IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v49y2012i8p1695-1710.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Almost Invisible: Glimpsing the City and its Residents in the Urban Sustainability Discourse

Author

Listed:
  • Suzanne Vallance
  • Harvey C. Perkins
  • Jacky Bowring
  • Jennifer E. Dixon

Abstract

‘Urban sustainability’ currently receives widespread and generally enthusiastic endorsement, yet concerns are emerging that recent expressions of the concept may actually be working against the city and its residents. Based on research in Christchurch, New Zealand (one of the most urbanised countries in the world), it is argued that the assimilation of social, economic and bio-physical environmental elements that gave the idea much of its original legitimacy has been reduced to a minimalist set of material and discursive ‘eco-friendly’ denominators. As a result, only occasional glimpses of the city and its human inhabitants are caught in attempts to operationalise sustainability in urban areas. The effect is that cities, in New Zealand at least, are less liveable and less likeable than they should be. It is suggested that there is a real need to re-urbanise and rehumanise the urban sustainability agenda as a means of realising its integrative and transformative potential.

Suggested Citation

  • Suzanne Vallance & Harvey C. Perkins & Jacky Bowring & Jennifer E. Dixon, 2012. "Almost Invisible: Glimpsing the City and its Residents in the Urban Sustainability Discourse," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(8), pages 1695-1710, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:49:y:2012:i:8:p:1695-1710
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098011417903
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098011417903
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098011417903?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. Erik Swyngedouw, 2009. "The Antinomies of the Postpolitical City: In Search of a Democratic Politics of Environmental Production," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 601-620, September.
    2. Neil Brenner, 2009. "What is critical urban theory?," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2-3), pages 198-207, June.
    3. repec:taf:cityxx:v:11:y:2007:i:1:p:100-114 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Eskeland, Gunnar S & Feyzioglu, Tarhan, 1997. "Rationing Can Backfire: The "Day without a Car" in Mexico City," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 11(3), pages 383-408, September.
    5. Julian Agyeman & Tom Evans, 2003. "Toward Just Sustainability in Urban Communities: Building Equity Rights with Sustainable Solutions," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 590(1), pages 35-53, November.
    6. Jamie Pearce & Simon Kingham & Peyman Zawar-Reza, 2006. "Every Breath You Take? Environmental Justice and Air Pollution in Christchurch, New Zealand," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(5), pages 919-938, May.
    7. Harriet Bulkeley, 2006. "Urban Sustainability: Learning from Best Practice?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(6), pages 1029-1044, June.
    8. Andy Merrifield, 2005. "Metropolitan birth pangs: reflections on Lefebvre's The Urban Revolution," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 693-702, September.
    9. Julian Agyeman & Briony Angus, 2003. "The Role of Civic Environmentalism in the Pursuit of Sustainable Communities," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(3), pages 345-363.
    10. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    11. Suzanne Vallance & Harvey Perkins, 2010. "Is another city possible? Towards an urbanised sustainability," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 448-456, August.
    12. Robert Evans & Simon Marvin, 2006. "Researching the Sustainable City: Three Modes of Interdisciplinarity," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(6), pages 1009-1028, June.
    13. Alan Latham, 2003. "Urbanity, Lifestyle and Making Sense of the New Urban Cultural Economy: Notes from Auckland, New Zealand," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 40(9), pages 1699-1724, August.
    14. Jamie Peck, 2005. "Struggling with the Creative Class," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 740-770, December.
    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. Nessa Winston, 2015. "Multifamily Housing and Resident Life Satisfaction: Evidence from the European Social Survey," Working Papers 201515, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.

    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. Brorström, Sara, 2017. "The paradoxes of city strategy practice: Why some issues become strategically important and others do not," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 213-221.
    2. Tan Yigitcanlar & Md. Kamruzzaman, 2015. "Planning, Development and Management of Sustainable Cities: A Commentary from the Guest Editors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(11), pages 1-12, November.
    3. Ian R. Cook & Erik Swyngedouw, 2012. "Cities, Social Cohesion and the Environment: Towards a Future Research Agenda," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(9), pages 1959-1979, July.
    4. Laurence Crot, 2013. "Planning for Sustainability in Non-democratic Polities: The Case of Masdar City," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(13), pages 2809-2825, October.
    5. Julian Agyeman & Tom Evans, 2003. "Toward Just Sustainability in Urban Communities: Building Equity Rights with Sustainable Solutions," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 590(1), pages 35-53, November.
    6. Hokyung Chung & Jongoh Lee, 2019. "Community Cultural Resources as Sustainable Development Enablers: A Case Study on Bukjeong Village in Korea compared with Naoshima Island in Japan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-14, March.
    7. Zhen Yue & Kai Zhao, 2020. "Understanding the Effectiveness of Higher Education System: Evidences from Market Outcomes of Early University Graduates in Seven European Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-32, September.
    8. John Pierce & Nicholas Lovrich & Bonnie Johnson & Tony Reames & William Budd, 2013. "Social Capital and Longitudinal Change in Sustainability Plans and Policies: U.S. Cities from 2000 to 2010," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-22, December.
    9. Eskeland, Gunnar*Chingying Kong, 1998. "Protecting the environment and the poor - a public goods framework applied to Indonesia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1961, The World Bank.
    10. Betsy Donald & Mia Gray & Centre for Business Research, 2018. "The Double Crisis: In What Sense A Regional Problem?," Working Papers wp507, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    11. Nina Martin, 2014. "Food fight! Immigrant Street Vendors, Gourmet Food Trucks and the Differential Valuation of Creative Producers in Chicago," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5), pages 1867-1883, September.
    12. Daniël M Bossuyt & Federico Savini, 2018. "Urban sustainability and political parties: Eco-development in Stockholm and Amsterdam," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(6), pages 1006-1026, September.
    13. Joel Bothello & Afshin Mehrpouya, 2019. "Between regulatory field structuring and organizational roles: Intermediation in the field of sustainable urban development," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(2), pages 177-196, June.
    14. Riley Smith & Arnim Wiek, 2012. "Achievements and Opportunities in Initiating Governance for Urban Sustainability," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(3), pages 429-447, June.
    15. Sander Happaerts & Karoline Van den Brande & Hans Bruyninckx, 2011. "Subnational governments in transnational networks for sustainable development," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 321-339, November.
    16. Mary Lawhon & Zarina Patel, 2013. "Scalar Politics and Local Sustainability: Rethinking Governance and Justice in an Era of Political and Environmental Change," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 31(6), pages 1048-1062, December.
    17. Mark Boyle, 2011. "Commentary. The New Urban Politics Thesis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(12), pages 2673-2685, September.
    18. Eleni Sinakou & Vincent Donche & Jelle Boeve-de Pauw & Peter Van Petegem, 2019. "Designing Powerful Learning Environments in Education for Sustainable Development: A Conceptual Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-23, October.
    19. Susan Moore, 2013. "What’s Wrong with Best Practice? Questioning the Typification of New Urbanism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(11), pages 2371-2387, August.
    20. Simin Davoudi, 2014. "Climate Change, Securitisation of Nature, and Resilient Urbanism," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 32(2), pages 360-375, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:urbstu:v:49:y:2012:i:8:p:1695-1710. 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: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    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.