Transformative innovation in peri-urban Asia

This paper draws on two case studies from India and China to discuss how and why rapidly urbanizing contexts are particularly challenging for transformative innovation but are also critical sustainability frontiers and learning environments. We argue that lack of understanding and policy engagement with peri-urbanization in its current form is leading to increasing exclusion and unrealized potential to support multiple sustainable urban development goals. Peri-urbanization is often characterized by the neoliberal reordering of space and a co-option of environmental agendas by powerful urban elites. Changing land-use, resource extraction, pollution and livelihood transitions drive rapid changes in interactions between socio-technical and social-ecological systems, and produce complex feedbacks across the rural–urban continuum. These contexts also present characteristic governance challenges as a result of jurisdictional ambiguity, transitioning formal and informal institutional arrangements, heterogeneous and sometimes transient communities, shifts in decision making to distant authorities and the rapid growth of informal market-based arrangements with little incentive for environmental management. These unique features of peri-urbanization may reinforce a lack of inclusion and hinder experimentation, but they can also present valuable opportunities for transformative innovation. This innovation is unlikely to follow the lines of niche management and upscaling but rather should take advantage of peri-urban dynamics. There are possibilities to build new alliances in order to renegotiate governance structures across the rural–urban continuum, to reframe urban sustainability debates and to reconfigure socio-technical and social-ecological systems interactions

Sustainability, resilience and governance of an urban food system: a case study of peri-urban Wuhan

While it is clear that urban food systems need to be made resilient so that broader sustainability goals can be maintained over time, it has been a matter of debate as to how resilience should be conceptualised when applied to social-ecological systems. Through a case study of peri-urban Wuhan, this research develops and applies a resilience based conceptual framework for periurban food systems analysis in order to explore the potential for an enhanced understanding of resilience that can contribute to promoting sustainability in urban food systems. The evidence of this thesis suggests that the current approach to governance of Wuhan’s periurban vegetable system is building an increasingly exclusionary pattern of resilience. It is a form of resilience building which is likely to undermine broader normative sustainability goals around social justice and environmental integrity and have mixed future implications for food system resilience as a whole, particularly in relation to livelihood outcomes for peri-urban farmers and food safety outcomes for urban consumers in general. The key lessons from this research are that the concept of resilience can be used to support either a narrowing down or an opening up of normative framings of system outcomes and can contribute to obscuring or revealing the multiple processes of change unfolding across the levels of system context, structures and actors. These dualities in the way that resilience thinking can contribute to normative and analytical framings need to be explicitly acknowledged if serious unintended consequences of resilience building interventions are to be avoided. Six important principles for conceptualising resilience in urban food systems are suggested: to 1) disaggregate system outcomes, 2) differentiate function and structure, 3) analyse positive and negative resilience, 4) identify external and structural shocks and stresses, 5) analyse resilience in relation to multiple and multi-scale processes of change and 6) recognise the impacts of those processes on marginalised system actors. Finally, a heuristic framework is presented for guiding the design of resilience analyses of human dominated social-ecological systems

Transdisciplinary research as transformative space making for sustainability: enhancing propoor transformative agency in periurban contexts contexts

In this paper we discuss how transdisciplinary development research (TDR), if approached in particular ways, can not only to produce new knowledge, but also foster deeper systemic changes in the knowledge system itself. We are concerned with systemic change that supports pro-poor sustainability transformations, and conceptualise the processes that contribute to this type of systemic change as 'transformative space making' (TSM). TDR as TSM can generate possibilities for the integration of diverse knowledges into decision making, whilst also creating new opportunities for subaltern knowledges to achieve greater influence, through enhancing the transformative agency of the poor. Thus, our conceptualization goes beyond the idea of TDR for the co-creation of solution-oriented knowledge, and recognizes the need to address structural injustices in knowledge systems. In TDR as TSM the development of strategies to reveal power relations and navigate the politics of structural injustices becomes as important as refining the principles for robust collaborative knowledge production. To demonstrate the operationalization of TDR as TSM, we draw insights from our long-term involvement in TDR case studies of emergent environmental and health challenges in peri-urban contexts in India. We identify mechanisms which build legitimacy of pro-poor knowledges, whilst simultaneously creating ‘readiness’ to take advantage of opportunities for interventions to support change in policy and practice at multiple scales. We highlight the politics of alliance building both within and beyond the research team; arguing that attention to alliances is central to understanding the role of TDR in creating possibilities for transformative change. Finally, we argue that development research funding and commissioning agencies should pay attention to the mechanisms of TSM, alongside more recognised aspects of the planning, monitoring and evaluation of TDR initiatives, in order to provide appropriate support for enhanced impact

Making the Most of Peri-Urban Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem services are vital for peri-urban and urbanising areas, and the people who live within them. In contexts of rapid urbanisation, these services are under threat from redevelopment, pollution and overconsumption, and there are gaps in the policies and structures that should protect them. Despite these challenges, there are opportunities for local authorities and citizens to work together and join up policy with action on the ground. Peri-urban ecosystems can provide vital support for functions such as disaster risk management, flood control, reduction of urban heat island effects, air and water purification, food and water security, and waste management. Supporting them is essential in order to meet national government policies and commitments on multiple issues linked to environment, health and poverty reduction, the Sustainable Development Goals and the resilient cities agenda. There are important governance challenges involved in safeguarding and harnessing peri-urban ecosystem services. These include rapid change, ambiguity over boundaries, and gaps in policies and regulations. Involving communities in appraisal and decision-making is crucial to the success of initiatives to protect peri-urban ecosystem services. Taking account of local cultures and histories is important. In many cases, the process will also provide crucial missing data and insights, build trust and avoid misunderstandings. There is a need to share good practice, cases and opportunities between municipalities; and to provide opportunities for decision-makers at national level to learn from them. This briefing was prepared for the Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme and draws on material from the Risks and Responses to Urban Futures project

Analysing trade-offs and synergies between SDGs for urban development, food security and poverty alleviation in rapidly changing peri-urban areas: a tool to support inclusive urban planning

Transitional peri-urban contexts are frontiers for sustainable development where land-use change involves negotiation and contestation between diverse interest groups. Multiple, complex trade-offs between outcomes emerge which have both negative and positive impacts on progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These trade-offs are often overlooked in policy and planning processes which depend on top-down expert perspectives and rely on course grain aggregate data which does not reflect complex peri-urban dynamics or the rapid pace of change. Tools are required to address this gap, integrate data from diverse perspectives and inform more inclusive planning processes. In this paper, we draw on a reinterpretation of empirical data concerned with land-use change and multiple dimensions of food security from the city of Wuhan in China to illustrate some of the complex trade-offs between SDG goals that tend to be overlooked with current planning approaches. We then describe the development of an interactive web-based tool that implements deep learning methods for fine-grained land-use classification of high-resolution remote sensing imagery and integrates this with a flexible method for rapid trade-off analysis of land-use change scenarios. The development and potential use of the tool are illustrated using data from the Wuhan case study example. This tool has the potential to support participatory planning processes by providing a platform for multiple stakeholders to explore the implications of planning decisions and land-use policies. Used alongside other planning, engagement and ecosystem service mapping tools it can help to reveal invisible trade-offs and foreground the perspectives of diverse stakeholders. This is vital for building approaches which recognise how trade-offs between the achievement of SDGs can be influenced by development interventions

Local environmentalism in peri-urban Ghaziabad: emergent ecological democracy?

This paper explores the potential of a range of peri-urban environmentalisms to come together in support of sustainable urbanisation. The present-day ‘urban,’ along with the dominant planning visions of urbanisation, lack in inclusivity, deliberative democracy, grassroots innovations, and bottom-up processes of knowledge generation. To sustainably transform this scenario, there is a need for the participation of various sections of citizens, who should be seen not just as subjects of planning, but as creators of a planning framework that emerges from both contestations and innovations in everyday living. Our earlier research on a peri-urban village situated between Delhi city and Ghaziabad town suggested that there is little support for continuation of agriculture in such areas, despite its strategic importance for sustainable urban development. Agriculture could contribute to the greening of urban spaces while enhancing the livelihoods of the poor, recycling urban waste and producing perishable food items for the urban populations. However, we found that present-day government schemes, as they unfold–often under the banner of sustainability–tend to exacerbate peri-urban inequalities. Having observed local citizen environmental action in Ghaziabad, we wanted to understand the potential role it could play in dealing with the environmental crises facing the district and region. During the course of our research we came across a distinctive peri-urban civil society activism, which cannot be viewed in binaries and reflects a pluralist spectrum that allows for alliance building. This environmentalism in Ghaziabad is distinct from the ‘environmentalism of the poor’ practiced by rural and forest dwelling groups; from the dominant elite urban ‘green development’ practices and discourses of ‘bourgeois environmentalism’; and from the urban politics of the poor. It reflects the possibility of creating bridges across sectional interests–rural and urban, red and green ideological streams– and across classes

Local Environmentalism in Peri-Urban Spaces in India: Emergent Ecological Democracy?

This paper explores the potential of a range of peri-urban environmentalisms to come together in support of sustainable urbanisation. The present-day ‘urban,’ along with the dominant planning visions of urbanisation, lack in inclusivity, deliberative democracy, grassroots innovations, and bottom-up processes of knowledge generation. To sustainably transform this scenario, there is a need for the participation of various sections of citizens, who should be seen not just as subjects of planning, but as creators of a planning framework that emerges from both contestations and innovations in everyday living. Our earlier research on a peri-urban village situated between Delhi city and Ghaziabad town suggested that there is little support for continuation of agriculture in such areas, despite its strategic importance for sustainable urban development. Agriculture could contribute to the greening of urban spaces while enhancing the livelihoods of the poor, recycling urban waste and producing perishable food items for the urban populations. However, we found that present-day government schemes, as they unfold–often under the banner of sustainability–tend to exacerbate peri-urban inequalities. Having observed local citizen environmental action in Ghaziabad, we wanted to understand the potential role it could play in dealing with the environmental crises facing the district and region. During the course of our research we came across a distinctive peri-urban civil society activism, which cannot be viewed in binaries and reflects a pluralist spectrum that allows for alliance building. This environmentalism in Ghaziabad is distinct from the ‘environmentalism of the poor’ practiced by rural and forest dwelling groups; from the dominant elite urban ‘green development’ practices and discourses of ‘bourgeois environmentalism’; and from the urban politics of the poor. It reflects the possibility of creating bridges across sectional interests–rural and urban, red and green ideological streams– and across classes.ESRCEcosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) Programm

Ecosystem Services and poverty alleviation in urbanising contexts

The impacts of urbanisation on ecosystems and the dependence of urban populations on ecosystem services are widely acknowledged but poorly understood. In the Global South, rural–urban linkages are increasingly shaped and transformed by the processes of peri-urbanisation, through which rural areas become increasingly enmeshed in a mosaic of rural and urban land use and juxtaposed rural and urban livelihoods and overlapping institutions. Peri-urban areas are frontiers of sustainability transformations, where deep and sustained engagement with communities of the poor, and enhanced understanding of dynamic ecosystem service-poverty alleviation interactions, can reveal possibilities to improve the health and livelihoods of both urban and peri-urban residents, whilst also supporting more effective, efficient and equitable management of environmental resources. We demonstrate this through an example of peri-urban food systems in the outskirts of Delhi, India