Putting Young Old Ideas into Action: the relevance of Growing Up in Cities to Local Agenda 21

Agenda 21, the Habitat Agenda and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child have brought new relevance to Growing Up in Cities, a project of participatory action-research for urban children and youth. The origins of the project in the 1970s under the leadership of the urban planner Kevin Lynch are described, along with a brief history of the project's revival. The results of the project's recent implementation in eight countries are summarised with an emphasis on children's perspectives on environmental quality, as well as lessons learned regarding how children can be most effectively integrated into LA21 processes.     

LASALA: Evaluating Local Agenda 21 in Europe

Local Agenda 21 (LA 21) may be regarded as one of the most enduring and possibly most effective outcomes of the 1992 Rio de Janeiro ‘Earth Summit’. In Europe alone, approximately 4000 cities, municipalities at regional and local level, and regional authorities are now engaged in a LA 21 process of some kind. This paper reports on the main findings of the recent Local Authorities' Self-Assessment of Local Agenda 21 (LASALA) project, which conducted a Europe-wide research programme into the European LA 21 initiative. The research demonstrates the significant levels of commit ment to the LA 21 process amongst European local government, and some notable achievements in sustainable development policies within a very short space of time. Although there is still a long way to go, the LASALA research indicates that LA 21 is an effective policy vehicle for encouraging and supporting sustainable development initiatives at the local level in Europe.     

The National Forest and Local Agenda 21: An Experiment in Integrated Landscape Planning

The post-Rio environmental accord has offered new opportunities for landscape planning linking global concerns with Local Agenda 21 through concepts of sustainable development. This paper analyses the potential for integrated landscape planning by linking the aims of global sustainability with a major initiative of the UK Government, the National Forest located in the English Midlands. A common commitment to concepts of partnership and participation facilitated by local authorities can be found in the National Forest Strategy and in the principles of Local Agenda 21. Using case studies comparing local fora created to implement parts of the National Forest Strategy with focus groups formed to prepare Local Agenda 21 Action Plans, it is argued that a common consensus between these endeavours has not so far been achieved. Problems associated with the interpretation of national government policy guidance following the Earth Summit coupled with the constitution, membership and goals of specific groups are viewed as the primary reasons for conflict. These have implications for achieving compatibility between the Forest ideals and those enshrined in Local Agenda 21, particularly in localities where mineral exploitation and landfill are contentious planning concerns.     

Local Government and Emerging Models of Participation in the Local Agenda 21 Process

Local Agenda 21, with its major emphasis on local accountability and democratization, challenges perceptions of local governance and offers a long overdue opportunity, for local authorities in particular, to develop broad-based, effective, participatory structures. This paper examines initial responses to this opportunity. It models the newly emerging participatory structures and processes in selected English local authority areas, and demonstrates that there may be no one path that local authorities should follow. A number of alternative approaches to community participation can and are being adopted, contingent upon local circumstances.     

Policy And Practice The Focus of Local Agenda 21 in the United Kingdom

The paper examines whether environmental issues are taking precedence over socio-economic issues in the UK LA 21 process. A categorization to separate issues which can be considered socio-economic from those which are environmental has been developed and a questionnaire sent to all UK local planning authorities. Results demonstrate that local authorities are indeed giving more emphasis to environmental issues, which is at odds with previous studies and with the concept of sustainability.The research has indicated that the cause may be a tendency to place LA 21 within the remit of environment departments and, whether this is the explanation or not, it implies that a re-emphasis of effort may be required on behalf of the local authorities.     

Imagined citizens and participation: Local Agenda 21 in two communities in Sweden and Austria

Local Agenda 21 (LA21), which has its roots in the UN Conference on Environment and Development held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, aims at fostering processes of sustainable development on a local level. In this article, we compare the LA21 processes of two cities, Helsingborg in Sweden and Vienna in Austria, to seek insight into the varying implementation approaches of common international political commitments. Our focus of analysis is on the social organisation of the two processes, the way local residents are integrated into LA21 work, and especially the political images of citizens—which we call 'imagined citizens'—that different actor groups hold. The results of the study illustrate two almost diametrically opposed organisational forms of local sustainability governance, the Swedish process relying on a more expert-led, technocratic model of implementation and the Austrian process strongly building on deliberative forms of citizen participation.     

Surrender or resistance to the implementation of Local Agenda 21 in Portugal: the challenges of local governance for sustainable development

The aim of this paper is to understand how Local Agenda 21 (LA21) is contributing to update local policy and decision making towards sustainable development in Portugal. Departing from a theoretical view of governance for sustainable development – its core values and challenges – and the role of LA21 in its endorsement, the paper presents the main results of a questionnaire survey submitted to Portuguese municipalities, with the purpose of understanding how far LA21 is being incorporated into planning and management. The paper then tries to expose some of the main potential, limitations and challenges in the local Portuguese case for the short-term sustainable future.     

Local authorities and climate protection in the European union: Putting subsidiarity into practice?

Although intrinsically a global environmental concern, the climate change issue has a number of implications for local authorities. Within the European Union (EU), the remit of local authorities in—-for abatement policies—the crucial areas of energy and transport policy varies considerably, as does their commitment to environmental action more generally. This paper examines the role of local authorities in climate protection within a framework of global, EU and national action, through examples of local strategies from Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK. The paper finds positive instances of action in all countries, but points to unsympathetic policy frameworks both at national and EU level, such as budget constraints imposed on local authorities, the pursuit of low energy prices combined with a resistance to impose carbon taxes, a lack of energy efficiency standards and insufficient support for public transport.     

Attitudes to Sustainable Development in Planning: Policy integration, participation and Local Agenda 21, a case-study of the Hertfordshire Structure Plan

This paper explores the debate about the pursuit of an integrated and participatory approach to sustainable development within the UK planning system, using the Examination in Public (EiP) of the Hertfordshire Structure Plan as a case-study. The Hertfordshire Structure Plan incorporated a concept called 'whole settlement strategies', requiring that the major settlements in the county were planned holistically to assess their potential to meet development needs. The debate at the EiP sheds light on issues associated with the operationalism of key themes of sustainable development in planning, and on the relationship between emerging approaches to Local Agenda 21 and the development plan system. It also highlights the contested meanings of sustainable development between those promoting a strong approach and those holding to a weak definition based on meeting development needs.     

Municipal Environmental Policy in Norway: from 'mainstream' policy to 'real' Agenda 21?

The Brundtland report and Agenda 21 focus on the global environment and development problems. Though Norway is usually considered a pioneer with respect to sustainable development, analyses have shown that this has not been the case with respect to Local Agenda 21. Still, Norwegian municipalities have strengthened their institutional capacity on environmental policy, and have thereby strengthened their ability to follow up the recommendations in Agenda 21. Through the high-profile government-financed reform programme, Environment in the Municipalities, which ran from 1988 to 1996, a great majority of the municipalities have employed their own environmental officers, and environmental considerations have gradually obtained a footing in municipal planning. So far, however, it is the local environmental problems that have received most attention rather than global environmental and development problems. By the start of the 21st century a crucial question is, therefore, whether the growing number of Local Agenda 21 initiatives in Norway will in fact adopt the global perspectives outlined by the Brundtland report and Agenda 21, or just keep on with a 'business as usual' environmental policy approach. So far national environmental policy in Norway seems to be reluctant to face the global problems, leaving the municipalities with the great challenge of being the 'engine' in steaming up Norwegian environmental politics.     

Deafness and Disability—Forgotten Components of Environmental Justice: Illustrated by the Case of Local Agenda 21 in South Wales

This paper contributes to discussions of procedural aspects of environmental justice, understood as having procedural and substantive dimensions. It argues that the struggle for environmental justice must recognize the oppression of disabled people as part of the essential broadening of the notion of citizenship, which continues to be the focus for struggle for the international disability movement. Its case study of an area of South Wales suggests that at present disabled people, and the struggles of the disability movement, do not really feature in the way environmental activists (inside and outside government) see the world. This huge omission must be addressed, but in a way that avoids interpreting disability as an administrative category, and must engage with disablement as a political and contested notion. The paper develops the significance of this contention by considering the case of Deafness, which is entirely different from hearing impairment. The paper's case study, presented as an illustration of its arguments, shows that to regard Deaf people in South Wales as part of some generic category of 'disabled people' would be to ignore their self-identification as a distinctive linguistic community. Moreover, there is some evidence that Deaf people have a distinctive view of, and set of concerns about, quality of life, reflecting their distinctive experience of social injustice and marginalization. This underlines the necessity for a serious engagement with disablement as a political category, and the disability movement as a struggle for social justice, within the promotion of environmental justice.