Inclusive Urbanization

Rethinking Policy, Practice and Research in the Age of Climate Change

Krishna Shrestha, Hemant Ojha, Phil McManus, Anna Rubbo, Krishna Kumar Dhote

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781135006464
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

How do we include and represent all people in cities? As the world rapidly urbanizes, and climate change creates global winners and losers, understanding how to design cities that provide for all their citizens is of the utmost importance. Inclusive Urbanization attempts to not only provide meaningful, practical guidance to urban designers, managers, and local actors, but also create a definition of inclusion that incorporates strategies bigger than the welfare state, and tactics that bring local actors and the state into meaningful dialogue.

Written by a team of experienced academics, designers, and NGO professionals, Inclusive Urbanization shows how urbanization policy and management can be used to make more inclusive, climate resilient cities, through a series of 18 case studies in South Asia. By creating a model of urban life and processes that takes into account social, spatial, cultural, regulatory and economic dimensions, the book finds a way to make both the processes and outcomes of urban design representative of all of the city's inhabitants.

Chapter 1
Urbanization, Social Inclusion and Climate Change

An Introduction

Krishna K. Shrestha, Hemant R. Ojha and Phil McManus

Over the past decade, widespread concerns have surfaced globally on the persistent failures in making urbanization socially inclusive. This concern has further escalated in the contexts of the added risks and complexities due to climate change. Over half of the world’s population lives in cities, mainly in the Global South where urban space and political institutions are often exclusionary, and vulnerabilities to climate change are yet to be adequately understood. This book aims to pool key insights from the worlds of practice, policy and theory to understand ways to achieve inclusion, whereby individuals and communities can lead a meaningful and dignified life at a time when urbanization is impacted by climate change.

The book directly addresses four key questions that have resurfaced in the context of addressing inclusive urbanization and promoting inclusion in the context of growing urban inequalities and climate change:

• How do we understand the dynamic links between urbanization policy, practice and social inclusion?
• How does climate change affect the current and planned efforts on inclusive urbanization?
• What are the emerging opportunities and challenges for ensuring inclusive urbanization and climate change resilience in the Global South?
• How can urbanization be made more inclusive in the context of increased vulnerabilities to climate change?

We are aware that a social inclusion agenda is also not new in both rural and development discourse. Yet this book has been conceived to engage critically with the agenda. At the outset, we would like to clarify that this book is not about making one more call for social inclusion in the urbanization process—a much-cherished ideal over the past few decades. Instead, it is about understanding how we can better delineate the roots and dimensions of social and spatial exclusion in rapidly urbanizing societies, and then chart pathways towards more inclusive urban development in an increasingly climate-constrained world. Covering a wide range of case studies on various aspects of urban life, mainly in South Asia, Inclusive Urbanization presents a fresh approach to research, policy and practice of inclusive urban development, urban planning, design and governance.

Arena of Urban Exclusion and Inclusion

Inclusive urbanization is broadly defined in this book as a process in which disadvantaged actors have capability to articulate the voices and concerns in their community and the larger public arenas, and hence to shape and influence regimes of resource access and use, within a broader policy context where political institutions are also sensitive and accountable to the legitimate concerns and voice of the groups disadvantaged in the process of urbanization. In essence, inclusive urbanization is both a normative and analytical instrument aiming to remove the conditions that disadvantage people’s social and economic life, and hence make urban spaces more liveable and contribute to more sustainable urban systems. An important point to note is that inclusion and exclusion are not just the games between winners and losers, but occur in complex and diverse “arenas”—places or scenes of activity, debate or conflict, where multiple actors compete for material and non-material benefits within prevailing political and economic contexts. For instance, sanitation and transportation, like many other services, may be considered complex arenas of urban practice. Climate change presents an additional challenge by disproportionately adding risks and vulnerabilities to those who are already disadvantaged. Our definition of inclusive urbanization recognizes the many facets of exclusion that exist in the rapidly urbanizing and climate-constrained world.

Dominant ways of understanding inclusion in cities seem to merely attempt to offer access to services or welfarist protection (e.g. through old-age pensions), or at best to mobilize the agency of the excluded groups to demand services. In contrast, our approach in this book seeks to unravel the complex and interlocking social, cultural, economic and spatial “arenas” in which ideas and resources are contested, with various resulting inclusion (and even exclusion) outcomes.

Many of the urban service delivery institutions and processes can be re-conceptualized as “arenas”. These arenas regulate access to, and control over, services related to crucial functions such as sanitation, transport, housing and water supply, all of which have social, spatial, cultural, regulatory and economic dimensions that interact in complex ways to define, shape and constitute the state of access of particular groups of people over the material resources as well as having the symbolic power to define who is a legitimate user or decision-maker of such resources. This approach will add analytical leverage in understanding the ways through which access to such resources are determined in increasingly complex urban societies. The notion of arena also offers a platform in the social and economic system where the concrete effects of climate change can be explored and the implications for exclusion analyzed. The arena of urban management practice thus provides a basis to understand adaptability and resilience of city systems to the damaging effects of climate change. This approach allows the exploration of inclusion, not just within current levels of climate change, but also in the face of projected climate risks as arenas aggregate social and spatial capabilities to respond to climatic stresses at the societal level.

Chapters analyze inclusion in multiple “arenas of management practice” in which a diversity of actors, with differential access to resources and having politically unequal power and identities, struggle, contest and cooperate to improve procedural and substantive aspects of individual and collective life (see Figure 1.1). In the language of Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1985; Bourdieu, 1998), it resembles a social field that comprises a contested site inhabited by social agents, having differentiated cultural dispositions and access to resources, which shape and influence who controls policy practices. Similarly, in the language of Michel Foucault (Rose and Miller, 2010) the concept of a discursive field provides an analytical perspective to understand how ideas, language and rhetoric create and sustain institutions and practices around issues of inclusion and exclusion in urbanization. A typical arena will have the following attributes:

• actors with differential access to resources, opportunities and capabilities to participate in urbanization processes;
• everyday practices/struggles of disadvantaged groups and their manifestations in livelihoods practices, including efforts to secure basic services;
• institutions defining resource access/use and accountability at different levels in which an arena operates—for example municipality rules, urban regulations and community norms;
• material and symbolic resources around which everyday livelihoods depend and also those valued by the actors engaging in the arena (material resources—such as transport, water supply and housing and even prestige and symbolic resources such as positions, prestige, honor, status and legitimacy of speech);
• discourses that enable the arenas to be represented and contested.

Our approach to understanding inclusive urbanization addresses the current social science bias towards analyzing formal institutions of state, the market and civil society (Rose and Miller, 2010). Such conception of urban management arenas transcends the boundaries of formal governance and the economistic logic of the market, and helps us explore the connections among political, cultural, ecological and economic dimensions of urban planning, management and development that lead to the problem of exclusion. In the 16 chapters presented in the book, questions of inclusion and adaptation to climate change are analyzed within relatively differentiated arenas of “urban management practice” which are either focused on specific services such as sanitation, housing, transport and credit services,

Figure 1.1 Framework to analyze inclusive urbanization.

or are cross-cutting in scope, involving issues of participation, community engagement and research-policy linkages. As a result, this approach can help explore multiple and practically feasible actionable opportunities for improvement either in specific locations or in the entirety of the arena, which operates at multiple scales. This approach thus enables us to see inclusion not merely as a policy question or market development issue, but unravels a complex array of possibilities to achieve inclusion.

Current thinking on social inclusion emphasizes procedural inclusion and substantive inclusion. Social inclusion includes at least four key pillars, which have relevance in urbanization and climate change: a) Capability (Sen, 1999); b) Opportunity (e.g. Rawls, 1971; Harvey, 1973); c) Voice and Representation (Forester, 1999; Ribot, 2007; Taylor, 1988; Deutsch, 2000; Forester, 1989; McManus, 2004); d) Accountability (Agrawal and Ribot, 1999; Przeworski and Stokes, 1999; Dryzek, 2010). Substantive inclusion refers to the state of entitlement and access to private and common pool resources (Ostrom, 1999; Devereuz, 2001).

Chapters explore one or a number of these aspects of inclusion in their analysis of urbanization and, as relevant, the impacts or potential impacts of climate change. Our approach here is not to focus on particular opportunities for inclusion, but to utilize the wider scope of analysis that the authors have used to understand the nature and extent of incremental inclusion resulting in different case study contexts. Together these offer a broad framework for procedural and substantive outcomes of social inclusion.

This conceptual framework suggests, and enables, rethinking on the ongoing mainstream neo-liberal and state-centric approaches to urban governance and urban planning and design, and explores innovative frontiers, trajectories and processes through which public, private, community and individual efforts can be brought together to advance more equitable access to and control over urbanization processes in the developing world.

The book is unique in several ways. First, it focuses on aspects of inclusive urbanization, including participatory approaches to urban planning and design for which there are no comparable books. The existing literature is constituted primarily of research monographs by international organizations, rather than academic publications. Second, the book situates the inclusion debate in the context of climate change in cities—thus contributing to filling a major gap in current climate change adaptation and mitigation debate. Third, it takes an interdisciplinary approach and hence can speak to multiple disciplines about urban development—sociology, planning, architecture, geography, anthropology, public policy and environmental studies. At the same time it raises questions about appropriate approaches to how interdisciplinary urban professionals learn from each other and through practice. Fourth, it takes up an emerging area of academic and professional discourse—the bringing together of social sciences, planning, policy and design in service of inclusive urbanization. Many books related to urban development are narrowly framed as per the language and requirements of particular disciplines. Fifth, it is structured to have a regional focus in South Asia along with wider reviews of urbanization knowledge and practice globally.

Thus, the book’s conclusions are derived from the analysis of some of the most complex situations of urban life in human history (such as Indian mega-cities), captured through cutting-edge trans-disciplinary theoretical lenses. Finally, Inclusive Urbanization critically explores the participation and citizenship agendas, a vital contribution in view of the pitfalls and transformational opportunities that have emerged through three decades of participatory development. The book does not just criticize what went wrong, but focuses more on how social and environmental inclusion may be achieved through new approaches to urban management.

Key Arguments

Each chapter in the book identifies at least one arena of urban management practice, and at least one aspect of incremental inclusion on both procedural and substantive aspects. The book together covers four cross-cutting arenas, namely a) sustainable city, b) participation, c) socially engaged practice and d) politics of inclusion. It also includes seven service-focused arenas, namely a) sanitation, b) health, c) transport, d) housing, e) micro-finance, f) service delivery and g) indigenous heritage. The book then offers different solutions as practiced to enhance inclusive urbanization, namely a) community driven solutions, b) pro-poor professionalism and c) rethinking education. Together the chapters offer important lessons and insights in relation to procedural and substantive inclusion on diverse urban management. Each paper complements the other by bringing unique analysis in relation to the five attributes of arena (as outlined earlier—actors, institutions, practices, resources and discourses) and aspects of inclusion. The book as a whole provides a comprehensive analysis into the prospect of inclusion in a highly complex view of urban society and the city environment.

Key messages coming out of the book include:

• Inclusion is not an outcome that can be achieved through simplistic policy solutions or giving way to the market. It emerges through complex interplay between actors, institutions, market, policy and the culture. A more holistic and an arena-focused approach can help better understand underlying social and spatial relations through which discourses and practices of exclusion are created and nurtured. Authors report several instances supporting this view—underlying gender relations have affected inclusion policy outcome (e.g. Nightingale and Rankin), and the informal politics around sanitation determine who gets services, not the formal decisions of the municipal agencies (e.g. McFarlane).
• The ongoing reforms around participation and community engagement can be the very processes to create and sustain exclusion. Authors offer a critique of current practice from a number of viewpoints including the ubiquity of elite control and instrumental focus (e.g. Khosla), issues which will be even more critical in adapting urban areas to climate change (e.g. McManus). Limited mobilization or conscious avoidance of a citizenship narrative in participatory projects can fail to deliver services that are valued by the excluded groups (e.g. Sekher).
• A genuinely inclusive process in the climate-constrained urban world requires more informed deliberation between urban development professionals and disadvantaged communities. This further implies rethinking the way in which urban expertise is organized— making it more collaborative with the people who are suffering diverse forms of social exclusion and ensuring that it is grounded in their lived reality. Authors provide insights into community-oriented architectural practice (e.g. Patel, Johnson, Arya), socially engaged inquiry (e.g. Farhan), new modes of education that connect professionals with communities (e.g. Dhote and Singh), the need to reframe the relationship between communities, policymakers and scientists (e.g. Maxwell and Shrestha) and how to shift from an “expert-driven to community-based approach” (e.g. Pradhananga and Shrestha).
• Arenas of inclusion are highly political, informal, interconnected and sometimes precarious, contingent, predatory and collectivized (e.g. McFarlane). Any attempt to improve inclusion does essentially involve questioning the links between social structure and the development action (e.g. Maxwell and Shrestha).
• Current approaches to the “delivery of services” use the logic of markets and target those who can pay for services, without looking at redistributive dimensions (e.g. Sekher). This also leads to a misfit between sustainable design solutions and the requirements of the disadvantaged groups (e.g. Kundoo).
• A number of instances exist to demonstrate that incremental inclusion can be facilitated if a community-focused approach is supported by the policy system, with critical and participatory research to inform both practice and policy, along with transparent mechanisms for resource governance (e.g. Arya, Zavestoski).
• Inclusion occurs not through paternalistic or welfarist intervention, or through subsidies, but through the enhancement of capabilities to exercise agency in multiple arenas of urban management (e.g. Arya, Khosla) and this is even more critical in the context of climate change (e.g. McManus, Nightingale and Rankin).

By weaving together innovative theoretical thinking and emerging reflections from the trans-disciplinary world of practice, this book consolidates and advances the inclusive urbanization agenda in the context of climate change globally. The book has a strong empirical focus on South Asia, home to some of the world’s most rapidly urbanizing areas, hosting the largest concentration of the poor on the planet. With editors and authors spread among the premier research and teaching institutions, non-government organizations (NGOs) and professional organizations spearheading innovative practices around the world, Inclusive Urbanization showcases the South Asian experience in a truly global context and synthesizes how inclusion can be achieved in the urbanizing world. As a result we believe that this book will be an important contribution to the scholarly debate on achieving the Millennium Development Goals—with particular reference to Goal 7—“Ensure Environmental Sustainability, Target 7d—by 2020 to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.”

Structure of the Book

Following this Introduction, the 15 remaining chapters in this book are divided into three main sections: Part A: Cross-Cutting Arenas of Inclusion; Part B: Service Arenas of Inclusion; and Part C: Opportunities for Inclusive Urbanization. The Cross-Cutting Arenas section comprises four chapters, beginning with Phil McManus’s insightful arguments on sustainable and equitable cities in an era of climate change. As noted by McManus, recent monitoring of climate change suggests that potential future climate change impacts have been underestimated and, when this analysis is combined with rapid population growth in India’s coastal regions, the need to add...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Acronyms
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Urbanization, Social Inclusion and Climate Change: An Introduction
• PART A Cross-Cutting Arenas of Inclusion
• PART B Service Arenas of Inclusion
• PART C Opportunities for Inclusive Urbanization
• PART D Conclusions
• Index
• Notes on contributors