Revealing Curitiba's flawed sustainability: How discourse can prevent institutional change

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Joyde Giacomini Martí ; nez ; ^{joydegm@gmail.com" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Ingrid Boas ^{ingrid.boas@wur.nl" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Jennifer Lenhart ^{jenn.lenhart@gmail.com" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Arthur P.J. Mol ^{arthur.mol@wur.nl" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author}
• 关键词：Urban sustainability ; City planning ; Discursive institutionalism ; Institutional change ; Brazil
• 刊名：Habitat International
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：April 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：53
• 期：Complete
• 页码：350-359
• 全文大小：2264 K

文摘

The city of Curitiba, Brazil, is considered an exceptional model of sustainable urban planning. It has received praise for its invention of the Bus Rapid Transit System and numerous awards identify Curitiba as one of the world's greenest cities. Controversial elements have, however, been left out of this hegemonic city discourse, along with inevitable new challenges. The aim of this article is two-fold. First, we assess whether Curitiba is living up to its reputation as a leading sustainable city by analyzing three areas of urban sustainable development: green spaces, water bodies and public transportation. We show how Curitiba experiences problems ranging from social exclusion resulting from green space policies, to polluted water bodies and hampered planning in the area of public transportation. Second, we examine how the Curitiba discourse as a leading sustainable city is able to endure in this changed material context. We demonstrate how this hegemonic discourse prevents institutional transformations: the discourse becomes reproduced by powerful networks and propaganda, masking new unsustainable realities and by the same token preventing fast and successful institutional renewal.