The institutionalisation of sustainable practices in cities: how initiatives shape local selection environments

The ways in which institutions are reconfigured to change mainstream selection pressures to favour sustainability is central to research on sustainability transitions but has only recently begun to receive more attention. Of this existing work, empirical attention has mainly focused on the national level with less attention to local dynamics. Attending to this gap, we mobilise theory on institutionalisation processes and insights from the politics of transitions literature and take an actor perspective to investigate the agency of local sustainability initiatives to navigate local governance processes and reconfigure selection environments at the urban scale. Our work subsequently demonstrates the importance of diverse actor tactics, of networking for advocacy and of networking for the creation of informal, ad hoc governance arenas

New-build studentification: a panacea for balanced communities?

Rising concern about the negative impacts of students on “host communities” has triggered debates about the consequences of studentification in the UK. For some commentators, purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) appears the panacea for studentification, as it offers the potential to reintroduce balance to studentified communities by redistributing student populations in regulated ways. This paper explores this contention, drawing upon focus groups and household surveys conducted in the vicinity of a PBSA development in Brighton (UK). The paper concludes that the location of this development in a densely populated neighbourhood has engendered adverse student / community relations, conflict, feelings of dispossession, and displacement of established local residents. It is asserted that future developments of PBSA should be mindful of these issues and their implications for questions of community cohesion, quality-of-life and belonging in established residential communities. These findings are discussed in relation to debates of age differentials, segregation, and new-build gentrification