Degrowth in city planning

Abstract

This paper summarises the key arguments of degrowth thinking and examines their validity in a city planning setting. The paper argues that much of the reorientation work that is necessary to meet the goals of international climate change conventions needs to be carried out locally, in urban and regional settings, and this creates pressure to renew land-use planning practices. It also argues that in light of the latest carbon footprint studies the currently popular linking of urban planning motives with the doctrine of 'compactness policy' -which aims at urban core densification and accumulation of growth options -needs to be re-evaluated. The empirical part of the paper focuses on the inner city planning of Joensuu, a city in Eastern Finland with 75,000 inhabitants which has increasingly been criticised by some residents, civil servants and civic action groups for one-sided promotion of the central city. This is, according to critics, taking place at the cost of the surrounding countryside and peri-urban nodes. The paper illustrates how the 'tactics of growth' become manifest in the official local planning procedure and to what degree the planning critique, explicitly or implicitly, leans on degrowth concerns. The gathering of the empirical material progressed as part of my involvement in the local degrowth movement, Kohtuusliike, which actively participated in the preparation of the Central Joensuu General Plan 2012.

The end of the line: envisioning degrowth and ecosocial justice in the resistance to the trolleybus dismantlement in Moscow

“…While urban mobility has not been addressed extensively in the literature on degrowth, there is an overall presumption of reduced mobility, associated both with a smaller material throughput and with the idea of slowing down (Sekulova et al 2013;Xue 2014). A transition to low-carbon modes of transportwalking, cycling, and electrified public transport powered by renewable energy would also create possibilities for the different use of land, in particular land currently occupied by parking, roads, and cars (Lehtinen 2018;Alexander and Gleeson 2019).…”

Moninainen kaupunki ja symmetrisen utopia

“…Perinteisen elinkeinon peräytyminen viittaa myös vanhan ja uuden talouden asymmetrisen arvostukseen, temporaaliseen oikeudenmukaisuuteen. Vanhan ja uuden välinen jännite on usein helppo nähdä myös keskeisenä kaupunkikehittämisen kipupisteenä; esimerkiksi silloin kun tuttu lähiluonto ja vanha rakennuskanta uhanalaistuvat kaupunkikeskustojen tiivistämisen yhteydessä (Lehtinen 2018).…”

Growth in WEIRD Helsinki: Countering Dominant Urban Politics and its “Green” Pretentions

“…It has meant subordinating local politics to a competition between places where, by definition, some become losers. Gradually, critical debate does appear to be gaining momentum (Demaria et al 2019), but critique of the growth syndrome is voiced more easily than committed to print (for exceptions, see Lehtinen 2018) and it would be very premature to say that it is losing its hegemonic grip. Something so vague and at the same time deeply embedded in infrastructures and subjective experiences will not be easily dislodged (Springer 2012).…”

“…It points out the absurd mathematics of piling growth rates on growth rates, as well as to the weirdness of talking about Helsinki as the new New York City. Recent research on these themes (Heikkurinen 2018;Lehtinen 2018) is part of a discernible shift in environmentalist and social discourse towards some kind of degrowth thinking even if those involved do not profess allegiance to a movement as such. Rather, the Finnish vocabulary is that of "sufficiency" (kohtuullisuus).…”