksame Strategie. Vor allem die Verlagerung der Vegetation auf die bisher kaum genutzte Dachebene hat das Potenzial, negative Auswirkungen der Flächenversieglung und Flächenkonkurrenz auszugleichen, da intensive Dachbegrünungen vielfältige soziale, ökologische und ökonomische Vorteile haben. Da diese in der täglichen Planungs- und Wohnbaupraxis noch unzureichend genutzt werden, wurde in der Stadt Graz ein transformativer Kommunikations- und Lernprozess initiiert, der unter den beteiligten Akteuren nachhaltige Handlungsänderungen anregen soll. Dazu wurde auf Basis einer qualitativen Potenzialanalyse eine Dialogplattform ins Leben gerufen, die im Rahmen von interaktiven Workshop-Formaten relevante Stakeholder vernetzt hat. Dabei konnten Vorbehalte ausgeräumt, Erfahrungen ausgetauscht und Synergieeffekte ausgelotet werden. Durch die gemeinsame Konzeption von Demonstrationsprojekten soll das Erfahren, Experimentieren und Reflektieren mit innovativen Dachbegrünungen weiter angeregt werden. Dieser kontinuierliche Aushandlungs- und Lernprozess soll dazu beitragen, dass sich Dachgärten als wirksamer Lösungsansatz für die sozial-ökologischen Herausforderungen des modernen Wohn- und Städtebaus etablieren und weitere Nachhaltigkeitstransformationen gefördert werden.

Cities are facing economic, social and environmental challenges of growing complexity. Solutions will only be possible by value-based, integrative and inclusive concepts, approaches and processes. Therefore, transdisciplinarity and new governance methods, such as Urban Labs, are needed to meet today's 'Grand Challenges'. The transdisciplinary approach of this chapter is based on city-specific societal challenges, which are supplemented by specific scientific challenges leading to science-society interactions and knowledge exchange using participatory experimental platforms, like Living Labs and City Labs. Real-life experiments in these Urban Labs support networking, social and reflexive learning for joint visions, capacity building and co-designing beyond hierarchies, unequal power relations and the dominance of economic interests. Consequently, these novel forms of governance lead to new coalitions and networks, technical and social innovations that foster the capacity of urban actors to cope with complex change dynamics.

There is a large diversity in lab approaches. We contribute to a much needed evaluation by reflecting on a specific transdisciplinary action research approach that transforms a conventional innovation project into a transition experiment. We show how the approach could be adapted in order to be applied to urban labs focusing on sustainability transitions in governance systems.Urban labs have gained popularity throughout Europe. They are a manifestation of the search for new forms of urban governance capable of addressing the complex problems that cities are facing nowadays. These labs typically aim to create space for transdisciplinary research, co-creation and experimenting with potential solutions to sustainability challenges. In urban labs in four European cities, we applied a specific transdisciplinary action research approach labelled as “transitioning of (urban lab) experiments”. Our approach consists of four steps: co-design of experiments, setting explicit learning goals, evaluating what has been learned, and dissemination and embedding of lessons learned. Critically reflecting on the difficulties encountered in the implementation of the transitioning approach, we conclude that it must be adapted when applied to urban labs focusing on sustainability transitions in institutional and governance systems rather than in socio-technical systems. We provide recommendations as to how the approach could be adapted.