On governance for re-engineering city infrastructure

Abstract

Given the challenge of re-engineering the infrastructure of a city so that it may become a force for good in the environment, what structure of governance might promote/stifle any associated technological and technical innovations? How might the 'quality' of the sought-for governance be gauged and improved? Cultural theory is introduced to address these questions and briefly elaborated. In particular, it is shown how cultural theory can be used to refurbish Dahl's theory of pluralist democracy and provide a simple (and visual) metric of deliberative quality in governance. Matters of re-engineering the water-nutrient infrastructures of the city of Atlanta within the Chattahoochee watershed in the southeastern USA provide the primary setting for eventually applying the resulting conceptual framework. Drawing together a somewhat eclectic mix of past experience and prospective approachesranging from practical resolutions of water conflicts in Nepal, lessons learned from previous community engagement in the Atlanta-Chattahoochee system, and two stagings of the sustainability agora of the International Water Association -a cultural theory-inspired programme of work is developed to explore and assemble those elements of governance that should, in practice, enable the re-engineering needed for a city to become a force for good in its environment.

Exploring the Politico-Cultural Dimensions for Development of Smart Cities in India

“…Voluntary simplicity is the only solution to the societal problems. These solidarities suggest that each generates its own storyline which contradicts those that are generated by other solidarities (Douglas & Wildavsky, 1983;Thompson, Rayner, & Ney, 1998) and that the complex dynamics of their interactions can lead to sometimes destructive and sometimes constructive directions (Beck et al, 2011). Each of the solidarities distils certain elements of experience and wisdom that are missed by the others, and as such each provides a clear expression of the way in which a significant portion of the populace feels they should live with one another and with the society.…”

“…This approach has been put into practice and has observed success. Case studies include the resolving of the water sanitation system in Kathmandu valley; the Chattahoochee issue in Atlanta; access to service delivery (particularly in sanitation and solid waste management) by people in Kamapala; and ameliorating the problem of hygiene and sanitation in Yaoundé (Beck et al, 2011;Parrot, Sotamenou, & Dia, 2009;Tukahirwa, Mol, & Oosterveer, 2010). Although, in all these cases the engagement of different solidarities brought some clumsy solutions, it provided some prospect of collectively accepted progress.…”

“…Similarly, the situation is recognized as beyond any promises the water agencies (hierarchist) might care to make in order to maintain control over their framing of the problem for their way of problem solving. Although, the private sector of water-tanker supply (individualist) struggles to sell its services, it found a few crumbs of comfort (Beck et al, 2011).…”

“…Adopting the premise of the works of Beck et al (2011) and (Kubanza, Das, & Simatele, 2017), the four solidarities were developed and stakeholders were grouped under each of the solidarities after repeated discussions with some of the stakeholders and surveyed experts.…”

Editorial

“…Thus, this paper demonstrates how it is possible to use appropriately designed governance structures to change the 'tragedy of the commons'. This is the theme that forms the central core of the third paper by Beck et al (2011). The authors pick up from a previous paper, Beck et al (2010), which explores the idea that reengineering its infrastructure can enable a city to become a force for good in the environment.…”