Characterizing and evaluating rival discourses of the 'sustainable city

Towards a politics of pragmatic adversarialism

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5720551
AutoresSteven Grigg (0009-0005-5527-2112, De Montfort University), Steven Griggs, Stephen Hall (0000-0003-3091-4623, University of the West of England, autor de correspondencia), David Howarth (0000-0003-2697-165X, University of Essex), Natacha Seigneuret (Laboratoire Pacte)
Año2017
Volumen59
Páginas36-46
Fecha de publicación2017-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPolitical Geography (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0962-6298 • E-ISSN: 1873-5096
EditorialElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.02.007
OpenAlexW2594774560
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas8
Referencias citadas31

For many, shifting economic and social contexts have created the conditions for a radical reappraisal of the orthodox image of the 'sustainable city'. However, in assessing such potentialities, there is insufficient knowledge about the way in which local actors construct, live out and are gripped by this signifier. This article responds to this deficit by exploring how key actors engaged in urban development actually interpret the challenges of the 'sustainable city'. In part, using a Q methodology study in Bristol and Grenoble, we discern and construct three distinctive discourses of the sustainable city, which we name progressive reformism, public localism, and moral stewardship. Our findings challenge previous critiques of sustainable urbanism. We observe no consistent support for mainstream conceptions of sustainable urban development, but neither do we find significant support for entrepreneurial or radical green localist discourses of the sustainable city. Instead, we identify a common indifference to the tenets of ecological modernization (and, by extension, entrepreneurialism), and a shared skepticism of local self-sufficiency. We thus argue that such discourses offer uncertain foundations upon which to construct new visions of the 'sustainable city'. In our view, this is because of the transformation of the 'sustainable city' from a relatively fixed idea into a floating signifier, coupled with the practices of local practitioners as policy bricoleurs. We conclude that efforts to develop new visions of 'sustainable cities' are best served by fostering an agonistic ethos of 'pragmatic adversarialism' amongst strategic leaders and stakeholders, which foregrounds politics and the right to difference

Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Ethos · Localism · Mainstream · Modernization theory · Political science · Politics · Skepticism · Sociology · Sustainable city · Sustainable development · Vision · Disaster Management and Resilience · Law · Q Methodology Applications · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance