Politics of Urban Runoff: Building Relations through Active Citizenship - Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature, Technology, and the Sustainable City - page 171

multiple perspectives and experiences. Civic politics recognizes that “there
are many different kinds of environmental problems and different points
of view.” 58 Political scientist Lamont Hempel notes:
Partly in response to dissatisfaction with the sustainable development concept
and partly in response to growing concerns about urban quality of life, a splinter
movement of sorts has arisen in an effort to focus sustainability strategies on the
social, economic, and ecological well-being of communities. Participants in this
movement defi ne community sustainability in ways that highlight the relationships
between local quality of life and local or regional levels of population, consump-
tion, political participation, and commitment to intertemporal equity. 59
Civic political actors operate in neighborhoods to organize diverse coali-
tions of organizations and activists who address the overlapping issues
of public health, growth management, urban planning and development,
environmental justice, urban environmental quality, and local government
control. The local scale is not just a material place where relations between
humans and nonhumans are readily apparent but also a place where these
relations can be deliberated and acted upon. 60 It is at the local scale where
urban residents recognize that “environmental quality and social health
are inextricably linked.” 61
Civic politics is not aimed at decentralizing environmental policy mak-
ing but rather at creating a transformative mode of local politics steeped in
deliberative democracy and community activity. Such an interpretation of
civic politics is founded on the belief that sustainable urban development
is a deeply political project and “sustainability will be achieved, if [at]
all, not by engineers, agronomists, economists and biotechnicians but by
citizens.” 62 This belief resonates with the various calls by political science
scholars for strong democracy, deliberative democracy, and ecological
democracy that emerged in the mid-1980s. 63 Building on historical fi g-
ures such as Thomas Jefferson and Alexis de Tocqueville, as well as more
contemporary philosophers such as John Dewey, John Rawls, and Jürgen
Habermas, the emphasis on deliberation in democratic process rejects ag-
gregative or representative models of democracy and instead, recognizes
the link between collaborative problem solving and community building. 64
The importance of democracy is not in its prescribed models but in the pro-
cesses of deliberation, reasoned argument, and public refl ection. 65 Dryzek
argues that “the main reason for the democratization of environmental
administration has been a felt need to secure legitimacy for decisions by
involving a broader public.” 66
There is no guarantee that deliberative democratic procedures will re-
sult in more ecologically oriented communities, but it has great potential