Wheeling Out Urban Resilience: Philanthrocapitalism, Marketization, and Local Practice

Abstract

In this article, we examine how urban resilience has emerged as a global urban policy project, offering solutions for cities about how they can adapt to and recover from shocks and stresses, particularly those associated with climate change. We conceptualize this as a multicentric global urban resilience complex, catalyzed until recently by the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative in concert with the World Bank. The complex is comprised of three components: (1) a global network of foundations, multilateral agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and private-sector goods and services providers, wielding differential power and influence; (2) measurement and assessment devices that both mobilize and define resilience; and (3) initiatives to marketize urban resilience as producing a dividend also for private-sector firms and investors. Northern institutions define what should be done, downscaling this as a sequence of practices, participatory agenda setting, strategizing, and implementation to be followed by cities. Examining how the complex has come to ground in Semarang and Jakarta, Indonesia, we identify ways in which it is reproduced but also criticized and contested. If the complex in many ways is driven by philanthrocapitalist and neoliberal norms and aspirations, its programs also are subject to critique and contestations at the local scale.

城市的弹性已经成为全球范围内的城市政策目标, 它使得城市能够适应（尤其是气候变化带来的）震荡和压力、并进行恢复。在世界银行-洛克菲勒基金会合作实施的100个弹性城市项目的推动下, 我们将城市弹性概念化为多中心的全球弹性城市综合体。弹性城市综合体包括3个组成部分：（1）可以消除权力和影响力差异的由基金会、多边机构、非政府组织、商品和服务私有供应商等组成的全球网络；（2）可以推动和界定弹性的度量和评价方法；（3）可以为私有企业和投资者带来红利的弹性城市市场化。发达国家的机构决定要做什么, 并细化为一系列可操作的行动、参与式议程、策略和实践。通过探讨弹性城市综合体在印度尼西亚的三宝垄和雅加达的落地, 我们探索、批判、挑战了弹性城市综合体的复制方法。如果主要是由慈善资本主义和新自由主义来驱动的, 那么地方尺度上的综合体也应进行批判、挑战。

En este artículo examinamos el modo como la resiliencia urbana ha surgido a manera de un proyecto global de política urbana que ofrece soluciones a las ciudades sobre cómo adaptarse y recuperarse de conmociones y estreses, en particular los asociados con el cambio climático. Conceptualizamos esto como un complejo multicéntrico global de resiliencia urbana, catalizado hasta hace poco por la iniciativa de 100 Ciudades Resilientes de la Fundación Rockefeller en concierto con el Banco Mundial. El complejo comprende tres componentes: (1) una red global de fundaciones, agencias multilaterales, organizaciones no gubernamentales y proveedores de bienes y servicios del sector privado, que ejercen poder e influencias diferenciales; (2) instrumentos de medida y evaluación que a la vez movilizan y definen la resiliencia; y (3) iniciativas para comercializar la resiliencia urbana en términos de generar también un dividendo para firmas e inversionistas del sector privado. Las instituciones septentrionales definen lo que debe hacerse, reduciendo todo a una secuencia de prácticas, un escenario de agenda participativa de estrategia e implementación, que debe ser seguido por las ciudades. Examinando cómo ha llegado el complejo a establecerse en Semarang y Yakarta, Indonesia, identificamos las maneras como es reproducido, aunque también cómo se le critica y disputa. Si el complejo es orientado de muchas maneras por normas y aspiraciones filantrocapitalistas y neoliberales, también sus programas quedan sujetos a la crítica y al debate a escala local.

Key Words:

• complex
• Indonesia
• neoliberalism
• philanthrocapitalism
• policy mobility
• urban resilience

关键词:

• 综合体
• 印度尼西亚
• 新自由主义
• 慈善资本主义
• 政策活力
• 城市弹性。

Palabras clave:

• complejo
• filantrocapitalismo
• Indonesia
• neoliberalismo
• políticas de movilidad
• resiliencia urbana

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgments

We thank Emma Colven for advice at various stages of the research; our interviewees for contributing their time and expertise; and Jamie Peck, Jathan Sadowski, four reviewers, and James McCarthy for generously reading previous drafts of this article. All errors remain the responsibility of the authors.

Notes

1 In the nonprofit world, the question of how to intervene in society has become known as the organization’s theory of change.

2 At the time of the interview, projects within two of these themes were being set up and implementation planned.

3 For instance, at HABITAT 3 in Quito and the World Cities Summit in Singapore in 2016: https://www.academia.edu/37819520/PRESENTATION._Resilient_Jakarta_-_City_Resilience_Strategy_and_Grand_Designs_for_Jakarta, accessed March 2, 2019.

4 4. See also the 100RC midterm evaluation (Martín and McTarnaghan 2018) and final report on lessons learned (100 Resilient Cities 2019).

5 Water and sanitation services in Jakarta have long been a domain of contestation between public and private provision; in other words, seeking private-sector investment for water infrastructures would not necessarily be novel. The provision of piped water was privatized to two different contractors in the late 1990s. Since the privatization, inequalities in access to water, although historically sedimented, have remained and worsened. The private contracts have been battled over in court over the last two decades, with the state finally retaking control over water provision in February 2019. See Furlong and Kooy (2017) and Kooy and Bakker (2008).

6 This closely tracks such currently popular initiatives as social impact bonds and no net loss/net positive benefit, presented as exemplifying how private-sector involvement can deliver societal and environmental benefits alongside an ROI (Rainey et al. 2015).

7 This highly abstract formulation from within mainstream neoclassical economics is the kind of model that heterodox and geographical political economists have been highly critical of for, for example, presuming that the capitalist economy approximates (intertemporal) equilibrium.

8 See https://www.onebillionresilient.org/ (accessed November 30, 2019). The Atlantic Council is a security-oriented Washington beltway institution under U.S. leadership.

Additional information

Funding

The research that informs this article was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (Grant No. BCS-1636437), the American Association of Geographers, and the UCLA International Institute.

Notes on contributors

Sophie Webber

SOPHIE WEBBER is a Lecturer in Geography in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney, Camperdown NSW, 2006, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests are in the political economy of climate change adaptation and urban resilience in the Pacific and Southeast Asia regions.

Helga Leitner

HELGA LEITNER is Professor of Geography and member of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1524. E-mail: [email protected]. Her current research projects examine urban transformations, their impact on people’s livelihoods, urban sustainability, and grassroots movements in cities across the globe.

Eric Sheppard

ERIC SHEPPARD is Distinguished Professor of Geography and the Alexander von Humboldt Chair at the University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1524. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include geographical political economy, southern urban theory, urban land transformations, and the politics of social, environmental, and climate justice in Jakarta.