Urban sustainability
A third area where mobilization offers potential to contribute to the processes of
green transformation concerns urban sustainability. In both the global North and
South, movements have articulated approaches to addressing both specific sustain -
ability challenges associated with urban living and growth, and roles for towns and
cities in broader green transformations (Mapes and Wolch, 2011).
For example, the Transition movement aims to mobilize community action
and foster public empowerment and engagement around climate change, with the
objective of catalyzing a transition to a low-carbon economy (www.transitiontowns.
org). The idea originated in 2005 in Northern Ireland when a permaculture teacher,
Rob Hopkins, initiated a community-designed ‘Energy Descent Action Plan’ for
the town of Kinsale, with practical steps geared to reducing carbon emissions and
preparing for a future post-cheap oil (Seyfang and Haxeltine, 2012). Described
by their founder as ‘an emerging and evolving approach to community-level
sustainability’ (Hopkins, 2008, p134), local Transition initiatives have multiplied
and by 2013 there were 1,130 registered in 43 countries – largely in Europe, North
America, Australia and New Zealand (www.transitionnetwork.org/initiatives).
Some unite towns, while others are constituted in parts of larger cities.
Transition initiatives typically combine a range of practical activities, from local
energy generation, food production, farmers’ markets, community gardening,
composting and seed exchanges, through to local currencies, designing and building
eco-housing, recycling and repair schemes, car-sharing, skills-sharing and self-help
groups. Each initiative develops its own series of plans and activities through a
community-led process. Yet uniting these are a set of common framings. These
include the development of alternative lifestyles and systems of provisioning that
reject consumerism and enable a low-carbon existence. The aim is to demonstrate
practical, positive solutions in the here and now, and so encourage people to shift
their consumption patterns towards this ‘post-oil’ model.
Such initiatives emphasize collective action and capabilities at the community
level. Yet there are major contrasts in terms of identity and culture. Far from being
a movement of (and advocating inclusion of) the poor, participation in Transition
Town initiatives tends to be strongly middle class (Seyfang and Haxeltine, 2012).
Transition Town initiatives largely eschew political engagement. Rather than
campaign for political changes that might bring about transformations towards
low-carbon futures, challenge dominant regimes or engage in oppositional politics
with powerful political or business players, the emphasis remains on positive,
community-level demonstration of a ‘niche’ that can replace dominant patterns
when, as is assumed, they wither away. While some see this as a valuable way of
doing politics, fostering ‘critical emancipation’ (Scott-Cato and Hillier, 2010) and
penetrating ‘under the radar’ of existing political conflicts (Hopkins, 2008), others
critique it as naive, limited and leaving the movement vulnerable to co-option
(Chatterton and Cutler, 2008; Connors and McDonald, 2011).
Mobilizing for green transformations 127
A third area where mobilization offers potential to contribute to the processes of
green transformation concerns urban sustainability. In both the global North and
South, movements have articulated approaches to addressing both specific sustain -
ability challenges associated with urban living and growth, and roles for towns and
cities in broader green transformations (Mapes and Wolch, 2011).
For example, the Transition movement aims to mobilize community action
and foster public empowerment and engagement around climate change, with the
objective of catalyzing a transition to a low-carbon economy (www.transitiontowns.
org). The idea originated in 2005 in Northern Ireland when a permaculture teacher,
Rob Hopkins, initiated a community-designed ‘Energy Descent Action Plan’ for
the town of Kinsale, with practical steps geared to reducing carbon emissions and
preparing for a future post-cheap oil (Seyfang and Haxeltine, 2012). Described
by their founder as ‘an emerging and evolving approach to community-level
sustainability’ (Hopkins, 2008, p134), local Transition initiatives have multiplied
and by 2013 there were 1,130 registered in 43 countries – largely in Europe, North
America, Australia and New Zealand (www.transitionnetwork.org/initiatives).
Some unite towns, while others are constituted in parts of larger cities.
Transition initiatives typically combine a range of practical activities, from local
energy generation, food production, farmers’ markets, community gardening,
composting and seed exchanges, through to local currencies, designing and building
eco-housing, recycling and repair schemes, car-sharing, skills-sharing and self-help
groups. Each initiative develops its own series of plans and activities through a
community-led process. Yet uniting these are a set of common framings. These
include the development of alternative lifestyles and systems of provisioning that
reject consumerism and enable a low-carbon existence. The aim is to demonstrate
practical, positive solutions in the here and now, and so encourage people to shift
their consumption patterns towards this ‘post-oil’ model.
Such initiatives emphasize collective action and capabilities at the community
level. Yet there are major contrasts in terms of identity and culture. Far from being
a movement of (and advocating inclusion of) the poor, participation in Transition
Town initiatives tends to be strongly middle class (Seyfang and Haxeltine, 2012).
Transition Town initiatives largely eschew political engagement. Rather than
campaign for political changes that might bring about transformations towards
low-carbon futures, challenge dominant regimes or engage in oppositional politics
with powerful political or business players, the emphasis remains on positive,
community-level demonstration of a ‘niche’ that can replace dominant patterns
when, as is assumed, they wither away. While some see this as a valuable way of
doing politics, fostering ‘critical emancipation’ (Scott-Cato and Hillier, 2010) and
penetrating ‘under the radar’ of existing political conflicts (Hopkins, 2008), others
critique it as naive, limited and leaving the movement vulnerable to co-option
(Chatterton and Cutler, 2008; Connors and McDonald, 2011).
Mobilizing for green transformations 127