The Urban Question Revisited: The Importance of Cities for Social Movements

Nicholls, Walter J.

doi:10.1111/j.1468-2427.2008.00820.x

Cited by 136 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Peri-urban areas constitute centers of increased social heterogeneity, often leading to fragmentation of existing social networks (Nicholls 2008). Peri-urban residents often have to deal with a confusing mix of rural and urban institutions, policies, and laws, where the locus of control over local commons shifts to a different level (that of the city municipality), simultaneously creating an environment in which opportunities for dialog and cooperation between different levels of government are scarce (Narain and Nischal 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying the social-ecological system framework to the diagnosis of urban lake commons in Bangalore, India

Nagendra¹,

Остром²

2014

E&S

145

109

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ABSTRACT. The south Indian city of Bangalore provides a challenging yet representative context within which to examine issues of governance of urban social-ecological commons. The city was once famous for its numerous large water bodies, which have witnessed tremendous encroachment and pollution in recent years. These water bodies, called tanks or lakes, were typically managed by adjacent village communities but are now administered by a number of government departments involved with aspects of lake management, with multiple overlapping jurisdictions. The public's perceptions of lakes has also changed with urbanization, transitioning from community spaces valued for water and cultural services to urban recreational spaces used largely by joggers and walkers. We focus on a set of seven lakes located in the urbanizing peripheral areas of southeast Bangalore. Some water bodies have been restored and managed effectively by newly forged collaborations between citizens and local government. Others are extremely polluted, and some have completely dried up and have been encroached. We use a social-ecological system (SES) framework to investigate why some locations have been successful in negotiating changes in governance from community-based systems to state management following urbanization, whereas other lakes have deteriorated. We use seven second-tier SES variables that were associated with self-organization in previous research: size of resource system, number of actors, leadership, social capital, importance of resource, existence of operational-choice rules, and existence of informal mechanisms for monitoring. We also include three third-tier variables previously identified as important in urban lake commons in Bangalore: scale and type of pre-existing pollution, exclusion of socioeconomic groups from the planning process, and networking with government organizations. We use this subset of 10 variables to examine social outcomes of the lakes, which we define as the extent of collective action by residents working together for lake restoration and ecological outcomes based on the ecological condition of the lakes. Collective action was low in only one of seven lakes, which challenges the presumption that citizens will not organize efforts to cope with common-pool problems. However, only two of seven lakes were highly successful in regard to both the extent of collective action and the level of ecological performance. While one lake was small and the other moderate in size, these two cases shared similar ranking in all other variables. Both lakes were polluted at a relatively low level compared with the other lakes, and in both cases, the leaders of local groups were able to network with government officials to clean up the lakes. Unfortunately, the challenge of cleaning up urban lakes after many decades of pollution is very difficult without effective interaction with various governmental units. Our analysis illustrates the usefulness of the SES framework in examining the combination of variables that makes a coll...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying the social-ecological system framework to the diagnosis of urban lake commons in Bangalore, India

Nagendra¹,

Остром²

2014

E&S

145

109

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“…During the last decade, cities have gained attention, considering their role in facilitating social movements (Nicholls, 2008) and their strong influence on transitions into a greener economy (Puppim de Oliveira, 2013). With growing scientific and political consensus on the impact that human activities have on i.a.…”

Section: The Role Of Cities In Sustainability Transitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Technology and its Role in the Search for Urban Environmental Sustainability : The Dynamics of Adaptation

Mejía-Dugand¹

2015

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Sweden Cover artArmando Paez says that scarcity is not inherent to nature, but it has emerged from the tendency of looking at everything in terms of domination and submission, from the misunderstanding of the relations between humanity and the rest of nature. This cover expresses how close humans are to nature, even when they insist on distancing themselves from it. The reticulate patterns in this leaf resemble the streets and waterways of a city. In nature, this structure works in a way that ensures that every single cell has access to water and nutrients. Cities are places for everyone and they should work in the same way, providing everything their inhabitants need: clean air, water and soil, food, spaces for social interaction, and security. The foundations for more sustainable cities are laid; perhaps we need to improve our cities' ability to adapt to the nature that supports them. AbstractThe aim of this thesis is to analyze the role that environmental technology plays in the solution of environmental problems in cities, and discuss models and conditions that can facilitate the processes of selection, implementation and use of environmental technologies in and by cities.The technological component is perhaps one of the most important characteristics of modern cities. The dependence of humans on technology is in most cases a given, something that is not ignored in the sustainability debate. The development and implementation of new, "better" technologies is however hindered by the inertia that modern societies have and the influence of the dominant systems (e.g. economic systems based on growth, extraction of natural resources and environmental disturbance). So-called environmental technologies are not always able to efficiently compete against other technologies that are embedded in societies by lock-in mechanisms, e.g. learning by doing and using, scale economies, subsidies, and network externalities.Even with the "right" technologies, an exclusively techno-centered approach to sustainability can result in other problems, and it might reduce the sustainability debate and the cities' role in it to discussions of an administrative nature. The actual role of local actors and their agency must be also considered in the models and frameworks directed at understanding sustainability transition processes. It is thus important to analyze the dynamics of technology selection, implementation, use and diffusion in cities from a stakeholders' perspective as well.Not only is the availability of technology of interest for understanding the impact it has on the environment, but also the intensity of its use. This has resulted in increased attention from politicians and scholars on the so-called global cities (e.g. London, New York, Tokyo), which are characterized by their intense use of e.g. transport, security and surveillance, and information and communication. Paradigmatic models of sustainability can however be contested when the role of local actors, power and agency are considered in detail and not isolated from ...

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“…How are the choices linked with the framing of the problem (Aud, 2010), the different actors they can work with and their spatial positionality (Leitner et al, 2008)? A literature on social movements has developed avenues to better comprehend the spatialities of contentious politics (Leitner et al, 2008;Nicholls, 2008Nicholls, , 2009. We propose to use these to articulate a multi-spatial investigation of mobilization within a city-regional context.…”

Section: This Issue)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Spatial Puzzle of Mobilising for Car Alternatives in the Montreal City-region

Neste¹,

Bhérer²

2013

Urban Studies

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Scholars have recently advocated going beyond a fetishism for one spatiality to consider a diversity of socio-spatial relations in the study of political mobilization. The objective of this article is to propose an operationalization of the four spatialities framework (networks, scale, place and territory) and use it on the investigation of the mobilization for car alternatives in the Montreal city-region. Our approach is to start with the spatiality and structure of the network, to then identify brokers and focus on them for the detailed analysis of scale, territory and place. The article sheds light on the particular assets which the use of each spatiality, and their combination, offers for mobilization in the city-regional context. The findings also illustrate how city-regionalism is experienced by civic actors building coalitions to defend specific causes.

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The Urban Question Revisited: The Importance of Cities for Social Movements

Cited by 136 publications

References 43 publications

Applying the social-ecological system framework to the diagnosis of urban lake commons in Bangalore, India

Applying the social-ecological system framework to the diagnosis of urban lake commons in Bangalore, India

Environmental Technology and its Role in the Search for Urban Environmental Sustainability : The Dynamics of Adaptation

The Spatial Puzzle of Mobilising for Car Alternatives in the Montreal City-region

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