The politics of urban experiments : realising radical change or reinforcing business as usual?
(2014) p.104-115- Abstract
- When Jean-Francois Mayet was elected mayor of the French city of Châteauroux in 2001, he inherited a mass transit system that was functional but under-used by residents. The city, located about halfway between Paris and Bordeaux, had collective aims that were similar to other medium-sized cities in Europe: to reduce the city’s ecological footprint while improving the local economy and fostering a more equitable society. Instead of drafting a new regional transit plan, upgrading and enhancing the existing bus system or devising regulations and incentives to encourage residents to use mass transit more frequently, Mayet made a simple yet radical decision: make the transit system free and monitor the results. Within a year, ridership had... (More)
- When Jean-Francois Mayet was elected mayor of the French city of Châteauroux in 2001, he inherited a mass transit system that was functional but under-used by residents. The city, located about halfway between Paris and Bordeaux, had collective aims that were similar to other medium-sized cities in Europe: to reduce the city’s ecological footprint while improving the local economy and fostering a more equitable society. Instead of drafting a new regional transit plan, upgrading and enhancing the existing bus system or devising regulations and incentives to encourage residents to use mass transit more frequently, Mayet made a simple yet radical decision: make the transit system free and monitor the results. Within a year, ridership had increased by 81 per cent; after ten years, the average number of annual trips per resident had tripled. Lost revenues were negligible as bus fares only covered 14 per cent of the total system expenses. Meanwhile, the benefits of reduced traffic and exhaust emissions, reinvigorated local businesses and lower transportation expenses for lowincome residents were significant and widespread. Châteauroux is now viewed as a ‘canary in the coalmine of transportation policy’; Mayet has been feted as one of the most popular mayors in France, and his ‘experiment’ in free local transit is now being duplicated in other cities such as Aubagne, France and Tallinn, Estonia (Grabar, 2012). The above example of instigating radical change in an urban system is quickly becoming the norm in cities that are pursuing improved urban futures. Alongside conventional processes involving long-term planning and investment to regenerate hard and soft infrastructures, urban actors from the public, private and third sectors are undertaking experiments to reduce their carbon footprint, encourage local economic development, foster community cohesion, and so on. Experiments are attractive because they are provisional, risky and dynamic. The allure of the experiment lies
in its ability to be radical in ambition while being limited in scope. The potential of experiments to operationalize the often generic, abstract and long-term oriented visions of sustainable development explains their recent emergence as a favoured mode of governance. By design, experiments have a high risk of failure but also high rates of return if they are successful. Experiments feed on attractive notions of innovation and creativity (both individual and collective) while reframing the emphasis of sustainability from distant targets and government policies to concrete and achievable actions that can be undertaken by a wide variety of urban stakeholders. When they work, urban experiments rewrite a local or regional development narrative as evidenced by well-known success stories such as the novel public space of the High Line in New York City, the bus rapid transit system in Curitiba, Brazil, and the progressive planning agendas in the Swedish city of Malmö and the Germany city of Freiburg. But what exactly do experiments do and how do they reframe the notion of sustainable urban development? Do they provide a viable alternative to conventional modes of urban development or do they simply repackage change in the appealing rhetoric of innovation? Do experiments replace long-term, comprehensive planning with incremental, one-off interventions or do they aggregate into new modes of urban governance that can harness innovation effectively? In this chapter, we argue that the rise of urban experimentation in the pursuit of more sustainable urban futures has a combination of positive and negative implications. We begin by reflecting on the role of experiments in the development of the contemporary urban ideal and how this resonates with post-positivist theories that embrace uncertainty, contingency and open-endedness. Experiments suggest recursive learning as a key component of enacting different urban futures. We then examine how the notion of experimentation has been deployed in recent scholarship on urban ecology and resilience, climate change governance and socio-technical transitions. While experimentation as a mode of urban change is certainly not a new concept, its application to sustainable urban development promises new modes of engagement, governance and politics that simultaneously challenge and complement conventional strategies that involve masterplanning, regulations and incentive programmes, awareness raising campaigns, and so on. Experiments are frequently portrayed as beneficial to cities as a whole while sidestepping troubling issues about who is doing the experimenting, who is being experimented on and who is being left out. We conclude by arguing that experiments, and their attendant visions of more sustainable urban futures, are not inherently positive activities in cities but carry politics just like any other urban development strategy. As such, there is a need to develop a politics of experimentation that can open up cities to more radical agendas of change. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/0f5d5ead-64bc-489f-a932-e49a41fdee1a
- author
- Karvonen, Andrew LU ; Evans, James and van Heur, Bas
- publishing date
- 2014
- type
- Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
- publication status
- published
- subject
- host publication
- After Sustainable Cities?
- editor
- Hodson, Mike and Marvin, Simon
- pages
- 12 pages
- publisher
- Routledge
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:84924113375
- ISBN
- 9780203074602
- 9780415659871
- 9780415659864
- DOI
- 10.4324/9780203074602
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- id
- 0f5d5ead-64bc-489f-a932-e49a41fdee1a
- date added to LUP
- 2022-01-07 13:43:26
- date last changed
- 2024-07-14 02:12:35
@inbook{0f5d5ead-64bc-489f-a932-e49a41fdee1a,
abstract = {{When Jean-Francois Mayet was elected mayor of the French city of Châteauroux in 2001, he inherited a mass transit system that was functional but under-used by residents. The city, located about halfway between Paris and Bordeaux, had collective aims that were similar to other medium-sized cities in Europe: to reduce the city’s ecological footprint while improving the local economy and fostering a more equitable society. Instead of drafting a new regional transit plan, upgrading and enhancing the existing bus system or devising regulations and incentives to encourage residents to use mass transit more frequently, Mayet made a simple yet radical decision: make the transit system free and monitor the results. Within a year, ridership had increased by 81 per cent; after ten years, the average number of annual trips per resident had tripled. Lost revenues were negligible as bus fares only covered 14 per cent of the total system expenses. Meanwhile, the benefits of reduced traffic and exhaust emissions, reinvigorated local businesses and lower transportation expenses for lowincome residents were significant and widespread. Châteauroux is now viewed as a ‘canary in the coalmine of transportation policy’; Mayet has been feted as one of the most popular mayors in France, and his ‘experiment’ in free local transit is now being duplicated in other cities such as Aubagne, France and Tallinn, Estonia (Grabar, 2012). The above example of instigating radical change in an urban system is quickly becoming the norm in cities that are pursuing improved urban futures. Alongside conventional processes involving long-term planning and investment to regenerate hard and soft infrastructures, urban actors from the public, private and third sectors are undertaking experiments to reduce their carbon footprint, encourage local economic development, foster community cohesion, and so on. Experiments are attractive because they are provisional, risky and dynamic. The allure of the experiment lies<br/><br/>in its ability to be radical in ambition while being limited in scope. The potential of experiments to operationalize the often generic, abstract and long-term oriented visions of sustainable development explains their recent emergence as a favoured mode of governance. By design, experiments have a high risk of failure but also high rates of return if they are successful. Experiments feed on attractive notions of innovation and creativity (both individual and collective) while reframing the emphasis of sustainability from distant targets and government policies to concrete and achievable actions that can be undertaken by a wide variety of urban stakeholders. When they work, urban experiments rewrite a local or regional development narrative as evidenced by well-known success stories such as the novel public space of the High Line in New York City, the bus rapid transit system in Curitiba, Brazil, and the progressive planning agendas in the Swedish city of Malmö and the Germany city of Freiburg. But what exactly do experiments do and how do they reframe the notion of sustainable urban development? Do they provide a viable alternative to conventional modes of urban development or do they simply repackage change in the appealing rhetoric of innovation? Do experiments replace long-term, comprehensive planning with incremental, one-off interventions or do they aggregate into new modes of urban governance that can harness innovation effectively? In this chapter, we argue that the rise of urban experimentation in the pursuit of more sustainable urban futures has a combination of positive and negative implications. We begin by reflecting on the role of experiments in the development of the contemporary urban ideal and how this resonates with post-positivist theories that embrace uncertainty, contingency and open-endedness. Experiments suggest recursive learning as a key component of enacting different urban futures. We then examine how the notion of experimentation has been deployed in recent scholarship on urban ecology and resilience, climate change governance and socio-technical transitions. While experimentation as a mode of urban change is certainly not a new concept, its application to sustainable urban development promises new modes of engagement, governance and politics that simultaneously challenge and complement conventional strategies that involve masterplanning, regulations and incentive programmes, awareness raising campaigns, and so on. Experiments are frequently portrayed as beneficial to cities as a whole while sidestepping troubling issues about who is doing the experimenting, who is being experimented on and who is being left out. We conclude by arguing that experiments, and their attendant visions of more sustainable urban futures, are not inherently positive activities in cities but carry politics just like any other urban development strategy. As such, there is a need to develop a politics of experimentation that can open up cities to more radical agendas of change.}},
author = {{Karvonen, Andrew and Evans, James and van Heur, Bas}},
booktitle = {{After Sustainable Cities?}},
editor = {{Hodson, Mike and Marvin, Simon}},
isbn = {{9780203074602}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{104--115}},
publisher = {{Routledge}},
title = {{The politics of urban experiments : realising radical change or reinforcing business as usual?}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203074602}},
doi = {{10.4324/9780203074602}},
year = {{2014}},
}