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Alicia Rouault
2 Projections 11
Global Ecologies: Politics, Planning, and Design
In Memoriam 153
Professor JoAnn Carmin
6 Projections 11
Editorial
Global Ecologies: Politics, Planning, and
Design
At the same time, authors like Giddens (1991) and Beck (1991) proposed
the concept of the world risk society, characterized by a second moder-
nity, to address global ecological and economic dynamics or crises. Rather
than articulating industrialization and modernization simply as processes of
contestation between capitalist economics (for profit and production) and
class (labor, in particular), the authors emphasized the relationship between
modernization and the environment through the lens of risk, referring to a
systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced and intro-
duced by modernization itself. According to this theory, modern societies
take complex and deliberate risks, necessitating the reliance on scientists for
interpretation of scientific knowledge. The problem faced by modern societ-
ies, therefore, is the loss of faith in the institutions of modernity and, eventu-
ally, in the prospect of modernizing reflexively.
In the policy realm, there has been an increasing recognition over the past
several decades of the role of global politics and international institutions
in addressing the contradictions between environmental protection and eco-
nomic development. The United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (also known as the Rio Earth Summit) in 1992 set the founda-
tion for important global agreements such as the Convention on Biological
Diversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (Gupta 2014).
Scholarship emanating from these global policy advances mostly notes that
environmental politics must either be rescaled vertically down toward provin-
cial and municipal governments or up toward supranational regimes in order
8 Projections 11
to ensure effectiveness and accountability (Andonova and Mitchell 2010).
Still, this global interconnectedness is not necessarily a new phenomenon,
as scholars writing on world-systems theory and the environment have al-
ready been noting that the history of colonialism should be considered as
the main cause of underdevelopment (Gould and Lewis 2008; Roberts and
Grimes 2002). The message was that the major environmental problems of
our time needed to be understood in relation to the dynamics of an evolv-
ing world system, such as global inequalities involving core and peripheral
zones.
10 Projections 11
by these marginalized groups for ensuring livelihoods and protecting local
environments (Rangan 1997; Scott 1999). Therefore, the goal of some of
these environmental movements is to promote underlying concepts associ-
ated with ecologically responsible statehood (Eckersley 2004) and, eventu-
ally, leading to environmental and social justice in sustainable development
(Van Der Heijden 1999).
Theories of environmental justice are premised on the notion that basic func-
tions of societies involve the production of both intense ecological harm
and extensive social hierarchies. Ecological disorganization and environmen-
tal inequality and racism are fundamental to the project of modern nation
building (Pellow 2007). The environmental justice movement is a political
response to the deterioration of the conditions of everyday life as society
reinforced existing social inequalities while exceeding the limits of growth
(Pellow and Brulle 2005). The movement argues for distribution, recogni-
tion, participation and capabilities (Schlosberg 2004), and has sought to
redefine environmentalism as much more integrated with the social needs
of human populations while also challenging the capitalist growth economy
(Pellow and Brulle 2005). Similarly, on the development side, theories on
alternative development (and alternatives to development) stress the role
of the rights of the marginalized and disempowered, local knowledge, and
popular, grassroots movements (Escobar 1995; Friedmann 1992; Pieterse
1998). Both schools, therefore, harken back to the ideas of reflexive modern-
ization as presented by Giddens and Beck, and refer to an age where society
is increasingly reflecting and mobilizing against the byproducts of modern
industrialization and economic development.
12 Projections 11
planning, for example, it has tended to draw a line between hard, engineered
infrastructure, and measures that are more social and political in focus. Is-
sues of justice, at the same time, have regularly been considered outside the
realm of physical planning, and of urban design even as scholars rue the
spatially unequal impacts of social and environmental injustice. And urban
design as a field of planning is in need of exploration, and precision. Its
core theoretical lineages from the modernist, functional CIAM movement to
Kevin Lynch and Jane Jacobs views of urban social complexity now show
their limitations faced with a set of new, intertwined challenges of climate
change, global urbanization, increasingly interconnected social movements,
and the surge of megaprojects changing the urban world.
In addition to the written articles, visual projects engage with the two ex-
tremes of scales, from the planetary to the local. The cover image, by Nikos
14 Projections 11
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sure. edited by A. P. J. Mol and F. H. Buttel. Oxford: Emerald Group Publishing.
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Pellow and R. J. Brulle. Cambridge: MIT Press.
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18 Projections 11
Informal residential housing in Mauru Baru, North Jakarta, November 2013.
Photo courtesy of Etienne Turpin / anexact office
Suzanne Song
ETH Zrich
Abstract
This paper explores the enclosure of common land in predominantly agrar-
ian economies where poor rural inhabitants are disproportionally affected.
The relentless, capitalist drive to privatize land through what Harvey terms
accumulation by dispossession is compared and contrasted through two
examples; historical British Enclosure and contemporary African Land Grab-
bing. The analysis examines the national globalization policies implemented
that argue economic development, applies the framework of sustainable de-
velopment to (a) policy impacts on the poor (b) modes of collective action
as reactions (c) possible strategic approaches to explore planning alterna-
tives in Ethiopia to resist processes of accumulation by dispossession. The
unsustainable impacts of impoverishment, food insecurity, marginalization,
and migration similarly characterize both the historical and contemporary
cases of enclosure. Land degradation and resource overuse are additional
factors in the delicate Sub-Saharan environment that are a profound deter-
minant on the fragile conditions necessary for livelihood and environmental
sustainability. Land grabbing exacerbates the decreasing supply of produc-
tive resources available to farmers. Secure tenure and access to common
pool resources (CPRs) are critical for sustainable development. Collective ac-
tion through the cooperative movement in England mobilized internal class
struggles that resisted capitalist accumulation through enabled competition
in a globalized free market. The growing cooperative movement in Africa
is developing competitive potential but land grabbing is embedded at the
global level of neo-liberal politics and needs sustained multi-scalar support
by international coalitions. An alternative planning model is discussed that
combines cooperatives and CPRs to strategically secure land and incorpo-
rate socioeconomic, sociopolitical and environmental development that di-
rectly engages rural communities.
Song 21
Introduction
Urbanism is the mode of appropriation of the natural and human
environment by capitalism
- Guy Debord1
Today, in the case of Sub-Saharan Africa and Ethiopia, drought and crop
failure contribute to susceptibility to poverty and famine, predominantly af-
22 Projections 11
fecting the rural poor. Ethiopias population more than doubled from 1975
to 2011 from 33 million to 84.7 million people.5 From 1994 to 2007 the
national population growth rate averaged 2.6% though was slightly lower for
the urban population of 12 million than the rural population of 62 million.6
Per capita GDP in 1974 is estimated at $110,7 it rose from $636 in 2005 to
$979 in 2011 while annual per capita GDP growth fell from 9.2% to 5% in
the same period. Government supported policies target economic develop-
ment through strategic neo-liberal directives that seek private capital invest-
ment to transform a smallholder agricultural to an industrialized agricultural
economy. The argument of developing the agro-industry by attracting foreign
investment capital spurs policy facilitating the transfer of large-scale tracts
of agricultural land to foreigners but precludes meeting such domestic de-
velopment goals. The impacts of land grabbing that disproportionately dis-
possess poor farmers of common resources exacerbate decreased domestic
productive land supply and water resources that impact domestic food secu-
rity, rural-urban migration, and threats to the environment.
Enclosure in Britain
Loss Of Common Land and Poverty
The loss of common land in the manorial open field system during the time
of British enclosure meant the loss of sources of food, fuel and income lead-
ing many to poverty. Neeson (1993) described how milk from a single cow
turned out onto common pasture or waste totaled about half of a laborers
yearly wages. Income from a calf sold at market would substantially cover
rent and land tax for the year (Neeson, p.311). Corn from four acres of arable
land would feed a family for an entire year.8 Governing of the commons tied
Song 23
the amount of arable land rented to the number of animals allowable to pas-
ture. Sheep, cheaper to buy and maintain than cows, additionally provided
wool, milk and lambs. Supplemental food and surplus income were lost from
game hunting, fishing, berry and nut picking on common woodlands, fallow,
marsh and waste. Common land use provided subsistence and livelihood
in an economy where the overwhelming expense was food (Neeson, p.313).
Sources of fuel, fodder and household materials were lost- dry fallen wood,
dead leaves, furze, peat, reeds, rushes, and gleanings were no longer avail-
able. Comparatively, the loss of fuel sources became more valuable as coal
became an available substitute that was unaffordable for most commoners.
Food Shortages
Food shortages were common during the period of accelerated enclosures
after 1750 from rising market prices, especially from blocked trade during
the American War of Independence from 1775-1783 and Napoleonic Wars
from 1803-1814 (Allen, 1994, p.97; Allen 1999, p. 217).
After 1800, trade fed the expanding British population with rising consump-
tion and demand for cheaper imported goods. But the rising domestic mo-
nopoly grain prices that protected British landowners and merchants from
foreign competition through the Corn Laws of 1815-1846 and the financial
Panic of 1837 led to grievous depression in the hungry forties.
Unemployment
Unemployment grew parallel to rising food prices. As sectorial shifts and
global market conditions shifted around 1760 (Clark, 1998), relative profit-
ability turned in the favor of privatized land9 and enclosures surged as
raising agricultural crops (open fields) shifted to sheep (fenced-in fields) for
wool as a raw good for industrial production. Wool exports were high at this
time although prices varied depending on quality high (Bowden, 1952). As
raising crops was more labor intensive than raising sheep, where only one
shepherd tended an entire flock, unemployment rose. The labor oversup-
ply was compounded by increased population and decreased real wages
that limited the ability to buy food. Total pastoral output increased while
arable10 decreased in the latter half of the 18th century and then switched
the first half of the 19th century (Broadberry et al., 2010, p.43) as raising
crops or livestock shifted depending on prices for corn, wool11 and meat
(Redford, 1964, p.70-71).
24 Projections 11
the poor enacted with the Workhouse Test Act of 1723 aimed to stem rural-
urban migration and relieve urban tax pressure of poor relief but served to
spatially marginalize the growing poor population at the urban periphery as
Green (2010) illustrated in London. Depopulation of rural areas occurred
due to attraction of higher real wages15 in urban manufacturing centers (Red-
ford, 1964, p.67) even though the conversion of land from waste and marsh
to enclosed arable and pasture was labor-intensive (Turner, 1980)
Intense town growth in the postwar years between 1821 and 1831 occurred
coupled with migration to manufacturing centers located in different regions
driven by expansive export growth by sequential concentrations of wool, lin-
en, cotton, and silk goods (Redford, 1964 p.66). An increased flow of raw
materials produced or imported, including cotton imports from the cheap
slave labor from new world plantations (Blackburn cited by Makki & Geisler,
2011, p.4), manufactured and sold domestically and internationally was due
to market growth in international trade and by 1839 textiles totaled 72% of
UK exports (Freeman & Louca, 2002, p.22).
Other factors that affected wage and sticky migration was the influx of Irish
handloom weavers from 1826-1833 that accepted starvation wages and
crowded out the higher skilled British weavers,16 giving local workers false
hope of employment at the factories that stayed open (Redford, p.41-42,
p.125) and in hinterlands surrounding growing towns, where workers were
attracted to higher wages in industry, agricultural workers were scarce and
therefore earned the highest real wages (Redford, p.68).17
Song 25
price. The main effect of enclosure was to redistribute income from farm-
ers to rich land owners (Yelling cited by Allen, 1982, p.950-951). Wealthy
landowners who benefitted from rent increases from enclosure had political
power and enacted parliamentary policies in their own favor.
A report on global land grabbing states that 43% of all large-scale land ac-
quisitions target land already in use for farming by local communities, has a
relatively high population density, is easily accessible by transportation and
is in fact land for which local farmers compete. Land grabbing of forested
land (24% of the deals) and open and closed shrub land/grassland (28%
of the deals) also impact the environment and food security (CDE, 2011,
p.17). The increasing commercial pressure on land, its increasing price,
and the cheap capital offered to foreign-owned capitalist farms favor land
grabbing by foreigners, handicaps domestic producers and crowds out lo-
cal entrepreneurship (De Schutter, 2011; Rahmato, 2011). According to De
26 Projections 11
Schutter (2011, p.1) land grabbing increases susceptibility to food price
shocks; reduces the land and water access that would reduce poverty; and is
destructive to the livelihood of groups depending on common grazing, fish-
ing grounds, and forests. More than a dozen African countries have given
millions of hectares of farmland to foreign investors in the hopes of spurring
agrarian development (Rahmato, 2011, p.2).
Agriculture accounts for half of the GDP and 90% of export earnings of
which coffee is a major source (Assefa, 2007). Crop production of cereals
accounts for a majority of agricultural GDP with livestock production con-
tributing over a quarter as well (Walton, 2006). Smallholders produce 95%
of the agricultural GDP that is predominantly subsistence rain fed farming.22
Ethiopia is highly vulnerable to external global terms-of-trade shocks and
has periodically encountered food shortages, famine and received food aid
from NGOs.23 More than 50% of the gross capital formation of the Gross
National Income (GNI) in Ethiopia is financed by aid. The food crisis of 2006-
2008 showed that African countries that are most reliant on food imports are
the least resilient to food price shocks (FAO, 2009; Zoomers, 2010, p.434).
The complex factors contributing to Ethiopias low development and vulner-
ability are attributed to a combination of: ineffective and inefficient agri-
cultural marketing systems, underdeveloped transport and communications
Song 27
networks, underdeveloped production technologies, limited access of rural
households to support services, environmental degradation, lack of partici-
pation by poor rural people in decisions that affect their livelihoods, climatic
conditions, a lack of basic infrastructure such as health and education facili-
ties, and safe drinking water.24
Large-scale farming irrigation systems can reduce the existing water supply
for smallholders and the flooding watershed can be lost when control is given
over to capitalist foreign investors.30 Large-scale farming could also contrib-
ute to increasing water pollution in Africa, as environmental practices are not
well regulated.31 Fighting land degradation, desertification and mitigating
the effects of drought are essential for the economic growth and social prog-
ress of smallholders who are dependent on common resources.32 Capital
investment by farmers, such as tree planting, which is expensive but would
combat erosion, decreases with unsecure tenure (Taddese, 2001, p.822).
28 Projections 11
Political Structure of Land Ownership, Secure Land Tenure and
Marginalization
The structure of land ownership in Ethiopia has historically been tied to the
changing political regime. Under the communist rule of the Marxist Derg
Regime, that via popular uprising in 1974 overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie
Is monarchic rule, the lack of public investment into state nationalized land
resulted in declines in productivity, soil degradation, erosion and an incapac-
ity to support the growing population (Deininger, et al., 2007). After the Derg
Regime was overthrown in 199133 following the end of aid contributions from
the fallen Soviet Regime, the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic
Front (EPRDF) enacted reforms in 1997 and 2005 claiming federal owner-
ship of all land that then transferred rights to lease it to regional authorities.
The Ethiopian government claims that unused or public lands that do not
belong to anyone can be used for the greater national good to bring in hard
currency by efficient large-scale foreign investors.
Rahmato concluded, The state uses its hegemonic authority over the land to
dispossess smallholders and their communities without consulting them and
without their consent (2011, p.5). The problem lies in the political structure
where the control of all resources belong to the state or the ruling party- who
are ultimately responsible for land grabbing, but build a coalition through lo-
cal administrators and public agents who hold the authority to lease it- which
serves to enhance the political advantage of the state (Rahmato, 2011, p.5).
Peasants are threatened to only get access to land if they support local
administers in the kebele and woreda where most rural people vote based
on ethnic loyalties. Infringements on the right to a secret vote rarely lead
to prosecutions. Smallholders lose trust in their local authorities that are
complicit in investment decisions that lead to dispossession and their loss
of livelihood.
Song 29
stated, Like all agrarian strugglesin all regions of the world it is at the local
level that organized social movements are relatively thin and weak (2012,
p.637). Furthermore, civil society institutions have little political voice since
the dominant source of public information is government-controlled media
(Rahmato, 2011, p. 7).
The progressive widening of the gulf between the social classes due to a high
dependence on land resources will increase social and economic inequality
(Rahmato, 2003). The haves and have-nots in the rural population will be in-
creasingly marginalized within the states redefinition of the agrarian struc-
ture (Rahmato, 2011, p.5, 25). While income inequality is low overall, the
Gini coefficient rose from 29.8 to 33.6 indicating increased inequality from
2005- 201237 parallel with increased land grabbing. The increasing income
divide confirms Harveys premise that the redistribution of capital from the
masses to the rich is characteristic of neo-liberal policy and domestic actors
benefit from neo-colonial processes of accumulation (2006, p.43).
The goals laid out in the Plan for Accelerated and Sustainable Development
to End Poverty (PASDEP)39 are advocated by the World Bank and adminis-
tered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MOARD).40 Re-
gional governments facilitate dispossession through transfers of land into a
federal consolidated land bank. According to Rahmato, there is no evidence
that MOARD objectives are being met, the costs outweigh any benefits gained
and governmental regulations are not structured to meet these goals (2011,
p.13). The highest rent charged in 25-50 year leases is less than 135 Ethio-
pian Birr ($10.47 in 2009 dollars) per hectare per year (2011, p.15). Priority
for exports and foreign earnings that preclude benefits to domestic markets
are structured through tax exemptions that include: duty free input imports,
repatriation of profits and dividends, principal and interest payments on
external loans, proceeds from technology transfers, and asset sales in the
30 Projections 11
event of liquidation. There are no apparent formal provisions made to con-
tribute to domestic food security, domestic labor quotas, environmental pro-
tection, infrastructure, tech transfer, energy provision, or social investments
(2011, p.25). The technology gap between high-tech capitalist farmers and
peasants is so large; no achievable benefits to smallholders are affordable or
transferrable (2011, p.25). The Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) claim
that- leasing out land for bioethanol and biodiesel crops would not interfere
with food production or jeopardize food security- is dubious (2011, p.10).
Song 31
degradation, migration and marginalization remain highly dependent on
the secure tenure of productive land. Registering more common land rights
to local villages and collectively governing productive inputs through CPRs
would help to secure land tenure for shared use and returns instead of for
corporations, public, or foreign capital; foster participation to strengthen
democracy; and promote agricultural practices that are ecologically sustain-
able. Ostroms case studies showed that CPRs have been an enduring, ro-
bust form of organization with an inherent incentive structure favoring the
implementation of practices that promote long-term over short-term gain
(1990, p.3).
32 Projections 11
Discussion
The similarity in both cases of the relentless quest of capitalism to privatize
everything through processes of accumulation by dispossession51 is clearly
differentiated by the historical-geographical conditions surrounding histori-
cal England and contemporary Ethiopia. While historically, the external forc-
es of globalization were manifest as internal class struggle, the contempo-
rary form of neo-liberal globalization through land grabbing is embedded in
complex configurations of capitalist overaccumulation52 as a spatial fix from
foreign territories and likely as in the case of China, the formation of foreign
class power (Harvey, 2006).
International mobilization
If the relentless neo-liberal drive for new resources (and capitalist class pow-
er formation according to Harvey, 2006) by foreign lands that externalizes
the negative impacts of dispossession to home territories in Africa, were
resisted then organizational efficacy depends on concerted international mo-
bilization and sustained multi-scalar struggle.53
Song 33
Sustainable development
Sustainable development in Ethiopia depends on engaging interdisciplinary
planning that simultaneously addresses socio-economic and environmental
development to generate basic needs such as food and livelihood, to secure
land, to deter rural-urban migration, and to foster democracy. It depends
on promoting transfer of land and resource rights to rural communities;
building on the strengths of their existing social relations; developing organi-
zational capacity, knowledge and technology transfer, education and health
services, complementary industrial capabilities, and environmentally sus-
tainable farming practices.
Socio-economic sustainability
If aid has the potential to transform the political economy then its efficacy
depends on increasing the capital base of the poor. Supporting capacity
building, political empowerment, and domestic markets (food aid reforms
that foster local developing economies instead of subsidizing production
surpluses from developed countries) depends on accountability to avoid fa-
voring the existing capital of elites and temptation for corruption.
34 Projections 11
tion and collective action. Overwriting the negative connotations of agricul-
tural cooperatives forced on the population in Derg regimes process of vil-
lagization could occur with more successful examples of a combined model.
Social sustainability
If the production of space is to benefit the dispossessed and eventually check
neo-liberal accumulation, the dialectic of space at the levels of absolute
(fixed land use rights), relative (flows of capital investment), and relational
space (socio-economic and political) needs to be considered simultaneously
(Harvey, 2006, p.135). Combining multi-purpose cooperatives (agriculture,
housing, credit and savings) with CPRs (water, land, forestry, fisheries) in a
value chain would be more efficient and effective for communities, improve
chances of extending social services57 (education, industrial transformation/
diversification), foster entrepreneurial business activity and resist political
marginalization. Partnering with local organizations in Ethiopia would pro-
vide knowledge of operations at a local level and encourage participatory
governance.
Environmental sustainability
If the alternative politics of reclaiming the commons movement is a re-
sponse to historical neo-colonial struggles (Harvey, 2006, p.64) then contem-
porary neo-liberal processes of land grabbing could follow a similar path. A
combined model could avert capitalist privatization of land and environmen-
tal degradation if community use rights are secured. The model combines
what Harvey calls alternatives and social movements: local experiments
with new production and consumption systems with different social relations
Song 35
and ecological practices (2006, p.64) and pragmatic solutions to immedi-
ate problems of social or political exclusions or particular environmental
degradations and injustices(2006, p.111).
Authors note: The time to prepare a portion of this research was generously
granted by Prof. Dr. Marc Anglil, Chair for Architecture and Design, Institute of
Urban Design, Network City Landscape, at the Department of Architecture, ETH
Zrich. The cooperatives research was supported in part by an ETH North-South
Centre Programme and Partnership Development Grant.
36 Projections 11
Notes
1 Debord, G. (1994). The Society of the Spectacle, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith.
New York: Zone p.121.
3 With the dawn of the Tudor period began the general movement which gradually
transformed England into a mercantile country. The amount of money in actual use
was increasing; men possessed more capital, could borrow it more easily, and lay it
out to greater advantage. Commerce permeated national life. Feudalism was dead
or dying, and trade was climbing to its throne. The Middle Ages were passing into
modern times. (Ernle, 1936)
4 A longer period of accounting for the first and last Parliamentary Acts between
1604-1914 comprises 5265 Parliamentary Acts (Turner, 1980, p.32).
6 Addis Ababa with 2.7 mil. of the population had a growth rate of 2.1% while
agricultural regions such as Oromia with 27 mil. and SNNP with 15 mil. that are
predominantly agricultural producers, had a higher growth rate than Addis Ababa
of 2.9%. Amhara with 17 mil. had a growth rate of 1.7%. Population figures from
Summary and Statistical Report of the 2007 (1994-2007) Population and Housing
Census, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Population Census Commission
Addis Ababa, 2008.
8 In Medieval times, 12 acres were needed to produce enough corn to feed a family
for a year. By 1800 the yield of corn had increased so that only 4 acres were needed
to produce the same amount. Crop rotation was part of the sustainable agricultural
practice that increased productivity with Spring planting, Fall planting and a field left
fallow for regeneration of soil nutrients. A fourth replenishing fodder crop such as
alfalfa or clover was added later that in turn provided rich manure for fertilization. Ja-
cobs attributed the population increase described by Malthus as being possible from
increased soil fertility and livestock (Neeson, 1993, p.13; Jacobs, 1969, p.16-17).
9 About 80% of the costs were real investments on land improvement- fences, roads,
and drainage. They were made cost effective through increases in rent, cost of capi-
tal, and real rent relative to wages (Clark, 1998, p.100).
10 In absolute terms, more land was arable by 1850 because much of the contribu-
tion was from converted waste (Allen, 1994, p.117).
11 See Ernle (1936) for Tudor enclosure that was mainly due to the growing wool
trade that substituted pasture for tillage and sheep for corn.
12 Increasing population followed plague outbreaks, poor harvests in the 1590s and
rising food prices that led to social unrest, and food and enclosure riots in 1598
Song 37
(Slack, 1984, p.4). According to Slack in the 16th century, population increased
faster than productivity and prices rose faster than wages so the purchasing power
of labor dropped about 25% until around 1620. The previous impoverishment of
farmers due to lack of secure tenure contributed to the growing poor population.
The heavy migration of the large class of underemployed and working poor, made
vagrancy visibly threatening. Under the reign of Elizabeth the underemployed poor
and vagrant were accused of laziness and stigmatized. The Old Poor Law of 1601
aimed to promote social welfare by turning over administration of the poor from
overburdened governments to church parishes.
13 Laws leading up the 1601 Poor Law include the 1547, 1551, 1563, 1572, 1576
and 1598 Tudor statutes that developed poor relief, taxation and outlawed begging
and vagrancy for the able bodied (Slack, 1984, p.1; Snell, 1992, p.161).
14 The 1834 Act was seen to amend regulation of poor relief seen as the pauper
supporting structure that subsidized low wages through the Speenhamland system.
15 Around this time in 1817 Ricardos seminal theory of comparative advantage that
articulated labor, mobile through migration, would produce real returns to owners of
manufacturing or land depending on whichever input was more intensively used for
traded goods.
16 Some skilled laborers did not migrate, for instance when handloom weaving in
Manchester was replaced by power looms in Lancashire.
17 See Jacobs (1969) chapter Cities first- rural development later and Ricardos
real wages.
18 Neeson (2003) gave a detailed account of how in the case of a threatened situa-
tion pastures were simply stinted. The manorial courts and by-laws strictly defined
and punished overstocking of livestock on common pasture. Complaints of exces-
sive rent and subsequent overstocking of commons were reported in 1520 in Tudor
England, (Blanchard, 1970, p.439).
19 Marx first coined the term, Land grabbing on a great scale is the first step in
creating a field for the establishment of agriculture on a great scale. Hence this sub-
version of agriculture puts on, at first, more the appearance of a political revolution
(Marx 1906 [1867] Capital, Vol. I., p. 470 cited by White et. al., 2012, p.621).
20 Figures from the UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed
Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States,
http://www.unohrlls.org/en/ldc/25/
23 Ethiopia has had severe food shortages and famines, in 1985/1986 hundreds of
thousands of people died, in 2002/2003 13 mil. rural people were starving. In 2009,
22% of the rural population and were dependent on food and safety net programs,
38 Projections 11
the number has dropped to 8 mil. rural people. Undernourishment rose in Africa
from 2007 to 2008 from 220 mil. to 240 mil. people (Rahmato, 2011, p.3).
25 Country wide only one sixth of the population lives in urban centers but with 77
million inhabitants a large absolute number lives in cities with 80% in substandard
housing. Cities grew at 4.1% compared to 2.7% overall with values differing depend-
ing on region, 2008 figures from http://www.unhabitat.org.
26 Basic needs such as housing and food account for 50% of median income in Ad-
dis Ababa and 79% in Bahir Dar (Planning and Development Cooperative Internation-
al PADCO, 1998 Figures cited by Asefa, 2007). In comparison, 10.3% of income is
spent on food in Switzerland (World Health Organization Nutritional Stunting 2003-
2008 cited by Washington State University). For the urban poor, income available
for food is decreased by the high price of housing driven by short supply. In Addis
Ababa, the capacity of municipal governments to face affordable housing shortages
is overwhelmed (Asefa, 2007); a systemic problem contributing to slum formation
and exacerbated by rural-urban migration.
27 Ethiopian soils are nutrient deficient and cannot sustain high crop yields unless
fertilized (FAO, 2006).
29 Other large-scale farming practices: for crops- ploughing on steep slopes induces
soil erosion, burning dung for fuel instead of returning nutrients to the soil as fertil-
izer contributes to low soil fertility, while for raising livestock- using leftover crop
stubble for winter feeding leaves no ground cover and contributes to erosion, hooves
destroy vegetation and compacts the soil so water can not infiltrate which causes
more sedimentation and erosion (Taddese, 2001, p.820-821)
30 http://farmlandgrab.org/post/print/20147
32 http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/web/rural-poverty-portal/country/home/tags/
ethiopia
33 See Jembere & Woldemelak (2011) Preface and Chapter Three: Social
Transformation. The socialist Derg regime under the leadership of Mengistu Haile
Mariam formed two periods: 1974-1987 comprised the Provisional Military Admin-
istrative Council (PMAC) and the 1987 Constitution formed by the Workers Party of
Ethiopia (WPE); 1987-1991 comprised the Peoples Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
(PDRE). The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) established in 1991
Song 39
is the current legal structure of the country, established under the Constitution of
1994, when the EPRDF was voted into power under Meles Zenawi.
34 For an account of deforestation in Ethiopia see James McCann, (1997). The Plow
and the Forest, Narratives of Deforestation in Ethiopia 1840-1992, Environmental
History, p.138-159.35 See Lucky Exports in the case study by Rahmato, 2011, p23.
38 See Rahmato (2011, p.9) for policy documents: The Ministry of Finance and
Economic Development MOFAD 2006 Document Ethiopia: Building Progress: A Plan
for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP). Addis Ababa,
September.vv The Agricultural Development Policy, Plan for Accelerated and Sustain-
able Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) covers the period 2005-2010. Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia FDRE 2002a : Re-Enactment of the Investment
Proclamation. Proclamation No. 280, Negarit Gazeta, Addis Ababa, July 2003a: A
Proclamation to Amend the Investment Re-Enactment Proclamation No. 280/2002.
Proclamation No. 375, Federal Negarit Gazeta, Addis Ababa, October.
39 Summarized: (1) produce export crops and hence increase the countrys foreign
earnings; expand production of crops needed for agro-industry such as cotton and
sugar cane, (2) create employment opportunities in the localities concerned, (3) ben-
efit local communities through the construction of infrastructure and social assets
such as health posts, schools, access to clean water, (4) provide the opportunity for
technology transfer, (5) promote energy security.
40 In 2010, The Council of Ministers designated MOARD as the lead agency respon-
sible for land transfers. Over 5000 hectares were consolidated from regions (Rah-
mato, 2011, p.10).
41 The combined model of multi-purpose cooperatives built upon CPRs was devel-
oped for the Buranest Rural Town Project in Amhara, Ethiopia with village partici-
pation. It is in the process of being established. It was proposed for research by a
consortium of academic and professional contributors involved with the ETH North-
South Centre Programme and Partnership Development Grant and Swiss Programme
for Research on Global Issues for Development Pre-proposal on Thematically Open
Research in 2012 at the Chair of Prof. Dr. Marc Anglil.
42 http://social.un.org/coopsyear/
43 http://social.un.org/index/Cooperatives.aspx
45 http://www.ica.coop/coop/principles.html), http://ica.coop/en/what-co-op/
history-co-operative-movement, http://ica.coop/en/what-co-op/co-operative-identity-
40 Projections 11
values-principles
Cooperatives: 3 Values and 7 Principles. 3 Values: Honesty, Openness, Social Re-
sponsibility. 1st Principle: Voluntary and Open Membership. 2nd Principle: Demo-
cratic Member Control. 3rd Principle: Member Economic Participation. 4th Principle:
Autonomy and Independence. 5th Principle: Education, Training and Information. 6th
Principle: Co-operation among Co-operatives. 7th Principle: Concern for Community.
49 Women who may not be eligible to lease land are considered especially vulner-
able to poverty. The Amhara region has more female than male cooperative members
citing Annual Report on Cooperatives for the year 2004/2005 (Develtere et al., 2008,
p.134).
50 See http://www.nestown.org/content/buranest-town-project-amhara-model-town
52 Chinas infrastructural projects import foreign capital and labor into Ethiopia. See
Delz, S. (30.04.2012). Development At All Costs. Urban Mutations on the Edge Re-
search Seminar. Lecture conducted from the Chair of Prof. Dr. Marc Anglil, Depart-
ment of Architecture ETH, Zrich. http://www.angelil.arch.ethz.ch/?g=genfe331b2f8
18181905fa9b023016ff869
Song 41
References
Allen, R. C. (1982). The efficiency and distributional consequences of eighteenth
century enclosures. The Economic Journal, 92(368), 937-953.
Allen, R. (1994). Agriculture during the industrial revolution. In Floud, R., & Mc-
Closkey, D. N. (Eds.), The economic history of Britain since 1700: (Vol. 1) 1700-1860
(96-123). Cambridge University Press.
Allen, R. C. (1999). Tracking the agricultural revolution in England. The Economic His-
tory Review, 52(2), 209-235.
Blanchard, I. (1970). Population change, enclosure, and the early Tudor economy.
The Economic History Review, 23(3), 427-445.
Bowden, P. J. (1956). Wool supply and the woollen industry. The Economic History
Review, 9(1), 44-58.
Broadberry, S., Campbell, B., Klein, A., Overton, M. & van Leeuwen B. (2010 March
18). British economic growth, 1270-1870: Some Preliminary Estimates.
Centre for Development and Environment CDE (2011). Global Change And Its Im-
pacts On Sustainable Development Report 2011. University of Bern.
Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Organizational Development CECIK (2010, July
1). Strengthening endogenous development in Africa: A methodologic guide.
Clark, G. (1998). Commons sense: common property rights, efficiency, and institu-
tional change. Journal of Economic History, 58, 73-102.
Deininger, K., Ali D. A., Holden S., & Zevenbergen J. (2007, April). Rural land certifi-
cation in Ethiopia: Process, initial impact, and implication for other African coun-
tries, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4218.
Delz, S. (30.04.2012). Development At All Costs. Urban Mutations on the Edge Re-
search Seminar. Lecture conducted from the Chair of Prof. Dr. Marc Anglil, Depart-
ment of Architecture ETH, Zrich.
Develtere, P., Pollet, I. & Wanyama, F. (2008). Cooperating out of poverty: The renais-
sance of the African cooperative movement, CoopAfrica International Labour Office
ILO and World Bank Institute.
42 Projections 11
Ethiopia, Coop Africa Working Paper No. 9, International Labour Organization ILO
Office for Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda.
Ernle, L. (1936). Chapter III: Farming for profit, pasture and sheep-grazing 1485-
1558. English Farming. Past and Present.
FAO (2009). Cotula, L., Vermeulen, S., Leonard, R. & Keeley, J. Land grab or develop-
ment opportunity? Agricultural investment and international land deals in Africa. FAO
Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN, IIED International Institute for Environ-
ment and Development and IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Freeman, C., & Loua, F. (2002). The second kondratiev wave: The age of iron rail-
ways, steam power, and mechanization. In As time goes by: the information revolution
and the industrial revolutions in historical perspective. Oxford University Press.
Green, D. R. (2010). Pauper Capital: London and the Poor Law, 1790-1870. Ashgate
Publishing Company.
Juma, C. (2010). The new harvest: agricultural innovation in Africa. Oxford University
Press, USA.
Kiba D. I., Zongo, N. A., Lompo, F., Jansa, J., Compaore, E., Sedogo, P. M. & Frossard,
E. (2011). The diversity of fertilization practices affects soil and crop quality in ur-
ban vegetable sites of Burkina Faso, European Journal of Agronomy 38(1), 12-21.
Makki, F., & Geisler, C. (2011, April 6-8). Development by dispossession: Land
grabbing as new enclosures in contemporary Ethiopia. Paper from the International
Conference on Global Land Grabbing.
Neeson, J. M. (1993). Commoners: common right, enclosure and social change in Eng-
land, 1700-1820. Cambridge University Press.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective
Song 43
Action, Cambridge University Press.
Pausewang, S., Tronvoll, K. & Aalen, L. (2002). Ethiopia since the DERG : A decade of
democratic pretension and performance, London: Zed Books.
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food security under growing scarcity. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 34,
205-222.
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and opportunities, Rural history, 3(02), 145-172.
Turner, M. (1980). English parliamentary enclosure: its historical geography and eco-
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enclosures: Critical perspectives on corporate land deals. Journal of Peasant Studies,
39(3-4), 619-647.
44 Projections 11
Macmillan.
Song 45
46 Projections 11
An Insiteful Comparison: Contentious
Politics in Liquefied Natural Gas Facility
Siting
Abstract
Mobilization against proposals for industrial facilities has long puzzled
researchers and planners. I focus on three factors drawn from the study of
social movements threat, political opportunity and resources to explain
opposition to thirteen proposals for liquefied natural gas facilities in the U.S.
Findings indicate that low threat projects in communities with low political
opportunity and limited resources attract little opposition and are approved.
More threatening projects in communities with limited internal resources
attract opposition from outsiders and result in failed projects. Finally, two
pathways result in successful, widespread opposition: either the combina-
tion of a high threat project in a community with high political opportunity
or a project proposed in a community with internal resources.
Keywords
citizen participation; energy; politics and society; facility siting;
mobilization
Boudet 47
Introduction
Mobilization against proposals for large industrial facilities or locally un-
wanted land uses (LULUs) hazardous waste disposal sites, landfills, power
plants, etc. has long puzzled researchers, policy makers, planners, propo-
nents and activists. Through an in-depth analysis of two proposals for lique-
fied natural gas (LNG) offload terminals1 in California, Boudet and Ortolano
(2010) showed that three factors, drawn largely from the study of social
movements, could be used to explain mobilization against LULUs: (1) the
potential risk posed by the proposal (i.e., threat) (2) the openness of the
decision-making structure associated with the proposal (i.e., political op-
portunity) and (3) the affected communitys resources.2 The rush to site LNG
in the early 2000s, which resulted in more than 50 proposals (of which only
seven were built), provides an ideal laboratory to understand opposition to
large-scale energy infrastructure. Companies propose projects to which regu-
lators and communities respond, resulting in a race among companies to
obtain permits and begin construction prior to market saturation (McAdam
and Boudet 2012; Boudet 2011). Currently, the siting of shale extraction and
LNG facilities in the U.S. is following a similar course to LNG. Thus, under-
standing the dynamics of opposition to LNG can provide important insights
for similar races to site energy infrastructure.
I expand the analysis in Boudet and Ortolano (2010) in three ways. First, I
more thoroughly investigate the role of external resources, in terms of both
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and state officials, in opposition ef-
forts. Second, I examine mobilization against eleven additional LNG propos-
als from around the United States. Unlike in Boudet and Ortolano (2010),
my sample contains examples of both successful and unsuccessful propos-
als, allowing for connections to be made between mobilization and project
outcome. Third, I devise a methodology that allows for the study of a larger
number of cases, while maintaining the richness of in-depth fieldwork. In
doing so, I develop ways to measure the difficult concepts of threat, political
opportunity, resources and mobilization using readily-available data sources
validated by fieldwork in each community. Such an approach paves the way
for future applications of this framework to studies containing a larger num-
ber of cases.
48 Projections 11
or withdrawal by the company. Third, high resource communities launch suc-
cessful opposition efforts, regardless of threat or access to decision mak-
ers. These findings point to the important role played by external NGOs and
state officials in opposition efforts against threatening projects, particularly
in communities with limited internal resources.
The paper proceeds as follows. I first briefly summarize the relevant litera-
ture. Then, I provide information about my research methods and variable
measurement. Finally, I discuss the community response exemplified by my
cases and how the abovementioned factors relate to mobilization and project
outcomes.
Relevant literature
I draw on two sets of literature for this analysis: (1) studies of facility siting
and NIMBY response and (2) studies of social movements. Both of these
literatures have been reviewed extensively elsewhere. The literature on fa-
cility siting and NIMBY response has been reviewed, for example, by Rabe
(1994), Boholm (2004), Lesbirel and Shaw (2005), Schively (2007), Boudet
(2010) and Boudet and Ortolano (2010). And the literature on social move-
ments has been reviewed by McAdam et al. (2001), Caniglia and Carmin
(2005), Buechler (2007), Boudet and Ortolano (2010), and McAdam and
Boudet (2012). My analysis draws on the political process model of social
movements, which, as shown by Boudet and Ortolano (2010), can serve as
a unifying framework of the factors and processes at work in driving opposi-
tion to LULUs.
Threat
The siting of an industrial facility presents the possibility of many different
grievances or threats (e.g., to public safety, health, environment, quality of
life) around which a community can mobilize. In the technical and planning
literature, these aspects of a facility are often referred to as risks (Boholm
2004; Freudenburg 2004; Schively 2007). Following Almeida (2003), threat
is defined as probability that existing benefits will be taken away or new
harms inflicted if challenging groups fail to act collectively (347). Local en-
vironmental action is often initiated in response to a perceived health risk or
threat (Carmin 2003; Freudenburg 1984; Walsh and Warland 1983; Walsh,
Warland, and Smith 1993). Moreover, the existence of a threat is particularly
important in polities where there is some expectation of state respon-
Boudet 49
siveness and few formal barriers to mobilization as in the U.S. (McAdam
1999[1982], xi).
Political opportunity
Social movement scholars also point to aspects of the broader political
context, or political opportunity structure, as important determinants of
movement emergence (Eisinger 1973; Meyer 2004). Theorists in this tra-
dition suggest that movements emerge when political elites become more
receptive or vulnerable to movement demands (Eisinger 1973; Jenkins and
Perrow 1977; Tarrow 1998; Tilly 1978). This receptivity may result from
openness in the institutionalized political system, internal divisions among
political elites, or increasing power associated with movement groups (Mc-
Adam 1996). Similarly, researchers on facility siting have highlighted the
importance of fair procedures for decision-making and citizen input in deter-
mining attitudes toward proposals (Freudenburg 2004; Frey and Oberholzer-
Gee 1996; Kunreuther, Fitzgerald, and Aarts 1993).
In recent years, the concept of political opportunity structure has come un-
der increasing criticism. On one hand, it is seen as too broad, subsuming
many conceptually different ideas, mechanisms and measurements (Gam-
son and Meyer 1996; Goodwin and Jasper 1999; Meyer and Minkoff 2004).
On the other, it is too narrow, focusing predominantly on state actors without
regard for other important economic institutions e.g., corporations, banks
who have increasingly become targets of activism (Schurman 2004; Pel-
low 2007). Here, I address the first criticism by limiting my definition of the
concept to refer to how open the institutionalized political system is to the
claims of movement actors. However, this decision limits my ability to ad-
dress the second criticism. Future work should examine the role of indus-
try opportunity structures (Schurman 2004) on community mobilization
against siting proposals.
Resources
Resource mobilization theory within social movements scholarship suggests
that resources, both from within the community and outside the community,
supply groups with the capability to organize and take action (Carmin 2003;
McCarthy and Zald 1977). I consider each type of resources internal and
external in turn.
50 Projections 11
engineers and scientists, who understand technical issues, or lawyers, who
are familiar with legal procedures). In sum, Carmin (2003) describes, four
types of resourcesfrequently associated with local action and responses
to community threats: organizations, funding, information and experience
(45). I consider all four factors when measuring the internal resources avail-
able in each community.
Research Approach
Case selection
I examined thirteen LNG proposals from across the country. The three Cali-
fornia cases (Mare Island Energy Project, Long Beach LNG and Cabrillo Port)
were included as easily accessible case studies for in-depth data collection
and fieldwork. Newly proposed energy projects, other than the three Califor-
nia cases, were selected randomly from the CSA Illumina Digests of Environ-
mental Impact Statements (EISs). This database catalogues announcements
related to EISs from the Federal Register. Almost all LNG proposals have re-
quired an EIS.4 The population of projects from which the sample was drawn
included only projects that completed a FEIS between 2004 and 2007. Of
course, this excluded projects like the Mare Island Energy Project that were
announced but withdrawn before an EIS was started. These search criteria
resulted in the selection of 49 proposals that constituted the population
from which projects would be selected. I then randomly sampled 18 projects
for inclusion in a larger research project on energy facility siting. Ten of the
18 projects were LNG proposals. For the analysis presented herein, I include
these 10 LNG proposals and the 3 California proposals. Information about
each of these cases is provided in Table 1.
Boudet 51
Table 1: Selected cases
Freeport LNG Freeport LNG Brazoria County, TX Onshore 300 Sep-01 Jun-04
Gulf Landing Shell Cameron Parish, LA Offshore 700 Oct-03 Mar-07
(38 mi.)
KeySpan KeySpan Providence, RI Onshore 100 Oct-03 Jun-05
Long Beach LNG Sound Energy Solutions Long Beach, CA Onshore 350 Mar-03 June-08
Mare Island Energy Bechtel and Shell Vallejo, CA Onshore 1500 May-02 Feb-03
Northeast Gateway Excelerate Energy Gloucester, MA Offshore 200 Jun-04 May-07
(13 mi.)
Sabine Pass Cheniere Energy Cameron Parish, LA Onshore 500 May-03 Dec-04
Vista del Sol ExxonMobil San Patricio County, TX Onshore 600 Oct-03 Jun-05
Data collection
I employed a systematic process to collect data for each case, combining
desktop research and on-the-ground fieldwork.
1 The local newspaper of the
community affected by the proposal was searched for relevant articles, edi-
torials and letters-to-the editor concerning the proposal. Most of the local
newspapers were available in a searchable format either via Newsbanks
Americas Newspapers database, LexisNexis or directly from the newspapers
website or editors. The newspapers were searched for terms relevant to each
case. My research team read and catalogued the resultant articles, letters-to-
the-editor and editorials to accomplish the following: (1) develop a narrative
of each case to systematize our understanding of the events surrounding
the LNG proposal and (2) identify active individuals and organizations for
future interviews. In addition, the section of the Environmental Impact State-
ment (EIS) devoted to public comments and letters was also examined to
confirm the results of the newspaper analysis and identify any additional
actors for interviews. In addition to information from newspapers and EISs,
we also collected relevant data from the Census Bureau and National Center
for Charitable Statistics on socioeconomic information, education levels, and
organizational capacity for each community prior to the proposal.
Armed with this information, I conducted site visits to each affected com-
munity from July 2006 to January 2010 to conduct 106 interviews with key
participants identified in the newspapers and to collect organizational data
from local groups active in the siting process.5 On average, interviews lasted
a little over an hour and were structured as a guided conversation. They fo-
cused on the (1) major issues and active groups in the community prior to
52 Projections 11
the LNG proposal, (2) major issues and active groups during the debate of
the LNG proposal, and (3) activities undertaken by these groups to express
opposition to the LNG proposal.6
For these proposals, the same informants provided information about the
cases in the community.7 Table 2 provides information about data collection
for each case. The appendix provides additional information about interview-
ees cited in the text.
Interviews
Table 2: Data collection for each case # (average length
Proposal Newspaper Articles Letters / Editorials
in minutes)
Interviews
Cabrillo # (average length
ProposalPort Ventura County Star
Newspaper Articles139Letters / Editorials
417 24 (78)
Malibu Times 89 122 in minutes)
Cabrillo Port
Compass Port Ventura
MobileCounty Star
Press-Register 139 66 417 71 24 (78) 9 (57)
Malibu Times 89 122
Corpus Christi LNG Corpus Christi Caller-Times 64 4 8 (46)
Compass Port Mobile Press-Register 66 71 9 (57)
Creole Trail Cameron Parish Pilot 70 0 6 (38)
Corpus Christi LNG Corpus Christi Caller-Times 64 4 8 (46)
Crown Landing
Creole Trail Wilmington
Cameron News
Parish Pilot Journal 70 130 0 12 6 (38) 10 (50)
Gloucester County Times 110 28
Crown Landing Wilmington News Journal 130 12 10 (50)
Freeport LNG Gloucester
BrazosportCounty
FactsTimes 110 75 28 12 8 (64)
Gulf Landing
Freeport LNG CameronFacts
Brazosport Parish Pilot 75 70 12 0 8 (64) 6 (68)
New Orleans Times-Picayune 22 n/a
Gulf Landing Cameron Parish Pilot 70 0 6 (68)
New Orleans Times-Picayune 22 n/a
KeySpan Providence Journal 108 40 6 (76)
KeySpan Providence Journal 108 40 6 (76)
Long Beach LNG Long Beach Press-Telegram 154 101 8 (97)
Long Beach LNG Long Beach Press-Telegram 154 101 8 (97)
Mare Island Energy Vallejo Times-Herald 81 237 16 (68)
Mare Island Energy Vallejo Times-Herald 81 237 16 (68)
Northeast Gateway Gloucester Daily Times 144 46 4 (46)
Northeast Gateway Gloucester Daily Times 144 46 4 (46)
Sabine Pass Cameron Parish Pilot 70 1 6 (38)
Sabine Pass Cameron Parish
Beaumont Pilot
Enterprise 70 9 1 n/a 6 (38)
Beaumont Enterprise 9 n/a
Vista del Sol Corpus Christi Caller-Times 64 6 8 (46)
Vista del Sol Corpus Christi Caller-Times 64 6 8 (46)
Boudet 53
Variable measurement
I focus my analysis on the three causal conditions identified in the political
process model threat, political opportunity and resources and the rel-
evant outcomes mobilization and project success or failure. Following the
traditions of grounded theory and case study research, the operationaliza-
tion of each variable was continuously refined throughout the research pro-
cess. Variables for each case were scored as high, medium or low based on
fieldwork and using criteria drawn from comparisons across cases. The goal
of the measurement strategies described herein is to set up a structure to
move from time-intensive qualitative data collection to readily-available data
sources to pave the way for future application of this framework to studies
containing a larger number of cases. The richness from the qualitative data
is presented below in the results section to demonstrate the more detailed
information used to validate these measurement strategies. See the techni-
cal appendix for data by case.
Threat
To measure the threat posed by the proposal, I constructed a metric based
on the location and regasification technology of the facility key factors high-
lighted in newspaper articles and interviews.8 If the facility was to be located
onshore, a distinction was made between those facilities located in popu-
lated areas (greater than 2009 people per square mile) and those located in
unpopulated areas (less than 200 people per square mile).9 Facilities located
in populated areas pose more of a threat than those in unpopulated areas.
If the facility was to be located offshore, a distinction was made among the
several technologies available for regasification. These technologies can be
divided into two categories: open-loop and closed-loop. Open-loop technolo-
gies use seawater to warm the LNG. Closed-loop technologies use air or burn
a portion of the imported natural gas for warming. The National Marine
Fisheries Service, state fisheries regulators, environmental organizations
and fishing groups have expressed serious concerns about how the use and
release of seawater by open-loop technologies may affect surrounding fish
populations. Thus, many viewed open-loop technologies as more threatening
than closed-loop.10
54 Projections 11
Table 3: Levels of threat for LNG proposals
Political opportunity
To measure the political opportunity for mobilization against the proposal,
I constructed a metric based on the jurisdiction (i.e., local, state or federal)
and process of selection (i.e., percent elected) of key decision makers influ-
encing the fate of the proposal (see Table 4). If key decision makers were
elected, information was included on whether they faced an upcoming elec-
tion. This measure gives a sense of how accessible and responsive decision
makers would be to concerns expressed by members of the affected commu-
nities. Political opportunity associated with the facility was scored as high if
key decision makers were located at the local level and elected and facing an
upcoming election. Political opportunity was scored as medium if key deci-
sion makers were located at the state or local level and elected but not facing
an upcoming election. Finally, political opportunity was scored as low if all
key decision makers were located at the federal level and none were elected.
Resources
Internal (local) resources
To measure the resources available in the affected community for mobiliza-
tion, a metric was constructed based on education levels (to represent infor-
mational resources), income levels (to represent funding resources), organi-
zational capacity and past experience (see Table 5). Education and income
levels were drawn from U.S. Census data on the percent of the affected com-
munitys population with a bachelors degree and median household income
(U.S. Census Bureau 2000). Organizational capacity was measured based on
the number of nonprofit organizations in the affected community.11 This type
of historical data is available from the National Center for Charitable Statis-
tics maintained by the Urban Institute (National Center for Charitable Statis-
tics 2002). Organizational capacity data was selected for the closest month
and year available before the initial announcement of the relevant proposal
Boudet 55
and normalized by population.12 Data on past experience fighting industrial
proposals (in the past 5 years) was gathered via interviews and newspapers.
High Local officials among key decision makers Long Beach LNG
(n=2) and Mare Island Energy
Some of decisions makers elected and
Elected decision makers facing upcoming
election
Medium State or local officials among key decision Cabrillo Port
(n=6) makers and Compass Port
Some of decision makers elected Crown Landing
Freeport LNG
Gulf Landing
Northeast Gateway
Low Only federal officials among key decision Corpus Christi LNG
(n=5) makers and Creole Trail
No decision makers elected KeySpan
Sabine Pass
Vista del Sol
56 Projections 11
A communitys internal resources were scored as medium if at least fifteen
percent of the population was college educated and income levels were thir-
ty-five thousand or more and the community had at least 3.5 nonprofits per
thousand people. A communitys internal resources were scored as low if
less than fifteen percent of the population was college educated and income
levels were less than thirty-five thousand and the community had less than
3.5 nonprofits per thousand people.13
Mobilization
Social movement scholars divide measurements of mobilization into institu-
tionalized actions, or those that occur within the structures provided by both
the governing body and project proponent for public feedback, and conten-
tious actions, or those that occur outside of these structures. However, the
siting of an industrial facility provides opportunities for both types of activi-
ties, and I wanted a measure of opposition that would include both. Thus,
Boudet 57
determinations about the level of mobilization were based on letters-to-the-
editor, maximum number of speakers at a single EIS hearing, coordinated
appearances at meetings (other than EIS hearings) organized by others, pub-
lic meetings planned by opponents, protest events and lawsuits.
Mobilization was scored as high if many letters and speakers voiced concern
about the proposal (<50 combined) and opponents organized more than
two events (coordinated appearance, public meeting or protest event). Mo-
bilization was scored as medium if few letters and speakers voiced concern
about the proposal (<50 combined) and opponents organized more than two
events. Mobilization was scored as low if few letters and speakers voiced
concern about the proposal (<50 combined) and opponents organized one
or two events. Cases with fewer than 50 letters and speakers combined and
no organized events exhibited almost no mobilization. See Table 7 for the
scoring of each case.
Almost None Few letters and speakers (<50 combined) Corpus Christi LNG
(n=4) and Creole Trail
No organized events Sabine Pass
Vista del Sol
Results
Table 8 displays the results of my analysis of threat, political opportunity,
resources and mobilization across all thirteen LNG proposals. Four types of
response are represented: (1) federal and local acceptance, (2) local opposi-
tion, (3) non-local opposition, (4) widespread opposition. I discuss each in
turn below.
58 Projections 11
Federal and local acceptance
All of the proposals that fall in the federal and local acceptance category
(i.e., those projects that experienced no opposition) were onshore facilities
located in unpopulated areas on private property in the Gulf Coast (Sabine
Pass, Creole Trail, Vista del Sol and Corpus Christi LNG). This choice of loca-
tion by the proposing companies created the ideal conditions for community
acceptance: low threat (because the surrounding area was unpopulated), low
political opportunity (because the land for the facility was privately owned
and there was no separate state-level environmental review, so the only gov-
ernmental review was federal) and low resources (because of a rural location
in the Gulf Coast).
The Gulf Coast (with the exception of Florida) has a long history of accepting
and encouraging oil and gas development on and near its shores (Gramling
and Freudenburg 1996). Indeed, each of these four LNG proposals were
sought out by the local community, via advertisements by local economic
development corporations, and accepted with open arms. For example, when
Cheniere Energy first proposed the Sabine Pass LNG facility in Cameron Par-
ish, Louisiana, a local police juror (the equivalent of a county commissioner)
was quoted in the local newspaper as saying to Cheniere representatives at
a public meeting, All of Cameron Parish is behind your project. When you
called, I thought we had got a call from heaven (Wise 2003). Several inter-
viewees in Louisiana and Texas spoke about the importance of the oil and
gas industry to the Gulf Coast economy and their comfort with these types
of developments (interviews 1-4). Kristi Darby, of Louisiana State University,
commented in a Mobile Press-Register article that, People in Louisiana are
used to having the petroleum industry around. The oil industry has been
in Louisiana for decades. The communities are not afraid of LNG (James
2005).
Boudet 59
At ExxonMobils press conference announcing the Vista del Sol LNG proposal
in San Patricio County, Texas, Governor Rick Perry stressed that:
Texas and the United States need secure supplies of natural gas to at-
tract industries, assure development and to continue the strong econom-
ic growth we are experiencing in our state and throughout the nation.
This project will bring jobs and other economic benefits to San Patricio
County and the greater Corpus Christi area and will provide long-term
supplies of natural gas for our industries, power plants and homes (quot-
ed in Powell 2004).
External
Response Political Internal
Case Threat resources Mobilization Outcome Implication
category opportunity resources
Federal Sabine Pass Low Low Low None None Built Low threat projects in
and local Creole Trail Low Low Low None None Approved communities with
acceptance Vista del Sol Low Low Low Low None Approved limited political
opportunity and
resources attract little
Corpus Christi Low Low Low None None Approved opposition and are
LNG approved and often
built.
Local Freeport LNG Low Medium Medium Low Low Built
opposition
Northeast Low Medium Medium Low Low Built
Gateway
Non-local Gulf Landing Medium Medium Low High Medium Withdrawn More threatening
opposition projects in communities
with limited political
Crown Landing High Medium Medium High Medium Rejected opportunity and
internal resources
attract opposition from
KeySpan High Low Medium High Low Rejected outside groups,
resulting in failed
projects.
Widespread Long Beach LNG High High Medium High High Rejected Two pathways result in
opposition widespread opposition:
the combination of a
Mare Island High High Medium Low High Withdrawn
threatening project in a
Energy
community with access
Compass Port Medium Medium High High High Withdrawn to decision
makers or projects
Cabrillo Port Low Medium High High High Rejected proposed in
communities with
internal resources.
Thus, in many ways, the LNG proposals in this category were not merely
accepted but actively campaigned for as a way to spur local economic de-
velopment. Any mobilization in these cases was in support of the proposed
facilities. All of these facilities were approved and one was built.
Local opposition
The next set of proposals (Freeport LNG and Northeast Gateway) experi-
enced little, mainly localized opposition. These two proposals one onshore
in an unpopulated area and the other offshore, closed-loop had low levels
60 Projections 11
of threat associated with them. Thus, despite having medium levels of po-
litical opportunity and resources, opponents struggled to foster opposition
beyond the locally-affected community. As exemplified by the Freeport LNG
project, in both cases local opponents confronted larger regional- and state-
level forces that favored LNG development.
Boudet 61
Gateway, like those on Quintana Island, focused their efforts on mitigation.
Coordinating an eleventh hour effort, they successfully secured $24 million
from the proposing company (interview 6).
In both locations, the facilities were eventually built, but relations between
the company and community remain strained. For example, because of the
lack of support company officials encountered in Gloucester, they chose
to locate the headquarters for Northeast Gateway in nearby Salem (inter-
view 8). In sum, the low-threat proposals in medium-opportunity environ-
ments and medium-resourced communities tended to experience low levels
of mainly localized opposition. And, while these projects were approved,
when built, companies continued to experience local resistance and hostility.
Non-local opposition
The next set of proposals (Gulf Landing, Crown Landing and KeySpan) were
higher threat facilities located either onshore in populated areas of the
Northeast of offshore in the Gulf with open-loop regasification. Political op-
portunities for opponents in these cases were medium or low because key
decision makers were mostly located at the national level and non-elected,
and internal resources for mobilization in all three locations were modest.
As a result, these projects experienced low- to medium-levels of opposition
from the community. Unlike in the locally opposed cases, however, state-level
bureaucrats and external NGOs took an active role in opposing these facili-
ties, often using legal means to block approval.
In the case of Crown Landing, the facility became part of a larger jurisdic-
tional dispute between Delaware and New Jersey. BP proposed the facility
in Logan Township, New Jersey, on the Delaware River. This location placed
the pier of the facility inside Delawares border and in direct violation of
Delawares Coastal Zone Act, which prohibits the construction of certain
types of industrial facilities within the coastal zone. Delaware regulators re-
jected the proposal, with support from Delaware environmental groups, who
were long-time defenders of the Coastal Zone Act. New Jersey, with support
from BP, filed suit against Delaware. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually de-
cided in favor of Delaware, and BP withdrew the project. Because the state
of Delaware took such an active role in opposing the project to defend its
jurisdiction, mobilization was somewhat muted and legalistic in nature. For
example, Delaware environment groups immediately partnered with the En-
vironmental Law Clinic at Widener University to develop legal briefs on the
issue. New Jersey residents, with a few notable exceptions, and elected offi-
cials were largely supportive of the proposal because of the jobs and revenue
it would bring to the area.
Similarly, most of the opposition to KeySpan was driven by the Rhode Is-
land Attorney General and his staff (interviews 9-11). They researched the
impacts of the facility, gathered expert witness testimony, distributed infor-
mation and advocated on behalf of the people of Rhode Island. They did
62 Projections 11
not, however, incite mobilization. Interviewees noted that the response from
the community was somewhat subdued compared to past events (interviews
10-11). In contrast, the community reaction in nearby Fall River, Massachu-
setts, to defeat the Weavers Cove LNG proposal was much more organized
and impassioned. Indeed, Assistant Attorney General Paul Roberti admitted
that his strategy was not to garner support from the general public, whom
he thought FERC would ignore, but from expert witnesses (interview 11).
Unlike in Fall River, the population surrounding the KeySpan location was
very diverse and majority minority. For example, one Providence resident
told The Providence Journal that many residents do not speak English and
I seriously doubt their views will be heard (Reynolds 2004). Thus, the op-
positions strategy was to rely on legalistic arguments against the proposal.
This strategy proved successful. FERC rejected the proposal due to safety
concerns in June 2005.
This setback did not faze the growing opposition movement against the pro-
posal and open loop LNG more generally. Instead, the Sierra Club, Gulf Res-
Boudet 63
toration Network and Louisiana Charter Boats Association, with the help of
the Tulane Environmental Center, sued the federal government for approving
the Gulf Landing facility. The lawsuit against Gulf Landing failed, but the
company eventually withdrew the approved facility in March 2007.
In all three cases, non-local opposition from state-level officials and/or ex-
ternal NGOs replaced local mobilization as the means for defeating the pro-
posal. Thus, despite weak levels of local mobilization, the proposals were
still defeated.
Widespread opposition
The fourth set of cases (Long Beach, Mare Island, Compass Port and Ca-
brillo Port) resulted in widespread mobilization but via two different paths.
In the cases of Long Beach and Mare Island, mobilization was driven by a
combination of high threat and high political opportunity. In the cases of
Compass Port and Cabrillo Port, it was driven by strong internal resources. I
discuss each path in turn.
Because internal resources were lower, opposition to the Mare Island and
Long Beach proposals was unexpected. For example, the Mare Island Energy
Project was proposed in Vallejo, California a city that had recently lost a
major economic engine with the decommissioning of the Mare Island Naval
Shipyard and was desperately seeking a source of additional revenue and
jobs for its flagging economy. As a result, city officials were initially sup-
portive of the proposal. It was not until new residents to Vallejo started
protesting due to the potential threats posed by the facility that city leaders
changed their mind about the proposal. See Boudet and Ortolano (2010) for
a more on this case.
Like Vallejo, Long Beach was experiencing a budgetary crisis just before it
received its LNG proposal, slated for the citys port, in early 2003. Con-
sequently, the Long Beach LNG proposal and its potential to increase city
revenue appealed to many city leaders. Moreover, city residents had suffered
a quadrupling of natural gas prices during Californias 2001 energy crisis.
The potential for a steady supply of natural gas from the proposal was also
attractive to city leaders. Like Vallejo, Long Beach also did not have many
internal resources for mobilization against the proposal. In the late 1990s,
Long Beach experienced the loss of two major sources of employment the
Navy and McDonnell Douglas. As a result, many long-term residents moved
away. Moreover, many of its residents, especially those who live closest to
the Port, are poor and brownTo be an activist and speak up at meetings,
you have to believe that government works and your voice will be heard. Many
Latinos dont (interview 17).
64 Projections 11
Port of Long Beach, one of the countrys busiest ports. Local opponents and
state officials were concerned about the potential impacts to both human
health and commerce of placing a potentially explosive LNG facility in such
a busy location where many dangerous chemicals were already transported
and stored (interview 18). According to comments filed by state officials on
the Draft EIS, the LONG Beach LNG facility could pose a risk to the health
and safety of the approximately 130,000 people living, working or visiting
in the area within approximately three miles of the proposed site (Cali-
fornia Public Utilities Commission 2005, 2). Along with other onshore LNG
facilities around the country, the Long Beach project also became the subject
of a jurisdictional dispute between federal and state regulators. When the
proposing company filed an application only with federal regulators, state
regulators sued. As a result, Long Beach opponents could piggyback off of
the efforts of state officials in terms of developing technical and legal argu-
ments against the facility.
Soon after the election of a new mayor who was opposed to the proposal,
Port of Long Beach Commissioners voted to abandon the EIR process and
end negotiations with the proposing company about the LNG facility.15 Most
interviewees seemed to think the projects demise was related to a combi-
nation of community opposition, state agency opposition and the mayoral
election (interviews 17, 18-21). These two cases provide important evidence
that opposition can successfully derail projects despite a lack of internal
resources.
Boudet 65
plethora of local environmental and community organizations that were fa-
miliar with LNG and viewed opposing such projects as part of their mission.
In addition, the project was located in Southern California, an area known
for its environmental activism, particularly against industrial development
on the coast. These organizational resources supported the opposition ef-
fort against the proposal, with opponents relying on both institutional and
contentious means to express their point of view that LNG was not needed
in California. Of all the proposals considered in this study, Cabrillo Port pro-
voked by far the most opposition, mobilizing somewhere between two and
three thousand people first for a paddle out protest in Malibu and then for
a rally at the hearing on the projects Final EIS in Oxnard. This fierce resis-
tance came despite the fact that the project posed little threat as an offshore,
closed-loop proposal and opponents only had a medium level of opportunity
in the form of a gubernatorial veto.
In many ways, the Compass Port proposal is strikingly similar to the Cabrillo
Port proposal. The Compass Port facility was to be located offshore Mobile,
Alabama, which was one of the few Gulf Coast communities to oppose and
defeat two previous onshore LNG proposals by ExxonMobil and Cheniere En-
ergy, respectively. This experience meant that community members were or-
ganized, aware and somewhat distrustful of LNG proposals. Although initial-
ly supportive of ConocoPhillipss offshore Compass Port proposal because
it lessened potential safety impacts, opponents of the previous onshore pro-
posals in Mobile quickly became aware of the open-loop regasification issue
through a local newspaper reporter at the Mobile Press-Register (interviews
22-23). The newspaper had become an important source of information for
LNG opponents around the country on both the safety and environmental
impacts of LNG receiving terminals (interviews 17, 23). Once aware, much
of the momentum, garnered from the defeat of the onshore LNG proposals,
was successfully transferred to oppose the Compass Port facility through the
hard work and dedication of Mobile BayKeeper. Mobile BayKeepers execu-
tive director, Casi Callaway, also served on the Board of the Gulf Restoration
Network, a regional environmental organization, and could thus learn from
the experiences of LNG opponents in Louisiana. Following a pattern that had
proven successful in Louisiana, the opposition in Alabama brought together
an unlikely alliance of commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen and
environmentalists (interviews 22, 24). The improbability of such an alliance
was demonstrated by the fact that the commercial and recreational fishing
groups so hated working together that their representatives requested to
be placed on opposite sides of the podium during joint press conferences.
The last event organized by opponents in Mobile drew over 400 participants
to a town hall meeting with Governor Riley on Compass Port (Raines 2006,
interview 24). This turnout indicated fervent opposition to open-loop LNG,
and Governor Riley threatened a veto of Compass Port. As in the case of
the Cabrillo Port proposal, existing organizations in Mobile organized fierce
resistance to Compass Port, despite the fact that the project posed only a
medium level of threat as an offshore, open-loop proposal and opponents
66 Projections 11
only had a medium level of opportunity in the form of a gubernatorial veto.
For both social movement theory and the literature on facility siting, my re-
search highlights the importance of configurational thinking; i.e., the idea
that different combinations of causal conditions can come together to pro-
duce the outcome of interest, in this case mobilization against LULU propos-
als. A comparison between the thirteen cases suggests that it is not just the
magnitude of each individual factor presented in the conceptual framework
(i.e., threat, political opportunity and resources) but also their combination
that is important in determining mobilization outcomes. High levels of mo-
bilization can take place with some factors at very low levels, provided other
factors have high levels.
Boudet 67
as Rihoux and Ragin (2009) point out, this conception of causality is con-
trary to many of the assumptions underlying mainstream statistical tech-
niques. In statistical analysis, the impact of a given independent variable
on the dependent variable is assumed to be the same regardless of the
values of the other independent variables (Ragin 2008, 112). The results
of my work suggest that, in comparison to mainstream statistical reasoning,
configurational thinking may be more appropriate for understanding mobili-
zation efforts against proposals for LNG facilities and LULUs more generally.
68 Projections 11
Notes
1. LNG is natural gas that has been cooled to cryogenic temperatures for transporta-
tion in tankers. Offload terminals receive these tankers and vaporize the LNG for dis-
tribution. An LNG facility represents a classic example of a LULU, imposing negative
impacts on a local community but wider benefits to the region.
2. Breaks in trust were another causal factor identified by Boudet and Ortolano
(2010). However, my interviews did not indicate that breaks in trust played an impor-
tant role in the mobilization efforts in the additional cases.
3. While some efforts have been made to analyze LULU responses using theories
from the study of social movements (Devlin and Yap 2008; Diani and Van der Heijden
1994; Flam 1994; Kitschelt 1986; Sherman 2011; Walsh, Warland, and Smith 1997),
only Boudet and Ortolano (2010) explicitly make use the political process model.
4. The Gulf Gateway Energy Bridge, the second offshore LNG proposal in the Gulf of
Mexico, was subjected only to an Environmental Assessment, a lesser version of an
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). This decision came despite protests from the
National Marine Fisheries Service that an EIS should be required. All other offshore
LNG proposals in the U.S. were subjected to an EIS.
5. The author conducted all site visits except for one to Providence, Rhode Island, to
collect information about the KeySpan proposal. This site visit was conducted by R.
Wright.
7. For the Gulf Landing project, additional interviews were conducted in New Orleans
because there was mobilization against the project there. The number of interviews
for the Gulf Landing proposals reported in Table 2 includes only these additional
interviews conducted in New Orleans.
9. I selected 200 people per square mile as the threshold between low and high
population density by comparing population densities to my knowledge of each
affected community. Based on site visits, the onshore Gulf Coast projects were
located in low population density areas when compared to the other locations in our
sample. Indeed, with the exception of Brazoria County, all Gulf Coast projects are
located in counties with less than 100 people per square mile. I chose to include
Brazoria County as low population density because the higher population density of
this county is mainly driven by development in other parts of the county, particularly
those areas close to Houston. In fact, given the stark divisions in population density
between those proposals located in the Gulf Coast and elsewhere, I could have se-
lected the cutoff anywhere between 174 (Brazoria County, TX) and 784 (Gloucester
County, NJ).
Boudet 69
10. Although a few onshore facilities were initially proposed as open-loop systems,
such proposals were quickly switched to closed-loop due to negative reactions from
regulators who were concerned about the potential risk to biological resources in
near-shore estuaries.
11. This data is only available at the county level. Thus, for the cases where the af-
fected community was a city, county level data was utilized.
12. As an example, for the Mare Island Energy Project, which was announced in
May 2002, data on nonprofits in Solano County was taken from July 2001. The next
dataset on Solano County was only available for July 2002, which falls after the an-
nouncement of the proposal.
14. Note that external governmental involvement carried more weight than NGO in-
volvement in my scoring scheme, based on interviewee responses. However, because
no cases in my sample involved government organizations without NGOs, this weight-
ing deserves additional study.
15. Sound Energy Solutions, the proposing company, sued to try to force the Port to
complete its review but lost when a judge dismissed the case in March 2008.
16. The Mare Island proposal is the only one in the sample that did not go through
an EIS process because it was withdrawn at the stage of leasing the land before the
company submitted an official application for governmental review. However, given
the amount of local opposition and the fact that local opponents were already con-
tacting state officials, I would argue that, had the company continued with the pro-
posal, it would have also attracted opposition from external governmental officials.
70 Projections 11
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Boudet 75
76 Projections 11
Down the Drain or Back to the Roots?
Political Ecology of the Water-Energy-
Food Nexus Visualized Using GIS in
Leh Town, Ladakh, India
Daphne Gondhalekar
Technical University of Munich
Adris Akhtar
University of Bonn
Abstract
Urban water infrastructure development is often unable to keep up with
the rapid pace of transformation of cities in developing economies such as
India, impacting access to safe drinking water with concomitant water-relat-
ed health risks. Especially in regions where water is already scarce and which
are being affected by climate change, integrated urban planning inside a
political ecology framework enabling playing politics with principle partic-
ularly in terms of water resources management is urgently needed. The case
study of Leh Town, headquarter of Leh District and cultural capital of the
Ladakh region, is considered one of the fastest-growing small towns in India.
A fertile green oasis in a semi-arid high-altitude region of the Himalayas,
Leh has witnessed very rapid change of water consumption and wastewater
production patterns particularly in the past decades due to huge growth
of the tourism industry. Using WorldView-2 very high-resolution satellite
imagery of 2011, Google Earth imagery of 2003, Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) analysis and field survey conducted in 2012-14 we find that
drinking water resources are being polluted as a result of inadequate waste-
water management infrastructure. This study advocates a partially decentral-
ized wastewater recycling and reuse system as an alternative development
choice for long-term food, water and energy security as well as water-related
health risk reduction, and to enable Leh to be a lighthouse project for future
cities visioning.
Keywords
Urban planning; political ecology; water resources management; health;
climate change; Geographic Information Systems (GIS); future cities vision-
ing; India
In the 19th century, when centralized sewage systems were first developed,
these proved very effective in curbing water-related health risk caused by
lack of adequate wastewater management. The paradigm accompanying
this technological innovation, to use water only once, has been very persis-
tent in the face of water-related development challenges (Drewes, 2014).
Centralized sewage systems are water-intensive to operate: thus, in regions
facing water scarcity, alternative means of dealing with wastewater are
becoming increasingly important in order to conserve water resources (Lthi
et al., 2011). There are many alternative means of wastewater recycling and
reuse including Ecosan (Haller, 2010), with various inherent advantages such
as water conservation, nutrient recovery, lower maintenance cost, etc. (Tilley
et al., 2008), but they have rarely been implemented at the neighbourhood
scale (Sanimap, 2009). Instead, the flush toilet and centralized sewage sys-
tem, which have been termed ecologically mindless, remain a preferred
option (Narain, 2002) as a symbol of modernity.
Marx pointed out that economic growth entails political implications, and a
political ecology perspective assumes a mismatch between natural resourc-
es consumption and political aims. Political ecology studies on urban water
management have strongly focused on access to (drinking) water and water
78 Projections 11
governance (privatisation) issues in terms of globalisation (Bakker, 2003;
Swyngedouw et al., 2002; Swyngedouw, 2004; Swyngedouw and Heynen,
2010), within a general framework of the neoliberalisation of nature
(Heynen and Robbins, 2005) and social and environmental justice critiques
(Harvey, 1997, 2009). The cultural dimensions of such transitions figure
prominently in political ecology studies of (eco-) tourism (Stonich, 1998;
Duffy, 2000; Holden, 2008) but are underemphasised in political ecology of
urban water studies.
80 Projections 11
Figure 2. Year-wise number of visitors and guesthouses and hotels opened in Leh
(Source: Tourist Board Leh)
To cater to these, hundreds of guesthouses and hotels (GH/H) have been con-
structed in Leh (Fig. 2). Although Leh has a masterplan published in 1996,
urban development is haphazard (Eichert, 2009:77). Growth of the tourism
industry and the accompanying increasing use of flush toilets and showers
is rapidly pushing up water demand and wastewater production. Traditional
sanitation, the Ladakhi dry toilet, does not require any water and in Ladakh
human faeces are commonly used as agricultural fertilizer. However, it does
have some hygiene challenges so that 99 % of tourists prefer the flush toilet
(Akhtar, 2010:57). The water supply and wastewater management systems
have been unable to keep up: the Public Health Engineering Department
(PHE) supplies over 80 % of Leh Towns water demand by groundwater ex-
traction in the summer months (LEDeG, 2010), but only manages to provide
water for 2-3 hours per day (Akhtar, 2010:71). Groundwater extraction is
not regulated: the India Groundwater Act has yet to be ratified in the semi-
autonomous Ladakh Region. Environmental pollution in Leh is already severe,
with 60 % of point sources of surface water pollution within 100 metres of
rivers and streams (Gondhalekar et al., 2013). Further, wastewater in Leh is
currently only collected in septic tanks and soak pits that are not properly
managed, so that groundwater pollution due to seepage is assumed. Sur-
face water is decreasing (Eichert, 2009:53) possibly as a result of climate
change, which is affecting groundwater recharge (LEDeG, 2010). Increase in
water-borne diseases such as hepatitis and diarrhoea were already recorded
in Leh over a decade ago (Bashin, 1999). Incidences of acute diarrhoea in
Leh still seem to be increasing, but this can not be causally linked to wa-
ter pollution (Gondhalekar et al., 2013). The food-grain import dependency
ratio of Leh is already 60 % (Pellicardi, 2010:89), and despite large-scale
hydro-power development, Leh faces regular power cuts, so that issues of
long-term food and energy security need also to be seriously addressed.
Methodology
Field surveys were conducted between July 2012 and April 2014 in
collaboration with our research partner, the Ladakh Ecological Development
Group (LEDeG), a local NGO. Building on existing data (Akhtar, 2010 and
Thoma 2006), we mapped new GH/H using geographic positioning (GPS).
We used geographic information systems (GIS) kernel density method using
quadratic kernel function (Silverman, 1986: 76) to spatially cluster points
of wastewater disposal and relate these to potential pollution of drinking
water resources. A WorldView-2 very high-resolution satellite image (ground
resolution 50 cm, DigitalGlobe, supplied by European Space Imaging)
of November 2011 served as a base map. To detect land use change, we
used Google Earth imagery from 2003 as a reference. We also conducted a
socio-economic questionnaire survey of 200 households, representing 5 %
of all HH in Leh, selected using an open-source random selection algorithm
(http://www.spatialecology.com/index.php, open source), questionnaire
survey of ca. 318 GH/H and semi-structured interviews with various local
stakeholders.
Results
Land use change and increase in barren land
There has been a huge increase in guesthouses and hotels (GH/H) to cater
to the surge of tourists visiting Leh in the last decades. In 1980 there were
only 24 GH/H in Leh, but by 2010 there were 282, and by 2013 the number
had increased to ca. 360 GH/H in business, with another ca. 60 not yet in
business or under construction (Fig. 3).
Leh has 21 wards, of which 10 have irrigated agricultural land area, whilst
the others are predominantly dry and desert-like. We find that over 90 % of
GH/H in Leh are located in its agricultural wards. Of these, 67 % of GH/H
are located in two agricultural wards directly adjoining the ancient town cen-
ter, Karzoo and Tukcha wards. Therefore, we focused on these as the wards
with the most rapid rate of urbanization, to identify trends that may become
relevant for other wards of Leh in the coming decades.
82 Projections 11
Figure 3. Increase in GH/H in Leh Town from 1980 to 2013
This trend is also visible in the results of the HH (households) survey: aver-
age income in Leh has doubled in the last decade. Agriculture was a source
of income for 28 % of the population ten years ago, but has since decreased
by 3 %. In the predominantly agricultural wards, the number of HH stating
that agriculture is a source of income has increased in the last ten years by 4
%. For those HH still engaged in agriculture in Leh, the amount of land being
farmed on average has decreased by 41 % in the past decade.
Thus, PHE is currently providing 3 to 4 million litres of water per day and
most it through groundwater extraction via bore and tube wells. The Indus
River aquifer is used for PHE tube well extraction, while an aquifer below Leh,
fed by glacial and snow melt water, is used for private and PHE tube and bore
well extraction. The aquifer below Leh is very shallow, and at several loca-
tions, water bubbles directly from the surface in marshy areas. Water from
the Indus River aquifer is pumped ca. 300 m in vertical distance upwards
and several kilometres horizontally to reservoirs distributed in Leh, which is
very energy intensive, then distributed by a gravity pipe system with several
hundred public and private water taps and by water tankers. In addition,
hand pumps that draw water from the Leh aquifer at a maximum depth of
about 10 m are distributed throughout Leh. According to our survey, Leh has
46 public hand pumps. We find that 85 % of HH use PHE taps, 18 % hand
pumps, and 8 % bore wells as their drinking water source. Few HH have a
private bore well (20 bore wells owned by HH were surveyed by us), but some
only use these to water the garden.
84 Projections 11
our survey, reasons for the increasing use of private bore wells are that PHE
only provides water for 2-3 hours in the mornings, which is considered insuf-
ficient to run a GH/H with showers and flush toilets, and concern about PHE
water quality and low water pressure.
Of the surveyed GH/H, 186 GH/H stated rates of extraction: the total amount
of fresh water that these GH/H extract sums up to 690,000 l/day. Using this
data, we calculated high-density areas of groundwater extraction in Leh (Fig.
5), which predominantly overlap with the highest densities of GH/H in direct
proximity to the town centre. Outliers are large hotels that are removed from
the town centre to profit from a quiet atmosphere. Interestingly, spatially the
location of the pipeline is also close to the highest densities of groundwater
extraction, although it might be expected that water supply closer to the
pipeline could be better than far from it.
86 Projections 11
Figure 6. High densities of wastewater production and perception of groundwater
pollution
The WWD map resulting using kernel density method indicates where point
features are concentrated (Fig. 6). According to the World Health Organiza-
tion (WHO, 1996) drinking water extraction locations should be located at
a minimum distance of 30 m from WWD locations. We classified the WWD
determined earlier into 4 classes from low to very high amount of WWD and
by 3 classes in terms of pollution intensity of WWD: high, medium and low.
Next we overlaid all bore wells and hand pumps with the WWD map (Fig. 7)
and through a 3-dimensional buffer analysis (30 m vertically and horizon-
tally) identified sites of WWD that are too close to drinking water extraction
locations and thus may be impacting their quality.
Out of the total of 284 water extraction locations in Leh we mapped (see
above), 180 (46 hand pumps, 9 private HH bore wells, 125 bore wells ho-
tels/GH) extract freshwater from less than 30 m depth. Out of these, 93 (of
which 92 are GH/H bore wells) are located within a 30 m radius of a WWD
area (Fig. 7). Out of these, 12 are located in an area with high amount of
WWD, 31 in an area with medium amount of WWD, and 50 in an area with low
amount of WWD. Thus we find that 33 % of freshwater extraction locations in
Leh are too close to sites of WWD and 4 % are too close to highly polluting
WWD sites. Thus, drinking water quality at these extraction locations may be
at risk. According to our survey, the average bore well depth of GH/H in Leh
is 33 m, thus these bore wells may generally be at risk. Nonetheless, GH/H
are producing about 1 million litres per day of wastewater, and this is a huge
underutilized resource.
Discussion
Generally, the trend of urbanization in Leh is increase in consumption of
limited water resources and of built-up and barren agricultural land: various
ecosystem functions including evapotranspiration and food production and
hence food security may be seriously affected. So far official figures show
88 Projections 11
no decrease in agricultural land. To address food security in Leh, LAHDC is
planning to turn an expanse of desert area on the bank of the Indus River
opposite Leh into irrigated agricultural land. However, this may require huge
additional amounts of groundwater extraction or diversion of Indus River wa-
ters. Further, decrease in agricultural land also signifies decrease in irrigated
land area, which in turn may be impacting groundwater aquifer recharge.
The capacity of the groundwater aquifers is not known but is assumed to be
limited. As mentioned in the introducing section, groundwater extraction is
not regulated in Leh. According to our survey, inhabitants think that some
springs in Leh seem to have dried up because of high rates of groundwater
extraction. Huge amounts of energy are being used to lift water from ground-
water aquifers to Leh, although the town is already facing regular power cuts.
Therefore, further increase in water demand also has implications in terms
of energy security. The cultural landscape of Leh needs protection for long-
term sustainable development, ecological health and sustainable tourism
industry growth. To address existing limitations in Leh, water, energy and
food need to be considered as three sides of the same coin.
This design of the centralized sewage system invites several questions. Tour-
ists numbers do not figure into it hence PHE is now planning to implement
the centralized sewage system without connecting GH/H. PHE currently aims
Less water required for flushing and hence less energy intensive.
Decrease in environmental pollution and seepage due to shorter
pipes.
Renewable energy potential (solar power can be used to run
smaller pumps and biogas may be won from manure).
Using recycled wastewater for irrigation agriculture (also in win-
ter e.g. for vegetable production) and to regenerate barren land
(e.g. urban parks).
Nutrient recycling: continued use of manure rather than chemi-
cal fertilizers.
Recharging the aquifer proportionally to demand locally.
Potentially lower construction and O&M costs.
Potential eco-tourism and green jobs opportunities.
Wastewater treatment to be tailored to demand, potentially sav-
ing energy.
90 Projections 11
Figure 8. Centralized and decentralized sewage system options
One large hotel in Leh constructed its own private decentralized STP in late
2013 because all septic tanks were full and is currently testing the quality
of the recycled water. To implement a decentralized wastewater recycling
and reuse system effectively on a larger scale will require significant increase
in awareness of various stakeholders. Leh is very much in the international
focus as a summer residence of the Dalai Lama, who visits Leh every other
year, and destination for hundreds of thousands of spiritual and nature-lov-
ing visitors. Therefore innovation in Leh would have far-reaching visibility and
thus impact. Other towns in the region have already considered alternatives,
e.g. in Shimla (CSE, 2010) decentralized sewage treatment and wastewater
recycling has been implemented.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by a Marie Curie International Reintegration
Grant within the 7th European Community Framework Programme (PIRG06-
GA-2009-256555) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) (KE 1710/1-
1), and is conducted in collaboration with the International Centre for Inte-
grated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
92 Projections 11
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Gondhalekar & Akhtar 97
98 Projections 11
An Environmental Anthropology of
Waste in Cairo: Contexts, Dimensions,
and Trends
Eman A. Lasheen
Harvard University
Abstract
Waste management is often discussed as a series of abstract physical
processes. However, in reality these processes are almost always intertwined
with social and political aspects in the urban context that transform them
into tales of survival and struggles for social justice, particularly in devel-
oping countries. This paper studies the problem of solid waste manage-
ment in Greater Cairo from an anthropological perspective, investigating the
intersection between the environmental implications of the garbage crisis in
the city, the social justice issues in the scavenger settlements of Zabbaleen,
and the broader political framework. This is done through examining three
interrelated components: the contexts as socio-political spheres of action,
the dimensions as indicators of the magnitude of the problem, and the ap-
plied trends as physical embodiment of environmental policies. The aim of
this study is to highlight the importance of human-related factors such as
political attitudes, pro-environmental behavior and policy making on waste
practices in Cairo. It concludes by providing recommendations on how to
improve and further develop the waste management sector through adjust-
ing these elements.
Lasheen 99
Introduction
Environmental anthropology is an established field of research dedicated to
the study of human and environment interactions (Kottak, 1999). Recently
these interactions have been most prominently reassembled in the culture
of consumerism (Wilson, Shienberg, & Casanova, 2012). With current and
expected growth in urban population, cities are becoming massive engines
of consumption. Subsequently, waste management problems are becoming
more complicated, widespread and diverse. The capacities of many exist-
ing waste management sectors often fail to adequately and evenly provide
basic waste services. This is especially tangible in cities of the developing
world- exacerbated by many factors such as poverty, illiteracy, lack of envi-
ronmental awareness and political and administrative corruption. The im-
pacts of failed waste management systems are very serious. The simplest
manifestation of the problem is the daily appearance of uncollected trash
accumulation that interrupts the physicality of streets and spaces. Grow-
ing at breathtaking rate, street garbage can provide breeding ground for
disease-causing vectors, clog drains, cause flooding, contaminate runoff and
threaten ecosystems. (Woodson, 2000)
Contexts
The Socio Political Context: Bread, Freedom, and Social Justice
The most predominant chant of demands, repeated by millions of the citys
outraged citizens during the 2012 Egyptian revolution was strikingly very
precise. The symbolic needs of bread, freedom, and social justice capture
the state of deprivation that was and still is pervasive in the Egyptian soci-
ety. However, the notion of social justice in public perception refers mostly
to wages, job opportunities and distribution of resources among all social
levels. Issues of environmental justice in general and the sociology of waste
in particular are a bit further in the mind. A logical interpretation of this
deficient meaning is that other social-economic stresses are overwhelmingly
distracting. In a mega city struggling against infrastructural, political, eco-
nomic, organizational, and legal challenges, waste is typically disposed of
100 Projections 11
without consideration for environmental concerns, human health issues, and
social impacts.
While this hierarchic distribution of power in the formal process may seem
sound, theres a growing gap between policy and implementation. This could
be attributed to the ambiguity of the overarching framework in one sense and
Lasheen 101
the specificity of the responsibilities lying on the governorates shoulders in
another sense. This authoritative gap allows for nepotism, administrative
corruption, and bureaucratic practices. This gap is widened even more by
further distribution of authority among a number of ministries that tap into
waste management within the governorate. Currently the responsibility is
divided between the Ministry of State for Environment Affairs (MSEA/EEAA),
Ministry of Local Development, Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban De-
velopment, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation,
and Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (Khayal & Zaki, 2010).
Without a clear identification of the role of each of these stakeholders, the
institutional framework will continue to dysfunction the way it does right now.
Dimensions
The Social Justice Dimension
The Zabbaleen are considered the largest, most efficient, and most renowned
group of informal garbage collectors in the world. But certainly there are
many other scavenger based communities, which undeniably exist in third
world countries like the Muslim minority in Kolkata, India; the Roma gypsies
102 Projections 11
in Romania; and the Bangladeshis and members of the Muslim minority in
Delhi (Anschutz & Sheinburg, 2006). Most of the garbage collecting commu-
nities emerge and evolve around megacities. These communities share many
common aspects that emanate around their interest in the economic value
of waste. Most remarkably, the profession reflects a certain social affiliation
that is generally perceived as low status (Stix, 2012). Another commonality
is the unsanitary living conditions that are associated with scavenger settle-
ments. Health issues such as high mortality and morbidity rates (especially
among children), high incidence of animal epidemics, widespread illiteracy,
poor environmental conditions, and low income are all omnipresent in these
communities (Fahmi, 2005).
Lasheen 103
empty plots or public space simply burn their refuse in front of their homes
(Furniss, 2012). In order to fully capture the dimensions of the present state,
a clear understanding of the historical transformations in the solid waste
practices is needed.
By the 1980s, the Zabbaleen had developed a highly efficient, people based
waste management system and gained international recognition for having
the highest recycling rates in the world. They even surpassed Seattles re-
cycling rate of 37 percent, which was the highest in the US and most of
Europe at that time (Leven, 2006). This period marks two very important
transformations in the life of the Zabbaleen communities. The first was that
they were finally acknowledged and appreciated on an international level. A
104 Projections 11
global reputation was growing serviced by a phenomenal amount of research
about literally all aspects of the Zabbaleens life. The research acted as unin-
tentional publicity, highlighting the range of problems and challenges facing
these groups. The studies also caught the attention of many humanitarian
institutions and NGOs who were willing to provide substantial amounts of
funding for environmental projects dedicated towards improving the lives
of the Zabbaleen physically and technically. The most prominent of these
donors were the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, Oxfam, the Association
for Garbage Collectors (ACG), and the Association for the Protection of the
Environment (APE) (Fahmi & Sutton, 2006). These funds were directed to-
wards building schools, training individuals, financing micro enterprises and
further developing their recycling industry in specific and their community
in general.
Lasheen 105
some unsuccessful attempts that were made to contain them within the pri-
vate companies.
Furthermore, with the onset of swine flu in 2009, one final blow was directed
at the Zabbaleen community. The government preformed mass slaughter
of all the pigs owned and raised in their settlements as a precautionary
procedure after increasing national fears over the possible outbreak of the
epidemic. The process of pig eradication was implemented in a fast, brutal
manner without any compensation to the pig owners. This step had very se-
rious implications on the recycling industry and the Zabbaleens existence.
Not only were the pigs used in the recycling process as consumers of organic
refuse, but they were also considered as economic assets for the Zabbaleen.
The Egyptian governments decision was criticized by many by locally and
internationally not only as an act of inhumanity against the animals but as
an unnecessary step that had nothing to do with swine flu prevention, since
no cases had been detected at that time (Furniss, 2012). The outcomes of
this cull were soon visible as piles of organic waste the pigs once consumed
started showing up on Cairos streets, posing serious health risks.
From that date onward, the SWM system in Cairo has been a chaotic scene of
unsynchronized and inadequate efforts. The recent political upheaval against
the Mubarak regime and the instability that followed is not a main cause of
the problem as many of the officials are trying to imply. The events have in-
deed provided conditions for a state of idleness in many aspects of life in the
city, but are definitely not the root cause of the problem. The Zabbaleen, as
with many other Egyptian citizens, have been aspiring for reform. They were
hoping for tangible changes in policies that improvise the SWM sector. So far
this anticipated change has not been seen. When Mohammed Morsi of the
Muslim Brotherhood Party was elected President of Egypt in 2012, he vowed
to resolve Egypts waste management issues in his first 100 days in office.
It was said that this would be done through a waste management strategy
that would replicate Turkeys current system without any further detail (Stix,
2012). The plan lacked any elaborations on the position of whether the Zab-
baleen would be included in the formal waste management system or not,
and the roles in which they might be reintroduced into the waste business
has never been mentioned.
Trends
Privatization
A general consensus derived from the examination of the historical trans-
formations in the sector is the intrinsic nature that binds the environmental
conditions in the city with the practices of the Zabbaleen community. One
can easily draw parallels between each major setback that has affected the
Zabbaleen over the course of this last decade and the immediate conse-
quences on the environmental quality in the city. It is therefore evident that
106 Projections 11
SWM policies are definitely detrimental to the environmental protection and
social justice simultaneously. The privatization policies have demonstrated
significant unfavorable social and environmental outcomes that prove the
system to be defective. Despite the governments defense of the system as
an important step towards integrated solid waste management, the sys-
tem has visibly failed to address the basic issues of ecological, social and
economic sustainability (Didero, 2012). The companies are only required
to achieve recycling rates of 20%, which is incomparable to the traditional
recycling rates of 80%, and yet they dont even get close to that in reality
(Fahmi, 2005). The services provided are very often insufficient in terms of
technical equipment like street bins, loaders, trucks, recycling and compost-
ing facilities, and workers.
The inconsistency of the collection services and the new billing system im-
posed by the government through the monthly electricity bills have culmi-
nated into waves of public dissatisfaction. The idea was to collect a monthly
fee for garbage collection from every household estimated according to the
amount paid for electricity, as an indicator for social status. It was said that
this would guarantee that the fee was reasonably and fairly calculated. There
was no way not to pay since the amount was included automatically to the to-
tal bill. Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against the government for add-
ing these fees without prior public consent, claiming that this was against an
article in the Egyptian Constitution (Leven, 2006). Most importantly, many
reports have documented very recent violations on behalf of these compa-
nies resembled in garbage dumping all around the Cairo ring road, in the
desert, and in rural irrigation canals, instead of the designated disposal
facilities (Viney, 2012).
Avoidance
In the specific case of Cairo, there is an implicit political legacy of de-prior-
itizing environmental issues- what could be described as a form of political
avoidance of complicated environmental problems. The official announce-
ments that follow any environmental problem in the city, starting from gar-
bage pileups, the black cloud, etc., are always superficial, short-termed and
defensive. One possible reason for this attitude is the absence of true con-
cern about sustainability in itself. In fact the issues of environmental protec-
tion have never been a priority to any previous government. Furthermore,
according to Gomma (1997), in Egypt, one of the main reasons that environ-
mental issue surfaced on the governments policy agenda was because for-
eign donors were willing to finance and support environmental projects that
Lasheen 107
would result in sustainable development. Salama Ahmed Salama, a promi-
nent Egyptian writer in AlAhram Weekly stated the following:
This political avoidance is very often masked by cosmetic actions that dem-
onstrate a lack of both vision and true intention to change the current condi-
tions. An example of these politically motivated interventions is a one-day
campaign called Clean Homeland, announced by ousted president Mo-
hamed Morsi in the very first months of his term, encouraging people to get
out of their homes and collect garbage from streets and lots for municipal
trucks to haul away. Many people responded positively to this call and some
piles were removed. The very next day, new piles started building up once
more. It was also very frustrating to the garbage collectors- when Morsis
Clean Homeland campaign coordinators didnt respond to their calls for
discussion and ideas on how to address the citys severe waste problems
(Viney, 2012).
After almost one year of political turmoil in the aftermath of Morsis ouster
and the enactment of a military coup, the future of Egypts environmental
and social wellbeing is looking more stressful and less onto the path of re-
form.
Conclusion
The outcomes of this paper resonate with many previous research findings
on the importance of enhancing, developing and reintroducing the Zabba-
leen into the waste management process. A summary of hypotheses formu-
lated form the study is presented below:
108 Projections 11
must involve looking into both aspects.
The state of complete social vulnerability of the Zabbaleen
community and the citys current garbage crisis is a physical
depiction of failed environmental policies.
A political shift in paradigm with real intentions to prioritize
waste management is the only way towards reaching a sustain-
able solution.
There is great need for behavioral studies that examine cultur-
ally suitable ways of improving the peoples attitude towards
waste disposal and perception of the Zabbaleens profession.
A detailed study of legislative reforms in the SWM laws is high-
ly recommended.
Theres no magical solution for the SWM problem in Cairo, However, the
contexts are clear, the dimensions are interrelated and the trends can be
changed.
Lasheen 109
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Science of Garbage. SAGE publications.
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sitive Perspective on Sustainable Livelihoods. ERDKUNDE 66(1), 27-44.
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Urban Waste Management System in Cairo. Geographical Review, 69(1), 101-108.
Fahmi, W.S. & K. Sutton (2006). Cairos Zabaleen garbage recyclers: Multi-nationals
takeover and state relocation plans. Habitat International, 30(4), 809-837.
Fahmi, W. (2005). The impact of privatization of solid waste management on the Zabaleen
garbage collectors of Cairo. Sage Publications.
Hoornweg, D., & Bhada-Tata, P. (2012). What a Waste, A Global Review of Solid
Waste Management. World Bank Urban Development Series Knowledge Papers.
Khayal, A., & Zaki, T. (2010). Country Report on Solid Waste Management in Egypt.
Cairo: SWEEP-NET.
Leven, R. (2006). The Pharaohs Garbage: Growth and Change in Egypts Waste.
Nimep INSIGHTS, 55-70.
110 Projections 11
Rice, G. (2006). Pro-Environmental Behavior in Egypt: Is There a Role for Islamic
Environmental Ethics? Journal of Business Ethics, 65(4), 373-390.
Salama, S. A. (2004). Garbage for All. Alahram Weekly, July 28, 2004.
Stix, M. (2012). Treasure Amidst Trash: Preserving Community in the Worlds Larg-
est Garbage City. Shifting Perspectives. International Center for Ethics, Justice, and
Public Life, Brandeis University.
Wilson, D. C., Shienberg, A., & Casanova, L. (2012). Solid Waste Management in the
worlds cities. Netherlands: UN-HABITAT.
Lasheen 111
112 Projections 11
Designed Experiments for Transfor-
mational Learning: Forging New
Opportunities Through the Integration
of Ecological Research Into Design
Alexander J. Felson
Yale University
Abstract
Landscape and urban designers are increasingly drawing on ecological
understanding to inform the sustainability and resilience aspects of their
projects. The design practitioners working on these projects rely on environ-
mental consultants, professional ecologists, as well as urban ecology as the
points of references for these purposes. However, they are confronting gaps
in the understanding of urban ecosystems and of what constitutes a sus-
tainable or resilient urban landscape. Research to fill those gaps is limited
and can be out of sync with the timeframe of design projects. As a result,
what is incorporated as the sustainability aspects of design projects are not
necessarily supported by relevant scientific evidence. Given that ecologists
have limited functions as consultants in design projects, designers often at-
tempt to translate ecological concepts into design strategies on their own,
raising the added question of the capacity of the designer to translate the
science into practice. Notwithstanding these issues, the demand for the inte-
gration of ecology into design is an opportunity for designers and ecologists
to collaborate. On the one hand, ecologists seek to understand and study
urban ecosystems quantitatively and qualitatively. On the other hand, de-
signers seek a more rigorous approach to building and monitoring sustain-
able and resilient urban ecosystems. Fostering this integration can deepen
our understanding of what is sustainable and resilient; and brings this
understanding to bear on urban design. Designed experiments provide one
approach to situate urban ecological research as designed urban spaces
and installations through the design process. Building on the concept of
designed experiments and a review of precedents, this paper explores ways
of deepening the relationship and integration of ecology and design with the
goal of informing future collaboration.
Felson 113
Introduction
A simultaneous movement is underway in both landscape architecture and
ecology to reframe the relationship of science to practice. Ecologists are
looking to action science as in the Earth Stewardship Initiative to clarify what
needs to be studied, expand on how scientific research can inform shaping
strategies, improve communication among multiple parties via interdisci-
plinary strategies, and identify pragmatic actions for scientists (Chapin et al.
2011, Felson et al. 2013a). Concurrently, landscape architects are seeking
to improve the evaluation of the sustainability of designed landscapes such
as through the Landscape Architecture Foundations Landscape Performance
Series (LPS), a program aimed toward promoting the integration of monitor-
ing as evidence-based science into designed projects.
114 Projections 11
Figure 1. Ecological planning project. Image by Ecological Society of America
Figure 2. Seven Ponds Farm. Photo by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
Felson 115
These initiatives, nonetheless, provide a foundation upon which to build. This
foundation lies in the theoretical framework offered by the shifting role of
ecologists in the Earth Stewardship Initiative, and the structured relationship
between design and research in the LPS. In both cases, the ecologist and
landscape architect are situated in new roles.
116 Projections 11
Figure 3. Mapping the design process for urban ecology. From Felson et al. (2013b)
Felson 117
Figure 5. Alluvial valley of the Lower Mississippi River. Map by Harold Fisk, 1944
118 Projections 11
Figure 6. Proposal for Downsview Park, Toronto, 1999. Images by James Corner
Field Operations with Nina-Marie Lister
theory and synthesizing these with other issues to fit into a design, the de-
signer may not fully reflect on the meaning or the theory of those outcomes.
As seen in the case of Downsview Park, the theory of ecological succession
was evoked as the basis of the design (Figure 6). However, arguably, the
design is more appropriate to the theory of island biogeography including
habitat patches and corridors, and less relevant to succession.
When designers weave ecological concepts into design there is no peer review
to ensure that they accurately reference underlying ecological theories. For
ecologists, peer review is relied upon to critique ecological research meth-
ods, outcomes and analysis. They collectively build on peer-reviewed work to
seek and develop a shared understanding of ecological theory (e.g. Boone et
al. 2012). The loss in translation and lack of a peer review process in design
constrain the ability of designers to address gaps in scientific knowledge.
Felson 119
aspects of the design process can be useful to further urban ecological un-
derstanding and societies understanding of resilience and sustainability
(Czerniak 2007). Designed experiments capitalize on this potential on the
design side.
On the ecology side, examples of integrative efforts with design also exist
and can inform the development of designed experiments. These include:
adaptive management, where ecologists seek to translate ecological princi-
pals into management and design strategies (Pulliam 2002, Barthel et al.
2010, Cook et al. 2004, Marie-Lister 2012), urban restoration ecology (Faeth
2005, Alberti 2015), brownfields reclamation (Kirkwood 2001), green infra-
structure (Hobbs et al. 2006, Pataki et al. 2011), conservation biology and
landscape ecology (Dramstad 1996, Forman 2003), and design of habitat
corridors (Hilty 2006). In addition, ecologists are increasingly working di-
rectly with designers as consultants, for example, in Steven Handels work on
the Brooklyn Bridge Park and Applied Ecological Services role on the Fresh
Kills Project (Figure 7). Notwithstanding these efforts, researchers are still
exploring options for a conceptual framework to facilitate ecological research
in urban environments (Cadenasso and Pickett 2008, Boone et al. 2012).
120 Projections 11
flora (Angold et al. 2006), and in so doing leave out other critical drivers of
urban ecology such as social, economic and political factors. Notably, more
recently ecologists have shifted from ecology in cities to ecology of cities
(Pickett et al. 2008) where they explore coupled human natural systems and
social-ecological systems (Tbara and Chabay, 2013). Still, the limitations
in the theories, standardized language (MacGregor-Fors 2011), and existing
research and data make it challenging to infer urban ecosystem structure
and processes that translate science into practical design applications and
management tools (Cadenasso and Pickett 2008). Researchers are discover-
ing and demonstrating that assumptions about urban ecosystem structure
and function often differ from expectations. This is true from an ecosystem
perspective in terms of hydrology and biogeochemistry (Kaye et al. 2006,
Groffman et al. 2004), urban biodiversity (Faeth et al. 2011, McKinney 2006,
Sukopp 2008 ), succession (Burghardt et al. 2011, Robinson and Handel
2000), pollination, animal behavior, morphology and genetics (Shochat et al.
2006). Addressing these methodological, theoretical, and data limitations is
key to advancing urban ecology.
Examples of this can be found in Baltimore and Phoenix where urban ecol-
ogy is being developed through long-term ecological research (LTER), funded
by the National Science Foundation. For ecologists, these funded projects
have played critical roles in beginning to overcome some of the aforemen-
tioned barriers, and to amass data on how urban ecosystems change over
time. Already, both urban LTER sites have established a series of long-term
Felson 121
measurement programs.
The Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES), under the direction of Steward Pick-
ett, focuses on applying new theories and integrating biological, physical,
and social sciences through research, education, community engagement
and outreach. BES has set up monitoring stations for long term data on fac-
tors including nitrogen retention across urban landscapes (1993-present),
nitrous oxide fluxes in lawns and forests (1998-present), and fluctuations
in urban riparian water table, nitrate and phosphorous concentrations at
multiple locations along a watershed (Pickett et al. 2011). In addition, they
have long-term data on a variety of social factors including governance net-
works, land use management practices, housing data, household income,
and locational choices for homeowners and companies. At the Central Ari-
zona Project-Long Term Ecological Research, researchers have developed a
phosphorous budget (Metson et al. 2012) and are also developing a carbon
budget for Phoenix metropolitan region. The complex and heterogeneous
conditions have made it difficult to attain data for an accurate account of the
carbon dynamics. In addition, the conceptual frameworks for these LTERs
have shifted. For example, Baltimore has gone from patch dynamics, to the
sustainable city, to resilient cities and is shifting again for the latest funding
cycle.
Given that the design process entails multiple stages for interface with com-
munity, political, and regulatory processes necessary for building in urban
areas, collaborating with designers through the design process is particular-
122 Projections 11
ly advantageous for ecologists. Establishing research in urban environments
requires buy-in from multiple stakeholders to the intrinsic value of research
to a project. By situating experiments as an integral part of the design of a
project, both ecologist and the designer are better placed to advocate jointly
for the realization of the project as a whole.
Designers can also assist in addressing the actual site selection and lay-
out of experiments: choosing sites, configuring treatments and establish-
ing comparable replicate and control studies. Ecological researchers have
historically sought to minimize the potential for disturbance of a research
site by people and as well to make the research inconspicuous. In an ur-
ban environment (such as a heavily used park), however, ecologists are hard
pressed to avoid such disturbance. Urban ecologists moreover have come
to the realization that, in order to study the dynamic relationships among
humans, other organisms, and their environment, they must rely on more
assumptions and accept greater levels of uncertainty in their research than
in controlled experiments (Robertson and Hull, 2001). Through the design
process, ecologists have a useful entry point to situate research in urban
landscapes (Felson et al. 2013) and further through collaboration with the
designer address some of the challenges with producing replicable data
or data that yields high probability rate, controlling variables and defining
boundaries between research space and public space so as to generate
long-term, comparable quantification of urban processes and patterns. For
the designer, the collaboration will require going beyond post-construction
measurement of performance, to support integrating hypothesis driven ex-
perimentation with controlled variables and a testable experimental design
across multiple locations.
The track record of designed experiments thus far has exemplified how the
design process can effectively serve as a structured framework to facilitate
collaboration between ecologists and designers in a manner that mutually
reinforces and advances the interests of both fields. In the following exam-
ples, we demonstrate how designed experiments work in practice.
Given the limited number of experimental urban forestry studies and the
brief duration of most studies, research projects exploring longer-term eco-
logical dynamics are essential for evaluating afforestation dynamics (Oldfield
et al. 2013). With the intent of collecting data that would better inform future
park management practices and capital decisions, the NY-CAP design team
including professional ecological consultants worked with the New York City
Department of Parks and Recreation to pursue hypothesis-driven research
focusing on forest performance and evaluation management practices within
the development of an urban park. Together they integrated testable hypoth-
Felson 123
eses into the design, construction and monitoring of an urban forest (Felson
et al. 2013) (Figure 8).
124 Projections 11
One of the challenges encountered in moving forward with the experimental
research was budgetary. The experimental design component of the project
was included as part of the design with no additional fee. Thus the ecolo-
gists involvement was voluntary. Upon completion of the design contract
in 2009 (and after the establishment of the experimental layout), academic
institutions were invited to establish direct relationships with NYCDPR so as
to further refine the experimental design and research protocols (Felson et
al.2013c). An early academic partnership with Yale University in 2009 has
allowed for a second phase of ecological analysis that included baseline as-
sessment.
The basic premise for the demonstration project was the recognition that
cities should work for people and ecosystems. Large-scale urban green infra-
structure often has multiple demands from maintenance and operations, to
ecological performance and recreation. Addressing these demands moving
forward requires a deeper understanding, monitoring, and adaptive manage-
ment of coupled human-natural systems. The project therefore advances the
notion that integration of ecological theory, research, and applications with
the knowledge and practices of consultants, practitioners, and policy makers
is increasingly recognized as necessary when modifying the built environ-
ment. It further proposes designed experiments as a framework to facilitate
such integration.
Using the American River Parkway as a case study and designed experiments
as a framework, ecologists, landscape architects, and environmental con-
sultants collaborated with the American River Parkway Foundation, the Sac-
ramento Area Flood Control Agency, the Water Forum, and the Sacramento
County Regional Parks to formulate ways to enhance flood resilience, reduce
erosion, promote species diversity, increase pollinator habitats, and other
maintenance challenges (Figure 9).
Felson 125
Figure 9. Site analysis to conceptual design process, Earth Stewardship Initiative
demonstration project, 2014
126 Projections 11
The initiative included a week-long interactive demonstration of how ecolo-
gists working with planners and landscape architects, government officials,
and non-profit groups can move a city toward sustainability. Interdisciplinary
groups focused on, 1) resilient park ecosystems and habitats with the goal
of maintaining and enhancing terrestrial ecosystems and habitats within a
programmed parkland through ecological design, enhanced plant commu-
nities, and bioengineering; 2) degraded ecosystems restored as amenities
where degraded sites could be reconstructed as opportunities for social,
recreational, and environmental regeneration; 3) managed populations and
communities for parks where designed habitats with beneficial species man-
agement practices can support habitats while reducing maintenance and
operations costs and encouraging community engagement; 4) managed hy-
drology, aquatic habitats, and recreation, employing ecological design strat-
egies to meet water demand while mitigating flooding and enhancing aquat-
ic recreational and industrial activities; and 5) spatial planning for climate
change to manage the effects of climate change on terrestrial and aquatic
ecosystems. The groups incorporated ideas generated from four other re-
search themes to develop a climate change synopsis with an emphasis on
policy and planning (Figure 10).
For ecologists, experiments are a means to produce data. The form of the ex-
periment itself is valued for its function and not explicitly for its aesthetic. As
such, when ecologists design experiments, they employ a hypothesis-driven
approach based on substantial amount of field knowledge and understand-
ing of the organism and ecosystem as well as the lifecycle patterns and
evolution of the species being studied. While the relationship of the layout
and aesthetic of the experiment itself is secondary to the phenomena being
Felson 127
measured for ecologists, this is not the case for designers. Designed experi-
ments build hypotheses around a site and program. Since experiments are
the component within ecological research practices that can best navigate
the urban context and constraints, a shift in priority that experiments take
on in designed experiments is a compromise. Nonetheless, by staging the
site and experimental design from the outset of the process, ecologists are
afforded the opportunity to cycle through a series of hypotheses and testing
strategies.
Conclusions
The inclusion of research ecologists in urban design projects requires a
combination of enhanced dialogue to advance education and formalized
frameworks and funding to encourage participation. Incorporating ecologi-
cal considerations into their designs instills a proactive role for designers to
promote urban research and create urban environments that are aestheti-
cally and ecologically sound. The synthesis of design and research will opti-
mally lead towards new kinds of urban public spaces designed and built to
test and monitor. The creative modification of traditional practices of eco-
logical research, which is required in order to integrate considerations of
aesthetics, urban function, and community involvement, could also generate
new experimental possibilities at a variety of scales. Collaboration between
ecologists and designers can help to provide ecological experimentation with
a culturally recognizable public identity, in order to enhance its meaning
and perceived value. Thus the experiment itself is re-conceptualized from an
instrument that serves as a means to an end, to obtain results addressing
testable hypotheses, to a multifunctional urban object (or system) coupling
experimental goals with urban design applications. Implementing designed
experiments should expedite the translation of scientific knowledge into con-
128 Projections 11
struction of ecosystems and services for urban areas. It can help us estab-
lish long-term research sites and produce new, innovative forms of urban
landscapes.
Felson 129
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134 Projections 11
Freeland: Urban Planning Strategy for
Almere Oosterwold
Abstract
Freeland, MVRDVs urban planning strategy for Almere Oosterwold, re-envi-
sions the way that land is developed in the Netherlands. It proposes remap-
ping the regulation of buildings and development towards community-driven
initiatives, while reinventing the relationship between governments, people,
and their urban fabric through the power of the collective via the Internet. It
proposes a place of radical liberation, where architectural freedom extends
to the urban environment as a whole, challenging and empowering citizens
to become active participants in the land development process. This essay
elaborates the conceptual background of the project, its ambitions, and its
approach.
Over the past twenty years, a discourse has formed around MVRDVs work,
in part through publications such as Farmax, KM3, and Metacity/Datatown,
research which extends beyond the architectural projects to the role of ar-
chitects and urbanists in society. Key propositions such as density and
variety are now typical preoccupations for the profession, but found con-
136 Projections 11
ceptual drive in MVRDVs early work. Embedded in these debates are issues
of sustainable economic and built development, individual expression and
initiative, and perhaps above all, quality of life. The firm continues to pursue
a fascination for investigative research, particularly in relation to density, the
public realm and the influence of architectural form on daily life.
Context
Most Dutch housing developments of the last forty years have encircled
existing cities, replacing agricultural landscapes with sprawling low-rise
neighborhoods. These neighborhoods neither replicate the programmatic
liveliness of urban environments, nor the idyllic agricultural quality of rural
villages. Instead they often create monotonous and mono-functional hous-
ing areas which ignore the individual at every level. The encroachment of
cities into green landscapes appears to be a global issue in an era of rapid
urbanization. What is unique in the Netherlands is that this situation has oc-
curred in spite of the extensive regulation of land development and the built
environment; so that despite the efforts of governments and urban planners,
development has, in many places, replicated the American suburban model
of low density, low diversity developments.
Freeland is then not only a revolution in urban planning principles, but also in
social terms. New Towns in the Netherlands, of which Almere is the biggest,
2% Infrastructure
2% Water
0,2% Office
1% Residential
NEW FUNCTIONS (3759 HA): 9% Public Green Space
10% Residential
5% Office
4% Commercial
10% Infrastructure
1% Water
10% Public Green Space
46% Agriculture
WITH SOFTWARE
23% 5% 20% 52% 25% 5% 7% 62%
FAR 0.5
LIVING ZONE
WONEN
WORKING ZONE
WERKEN
5%3%10% 82%
FAR 0.5
COMMERCIAL ZONE
VOORZIENINGEN
LANDSCAPE PLOT
GEMENGD PROGRAMMA
MIXED ZONE
138 Projections 11
were built to relieve development pressure on existing cities, and to provide
low cost, high quality housing for the disadvantaged. This has resulted not
only in monotonous housing environments, but also in a lack of social di-
versity in such environments, and areas of concentrated poverty. Freeland
presents an opportunity to attract a wider variety of people to Almere, if
they have a dream and the initiative to build it. Rather than a push to attract
the wealthy through exclusive, architect-designed suburbs, as has happened
elsewhere in the Netherlands, the land prices in Oosterwold will be relatively
low compared with rest of the country. This will be made possible by the re-
moval of the high initial investment and risk on the part of the municipality
which are normally associated with new infrastructure provision; and also by
the fact that the land is municipally owned and has no historical ownership
because it is reclaimed.
Freeland is thus a new, bottom-up strategy for creating a mixed living and
working environment on new land, rather than a way of densifying an ex-
isting suburb. That prevailing suburban model ultimately creates sleeper-
towns of commuters, which lack architectural and programmatic diversity
and quality of life. Not only are such developments unsustainable in terms
of energy use, but the model weakens those communities by driving away
public and private investment in jobs and infrastructure into similarly mono-
functional and segregated office and industrial parks. In this sense Freeland
can be understood as a reaction against the modernist planning ideal of
separate zones for separate functions, and as an attempt to reintegrate living
and working so as to benefit from the synergetic possibilities therein.
The ability to add new extremes of density to Almere allowed MVRDV to ex-
plore ways to create a new format of suburban environment in Oosterwold,
characterized by open green spaces and, crucially, agriculture. Even in the
Netherlands, where urban and rural conditions often blend, life and buildings
in the countryside are organized with a different set of rules and interpreta-
tions than in an urban environment; what seems to be problematic or even
unacceptable in an urban environment (in relation to traffic, safety, noise,
access to facilities, and responsibility for infrastructure) may seem natural
in the countryside. Freeland is based on the notion of bringing the ease,
freedom and self-organizing principals that have always been present in rural
environments, back to the city, and in the process, developing an agricultural
area in a sustainable, high-quality way.
Freeland is then not so much an attempt to extend the city into the coun-
tryside, but the reverse: to extend the qualities of the countryside into the
city so as to create a mediating condition between the two, and in doing
so to preserve rural planning attitudes and lifestyles. Through the restric-
tion of built area to 18% of the land, and the required 59% agricultural
land-use, Freeland will create a new kind of settlement in Oosterwold, which
combines development with the preservation of a green, productive, working
landscape. In a country as small and densely populated as the Netherlands,
stap 3
stap 2
ACCESIBLE GREEN
stap 1 Legend
dirt road
road 2,75m + bank
ROAD
INFRASTRUCTURE
stap 3
stap 2
UTILITY TOOLBOX stap 3 stap 4
DWELLING
NEIGHBORHOOD
AREA
DISTRICT
OOSTERWOLD
ALMERE
URBAN AGRICULTURE
stap 4
ROAD SANITATION
stap 3
IBA
ACCESIBLE GREEN stap 4
GROUNDWATER
HELOPHYTE FILTER
UTILITIES
KWZI
UTILITIES
+ ACCESIBLE GREEN
stap 4
YELLOW WATER PROCESSING
ROAD
SET-BACK BUILDING AREA DIGESTER
AWZI
HEAT
KWO
GROUND SOURCE
ROAD
SET-BACK BUILDING AREA SOLAR BOILER
ACCESIBLE GREEN
URBAN AGRICULTURE
BUILDING INCINERATOR
+ ROAD ELECTRICITY
WIND TURBINES
SOLAR PV
URBAN AGRICULTURE
10m WIND TURBINE
SET-BACK
UTILITIES BUILDING AREA
100m WIND
+ SET-BACKFULL DIET
BUILDING AREA
PRODUCTION 100%
ECONOMICALLY PRODUCEABLE
DIET 81% OF TOTAL
VEGETARIAN
DIET 76% OF TOTAL
SPECIALISED PLANT
DIET ...% OF TOTAL
UTILITIES
URBAN AGRICULTURE
EGGS & DAIRY EGGS & DAIRY EGGS & DAIRY
SET-BACK BUILDINGMEAT
VEGETABLES AREA VEGETABLES
MEAT
VEGETABLES VEGETABLES
EXOTICS
URBAN AGRICULTURE
X1.00O = 14.000 RESUIDENTS X1.00O = 20.000 RESIDENTS X1.00O = 47.000 RESIDENTS X1.00O = 350.000 RESIDENTS
35% OOSTERWOLD 50% OOSTERWOLD 120% OOSTERWOLD WHOLE OF ALMERE!
AGRICULTURE
UTILITIES
SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS
=
URBAN AGRICULTURE WIND TURBINES
FOOD
UTILITIES SOLAR
BOILER
02
HELOPHYTE ELECTRIC
SOLAR PV SYSTEM FILTER HELOPHYTE VEHICLES
FILTER BIOGAS / CO
2
BIOMASS AGRICULTURE / GREENHOUSES
RAINWATER
BOILER
FILTER
IBA
RAINWATER GRAY WATER BROWN WATER EFFLUENT
COMPOST
PROCESSOR
YELLOW WATER
FERTILISER
WASTE HEAT
WARM / COLD STORAGE
140 Projections 11
the concept of a green belt becomes a kind of green web, covering everything
which is not city and preventing total and continuous urbanization. It is rel-
evant to mention here that this is an anxiety which preoccupies Dutch archi-
tects and urban planners including MVRDV, as well as citizens, who place a
high cultural value on access to green space and agricultural lifestyles. And
the fear appears quite prescient given the rapidly increasing size of many
urban conurbations, and the loss of green spaces and traditional lifestyles
in the Netherlands and around the globe. Freeland is a response to these
concerns through its emphasis on green space and agriculture, and is an
attempt to involve and encourage local, communal and collective initiatives
as the driving force behind land development, in opposition to commercial
developers and the products they create.
Liberation
Urbanism originated in collectivism: the discipline formed to build and ar-
range common interests such as infrastructure, energy supply and public
space; and now often extends to the private provision of buildings for living,
working and shopping. How people live in cities is then the very direct result
of how they have agreed to organize society through elected systems of gov-
ernment and their regulatory power. The positive aspect of this is that cities
are cleaner, more harmonious and increasingly safer. Any conflicts between
neighbors have been minimized by building social structures and frameworks
which resolve competing interests. In Europe, the triangle of zoning, build-
ing regulations and aesthetics display a highly sophisticated level control by
professionals, defining how a building affects its immediate surroundings on
every level. Cities in that sense are the result of rules which spring from the
consensus and restrict the level of freedom of each individual for the benefit
of the common good. This is a social contract that all citizens are bound to
voluntarily or not.
Cities planned down to the smallest variation in curb height, as many in the
Netherlands now are, certainly guarantee safety and provide more comfort
than the chaotic pre-industrial European city or market-oriented American
urban region. But at the same time they limit individual freedom, and have
become almost totalitarian in their elimination of civic participation through
the professionalization of urban planning. Top down planning and endless
regulations not only determine the way we (should) live but also seem to
treat citizens as irresponsible infants, determining what is spatially right
and wrong. They may be developed with good intentions, but eventually
make our cities become inefficient, inflexible, unsurprising and ultimately
unattractive. They leave little room for individual creativity or innovation
in the urban environment, or collective efforts by citizens to improve their
communities. In the Netherlands in particular, such top-down planning has
led to a prevailing monotony in suburban environments, while doing little
to promote sustainable development and the creation of communities. The
Today many European countries seem to struggle with the growing tension
between individualization and overregulation in urban planning. As people
find new freedoms in many spheres of their lives, particularly the digital,
their physical environments have become increasingly restrictive. Slow and
complex procedures are in contrast with our rapidly changing societies,
which are more and more oriented towards consumption, and as a result, in-
dividualization. We can personalize everything in our life, from cars to shoes,
but personalizing ones house or neighborhood requires going through overly
complicated permission processes. Above and beyond aesthetic choice, it
seems that individual agency is stymied by complex and bureaucratic plan-
ning procedures, leading to an enormous gap between citizens and city-
builders. Freeland attempts to close this gap by encouraging initiatives on
a practical level through freedom of expression, but also on an ideological
level through its requirement of citizens to engage in providing their own in-
frastructure, and ultimately creating their own living environment. In cutting
loose the development of land from government investment in infrastructure,
so too it can be freed from the government dictate which has resulted in that
programmatic and architectural monotony. So too, perhaps it can be cut
loose from the vested interests of other large organizations, which ignore the
individual in favor of their own vision of the collective good.
Risk
Freeland can be framed as a response to the current global economic cli-
mate. Municipal governments in the Netherlands, as elsewhere, have felt the
deep cuts in public spending more directly than on a national level. This
creates a situation whereby investments are locked, and new developments
frozen. Freeland is an evolution of the common practice of public-private
investment partnerships in infrastructure provision, and repackages the pro-
cess so as to become popularly, and indeed democratically accessible. By
substituting risk-averse public capital for risk-seeking private investment,
a significant barrier to new development is removed, and the potential for
a more local, economically resilient, and ecologically sustainable commu-
nity created. Similarly, investment risk is distributed across a wider number
of parties, rather than solely resting on government, which in the case of
Almere is small and municipal. Yet despite the economic climate, Almere
desires growth on an enormous scale. It is the forging of compacts, commit-
ments and relationships fostered by Freelands pioneer-style infrastructure
provision which will create economic and social resilience, of the kind that
only bottom-up, organic growth can create. A built ecology of sorts will arise,
142 Projections 11
Anderson-Frank / MVRDV 143
which relies on community and compromise to create sustainable develop-
ment and a high quality of life at the local level, on the ground.
Responsibility
Freeland is just a small part of a growing movement to make a urbanism a
collective and participatory movement, rather than an elitist, professional-
ized network. By providing space to develop individual initiatives, the area
of Oosterwold will gradually evolve, from its existing state as unused land,
to a diverse, living and working landscape. It will develop as a rich assem-
blage of programmatic qualities, which divide the advanced requirements of
contemporary urban planning into publicly accessible, bite-sized pieces, to
be addressed individually and collaboratively. The complexity of social net-
works, agreements, disagreements and alliances will be the basis for a new
form of urbanism.
144 Projections 11
case a dirt track will be perfectly sufficient. You want a driveway or a ring
road? You can have both. Investment can be minimised according to need,
as long as basic access is maintained for the rest of the area in the form of
perimeter roads and paths.
And public transport? Initially Freeland will exist without mass transit, and
solutions will be created by residents themselves. The resources to do so
must come from the individual and collective intelligence, using creativity
and initiative as tools. Freelands urbanism is not guided by the placement
of public transport as other forms of urbanism before it the transport
follows development itself. So eventually, if a bus service has enough po-
tential users, the municipality can provide one. This strategy also applies to
other forms of infrastructure in Oosterwold. The municipality is by no means
excluded from participating in development, rather, it can intervene when
deemed necessary and worth the added investment.
An initiator might build a house for themself, and having successfully created
the infrastructure to do so, could start a neighborhood of friends and other
likeminded people. A small business owner might set up their production line
in the neighborhood, producing packaging for the local bio-industry. A col-
lective farming plot provides summer salads for the neighborhood in its low-
tech poly tunnels, and is eventually sold to an entrepreneur which makes use
of the nearby packaging factory to cut out middle-men and transport costs,
distributing his produce in local supermarkets. The original neighborhood
146 Projections 11
included a farmer who bought 50% of the land to grow exotic fruit in glass-
houses. Some of this fruit is also eventually passed through the packaging
factory, which expands its business to include the packing of produce, and
also incorporates a small front-of house shop. Waste treatment is integrated
into this system to provide fertilizer, and a retired resident starts a pickup
service for local schoolchildren. Developments, and social structures grow
organically, through individual and collective agency. Dedication and com-
mitment are an integral part of building communities, and in Freeland will
help to re-engage citizens with urbanism, giving them the responsibility to
influence the environment they live in.
Implementation
The keystone of the Freeland development model is a web-based community
forum and tool which coordinates land acquisition, regulates use, and is
overseen by an area manager. The required ratios of various types of devel-
opment can be spread over multiple ownership as long as the overall ratios
of Oosterwold are maintained. The forum will help to manage existing devel-
opments, optimize new buildings, suggest collaborations and create syner-
getic possibilities for adjacencies. It will adjust and adapt to what has been
built, providing a central reference point for new initiatives. It is this digital
forum which will combine ideas and create alliances between future inhabit-
ants, be they farmer or small business owner, optimist or cynic. The forum
strengthens the sense of the collective through participation and accessibil-
ity, which carry enormous potential when compared with traditional planning
systems and regulations. It will bind people together in the collective spirit
of land development and living community, like the first pioneers, which has
been lost through the constant intervention of central government and large
of organizations.
148 Projections 11
can Army barracks. The socio-cultural context demanded an adaptation of
the principals of Freeland, as did the application of the strategy to an exist-
ing building stock, in significantly less rural area. Many of the challenges
posed by this transposition will be explored through workshops with citizens,
governments and other stakeholders. Collaboration, and rather idealistically,
positive engagement, will be the key to adapting the model to a different
location. The cultural, urban, and regulatory context of the Netherlands is
unique, even among European countries, and it is out of this that Freeland
has emerged. The transposition of the model will come not so much from
MVRDV, but from those who wish to apply it to their own urban environments,
wherever they may be.
Special thanks to the city of Almere, where Freeland will be realized for the first
time in Oosterwold.
Authors note: This piece was primarily written by Lachlan Anderson-Frank while
employed at MVRDV, and contains both his own opinions and analysis as well as
descriptive and conceptual text written by Winy Maas, principal and cofounder of
MVRDV.
150 Projections 11
Sewage being pumped out of Waduk Pluit, over existing sea wall, into barges for
transport to land reclamation site, North Jakarta, November 2015.
Photo courtesy of Etienne Turpin / anexact office
It is with deep sadness that we report the death of Professor JoAnn Carmin,
our valued colleague, collaborator and friend, on July 15, 2014 of complica-
tions from advanced breast cancer. She had been fighting cancer for years,
bravely and without self-pity through many treatments and much suffering,
and continued her immensely productive work and mentoring of her stu-
dents to the end. Her courage, endurance and continued commitment to her
work during her battle with cancer were extraordinary.
From the beginning of her graduate studies JoAnn showed concern for the
many ways in which vulnerable groups are most impacted by environmental
burdens, and she spent much of her career studying community responses
to environmental inequalities. Her work explored the strategies and tactics
used by environmental NGOs and environmental justice activists so that mar-
ginalized groups could have more meaningful participation in decisions that
impact their land and territories. Among many places, her research took her
to the gold mines of Eastern Europe, in places such as Rosia Montana in
Romania. She did not call herself a scholar activist, but she was very much
one, caring deeply about environmental justice and giving voice to vulnerable
populations in her many articles and books.
At MIT JoAnn became one of the early scholars to study the emerging re-
sponses of cities around the world to global climate change. At a time when
both policy and academic discussions were centered almost exclusively on
mitigating climate change by reducing carbon emissions, she took the risk
of focusing on urban adaptation to climate change, one of the most impor-
tant issues of the 21st century for cities around the world, whether or not
mitigation efforts are successful. In just a few years she pioneered a new
field, including surveys of municipal governments around the world as well
as case-study fieldwork on the initiatives of local governments on five conti-
nents. By the time of her death she was one of the worlds leading experts
on urban policies for adapting to the growing risks of climate change. She
served as lead author of the report of Working Group II of the Fifth Assess-
ment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (released
in 2014), and coordinating lead author of the urban technical report for the
2011-12 United States National Climate Assessment, as Associate Editor of
154 Projections 11
Urban Climate, and on the boards of many professional journals and schol-
arly organizations. In 2011-2013 she was awarded a prestigious Abe Fellow-
ship to study in Japan; she also was awarded visiting research fellowships at
Yale, Duke, and the Prague University of Economics.