IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v53y2021i5p1076-1095.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Towards an urban degrowth: Habitability, finity and polycentric autonomism

Author

Listed:
  • Federico Savini

Abstract

Over the last decade, degrowth has offered a concrete alternative to eco-modernization, projecting a society emancipated from the environmentally destructive imperative of competition and consumption. Urban development is the motor of economic growth; cities are therefore prime sites of intervention for degrowth activists. Nevertheless, the planning processes that drive urban development have yet to be questioned from a degrowth perspective. To clear a path for a degrowth urban agenda, this paper rethinks the institutions governing urban development in growth-dependent contemporary economies. It starts by problematizing the regional territorialization of economic competition, ideology of land scarcity, and institution of zoned property rights, which together make urban development an engine of growth. It then outlines three transitions toward urban degrowth, arguing for a regional imaginary of polycentric autonomism, a paradigm of finity in development, and care for habitability as principle of spatial organization.

Suggested Citation

  • Federico Savini, 2021. "Towards an urban degrowth: Habitability, finity and polycentric autonomism," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1076-1095, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:53:y:2021:i:5:p:1076-1095
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X20981391
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X20981391
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X20981391?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brenner, Neil, 2004. "New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199270064.
    2. Rachel Weber, 2010. "Selling City Futures: The Financialization of Urban Redevelopment Policy," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 86(3), pages 251-274, July.
    3. Xue, Jin, 2014. "Is eco-village/urban village the future of a degrowth society? An urban planner's perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 130-138.
    4. Miriam Meissner, 2019. "Against accumulation: lifestyle minimalism, de-growth and the present post-ecological condition," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 185-200, May.
    5. Flyvbjerg,Bent & Bruzelius,Nils & Rothengatter,Werner, 2003. "Megaprojects and Risk," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521009461.
    6. Robert Hassink & Huiwen Gong, 2019. "Six critical questions about smart specialization," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(10), pages 2049-2065, October.
    7. Costis Hadjimichalis & Ray Hudson, 2014. "Contemporary Crisis Across Europe and the Crisis of Regional Development Theories," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 208-218, January.
    8. Davide Ponzini, 2016. "Introduction: crisis and renewal of contemporary urban planning," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(7), pages 1237-1245, July.
    9. Rachel Weber, 2010. "Selling City Futures: The Financialization of Urban Redevelopment Policy," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 86(3), pages 251-274, July.
    10. Dena Kasraian & Kees Maat & Dominic Stead & Bert van Wee, 2016. "Long-term impacts of transport infrastructure networks on land-use change: an international review of empirical studies," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(6), pages 772-792, November.
    11. L. Owen Kirkpatrick & Michael Peter Smith, 2011. "The Infrastructural Limits to Growth: Rethinking the Urban Growth Machine in Times of Fiscal Crisis," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 477-503, May.
    12. Fed E. Foldvary, 2001. "The Completely Decentralized City: The Case for Benefits Based Public Finance," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 403-418, January.
    13. Jaime Lluch, 2012. "Autonomism and Federalism," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 42(1), pages 134-161, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maria Kaika & Angelos Varvarousis & Federico Demaria & Hug March, 2023. "Urbanizing degrowth: Five steps towards a Radical Spatial Degrowth Agenda for planning in the face of climate emergency," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(7), pages 1191-1211, May.
    2. Benedikt Schmid, 2022. "What about the City? Towards an Urban Post-Growth Research Agenda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-16, September.
    3. Aseem Inam, 2022. "Fits-and-Starts: The Changing Nature of the Material City," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(1), pages 56-71.
    4. Rosário Oliveira, 2022. "FoodLink—A Network for Driving Food Transition in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-18, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stephanie Farmer & Chris D Poulos, 2019. "The financialising local growth machine in Chicago," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(7), pages 1404-1425, May.
    2. Laura Deruytter & David Bassens, 2021. "The Extended Local State under Financialized Capitalism: Institutional Bricolage and the Use of Intermunicipal Companies to Manage Financial Pressure," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 232-248, March.
    3. Feng, Yi & Wu, Fulong & Zhang, Fangzhu, 2022. "The development of local government financial vehicles in China: A case study of Jiaxing Chengtou," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    4. Zhenfa Li & Fulong Wu & Fangzhu Zhang, 2023. "State de-financialisation through incorporating local government bonds in the budgetary process in China," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(5), pages 1169-1190.
    5. Paul Langley, 2018. "Frontier financialization: Urban infrastructure in the United Kingdom," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 172-184, June.
    6. Kevin Fox Gotham, 2016. "Re-anchoring capital in disaster-devastated spaces: Financialisation and the Gulf Opportunity (GO) Zone programme," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(7), pages 1362-1383, May.
    7. Peter O’Brien & Andy Pike, 2019. "‘Deal or no deal?’ Governing urban infrastructure funding and financing in the UK City Deals," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(7), pages 1448-1476, May.
    8. Mikael Omstedt, 2020. "Reading risk: The practices, limits and politics of municipal bond rating," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(3), pages 611-631, May.
    9. William Sites, 2012. "God from the Machine? Urban Movements Meet Machine Politics in Neoliberal Chicago," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(11), pages 2574-2590, November.
    10. Klink, Jeroen & Stroher, Laisa Eleonora Maróstica, 2017. "The making of urban financialization? An exploration of brazilian urban partnership operations with building certificates," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 519-528.
    11. Xiaobo Su, 2015. "Urban entrepreneurialism and the commodification of heritage in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(15), pages 2874-2889, November.
    12. Hilary Botein & C Patrick Heidkamp, 2013. "Tax lien sales as local neoliberal governance strategy: The case of Waterbury, Connecticut," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 28(5), pages 488-498, August.
    13. Fenghua Pan & Fengmei Zhang & Shengjun Zhu & Dariusz Wójcik, 2017. "Developing by borrowing? Inter-jurisdictional competition, land finance and local debt accumulation in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(4), pages 897-916, March.
    14. Jamie Peck, 2017. "Transatlantic city, part 1: Conjunctural urbanism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(1), pages 4-30, January.
    15. Kevin Ward & Andrew Wood, 2021. "“We just need the developer to develop†: Entrepreneurialism, financialization and urban redevelopment in Lexington, Kentucky," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(7), pages 1471-1491, November.
    16. Luan, Xiaofan & Li, Zhigang, 2022. "Financialization in the making of the new Wuhan," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    17. Mark Davidson & Donald McNeill, 2012. "The Redevelopment of Olympic Sites: Examining the Legacy of Sydney Olympic Park," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(8), pages 1625-1641, June.
    18. Rachel Weber & Sara O’Neill-Kohl, 2013. "The Historical Roots of Tax Increment Financing, or How Real Estate Consultants Kept Urban Renewal Alive," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 27(3), pages 193-207, August.
    19. Hanna Hilbrandt & Monika Grubbauer, 2020. "Standards and SSOs in the contested widening and deepening of financial markets: The arrival of Green Municipal Bonds in Mexico City," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(7), pages 1415-1433, October.
    20. Kate Gasparro & Ashby Monk, 2020. "Demystifying “localness†of infrastructure assets: Crowdfunders as local intermediaries for global investors," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(5), pages 878-897, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:53:y:2021:i:5:p:1076-1095. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.