Urban experimentation & sustainability transitions

ABSTRACT

This special issue deals with various research questions regarding the impact of urban experimentation on transitions towards sustainability in different industries and sectors. Cities have been identified to play a vital role for sustainability transitions. Not only are they places with an increased urgency for change, but they also bring about many current sustainability initiatives and interventions. This special issue focuses on investigating the relationship between urban experimentation and institutional change. The articles shed light on various characteristics of urban environments that influence experimentation and potentially lead to institutional change and thus elaborate on some of the distinct mechanisms through which urban experimentation can lead to broader systemic changes.     

Who does the work in sustainable households? A time and gender analysis in New South Wales,Australia

Households in the affluent West have become an important target of government and NGO campaigns to encourage more environmentally sustainable behaviours, but there has been little research into the gender implications of such policies. This article investigates the role of gender and time in the sustainability practices of six heterosexual households with young children, committed participants in the Sustainable Illawarra Super Challenge programme in 2009. Women spent more total time on sustainable practices, and did so more often. Men's contributions related mostly to gardening and transport, in longer blocks of time. In these households, sustainability became a highly gendered practice because of the different roles in homemaking. Women resisted constructions of themselves as being closer to nature, and shouldered expectations of sustainability as part of their roles as mothers and household managers. They experienced time as overlapping and fragmented, with no distinction between work and leisure. Men contributed to sustainable practices mainly through activities understood as leisure, in longer blocks of time. Our temporality lens also illustrates the gendered ways that old practices become deroutinised and new practices reroutinised. While men were often responsible for the labour and upfront time required to start or research a project, the responsibility of everyday implementation and habit-changing commonly fell to women. These findings illustrate how gendered analyses help identify both opportunities for, and constraints against, change towards sustainability. Opportunities include the strong connections between both mothers' and fathers' understanding of good parenting and the importance they attach to household sustainability. Constraints include the temporal challenges faced by households, and how these interact with wider structural and labour roles.     

‘A NEW SEASON FOR PLANNING’: URBAN GARDENING AS INFORMAL PLANNING IN ROME

This article investigates the relationship between urban gardening and planning by building upon the results of field research on gardening initiatives in the city of Rome, Italy. The work is aimed at suggesting that, while often associated in geography and planning literature with urban informality practices (e.g. accidental city or self‐made urbanism), urban gardening actually presents the character of a distinctive form of people's interaction with urban space, here defined as “informal planning”. This includes practices that are intentionally put forward by local dwellers with the intention of urban space planning and organizing public life in the absence of legal definition, guidance and funds provided by public authorities or the private sector. Urban gardening cases in Rome exemplify the emergence of informal planning and show how, by questioning the counterplanning tradition that understands urban gardening as an antagonist spatial practice opposing institutional planning, informal planning can open up collaborative possibilities. A new mode of interaction between citizens' agency and the formal planning initiatives of local administration can lead to creative solutions to address some of the problems associated with the neoliberal transformation of the city space, most notably the decrease in public space and its deterioration.     

Planning for sustainability in expansive metropolitan regions: exploring practices and planners’ expectations in Stockholm,Sweden

In Sweden, local and regional planning practices are faced with the challenge of managing rapid growth in expansive urban regions. However, spatial planning should also contribute to the fulfilment of formalized sustainability objectives and support sustainable development. This includes addressing cross-cutting sustainability issues that transcend established administrative and territorial boundaries. Thus, the management of sustainability issues requires attention from actors at different levels, and challenges how contemporary planning practices plan for development. Based in the expansive Stockholm region, this study explores the cross-level interaction in spatial planning and decision-making and planning practitioners’ experiences and apprehensions of contemporary municipal planning practices with a focus on statutory plans to achieve sustainability targets and objectives. The results show that municipal planning organizations are under pressure because of rapid urban expansion. It is concluded that the role, format and content of statutory as well as informal planning instruments are decisive for the cross-level interaction between planning levels. Moreover, planning instruments find new trajectories resulting in mismatches in expectations from planners at adjacent planning levels. This influences the interplay and preconditions for achieving national and regional sustainability targets and objectives.     

绅士化语境下的失所现象:概念溯源及研究综述

失所（displacement）现象历来受到国际学界的广泛关注。本文主要探讨因绅士化而造成的失所现象,并对西方理论体系和实证研究进行较全面的综述。因绅士化造成的失所可分为直接性失所和间接性失所。依据不同的形成原因,直接性失所分为物质性失所和经济性失所,而间接性失所包括排斥性失所和潜在性失所。在笛卡尔式空间观的主导下,西方主流失所研究历来偏重直接性失所,而忽视间接性失所。本文认为,间接性失所背后的列斐伏尔空间观应纳入到失所理论体系中,以更好地指导失所实证研究。本文指出,结合中国现实,对失所现象进行理论化与概念化,对于转型期中国可持续城市发展具有现实与深远的意义。     

Rational Goals for the Urban Environment: A Swedish Example

In Sweden, the government's aim to create sustainable urban environments is expressed through the environmental quality objective “A good built environment”. The objective embraces seven sub-goals and is designed to guide central, regional and local authorities’ planning towards urban sustainability. However, for objectives concerning the urban environment, such as the Swedish objective “A good built environment”, to form a solid basis for decision-making, two types of rationality (functionality) conditions ought to be met. First, the objectives should guide and motivate those who are responsible for their implementation. This is applicable when the goals satisfy the criteria of precision, evaluability, approachability and motivity. Second, when the goals are parts of larger goal systems, the goal systems should be coherent. Using the objective “A good built environment” as an empirical basis, this article gives a few examples of how environmental goals can fail to guide and motivate action towards improved urban sustainability.     

Consumption,Environmental Sustainability and Human Geography in Australia: a Missing Research Agenda?

‘Consumption’ is a central concept in the global environmental sustainability agenda. However, one important argument from Agenda 21 — that all social actors must now practise ‘sustainable consumption’— has been publicly and politically marginalised in high‐income countries such as Australia. Geographers potentially have a role in bringing consumption back onto the agenda by constructing a critical geography of consumption. Such research can help understand how the contextual use of natural resources is perceived and practised, and how consumption helps to shape contemporary social relations. This body of knowledge is vital for building sustainable development into everyday lives. Yet a focus on urban consumption perceptions and practices appears somewhat lacking in Australian geography. Ways forward can be drawn from international geography, such as in the United Kingdom where a substantial body of work has drawn a complex picture of contemporary consumption and environmental understanding. It has also challenged prevailing ‘ecological modernisation’ policy approaches, which ignore consumption's cultural facets. In sum, considering consumption in Australia can offer insights into cultural practices expressed through consumption; can challenge and add to European geographical literatures, and can also contribute to sustainability debates by offering alternatives to currently ineffective policy discourses.     

Searching for a Balance Between Community Needs and Conservation Policies in Historic Neighbourhoods of Istanbul

Despite the recent rising interest in sustainability and community-related issues among urban regeneration policy-makers, it is still questionable how far the recent regeneration efforts in historic housing areas achieve a balance between the community needs and conservation policies. To answer this question, this article explores the interplay between conservation, community needs and sustainability in the context of Turkey, focusing on Istanbul. It premises on the assumption that finding the balance between the needs, aspirations and concerns of local communities and the conservation of the built environments will lead to more equitable and sustainable solutions to the problems Istanbul historic quarters are facing. The article explains the interrelation between sustainability, community needs and conservation, investigates whether these notions have been integrated into the urban conservation policy agenda of Turkey or not and then examines the assumption above by focusing on the recent regeneration story of Fener and Balat (F&B), a declining neighbourhood in the historic peninsula of Istanbul. Debating on the strengths and weaknesses of the recent conservation-led regeneration programme, the article gives clues for future regeneration initiatives to achieve a sustainable balance between the conservation and community needs policies in historic neighbourhoods of Istanbul.     

Understanding socio-economic sustainability drivers of sustainable regeneration: an empirical study of regeneration practitioners in UK

The construction industry has been recognized as a major driver towards the delivery of UK sustainable regeneration objectives. Several construction organizations have played various roles in their quest to deliver sustainable regeneration projects in line with sustainable development objectives. Yet, to-date the delivery of such sustainable development objectives has continued to be an on-going challenge for these organizations involved in the delivery of regeneration projects. The study adopted an exploratory research approach, using a questionnaire survey to collect data from 193 construction organizations/practitioners involved in the delivery of sustainable regeneration projects in the UK. The findings revealed that the majority of construction organizations were promoting socio-economic sustainability principles to meet their own corporate business objectives. The findings further revealed that the majority of practitioners’ organizations were integrating socio-economic sustainability principles into their business practices because they believed doing so was the best way to gain advantage over their competitors and remain relevant in their market place.     

国家可持续发展实验区研究状况及其展望

国家可持续发展实验区的建设是我国实施可持续发展战略的重要实验示范基地,自从1986年实验区创立试点以来,其相关理论和实践的研究普遍得到不同学科学者专家的关注。本文在介绍国内实验区发展概况和国外可持续社区发展特征的基础上,对我国1986-2009年间实验区研究领域的94篇学术论文进行了分类汇总,将我国该领域的研究划分为3个阶段,梳理了各阶段实验区研究的内容、方法及特点,剖析了已有研究成果的不足,并针对研究中存在的问题,探讨了未来研究的可能重点与方向,以期为我国实验区研究获得新的突破提供理论参考。     

Sustainability Standards and the Water Question

Increased global trade in agricultural commodities has boosted fresh water consumption. This export of ‘virtual water’, embedded in products sold abroad, has increasingly affected local communities and ecosystems, especially in arid regions. Recent initiatives to certify agricultural production are showing a rapidly growing interest in considering water issues within schemes of quality assurance, sustainable production and fair trade. This article scrutinizes current water sustainability certification schemes, and how they affect local water user communities. The authors use three notions of governmentality to examine water sustainability standards and how they aim ‘to conduct the conduct’ of water users: (1) standards as ‘production of truth’ and ‘mentalities’ that constitute systems of collective rationalities, values, norms and knowledge; (2) standards as networks that prescribe roles and establish power relations between companies and producers; and (3) standards as ‘techniques of visibilization’ that control practices and discipline producers. Private standards in general reinforce the political and market power of private sector agro‐food chains in local water management, to the detriment of local water user communities and national governments. However, sustainability certification could also potentially enable local, regional, national and international organizations of user communities to stake claims and negotiate to protect their water sources and livelihoods.     

Contentious and Prefigurative Politics: Vigilante Groups’ Struggle against Sexual Violence in Egypt (2011–2013)

This article analyses the drivers, mobilizational tactics and manoeuvrings of informal, youth‐led initiatives that emerged in post‐Mubarak Egypt to counter the growing threat of sexual violence against women in public spaces. The findings are based on empirical research into youth‐led activism against gender‐based violence during 2011‒2013. The approach adopted is a case study of three initiatives, Bassma (Imprint), Shoft Taharosh (Harassment Seen) and Opantish (Operation Anti Sexual Harassment). Informal youth‐based initiatives in the context of the post‐January 2011 uprising have generally been criticized for their lack of sustainability, organizationally and politically. However, the examination of activism against gender‐based vio‐lence through the lens of prefigurative politics shows the inherent value of experimentation and its contribution to innovations in public outreach. The value of the initiatives studied in this article also lies in their mobilizational power which inadvertently produces ‘repertoires’ of knowledge, skills and resources to engage the citizenry and capture their imagination. In the long run, such repertoires may allow for the emergence of organized and sustained forms of political agency. The article suggests that a cross‐fertilization of prefigurative and contentious politics offers a framework for understanding temporally‐ and spatially‐bound forms of collective political agency.     

Energy efficiency left behind? Policy assemblages in Sweden’s most climate-smart city

ABSTRACT

Smart city experiments have the potential to reshape urban climate change governance. Smart city initiatives have been supported by international technology companies and the European Union for many years and continue to be promoted by national and municipal governments. In relation to sustainability and climate change, such initiatives promise more efficient use of resources through the use of information and communications technology in energy infrastructure. Experiments with smart city technologies such as urban smart grids have shown the potential to restructure relationships between energy utilities, energy users and other actors by reconfiguring the dynamics of energy supply and demand. But do urban experiments lead to institutional change? The aim of the article is to provide a better understanding of how smart city experiments reshape the urban governance of building energy use. Hyllie, a new city district in Malmö, Sweden, was home to two smart city experiments that contributed to the institutionalization of urban smart grid technology. However, the analysis of Hyllie’s policy assemblages shows that this institutional change could redefine sustainability at the expense of energy efficiency.     

Urban Planning and Sustainable Development

Following the discourse about sustainable development based on the Brundtland Commission's report and the processes in the UN Committee on Environment and Development, a sustainable urban development would require considerably more ambitious policies than today in order to limit energy consumption, reduce pollution and protect natural areas and arable land. Re-use of urban areas and more effective utilization of building sites is a possible strategy to this end. However, continuous growth in the building stock will make it increasingly difficult to bring urban development in wealthy countries within the frames of what is ecologically sustainable and equitable in a global perspective. Planning for a sustainable urban development must be oriented towards long-term goals and utilize knowledge about the environmental consequences of different solutions, but should not be based solely on means-ends rationality. Rather than aiming at consensus including all stakeholder groups, planning for sustainability should facilitate alliance-building among those population groups who can support the basic equity and environmental values of a sustainable development.     

Self-Organization in Urban Regeneration: A Two-Case Comparative Research

Urban regeneration processes in which local stakeholders take the lead are interesting for realizing tailor made and sustainable urban regeneration, but are also faced with serious difficulties. We use the concept of self-organization from complexity theory to examine the relationship between local stakeholders’ initiatives and vital urban regeneration processes. We conducted a two-case comparative research, Caterham Barracks and Broad Street Business Improvement Districts Birmingham (UK), in which local stakeholders take the lead. We analyse the evolution of these regeneration processes by using two different manifestations of self-organization: autopoietic and dissipative self-organization. We found that a balanced interplay between autopoietic and dissipative self-organization of local stakeholders is important for vital urban regeneration processes to establish. We elaborate four explanatory conditions for this interplay. These conditions provide at the one hand stability and identity development, but also the needed connections with established actors and institutions around urban regeneration and flexibility to adjust to evolving demands during the process of regeneration. However, consolidation of such initiatives does mean a challenge for existing structures for the government, market and society that will need to adapt and change their roles to new governance realities. In this way self-organizing processes become meaningful in the regeneration of urban areas.     

Beyond Market Logics: Payments for Ecosystem Services as Alternative Development Practices in the Global South

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) initiatives, which provide financial incentives for management practices thought to increase the production of environmental benefits, have expanded across the global South since the late 1990s. These initiatives have thus far been conceptualized rather narrowly; by their early proponents as a novel economic instrument for more ‘rational’, effective and efficient environmental policy or by their critics as an exogenously imposed conduit of hegemonic neoliberalism. This introductory article to the special issue that follows advocates for and demonstrates a more grounded and historically situated approach for understanding the conformation and outcomes of PES in actual practice. It proposes a framework for examining individual PES initiatives as shaped by dynamic interactions between imposed structure and the development pathways and situated agency of actors in the territories in which they are implemented. It finds that certain ubiquitous components of this approach — the valuation of nature, the creation of institutions and the negotiations that inevitably surround the distribution of benefits — provide potential openings for articulation and engagement that can allow these initiatives to be contested, adapted, hybridized or more fully co-opted and captured. This framework opens a pathway for more inclusive, nuanced and grounded research on PES and on market-based environment and development policies more broadly.     

Impacts of urban living labs on sustainability transitions: mechanisms and strategies for systemic change through experimentation

ABSTRACT

Urban Living Labs (ULL) are considered spaces to facilitate experimentation about sustainability solutions. ULL represent sites that allow different urban actors to design, test and learn from socio-technical innovations. However, despite their recent proliferation in the European policy sphere, the underlying processes through which ULL might be able to generate and diffuse new socio-technical configurations beyond their immediate boundaries have been largely disregarded and it remains to be examined how they contribute to urban sustainability transitions. With this study, we contribute to a better understanding of the diffusion mechanisms and strategies through which ULL (seek to) create a wider impact using the conceptual lens of transition studies. The mechanisms of diffusion are investigated in four distinct ULL in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and Malmö, Sweden. The empirical results indicate six specific strategies that aim to support the diffusion of innovations and know-how developed within ULL to a broader context: transformative place-making, activating network partners, replication of lab structure, education and training, stimulating entrepreneurial growth and narratives of impact.     

The violence of spectacle: Statist schemes to green the desert and constructing Astana and Ashgabat as urban oases

Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have been home to the most impressive urban development projects in the entire post-Soviet world. Their capitals, Astana and Ashgabat, now boast uniquely monumental architecture and local leaders have invested heavily in ‘green belt’ projects to surround the cities with lush vegetation, as well as developing green and water-laden public spaces. In doing so, elites have drawn on Soviet-era ‘garden city’ idealism, as well as more recent environmental sustainability narratives. Yet these schemes are anything but sustainable. Unfolding on the arid Central Asian steppe, they depend on heavy irrigation, with water diverted from rivers that already fail to meet regional demands. Employing a comparative approach, I ask why and with what effect state planners have sought to craft Astana and Ashgabat as spectacularly green ‘urban oases,’ when their local climates should defy the logic of sustainability. In so doing, I consider urban greening in the two countries as part of a wider phenomenon of statist schemes to green the desert, which have a long and diverse history. Extending the literature on desert greening, I argue that the structural violence they manifest and perpetuate is best understood by attending to how they operate as a form of spectacle.