Searching for the Sustainable City: Competing Philosophical Rationales and Processes of 'Ideological Capture' in Adelaide, South Australia

The growing debate around sustainable cities has generated a substantial academic and policy literature. It is becoming increasingly clear that there are a number of different approaches being considered. This article develops four models of sustainable urban development from this literature, ranging from light green to deep green in their underlying environmental philosophy. The models are then used as the framework for analysing four different experiments in sustainable urban development in the city of Adelaide, South Australia, which broadly fit into the four models. Overall, the models are useful in highlighting the different underlying rationales of the four approaches, although they also show that in the process of trying to gain political favour there is a fair amount of 'ideological capture' in respect of the rhetorics and the practice of sustainable urban development.