Changing cultures of urban competitiveness: Towards a new urban politics of carbon control? Andrew E.G. Jonas University of Hull ESRC seminar series on 'Changing Cultures of Competitiveness', 17th April 2009 Lancaster University Acknowledgments: British Academy

Overview Cultures of urban competitiveness and the New Urban Politics Urban competitiveness as hegemonic project Climate change and carbon control: implications for cultures of urban competitiveness A new culture of urban governance based on New Urban Environment Politics (NUEP) Infrastructure and politics of mobility The challenge of constructing cross-class and sector alliances The role of the (territorial structure of the) state Chicago and Seattle examples

Cultures of urban competitiveness The New Urban Politics Crisis of Fordism and the mobility of industrial and finance capital Urban growth coalitions and inter-territorial competition The role of the state, grant regimes and ‘rules of the game’ Place promotion Emphasis on capital mobility but at the expense of knowledge of local-global dependence and environmental interests The search for an ‘urban sustainability fix’ in the 1990s (e.g. Manchester and Leeds)

Ecostate restructuring, climate change and carbon control regimes Source: Figure 5 from Chicago Climate Action Plan, 2008, page 9.

Urban infrastructure Research shows that there is a compelling economic advantage to pursuing activities that lower [fossil fuel] emissions... For Chicago’s city government alone, the projected infrastructure costs of climate change are nearly four times higher under the higher emissions scenario than they are under the lower emissions scenario (Chicago Climate Action Plan, Climate Change and Chicago: Projections and Potential Impacts (Summary of Final Report) accessed 1/12/08, page 30).

New Urban Environmental Politics New eco-culture of urban competition Inter-urban competition Carbon-offsetting the urban growth machine Grant regimes, Obama and cap and trade Urban place promotion (Look – no more emissions!!) Low-carbon urban political alternatives – transition towns An urban politics of mobility

Seattle: MetroNatural or S(outh) L(ake) U(nion) T(rolley)? Andy Jonas: This is a very leading question but do you think that there is a... new politics of mobility that is driven by quite interesting tensions around competitiveness and sustainability... Puget Sound Regional Transportation Activist: So really - that’s a great question. It really depends on what level of government you are talking about. The level of support for better choices and increased mobility, which I really take to mean better sidewalks, better bike lanes, better transit service, not just a local bus service but also a kind of regional high capacity transit service, is more strongly supported at local level than it is at state level, and the interesting thing about that fact is that if you talk to folks at state level they are very interested in sustainability and they are very interested in the environment and they want to do all those things. [But] there’s disconnect there between those decisions and desires and the on the ground -- decisions being made about our transportation and infrastructure. So there’s a pressure there on how do we maintain our competitiveness in the economic sense, how do we move freight, how do we move people, how do we not inform our constituents everyday that the traffic is our number one problem here in the state (Personal interview, September, 2007).

Final thoughts NUEP seems to ‘fit’ comfortably alongside NUP and cultures of urban competitiveness Urban growth elites want to join “race to the top” and demonstrate climate change leadership (e.g. London and the Olympics) Role of the state crucial (e.g. Obama urban policy and “cap and trade” emissions regulation) But beware of liberal reformist views (Walker and Large, 1975) The global and local geographies of the city do matter – spatial variations in oil-dependence and energy-extensive urban forms Opportunities to reconnect the politics of urban development and the living place New counter-cultural low-carbon urban alliances and coalitions are possible