Local Places in the

Age of the Global City

Edited by

Roger Keil, Gerda R. Wekerle, David V.J. Bell

BLACK
ROSE
BOOKS
Montreal/New York
London
 Copyright © 1996 BLACK ROSE BOOKS LTD.
Contents
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form,
by any means—electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system— Notes on Contributors ix
without written permission from the publisher, or, in the case of
Editors' Foreword xv
photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from the
Canadian Reprography Collective, with the exception of brief Introduction: Greasy Jungle Metropolis Noir 1
passages quoted by a reviewer in a newspaper or magazine. Roger Keil

Black Rose Books No. Z233 Cities, Citizenship and Nature in the Age of the Global City

Hardcover ISBN: 1-55164-047-3 (bound) Post-Fordist Citizenship: Struggling to be Bom 13

Paperback ISBN: 1-55164-046-5 (pbk.) Jane fenson
Library of Congress No. 95-79351 Global City-Regions and Citizenship 21
Engin F. Isin
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Globalization and Urban Restructuring
Main entry under title: World City Formation, Local Politics, and Sustainability 37
Local places: in the age of global city Roger Keil
Globalism, Urbanism and Critical Politics in the World City 45
Includes bibliographical references. Graham Todd
ISBN 1-55164-047-3 (bound) -
ISBN 1-55164-046-5 (pbk.) "Hamburg Goes Red-Grey" 55
Patricia Petersen
1. City Planning—Environmental aspects.
Reconstructing South Africa's Cities 63
2. Sustainable development. 3. Urban ecology. I. Keil, Roger, 1957- Robin Block
II. Wekerle, Gerda R. III. Bell, David V.J., 1944-
Sustainability in Third World Cities
HT155.L631995 307.1'216 C95-900778-4
Urban Farming and City Planning: The Case of Kampala, Uganda 71
Typesetting: Logan Design Systems Ltd. Prablia Khosla
Book Design and Layout: Natalie Klym Sustainability or Unsustainability: The Case of Marginal Urban
Cover Design: Robert Milliken
Settlements in the City of Cali, Colombia 81
Eduardo Garay
Mailing Address
Managing Sustainable Growth in Third World Cities 91
BLACK ROSE BOOKS BLACK ROSE BOOKS Rene Parenteau
C.P. 1258 340 Nagel Drive
Ecopolitics
Succ. Place du Pare Cheektowaga, New York
Montreal Quebec 14225 USA The North American Failure: The Governance of Regional Cities 99
H2W 2R3 Gardner Church
An Ecopolitics for Urban Sustainability 107
A publication of the Institute of Policy Alternatives Franz Hartmann
of Montreal (IPAM)
 An Ecopolitics for Urban
Sustainability
Franz Hartmann

Introduction

Ecopolitics is fundamentally about the struggle over two issues: defining

the causes for our problematic relationship with nature, and developing a
course of action that will create a more sustainable relationship with
nature. Put simply, ecopolitics is about the struggles around problem
definition and resolution.
Because most people live in urban areas, the content of ecopolitics has
an increasingly urban focus. People relate to nature as city dwellers as
opposed to farmers or hunters. Moreover, many people perceive contem-
porary cities to be environmentally damaging and ultimately ecologically
unsustainable. This suggests that urban social and spatial relations are an
important object of analysis in ecopolitics.
If, as I believe, cities are currently unsustainable, then any improve-
ment in our relationship with nature must require changing the physical
and social structures of our cities. To accomplish this, we must first
understand the social forces that help shape contemporary cities and then
change them to develop sustainable cities.

The Unsustainability of Contemporary Cities

Since at least the mid nineteenth century, writers have viewed the indus-
trial city as unhealthy, polluted and the site of much social discord. Over
the last twenty years, however, an increasing number of natural and social
scientists have pointed to the city as the primary site of, if not cause, for
unsustainable ecological and social practices that are threatening the
planet.
For example, from an ecological perspective, cities are designed to
facilitate ever-expanding production and consumption of goods and
services. New commercial development, homes, appliances, roads and
cars require increasing quantities of natural resources. Moreover, both
during production and consumption, the goods and services found in
urban areas cause ever larger levels of pollution. Habitat destruction for
mining, global climate change, species extinction, and bioaccumulation of
107
108 An Ecopolitics for Urban Sustainability
toxic substances in the Great Lakes food chain are just a few consequences
of urban life. What this suggests is that maintaining the present city form
requires destroying the very ecological conditions cities need to exist.
Alongside this ecological unsustainability in urban areas is a social
unsustainability. The division between the rich and the poor is increasing,
not just in cities in the so-called developing countries, but also in the
industrialized North. High unemployment and under-employment rates,
the reduction of social services from the sta te, lack of access to safe food and
water, the reduction of labour unions, and higher tax burdens have
swelled the ranks of the urban poor and reduced the size of the middle
class.
Meanwhile, those with money have more of it. The entrenchment of
international free trade via GATT and NAFTA-type agreements, the
instantaneous transfer of capital to anywhere in the world, the attack on
government regulations and welfare programs, have created a global
economy that helps those with money make more. Cities, therefore,
become sites of extreme class inequity: the powerful living in palaces
across from the powerless living in slums.
Linked to these class inequities are also cultural and gender inequities.
Job ghettoization, structurally lower wages, and chronic unemployment
plague women and various minority groups. As money and jobs became
tight throughout the recession of the early 1990s, social unrest in the form
of racism, criminal behaviour, workplace disputes, and struggles of
resistance increased. While it is impossible to predict how much longer
cities can remain livable places with these types of social inequities and
struggles occurring, it is clear these social problems are harming cities and
their inhabitants.
The Causes of Unsustainability
This rather dire analysis suggests that cities are the outcome of economic,
political and cultural practices that destroy the ecological and social
conditions upon which city dwellers depend. This, of course, prompts the
question: what are the causes of these unsustainable practices? The answer
to this question is one of the key points of debate within ecopolitics. From
my perspective, I believe there are four related causes: a view that
domination of people and nature are necessary and acceptable; acting as
if human society is somehow separate from the biosphere; defining
economic success based on ever-increasing production and consumption
of goods and services; and organizing the economy and the state to
maximize the private accumulation of capital via a market economy.
Franz Hartrnann 109
I want to go through each of these causes separately (they are, of course,
all linked). Domination is about justifying the use of power to impose your
will on to something external to yourself. It requires not only the ability to,
but the rationale for, imposing your will. To dominate you must see the
"other," be it a person or nature, as less important than yourself. This view
gives you the right to exercise your ability to impose your will. However,
if you see the other as equal, it becomes difficult to justify imposing your
will on to the other. Therefore, in a society where domination is not
considered legitimate, it would be impossible to condone actions or
thoughts that destroyed ecosystems and forced some people into miser-
able conditions for the sake of others. I believe, therefore—as Murray
Bookchin argues—that the legitimation and practice of domination is the
cornerstone of an unsustainable society.
Another cause of unsustainability is acting as if human society is
somehow separate and independent from nature. I do not think this cause
requires much explanation because one of the successes of the environ-
mental movement has been to get people to see themselves as part of and
dependent on nature. We have begun to realize tha t all of our actions affect
the ecosystems we are part of and, less commonly talked about, that the
actions of the ecosystem affect us. While many people acknowledge these
fundamental linkages between all living and non-living matter, there is
still a large gulf between how people see the world and how they act in it.
Most of us—especially in the First World—have yet to alter the actions that
are most destructive to the biosphere we depend on. For example, most of
us acknowledge the dangerous impact cars have on ecosystems, yet many
people still use cars out of convenience or because other forms of transpor-
tation are not available. Therefore, acting as if we were not part of and
dependent on the biosphere (even when we know the opposite is true)
leads to urban unsustainability.
This points to a third cause of unsustainability: a belief that economic
success must be based on ever-increasing production and consumption of
goods and services. Indeed, one of the consequences of this belief has been
the dramatic development of urban areas throughout the world. As noted
above, cities are primarily designed to better accommodate increased
production and consumption. This belief in ever-increasing output is the
trademark of industrialized societies and is reflected in our obsession with
a growing Gross National Product (GNP). Equally Soviet-style communist
countries were obsessed with constant growth. The reason this causes
unsustainability is obvious: the more we make and use, the more resources
we exploit, and the more pollution we create. Even taking into account
attempts by businesses to become green, the fact is they must produce ever
 110 An Ecopolitics for Urban Sustainability
more to be considered successful. As long as this impetus for ever higher
production and consumption exists, urban sustainability will be difficult
to achieve.
The final cause of unsustainability I want to discuss is organizing the
economy and the state to maximize the private accumulation of capital via
a market economy. A market economy, or capitalism, gives most eco-
nomic decision-making powers to private sector companies. As compa-
nies compete with each other to sell products and services, they attempt to
maximize their profit through product expansion, technological innova-
tion and reducing labour costs. Under capitalism, the ultimate aim of
private companies is to accumulate as much capital as possible. That
means that fulfilling social needs is only done if money can be made. In
order for capitalism to operate properly, two important conditions must
exist: there must be significant private ownership of land, buildings and
resources; and, "things" must be commodified so that they can be bought
and sold in the marketplace. That means, for example, people must be
viewed as units of labour and forests must be viewed as units of lumber.
Although the above description is a rather simplified representation of
a complex economic system, it nevertheless highlights some unsustainable
trends within capitalism: the need for constant growth in order to assist
companies in increasing accumulation; treating nature as separate to allow
for the commodification of natural resources; dominating both nature and
people by putting profitability ahead of social and ecological concerns.
Historical evidence suggests this analysis is correct. Over the past 200
years capitalist economies have produced large, transnational corpora-
tions that now hold most of the world's economic power. These corpora-
tions have been the primary agents in commodifying nature and people in
their pursuit of profit and economic growth. This development of capital-
ism has corresponded with massive environmental destruction and social
inequities. This correspondence, I suggest, is no accident.
But capitalists in pursuit of profit are not alone responsible for this
environmental and social degradation. The state has been active in pro-
moting commodification of labour and nature by guaranteeing that the
private sector has the legal right and the conditions to accumulate capital.
To help capital do this, the state passes laws favourable to promoting
private sector investment, increasingly from large, transnational compa-
nies. The state also collects tax revenues to build infrastructure that helps
businesses. And, the state often mitigates the consequences of market
failure—such as factory closures and polluted ecosystems. One of the
reasons the state does this is that its power is dependent on private sector
Franz Hartmann 111
growth. The state requires private capital to create tax revenues by
employing people who then pay income tax, and to create consumer needs
so that consumers pay consumption taxes. Put simply, the state and
private companies are the main agents in a capitalist economy and their
success relies on unsustainable practices such as domination, treating
nature as separate and constant growth of output.
To sum up, I am arguing that urban sustainability is impeded by four
causes: the justification of domination; actions that ignore our linkage to
and dependence on ecosystems; a belief in the need for ever-growing
economic activity; and, capitalist economies.
Promoting Urban Sustainability
The next question is: what do we do to promote urban sustainability? First
we must identify strategies that will not promote sustainability. One such
strategy is to reform the present system. If, as the above analysis suggests,
the operations of capitalism cause unsustainable activities, then greening
capitalism seems futile. Another proposed strategy is to simply replace
capitalism with state control of the economy. While this strategy may
avoid the specific pitfalls of capitalism, the ecological and social history of
the old Soviet bloc countries and China indicate that domination, eco-
nomic growth and neglecting nature are also endemic to state-run socie-
ties. Finally, many people frustrated by the perceived limitations of
economic and political action turn to spiritual means to help achieve urban
sustainability. While spirituality may be an important component of
attaining urban sustainability, it can only be effective if it is part of a
strategy that addresses the material reality of our lives. In other words,
there needs to be a viable economic and political strategy.
What, then, is a viable strategy for urban sustainability? The strategy I
want to present comes from a number of sources including bioregionalism,
social ecology and red-green politics. I want to introduce this strategy in
two parts: underlying principles and concrete actions.
Principle 1
Transform social structures and relations so that they impede—not pro-
mote—domination. This can be done in our personal lives by treating all
people as equals and urging others to do the same. Sexism, racism,
classism, homophobia, and other attitudes of domination need be replaced
with tolerance towards difference and a fundamental belief in equity.
Within our communities we can impede domination by democratizing the
112 An Geopolitics for Urban Sustainability
state and the economy. This allows decisions about government policy and
about what is produced in the economy to be made by people at a
decentralized level. Bioregionalism and Murray Bookchin's radical
municipalism speak to this. The rationale behind this is that the more
power is decentralized, the more difficult domination becomes.
Principle 2
Create practices and structures that embody our understanding that we are
part of, and dependent on, the biosphere. To that end, we need new state
and economic structures concerned primarily with promoting ecological
sustainability (and, as mentioned above, social equity). Economic and state
decisions would no longer be made to fuel private capital accumulation.
Instead, decisions would be based on meeting social needs in as ecologi-
cally sensitive a way as possible.
How do we turn these principles into concrete, political actions that
promote urban sustainability? What follows are just a handful of political
actions that I have found useful:
1. Make the linkages between social justice and environmental
problems, and their root causes in all of our political campaigns.
If we are campaigning to stop pesticides use in public parks,
then we need to speak about the inequities of the economic and
political systems that encourage and give so much power to
large, chemical firms to make money from polluting. That
means campaigning not only for changes in pesticide regula-
tion but also for social justice issues such as workers' rights.
Concurrently, we must call for the democratization of the state
and the economy.
2. Support locally-controlled businesses (such as co-operatives)
and local products and services. Every time we buy something
we are reproducing a set of economic and ecological relations.
When we buy a tomato grown in Mexico from a large grocery
store chain, we are reproducing unsustainable, dominating
economic activity. When we buy an organic tomato from a local
farmer or grow a tomato ourselves, we are reproducing sustain-
able economic activity which is not necessarily dependent on
exploitation. The more we support local businesses, the less we
reproduce the current destructive system. The potential for this
is staggering. Consider how much money a person needs in a
year for just food, clothing, shelter and entertainment, and how
Franz Hart ma nn 113
much of it leaves the community and country. Then imagine if
just a thousand people spent half of that money supporting
local businesses and products. Not only would there be many
new jobs created, we would reduce our dependence on
transnationals and the unsustainable, exploitative economy
that helps them.
3. Reduce, wherever possible our use of goods and services that are
ecologically damaging. We can accomplish this by supporting
ecological procurement policies in the home, workplace, at our
community centres, by government, and other organizations we
belong to. Part of this means redefining needs and convenience.
At present, many people see giving up ecologically-damaging
products and services as a sacrifice. This attitude often comes
from advertisers who have convinced us that consuming mer-
chandise produced through human and environmental degra-
dation is both necessary and convenient. Reducing, if not
stopping, the use of these goods helps end the reproduction of
the unsustainable, exploitative system.
4. Support local political mobilization in communities through-
out the world. Community empowerment happens when peo-
ple exchange skills and knowledge through community action.
This process builds self-reliance and sustainability. In contrast,
when community members spend time in multi-stakeholder
and other government consultation processes, their time and
skills are often wasted. Although all stakeholders are meant to
have an equal opportunity to influence government policy,
some stakeholders have inherent advantages that give their
voice more weight. More often than not, multi-stakeholder
processes are a public relations exercise where state officials
generally acquiesce to the wishes of powerful economic inter-
ests and use community members to help legitimize this deci-
sion. Community members involved in these processes lose the
opportunity to use their time and skills to empower people who
are truly willing to change.
5. We must work together with other local, social change groups
in our community and throughout the world. The free trade of
ideas, experiences and challenges between ourselves locally
and globally means we help develop local self-empowerment
on a global basis. Bringing about social change on a global scale
does not require large, centralized institutions.
114 An Ecopolitics for Urban Sustainability Franz Hartmann 115

Conclusion Administrative State, eds. R. Paehlke & D. Torgerson (Peterborough: Broadview

Press, 1990).
These last five points are, of course, just a sampling of what people Toronto Environmental Alliance, Sustaining Our Communities: Seven Factsheets on
practising ecopolitics think can move us towards urban Sustainability. Not Sustainable Community Economic Development (Toronto, 1994).
surprisingly, much debate exists as to whether the strategy outlined above
is the best route. Many state officials and business people simply believe
a combination of technical, political and market reforms will lead us to
urban Sustainability. But, as I suggest, they have a vested interest in
maintaining the status quo and, therefore, misdiagnose the problem.
However, if the current economic and political systems are indeed the
problem, then the only route to urban Sustainability is by developing new
economic, political and cultural practices and structures that promote
ecological and social Sustainability. Only then will we be able to develop
an urban form that is truly sustainable.

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Judy Harris and Donald Alexander, "Beyond Capitalism and Communitarian Alter-
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