The metropolis and the market: political rescaling through public-private bike-sharing policy in Brussels

The participatory turn in local policies: A product of the market

“…However, this vision must be qualified. Our research confirms what has been shown in other areas (Halpern & Pollard, 2017;Huré, 2016): The presence of market players does not imply the avoidance of political actors or the absolute surrender of politics to the market. On the one hand, the political power of local elected officials is also expressed in the relationships that they establish with these market players.…”

“…Due to a growing process of outsourcing, consultants have gained influence in public policymaking (Craft & Howlett, ; Saint‐Martin, ; Vigoda‐Gadot, Cohen, & Zalmanovitch, ; Ylönen & Kuusela, ), including on the local scale (Beveridge, ; Poupeau, Guéranger, & Cadiou, ). The growing influence of private actors and firms on the conception and implementation of urban policies has been widely analyzed (Halpern & Pollard, ; Huré, ; Paroutis, Bennett, & Heracleous, ). However, despite the growing interest in the relationship between the market and public policies, only a few pioneering studies have focused on this point in the area of citizen participation.…”

Facing the environmental transition

“…This entrepreneurial agenda contributes to the rise of public-private partnerships and to the spatial and social selectivity of mobility services provided (Cresswell & Adey et al 2016), such as bicycle sharing systems, restricted to the centers of the largest cities (Huré 2016). This selectivity contributes to a broader and ambiguous dynamics of dualization in policies, where the restricted space given to cars in city centers contrasts with the facilitation of car traffic in peripheries (Reigner et al 2013).…”