IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v55y2018i4p702-719.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Enhancing urban autonomy: Towards a new political project for cities

Author

Listed:
  • Harriet Bulkeley

    (Durham University, UK)

  • Andrés Luque-Ayala

    (Durham University, UK)

  • Colin McFarlane

    (Durham University, UK)

  • Gordon MacLeod

    (Durham University, UK)

Abstract

As the 21st Century world assumes an increasingly urban landscape, the question of how definitive urban spaces are to be governed intensifies. At the heart of this debate lies a question about the degree and type of autonomy that towns and cities might have in shaping their economic, environmental, social and cultural geography. This paper aims to examine this question. Starting with the premise that the degree of autonomy any particular town or city has is inherently an empirical question – one which can only be conceptualised in relational terms vis-à -vis the distributed, networked and territorialised responsibilities and powers of the city and the nation-state and other zones of connection – we examine four different contexts where debates over autonomy have intensified in recent history (Brazil, UK, India and South Africa). Drawing on recent respective histories, we identify key elements and enablers in the making of urban autonomy: a characteristic that exists in a variety of guises and forms and creates a patchwork landscape of differentially powerful fragments. We reveal how, beyond its characteristic as a political ideal, autonomy surfaces as a practice that emerges from within specific sectors of particular societies and through their relationship with national and regional politics. Four alternative forms of urban autonomy are delineated: fragmented, coerced (or enclave), distributed and networked. We contend that the spatial templates for autonomy are not predetermined but can be enhanced in multiple different sites and forms of political space within the city. This enhancement appears essential for the integration and strengthening of capacities for sustainable and just forms of development throughout the urban.

Suggested Citation

  • Harriet Bulkeley & Andrés Luque-Ayala & Colin McFarlane & Gordon MacLeod, 2018. "Enhancing urban autonomy: Towards a new political project for cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(4), pages 702-719, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:55:y:2018:i:4:p:702-719
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098016663836
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098016663836
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098016663836?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. Leonie Janssen-Jansen & Thomas Hutton, 2011. "Rethinking the Metropolis: Reconfiguring the Governance Structures of the Twenty-first-century City-region," International Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 201-215.
    2. Jennifer Robinson, 2016. "Comparative Urbanism: New Geographies and Cultures of Theorizing the Urban," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 187-199, January.
    3. Lawrence Pratchett, 2004. "Local Autonomy, Local Democracy and the 'New Localism'," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 52, pages 358-375, June.
    4. Merle Sowman & A. L. Brown, 2006. "Mainstreaming environmental sustainability into South Africa's integrated development planning process," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(5), pages 695-712.
    5. Yves Sintomer & Carsten Herzberg & Anja Röcke, 2008. "Participatory Budgeting in Europe: Potentials and Challenges," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 164-178, March.
    6. D. Asher Ghertner, 2011. "Gentrifying the State, Gentrifying Participation: Elite Governance Programs in Delhi," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 504-532, May.
    7. Gianpaolo Baiocchi, 2001. "Participation, Activism, and Politics: The Porto Alegre Experiment and Deliberative Democratic Theory," Politics & Society, , vol. 29(1), pages 43-72, March.
    8. Andy Merrifield, 2013. "The Urban Question under Planetary Urbanization," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 909-922, May.
    9. Lawrence Pratchett, 2004. "Local Autonomy, Local Democracy and the ‘New Localism’," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 52(2), pages 358-375, June.
    10. Iain Deas, 2013. "Towards Post-political Consensus in Urban Policy? Localism and the Emerging Agenda for Regeneration Under the Cameron Government," Planning Practice & Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 65-82, February.
    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. Nir Mualam & Nir Barak, 2019. "Evaluating Comparative Research: Mapping and Assessing Current Trends in Built Heritage Studies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-27, January.
    2. Sigrun Kabisch & Göran Finnveden & Petr Kratochvil & Richard Sendi & Marta Smagacz-Poziemska & Rafaela Matos & Jonas Bylund, 2019. "New Urban Transitions towards Sustainability: Addressing SDG Challenges (Research and Implementation Tasks and Topics from the Perspective of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the Joint Programmi," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-10, April.

    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. Grillos, Tara, 2017. "Participatory Budgeting and the Poor: Tracing Bias in a Multi-Staged Process in Solo, Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 343-358.
    2. Philip Catney & John M Henneberry, 2016. "Public entrepreneurship and the politics of regeneration in multi-level governance," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(7), pages 1324-1343, November.
    3. Philipp Horn & Diana Mitlin & Jhono Bennett & Beth Chitekwe-Biti & Jack Makau, 2018. "Towards citywide participatory planning: emerging community-led practices in three African cities," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 342018, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    4. John Sturzaker & Michael Gordon, 2017. "Democratic tensions in decentralised planning – Rhetoric, legislation and reality in England," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(7), pages 1324-1339, November.
    5. Jung, Hoyong, 2022. "Voter Turnout Effects on Local Public Finance and Legislation: Evidence from South Korea," Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 63(1), pages 1-23, June.
    6. Jin Lee, 2021. "New Localism in the Neoliberal Era: Local District Response to Voluntary Open-School Markets in Ohio," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, June.
    7. Kimiora Raerino & Alex Macmillan & Adrian Field & Rau Hoskins, 2021. "Local-Indigenous Autonomy and Community Streetscape Enhancement: Learnings from Māori and Te Ara Mua—Future Streets Project," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-17, January.
    8. Alibegović Dubravka Jurlina & Hodžić Sabina & Bečić Emira, 2019. "The Level of Fiscal Autonomy: Evidence from Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina," NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 12(1), pages 91-112, June.
    9. J Miguel Kanai & Richard Grant & Radu Jianu, 2018. "Cities on and off the map: A bibliometric assessment of urban globalisation research," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(12), pages 2569-2585, September.
    10. Yaniv Reingewertz & Itai Beeri, 2018. "How effective is central enforcement? Evidence from convened committees in failing local authorities," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(2), pages 357-380, March.
    11. Thaneshwar Bhusal & Keshav Kumar Acharya, 2024. "Five years of local democracy in federal Nepal (2017–2022)," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(2), May.
    12. Wendy Godek, 2021. "Food sovereignty policies and the quest to democratize food system governance in Nicaragua," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 38(1), pages 91-105, February.
    13. Barbara Lipietz, 2008. "Building a Vision for the Post‐Apartheid City: What Role for Participation in Johannesburg's City Development Strategy?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 135-163, March.
    14. Fiseha Assefa, 2020. "Local Level Decentralization in Ethiopia: Case Study of Tigray Regional State," The Law and Development Review, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 95-126, January.
    15. Allen J. Scott, 2022. "The constitution of the city and the critique of critical urban theory," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(6), pages 1105-1129, May.
    16. Sergio Montero & Gianpaolo Baiocchi, 2022. "A posteriori comparisons, repeated instances and urban policy mobilities: What ‘best practices’ leave behind," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(8), pages 1536-1555, June.
    17. Andrew Clarke & Lynda Cheshire, 2018. "The post-political state? The role of administrative reform in managing tensions between urban growth and liveability in Brisbane, Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(16), pages 3545-3562, December.
    18. Cuenca Botey, Luis Emilio & Célérier, Laure, 2023. "On the relentless labour of deconstructing domination logics: The case of decolonial critical accounting research in South America," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    19. Carolyn Prouse, 2023. "Living otherwise in uncertain and speculative times," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(2), pages 517-523, March.
    20. van Wijk, Michel & van Bueren, Ellen & te Brömmelstroet, Marco, 2014. "Governing structures for airport regions: Learning from the rise and fall of the ‘Bestuursforum’ in the Schiphol airport region," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 139-150.

    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:55:y:2018:i:4:p:702-719. 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.