Urban transitions as NAVIGATIONAL GOVERNANCE

1. Urban transitions as NAVIGATIONAL GOVERNANCE The habourbath case

2. THE TRADITIONAL TALE: TRANSITION GOVERNANCE AGAINST THE HOSTILE REGIME - The sustainability challenge is linked to the way societal functions are provided by socio-technical regimes - regimes are socio-technical ‘ecologies’ organized by ‘rules’ and ‘rule-sets’. • ‘rules’ and ‘rule-sets’ configure a ‘selection environment’ which is hostile to ‘radical variations’ • Transition governance is about nurturing spaces which are independent of the hostile selection environment (shared long term vision, shielding of experimental activities). • the ‘Shield and upscale model’ of transition processes.

3. AN ALTERNATIVE (URBAN) TALE: NAVIGATIONAL GOVERNANCE WITHIN THE TENSIONS OF THE REGIME A regime is the the outcome of situated actors’ myopic ordering activities. These ordering activities operate on different temporal and spatial scales and according to different ‘rhythms’. Myopic ordering activities translate into regime arrangements characterized by tensions and ambiguities about boundaries Ordering activities are not about static reproduction. These are reflexive and political activities aiming to interpret, control or exploit tensions and contradictions among loosely coupled regime arrangements. Navigational governance is about supporting transformational change by engaging with these myopic and regime endogenous ordering activities.

4. NAVIGATIONAL GOVERNANCE Navigational Governance engages with specific ordering activities (e.g. a project, and experiment, a new type of regulation) Navigational Governance is about a transitional re-framing of the relation between this specific ordering activity and its socio-technical contexts through partial and pragmatic interpretations (rather than shared, long-sigthed and integrated visions) Navigational Governance should have an immediate strategic relevance to the specific ordering activity (e.g. how to cope with a specific controversy, how to create new alliances, how to attract new resources) Navigational Governance navigate though re-interpretations that contineously seek to react and exploit emerging contradictions and ambiguities of the socio-technical context.

5. NAVIGATIONAL GOVERNACE MAY… • Frame certain actors as potential ‘system builders’ (e.g. municipalities, utilities) • Frame certain projects or interventions as potential ‘transition mediators’, i.e. as a key node in the emergence of alternative socio-technical configurations. (e.g. the harbour bath) • Frame certain places as key sites of transitional change. (e.g. urban contexts)

6. THE HARBOUR BATH: A TRANSITION MEDIATOR In 2002 the firstharbourbathwasopened in the innerharbour of Copenhagen…

7. … A NEW NORMAL The harbour bath has enacted a new set of ’hard’ associations between the water regime and the urban context: • The practice of harbour bathing is being experienced as a new selfevident practice by the average citizen of Copenhagen. • The harbour bath has become a key component in the international marketing of Copenhagen as a green Capital The harbour bath has displaced the boundaries and transformed the objectives of the water regime: • From ’invisible technical system efficiency’ to ’visible urban value creation’ • From ’sanitation’ and ’environment’ to ’the liveable city’

8. …. A new normal Water and the northharbourdevelopment

9. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HARBOUR BATH The harbourbath is not the strategicproduct of: • Shielededexperimentation • A shared long-term vision • The harbourbath is an emergentoutcome of a series fragile associations cultivated in the tenstions and ambiguitiesamong regime arrangments, (Junctions)

10. Exampel (1) 1993: An urban water recipient plan motivated by an environmental concern for the water quality is developed But… • The water quality is also linked to the transformation of the harbour from an industrial area to a residential area • There is an emerging interest for the relation between water recreational activity • The conception of ’recreational activity’ is defined by a dichotomy between ’urban’ and ’nature’ (fishing and cannoing) • Bathing water quality is inconceiveable

11. 1993 2012

12. Example 2 The definition of recreational water quality as bathing water quality • During the planning of a waste water retention facility it is discover that the water quality is close to bathing water requirements. Due to the active intervention of a water engineer the facility is up-scaled to support bathing water quality • The conception of water quality changes. More focus on E-coli, less focus on the highly contaminated sediments of the harbour • In a 1995 waste water plan it is specified that the development of the waste water infrastructure should support on recreational purposes rather than environmental benefits.

13. Example 3 A recreational concept for the harbor: the ‘harbor aquarium’ • The harbor as an urban ‘nature experience’ • An artificial reef • Below-water view posts of the aquatic harbor environment

14. Exampel 3 The harbour bath as a political project • The environmental mayor become aware of the historical tradition for using the harbour as a bathing facility • In the competition for being awarded as the environmental capital of Europe the mayor of Stockholm uses their harbour bath facility as an argument • A diving club at Amager request for permission to use the harbour as a diving facility The construction of the harbour bath (below on mio euro) is difficult to finance because it requires direct tax funding. The left-wing party of the environmental mayor get the funding for the harbour bath in return for supporting an overall budget agreement

15. Conclusion Urban transition: • Junctions • Mediators • Nagivationalgovernance