Democratic discrepancies in urban sustainable development

The study addresses whether urban sustainable development (USD) policies align with residents’ preferences—a key aspect of democratic (output) legitimacy. Cities, home to 57% of the world’s population and responsible for the majority of resource use and emissions, are central to achieving the SDGs and have advanced ambitious USD agendas (e.g., Amsterdam’s doughnut, Helsinki’s carbon neutrality). However, urban sustainability policies can be ambivalent, sometimes marginalizing equity concerns or enabling SDG-washing. The authors investigate potential mismatches by comparing residents’ priorities for USD policy issues with the content of existing USD plans across eight European cities. The research question focuses on the extent and nature of democratic discrepancies between public preferences and policy plan priorities, and whether conceptual framings of sustainability (triangle vs nested) shape preferences.

The paper situates USD within two core sustainability conceptualizations: (1) the triangle (triple bottom line) model balancing ecological, social, and economic domains without a hierarchy, acknowledging trade-offs; and (2) the nested model that embeds society and the economy within ecological limits (e.g., planetary boundaries, doughnut model), emphasizing environmental primacy alongside social foundations. From a political science perspective, democratic legitimacy encompasses input, throughput, and output dimensions; the study focuses on output legitimacy (alignment with public preferences). Planning and governance literature suggests potential mismatches due to differing rationalities: technocratic/expert planning and market-oriented priorities versus residents’ everyday needs, compounded by complex governance, power asymmetries, and temporal lags. The authors expect: (a) nested framing to increase preferences for environmental issues relative to triangle framing; and (b) systematic differences between residents’ preferences and plan priorities.

Design: Multimethod comparative study across eight European cities (Antwerp, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Lisbon, Manchester, Marseille, Milan, Valencia). Case selection used a two-dimensional typology: ecological vulnerability (heatwaves, droughts, flooding index) and financial capacity (metropolitan GDP per capita), selecting two cities per quadrant and avoiding multiple cities in the same country. Very large cities (>2 million) were excluded for comparability.

Survey: Preregistered (OSF), ethics-approved (ETH EK-2022-N-152), fielded Sep–Nov 2022 via IPSOS panels. N=5,800 (Manchester 900; others 700 each), adult residents. Quotas: representative for age and gender; soft quotas for income deciles (slightly skewed higher income). The experimental component included:

• Framing experiment: random assignment to one of two SD frames (triangle vs nested) before tasks.
• Ranking task: respondents ranked 17 USD policy issues (environment, society, economy domains) identified via literature and frameworks.
• Choice experiment (conjoint-style): respondents evaluated pairs of hypothetical city USD agendas, each comprising six randomly drawn issues from the 17. Outcomes included forced choice between proposals and acceptance ratings for each proposal. Each respondent evaluated three pairs (six proposals). Analysis estimated average marginal effects (AMEs) of each issue on acceptance and choice.

Policy plan analysis: Collected 219 public city policy documents; included 166 USD policy plans authored by city governments referencing sustainability/SD/USD and covering any of the 17 issues. Searched city websites and Google using an English baseline glossary per issue and translated/adapted terms to local languages; coded with MAXQDA using text search + manual validation to ensure contextual relevance. Generated absolute and relative frequencies of mentions per issue, with robustness checks for plan timing.

Data and code: Survey/questionnaire, coding glossary, datasets, and R code available on OSF (preregistration and replication links provided in the article).

• Overall acceptance: Residents showed high average acceptance of randomized USD policy agendas: 72.61%.
• Ranking (both frames combined): Top issues centered on basic human needs: (1) cost of living (mean rank 6.18), (2) public health (6.63), (3) education (6.96), (4) poverty (7.48), (5) unemployment (7.94), (6) water and air quality (8.25), (7) wealth and income equality (8.69). The largest gap near the top was 0.663 between rank 7 (wealth/income equality) and 8 (climate change mitigation). Framing had minimal effects overall, with significant differences only for biodiversity and water/air quality.
• Choice experiment: Inclusion of cost of living, education, and public health increased acceptance; biodiversity, circular economy, and certain sociopolitical issues (integration of minorities, discrimination, democratic participation) reduced acceptance. Results were stable across frames, forced-choice vs rating tasks, and across cities.
• City variation: Lisbon and Valencia exhibited the highest acceptance; Milan and Antwerp were average. Framing had no significant effect overall, with small differences only in Frankfurt and Antwerp.
• Policy plan frequencies (166 plans): Most prioritized issues were education and biodiversity, followed by public transportation and urban green/public spaces; then poverty and water/air quality. Wealth/income inequality, cost of living, and integration of minorities were sometimes not mentioned at all in city plans. Robustness checks indicated stable prioritization patterns over time.
• Democratic discrepancies: Overemphasis in plans relative to residents’ preferences for biodiversity, public transportation, and urban green spaces; underemphasis on cost of living, wealth/income equality, unemployment, and public health. Strong alignment for education, and moderate alignment for poverty and water/air quality. Lisbon stood out for broad policy coverage and high public acceptance.

The findings confirm substantial democratic discrepancies between residents’ USD priorities and the emphases of existing city USD plans. Residents consistently prioritize issues addressing basic, everyday needs—cost of living, public health, poverty, and unemployment—while plans emphasize long-term environmental and infrastructural topics like biodiversity, urban green spaces, and public transport. Minimal framing effects suggest that shifting conceptual narratives (triangle vs nested) does little to alter public preferences, which appear robust across methods and cities. These results align with theories of conflicting rationalities between technocratic planning/market-oriented agendas and residents’ everyday concerns, and with the literature on environmental justice and socio-ecological transformation that stresses the need to couple ambitious environmental goals with social equity. To build durable democratic support for far-reaching environmental agendas, cities should foreground securing basic human needs within USD strategies and enhance participatory co-design to better align plans with residents’ preferences. The observed alignments (education, poverty, water/air quality) indicate areas where plans and preferences coincide and can be leveraged to expand broader sustainability transformations.

This study contributes comparative, preregistered evidence from eight European cities showing that while public acceptance of USD agendas is high, residents prioritize basic human needs over many environmental and sociopolitical issues that city plans often highlight. USD plans frequently overprioritize biodiversity, transport, and green spaces and underprioritize cost of living, public health, unemployment, and wealth/income equality relative to residents’ preferences. Policymakers should integrate essential, everyday needs centrally into USD agendas to foster democratic legitimacy and support for long-term environmental goals. Co-designed, participatory processes are likely to improve alignment, but this requires empirical testing. Adopting integrative sustainability concepts that bridge social and environmental priorities (e.g., doughnut, safe and just operating spaces) may help planners structure agendas, even if such framings alone do not shift public preferences.

• Policy plan coverage: Analysis relied on publicly available, city-authored plans; undocumented initiatives or grassroots projects may be underrepresented. Variations in transparency and availability across cities could bias coverage.
• Frequency coding limits: Mentions capture coverage/prioritization but not implementation, financing, or effectiveness; gaps may exist between plans and enacted policies.
• Democratic legitimacy scope: The study focuses on output legitimacy (alignment with preferences) and does not assess input or throughput legitimacy.
• Survey biases: Potential interpretation differences and sampling limitations; despite quotas, the sample is slightly skewed to higher income deciles.
• Temporal factors: Possible time lags between plan publication and survey; current events/media during fieldwork could influence responses. Robustness checks suggest stable patterns over time, but residual effects may remain.