Federico Cugurullo
Federico Cugurullo
Urban eco-modernization and the policy context of new eco-city projects: where Masdar City fails and why
Key words
Eco-city; Masdar City; sustainable cities; sustainability; ecological modernization
Abstract
The development of projects for new eco-cities is rapidly becoming a global phenomenon. Alleged eco-cities are being built across a variety of spaces via processes of urbanization triggering substantial environmental, social and economic impacts. This article investigates how new eco-city projects interpret and practice urban sustainability by focusing on the policy context that underpins their development. The article argues that projects for new eco-cities are shaped in loci by policy agendas tailored around specific economic and political targets. In these terms, the ideas and strategies of urban sustainability adopted by eco-city developers are understood as reflections of broader policy priorities. The case study employed in this article, Masdar City, reveals how the Emirati eco-city initiative is the product of local agendas seeking economic growth via urbanization to preserve the political institutions of Abu Dhabi. Following the economic imperatives set by the ruling class, the Masdar City project interprets sustainability as ecological modernization and practices urban environmentalism almost exclusively in economic terms. The article shows how the developers of Masdar City capitalize on sustainability by building an urban platform to develop and commercialize clean-tech products, and concludes that the Emirati alleged eco-city is an example of urban eco-modernization: a high-tech urban development informed by market analysis rather than ecological studies.
1. Introduction
With the expansion of urban fabric across the world, and the threat of what scholars such as Merrifield (2012) term planetary urbanization, the environmental, social and economic performances of cities are becoming increasingly influential in shaping the present and future of the planet. Concerns over the unsustainability of contemporary patterns of urbanization have been raised across a variety of disciplines, bringing up important questions with regards to the interconnections between the evolution of cities and the transformation of societies, economies and environmental systems (see, for instance, Urban Age Project, 2007; 2011; World Bank, 2010). More recently, the study of urban sustainability has highlighted the emergence of projects for new master-planned cities alleged by their developers to embody an equilibrium among economic, social and environmental concerns and represent a paradigm of sustainable city-making. Broadly grouped by both developers and academics under the term eco-city, these projects have been the subject of several case studies (Crot, 2013; Cugurullo, 2013a; Datta, 2012;Pow and Neo, 2013; Wu, 2012). What this body of research shows is that the development of projects for new eco-cities is becoming a global urban trend. New settlements labelled as ‘eco-cities’ are emerging across heterogeneous geographical spaces, becoming part of a phenomenon which is gradually shaping how urban sustainability is globally understood and practiced.
At the time of writing, critical studies on the eco-city phenomenon have made important contributions to the understanding of how sustainability is interpreted in new eco-city projects. Joss and Molella (2013), for instance, in their analysis of Caofedian, note how sustainable urbanization is conceived and practiced as part of a process of technological development in which urban sustainability becomes urban technology and vice versa. In a similar vein, Shwayri (2013) highlights the role of technological innovation in Songdo, and connects the genesis of what was designed to be the first ubiquitous city to the intention of the Korean government to create an exportable, high-tech model of city-making. Chang and Sheppard (2013), in the cases of Dongtan and Chongming, position the projects at the intersection between urban sustainability and green capitalism, showing how the eco-city was imagined to be a driver of both economic self-sufficiency and globalism. From a political-ecologist perspective, authors such as Hodson and Marvin (2010: 311) reflect on the elitist character of eco-city projects, and define eco-cities as “ecological enclaves” in which protection is granted only to small sets of actors, and the burdens of climate change and resource scarcity are unevenly distributed.
However, much of the literature on alleged ‘eco-cities’ treats these projects almost in isolation from their policy context. Although there are studies which consider the political milieu surrounding eco-city initiatives (see, for example,Chang and Sheppard, 2013; De Jong et al., 2013), scholars in urban studies have tended to pay marginal attention to the impact that local policy agendas have on eco-city formations. What the works of authors such as Brand and Thomas (2005), Whitehead (2003; 2007), Raco and Lin (2012), suggest is that conceptualizations and strategies of urban sustainability are formed in and by specific loci whose socio-political, economic and environmental dynamics lead to the production of ad hoc policies. Urban sustainability projects are strongly embedded in broader policy agendas tailored around particular spatial realities: agendas which provide the framework through which sustainability is interpreted and put into practice to (re)design urban environments.
The argument advanced in this article is that projects for new eco-cities are not standalone urban experiments, but rather tiles of a broader context-dependent policy mosaic. The construction of new cities such as Masdar City, Songdo and Incheon, is part of policy agendas which are designed according to specific geographical contexts. In these terms, the genesis of these settlements can be understood only by (a) deconstructing and contextualizing the development agendas of their region of origin, and (b) looking at the regional policy targets, seeing how eco-city projects are used to meet them. Most importantly, this article contends that ideas of sustainability cultivated and implemented by eco-city developers are shaped by local policy frameworks whose analysis is revelatory of how new eco-city projects interpret and address urban sustainability.
On the basis of the above considerations, this article uses Masdar City, asupposed eco-city currently under construction in Abu Dhabi, as a case study to explain the rationale of an eco-city project in relation to its policy context. First, the article discusses the methodology employed during the fieldwork,and the theoryand criticism of ecological modernization, which frame the analysis of the data.Third, it examines the context of the Masdar City project and explores the past and present of Abu Dhabi from a socio-political and economic perspective, emphasizing how, today, four major challenges (resource scarcity, population growth, climate change and the Arab Spring) are undermining the stability of the emirate’s institutions. The fourth partintroduces the contemporary development agenda of Abu Dhabi whose economic and urban targets, including the development of an eco-city, are discussed in depth across two sections which show how sustainability is interpreted and integrated into policy priorities. The article then analyzes the implementation of Masdar City, revealing the mechanics of the project and explaining how the new city seeks to meet local policy targets by providing a real-life environment where stakeholders can develop, test and commercialize new clean technologies. In this part of the article, the analysis digs into the conceptual underpinnings that drive the Masdarian practices of sustainability (environmentalism as consumerism, in particular) and exposes their limitations. The article ends with a critique of the Emirati eco-city project, and develops the concept of urban eco-modernization to capture how urban agendas redolent of the logic of ecological modernization have produced a city with weak social and environmental performances.
2. Research design and experience
The argument of this article is built upon data collected during nine months of fieldwork. ‘Context matters’ was the underlying idea at the basis of the research experience. As the following sections illustrate, the Masdarian understanding and practice of sustainability has been shaped by several contextual factors connected to the geography and political economy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Developing an understanding of the ideas of sustainability cultivated and practiced in Masdar City, therefore, demanded a socio-political and economic exploration of the Emirati territory: a task which was pursued, from September 2010 to May 2011, via in-depth empirical research. The core of the fieldwork took place in the emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. From a geopolitical perspective, Masdar City is part of Abu Dhabi. However, geographically, the new city is close to the North-East borders of Abu Dhabi and approximately 100 km from Dubai where a number of key actors (developers, planners and architects in particular) were based.
The article benefits from two main research methods. First, the analysis of the policy context of the Masdar City project draws on a critical documentary and discourse analysis of key policy documents produced by the Government of Abu Dhabi and two local councils: the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC) and the Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development (ADCED). The pool of documents takes into account over twenty publications including Abu Dhabi’s economic and planning agendas and material produced by the developers of Masdar City, the Masdar Initiative, such as economic and environmental reports and master plans.Second, the article refers to nineteen semi-structured and fifteen unstructured interviews conducted with policymakers involved in the development of the Emirati policy agenda, members of the Masdar Initiative, and planners and architects from Foster and Partners, responsible for the design and master-planning of the new settlement. The interviewees were selected according to their position and role within their respective organizations. Members of the UPC and ADCED, for example, were interviewed in order to shed light on the links between the development of Masdar City and the development of the economic agenda of Abu Dhabi, while representatives from the Masdar Initiative and its main business partners (Siemens, Schneider and Mitsubishi) were interrogated about the conceptual underpinnings and mechanics of the Emirati eco-city project. Owing to the authoritarian political and civil climate that surrounded the field research (see Freedom House, 2011), anonymity was granted to all participants in order to protect them. Therefore, in the following sections, interviewees will be referred to by their role (such as ‘spokesman from the Masdar Initiative’) as a way to maintain their privacy.
3. The eco-city phenomenon through the lens of moderate relationalism
The article’s theoretical basis is positioned within recent ontological and epistemological debates on space and its production. More specifically, the article engages with theories of relationality: a corpus of works which has set in the twenty-first century an established theme in the social sciences, particularly in geography and urban studies (see Jones, 2009). The core of relational thinking is based on the idea that space is open, unfixed and constantly in the process of becoming (Massey, 2005). For advocators of relational approaches, such as Amin (2004; 2007) and Thrift (2004), topography, understood as a form of spatial representation in which spaces are depicted as structured and closed entities marked by fixed boundaries, fails to portray the multitude of mobilities, interconnections and circulations underpinning spatial formations. Through relational thinking, space stops being categorized according to bounded hierarchies. Instead, it is stretched beyond pre-given political boundaries and associated with images of an increasingly globalized world, crisscrossed by heterogeneous flows of material and immaterial beings (such as ideas, capital and persons).
This article recognizes the value of relational thinking in urban studies and acknowledges the impact of globalization on the eco-city phenomenon. Internationally, projects for new eco-cities appear to manifest similar traits in terms of ideas, planning and policy strategies, architectures and sponsors. As shown in the work of Rapoport (2014a: 4), the development of large-scale urban projects such as new eco-cities is framed by masterplans produced by a homogeneous network of international engineering, architecture and urban planning firms: a condition leading to the cultivation and implementation of “a fairly uniform and consistent set of ideas for enhancing the sustainability of urban development.” Across geographical locations, technology, in particular, emerges as a common denominator among eco-city initiatives. As emphasized in recent surveys, “eco-cities are most often conceived of or delivered primarily in terms of technological innovations” (Joss et al., 2011: 4). More specifically, masterplans for eco-cities feature the implementation and integration of clean-technologies, such as wind turbines, concentrated solar power stations, automated transport systems and smart grids, designed to produce renewable energy, minimize energy waste and, ultimately, reduce the environmental impact of the new settlements.
In this sense, the eco-city phenomenon reflects one of the most international manifestations of the ideology of sustainability: ecological modernization. Also referred to as eco-modernization, ecological modernization rejects environmental concerns as antithetical to economic priorities, and advances technological innovation as the equalizer of economic growth and environmental preservation (Andersen and Massa, 2000; Harvey, 1996). In eco-city initiatives, the array of high-tech clean devices varies from project to project, mostly according to regional environmental specificities, such as climate, hydrologic cycles and soil qualities. What homogenizes these projects is the perception and employment of technological development as an environmentally friendly medium of economic regeneration and/or extra-capital absorption. More specifically, the cutting-edge technology employed by eco-city developers is both a commodity which can be commercialized through emerging, global clean-tech markets, and a tool of decarbonisation meant to decrease the carbon emissions that the urbanization of capital surpluses and the construction of new settlements generate.
The parallel between the eco-city phenomenon and the thesis of ecological modernization can also be observed in the criticism that surrounds them. From a social justice perspective, for instance, Caprotti (2014) denounces the stark inequalities that characterize the development of eco-city projects whose material incarnations depend on injections of migrant labor and deny access to low-income workers. Similarly, Pepper (1998) critiques the technocratic character of eco-modernization whereby scientific and economic experts put a price on the environment, tending to exclude large community segments. In her review of the eco-city as an urban planning model, Rapoport (2014b: 142) highlights how, in eco-city projects, “economic concerns consistently take priority over environmental ones”, mirroring the secular divide between the preservation of natural environments and the preservation of capitalist economies. In a similar vein, Foster (2002) raises concerns over the ecological potential of eco-modernization strategies, pointing out that ecological modernization does not change the traditional capitalistic patterns of production and consumption, and thus replicates the same environmental issues intrinsic to capitalism.
From a relational perspective, eco-city projects inspired by the thesis of ecological modernization can be seen as formed by networks of ideas, capital and actors eluding conventional topographic categorizations. However, the studies of geographers such as Jones (2009), Paasi (2004) and Whitehead (2003; 2007) show that the recognition of the impact of liquid, global networks does not necessarily imply the neglect of fixed geopolitical entities such as states and regions. Specifically in relation to strategies of sustainable urban development, the work of Whitehead (2007: 7) demonstrates that “states continue to provide important legal, moral, political and cultural contexts within which different forms of sustainability are emerging.” Adopting what Jones (2009: 487) terms “moderate relationalism”, this workinterprets eco-city initiatives as the product of syncretisms: processes characterized by a dialectical relationship, which merge local and international elements, forming the soil where ideas of urban sustainability are cultivated and implemented. The aim is to show, through the lens of moderate relationalism, that the understandings and practices of sustainability of new eco-city projects such as Masdar City, depend upon context-dependent policy agendas which apply the thesis of ecological modernization to urbanization, in order to tackle local political, economic and environmental challenges. In the next section, the article begins to empirically verify its theoretical propositions by looking at the geographical context of the case study.
4. The context of Masdar City
The geographical focus of the article is Abu Dhabi: the largest and most influential state of the UAE. Abu Dhabi is located on the southern cost of the Persian Gulf, in an area rich in oil and natural gas. Vast reserves of petroleum were discovered in the 1960s and gave to the local political forces the financial power to achieve independence in 1971, after almost a century of British rule. Capitalized by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, oil triggered an economic boom which, under the hegemony of Sheik Zayed, led the country to unprecedented conditions of wealth for the local population. After the death of Zayed in 2004, his son, Sheik Khalifa, further developed the oil industry and positioned Abu Dhabi among the top ten global oil producers. In 2008, it was calculated that the export of oil was generating an average of $90 billion per year (Abu Dhabi Government, 2008). Part of this revenue was translated into a series of regional and overseas investments supported by one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds: the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Over the years, the country has built a global portfolio of financial assets, acquiring stakes in Barclays, Virgin Galactic and Manchester City Football Club, for an estimated total of $300-$875 billion (Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, 2012; The Economist, 2008). The benefits of this golden era were equally spread among the locals. Policymakers developed a strong welfare system, thus granting to the nationals (around 15% of the total population) luxurious standards of living. In 2008, GDP per capita increased by 20% and, despite the global credit crunch, there was no apparent sign of recession in Abu Dhabi (World Bank, 2013; International Monetary Fund, 2012).