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Just Environments Politicising Sustainable Urban Development

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Just Environments Politicising Sustainable Urban Development Just Environments Politicising Sustainable Urban Development karin bradley doctoral thesis in Infrastructure with specialisation in Planning and Implementation KTH School of Architecture and Built Environment TRITA-SoM 2009-01 ISSN 1653-6126 ISRN KTH/SoM/-09/01-SE ISBN 978-91-7415-228-9 Division of Urban and Regional Studies Department of Urban Planning and Environment School of Architecture and the Built Environment Royal Institute of Technology SE-100 44 Stockholm Sweden © Karin Bradley, 2009 Cover and layout: Staffan Lundgren, Axl Books Cover photo: Karin Bradley Printed by Universitetsservice AB, Stockholm. Abstract European cities are becoming increasingly multicultural and diverse in terms of lifestyles and socioeconomic conditions. However, in planning for sustainable urban development, implications of this increased diver- sity and possibly conflicting perspectives are seldom considered. The aim of this thesis is to explore dimensions of justice and politics in sustainable urban development by studying inclusionary/exclusionary effects of discursive power of official strategies for eco-friendly living on the one hand and everyday lifestyles on the other, in ethnically and socially diverse areas. Two case studies have been conducted, one in a city district of Stock- holm, Sweden, and one in an area of Sheffield, England. The empirical material consists of interviews with residents, interviews with planners and officials and an analysis of strategic planning documents. The case study in Stockholm illustrated the prevalence of a dominant discourse among residents in which Swedishness is connected with environmental responsibility in the form of tidiness, recycling and familiarity with na- ture. In Sheffield there are more competing and parallel environmental discourses. The mainstream British environmental discourse and sustain- ability strategies are being criticised from Muslim as well as green radical perspectives. The mainstream discourse is criticised for being tokenistic in its focus on gardening, tidiness, recycling and eco-consumption, and hence ignoring deeper unsustainable societal structures. This can be interpreted as a postpolitical condition, in which there is a consensus around “what needs to be done,” such as more recycling, but in which difficult societal problems and conflicting perspectives on these are not highlighted. In the thesis it is argued that the strategies for urban sustainability are underpinned by Swedish/British middle-class norms, entailing processes of (self-)disciplining and normalisation of the Other into well-behaving citizens. It is argued that an appreciation of the multiple and others’ ways of saving natural resources would make the sustainability strategies more attuned to social and cultural diversity as well as more environmentally progressive. Finally, the importance of asserting the political in sustain- ability strategies is stressed, highlighting the organisation of society and possible alternative socioenvironmental futures. keywords: Eco-friendly living, diversity, justice, sustainable urban development, postpolitics, discourse, normalisation, discipline, othering Contents Acknowledgments 7 part i 1 Introduction 9 1.1 Background 9 1.2 Aim 11 1.3 Research approach 13 1.4 Previous research 19 1.5 Structure of the thesis 22 2 Theoretical positions 23 2.1 On planning as power 23 2.2 On the environment as socially produced 30 2.3 On group identity 40 2.4 On justice 50 part ii 3 Methodology 61 3.1 Choice of Spånga-Tensta and Burngreave 61 3.2 Material and method in the cases 62 3.3 Studying discourses 73 4 The Spånga-Tensta case 79 4.1.Background to Spånga-Tensta 79 4.2 Planning for eco-friendly living in Spånga-Tensta 84 4.3 Eco-friendly living among Spånga-Tensta residents 107 4.4 Figures, Spånga-Tensta 141 5 The Burngreave case 149 5.1 Background to Burngreave 149 5.2 Planning for eco-friendly living in Burngreave 153 5.3 Eco-friendly living among Burngreave residents 184 5.4 Figures, Burngreave 218 part iii 6 Inclusion/exclusion inenvironmental discourses 227 6.1 Resident discourses of eco-friendly living: One in Spånga-Tensta, several in Burngreave 227 6.2 Assumptions in strategies inrelation to diversity 234 6.3 Normalisation, inclusion/exclusion and justice 247 6.4 Main findings 260 7 Future alternatives for sustainability politics 263 7.1 Naming and framing of alternative futures 263 7.2 Scrutinising norms and symbols of eco-friendly living 265 7.3 Forming of new group identities for political action 266 7.4 Asserting the political in structural change and micropractices 267 Appendices 269 List of appendices 269 References 305 7 Acknowledgments Having the role of a PhD student or researcher is, in my perspective, indeed a privileged position. One can devote one’s time to study and reflect upon societal phenomena which is not only a great joy in itself but hopefully also something that others benefit from. There are many persons I would like to thank for their role in this work. Firstly, Lars Orrskog, KTH, my main supervisor, for all the good discussions about research and everything else and for all your engage- ment, Steve Connelly, University of Sheffield, my second supervisor, for all valuable comments and not least your hospitality during my stays in Sheffield. Thank you my friend Moa Tunström, Örebro University, for the good discussions about this project, before it even began, and for your careful reading of drafts. Persons that have furthermore been important to the development of this work are Tim Richardson, Aalborg University, who was the oppo- nent at the final seminar, James Throgmorton, University of Iowa, who was the opponent at the mid-seminar and Katja Grillner, KTH, who has done the internal quality check for KTH. I am also thankful to Irene Mo- lina, Uppsala University, Rolf Lidskog, Örebro University and Hassan Hosseini-Kaladjahi, at the Multicultural Centre, who have participated in the reference group of this PhD project. I am also grateful to all present and former colleagues at the depart- ment who have been supportive in different ways and particularly to Karolina Isaksson, Ulrika Gunnarsson Östling, Bertil Malmström, Mats Johansson, Tigran Haas, Göran Cars, Ebba Högström, Kristina Grange, Bosse Bergman and Patrik Tornberg, who have read and commented on drafts. My gratitude also to Karin Hagersten who has language checked the thesis, Staffan Lundgren, who has done the graphic layout, and Emma Byström and Luciane Borges who have transcribed some of the inter- views. Also, thank you all interviewees who shared time and thoughts with me. Formas – The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricul- tural Sciences and Spatial Planning – also played an important role as the main funder of this thesis. Stiftelsen Lars Hiertas Minne should also be mentioned for its financial support. At last, thank you my small and big family, particularly Ola Broms Wessel, for having faith in me. Stockholm, March, 2009 Part I 9 1 Introduction 1.1 background How to transform society in a more ecological or sustainable direction has long been debated. Perspectives vary on what constitutes the main socioecological problems – diminishing of nonrenewable energy sources, deforestation, erosion, acidification and eutrophication of lakes, climate change, loss of biodiversity, etc. – how they are interrelated and how they are to be handled. Certain areas in the world have also experienced improved environmental quality during the last decades, not least due to conscious environmental policies and regulations, shifts to more postin- dustrial production and restoration projects. On a global scale, however, resource depletion and environmental degradation is an acute problem for large parts of the world’s population. A milestone in international efforts to counteract environmental degradation and to simultaneously address environmental concern and economic and social development was the work of the Brundtland com- mission and the WCED report, Our Common Future, in 1987. At the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 the concept of sustainable development – encompassing environ- mental concern, economic development and social justice – was agreed to be a common goal for human development, manifested in the Agenda 21 action programme. However, the “we” rhetoric of this work at the UN level – citing our common future, that we are “one planet,” that we are now “all” in the same boat, facing the same environmental problems – has been criticised by voices from the global South (Di Chiro, 2003: 206-210). These voices point out that this rhetoric conceals unevenness in terms of who has caused the major environmental problems, who is affected by them and ho is to be held responsible for “solving” them. In this instance it is important to point out that the usage of natural resources is profoundly unevenly distributed in the world: 20 percent of the population of the world consume 80 percent of the planet’s natural resources.1 In addition, the poorest people generally consume the least natural resources at the 1. Friends of the Earth International: www.foei.org, see Ecological Debt, accessed March 15, 2006. 10 part i same time as they are often the most negatively effected by environmen- tal degradation.2 Highlighting (in)justice aspects of environmental problems and qualities takes place not only on the global level. In the US, and more recently also in the UK, there is a growing body of research and debate around environmental justice at local and
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