Self‐Organization and Urban Development: Disaggregating the City‐Region, Deconstructing Urbanity in Amsterdam

Abstract

The idea that cities are self‐organizing systems, and that the state has a limited capacity to control and shape them, has gained momentum in the last decade among planning professionals, designers and politicians. Recent political discourse on new localism and liberal individualism builds on a similar understanding of cities, giving responsibility to citizens and their collective associations in light of state rescaling. The consequences of such perspectives for urban development have yet to be conceptualized. This article proposes a critique of the use of self‐organization in policy practice, building on the argument that this concept destabilizes two constitutive categories of urban intervention: spatial boundaries and temporal programmes. In so doing, self‐organization conveys two peculiar understandings of agency in city‐regional spaces and of urbanity: the disaggregation of city‐regions and the deconstruction of urbanity. Looking at the recent change in Amsterdam's urban development practice, I show that, while self‐organization is used to emphasize that city‐regions constitute interconnected systems of dynamics, when applied in policymaking it in fact leads to the disaggregation and fragmentation of urban regions. Moreover, while the capacity of self‐organization to deconstruct codified notions of urbanity that frustrate urban relations is often celebrated, its use in policy produces newly exclusive urban fabrics.

A Missing Citizen? Issue Based Citizenship in City‐Regional Planning

“…Moreover, to be truly democratic, city‐regional planning needs to encompass the politicization of issues as an integral part, to leave space for diversity and divergence, new openings and debate, and citizen‐initiated change (Kallio and Häkli, : 99). With this, we do not suggest a move towards self‐organizing systems and action where giving responsibility to citizens and their collective associations runs the risk of endorsing elites and active citizen groups at the expense of other dwellers, and where the withdrawal of public actors may open opportunities for new powers to exert their needs and values over others (Savini, ; also Kallio, : 583). While such modes of internal change aim at the empowerment of citizens and democratization within complex urban systems, they often lead to biased outcomes (e.g.…”

“…Also, some professionals are concerned with the bias that may result from including such active citizens’ voices in planning processes, echoing the dangers identified in self‐organizing urban systems: ‘It may be that residents don't even wish for balanced housing areas, at least some privileged people, if you asked them it could lead to the deepening, not easing off, of segregation’ (state administrative official) ( cf . Savini, ).…”

Urban experimentation as a politics of niches

“…Squatters portray themselves as creative groups for innovation, where new lifestyles, political ideas and social relations can be nurtured. Yet they continue to exist within a regulatory framework that permanently threatens them (VanHoose and Savini, 2017). Today, squatting exists as a trans-legal political activism, where each case is argued in the court of law.…”

Responsibility, polity, value: The (un)changing norms of planning practices

“…As a norm, the principle of sharing responsibility also substantiates practices based on private negotiation, contractualisation and individual arrangements for addressing socio-spatial problems. Examples are the organisation of localised and community-based energy grids in the United Kingdom and Italy (Moroni et al, 2016), the institutionalisation of community benefits agreements (Sagalyn, 1997), the promotion of self-built and micro-financed housing in the Netherlands and elsewhere (Savini, 2017b), and the diffusion of sharing and cohabitation practices to provide spatial amenities (Jarvis, 2011). The transfer of responsibility to individuals, from corporate or State actors, is a distinctive process of late entrepreneurialism during austerity (Peck, 2012;Savini, 2017a) and it has characterised major approaches to contemporary environmental policies (Maniates, 2001).…”