experiments: as they note, an intervention which places sustainability at the heart of existing governance structures has value, even where its transformative power is limited (p. 118). It is nonetheless… Click to show full abstract
experiments: as they note, an intervention which places sustainability at the heart of existing governance structures has value, even where its transformative power is limited (p. 118). It is nonetheless something of shame that only one chapter (Wendler) of the book spends any significant time discussing non-state interventions. As Wendler argues, such “alternative experiments” are more likely to produce genuinely new imaginations and to “foster distinctly critical angles that challenge mainstream urbanisation” (p. 151) than marketor government-led interventions. While Wendler’s chapter goes some way to correcting what is a notable absence in much of the book, the deeper integration of experiments derived from grass-roots sources – such as off-grid homes, communal living, squatter neighbourhoods, experimentation in informal settlements – into the theorisations of section one in particular would add to the book’s insights. Here, there may be scope to consider the book alongside some of the work done by its contributors elsewhere, such as Silver’s (2014) exploration of “incremental” experimentation by residents of informal settlements in Accra. It is worth also noting the usefulness of the insights of the final section, “experimental cities”. While the first two sections provide a clear and concise review of the field and engaging case studies, this final section is where the book makes further conceptual and empirical innovations. Chapters by Cugurullo, Yarrow and Evans et al. in particular offer new takes on urban experimentation. As the editors’ introduction states, this section pushes the book towards the wider context of urban experimentation, asking the “bigger” questions which “lurk behind contemporary discussions of urban experiments and sustainability” (p. 9). The final chapter offers a broad reflection on the difficulty of imagining genuinely transformed and transformative post-carbon cities, and perhaps tellingly ends with a call to pay greater attention to the grass-roots “cultural experiments” (p. 247) which are a little overlooked in the remainder of the book. Perhaps, this end point best illustrates the value of works such as this, in revealing both the strengths and weaknesses of an emerging research field. Students, researchers and practioners will find inspiration in this text from the extremely clear and succinct theorisations in section one, the illustrative case studies in section two and the insightful reflections in section three. While undoubtedly the collection reveals conceptual and empirical gaps in the field, this in itself is also productive in suggesting new directions for research and understanding.
               
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