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Swedish Production of Sustainable Urban Imaginaries in China

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  • Anna Hult

Abstract

Sweden and the broader region of Scandinavia have been widely praised for their efforts to develop and promote models of sustainability for the rest of the world. Swedish international architecture and urban planning firms are driven by the advantage of being able to brand their projects as "Sustainable and Scandinavian." In this sense, "the sustainable city" has become a Swedish service to export. In order to strengthen a coherent image of Swedish sustainable urban development, in, 2007, the Swedish Trade Council initiated a marketing platform for eco-profiled companies under the name of "SymbioCity." This paper seeks to explore the production of imaginaries at play in the performance of "SymbioCity." It especially addresses the way in which notions of progress and a better city life were presented to Chinese audiences in the Swedish pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010. The Swedish pavilion is here regarded as a node in the export of a wider network of Swedish sustainable urban planning services. I argue that the imaginaries that Sweden produces through activities associated with the SymbioCity underlines a view that equates "progress" with the notion of "decoupling" of economic growth and CO 2 -emissions. In presenting an image of decoupling as a Swedish experience possible to transfer to China, it also establishes views of progress as linear and space as static. Using the term "absent presence" opens up a counter narrative, which turns decoupling as a Swedish experience into a myth and raises the need for urban imaginaries based on a relational view of space.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna Hult, 2013. "Swedish Production of Sustainable Urban Imaginaries in China," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 77-94, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cjutxx:v:20:y:2013:i:1:p:77-94
    DOI: 10.1080/10630732.2012.735405
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    Cited by:

    1. Mejía-Dugand, Santiago & Hjelm, Olof & Baas, Leo, 2017. "Public utility companies in liberalized markets – The impact of management models on local and regional sustainability," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 137-144.
    2. Elizabeth Rapoport & Anna Hult, 2017. "The travelling business of sustainable urbanism: International consultants as norm-setters," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(8), pages 1779-1796, August.
    3. Haiyan Lu & Martin De Jong & Yawei Chen, 2017. "Economic City Branding in China: the Multi-Level Governance of Municipal Self-Promotion in the Greater Pearl River Delta," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-24, March.
    4. Blal Adem Esmail & Lina Suleiman, 2020. "Analyzing Evidence of Sustainable Urban Water Management Systems: A Review through the Lenses of Sociotechnical Transitions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-45, June.
    5. Ruggiero, S. & Busch, H. & Hansen, T. & Isakovic, A., 2021. "Context and agency in urban community energy initiatives: An analysis of six case studies from the Baltic Sea Region," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PA).
    6. Laura Tozer & Nicole Klenk, 2019. "Urban configurations of carbon neutrality: Insights from the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(3), pages 539-557, May.
    7. Martin De Jong & Helen Stout & Li Sun, 2017. "Seeing the People’s Republic of China through the Eyes of Montesquieu: Why Sino-European Collaboration on Eco City Development Suffers from European Misinterpretations of “Good Governance”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-14, February.
    8. Robin Visser, 2019. "Posthuman policies for creative, smart, eco-cities? Case studies from China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(1), pages 206-225, February.
    9. Valeria Saiu, 2017. "The Three Pitfalls of Sustainable City: A Conceptual Framework for Evaluating the Theory-Practice Gap," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-23, December.

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