Abstract
Book Notes give short descriptions of recently published books, papers and reports on all subjects relevant to the environment and development. Priority is given to items produced by research groups and NGOs in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Book Notes also includes short descriptions of newsletters and journals. Send us a copy of any publication you would like included; we produce Book Notes of publications in English, Spanish, French or Portuguese. Enclose details on prices for those ordering from abroad and on how payment should be made.
The Book Notes in this issue are grouped under the following headings:
CLIMATE CHANGE
DEVELOPMENT
DISASTER RISK REDUCTION
ENERGY
GENDER
HOUSING AND LAND
INEQUALITY
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
POVERTY REDUCTION
URBAN: CITY SCALE
URBAN DEVELOPMENT
URBANIZATION
URBAN SUSTAINABILITY
I. Climate Change
Three papers have been published in the Asian Cities Climate Resilience working paper series and are available as free downloads from http://www.acccrn.org or http://www.iied.org. This new series seeks to contribute to a body of knowledge on building the resilience of urban areas to the impacts of climate change, and showcases the results of research initiatives that have been carried out by local researchers in Asia as part of the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) initiative (see the paper by Anna Brown, Ashvin Dayal and Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio in Environment and Urbanization Vol 24, No 2 (2012) for more details).
John Taylor
This draws on case studies from six Indonesian cities to highlight how local urban development approaches have contributed to reducing vulnerability to climate change, although these were not designed with climate change adaptation in mind. The case studies, ranging from community, NGO and government-driven initiatives for water access, riverbank resettlement and public information systems, draw out lessons for other cities and provoke reflection about how social development and good governance initiatives can serve as entry points to building climate change resilience.
Tuan Anh Tran, Tran Van Giai Phong, Tran Huu Tuan and Martin Mulenga
This paper examines the standards for, and process of, developing climate-resilient, post-disaster housing by comparing self-built homes with donor-driven homes, to understand what leads to resilient housing in a typhoon-prone area of central Vietnam. By exploring the roles and responsibilities of agents and institutions in housing development, it identifies the factors that hinder the adoption of disaster-resilient construction methods and provides recommendations for ensuring that the homes of exposed households are made more resilient.
Dao Thi Mai Hoa, Do Anh Nguyet, Nguyen Hoang Phuong, Dang Thu Phuong, Vu Thu Nga, Roger Few and Alexandra Winkels
This paper looks at how outdoor workers in the city of Da Nang in Vietnam are affected by working in conditions of heat exposure, and also their understanding of the risks of heat stress and how it can be addressed. Through survey questionnaires and interviews, the study shows the measures that workers have adopted to cope with heat and offers recommendations for employers and policy makers to reduce exposure to extreme heat in workplaces and urban areas.
Mark Luccarelli and Per Gunnar Røe (editors), 2013, 298 pages, ISBN 978 1 40943 896 0. Published by Ashgate.
Oslo claims to be one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the world (it is also one of the most expensive) and has set itself the impressive goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 100 per cent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels (as a point of comparison, Oslo’s current per capita emissions are a little over one-third those of London). This book presents a collection of articles on historical, cultural and policy-focused aspects of this process of “greening” the city, written by a range of architects, cultural historians, academics, urban planners and artists.
Oslo is presented as a “special case” in a wider process that aims to develop a range of “ideal types” of green city, rather than as “best practice” or representative of other European cities. The book is also of interest as an analysis of a medium-sized city, which generally receive less of this sort of attention than large cities. At the same time, the editors stress that “… evaluating urban functions ... in the light of ecology and ecological design should take place within a specific spatial, political and cultural context”, supplementing any wider discourse using local and contextual knowledge, since innovations “… often arise from indigenous conditions and resources.”
The unifying tenet is the concept of “green urbanism”, which is defined around the relationship between urban design and nature, as going beyond environmental modernism to include ecology as a core value that should be incorporated into city functions. At the same time, the editors acknowledge that the term is very often used as a strategy to realize political and economic goals. They also highlight the general under-representation of the social dimension of sustainability, for example the effects of gentrification, in the greening of modern cities.
Part I discusses “conceptions of environment and visions of change” − how “green” can be understood in relation to urban life − and emphasizes the importance of a vision of a green city that is specific to a locale on the basis of knowledge of the urban landscape, history and cultural dynamics. Chapter 1 considers Oslo as a “biophilic” city, advocating that environmental reform needs cities that harbour wild plants and animals and allow and encourage close contact with nature. Chapter 2 discusses how a natural landscape can become part of a city’s identity and cultural fabric over time, and looks at the history, significance and use of the Marka, a large forest to the north of Oslo. Chapter 3 considers expressions of environmental imagination and formal park structures as spaces for both biodiversity and play, through the example of Frogner Park. Chapter 4 revisits the design principles behind old Garden City experiments in Oslo and England and discusses how these might apply when redeveloping existing urban landscapes.
Part II looks “beyond a vision” at the problems and possibilities of “green urbanism”, presented in historical examples and different discursive perspectives (planning, architectural, housing, academic). Chapter 5 discusses how concepts can become advertising language for private interests and public authorities, selling cities within a global marketplace. It also argues that official Oslo policies that place emphasis on densification and highly technical regimes of energy-saving can overlook important aspects such as ecology, social equity and cultural preference. Chapter 6 discusses time lags between ideological changes in planning discourse and their practical implementation, citing the example of residential green areas in Oslo’s modern history. Chapter 7 looks at suburbs and suburbia, arguing that a generalized approach to urban sprawl as antithetical to green urbanism is becoming less useful, and outlines dilemmas of density versus green spaces and top-down versus participatory approaches to design. Chapter 8 examines the troubled relationship between major urban roads and motorways and ideas of the green city; and Chapter 9 discusses the importance of the ethic of maintenance and the absence in modern landscape architectural practices of any commitment to sustaining a living landscape.
Part III includes examples of how in Oslo, in the past, green concerns have been dealt with in planning and policies. Chapter 10 gives an historical overview of the city’s urban politics and ecological strategies, and evaluates the success of past municipal responses to environmental challenges. Chapter 11 links the changing role of parks and green spaces in Oslo’s planning and master plans during the last century to patterns of wider economic growth or difficulties. Finally, Chapter 12 looks at attempts to balance densification and economic profit for developers with the protection of green spaces and provision of green infrastructure; also at how challenges to the ideal of a compact city often come from the bottom-up, through two case studies of local civil society protests against development projects.
II. Development
Robert Chambers, 2012, 224 pages, ISBN 978 1 85339 733 2. Published by Practical Action, Rugby.
This is a wonderful book by one of the most influential development thinkers. The author presents an entertaining and playful collection of his writings from 1978 to the present, which explore and question words, concepts and conventions used in development practice and by development professionals. There is a wide spectrum of essays, tools, exercises, discussions, diagrams and a handy template for “development bingo”. There are also a number of instances of rhyming verse, through which the author breaks with his usual optimism in order to vent his anger or frustration with pathologies of greed, self-interest and disregard for poor and marginalized people.
This book is easy to dip in and out of, with pieces that are short, readable and (as the title hints) intended to provoke thought, disagreement or self-reflexivity. Its serious themes circle around power relations and how these play out in development practice in the evolution of concepts such as participation and in organizations like the World Bank, arguing for a development practice that balances “people” and “things”.
The book is divided into four sections. The first, “Word Play”, looks at words and vocabularies, poking fun at shifting fashions in the development lexicon and explaining how words matter in framing and forming our perceptions, in revealing mindsets, and in empowering or disempowering those with or without mastery of technical terms and jargon. The second section, “Poverty and Participation”, challenges concepts of poverty, describes a number of empowering participatory methodologies and concludes with a discussion of what can be done at the personal level. Section III, “Aid”, criticizes past and present procedures and practices in aid and points to feasible changes for doing things better. It demands a radical rethink of aid, stemming from the recognition that “where the poor are” has changed dramatically (in 1990, 93 per cent lived in low-income countries; in 2010, almost a billion lived in middle-income countries). The last section, “To Provoke: For Our Future”, touches on gender issues in participation, changing power relations and win−win solutions, and the potent possibilities of immersions. It continues the discussions on words, concepts and development paradigms, presents a vision of future generations brought up, educated, empowered and inspired to transform our world, and ends with a final provocation, inviting readers to find answers to the question “What would it take to eliminate poverty in the world?” Robert Chambers reminds the reader more than once that fun is a human right, and this book will touch a chord and be enjoyed by a wide spectrum of readers.
Ilda Lindell (editor), 2010, 240 pages, ISBN 978 1 84813 452 2. Published by the Nordic Africa Institute and Zed Books, Uppsala, London and New York.
This is a collection of studies and case examples from nine countries and cities across sub-Saharan Africa, many written by African scholars, which covers a range of categories of workers, including vendors, marketers, cross-border traders, casual port workers and waste pickers, informal manufacturers and tailors. The book aims to go beyond discussions of urban household coping strategies, to address the less well-examined dimensions of informality around the strategies of organized informal workers for political influence, their alliances and multiple scales of engagement.
The introduction maps out the increasing diversity and heterogeneity of organized actors, pointing to broad axes of change that can be identified and the nuances within them. These include: the emergence of new actors using a rights discourse and articulating concerns for vulnerable groups; a growing number of groups representing the interests of the non-poor in the informal economy, who are well-resourced, not necessarily small scale, and multi-class; trade union initiatives reaching out to informal actors or associations; increasing collective engagement in international networks; and new or reworked patterns of collective organizing in the face of changes in social composition and economic differentiation, along lines of gender, age, ethnicity, religion or racial belonging etc. These axes are positioned within general trends in Africa and elsewhere, towards a growing complexity in the “associational landscapes” of civil society. The contributing chapters, organized into three sections, touch on particular aspects of this complexity.
The first section looks at the ways in which collective organizations seek to influence dominating power, in particular the state. It presents contrasting views on the scope for organized groups in the informal economy to exercise influence to change their economic or political environment. Chapter 1 draws on case studies in four cities − Dar es Salaam, Dakar, Accra and Kathmandu − to examine the extent to which trader associations participate in urban governance and succeed in (or are unable to) extend recognition of urban citizenship to their members. Chapter 2 looks at producer associations in three informal manufacturing clusters in Nigeria, whose autonomy and capacity have been weakened in the context of political and economic liberalization. Chapter 3 studies organized market women and their female leaders in the largest marketplace in Cotonou, Benin arguing that, through informal channels and by skillfully using political networks, they have been able to influence public decisions that affect their livelihoods and the management of the market.
The second section looks at the relations between non-state actors organizing across the formal−informal divide, and in particular the tensions, challenges and political opportunities when trade unions extend membership to informal workers or establish a close relationship with their organizations. Chapters 4 and 5 are sceptical about the role of trade unions in organizing the informal economy, presenting a current effort to merge a textile workers’ union and a tailors’ association in Kaduna, Nigeria and comparing organizations formed by informal workers themselves with initiatives of national trade unions in Malawi. Chapters 6 and 7 give a more positive picture, looking at the role of trade unions in improving the conditions of casual workers for a municipal workers’ union in Cape Town, South Africa and port workers in Tema, Ghana.
The third section focuses on collective organizing that reaches beyond national borders, but presents case examples that vary in their underlying motives for organizing internationally. Chapter 8 discusses the current penetration by Chinese traders into the informal economy of Dakar, Senegal in the context of market liberalization and changes in international politics, and the resulting contest and power struggles between different organized actors. Chapter 9 looks at the intensification of cross-border trade in Zambia and the emergence of an international association of cross-border traders spread across eastern and southern Africa. Finally, Chapter 10 explores the case of a national alliance of informal workers in Kenya and its transnational partners, and argues that transnational networks of informal workers provide an impetus and source of support for local organizing, including financial, capacity-building for political dialogue and leadership.
III. Disaster Risk Reduction
UNISDR, 2013, 288 pages and annexes, ISBN 978 92 1 132038 1. Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2013 published by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Geneva. This can be downloaded from http://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/publications/33013. This is the third Global Assessment Report; see http://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/gar for details of the previous reports published in 2009 and 2011.
With the goal of making a business case for disaster risk reduction, this report presents indications of a nascent paradigm shift in disaster risk awareness and management among businesses and governments. While this is attributed to the global economic crisis and recent intense disasters, the report’s focus is on presenting the evidence for emerging risk-reducing business practices and – under the motto of moving from shared risk to shared value creation – the identification of opportunities for mutually beneficial collaboration between different stakeholders. It depicts the creation of shared value itself as a huge business opportunity and, correspondingly, disaster risk management as a new business sector. This can be stimulated, for instance, by the introduction of new certification and standards, and would correspond to an observable change in consumer values. However, the need for governments to act is clearly emphasized, especially with regard to concerns compelling businesses to report risk, and clarity about the ownership of risk. Chapter 13 discusses current information asymmetries resulting from the risk-modelling industry, and how improvements in open access constitute an opportunity for change; and Chapters 11 and 15 elaborate how new applications are emerging that can visualize risk and therefore contribute to changing the ways in which businesses approach risk – from (reactive) contingency planning to (proactive) risk management. Such inclusion of risk information into business planning can, in turn, incentivize the public sector to provide more risk-sensitive business environments – a mutually reinforcing cycle that could radically redefine the understanding of value. Ultimately, despite the different degrees of vulnerability in different types of businesses (large global, small and medium enterprises and businesses in the informal sector), they stand among themselves as well as with the public sector in a critical relation of interdependence. The report’s message is that the way forward is public−private risk governance with a reframing of “competitiveness” to embrace “… sound infrastructure, macroeconomic stability and a healthy and educated workforce” (page 33).
Part I of the report, “The Globalized Landscape of Disaster Risk”, presents the different types of risk and risk layers that have accumulated over time. Forming the backdrop to following chapters, Chapter 2 sets out how past investment has increased levels of risk, engendered new patterns of risk and generated new hazards, while also contributing to an increased understanding of the full scale of disaster losses beyond measures of insured and direct losses, embracing uninsured, non-direct and extensive (i.e. low-severity and high-frequency disasters usually related to localized hazards) losses.
Part II, “Private Investment and Disaster Risk”, elaborates whether, how and why businesses have included risk considerations in their decision-making and examines the perceived trade-offs in three key sectors: urban development (Chapter 8), tourism (Chapter 9) and agribusiness (Chapter 10). Chapter 8 highlights a critical threshold in urban development − as the built environment will see massive investment over the next 40 years, especially in hazard-exposed countries with weak risk management systems, “… how disaster risk is addressed in the construction and real estate development sectors is therefore going to shape the future of disaster risk reduction” (page 122). However, despite this grand challenge and the presence of powerful disincentives to risk-sensitive investment in low- as well as high-income countries, the chapter emphasizes the unique opportunity that this presents and points to diverse evidence of expanded risk governance frameworks.
Part III, “Business Strategies and Risk Governance”, discusses how the assessment of disaster risk by stakeholders such as governments, insurance companies and investors influences business decisions (Chapters 11−13) and what opportunities exist for positively mediating risk governance forms (Chapters 14−15).
David Dodman, Donald Brown, Katie Francis, Jorgelina Hardoy, Cassidy Johnson and David Satterthwaite, 2013, 79 pages, ISBN 978 1 84369 915 6. Human Settlements Working Paper: Climate Change and Cities 4. Published by IIED, London. This can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10624IIED.pdf.
Most of the world’s urban population and its largest cities lie outside the most prosperous nations, and almost all future growth in the world’s urban population is projected to be in low- and middle-income countries. Within these urban centres, it is common for up to 50 per cent of the population to live in informal settlements, and these are often located on land that is exposed to hazards, with poor quality provision for water, sanitation, drainage, infrastructure, health care and emergency services. The residents of these low-income and informal settlements are therefore highly vulnerable to a range of risks, many of which are specific to urban settings. Yet despite this, many humanitarian agencies have little experience of working in urban areas or of negotiating the complex political economies that exist in towns and cities.
This working paper has two main purposes. The first is to review the quality of the evidence base and to outline knowledge gaps about the nature and scale of urban risk in low- and middle-income countries. The second is to assess the policy implications for humanitarian preparedness, planning and response. It does so by analyzing a wide range of academic and policy literature and drawing on a number of interviews with key informants in the field. It focuses in particular on evidence from Africa and Asia, but also draws on case studies from Latin America as many examples of good practice in this field come from this region. The paper aims to help ensure that humanitarian and development actors are able to promote urban resilience and disaster risk reduction and respond effectively to the humanitarian emergencies that are likely to occur in cities.
IV. Energy
Arnulf Grubler and David Fisk (editors), 2012, 240 pages, ISBN 978 1 84971 439 6. Published by Earthscan from Routledge, Abingdon.
This book emerged from the urban section of the Global Energy Assessment. It puts forward an elaborated systemic framework that allows a comparative analysis and assessment of urban energy use in its varied specificities and at its different scales. With approximately 80 per cent of GDP being produced in urban systems and more than 50 per cent of the world’s inhabitants living in urban agglomerations, there is a need to focus on the challenges and opportunities presented by urban settlements in order to effectively assess the issue of energizing cities sustainably. It argues the need for an urban system perspective, which opposes both the measuring of data on a national scale and a definition of the urban in politico-administrative boundaries of the city terms. “Such a functional perspective of urban energy systems highlights that urban locations and their growth [urbanization] are not only the clustering of people and economic activities in space, but also include [the] types of activities they pursue and the infrastructural and framing conditions [service functions] urban agglomerations provide” (page 2). For any measurement, the scale at which the boundary of the urban system is drawn is critical. A good example, discussed further in Chapter 4, is the difference between production- and consumption-based energy use. Those countries that are engaged predominantly in the service sector are not producing the high-energy goods they import, even though they consume much, and they score very differently on the two measures. These flexible boundaries, however, and the dependency of meaning on the scale chosen invites political rhetoric and exploitation, which is one reason why sound and qualitatively high analytical tools are required – as well as additional institutional capacity to use them appropriately.
The book comprises three parts − “The Urbanization Context”, “The Urbanization Challenges” and “Urban Policy Opportunities and Responses” – and represents a mix of quantitative and qualitative analysis. While much of the book revolves around quantitative assessment, the urban is considered as fundamentally multi-dimensional and qualitatively different across time and space, requiring therefore context-dependent policy responses (Chapter 3, in particular, discusses “time−geography choreography”). Another important question for policy-making concerns the difficult yet decisive balance between central and local authorities. While energy use also has global determinants that local decision-making cannot influence, the latter should prioritize those issues where the biggest leverage effect can be achieved. Chapter 6 concerns urban poverty and argues that access to energy for all people is related less to energy policy than to how local authorities deal with informal settlements. It provides evidence that when relations between informal dwellers and local governments improve, clean energy and electricity reaches groups of the urban poor. With a prognosis of three billion more urban dwellers in future decades, many of whom are likely to spend some time in informal settlements, the combined local authority approach to housing, infrastructure, energy and transport will have a crucial impact. Further leverage potential is identified for diversity and density, which − given that the co-location of activities means an opportunity for the integration of different energy systems, leading to a more efficient energy use (Chapter 7) − are seen as special strategic assets of urban areas. This opportunity for efficiency gains reinforces the idea that energy demand management is more important than energy supply management (Chapter 11). This is the more so considering the detrimental impact exerted by both excessive and insufficient density – the latter represents a waste of energy (Chapter 7), while the former can fuel air pollution (Chapter 12).
The conclusions emphasize the need to rethink and reform institutional frameworks for intelligent planning, especially with regard to the integration of sectors and an expansion of the kind of actors involved, in order to promote a complex coordination across spatial scales and sectors.
V. Gender
Cecilia Tacoli, 40 pages, ISBN 978 1 84369 848 7. Human Settlements Working Paper: Urbanization and Emerging Population Issues 7. Published by IIED, London. This can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10614IIED.pdf.
This paper brings a gendered perspective to urban poverty both with regard to paid work and unpaid care work. It notes that urbanization offers unprecedented opportunities to increase living standards, life expectancy and literacy levels, environmental sustainability and more efficient use of increasingly scarce natural resources. For women, urbanization is associated with greater access to employment opportunities, lower fertility levels and increased independence. Yet urbanization does not necessarily result in a more equitable distribution of wealth and well-being. In many low- and middle-income nations, urban poverty is growing compared to rural poverty.
The paper begins with a discussion of the income and non-income dimensions of poverty and the relationships between the demographic components of urbanization and gender, including fertility, rural–urban migration and gender selectivity, changing urban sex ratios and changes in household forms and organization. It then discusses gender and urban work, including work in the informal economy and domestic service. It also looks at issues around urban shelter and access to land and basic services from a gendered perspective – and urbanization and gender-based violence and the social, economic and institutional changes in cities as triggers for violence against women.
The paper describes how urban residents are more dependent on cash incomes to meet their essential needs than rural residents, and income poverty is compounded by inadequate and expensive accommodation, limited access to basic infrastructure and services, exposure to environmental hazards, and high rates of crime and violence. This gives urban poverty a distinctive gendered dimension as it puts a disproportionate burden on those members of communities and households who are responsible for unpaid care work. Cash-based urban economies mean that poor women are compelled, often from a very young age, to also engage in paid activities. In many instances, this involves work in the lowest-paid formal and informal sector activities, which, at times of economic crises, requires increasingly long hours for the same income. Cuts in the public provision of services, higher costs for food, water and transport, efforts to balance paid work and unpaid care work take a growing toll on women. A gendered perspective of urban poverty reveals the significance of non-income dimensions such as time poverty, and highlights fundamental issues of equality and social justice by showing women’s unequal position in the urban labour market, their limited ability to secure assets independently from male relatives and their greater exposure to violence.
VI. Housing and Land
Arif Hasan, Noman Ahmed, Mansoor Raza, Asiya Sadiq, Saeed ud Din Ahmed and Moizza B Sarwar, 2013, 116 pages, ISBN 978 1 84369 916 3. Human Settlements Working Paper: Urbanization and Emerging Population Issues 10. Published by IIED, London. This can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10625IIED.pdf.
Without equitable management of land and finances, the housing needs of the majority of Karachiites (who are poor communities) cannot be taken care of. Land is hotly contested because of speculation and real estate development, which brings not only enormous profits but also helps Karachi’s different ethnic parties to consolidate their hold in different areas of the city. A similar process of land speculation, real estate development and nexus between developers (of dubious origins), compromised politicians and bureaucrats exists to a lesser or greater extent in most Asian cities and also in cities of the North. The Karachi study identifies the actors and factors in this process and presents a methodology through which other cities can be viewed.
The paper includes sections on who owns land in Karachi (and the conflicts over its use), how land is regulated and managed, what finance mechanisms are available to consumers, who the main actors are in the land market and their relationships with each other, the role of non-state actors and the preferences of low-income residents in Karachi.
In its conclusions, the paper notes how one of the major constraints on addressing pressing housing issues in Karachi is the ethnic conflicts that have turned land into an instrument of power. The turf wars between ethnic groups exploit the discretionary powers of politicians and government officials, the unclear land titles and an ineffective system of justice in land- and property-related issues, the manipulation of the market through coercion, and the targeted killing of estate agents and property dealers. Moving forward on this agenda will require consensus on the need to resolve these ethnic conflicts, and a willingness among leaders of the ethnic groups to look beyond the politics of “constituencies” and “votes” and act in the wider interests of the city and the province.
VII. Inequality
Sharon E Sutton and Susan P Kemp (editors), 2011, 281 pages, ISBN 978 0 230 10391 7. Published by Palgrave MacMillan, New York.
Situated against the United States’ context of rising social inequalities between the wealthy and the poor, the main hypothesis presented in this book is that “… place matters for low-income communities of colour because it is simultaneously a source of inequality and oppression and a context of transformation and possibility” (page 4). Aiming to identify general insights for the advancement of environmental and social justice, the book has a regional focus on the Puget Sound region of Washington State. (This relates to its emergence from the local activist hub CEEDS (Centre for Environmental Education and Design Studies, University of Washington).) The editors hold that this region exemplifies the challenges that many places are likely to experience: expanding populations, increasing cultural diversity, diminishing natural resources, and that “racism goes underground”, i.e. a denial of persisting racism in an outwardly progressive environment.
Part I, “Place, Race and Power”, posits race as an overarching source of inequality and offers “… evidence of the intersecting social constructions of race, place and power that stifle opportunity and maintain social inequality” (page 260). While individual chapters discuss issues such as social housing, urban waterways, redevelopment and community development, the editors identify several overarching themes, including: the racialization of both people and places; the use of the built environment to impose hegemonic norms (see Chapter 2 by Susan Sutton on the evolution of the hegemony of homeownership); the way in which built environment professions normally exclude impoverished populations; the practices of disempowerment, for instance through displacement (see Chapter 4 by Lynne Manzano on how relocation can undermine organizational capacity and collective agency); and the transmission of inequity from one generation to the next, for instance through sport (see Chapter 3 by Anne Taufen Wessels).
More positively, Part II, “Place-making as Living Democracy”, examines “… how grassroots and policy level place-making strategies can help create sustainable communities while advancing the ideals of participatory democracy.” While acknowledging that place-making does not necessarily bring about structural change, the overarching sentiment is that it can affect normative beliefs and practices, thus leading to more equitable policies. Relevance is assigned particularly to youth leadership (e.g. Chapter 7 by Susan Kemp) and sustainable partnerships between communities and institutions such as universities (e.g. Chapters 8 and 9 by Roberta Feldman and Steve Badanes, respectively). Adding to the action planning strategies presented in Part II, Part III, “New Tools, New Professional Roles”, addresses the novel opportunities presented by new technologies for place-making professionals. Several chapters discuss the advantages and dangers of participatory technological tools, and the political attention they receive appears as a recurrent theme throughout. In Chapter 13, David Smolker and Caroline Lanza show how novel, web-based design methodologies can increase designers’ potential impact. Noting how socially conscious design has existed in the margins since the 1960s, the authors show how the web has given social design its opportunity, discussing in particular the efforts of Architecture for Humanity in making design accessible to impoverished populations and social design attractive to design professionals.
VIII. Local Government
David Satterthwaite, Sheridan Bartlett, Yves Cabannes and Donald Brown, 2013. To be published as a working paper. This can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.pubs.iied.org/ or from http://www.researchgate.net.
This paper highlights the importance for development of well-functioning local governments with the capacity to work with their low-income populations. It also stresses how the contribution of local governments in implementing and “localizing” the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is rarely recognized or acted on by national governments and international agencies.
The paper discusses how getting the best out of local governments is fundamental not only to the MDGs but also to most of the goals and targets being discussed for post-2015. It describes how local government is hardly mentioned in almost all of the 20 thematic think pieces prepared for a consideration of the post-2015 process. The UN system and the official aid agencies and development banks fail to understand, and thus to support, the contributions of local governments and even to acknowledge them as stakeholders. The MDGs may be clear about what they want to achieve but they say very little about who needs to act to meet the goals and targets and how they are resourced and supported to do so.
The paper highlights three primary concerns for the post-2015 preparations:
the explicit recognition of local authorities as primary agents in the achievement of most of the MDGs and SDGs;
attention to local governments’ capacity to deliver on their mandated responsibilities; and
attention to the possibilities of local citizens and civil society to hold their local governments to account, and their capacity to do so and also to work with local government.
The paper ends with recommendations for the post-2015 agenda on: rethinking goals and targets to encourage and support local buy-in and local action with regard to reducing inequalities, to food security for all, and more attention to the roles and responsibilities of local governments and civil society organizations in addressing MDG and post-MDG goals and targets and in systems that monitor progress within each locality; reforms to official data collection services so that these serve local governments (for instance, with data identifying where needs are concentrated within each local jurisdiction); and a fundamental revision of the institutional and financial framework to underpin the goals and targets, which includes a much greater capacity to work with and support local governments and community organizations.
IX. Poverty Reduction
David Satterthwaite and Diana Mitlin, 2014, 306 pages, ISBN 978 0 415 62464 0 (pbk), 978 0 203 10433 0 (ebk). Published by Routledge, London.
This is the authors’ second volume on the topic of urban poverty. It reviews the effectiveness of different approaches to reducing urban poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America, whereas the previous volume, published in 2013, focused on understanding the scale and nature of urban poverty and the underlying causes. This volume begins by describing and discussing the different ways in which national and local governments, international agencies and civil society organizations are seeking to reduce urban poverty. These include four state-directed approaches: welfare assistance to those with inadequate incomes (usually in the form of income supplements and free access to certain goods and services); urban management to improve “local government” (with a focus on efficiency, technical competence and a stronger fiscal base); participatory governance (which includes greater accountability, transparency and scope for citizen and community participation); and rights-based approaches (which extend rights and entitlements to those who lack them – and usually focus on low-income groups and those living in informal settlements). They also include market-based approaches that seek to support higher incomes and livelihoods through access to financial markets, and support infrastructure and service provision or improvement that recovers costs. The book also considers approaches that are driven by social and urban movements (and their capacities to negotiate pro-poor political change) and approaches that are working within the status quo: aided self-help with support to households and community groups to address their own needs and clientelism (which, despite the negative connotations, does provide an avenue for low-income disadvantaged citizens to access some state support, albeit within vertical relationships that are often exploitative and that provide only limited support for some).
The book also analyzes the poverty reduction strategies developed by organized low-income groups, especially those living in informal settlements. It explains how they and the federations or networks they have formed have demonstrated new approaches that have challenged adverse political relations, and have negotiated more effective support. The book has sections on the work of the many national shack/slum/homeless people’s federations that are part of the network of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), the Orangi Pilot Project Research and Training Institute (OPP−RTI) and the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR). The role of new funding frameworks is explored through the Urban Poor Fund International managed by SDI and the Asian Coalition for Community Action (ACCA) (whose activities were discussed in detail in several papers in the October 2012 issue of Environment and Urbanization). The book also describes the setting up of more than 100 city funds jointly managed by grassroots organizations and local governments, and the many partnerships formed between these two groups.
In its conclusions, the book stresses the need to move back to the goal of universal coverage for basic services (replacing the “partial” goals of the MDGs) and to recognize the contribution to this of co-production and the importance of competent accountable local governments. It also discusses the need for pre-finance and new financial intermediation, which supports partnerships of grassroots organizations and local governments to address infrastructure backlogs and what has been learnt with regard to addressing gender-based disadvantages and securing women’s leadership.
X. Urban: City Scale
Camillo Boano, William Hunter and Caroline Newton (editors), 2013, 144 pages. Published by and available from the Development Planning Unit, University College London; price £20; contact
This book draws on field research and studio-based projects on Dharavi, the large informal settlement in Mumbai. The field research was conducted by staff and students from the Development Planning Unit (University College London) between 2009 and 2012. The book includes a collection of essays and presentations on what the fieldwork in Dharavi uncovered (for instance, in relation to livelihoods and use of space) and these are illustrated with many photos and diagrams. It ends with some reflections both on Dharavi and on the wider context. As the editors note, Dharavi is a place that challenges all that we have learnt in urban design and makes us rethink our roles and responsibilities as professionals and researchers.
XI. Urban Development
Arif Hasan, 2012, 17 pages. Published by IIED, London. This can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G03488.pdf
Saiban is a non-government organization (NGO) based in Karachi that develops plot settlements. It sells unserved plots to residents, who can pay for the land over a period of five years, thus allowing them to build their homes at their own pace. They are expected to develop neighbourhood water and sewerage infrastructure, while Saiban uses repayments to develop the trunk infrastructure and gets other NGOs to develop the schools, health clinics, parks and community centres that make up the social infrastructure. It also uses its links with government organizations and transporters to help establish transport facilities in the settlement. Architect and IIED Visiting Fellow Arif Hasan offered to redesign this plan on the basis of the guidelines that he and his colleagues (Architects Asiya Sadiq and Suneela Ahmed) developed through a research project on urban density in 2009−2010. However, this simple objective turned into an exploration of various planning alternatives for Saiban City, raising a number of issues that will be of interest to all those seeking to support housing that better meets the needs and priorities of low-income households.
XII. Urbanization
Charles M Becker, S Joshua Mendelsohn and Kseniya A Benderskaya, 2012, 134 pages, ISBN 978 1 84369 896 8. Human Settlements Working Paper: Urbanization and Emerging Population Issues 9. Published by IIED, London. This can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10613IIED.pdf.
This paper explores patterns of urban growth and urbanization in Russia, linking them to social, economic, political and demographic processes. It also focuses on the consequences of Russia’s recent history, a series of extraordinary tragedies overlaying a society undergoing massive modernization and social change. The authors argue that industrialization and political command decisions were decisive factors during the Soviet era, and that the post-Soviet era has been a period of adjustment from a structure of disequilibrium to one of equilibrium. Central planning gave rise to a system of cities with greater primacy than would have emerged under a more decentralized government. Within cities, the absence of markets resulted in massive land misuse, which is being rectified only gradually. The Soviet system also meant that substantial cities were created in inhospitable areas, and in the past two decades Russia has witnessed net flows toward cities that are viable in market economies, and away from those that were the result of a determined command economy. Because it is so different, Russia may offer few lessons to other countries beyond the obvious one, namely that ignoring economic incentives and natural comparative advantage comes at a huge price, and that many, albeit not all, cities without a natural economic base cannot thrive. The major exception to this appears to be Russia’s scientific research cities, which are not tied to natural amenities or other locational features.
Ivan Turok, 2012, 61 pages, ISBN 978 1 84369 890 6. Human Settlements Working Paper: Urbanization and Emerging Population Issues 8. Published by IIED, London. This can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10621IIED.pdf
South Africa is one of Africa’s most urbanized countries. This paper describes how urbanization has been a source of controversy, posing dilemmas for successive governments and resulting in wide-ranging interventions to control it in various ways. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a distinctive form of racial segregation was put in place, reflecting the needs of industrialization for cheap migrant labour but also the political nervousness about permanent urbanization. After World War II, political considerations dominated and draconian controls were imposed to suppress black urbanization. This fractured the structure of cities and disrupted the lives of black residents by forcing them to the margins. These controls were withdrawn with the demise of apartheid, and the rate of urbanization recovered. The post-1994 government has sought to be even-handed in its treatment of cities, towns and rural areas, with no explicit policy either to support or discourage migration because of its sensitivity. This ambiguity translates into a reactive and sometimes adversarial approach towards informal settlements and backyard shacks. The low-density, fragmented form of South African cities has harmful social, economic and environmental consequences. It creates poverty traps on the periphery and favours road-based private transport. Cities are the dominant centres of economic activity and jobs, but they are not performing to their potential or reaping the benefits of agglomeration because of shortages of energy and water infrastructure, transport congestion, and shortfalls in education and skills. The government’s policies have been too short term and sector specific to spur settlement restructuring. Some pro-poor policies have reinforced people’s exclusion by subsidizing the cost of living on the periphery. Several new initiatives are emerging that may facilitate more coherent urban development in the future, including a more flexible housing policy and the devolution of public transport functions to cities.
XIII. Urban Sustainability
Igor Vojnovic (editor), 2013, 685 pages, ISBN 978 1 61186 055 9. Published by Michigan State University Press.
The central argument of this work is that the “… principal challenge we face in bringing about urban sustainability, both as a process and a condition, is the reality that cities exist, grow and operate at many scales” (pages xix−xx). This is based on the realization that the maxims of the “urban sustainability project” of the past decades have not proven effective insofar as most, if not all, local advances have been overshadowed by developments that are locally uncontrollable, for instance the “… globally conceived … liberalization project” (page xxiv). The book is a call for a new round of coordinated research, theory and practice in the search for a multi-scalar strategy.
While the editor claims that there is still a lack of practice and institutional capacity to deal with the urban system beyond the municipal scale, the chapters in the book reflect the recently developed capacity to understand cities as an extra-local and multi-scalar ecological and political−economic system. They show that “… the city is still a designable, governable and manageable unit of change that influences and is influenced by its articulation into a larger urban system” (page xxvi). Moreover, when combined, they reflect the consolidation of the domain in three ways: first, there has been a merger between the ecology-focused “green agenda” and the socioeconomics-focused “brown agenda” into a holistic view of the city; second, inter-disciplinarity has grown; and third, the city is increasingly acknowledged as a geography in its own right.
Responding to the claim that there are global challenges defined by an urban geography, the book begins with an overview of the conceptual history of “urban sustainability” and then spans a variety of perspectives and a range of case studies from cities and countries from all around the globe. The chapters are clustered into geographic regions, starting with questions of environmental management and urban expansion in China (Shanghai and Urumqui), manufacturing in Nagoya and Japan more generally, and the paradigm of the sufficiency economy in Thailand. The discussion then moves to Tel Aviv and Beirut, onto India and the problem of segmentation and “enclavization”, and to Australia’s dependency on automobiles. Introducing Africa, the next chapter contrasts neoliberal reality with sustainable rhetoric in Durban, followed by a look at the expulsion of the poor from Addis Ababa’s city centre in a dictatorial, non-market-based regime. There follows a discussion of the potential of co-production around water provision, comparing Dar es Salaam and Caracas. After Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro – where slum eradication seems to be induced by the sustainability movement – and Kingston, the focus shifts to North America, where issues of housing and ethnicity in their relation to sustainability are discussed for Los Angeles and Detroit, before moving onto “smart growth” in Toronto, planning for sustainability in Montreal, and urban supermarkets in Alberta. Finally, after studies on eco-branding in Denmark and more general overviews regarding sustainable development in the United Kingdom and Portugal, the final chapter concerns the impact of the sustainability discourse on traditional harbour communities in Lisbon and Porto. Overall, the book’s chapters indicate how the global urban system brings novel dimensions of marginalization, resource consumption and polarization, resulting in national crises and challenges for long-term stability. Importantly, though, they also present diverse efforts towards social stability at different spatial scales.