To realise their potential to lead in sustainability development, cities require both symbolic resources such as social capital and legitimacy and material resources such as financial and technical support. Recent research in urban studies has shown that cities overcome institutional barriers to urban sustainability by drawing on support from their wider environment. However, we argue that resource needs vary depending on whether cities spotlight or sideline sustainability. Drawing on in-depth interviews with sustainability managers in cities with variable seriousness about sustainability, and representatives of city networks and support organisations, we show that cities express different symbolic and material resource needs as well as means to acquire them. When cities express pragmatic needs, they seek to demonstrate political feasibility and look to peer cities for legitimation; when cities express progressive needs, they aim to push the boundaries of technical possibility and broadcast their achievements to the world. Since cities require dissimilar external support, skewed attention towards ‘leading’ cities in extant research limits our understanding of how cities can overcome institutional barriers to climate action, especially when these barriers are high. Our findings offer contributions to the literature on city strategies for climate change on the institutional drivers of urban sustainability.

中文翻译：

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以自己的方式实现绿色：城市克服可持续发展的制度障碍的务实和进步的方法

为了发挥其引领可持续发展的潜力，城市既需要社会资本和合法性等象征性资源，也需要财政和技术支持等物质资源。最近的城市研究表明，城市通过利用更广泛的环境的支持来克服城市可持续发展的制度障碍。然而，我们认为资源需求会根据城市是否注重或忽视可持续性而有所不同。通过对可持续发展管理者以及城市网络和支持组织代表的深入访谈，我们发现城市表达了不同的符号和物质资源需求以及获取这些资源的方式。当城市表达务实需求时，它们会寻求展示政治可行性，并寻求同行城市的合法性；当城市表达进步的需求时，它们的目标是突破技术可能性的界限，并向世界传播它们的成就。由于城市需要不同的外部支持，现有研究中对“领先”城市的关注限制了我们对城市如何克服气候行动的制度障碍的理解，特别是当这些障碍很高时。我们的研究结果为有关城市可持续发展的制度驱动因素的气候变化城市战略的文献做出了贡献。