Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
local inputs. This was not carried out by regular study visits in the Seattle manner,
a city with an enviable economic base. Rather it created a highly organized agency,
Metropoli-30, with a staff and a defined budget to develop and help implement as
strategic mandate. However the agency helped bring in experts from other cities to
provide guidance on its plans to transform the city from its declining former heritage
and provide ways of gauging progress (Campbell 2012). These plans led not only
to the creation of a major new attraction, the Guggenheim museum, that also acts
as a focal point for many conferences. The associated Bilboa Rio 2000 agency, a
non-profit, public partnership has also proved crucial (Plger 2008). It has overseen
the modernization of its port, rapid transit systems, as well as rehabilitation of old
industrial sites, in addition to re-integrating the city within its surrounding region
rather than being an export-orientated industrial centre. The restructuring has led to
new technology parks, successor companies and new services that in total employ
as many people as the older industrial developments. Since different governments
control land planning, finance and land ownership etc., the agency is designed to
have involvement from all levels of government to effect meaningful change.
These developments have meant that some urban places around the world have
become more proactive in obtaining and applying ideas from the new themes and
networks, not only those reviewed in this topic. In many ways it is creating a new
phase of municipal endeavour, rather like the ways in which urban places developed
links and new services in late nineteenth century Europe, although much of this was
assisted by national government leadership in setting out legal frameworks to be
applied in cities. Most of these early networks subsequently atrophied because of
two world wars and the economic depression in between. Yet one must be cautious;
cities vary drastically in the extent to which they are engaging in new practices.
The eternal barriers of the limited powers and financial base of most urban places
provide real constraints for many cities, for few national or state governments are
prepared to delegate more powers or tax rights. Yet by their sheer scale and voting
power they can influence higher levels of government, and many have been pursu-
ing new policies, especially in sustainability, because of the failure of higher levels
of government to act.
What has been the result of all these new themes and the networks that often
sustain them? It is obviously too soon to produce a clear evaluation, for many have
only been operating for a few years. Some have developed comprehensive new
strategies within which individual policies have been applied; others have been con-
tent with implementing individual polices without any coherent strategy. In both
cases there are many examples of successful actions. The trouble is that too few
places are actively pursuing even one of the various approaches. Indeed the saddest
interpretation to the changes being promoted by advocates of these new themes is
that where there is a need for technical transformations, such as reducing the use of
fossil energy, we do not lack the means to implement change. What is holding up
greater progress is a lack of the political will and leadership to implement change
or develop innovative new solutions to existing problems. Certainly some of the
solutions are more costly, but not all are, and some cities have pioneered the way
for progress, as three examples show. So if most cities adopted the carbon-neutral
