Pragmatic Justifications for the Sustainable City

Acting in the common place

Meg Holden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138121102
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317309482
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

What can justice and sustainability mean, pragmatically speaking, in today's cities? Can justice be the basis on which the practices of city building rely? Can this recognition constitute sustainability in city building, from a pragmatic perspective? Today, we are faced with a mountain of reasons to lose hope in any prospect of moving closer to justice and sustainability from our present position in civilization.

Pragmatic Justifications for the Sustainable City: Acting in the Common Place offers a critical and philosophical approach to revaluating the way in which we think and talk about the "sustainable city" to ensure that we neither lose the thread of our urban history, nor the means to live well amidst diversity of all kinds. By building and rebuilding better habits of urban thinking, this book promotes the reconstruction of moral thinking, paving the way for a new urban sustainability model of justice.

Utilizing multidisciplinary case studies and building upon anti-foundationalist principles, this book offers a pragmatic interpretation of sustainable development concepts within our emerging global urban context and will be a valuable resource for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as academics and professionals in the areas of urban and planning policy, sociology, and urban and environmental geography.

Part I

Our starting point for urban sustainability and justice

1 Our starting point

Sustainability and justice made urban

What can justice and sustainability mean, pragmatically speaking, in today’s cities? Can justice be the basis on which the practices of city building rely? Can this recognition constitute sustainability in city building, from a pragmatic perspective? Today, we are faced with a mountain of reasons to lose hope in any prospect of moving closer to justice and sustainability from our present position in civilization. But from the philosophically pragmatic approach that we adopt in this book, despair is not an option. Instead, what we attempt here is to take stock of the demand for sustainability and justice within a growing awareness of the globally dominant trends of urbanization. We will consider the critical urban scholarship that warns us about the ways in which finding hope in contemporary urban trends is dangerous. Specifically, critical urban scholarship warns us about three traps in the contemporary celebration of prospects for justice and sustainability in cities: (1) the local trap; (2) the empowerment trap; and (3) the community trap.

The warnings are well advised, but we will consider how bringing the resources of pragmatic thinking to bear on the trappings of urbanism today can change the equation. With a mix of reasoning from philosophical, sociological, and urban studies bases, cases and anecdotes, we will propose that some key reasons for hope sit with urbanism today. We build a case, in short, that some uniquely urban values can take root today, offering promise to move us toward sustainability justice.

First, urbanites today give value to an individualist authenticity that, for all its vanity and obsessive qualities, also opens up a willingness to engage with diverse others. Because contemporary urbanity values an individualist sense of self-determination and life planning, radically uprooted from any sense of given foundations, urbanites also have the potential to develop better habits of tolerance of diverse lifestyles and perspectives.

Second, today’s successful cities may mock the prospect of any quintessential utopia devised from above, in advance, but urbanites have not given up on crafting their own versions of utopia. In generating a willingness among urbanites to engage with one another in piecemeal ways to create partial, experimental, fleeting utopian projects and alternatives, the city includes a pragmatic utopian vision that also serves to empower those who engage in crafting and carrying out these experiments.

Third, and finally, the appeal of the city today raises the spectre of risk as a value, that offers rewards to those willing to engage. Demonstrating resilience in the face of risk, rather than simply seeking security, suggests an opening-up of options to consider new possibilities, new prospects, new arrangements to favour community worth and wellbeing beyond market determinations.

There is no question that the celebration of the city for its creativity, its flexibility, its potential to mix people together and save resources and energy as never before, far out-reaches what cities have actually delivered in these respects. At the same time, in this book, we will argue from a pragmatic perspective that these failed expectations need not be the end of the story. Together, the move toward a uniquely urban authenticity, the move toward a level of engagement and local experimentation in common and in public space, and the move toward an embrace of resilience that rewards the risk of rearranging our positions and perspectives, constitute contemporary urban values that may yet be put to the service of justice and sustainability.

The new notion of urban justice that I craft in this book draws from the philosophy of American pragmatism, principally that of John Dewey, William James, Charles S. Peirce, and Jane Addams, as well as the French school of pragmatism of engagement based at l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales, with Laurent Thévenot and Luc Boltanski. In very brief outline, the pragmatic construct of justice that I will offer is based upon a morality of engagement with the city, and drawing out a series of different modes of engagement with the city in public as well as quasi-public, familiar spaces. Thévenot considers it a mistake to distinguish the meaning of the French “justice” (justice) and “justesse” (aptness, appropriateness) – following the same line of thinking, we will present an understanding of how “justification” can be approached as another way of thinking of the action that is demanded of us if we are to move in the direction of “justice.”

In contemporary cities, which by their very nature are open to a diversity of perspectives, lifestyles, and choices, we can start by considering an ordinary sense of justice. We can begin with a basic sense of urban democracy, of an ethic of civic and moral association in social spaces. The justice and sustainability that we are bound to try and generate today are plural and demand an articulation in community, in the public sphere, via action in common that depends crucially on context but also crucially upon habit. This understanding of justice as engagement and justification within a distinctly urban context of diversity and democratic as well as sustainability aspirations, can be argued from a pragmatic basis.

To begin our search for the city that is acting in the direction of sustainability and justice, we start with the ordinary sense of justice and the populist sense of sustainability. We start with the exercise of a “mental fly-over” or an imaginary omniscient gaze upon a city in a state of exception. We pretend for a moment to have a fulsome view of the diversity of perspectives on justice and sustainability in a city in which governmental and behavioural norms have been called off, for a brief time. Our starting point, then, is Quebec City, a fortified city, once built to ensure security for those within from threats that came from beyond. Entry to the old city of Quebec is limited to a winding, reinforced road up the steep hillside, which is also icy for the long winter, which lasts from November to April, sometimes longer. We will imagine the streets of this old city filled with seekers of justice and sustainability, because the city is hosting a meeting of world leaders to make joint progress toward these goals. We will not concern ourselves with the formal political endeavours in which the leaders themselves are engaging. We put this work to one side, and instead look to the streets, mobilized because of the impetus of this meeting toward an ordinary sense of justice and populist sense of sustainability. Just what is it that this community can be considered to be working on, and how?

The city in a state of exception

On the day of our observation of the social life and justifications operating in this city, the city is in a state of exception. The city is host, we will imagine, to heads of state, leaders of international organizations, and civil society organizations, and the unaffiliated justice-seekers and sustainability-seekers of the world for an unprecedented meeting of the Forum for Progress and World Future. Quebec City has been transformed from its picturesque, simulacrum of a fortified town of older, forgotten times and stands up now to its old functional fortified structure, with controlled and narrow entry and exit (some would say that it was chosen as host city for this very reason). On this first day of the Forum, what are intended to be three days of intensive multilateral meetings among an unprecedented, flat network-of-networks of heads of state, heads of international economic and nongovernmental organizations, heads of city and regional governments, and a parallel meeting of civil society organizations, the justice-seekers of the world – those with the means and the ability to travel – have converged on the narrow, cobbled streets of Old Quebec to express the need for change, as they see it, and as they see fit to advance it.

The day begins with a large public march up the Rue de la Couronne to Old Quebec. The delegates continue from here into the official meeting halls to begin formal negotiations. There are seven meeting halls operating on the first day, with one allocated for each continent (subsequent days will organize the different meeting halls thematically – the second day, and generationally – the third and final day). We, however, will stay in the street, where many thousands of people hungry for progress and a view to world future remain, representing a wide range of agendas from the personal to the global, and advancing them via every route imaginable, from offering services, to selling products, to performing, to engaging in dialogue and other information-sharing activities.

Beginning near the base of the hill climb, early in the day, there is a tent. It is full of people, of many ages, many appearances, and many languages. Tarps, sleeping bags and reusable water containers are piled up in one corner. In another sits a first aid station bearing a red cross, a red crescent, and a red Om. First aid attendants are offering to add vinegar to anyone’s water bottle to counteract the tear gas, for later on. A bank of interpreters is seated along the back of the tent, whispering into their headphones. In addition to headphones for the speakers on stage, there are secure mobile communication devices to loan, quantum encrypted, with a piece of collateral taken as deposit. A woman with glossy dark hair and a black leather jacket is the master of ceremonies. She is flanked by a French Canadian comedian wearing a capitalist clown outfit. They are talking about the merits of forming affinity groups at this early stage in the protest event.

A murmur of disgust can be heard from a young person, in a black hood: “We are not acting in partnership! We are militants, in our streets that belong to us!”

Some of the crowd is listening to what is happening on stage, some are pamphleting, some caucusing in small groups, helping one another with masks and bandanas, some are preparing signs and banners, some are bursting into song –

L’eau est la vie et la vie n’a pas de prix! [Water is life and life has no price!]

Perhaps connected to this song, perhaps from a different starting point altogether, a long silk river dragon puppet winds its way through the tent, a centipede of feet underneath supporting it, making sounds like running water and continuing its journey outside.

We slip out of the tent too, and begin our climb. Stations and groupings of people line the way, some seated cross-legged, some standing, some snaking their way up the hill along with us. The crowd is gathering, the sense of energy coalescing is palpable. Bicycle helmets and thermoses and all manner of other objects are serving as drums. A beautiful woman with very long hair and feathers drums slowly and sings as if she might never have to stop – “If my body swallowed my tears; if my body swallowed my blood.” Ad infinitum.

Some boutiques, shops, and cafés remain open, their curious, enthusiastic, or concerned shop keepers in the doorway, observing the scene as it unfolds. Some are taking deliveries of boards to put up over the shop windows. Young families, small groups of hapless tourists, and a few Quebecois in fashionable clothes, out looking for cocktails or cigarettes, are slipping in and out of the shops, still. A young woman in black walks by them, carrying a hand-made sign that says: “Citoyen ou esclave? Par où la démocratie?” [Citizen or slave? Which way is democracy?]

One hungry local gets turned away from his favourite café, in the process of boarding up its façade, and exclaims: “But everything is closed! This is insane!”

The seagulls are getting anxious, also. One can be heard shrieking: “Agh! Shoot me!”

Teenage boys and girls, or maybe they are older but only look young because they are dressed as cheerleaders, flash pom poms and batons and jump around in a mockery of formation. A gawky guy in the front is calling out gleefully, with a chorus to call back to him:

– I don’t wanna work no more!

– This is what we’re fighting for!

– So go ahead, let’s smash the state!

– Wouldn’t that be really great?

Nearing the top of the hill, there is a final turn-off, where the parades end up, and where those ready for confrontation veer toward the fence, and the parliament buildings behind it, where the formal meetings are being held. There is a traffic signal, with two young men swinging from it. A sign reads: “Gauche pour la démocratie” [Turn left for democracy] with an arrow pointing toward the front.

A young woman snaps photos while furiously spinning around in every direction, at this intersection. “Don’t forget, it is images that win the war,” she explains intensely to her friend.

At the front line, almost all are clad in black, though nearly every flag imaginable, nation-state or otherwise, appears to be represented, held high by someone. And the raging grannies, notably unmasked, dressed in old-fashioned pastel gowns from their ruffled necks to their petticoat ankles, their gray and white hair done neatly in buns and bonnets. A heavy fence stands 12 feet tall, with some people attaching flowers, or ribbons, or paper messages, or love locks, and some climbing up and then being prodded off. Behind the fence, the prodders, a phalynx of riot police waits to lay leaden hands on more protesters, ready to receive word to lob a canister of tear gas, fire a rubber bullet, make way for the water cannon, or whatever other strategy might be next in the protocol.

“Libérez-vous!” [Free yourselves!] the front-line people shout at the police through the fence. “Sautez le mur!” [Jump the wall!]

“Attention!” is called. It comes from the police on the other side. We look up, and a protester has thrown a 750-ml plastic water bottle high into the air. It falls down on the other side. Pop.

Off to one side, a young woman, backpack and heavy boots, asks a nicely dressed older woman, first, if she speaks English, next, if she knows what is happening. “Oui, c’est ma ville,” [Yes, this is my city], the older woman replies.

Crack.

Screams go out and a big crowd thunders back down hill, at first frantically, then with many hollering – “Don’t run! Just walk!” They are coughing; many are scrambling to the dwindling snowbanks, grabbing fists full of snow to soothe their eyes. The first canisters of tear gas have been lobbed at the front lines of the assembled protesters. The first aid helpers appear, with their squeeze bottles and their cotton cloths to soothe stinging eyes and throats. The retreat ceases. Many can be seen donning their masks, goggles, scarves, and other coverings, and more bodies fill in the gaps heading back toward the front line. Red flags, some with “ya basta” emblazened on them, flood the streets and provide the next wave.

The same older francophone woman finds the same young woman after this big movement has happened, and asks her, with a shake in her voice: “Ils ont tiré dessus?” [Did they fire at them?]

– FPWP – what does it spell? No rights!

On the roadway, while the path is cleared during a wave of retreat, someone has chalked the message: “We are on the right side of the wall.” And someone else has added: “But not for long.”

A new scene marching through: a group in formation, wearing black and grey suits with drawings of dollar bills and bar codes sealing their mouths, walking in choreographed synchronicity, and a large marionette pulling up the rear.

A tall blonde man looks at his taller, blonder son, with wild eyes, and rests a hand on his shoulder momentarily, to tell him: “When I called your mother last night, I told her I realize now that I’ve missed my calling for 30 years! I always knew I was an anarchist, but I never knew how much I would love acting on it!”

Just a few paces away from this pair stands an older man, in glasses, thinking that he perhaps will be diagnosed with throat cancer when his lab results come back. Thinking about his second home, a cottage in the woods, that he has worked hard to secure as a refuge for his private thoughts. Perhaps in the future for his convalescence, maybe his final days. Maybe a place where his children might come to see him one last time. And weighing the likely personal consequences of his activism. Particularly in that after his last protest experience, if he gets arrested again and if an interested party chooses to push forward with a large lawsuit, he might not be able to maintain his mortgage.

There is dancing too, in pockets of land carved out from the hillside, decorated with decades of graffiti, adorned with all manner of propaganda, body painting stations, and with DJs spinning records and Hare Krishnas cooking and serving plates of vegan food. They are a band of spindly change agents moving wildly, kicking up dirt and snow, passing around drugs and bottles of beer. And, as the sun sets, the contrast of this saturnalia with the scene at the top of the city, the mob of black-clad people still hanging on to the front line, some carrying torches, some throwing colourful flares, and each new gas canister launched catching the colour of the flare and making it spread further and last longer.

– This is what democracy looks like! Chants one group, clapping rhythmically.

– This is not what democracy looks like. Spits an individual in disgust, turning her back on them.

Two people hold a banner up between them that reads: “Inequality is unacceptable.” A third person hands out slips of blue paper imprinted with dense text that begins with the question: “How can we decrease social distance in our communities, in our world? This should be the goal of all social policy. Surely we can all agree to this.” It continues, half in English, half in Swedish.

A pair of men can be seen crumpling up small blue squares of paper and throwing them down at their feet. One says to his partner: “Equality is unacceptable, without reward and incentive, we lose all the motive force of our movement. We need only to foster greater motivation.”

A local man stands within sight of the front line, watching the line of riot police. “Ceci ne vous inquiète pas?” [Doesn’t all this worry you?] a visitor asks him, backing up slowly as the riot police advanced.

“Inquiet? Non,” he replies, n...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• PART I: Our starting point for urban sustainability and justice
• PART II: An urban way forward in a pragmatic view
• Index