Urban Thinker

Eco-Bling

Some 1000 firms showed their ware at 'ecobuild', a three day commercial exhibition at Earls Court London (2-4 March 2010). Spectacular green walls stood out literally, some vernacular design solutions attracted potential clients, some new technologies were brought to market while some products were repackaged in green. Not surprisingly, the focus was on housing where government measures, many of them originating in EU directives, have to be applied. The UK is joining countries with long standing eco-credentials like Germany and Scandinavia and that has to be welcome; nevertheless ecobuild reminded a clamber onto a bandwagon which is already running at a racy speed.

ecobuild audience

An impressive amount of star studded seminars and public arenas were debating issues connected with more eco-friendly living, working and playing. They ranged from technical information about applying eco-friendly materials to new and existing buildings, deliberations of codes and standards, scrutiny of pay back economics to the role of business in driving the eco-industry forward, including opportunities of international markets.

ecodebate at ecobuild

Broader issues were also addressed, such as future energy and water, 'climate change justice', as well as defining sustainable communities, and the impact of an aging population on the planet's resources. A new aesthetic of green architecture became a mainstream concern, encompassing traditional low tech and high tech eco-design solutions, and interestingly exploring bio-mimicry in design. A fringe was promoting localism, growing food in cities, learning from place and devising blue and green infrastructure, skills required to deliver and use low energy buildings, in short a step toward  'one planet' living.

Ecobuild 2010 showed that sustainability has moved into the UK market place: "it's at the heart of our industry" says the Chartered Institute of Building. The question is how to maintain the momentum of this energy flowing into 'eco-efforts'. Will industry take the lead? Will they cooperate with academe, the many professional institutions  which staked out their concern and commitment at ecobuild? Most crucially, will they be able to persuade you and I to change our behaviour and act more eco-consciously? (posted 05/03/10)

Liberalism  and Power

With the national elections approaching, the legitimisation of power is on the ascent. Too rarely  the politicians need to justify their powers of representation to the electorate, the time is now. Liberalism  - rooted in the history of British thinkers such Locke, Hume, Smith, Mill, Bentham, Russel to name but a few - has become the reference of dealing with power: distribution of power for the lib dems, redistribution of power for the conservatives and devolution of power for labour -  words not necessarily in deeds.

As all things utilitarian, they need to be qualitified. So how to measure power? Demos, a London based think tank has produced a Power Gap Map. http://www.demos.co.uk/

Dan Leighton, considers power the biggest divide in contemporary society ( 10/11/09, Demos event). It is arguable whether a reductionist approach of a 'power index' based on a small number of predetermined components of  'power' localised in electoral constituencies is providing solace to powerless constituents. Is it surprising that the index shows concentration of power in rich areas, the Home Counties and is lacking in many parts in England north of the Watford gap? Has such a measure the generalising authority to pronounce on power relations? Or does its normative ancestry limit it to assumptions such as the freedom of individual choice or the largest happiness for the largest number?

Power as Process

Alternative approaches rooted in deductive rationalism rest on different no less valid assumptions. Power is embedded in vertical relation between layers of resolution and horizontal relations between agencies. Instead of the dichotomy between the state and the individual this implies continuous power struggles between competing agencies and human groupings of various sizes and at various levels etc. together with temporary allegiances motivated by shared interests or common opponents. Manuel Castells' definition of power as 'the most fundamental process in society' differs from the utilitarian view of power as an attribute. For Castells in his study of Communication Power (2009 Oxford University Press)  the relational capacity of power is conditioned (not determined) by the structural capacity of domination. In his view there is never absolute power and always a possibility of resistence to call power relationships into question, despite some compliance and acceptance by those subjected to power. Violence and discourse are the two main mechanisms of power formation which are complementary and lend each other reciprocal support (standpoints shared with Foucault, Weber, Habermas and other non anglo-saxon thinkers).

Globalisation has led to fundamental rethinking of power relations and some of the outcomes could well broaden the debate beyond the rebirth of liberalism (invoked in Richard Reeve's lecture on liberalism and morality at UCL 26/11/09, see You Tube video) as an assumed solution to today's moral and societal problems in the UK. (posted 12/02/10)

Freedom and scarcity

There are connections between power and freedom. Power of the market to impose scarcity, as opposed to free circulation and exchange of ideas, inventions, etc. Sharing ideas is essential for the evolution of  science and knowledge, as opposed to barriers, through patents, commodification of ideas in various guises. The area of software is ambiguous, as it lies somewhere between ideas and 'products'. Worst of all though is the separation of production and reproduction in nature, manipulating fertility out of seeds, making them sterile so that the users (especially poor farmers in the developing world) will have to pay for each new batch. Like patenting genes, what utter complete nonsense. But it corresponds to very ancient ways of privatising what used to be the commons, for example  enclosure of land previously accessible to all to feed animals or just to enjoy it. Securitising the moon to rent it to future space travellers, whatever else. How sad that the EU is going down that route, instead of opting for a commons of ideas, creativity, knowledge. (posted 08/12/09).

Cities and Fear

Cities provide opportunities for those who live there or come to work, to shop, to visit, to have fun, to do a million things. Cities are supposed to make that easy, but in many ways they act as barriers. Are they deliberate? Are they necessary? What prevents freedom of action, for what purpose? Who decides on limits, boundaries, exclusion? To whose benefit? Who is losing out?

There is a lot of talk about the confusion between crime and fear of crime. Isn't there a similar debate to be had about terrorism and the fear of terrorism, or the institutionalisation of fear with the self interests of a fear industry in its wake? The city with its concentration of people, wealth, assets, power, interests is the privileged place where these power games are being played out and where they are leaving their material marks.

For the sake of safety and security (whose is the question?) whole streets are being closed off, barriers erected around what used to be public realm. Does this do justice to the notion of urban living, of urbanity? And once these industries and their rewards are in place, their effects imprinted on the urban environment and lifestyles, can they ever be reversed? Can innocence of being, freedom of action, liberty of movement ever be regained? (posted December 2009).

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