Infrastructure and SDG localization: the 21st century mandate

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) propose a vision for policymaking at all scales and an institutional platform for producing knowledge and sharing experiences. National governments have the prerogative to determine their SDG planning and implementation strategies, with 169 targets and 232 indicators guiding efforts to achieve the 17 goals. At the same time, pursuing the SDGs is often a ground-level endeavor, highlighting the local and urban scale for policy concerns like infrastructure. In this way, cities are at the front lines of SDG implementation. This article considers how the global political economy of the SDGs – that is, the power and resource dynamics shaping sustainability narratives – imprints itself on relationships among cities and across levels of government in the planning of sustainable infrastructure.