The concept of sustainable development started in 1987 with the Brundtland report “Our common future” which defined it as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of  future generations to meet their own needs. In forty years of scientific research on the city, we have also looked at the proliferation of new terms alongside that of city, which attempted to clarify the idea of a sustainable city discussing the limits of this concept. We can certainly state that after forty years of debate, when we talk about a sustainable city we mean preserving nature, avoiding the indiscriminate consumption of resources, making human habitats greener and more resilient, making the economic and environmental benefits of the policies implemented accessible to society. This issue presents research experiences describing tools, methodologies, plans and operational approaches to build the sustainable city.