Because a city is inseparable from its economic context, its analysis must be positioned in relation to the current and future forms of capitalism that define it. Examining the commonly deployed “sustainable” and “smart” narratives of city visioning, this chapter argues that the seemingly revolutionary tone of such narratives belies the fact that they represent no meaningful departure from capitalist logic and are thus likely to perpetuate existing policy problems. Market fundamentalism, even when obscured or blunted by these seemingly progressive narratives, replicates existing power structures while making the by-products and failures of status-quo capitalism politically palatable—even in the face of growing economic inequality and existential threats like climate change, pandemics, and human exploitation.
There is a need for more critical approaches such as those taken by Datta and Odendaal () and Kuecker and Hartley (), not only within the academy but also in practitioner circles. At the same time, efforts to redefine and reshape these narratives are already occurring on multiple fronts, including political critiques of the neoliberal and market-fundamentalist logic underlying the sustainability and smart movements. Adding further nuance to these critiques, this chapter goes beyond arguments about the corporate capture of policy agendas to discuss how narratives themselves become institutionally embedded. This discussion seeks to deepen understandings about the mechanics by which particular narratives maintain their hegemonic position within a broader policy discourse—one that shrewdly presents itself as progressive, adaptable, and politically responsive even as its claims are undermined by inconvenient realities. This chapter further argues that the perpetuation of staid capitalist logic within these seemingly revolutionary policy narratives reflects, in part, the underlying influence of policy-instrumental rationalism—the view that complex problems can be reduced to observable elements and solved with policy interventions that are appropriately targeted, designed, and calibrated (). The remainder of this chapter discusses the institutionalization of governance reform narratives and how the promotion of sustainable and smart as reconstituted iterations of “good governance” serves capitalist ideals.
https://city-public-value-and-capitalism.northwestern.pub/chapter/12/
PDF: Hartley_2022_Chapter_Smart&Sustainable-City-Futures
Hartley, Kris. (2022). “Smart and Sustainable? Capitalism and city futures in the age of crisis.” In Mori, H., Yoshida, T., and Anttiroiko, A. eds., City, Public Value, and Capitalism: New Urban Visions and Public Strategies. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Libraries and Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, p. 239-256.