The implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in the urban centres of the world is one of the most consequential and ambitious projects that the nations of the world have undertaken. Guidance for achieving the goals in an integrated way that creates true sustainability is currently lacking because of the wicked nature of the problem. However, its wickedness highlights the critical importance of governance and decision-making processes for such integration, including the relationship between governments and their citizens. In particular, there is strong evidence to suggest that managing wicked problems like the SDGs is best done through forms of democracy that are deliberative, representative and influential. Called “deliberative democracy”, we draw on an existing body of research and case studies of deliberative democracy in action to apply its principles to a step-by-step process for the implementation and integration of the Goals in Cities. The paper concludes with the beginnings of a framework based on deliberative democratic principles, and an outline of methods for the scaling and expansion of the implementation process to cope with the global nature of the problem.
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