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PLANNING INNOVATION POLITICS AND PROCESS FOR URBAN SUSTAINABILITY
Glen Searle and Sébastien Darchen
Overarching aim
As the world becomes more and more urbanised, it is urgent to propose solutions to solve current sustainability challenges for the three arenas of sustainability: social sustainability, environmental sustainability and urban economic sustainability. This edited volume focuses on the politics of sustainability by examining the socio-political, economic and institutional context of urban sustainability innovations and how this shapes the trade-offs made between the three arenas of sustainability in the implementation of innovative solutions. As the book analyses the procedural side of sustainability it offers a new perspective on the implementation of sustainability that will be useful and attractive to both planning professionals and academics. The analysis of sustainable solutions to current challenges is centred on the concept of innovation. Innovative solutions are part of a sustainability transition process. This process is characterised by contextual factors that are city-specific. But this process, in a globalised world, can also be influenced by external factors (such as urban policies or planning models applied in other contexts) and/or the networks in which a city might be involved that facilitate the circulation of planning solutions from one context to another. The book’s structure is based on the recognition that planning solutions for sustainability cross three arenas: the social arena, the environmental arena and the urban economic arena. Finally, the book analyses to what extent planning innovations can be transferred from one context to another: we thus reference the transferability of innovations.
Defining urban sustainability
Why is yet another book on urban sustainability needed? Thirty years after the Brundtland report, planners still focus on sustainability. Sustainability is considered as a resilient, sustainable idea (Campbell 2016, 392). Hirt (2016, 383) states that the “City Sustainable” – defined as a paradigm of ideas and practices centred on the notion of sustainability – has become a dominant school of thought since the 1990s. However, sustainable development has not necessarily emerged as a dominant planning paradigm for most cities (Saha and Paterson 2008) and in many cases it is still unclear how cities incorporate this paradigm in urban policies.
Therefore, an important question remains: Has the concept of sustainability made a difference in urban planning practice?
While there are many possible responses to the question, this book addresses it by examining the procedural side of sustainability. In this, it encompasses all three dimensions of sustainable development (equity/social justice, economic development, environmental protection). We use the term sustainable planning to acknowledge that a planning solution implies trade-offs between the three arenas of sustainability. In a recent article, Campbell (2016) argues the need to reassess the triangle of sustainability by recognising the development of conflicts in achieving planning priorities (between social justice and environmental protection for example). We refer to the term trade-offs to illustrate the tension between several core motivations of urban planning. It also reflects Jane Jacob’s notion of a sustainable precinct where the solution to one sustainability challenge can have an impact on other problems (Meijer and Thaens 2018).
We use the definition of sustainability developed by Scott Campbell because his dissection of sustainability makes the concept more operational for the planning profession (Campbell 1996; Hirt 2016, 383). We agree with his notion that ‘sustainability’ is a dynamic concept, unpredictable and plagued with contradictions and ever evolving (Campbell 2016, 396). Thus, Campbell (2016) defines ‘sustainability’ as the never-ending process of resolving three conflicts over the three planning priorities (equity and social justice; economic development; and environmental protection) to be achieved.
Based on the conflicts identified by Campbell (1996, 2016), this book aims to answer the following sub-research questions on trade-offs during the implementation process of sustainability:
– How are trade-offs between the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable urban development being managed in planning practice?
– What types of mechanisms/factors facilitate the management of conflicts related to decisions on trade-offs?
Our book contributes to the understanding of factors facilitating the implementation of sustainable solutions in planning practice. Compared to most recent works on sustainable development (such as Atkinson et al. 2014; Baker 2016) focusing on the theory of urban sustainability, this book offers a practical understanding of the implementation of planning solutions. While some recent textbooks have focused on solutions (such as Roseland 2012), they have not systematically contextualised those solutions for a given political and institutional situation. Often, edited volumes on urban sustainability comprise a set of international case studies without a clear framework that connects the different cities together (e.g. Vojnovic 2012). Some good books have focused on sustainability in urban design and architecture (Bovill 2014) but as yet there is not an edited volume presenting and analysing, in terms of replicability and trade-offs, planning solutions that have had a significant impact on current urban sustainability challenges. This book builds on previous pioneering works studying sustainability and its relationship to cities (Newman and Kenworthy 1999). The meaning for planning of each of the three sustainability arenas – equity, economy and environment – is presented in the following sections.
Urban sustainability is an evolving concept and the book provides planning responses for 8 of the 17 sustainability development goals presented in the recent 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development published in 2015. This new agenda is guided by the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and is grounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations 2015, 10). The sustainability goals from the Charter that are addressed in this book are as follows: Goal 3 Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages; Goal 7 Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable energy for all; Goal 8 Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth; Goal 9 Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation; Goal 10 Reduce inequality within and among countries; Goal 11 Make cities inclusive safe and sustainable; Goal 13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts; and Goal 16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development.
Social sustainability
In Campbell’s latest (2016) version of the triangle, the social side of sustainability is summarised by the words equity and social justice. The latter is also associated with this dimension of sustainability through the concept of ‘just cities’. In Campbell’s (1996) triangle, the words associated with this priority were social justice, economic opportunity and income equality.
Colantonio and Dixon (2010) have suggested key criteria to delineate the concept of the ‘socially sustainable community’ are as follows:
– The strengths of social networks;
– The participation in collective community activities;
– Participation of ethnic minorities in planning processes;
– Pride or sense of place;
– Residential stability (versus turnover);
– Security (lack of crime and disorder).
Similar criteria have been listed in other works, such as sense of place, empowerment and participation (Newman and Jennings 2008). In this book, we have included case studies in the social sustainability section that are close to the model of ‘community planning’: the concept suggests that community planning can produce a more socially sustainable end product (Chapters 5 and 6). Our chapters address most of the themes associated with the social side of sustainability or ‘social sustainability’:
– Ethnic minority and planning/housing (Chapter 2);
– Real-life participatory urban planning and new technologies (Chapter 3);
– Reduction of urban crime through social urbanism (Chapter 4)
– Equitable sustainability planning in a post-industrial context (Chapter 5).
Environmental sustainability
Originally the term ‘environmentally responsible development’ was used (World Bank 1992), then the concept of ‘environmental sustainability’ was developed (Goodland 1995). Goodland (1995, 3) defines it as follows: “it seeks to improve human welfare by protecting the sources of raw materials used for human needs.” If we translate this in planning terms, environmental sustainability can be associated with the following themes:
– Creation of ecological mixed-used districts (Chapter 6);
– Management of solid waste (Chapter 7);
– Promotion of active transport (Chapter 8);
– Transformation and re-use of obsolete infrastructures (Chapter 9);
– Regeneration and adaptive re-use of buildings (Chapter 10).
Urban economic sustainability
Urban economic sustainability can be regarded as a city’s ability to sustain and reproduce its level of economic development or economic prosperity over time (Campbell 2016, 390). As with the other two dimensions of sustainability, this cannot disregard the other sustainability facets. We cannot “submissively serve the economic mandates of the elite urban growth machine” (Campbell 2016, 396) without simultaneously sustaining the urban workforce (human capital) and environmental systems (natural capital) along with the local economy (financial capital) (Campbell 2016, 394). Nevertheless, achieving this in reality can be challenging. In practice, economic interests usually prevail over environmental concerns, and the latter in turn usually prevail over social justice (Campbell 2016). While communicative planning practices can potentially mediate between communities and development interests via innovative new sustainable practices, the reality can be that they merely allow the wearing down and ‘managing’ of local communities so that developers can still build what they want (Schweitzer 2016, 378). Thus the challenge for city sustainability is to find innovative ways of planning for economic development that do not reduce, and preferably increase, social and environmental sustainability at the same time.
Our chapters cover significant current themes of urban economic sustainability:
– Implementation of the Smart City strategy (Chapter 11);
– Creation of a new model of sustainable land use (Chapter 12);
– Development of a science hub through brownfield development (Chapter 13).
Defining planning innovation
Our definition of planning innovation is organised around three main components: 1) the context from which urban innovation emerges; 2) the external factors influencing the development of innovation; and 3) the management of uncertainty.
Planning innovation as a process in a context of uncertainty
The book’s objective is to present urban practices that are innovative and go beyond ‘sustainability fix’ practices. The sustainability fix – drawing on Harvey’s (1982) concept of territorial fixes – can be thought as a spatially and historically contingent organisation of political interests that allows economic growth and development to continue in the face of social and environmental concerns (Tenemos and McCann 2012). In that sense, sustainability is also a very political concept:
(Tenemos and McCann 2012, 1392)
This book is based on the assumption that sustainable urban development is and reflects a political process. Sustainable urban development is “neither neutral nor objective, but – as politics always is – subject to societal negotiations reflecting and producing social conflicts, class differences, inequalities and moments of exclusion” (Mössner 2016, 973). Planning solutions are therefore embedded within a specific institutional, political, cultural and social urban context. Models of sustainable urban development are not fixed (Mössner 2016) and most of all, models of sustainable urban development cannot be replicated from one context to another without negotiations or adaptations. In that sense, planning solutions to overcome sustainability challenges are context-specific.
Urban innovation can be understood as innovative practices within urban environments with the aim of improving those environments (Meijer and Thaens 2016). Innovations are embedded in a specific cultural, political and institutional context. Glaeser (2011) speaks of self-protecting innovations w...
