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DOI: 10.1080/0042098032000084550 2003; 40; 1183 Urban Stud

Mark Whitehead Socio-environmental Relations in the UK

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Urban Studies, Vol. 40, No. 7, 1183–1206, 2003

(Re)Analysing the Sustainable City: Nature,Urbanisation and the Regulation ofSocio-environmental Relations in the UK

Mark Whitehead

[Paper first received, October 2001; in final form, July 2002]

Summary. The sustainable city has now become a leading paradigm of urban developmentthroughout the world. Although the practices, discourses and ideologies associated with thesustainable city have been widely disseminated, analyses of sustainable urban developmentremain surprisingly anodyne. Drawing upon the insights of regulation theory, this paper attemptsto develop a critical engagement with the sustainable city as a space of socio-ecological regulation.Focusing upon two examples of sustainable urban development in practice—the first, the struggleover work-place environments in Stoke-on-Trent; and the second, the reinsertion of nature intothe Black Country urban region—this paper explores the regulatory geography of the sustainablecity and the environmental visions and practices with which it is associated.

The city has always been an embodimentof hope and a source of festering guilt: adream pursued, and found vain, wanting,and destructive (Raban, 1988, p. 17).

The statistical arguments are now well-rehearsed; with urban areas already provid-ing a home for nearly half of the world’spopulation, within a generation it is esti-mated that the numbers living in urban com-munities will have increased by two and ahalf billion people (that is actually the samenumber of people who currently live in urbanareas) (UNCHS, 2001, p. 6). Perhaps Harvey(1996) most effectively captures the contem-porary importance of urban areas in hispoignant reflection on the urbanising logic ofthe 20th century:

The 20th century has been ‘the’ century ofurbanisation … The future of the most ofhumanity now lies, for the first time inhistory, fundamentally in urbanising areas.

The qualities of urban living in the 21stcentury will define the qualities of civilis-ation itself (Harvey, 1996, p. 403).

Whether it be in terms of the ecologicalfootprints of mega-cities or the socio-environmental injustices of urban habitatsthemselves, the sentiments of Harvey suggestthat the social, economic and environmentalconditions of humanity—found both withinand beyond the city—are now inextricablylinked to the multifaceted processes ofurbanisation.1 Drawing on the insights ofHarvey, this paper explores the ways inwhich urbanisation—understood as the criti-cal spatial dynamic in the reproduction andregulation of capitalism—is producing, man-aging and re-articulating the relationshipswhich exist between modern society and theenvironment.

Although concerns have already beenraised over the kinds of socio-environmental

Mark Whitehead is in the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, SY23 3DB, UK.Fax: 01970 622 659. E-mail: [email protected].

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relations which are being produced as partof capitalist urbanisation (see Hardoy andSatterthwaite, 1992; UNCHS, 2001), the pre-cise extent and severity of the socio-ecological problems inherent within thecontemporary urban world continue to be anobject of much debate and conjecture. De-spite this uncertainty, there does appear to bea considerable degree of consensus over howthe international political community shouldaddress the complex hybrid of social, econ-omic and ecological problems which faceurban areas. The axiomatic response at themoment is to build ‘sustainable’ cities. Giventhis overriding consensus, and in order toexplore the emerging relationship betweenurbanisation and the socio-ecological repro-duction of capitalism, this paper focusesspecifically upon the purported emergence ofsustainable cities within the UK.

The concept of the sustainable city hasgained a significant amount of political mo-mentum in Britain (see DETR, 1999a, ch. 1,1999b, 2000; DoE, 1994, ch. 26; DoE, 1990,ch. 8) and in the wider international politicalcommunity (European Commission, 1998;United Nations Centre for Human Settle-ment, 2001; World Commission on the En-vironment and Development, 1987, ch. 9)over the course of the past 15 years. Despitethe rapid proliferation of the sustainable cityideal, analyses of sustainable development inurban areas have remained surprisingly ano-dyne. In this context, this paper is particu-larly critical of the focus of contemporaryresearch on the practical implementation ofsustainable development as a policy goal (seeEuropean Commission, 1998, 1996; Hall. P,1999; Hall. T, 1998; Haughton and Hunter,1994; Mega and Petrella, 1997; Satterth-waite, 1999; Whittaker, 1995), while therehas been relatively little analysis of the sus-tainable city as an object of political contes-tation and struggle.2

In order to facilitate a broad theoreticalstudy of sustainable cities, this paper turns toa series of writings dedicated to the ideologi-cal and material relationships which existbetween cities, nature and the environment(see Boyer, 1997; Cronon, 1991; Davis,

1999; Gandy, 1996; Keil and Graham, 1999;Harvey, 1996, 2000; Smith, 1984; Swynge-douw, 1997). Drawing upon these works andthe wider theoretical insights of the regu-lation approach (see Jessop, 1990; MacLeod,1997, for reviews), this paper claims that it ispossible to developed a more concerted, criti-cal analysis of the discourses and materialpractices which are becoming synonymouswith the sustainable city. Analysis begins bycharting the emergence of the sustainablecity as an international and national politicalobjective and briefly considers the differentways in which this phenomenon has beenanalysed. In light of the apparent weaknessof traditional accounts of the sustainable city,this paper then introduces the regulation ap-proach to the analysis of social and economicchange and development. Drawing on theinsights of the regulation approach, analysisexplores the potential insights offered whenthe sustainable city is understood as part ofthe wider regularisation (or normalisation)of the socio-ecological contradictions of cap-italist urbanisation. The final section of thispaper considers two examples of the sustain-able city in practice in the UK. Drawing onresearch carried out on environmental healthreform in Stoke-on-Trent and the politics ofnature in the Black Country of the EnglishMidlands, this paper considers the ways inwhich the discourses and practices of sus-tainable development are simultaneouslydefining the problems and potential solutionsto urban development in the UK today. Inparticular, analysis considers the ways inwhich strategies for urban sustainability arebeing forged within the wider socioeconomiccontext of neo-liberal regulation and interur-ban competition in the UK (see Tickell andPeck, 1992; Peck and Tickell, 1994) and theeffects which this is having on the types ofsustainable city which are being produced.

1. Understanding the Sustainable City:Some Political and Analytical Contexts

In order to develop a critical analysis of thesustainable city, it is important initially to



(RE)ANALYSING THE SUSTAINABLE CITY 1185

Table 1. Major international and European-level policies and initiatives on sustainable urban development

Events and initiatives Year Link to sustainable city agenda

United Nations Conference on the 1972 Recommendation I—Planning and ManagementHuman Environment (UNCHE) of Human Settlements for Environmental Quality

Habitat I (Vancouver) 1976 Establishment of international programmedesigned to slow down the growth of urban areas

Establishment of United Nations 1978 Specific remit to deliver more sustainable patternsCentre for Human Settlement of living in urban and rural areas(UNCHS)

World Commission on 1987 Chapter 9 ‘The Urban Challenge’ described theEnvironment and Development need to create more sustainable urbanReport communities both in the developed and

developing worlds

United Nation’s Sustainable Cities 1990 Integration of the sustainable development remitsProgramme of the UNCHS and the United Nations

Environment Programme (UNEP)

European Commission’s Green 1990 Response by the European commission andPaper on the Urban Environment leading European cities to the perceived

neglect of urban environmental issues relative tothose of rural areas

European Commission’s Expert 1991 Independent group composed of nationalGroup on the Urban Environment representatives and experts with a remit to

consider how future town and land-use planningcould develop the urban environmental facets ofthe European Community’s EnvironmentalProgramme

United Nations Conference on 1992 Agenda 21—Chapter 2, ‘Promoting SustainableEnvironment and Development Human Settlement Development’

European Sustainable Cities 1993 Launched by the European Commission’s ExpertProgramme Panel on the Urban Environment

European Sustainable Cities 1994 Coalition of 80 urban and regional authoritiesCampaign implementing sustainable urban policies

Habitat II—‘The City Summit’ 1996 Focus upon the implementation of Local Agenda21 in urban areas

consider what a sustainable city actually is.The formal naming and prioritisation of sus-tainable urban development originated withinthe dictates of international politics (seeTable 1). The formal political construction ofthe sustainable city began in 1972 when, atthe United Nations Conference on the Hu-man Environment in Stockholm, the import-ance of developing sustainable patterns ofurbanisation was first discussed at an inter-national level. ‘Recommendation I’ of theStockholm Conference emphasised the im-portance of planning and managing humansettlements (prime among these being urban

areas) in a way that was sensitive to local andglobal environmental quality (UNEP, 2001).Following the recommendations made inStockholm, in 1978 the United Nations cre-ated the Centre for Human Settlements(UNCHS), as an agency with direct responsi-bility for building more sustainable urbanand rural communities.3 Following these keyinternational policy statements, the EuropeanUnion and the UK have created their ownprogrammes for sustainable urban develop-ment (see Tables 1 and 2).

From within these multiscalar govern-mental programmes, it is possible to derive a



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Table 2. Recent UK policies on urban sustainability

Our Towns and Cities: The Future Delivering an Urban Renaissance (DETR, 2000)

Urban Task Force report (chs. 1–2 on the urban environment) (DETR, 1999a)

A Better Quality of Life (Revised UK Sustainable Development Strategy) (DETR, 1999b)

The Single Regeneration Budget: A Guide for Partnerships (including new sustainable developmentguidelines, pp. 22–23) (DETR, 1998)

UK National Report for Habitat II (DoE, 1996)

Good practice guide on The Impacts of Environmental Improvements in Urban Regeneration (HMSO,1995)

Sustainable Development: The UK Strategy (ch. 26 ‘Town and Country’) (DoE, 1994)

This Common Inheritance: Britain’s Environmental Strategy (ch. 8 ‘Towns and Cities’) (HMSO, 1990)

sense of what the sustainable city actually is.According to the United Nations SustainableCities Programme, a sustainable city is

a city where achievements in social, econ-omic, and physical development are madeto last. A Sustainable City has a lastingsupply of the natural resources on whichits development depends (using them onlyat a level of sustainable yield). A Sustain-able City maintains a lasting security fromenvironmental hazards which may threatendevelopment achievements (allowing onlyfor acceptable risk) (UNCHS/UNEP,2001, p. 1).

According to the United Nations, the sustain-able city constitutes a new moral space,where social values are transformed andmore durable social, economic and ecologi-cal relations are established. Echoing the sen-timents of the United Nations, the EuropeanCommission, as part of its own SustainableCities Programme, suggests that the sustain-able city is an urban space which is modelledupon the precepts, patterns and rules of na-ture

Sustainable urban management shouldchallenge the problems both caused andexperienced by cities, recognising that cit-ies themselves provide many potential so-lutions, instead of shifting problems toother spatial scales or shifting them tofuture generations. The organisational pat-terns and administrative systems of munic-

ipalities should adopt the holistic approachof ecosystems thinking. Integration, co-operation, homeostasis, subsidiarity andsynergy are key concepts for managementtowards sustainable development (Euro-pean Commission, 1996, p. 10)

In light of the progressive language evidentwithin the official orthodoxies of sustainableurban development, it appears that the sus-tainable city is as much a political vision orsocial ideal—incorporating its own moral ge-ography and forms of ecological praxis—asit is a tangible object, or location on a map.

In light of the wide range of initiatives andassociated meanings and hopes which areattached to sustainable urban development,this paper adopts a multifaceted and rela-tional understanding of the sustainable city.Consequently, rather than accepting a prede-termined definition of the sustainable city, orfocusing upon the objects or environmentalartefacts which have traditionally been asso-ciated with the sustainable city (green lungs,eco-technologies, community gardens, clear-air zones), this paper attempts to understandsustainable cities in terms of the complexarray of ideas, discourses, material practicesand political struggles through which theyare produced and reproduced (see Harvey,1996; Smith, 1999). In this way, the sustain-able city is seen as a complex hybrid ofsocial, economic, political and ecologicalforms, which are continually articulated and




rearticulated within specific spatial contextsand through particular historical struggles(Swyngedouw, 1997). But how can this newurban phenomenon be understood and, moreimportantly, how can its potential as a strat-egy for future socio-environmental develop-ment be critically interrogated?

2. Analysing and Re-analysing the Sus-tainable City: A Regulation Approach toSustainable Urban Development

2.1 Existing Approaches to the Analysis ofthe Sustainable City

Numerous authors have already attempted tointerpret the complex issues surrounding theideal of the sustainable city (see Blowers andPain, 1999; Hardoy and Satterthwaite, 1992;Haughton and Hunter, 1994; Lawrence,1996; Marcuse, 1998; Mega, 1996; Satterth-waite, 1997, 1999; Swyngedouw and Kaı̈ka,2000). While offering important insights intothe nascent political struggles and problemsassociated with sustainable urban develop-ment, many of these analyses have failed todevelop an effective critique of the sustain-able city. The problems associated withmany existing accounts of the sustainablecity can be divided in two broad areas: theempirical focus of their analyses of sustain-able urban development; and, their reificationof the sustainable city as an ontological ob-ject.

In the first instance, a preponderance ofcontemporary work on the sustainable cityfocuses upon the practical, political im-plementation of sustainable urban develop-ment (see Hall, 2001; Haughton and Hunter,1994; Gilbert et al., 1996; Mega, 1996; Megaand Petrella, 1997; Pearce, 1994). While it isimportant to consider the daunting practicalissues which do confront the effective im-plementation of sustainable development inurban areas, such work has tended to reduceanalysis of sustainable urban development toa technical matter of institutional restructur-ing, traffic management, architectural designand the development of green technologies.By focusing upon the local operational

efficiency of sustainable development in dif-ferent urban milieux, accounts of the sustain-able city have also become increasinglyparochial, with little sense of the wider pol-itical, economic and ecological forces whichflow through such cities (see Rabinovitch,1992).

The second, and interrelated, problem withcontemporary work on sustainable urban de-velopment is the tendency to treat the sus-tainable city as an ontologically pre-givenobject (see Haughton and Hunter, 1994;Gilbert et al., 1996). In this sense, analysestend to assume the prior existence of a thingcalled a sustainable, or indeed an unsustain-able, city and ignore the complex discursiveprocesses and socio-political strugglesthrough which sustainable cities are pro-duced. The reification of the sustainable cityin this way tends to give a neutral, almostapolitical, veneer to sustainable cities andconceals the asymmetries of power whichinform the social construction of urban sus-tainability. This paper asserts that sustainablecities are never finished objects—whether asideological visions/blueprints or materialartefacts—but are rather in a constant state ofbecoming.

In light of these criticisms, the remainderof this section explores the ways in which aregulationist reading of the sustainable citycan enhance understanding of this new urbanphenomenon and provide a more meaningfulcritique of this hegemonic paradigm ofmetropolitan development.

2.2 A Regulationist Approach to the Sustain-able City

Before examining the usefulness of a regu-lation approach for research on the sustain-able city, it is important to clarify theparameters of such an approach. The regu-lation approach finds its origins in work un-dertaken by a group of French economists inthe mid 1970s (see Aglietta, 1979; Boyer,1979; Lipietz, 1980). Put simply, these aca-demics were concerned to analyse the regu-lation of the economy beginning from theinsight that continued capital accumulation



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cannot be taken for granted or guaranteed inadvance, but instead depends on a series ofsocial, cultural and political supports. Theapproach, therefore, as Bob Jessop states,

aims to study the changing combinationsof economic and extra-economic institu-tions and practices which help to secure, ifonly temporarily and always in specificeconomic spaces, a certain stability andpredictability in accumulation—despitethe fundamental contradictions andconflicts generated by the very dynamic ofcapital itself (Jessop, 1997, p. 288).

It is the contention of this paper that thediscourses and practices surrounding issuesof sustainability now appear to be woven intoboth the economic and the ‘extra-economic’(social � environmental) supports associatedwith capitalist urbanisation. Furthermore, itis asserted that the sustainable city representsan economic space within which the social,economic and ecological contradictions ofcapitalism are being managed and strategi-cally addressed.

From modes to processes: changing under-standings of regulation. While exploring thesocioeconomic supports of capitalism, manyregulationist accounts have adopted the con-cept of a ‘mode of regulation’. Convention-ally, the term ‘mode of regulation’ refers to aspecific combination of economic and extra-economic practices operating together in amutually reinforcing way (Tickell and Peck,1995).4 This paper, however, claims thatmore purchase can be gained on the role ofsustainable development within emergingregulatory forms through the conceptualisa-tion of regulation as ‘process’ (see Goodwinand Painter, 1996; Painter and Goodwin,1995). There are several reasons why this isthe case. These reasons can be summarisedby the view that the term ‘mode’ overempha-sises the functionality, stability and coher-ence of regulatory relations, whileunderemphasising change, conflict and de-velopment. A crude account of one stableand enduring mode of regulation quicklybreaking down and then equally quickly be-

ing replaced by a markedly different, butequally stable, arrangement is clearly unsat-isfactory and historically inaccurate.

The concept of a ‘mode of regulation’ wasfirst advanced in order to answer the centralquestion posed by regulation theory—that is,how is the reproduction of capitalist socialrelations secured and developed given theinherent tendency of these relations for crisisand instability? Even if the notion of a modeof regulation were abandoned, this centralquestion would appear to remain. The ap-proach taken by Painter and Goodwin (1995)to answering this, and which this paper fol-lows, emerges from one further problem as-sociated with the concept of a ‘mode ofregulation’. An unfortunate connotation ofthe concept is the implication that, at any onetime, there must be either ‘perfect’ regulation(during a mode of regulation) or no regu-lation at all (during an intermediate crisisphase). Yet this is clearly absurd. Veryrarely, if ever, does regulation cease alto-gether (civil war accompanied by the com-plete collapse of state institutions is perhapsan example). Equally, even during periods ofsustained economic growth, regulation couldhardly be described as perfect. The system issimply too complex and the process of regu-lation too contingent. Any period of stabledevelopment will have its setbacks andconflicts. Most of the time, therefore, regu-lation is neither perfect nor wholly absent—instead, it is more or less effective atunderpinning continued accumulation, de-pending on the mix and interaction of thevarious factors involved.

This paper therefore understands regu-lation as a process, rather than as a series ofdifferent ‘modes’. Instead of looking for co-herent ‘modes of regulation’, which neatlyfollow one another, this paper prefers to em-phasise the ‘ebb and flow’ of regulatory pro-cesses through time and across space. Atcertain times and places, those processes willbe more effective than at others. Analysisclaims that the process of regulation is theproduct of material and discursive practicesthat generate and are in turn conditioned bysocial and political institutions. Furthermore,




it is argued that these practices and institu-tions, are increasingly drawing on, and or-ganising their work around notions ofsustainable development (see section 1). Byfocusing upon regulation as a process, thispaper hopes to develop a more contingentlyinscribed account of the regulatorysignificance of sustainable forms of urbandevelopment and the rise of the sustainablecity. Hence it is hoped to understand sustain-able development, and its counterpart thesustainable city, as a key discursive and ma-terial category through which regulatoryflows are increasingly being channelled,challenged and contested. Critically, how-ever, by focusing on the regulatory dynamicsof sustainable development, analysis is notsimply interested in the ways that economic,social and environmental issues come to-gether to forge sustainable development poli-cies. Instead, attention is drawn to the waysin which specific combinations of economicand socio-ecological forces converge tothreaten, or to sustain, the reproduction ofcapitalism.

The uneven and combined development ofregulation: the sustainable city as a socio-environmental space. Since this paper claimsthat a regulation approach, that treats regu-lation as process, is able to deal rather moresubtly with temporal and spatial variability, itis useful to spend a little time exploring thespatial implications of this type of analysis.This sensitivity to the spatial dimensions ofregulation appears important if socio-ecological regulation in general is to be re-lated to specific sustainable cities in differentsocial and political contexts. The argumentproceeds along the following lines. Sinceregulatory processes are the product of socialpractices, they must be understood in relationto the concrete contexts of practice (Painterand Goodwin, 1995). As concrete phenom-ena with specific histories and geographies,practices must be understood as being intrin-sically unevenly developed. In other words,the geography of regulation is not an op-tional extra or final complicating factor(Tickell and Peck, 1992). On the contrary,

the processes of regulation are constitutedgeographically.5 They are also organised inand through key spatial sites of regulation.

The sustainable city may be considered asone such emerging site of regulation—draw-ing together a range of practices situated ineconomic space (such as the labour process,urban-regional growth alliances, internationalmarkets), political space (the local state, re-gional, national and supranational gover-nance) and ecological space (bio-regions,ecological footprints, the global environ-ment). The sustainable city as a site of regu-lation could thus be viewed as an intersectionof political, economic and environmentalspace (see Satterthwaite, 1997). Understand-ing the sustainable city as a spatial intersectin this way has two principal implications:the construction of regulatory problemswithin various sustainable city programmesmust be understood in relation to the localsocial, political and environmental milieuxwithin which sustainability is being contestedand realised; and, sustainable cities combineregulatory practices which derive from a var-iety of spatial scales. In this way, sustainablecities represent very specific geographicalmanifestations of regulatory processes, withtheir own political, economic and ecologicalhistories and traditions. However, the sus-tainable city, as a regulatory space, mustalways be positioned within the wider re-gional, national and international regulatoryorders within which it is sustained (Tickelland Peck, 1995).

Regulation, discourse and the sustainablecity. One advantage of emphasising an ap-proach to regulation which is based on so-cioeconomic process is that it reminds us thatissues of social cohesion are politically con-tested and socially constructed, and will varyfrom nation to nation (and even from place toplace within a nation). Moreover, in account-ing for those mediations which can negotiateeconomic accumulation and social cohesion,attention is focused on discursive as well asmaterial practices. In principle, regulationtheory has always been concerned with dis-course and regulationist authors often repeat



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the claim that regulation is a social, politicaland cultural process (Bakshi et al., 1995;Hay and Jessop, 1995, p. 305; Jessop, 1997,pp. 313–318). In practice, however, regula-tionist accounts have rarely considered thecontribution of discourse to specific regula-tory processes or, in the more usual terminol-ogy, modes of regulation. Yet there is nogreat difficulty in building a sensitivity todiscourse into a theory of regulation (seeJenson, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1995). ‘Fordism’,for example, clearly depended upon somekey discursive constructions associated withpolitical consensus, the family wage, the lim-its of collective bargaining, the mass con-sumption norm and so on.

Critically, for the purposes of this paper,the regulatory processes emerging afterFordism—and in particular the purportedsocial and ecological crises of Fordism—appear to be mobilising discourses of sus-tainability. Whereas Fordism was celebratedas the time of unparallelled economic growthand proudly labelled the long boom, we arenow firmly fixed in a period where the notionof sustainability is much more prevalent.This of course does not mean that the searchfor economic growth has suddenly beenhalted. Rather, that the search for growthtakes place within a differently constructedset of mediations which now incorporate sus-tainability. In this sense, economic develop-ment is still the prime aim, but nowunfettered growth has been replaced by ‘en-vironmentally sensitive development’ in arange of discursive and material arenas. Thevery notion of the sustainable city is anexemplification of this.

An awareness of the discursive qualities ofregulation is vital if the processes surround-ing the construction of objects of regulationare to be understood (see Jessop, 1997,p. 297). Cities are subjects involved in regu-lating economies, but they are also simul-taneously objects of regulation. Cities areobjects of regulation to the extent that theycontain many contradictory tendencies whichthreaten and undermine regulation. Theidentification of regulatory problems withincities—or specific objects of urban regulation

(poor health, derelict environments, ailingeconomic sectors)—is an inherently discur-sive process. Within an era of sustainabledevelopment, the power to explain regulatorycrisis—or to construct objects of regu-lation—hinges on the ability to understandobjects in relation to their social, economicand ecological form. The multifarious discur-sive construction of objects of regulationwithin the sustainable city reveals the ambi-guities and uncertainties which surround thenotion of sustainability. The choice of certainbrands of discursive explanation and devel-opment trajectories over others also revealsthe power relations and regulatory pressureswithin which sustainable cities are beingforged.

Regulating socio-environmental relations inthe city. The explicit stated aims of sustain-able development stress the importance ofcombining economic, social and environ-mental considerations within models of de-velopment (see World Commission on theEnvironment and Development, 1987, ch. 1).However, the popular dissemination of sus-tainable development has resulted in the el-evation of environmental concerns inparticular to new levels prominence withinpublic policy. Given the new significancewhich sustainable development appears toafford environmental issues, it is interestingto reflect upon a number of recent attemptswhich have been made to unite the regulationapproach with a study of the environment(see Bridge, 1998; Bridge and McManus,2000; Gandy, 1996; Leyshon, 1992; Lipietz,1992, 1996). Within this eclectic mix ofwork, there appears to be a growing realis-ation that just as the economic and socialrelations of capitalism are contradictory andmust be regulated, environmental and (hu-man) ecological relations are equally import-ant regulatory concerns (Lipietz, 1996,p. 219). It is perhaps useful to think of thesustainable city as a strategy designed toaddress the traditional social and economicregulatory problems of urban areas, in andthrough a new set of environmental prioritiesand ecological practices. If, as this paper




suggests, the sustainable city does representan active reworking of the relationshipswhich exist between urbanisation, regulationand the environment, it is important to con-sider the different ways in which the environ-ment is implicated in the regulation of urbaneconomies. Drawing upon recent work car-ried out on the relationship between urbanareas and the environment, it is possible todetect the environmental underpinnings ofurban regulation in two broad ways: the col-onisation of nature within the urbanisationprocess; and, the socio-cultural reproductionof urban inhabitants.

In the first instance, the work of Davis(1998, 1999) and Cronon (1991)—althoughnot explicitly written from a regulationistperspective—reveals the regulatory inter-plays which exist between nature and urbani-sation. In his analysis of Los Angeles, Davis(1998, 1999) has shown how an understand-ing of the dialectic interplays between natureand society is vital to an appreciation of thematerial and discursive processes by whichurbanisation proceeds. Drawing on the caseof Los Angeles, Davis explores how urbani-sation in the region has proceeded throughtwo dominant ecological forms: an exploita-tive ecology of evil (1998, p. 4) and a restric-tive ecology of fear (1999, ch. 1). Accordingto Davis, it is through these twin ecologies orenvironmental relations—one bent on the ex-ploitative domination and subjugation of na-ture, the other embodying the responses ofnature to urbanism through earthquakes,famines and floods—that urbanisation in LosAngeles has been produced and historicallycontested. In a similar vein to Davis,Cronon’s (1991) book Nature’s Metropolisreveals how urban development—in thiscase, Chicago’s—has been closely tied to theenvironmental flows and ecological pro-cesses of nature. Within a broad-ranging ac-count of the multiple interplays which haveoccurred historically between Chicago andits hinterland, the American Mid West,Cronon describes how the Chicago Futuresand Options Market emerged out of the com-plex socio-ecological processes whichflowed through the wheat landscapes which

surrounded Chicago (Cronon, 1991, ch. 3;Swyngedouw and Kaı̈ka, 2000, p. 576). Thework of Cronon clearly reveals the ways inwhich economic forms of regulation—in thiscase, the financial markets of the city—havehistorically been imbricated by environmen-tal forces.

In addition to the relationships which existbetween urbanisation and various ecologicalprocesses, the everyday environment of thecity itself also plays an important part in theregulation of urban space. According toKatz, it is the apparently “mundane” or“messy” environmental relations of everydaylife which have a crucial role in the socio-cultural reproduction of urban communities(Katz, 2001, pp. 711–715). Whether it isthrough the ideologies of quality of life, en-vironmental access and amenity, or the stan-dards of living and working environments,the environmental conditions found withincities constitute key arenas within which thematerial and socio-cultural reproduction ofurban communities occurs (Katz and Kirby,1991). Indeed, some of the earliest attemptsto regulate and ameliorate the socioeconomicand socio-ecological spaces of industrial cit-ies in Europe focused upon the need to re-form the environmental conditions of thecity. During the 19th century, the publichealth movement consequently sought to ad-dress the complex environmental problemscreated by the contradictory social, economicand environmental forces in operation in theindustrial metropolis (Driver, 1988). Withinthe practices and principles of the publichealth movement of the 19th century, thesocio-ecological pressures and reformist ide-ologies which have given rise to the contem-porary sustainable city can both be clearlydiscerned.

Whether it be because of the interdepen-dencies of urbanisation and nature, or theimportance of social environments to the re-production of urban life, a broadly definedunderstanding of the environment appearscrucial to understanding the processesthrough which urban regulation proceeds.The sustainable city appears to reflect a pol-itical expression of the complex regulatory



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Table 3. The main differences between existing analyses of the sustainable city and theregulationist approach

Existing analyses of sustainable urban A regulationist approach to the sustainabledevelopment city

Technocratic interpretation of the Focus upon the contested interplay, flowsprocedures surrounding the and couplings between economic, socialimplementation of sustainable urban and environmental (or economic anddevelopment (planning restrictions, extra-economic) processes which emergepolitical management systems, in the sustainable cityarchitecture and design, environmental Analyse how different discursiveperformance indicators) combinations of economic, social and

ecological modes of explanation are usedto explain and construct different objectsof regulation within the city

Identification of an ontologically pre- Analysis of the political practices throughgiven sustainable city (or objective which certain visions of the sustainableblueprint for the creation of sustainable city are accepted and normalised overurban settlements) others

Appreciation of the uneven spatialdevelopment of sustainable cities andhow this unevenness is linked to politicaltraditions and regulatory practices

Focus upon the local process and Active concern for the structuralparochial debates surrounding the regulatory forces which shape, informimplementation of a sustainable city and configure the sustainable city

Analysis of the conformity of sustainable Analysis of the conformity of sustainableurban development with the agreed urban development with the necessarynational and international principles of conditions for the continued reproductionsustainable development of capitalist economic and social

relations

dynamics which flow between urban social,economic and environmental systems. Butwhat does a regulations approach actuallybring to an analysis of the sustainable city?Table 3 sets out the main differences be-tween a regulationist interpretation of thesustainable city and existing accounts of sus-tainable urban development. This paperclaims that the regulation approach providesan heuristic framework within which to ex-plore the processes through which sustain-able cities are being produced andreproduced. In particular, it is claimed that aregulationist-inspired account of the sustain-able city will combine a rigorous analysis ofthe political struggles and regulatory prac-tices through which specific socio-ecologicalobjects of regulation are identified anddefined in specific cities, with an integrated

analysis of the structural economic forceswithin which these struggles are played out.The remainder of this paper explores theinsights which a regulationist perspective canbring to the study and critical analysis ofsustainable urban development.

3. Sustainable Cities in Practice:Analysing the Nature of SustainableUrban Development

3.1 The Sustainable City in Practice I: The‘Sick City’ and the Socio-ecological Regu-lation of Health

In order to articulate more clearly the regula-tory framework of analysis outlined above,this paper turns initially to the regulatorypolitics surrounding the construction and




implementation of a sustainable city inStoke-on-Trent. Stoke-on-Trent is an old in-dustrial town in the English Midlands. Initialdebates and discussion about sustainable ur-ban development in the town first started toemerge during 1990. During the period up to1990, a team of researchers from the Univer-sity of Leeds compiled an extensive study ofsickness rates within the area. The final re-port, published in 1990, revealed some wor-rying trends in the health patterns of the area.It claimed that Stoke had high prematuredeath rates which were linked to elevatedincidence of heart problems, strokes, cancerand chest diseases. Analysis also showedthat, in some parts of the city, illness rateswere running at three times the national aver-age (The Sentinel, 2000a). The report con-cluded that in 20 of the town’s councilwards, half of the men living there couldexpect to die before they reached retirementage. Given the shocking findings of theLeeds University team, Stoke became infa-mously known as the ‘sick city’. The LeedsUniversity report illustrated a number of reg-ulatory problems facing the town.Significantly, the social problems associatedwith the poor health record of Stoke wererapidly linked by public officials in the townto the wider economic decline and regulatoryfailings of the urban economy. With highrates of employee absenteeism (NorthStaffordshire Health Authority, 1999),6 adamaged and thus supposedly ‘inefficient’general workforce, and poor health condi-tions among the general population, healthwas constructed as a key social barrier toeffective forms of economic regulation in thecity (The Sentinel, 2000b).

In response to the purported social andeconomic problems created by ill health inStoke, a Local Health Alliance was hastilyformed. Stoke’s Local Health Alliance wasmade up of key public-, private- and volun-tary-sector organisations in the town and wasestablished in order to forge an integratedresponse to the health problems in the area.The Local Health Alliance was essentially apolitical response to the damaging depictionsof Stoke as a sick city. However, as the

sentiments of Stoke-on-Trent City Council’sChief Executive reveal, the health problemsof Stoke not only necessitated the re-imagingof Stoke, as a ‘fit’ and prosperous place, italso provided the political impetus for localhealth groups to devise new and imaginativestrategies to tackle persistent health problems

We have to change the image of Stoke-on-Trent from sick city to fit city …[however] … Health is much more com-plex than just fitness and there are relatedissues such as lifestyle, poor housing andpoverty. We have done a lot of talking andworking together, but most of all we needaction (Stoke-on-Trent City Council’sChief Executive; quoted in The Sentinel,2000b).

In the context of the need to rethink healthpolicy in the town, the Local Health Allianceattempted to develop a radical approach tohealth policy. The struggles surrounding theconstruction of health as an object of regu-lation by Stoke’s Local Health Alliance re-veal the role which local political traditionsand cultural practices play in emerging pat-terns of socioeconomic development. Theparticular construction of health as an issueof urban sustainability by the Health Alliancealso serves to illustrate the contingent andhighly contested discursive compromiseswhich coalesce around key objects of regu-lation in urban areas.

In response to the health problems of thecity, Stoke’s Local Health Alliance con-structed what they termed a ‘social model ofhealth’. This social model of health created alocal discourse within which ill health inStoke was understood not as a medical issue,but as a product of broader social, economicand environmental forces. Drawing upon thissocial model, or regulatory discourse ofhealth, Stoke’s Local Health Alliance soughtto address ill health through a broad pro-gramme of policies which sought to tackleissues of class inequality and poverty. Theconstruction of health as a distinctly class-related object of regulation, was undoubtedlyinspired by the strong socialist political tradi-tions and cultures which pervaded in the



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town. The neo-socialist sentiments of theLocal Health Alliance are apparent in onelocal health worker’s description of the rootcauses of ill-health in Stoke

When you break everything down in aWestern market economy, income is whatdetermines whether you are healthy or not,it determines where your kids are edu-cated, where you live. I mean social classis really determined by income, which islinked to the kind of job you have and thisdetermines where you fit into a system ofsocial classification … there is a very largenumber of long-term limiting illnesses inthe area. With a rich mining tradition inthe area we find a lot of people withrespiratory problems and a variety of otherlong-term illnesses which prevent themfrom working, back problems, mobilityproblems. These are people who are nevergoing to work again so we want to focuson issues concerning those who can’t im-prove their lot through getting a job, youknow the softer social stuff, accessing thebenefits which they are entitled to andimproving self-esteem (Project leader,North Staffordshire Health Authority,1999).

This social model of health interprets thepoor health of the city not as an aberration,or social accident, but as the product of acomplex array of poor living conditions, un-safe working environments and high levelsof social poverty in the city. Understood inthese terms, poor health was interpreted inStoke as a legacy of erstwhile regulatoryregimes in the city and used as a politicalvehicle for challenging existing industrialpractices and social compromises in Stoke.The effects of this model of health have beentwofold. First, it has actively branded healthas a complex and hybrid object of socioeco-nomic regulation within the city. Secondly,this model of health also suggested that thekey to creating a more ‘sustainable’, ‘healthycity’ in Stoke, was not the imposition of a‘rational’ programme of medical reform, butrather involved changing the overall ecologyof the city (Osborne and Rose, 1999, p. 752).

In an attempt to gain British state andinternational support for the town’s plight,the Local Health Alliance gradually began toarticulate their social paradigm of health pol-icy through the languages of sustainable ur-ban development. Consequently, rather thanutilising more conventional discourses ofpublic health reform (underinvestment in theNational Health Service, shortages in theprovision of community health care services,low levels of public health awareness),Stoke’s Local Health Alliance chose to inter-pret and position the health problems of thecity in the context of the wider social, econ-omic and environmental factors which werecollectively generating an ‘unsustainable’pattern of urban development in Stoke. Theintegrated, sustainable understanding ofhealth developed in Stoke is evident in thecandour of a Local Health Authority rep-resentative from the area

Local people have a very sophisticatedunderstanding of what health is. Theydon’t see health as the Health Authoritytend to do, in terms of health in a verynarrow sense … so the kinds of things lo-cal people were saying when asked ‘whatdo you think affects your health?’ were thefact that I haven’t got a job, I haven’t gotany money … the fact that I have gotmetal frame windows and you know itcauses condensation, the heating bills aretoo expensive so I can’t have the heat onbecause the house is too draughty becauseit is not properly insulated … that’s whataffected their health and they saw it in avery holistic way, which we expected. Sothey felt that what you do to address healthneeds is to bring more jobs to the area,improve the housing conditions, improvebenefits and if people are actually not ac-cessing benefits enable them to do so. Sothe agenda was a very broad one … all ofthese things are interlinked and health is avery complex issue… (North StaffordshireHealth Authority, Health Alliance pro-gramme leader, 1999; emphasis added).

By relating health to wider social, economicand environmental conditions, Stoke’s




Health Alliance presented a complex pictureof local health conditions in the city. Bydescribing health in this multifaceted way,Stoke’s Health Alliance was both conform-ing to an emerging sustainable health agenda(see DoH, 1998; Satterthwaite, 1997) andpositioning health reform within the widerprocesses of urban socioeconomic restructur-ing and (re)regulation. Given the shockingnature of the Leeds University report intosickness levels in Stoke, and local socialistempathy with their social model of health,the Local Health Alliance’s vision of sustain-ability was able to predominate over othermore ecologically inspired plans for urbandevelopment which were being promoted byvarious environmental groups in the town.7

Despite the local prominence of Stoke’sLocal Health Alliance’s vision of the sustain-able city, their social model of health metwith significant political resistance from theBritish state. In many ways, the very conceptof a social model of health was designed tochallenge hegemonic neo-liberal Conserva-tive ideologies of health. As one local healthworker pointed out

from the late 1970s … government ideol-ogy, philosophy, thinking about health hasbeen set by the medical agenda … if youlook at right-wing politics, Conservatism,it’s about free choice, liberty, individual-ism and so on … the problems that we hadin trying to develop a social model ofhealth that recognised that what you haveto do to improve health is to address pov-erty, unemployment and whatever, whichis about increasing public spending, that isvery much an anathema to the Conserva-tives (project leader—North StaffordshireHealth Authority, 1999).

In a related vein, one Health Authority mem-ber claimed that British Conservative healthpolicy was characterised by a concern for

the symptoms not the causes [of ill health],so it was about targets set in a very medi-cal way—i.e. reducing coronary heart dis-ease, reducing cancer and so on. It wasvery much about lifestyle—what causespeople to die is their lifestyle, their

lifestyle choices. So basically it was seenthat you have to get people to makehealthy choices and victim blaming (proj-ect leader, North Staffordshire HealthAuthority, 1999; emphasis added).

The process of “victim blaming”, commonwithin Conservative health policy, tended tofetishise ill health. The social, economic andenvironmental causes of ill health were thushidden beneath the veneer of rational choiceand personal freedoms. Despite its obviousshortcomings, this neo-liberal construction ofhealth did, however, provide an importantpolitical framework for regulating healthproblems in Britain. By dislocating healthfrom its socioeconomic backdrop, neo-liberalhealth discourses were able partially to insu-late the state from health-related crises.While not resolving health problems, suchdiscourses did provide a coping strategywithin which unresolved regulatory tensionscould be managed without damaging thelegitimacy of the state (see Peck and Tickell,1994 p. 319).

By claiming that ill health was linked tosocial and environmental injustice, Stoke’sHealth Alliance not only identified health asa key object of regulation in the city, it alsochallenged the prevailing neo-liberal ortho-doxies and regulatory strategies (see Tickelland Peck, 1992, 1995). The tension whichexisted between Stoke’s local model ofhealth and existing state conventions ofhealth care is captured in the comments of arepresentative from the North StaffordshireHealth Authority

We couldn’t mention the word poverty inanything. When the first Single Regener-ation Budget proposal went in we weretold to take the word poverty out. We hadspecific anti-poverty initiatives and thegovernment said you can’t have that, thereis no poverty, not in this country anyway,you have got to go to West Africa to seepoverty, because it doesn’t exist here. Weweren’t allowed to use that kind of termi-nology (North Staffordshire Health Auth-ority representative, 1999; emphasisadded).



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The Conservative government were reluctantto accept the link between poverty and illhealth and resisted the call of the Stoke’sLocal Health Alliance for a more, not less,interventionist brand of neo-Fordist/Keynesian health policy in the city. In lightof these structural constraints, it becamedifficult for the Health Alliance to obtain thenecessary statutory and financial powers toimplement sustainable health reform policiesin the town. The barriers to health reform andcertain patterns of sustainable urban develop-ment in Stoke, reveal the ways in which thepolitical and ideological structures of thestate play a crucial role in the emergence andconstitution of regulatory processes. The reg-ulatory form and function of sustainable cit-ies do not emerge from a neutral vacuum;they are always conditioned by local, re-gional, national and international structuresof power (Jessop, 1997).

In light of the structural constraints whichwere placed on the policies and ideals ofStoke’s Health Alliance, the preferred socialmodel of health and sustainable urban devel-opment was adapted and reformed within aseries of health programmes which weredeemed acceptable to the state. One of themost significant of these schemes wasStoke’s Healthy Workplace Initiative. Work-ing in liaison with Stoke’s Health Alliance,the North Staffordshire Health Authority de-vised the Healthy Workplace Initiative as away of contributing to Stoke’s wider pro-gramme of environmental health reform (seeNorth Staffordshire Health Authority, 1999).Drawing together a series of public healthservice providers and local employers, theinitiative sought to improve working envi-ronments throughout the town. From the firstFactories Act of 1833, to the Health andSafety at Work Act of 1974, the workingenvironment has long been a basis for social-ist and wider political struggle in the UK(Harvey, 1998). In this context, the initiativeconveniently addressed key socialist andhealth-related concerns in the town. The fun-damental premise of the Healthy WorkplaceInitiative was to improve working environ-ments through three broad strategies: per-

suading employers to develop a new set ofspatial practices of safety and maintenance inthe workplace; encouraging employers to in-vest in the physical improvement of theworkplace environment; and, informing em-ployees about practices which help to facili-tate the self-production of healthyworkplaces, and of the legal rights whichthey hold concerning workplace environ-ments.

Despite trying to create healthier workingenvironments and improve the overall per-formance of the city’s economy, however,the Healthy Workplace Initiative did not al-ways meet with support from local busi-nesses in Stoke. One representative of theHealthy Workplace Initiative articulated thelocal resistances which the scheme had en-countered

The concept of the altruistic, supportiveemployer is a nice idea, but in fact if theirpriorities are survival—and if we take theindigenous industries of North Stafford-shire now there are some pretty severeproblems—the local mining industry hasbeen decimated … the pottery industriesare going through an enormous change atthe moment because of overseas compe-tition—it is no use going naively into theseorganisations and asking, “Have youthought about your responsibilities to yourworkforce?” (workplace projects leader,North Staffordshire Health Authority,1999).

Confronted with increasingly global forms ofcompetition, the local industries of Stokewere faced with a regulatory dilemma whichhas been etched into the whole history ofcapitalism—the predicament that workers aresimultaneously a cost of production and asource of value (Jessop, 1998). Reconcilingthe need to increase productivity, reduce thecost of production and improve working con-ditions, is a perpetual problem of capitalisteconomies. In the context of the regulatorydifficulties of the working environments ofStoke, the leader of the workplace initiativein Stoke reflected on the importance whichhad been placed within the project of con-




stantly stressing the long-term economicbenefits that a healthy workforce could bringto employers

Opportunities arise for securing the under-standing of employers in seeing the advan-tages from a management point of viewwhich come from having an efficientworkforce … because I have to say veryclearly my vested interest is to secure forthe director of public health some im-provement in the health of the populationin some small way, yours is not, yours isto secure a return for your shareholders …and continuing profits” (workplaceprojects leader, North Staffordshire HealthAuthority, 1999; emphasis added).

In this context, it is not difficult to see howthe formation and implementation of localstrategies for sustainable development are al-ways dependent on economic regulatorypressures operating both within and beyondurban areas.

In the context of the economic pressuresfacing local employers in Stoke, and becauseof the dependence of the Healthy WorkplaceInitiative on employers’ co-operation, theinitiative rapidly changed from being a proj-ect concerned with the socio-environmentalrights of workers, to being a subsidy forcapital improvements in the workplace. Fo-cusing primarily upon those aspects of work-place reform which could bring quantitativeeconomic returns through cost-savings andimproved efficiency, the Healthy WorkplaceInitiative has become much more about sus-taining economic profits, than securing im-proved working conditions for employees.The problems and constraints experiencedwithin Stoke’s programme of urban healthreform illustrate how, within programmes ofsustainable urban development, economicpower can prevail over social and ecologicalneed.

In regulatory terms, it is important to con-textualise the economic imperatives ofStoke’s Healthy Workplace Scheme withinthe prevailing neo-liberal economic systemsoperating in Britain at the time. While profitand competition are constant features of cap-

italist development, Peck and Tickell (1994)claim that the economic policies adopted bythe British state during the 1980s and 1990sincreased interurban competition and beg-gar-thy-neighbour politics. As a regulatorystrategy designed to manage the unresolvedcrisis of Keynesian/Fordism and the associ-ated fiscal crisis of the state, such neo-liberalpolicies emphasised the need of individualcities to fend for themselves within an in-creasingly global economy (Jessop, 2001).The economic pressures created within thisneo-liberal economic system made localsocialist programmes of reform difficult tofund and legitimate. In this context, the op-portunities for a radical programme of sus-tainable health reform in Stoke were not onlyinhibited by the ideological restraints of theBritish state, but also by the prevailing regu-latory practices of the neo-liberal economy.

Ultimately, and despite the progressiverhetoric of Stoke’s social model of health,strategies to create more biologically andenvironmentally sensitive patterns of urbandevelopment in the city were influenced andtransformed within the combined forces ofthe British state, local capital and neo-liberaleconomic regulation. It is perhaps alsosignificant that, despite the apparent func-tional benefits which existing schemes forsustainable urban development in Stoke havefor capital, they have failed to address econ-omic decline and downsizing in the city (TheSentinel, 2002). Moreover, recent reportshave shown that, despite the best efforts ofthe Local health Alliance, sickness rates inthe town remain well above the nationalaverage (The Sentinel, 2001). The failure ofhealth reform and sustainable urban develop-ment in the town illustrates that, despite theintentions of sustainable urban developmentstrategies, sustainable city schemes oftenremain marginal to the wider processes ofurban socioeconomic regulation.

3.2 The Sustainable City in Practice II:Sustainable Development and the Politics ofNature in the Black Country

The second example of a sustainable city in



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practice to be considered here, relates to theexploitation, conservation and social utilis-ation of nature in the Black Country. TheBlack Country is an agglomeration of urbancentres in the West Midlands Region of theUK. These urban centres developed throughintensive patterns of heavy industrial growthduring the 18th and 19th centuries (Wood,1976). Throughout the early industrial andlater Fordist expansion of the Black Country,urbanisation was based upon the ravenousexploitation and consumption of the area’srich endowment of natural resources. Whileinitially an integral part of the economicsuccess and regulation of the urban economy,during the 20th century the exploitation ofnature has been constructed as a serious bar-rier to social and economic development inthe area. In the context of this paper, the caseof the Black Country serves to illustrate therole of nature within socioeconomic regu-lation (see Bridge, 1998) and in the forma-tion of the discourses associated with thesustainable city movement.

The emergence and construction of natureas an object of regulation in the Black Coun-try first began during the post-war period ofreconstruction in the region. At this timeprominent planning groups—like the WestMidlands Group on Post-war Reconstructionand Planning (often known simply as theWest Midlands Group; see The West Mid-lands Group, 1948; Holliday, 2000, p. 6;Wood, 1976)—developed regional plansthrough which local nature could be pre-served and protected from urban industrialexpansion. The main planning document pro-duced by the West Midlands Group (1948),entitled Conurbation, focused primarily onthe preservation of rural nature from urbanexpansion in Birmingham and the BlackCountry. This plan sought to preserve localnature through a system of green belts andwedges. In this way, nature was initiallyconstructed as an unspoilt, external arena,which belonged to the Arcadian recesses ofthe West Midlands Region—not the BlackCountry. Here, nature was used as a physicalregulator (in the judico-political sense) ofurban industrial expansion, acting as an

ecological frontier, or cordon sanitaire encir-cling industrialisation (Law, 2000, pp. 57–64; The West Midlands Group, 1948, p. 201).

It was not until the 1970s that nature reallybecame a broader issue within the socio-economic regulation of the urban economyof the Black Country. In the immediate post-war period, it was the presence of regulation,expressed through rapid economic expan-sion, which appeared to create ecology prob-lems. During the 1970s, however, it wasregulatory failure, manifest in regional econ-omic recession, which exposed a new set oftensions inscribed in local socio-ecologicalrelations. In the context of economic re-cession, the scorched industrial landscapeand the lack of environmental amenity in theBlack Country became major political issues.The temerity with which local nature hadbeen treated historically, rapidly becameconstructed as a cause of socio-regulatoryfailure. As with health in Stoke-on-Trent, theemergence of nature as an object of regu-lation in the Black Country reveals the insta-bility and internal tensions inherent inregulatory processes.

In response to the imbroglios of economicand environmental discontents in the BlackCountry, a number of initiatives have beeninstigated in the area in an attempt to restruc-ture local socio-ecological relations—or, inpopular local parlance, ‘turn the Black Coun-try green’. One of the earliest programmeswas called Operation Greenup. OperationGreenup was established by the West Mid-lands Metropolitan County Council in the1970s and sought to give nature a moreprominent role in urban planning and to im-plement a suite of environmental improve-ment projects. This initiative was followedby the West Midlands Regional Nature Con-servation Strategy (1986) which was de-signed to provide a more integratedframework for nature conservation in thewider regional economy. These governmentled initiatives were essentially a response tothe strong nature conservation lobby whichemerged in the Black Country during the1970s.8 These early environmental initiativesof the 1970s and 1980s have recently culmi-




nated in the creation of the largest concen-trated urban greening project in the UK, theBlack Country Urban Forest. While drawinginspiration from the nature conservation tra-ditions of the area, the Black Country UrbanForest, as a designated programme of sus-tainable urban development, is using natureas a much more holistic strategy for urbanreform and regeneration (Black Country Ur-ban Forestry Unit, 1995, p. 4). This paperclaims that the political struggles surround-ing the forest reveal important regulatoryprocesses which are associated with theecologies of urban development.

Originally, the Black Country Urban For-est, drawing upon previous urban conser-vation strategies in the area, was driven bykey ecological objectives of nature conser-vation and reconsolidation. In this way, theforest brought together the key ecologicalgroups in the area, including the Black Coun-try Urban Wildlife Trust, Groundwork BlackCountry—the British Trust for ConservationVolunteers and the Black Country UrbanForestry Unit—into partnership. Thesegroups, which had collectively emerged outof the struggles and regulatory tensions sur-rounding the utilisation of nature in the BlackCountry after 1945, represented the local‘voices’ or ‘advocates of nature’. Due toissues of land-ownership and developmentrights, this ecological partnership had to joinforces with the four Local Authorities in theBlack Country (Dudley Metropolitan Bor-ough Council, Sandwell MBC, Walsall MBCand Wolverhampton MBC) in order to im-plement effectively its plans. In addition toforging partnerships with local governmentand in order to fund and resource the urbanforest, environmental groups in the BlackCountry also sought central government sup-port. With the assistance of central govern-ment, the Black Country Urban Forestry Unitwas created to implement and manage wood-land reform in the region.9 To date, the forestprogramme has involved the planting of over70 000 trees and the formation of a range ofassociated forest enterprise projects.

As previously mentioned, one of the mainconsequences of partnership with local and

national government is that the Black Coun-try Urban Forest is now more than simply anexercise in nature conservation—it is a pro-gramme of sustainable urban development.From a regulatory perspective, it is interest-ing to consider the kinds of translation ruleswhich operate when ecological concern isre-articulated in the socioeconomic dis-courses of sustainability. One of the mostobvious manifestations of the regulatorystruggles surrounding the forest has emergedover the respective social and ecologicalfunctions of the project. From very early on,it was clear that the urban forest could notsimply be an ecological conserve or a placefor nature. With so much public moneyflowing into the forest, the Black CountryUrban Forestry Unit had to repackage thescheme in order to emphasise its socialbenefits. The discourses surrounding the for-est were consequently transformed from thelanguages of ecological science to the lexi-con of socio-ecological development. As oneproject worker with Groundwork BlackCountry poignantly put it

We are not just here to plant trees … Iwould say the agenda has moved on frombeing about the physical environment tobeing about sustainable communities, it’sabout sustainable development. Physicalregeneration doesn’t last; it’s of no value ifyou don’t include social and economicregeneration (project worker, GroundworkBlack Country, 1999).

The impossibility—which is inscribed withinthe discourses of sustainable development—of addressing ecological ends without alsotackling key socioeconomic problems hashad a significant impact on the operatingprinciples of the Urban Forest

In terms of our operating principles, whatwe are saying is that it is not just aboutplaces—although we do need to improvethe physical environment, so that we cancreate healthy environments—but we needto work on the social environment, createsocial integration, equality of opportunity,social justice (project worker, GroundworkBlack Country, 1999).



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Ecological need is always, to a certain extent,dependent upon its social articulation. How-ever, the requirement of the Urban ForestryUnit continually to couch their objectives inrelation to social and economic advantageunquestionably inhibits more meaningful andpossibly radical ecological engagements (seeLatour, 1993).

A consequence of the discursive recastingof the Black Country Urban Forest, is thatthe forest is now actively used as a strategyfor tackling social problems in the area. Atone level, the urban forest has been used toaddress some of the problems of the locallabour market. The formation and mainte-nance of the urban forest is in part beingfacilitated through the utilisation of the localunemployed population. Working in con-junction with the government’s Environmen-tal Task Force (an intermediate labourmarket system), the urban forest has pro-vided a means of absorbing local labour sur-pluses. Local unemployed people nowreceive training and subsidised incomes inreturn for managing the woodlands and pro-ducing sustainable woodland products.

In addition to absorbing redundant labour,the forest has also been used as a basis forbuilding social and community ‘capital’. Theurban forest is consequently now being pro-moted as an ecological arena within which itis possible to bring together divided localcommunities. Through common ownershipschemes which operate throughout the forest,the Urban Forestry Unit is now marketing theproject as an effective ecological strategy forbuilding social cohesion in communities tra-ditionally ravaged by poverty and urban de-cline

Urban forestry offers a particularly boldapproach to urban greening. In the plant-ing and care of all the trees and woodlandin urban areas, and in urban forestry, thepeople are as important as the trees. Treesand woods help make cities healthier andmore attractive for the people who live andwork there. The process of deciding wheretrees should go and of planting and caringfor them can bring people together, build

stronger communities and add local dis-tinctiveness to neighbourhoods (NationalUrban Forestry Unit, 1997, p. 2; emphasesadded).

The purported role of nature in the buildingof community identity and solidarity wasemphasised by one project worker withwhom I talked

I think that the emphasis has moved awayfrom environmental issues far more to-wards social inclusion. Now in my opinionit is very easy to build links between socialinclusion and the reduction of crime andthe environment … simple projects suchas creating a woodland is a very good wayof getting groups together and to reach aconsensus on issues they feel divorcedfrom (programme manager, Black CountryUrban Forest, 1999).

Through these popularised narratives of na-ture, as an ameliorator of social tensions, theBlack Country Urban Forest has been con-structed as an ecological frontier throughwhich social tensions as well as ecologicalinjustice can be tackled. Implicit within thecommunity discourses associated with theurban forest, is a new vision of citizenship,within which social rights and responsibili-ties are expressed through ecological praxis.While the social benefits of the forest mayseem questionable, such claims do reveal thedesire and pressure to construct the BlackCountry Urban Forest as an arena of urbansocial regulation.

So far it appears that the ecological groupsbehind the Black Country Urban Forest havebeen able to develop a sensitivity to socialneeds within their programme, withoutovertly compromising their broader environ-mental objectives. Indeed, fostering local re-spect and engagement with nature appearimportant prerequisites for successful eco-logical programmes. However, the persistenteconomic problems within the surroundingurban region have presented a more funda-mental challenge to the ethos of the urbanforest. As previously mentioned, many localindustrialists and civic leaders became in-creasingly concerned that the poor condition




of the Black Country’s environment was amaterial and ideological barrier to economicinvestment (Birmingham Post, 1999). In thecontext of the increasingly aggressive anddiverse urban strategies which are being usedto ‘hold-down’ and attract investment (seeHarvey, 1989), it became increasinglydifficult to justify the existence of the urbanforest independently from its economic func-tion. In light of the economic problems of theregion and the broader regulatory order ofinterurban competition, state funding for theurban forest and the granting of developmentrights by the different local authorities gradu-ally become tied more and more to the widergoal of economic regeneration.

In order to gain funding for their ecologi-cal vision, the Urban Forestry Unit conse-quently became keen to emphasise, at leastnominally, the potential economic benefits ofan urban forest

In terms of sustainability I think everyoneis trying to encourage urban areas to be-come more attractive for housing develop-ers, to want to build there, for people towant to live there, for industrial activity… so everyone wants to improve thoseurban areas … and make them very at-tractive places (Chief Executive, Ground-work Black Country, 1999).

Analysing the forest more closely, however,it appears that the economic functions of theproject have started to predominate over itssocial and ecological roles. Moreover, in pri-oritising the economic advantages of the for-est, it appears that many of the ecologicalaims of the project are being compromised.A look at the geography of the forest, forexample, reveals that, rather than focusing onkey ecological areas within the urban conur-bation, the major destinations for investmentfrom the £4.5 million scheme have beenlocated along the key transport arteries in theregion. Called the ‘Woodlands by the Motor-way Priority Zone’, the location of the urbanforest alongside the M6 and M5 motorways,represents an attempt to recast the region’simage to those predominantly living outsidethe area. The ecological re-imaging of urban

economies represents one of the dominantentrepreneurial strategies used by cities tocreate attractive, post-industrial business en-vironments (Harvey, 1989; Peck and Tickell,1994). The location of large areas of theBlack Country Urban Forest along key trans-port intersections has, however, created aspatially fragmented forest and has preventedthe formation of a more continuous and eco-logically sustainable forest system.

The designation of funding within the for-est on the basis of visibility, as opposed toecological need, has obvious implications forthe overall rationale of the project. It alsoillustrates the difficulties of translating eco-logical desire into economic function. Theutilisation of the Black Country Urban Forestas an economic resource, illustrates just oneof the many ways in which nature can becommodified within urban development(Katz, 1998). Crucially, the commodified ex-ploitation of nature in the Black Country hasenabled the area to begin to cast off itstraditional industrial image and to be sold asa green and pleasant post-industrial land-scape (see Keil and Graham, 1999). In lightof this commodification process, the case ofthe Black Country Urban Forest appears toreflect what Katz and Kirby (1991) describeas the aestheticising of nature. According toKatz and Kirby (1991, p. 265), the aesthetici-sation of nature involves the distancing ofnature from many of its social and ecologicalvalues. Siginificantly, in the context of thispaper, the commodification and aestheticisa-tion of nature in the Black Country, or indeedin any other sustainable city programme,must be understood as part of the on-goingregulatory struggles which surround urbannature. Furthermore, this paper asserts thatthe exploitation of sustainable developmentstrategies as a basis, first and foremost foreconomic restructuring, is a product of thecontemporary neo-liberal regulatory(dis)order which is intensifying interurbancompetition and zero-sum economic gain.

In many ways, the Black Country UrbanForest represents a microcosm of the histori-cal struggles which have surrounded thesocio-ecological regulation of the Black



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Country economy. It also illustrates that theemergence of nature as an object of regula-tory crisis does not guarantee its place withinany emerging regulatory compromise. Theurban forest has brought undoubted ecologi-cal benefits to the Black Country urban re-gion. However, the political compromisesthrough which ecological concern has beentranslated into the discourses and practices ofsustainable development raise importantquestions concerning the ways in whicheconomic, social and environmental issuesbecome entangled within the on-going pro-cesses and structures of regulation. If nolocal or national support had been gained,nothing matching the contemporary scale orecological significance of the Black CountryUrban Forest would exist in the area today.Nevertheless, by playing the ‘sustainable de-velopment game’, ecological groups in theBlack Country have sacrificed many of theiroriginal desires for the forest and reduced thepolitical space within which more radicalecological programmes can operate in thearea in the foreseeable future.

4. Conclusion: Researching the Sustain-able City

This paper has suggested a series of ways inwhich the regulation approach can be used toanalyse the material and discursive rise of thesustainable city. By drawing upon the regu-lation approach, analysis has sought to illus-trate that the creation of sustainable cities isnot simply a technocratic exercise in townplanning and urban design, but is part of awider set of socio-ecological processes ofregulation. Understood in these terms, thestudy of sustainable cities becomes lessabout simply reciting a set of universal socialand ecological principles regarding urban de-velopment, and more about analysing theways in which at different times and in dif-ferent places certain social, economic andenvironmental strategies of urban develop-ment emerge and who benefits most fromthese strategic formulations.

But what does a regulatory approach to thesustainable city actually provide? At one

level, it serves to illustrate that the sustain-able city is a social, economic and politicalconstruct. Unlike many existing approachesto the social and discursive construction ofsustainability (see Hajer, 1995), however, theregulation approach enables the social con-struction and production of the sustainablecity to be interpreted within the prevailingframeworks, structures and practices of capi-talist development. In this context, the sus-tainable city is understood both as theproduct of historically specific and spatiallyinscribed regulatory tensions and as a poss-ible space within which future regulatoryprocesses may be realised and contested.Through the two case studies, this paper hasexplored the ways in which the discoursesand practices associated with sustainable ur-ban development are being used to addresskey objects of local regulatory discontent. Byfocusing upon the fluidity of regulatory pro-cesses, analysis has shown the importance oflocal political traditions and historical regula-tory legacies in the discursive construction ofstrategies of sustainable urban development.Crucially, in the context of the two casestudies, this paper has also shown the import-ance of broader regimes and regulatory struc-tures in the formation and constitution ofsustainable cities. In particular, analysis hasshown the impacts which neo-liberal stateideology and interurban economic compe-tition are having on the shape and content ofstrategies of urban sustainability.

In bringing together the ideas of sustain-able urban development and theories of regu-lation, this paper has sought to dispel threemyths which appear to surround the sustain-able city. First, that despite their morallyimbued name, ‘sustainable’ cities, are notequally sustainable for all social and ecologi-cal interests. Secondly, sustainable cities arenot generic, planned objects, uniformly im-plemented throughout the world, but are indi-vidually constituted phenomena, producedwithin specific geographical scales andspaces. Thirdly, sustainable cities are not‘simply business as usually’ for capitalisturbanisation, but involve the active repack-aging or humanisation of neo-liberal projects




in urban areas, through new discursiveregimes and new economic practices (seeJessop, 2001, p. 1). As a multiple space ofecological, economic and social activity, thesustainable city represents a crucial terrainupon which future battles over territorial jus-tice will be waged (Amin and Graham,1997). Crucially, this paper asserts that thisbattle can only be won when the fight forsustainable cities becomes a broader questfor socio-ecological justice at a variety ofgeo-political and economic scales.

Notes

1. Noted here is the distinction which Harvey(1973, pp. 307–308; 1996, ch. 14) and others(for example, Lefebvre, 1970; Smith, 1984)make between cities as ‘things’ and urbani-sation as a ‘process’. As a process, urbanisa-tion cannot be contained or defined withinany neat spatial segregation between the cityand the countryside, the metropolis and Ar-cadia, or society and nature. Urbanisation—or the production of urban forms—is insteadcharacterised by a continual state of flux,change and transformation, which permeatesand affects an increasingly wide range ofsocial and ecological contexts in the repro-duction of capitalism.

2. With perhaps the exception of writers suchas Blowers and Pain (1999), Swynegedouwand Kaı̈ka (2000), Lawrence (1996), Sat-terthwaite (1997) and Marcuse (1998).

3. During the course of writing this paper, theUNCHS has been renamed the UN-Habitat(United Nations Human Settlement Pro-gramme).

4. Thus the mode of regulation usually labelledas ‘Fordism’ for example, lasted for around30 years in the West after the Second WorldWar, and involved technical change in theprocesses of production, organisationalchange in capital-labour relations, the politi-cal implementation of Keynesian demandmanagement policies and the emergence of asocial norm of mass consumption for manualworkers and their families.

5. Despite an original emphasis of work onregulation on the national scale as the keysite of Fordist regulation, regulationist re-search has increasingly focused upon themultiple spaces and scales through whichregulation is constituted (see MacLeod 1997;Peck and Tickell, 1995; Tickell and Peck,1992, 1995). In this way, the sustainable cityor region could be a significant space within

the emerging regulatory geography of latecapitalism.

6. The levels of worker absenteeism were esti-mated to be costing the North Staffordshireeconomy between £93 and £140 millionpounds per year, an average loss of £10 000per employee (North Staffordshire HealthAuthority, 1999, p. 4).

7. Particularly by Groundwork Stoke and Stokeof Trent City Council’s Local Agenda 21scheme ‘Green Steps’.

8. Broadly middle class in its origins, the natureconservation lobby in the Black Countryeventually saw the establishment of the firstBritish urban wildlife trust in the area.

9. The Black Country Urban Forestry Unit hassubsequently been renamed the NationalUrban Forestry Unit. The National UrbanForestry Unit now co-ordinates urban for-estry programmes throughout the UK.

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