Adaptive Cities The capacity for policy innovation in response to global change Claire Mortimer A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Public Policy, The University of Auckland, 2011
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Adaptive Cities
The capacity for policy innovation in
response to global change
Claire Mortimer
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of Arts in Public Policy,
The University of Auckland, 2011
2
I
Abstract
Urban settlements globally will experience significant and often unpredictable change over the next
decades due to the combined forces of climate change and the peaking of global oil production.
Responding to these forces will require sustainability transitions in urban transport and energy
systems and urban social practices. Urban policy agencies cannot rely on market forces to drive
these transitions in a timely equitable fashion, but will need to facilitate them actively in order to
minimise the social, environmental, and economic impacts of global change.
This presents considerable challenges to urban agencies, particularly when transitions must be
initiated before the impacts of global change are directly felt by urban residents. The thesis explores
factors that build the capacity of urban policy agencies in facilitating urban transitions and factors that
might constrain them. A multi-level framework of critical factors is developed drawing on theories that
examine how change occurs within social, technological and policy domains. The framework is tested
on a case study of a New Zealand urban council that facilitated a sustainability transition in their city
over an 18-year period.
The research identifies that an agency‟s ability to facilitate transitions is constrained by the stability of
the built environment, societal institutions, and values specific to their organisational field. However,
opportunities for change arise when disruptive factors to those stabilising forces combine often across
societal, city, and organisational levels. Entrepreneurial individuals within urban agencies can
leverage these opportunities in order to initiate urban transitions. To ensure implementation, however,
transition policies facilitating an urban transition must become embedded within the agency‟s vision,
culture and decision-making processes and the agency must build strategic coalitions with other
decision-makers and actively engage with their urban community.
The case study identifies that change does not need to wait for the most powerful or obvious
contenders, but rather even small urban agencies can set micro-processes of change into play that
initiate sustainability transitions. However, the transition needs to start from within the agency itself,
and the thesis concludes with recommendations for how urban agencies might intentionally build their
capacity to facilitate change.
II
The work contained within this thesis is my own and has not been used for any other qualifications.
Dedication
This thesis is dedicated those persistent, passionate and inspirational change agents whom I‟ve had
the great pleasure of working with over the years, and without whom I would have much less hope for
the future. In addition I would like to thank Landcare Research for supporting me in undertaking this
research.
Acknowledgements
This thesis has been edited by a professional editor within the specifications outlined in the Policy on
Third Party Editing & Proof-Reading of Theses & Dissertations, Auckland University.
III
Contents 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1
2 Research design .............................................................................................................................. 3
3 Challenges facing urban policy in the 21st Century ........................................................................ 6
3.1 Peak oil and climate change ...................................................................................................... 6
3.1.1 Global oil supply ............................................................................................................... 6
3.1.2 Impacts of peak oil ............................................................................................................ 7
3.1.3 The degree markets can address peak oil ........................................................................ 8
3.1.4 The belief in a technological fix to peak oil .................................................................... 10
3.1.5 Climate change and its interactions with peak oil .......................................................... 11
3.1.6 Urban transitions required ............................................................................................. 12
3.1.7 Problem characteristics of peak oil and climate change ................................................ 13
4 Adaptive public policy organizations ............................................................................................ 15
4.1 The social and physical landscape ........................................................................................... 17
4.2 Social-technological regimes ................................................................................................... 19
4.3 The organisational field ........................................................................................................... 24
4.3.1 Nature of public policy institutions ................................................................................ 24
4.3.2 Nature of the issue ......................................................................................................... 25
4.3.3 Field disrupters & opportunities for change .................................................................. 26
4.3.4 Nature of the community ............................................................................................... 27
4.4 The organisation ...................................................................................................................... 31
4.5 Individuals ............................................................................................................................... 35
4.5.1 Leading adaptive policy agencies ................................................................................... 35
4.5.2 Leading policy innovation ............................................................................................... 37
4.6 The Adaptive Urban Policy Framework ................................................................................... 41
5 Case study: The Waitakere City Council ‘Eco City’ ....................................................................... 45
5.1 Enablers experienced .............................................................................................................. 45
5.1.1 Initial disrupters at the landscape & organisational field levels ..................................... 45
5.1.2 Disrupters to the established organisational culture ..................................................... 47
5.1.3 Nature of the Waitakere community ............................................................................. 47
5.1.4 A tangible vision with strategic capability to implement it ............................................ 48
5.1.5 A collective belief that change was possible .................................................................. 50
IV
5.1.6 Situational awareness, international networks & seizing opportunities ....................... 51
5.1.7 Creativity & willingness to challenge the status quo ..................................................... 51
5.1.8 An intentional organisational change programme ........................................................ 52
5.1.9 Working with others to achieve goals ............................................................................ 53
5.1.10 Facilitating environmental improvements within a technological regime ................ 54
5.1.11 Adopting new technological niche for urban sustainability ...................................... 55
5.1.12 Working with the community as a core strategic approach ...................................... 56
5.1.13 Working with iwi ........................................................................................................ 57
5.1.14 Demonstrating early success through tangible catalyst projects .............................. 58
5.1.15 Leadership & innovation ............................................................................................ 58
5.2 Barriers .................................................................................................................................... 60
5.2.1 Internal resistance .......................................................................................................... 60
5.2.2 Constraints imposed by some traditional policy mindsets and tools ............................ 60
5.2.3 Loss of key change agents .............................................................................................. 61
5.2.4 The nature of Waitakere’s built environment ............................................................... 61
5.2.5 Shifting social practices .................................................................................................. 61
5.2.6 Limited role and influence of the Council ...................................................................... 61
5.3 Analysis against the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework .................................................... 63
5.3.1 The Landscape and field levels ....................................................................................... 63
5.3.2 Socio-technological regimes .......................................................................................... 64
5.3.3 The Organisational Level ................................................................................................ 65
5.3.4 The individual level......................................................................................................... 66
5.3.5 The nature of the transition ........................................................................................... 66
6 Synthesis ...................................................................................................................................... 69
6.1 Why urban agencies will need to facilitate urban transitions ................................................ 69
6.1.1 To ensure new technologies can compete with incumbent regimes ............................ 69
6.1.2 Markets alone will be too slow to create smooth transitions ....................................... 70
6.1.3 Limitations to rational decision-making ......................................................................... 70
6.1.4 Co-dependency of technology with the built environment ........................................... 70
6.1.5 Resilience is a collective social attribute ........................................................................ 71
6.2 Refinement of the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework ........................................................... 72
6.3 Utilising concepts of social and technological change in urban policy ................................... 78
V
6.3.1 Taking a systems approach in analysis & implementation ............................................. 78
6.3.2 Building both general & specific resilience as risk management strategies .................. 80
6.3.3 Taking collaborative whole sector & multi party approaches ........................................ 84
6.3.4 Developing an adaptive policy culture ........................................................................... 85
7 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 87
8 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................. 90
9 Appendix 1. Interview Questions ............................................................................................... 107
VI
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1 Introduction
In 2006, the eight councils in the Auckland region initiated an ambitious project to develop a strategic
framework to integrate and guide public decision-making in the Auckland region. Distinctive features
of the framework, which was eventually called the Auckland Sustainability Framework (ASF), included
its 100-year planning horizon and its sustainability vision. An initial step of its development was to
explore the „forces of change‟ that might impact on the region over the next 100 years, which included
climate change and the peaking of global oil production (Auckland Regional Growth Forum 2007).
This exploration concluded that due to these forces the region would experience exponential and
often highly unpredictable change over the following 30 years (Auckland Regional Growth Forum
2006a) and that the eight councils1 would need to respond rapidly to address the negative impacts of
these changes (Auckland Regional Growth Forum 2007). The ASF goes on to argue that responding
to these impacts will require “fundamental shifts in thinking, planning, investment and action”
including “activating citizenship”, “reducing the region‟s environmental footprint” and “building a
carbon neutral future” (2007:13). In other words, the region‟s councils will need to change their
traditional approach to urban policy and would need to facilitate significant social and technical
transitions in order to minimise the impacts of 21st century change.
Rotmans et al. (2000) define a transition as a transformation process in which society or a complex
sub-system of society, such as a city, changes in a fundamental way over an extended period of 25
year or more. Facilitating social and technical transitions to respond to global change presents
significant risks and challenges for political organisations. It can require a reorientation and
considerable increase in public infrastructure investment and it inevitably requires the disruption of
the social and business practices of urban communities. In addition, these transitions will often need
to be initiated before significant and direct impacts of global change, including climate change and
peak oil, are felt by city residents, which is likely to delay public support. It is not surprising therefore
that while many public urban strategies including the Auckland Sustainability Framework state the
need for significant structural change, few have been comprehensively implemented on the ground.
This thesis explores factors that may constrain or enable urban agencies to facilitate urban transitions
in response to global change. A framework of critical factors is developed drawing on theories and
concepts that examine how change occurs within social, technological and policy domains. The
framework is tested on a case study of one New Zealand urban council who facilitated a sustainability
transition in their city over an 18-year period. The thesis concludes with recommendations of how
councils might utilise concepts of social and technological change explored within the framework in
urban policy analysis.
1 The seven councils were amalgamated into one unitary authority, the Auckland Council, in 2010.
2
The thesis focuses on urban settlements due to the growing need for urban policy to address global
change. The world urban population increased almost ten-fold over the 20th century (Satterthwaite
2007) and in 2007, for the first time in human history, over 50% of the world population lived in urban
settlements. The urban population is expected to double by 2050 with exponential growth in
developing countries and modest growth in developed countries (United Nations 2007). Urban
settlements are collectively responsible for 80% of global carbon emissions; however, through their
population density cities have enormous potential to reduce carbon emissions and energy demand
through high density mixed development and mass transit (Newman et al. 2009). How successfully
global change is addressed in urban settlements will therefore largely determine how successful the
world will be.
While this thesis explores the capacity of policy organisations to facilitate urban social and technical
transitions it does not assume that policy organisations are the only change agents in a city; however,
they will always be instrumental – through their role in creating city visions and long-term plans,
through the influence of planning controls on urban form and ecological health, and through the
manner in which public infrastructure investment provides or constrains city inhabitants‟ transport and
energy choices. In New Zealand, while these public organizations are primarily city and regional
councils, they may also include parts of central government; the term urban agencies and not
councils is therefore used throughout this thesis.
Section two outlines the methodology of the research. Section three illustrates characteristics of
global change issues that collectively create the need for urban transitions by examining how the
peaking of global oil production and climate change may broadly impact New Zealand cities. Section
four develops a framework of enablers of and barriers to policy agencies facilitating urban transitions
based on literature, and Section five tests the framework against a case study. Section six provides a
synthesis of the thesis, arguing why urban policy agencies will need to lead urban transitions versus
relying largely on market forces, the factors that might enable or constrain their capacity to do so, and
how urban policy agencies might utilise concepts of social and technological change explored in the
framework of developing urban transitions policy.
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2 Research design
The thesis explores the following research questions:
1. Can urban transitions in response to global change be largely left to the market or will urban
policy agencies need to actively facilitate transitions?
2. What factors might constrain policy agencies in facilitating social and technical transitions in
urban settlements? Conversely, what factors enable urban policy agencies to facilitate social
and technical transitions in urban settlements?
3. How might policy agencies utilise insights on social and technological change explored in
question 2 for developing urban transitions policy?
Question 1: The degree to which transitions can be left to market forces and the degree to which
urban policy agencies need to facilitate them is first examined in section 4, where literature on the
impacts of peak oil and climate change is reviewed and applied to the context of New Zealand urban
settlements. Two concepts explored in the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework – community resilience
and Multi Level Perspective (MLP) of social-technological transitions – are also assessed to identify
limits in the ability of markets to drive timely and equitable social and technological transitions.
Findings are consolidated in section 6.1.
Question 2: This is the primary question of the thesis. The thesis draws on literature that examines
how change occurs within social, technological and policy domains to develop a multi-level framework
outlining enablers and constraints to urban agencies facilitating sustainability urban transitions.
Theory and fields of literature are selected to examine enablers and constraints situated at different
levels (organisational to societal) and in the three different domains. The multi-level nature of the
framework draws on Giddens strucutration theory (1984), which emphasises the need to examine
social structures and the agency of actors collectively. The purpose of examining a range of theories
and the interrelationships between them recognises that all theory is partial (Midgley 2000: 77) and
exploring theory at different levels can provide a more comprehensive understanding of both the
constraints to transitions caused by societal structures and the agency that urban policy organisations
possess to facilitate transitions.
The framework consists of five levels: the physical and societal landscape; socio-technical systems;
the organisational field; the policy organisation; and individuals within that organisation. The
framework structure is adapted from Potter et al.‟s (2009) framework for examining sustainable
business practice, but unlike Potter et al., the framework includes an additional level of socio-
technical systems and draws on theories of policy process and change. Literature on socio-technical
systems is selected to provide an understanding of how radical technological change occurs.
Literature on policy change includes incrementalism (Lindblom 1968) and punctuated equilibrium of
policy (Baumgartner & Jones 1993) to provide interpretations of the nature of policy change.
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Sociological institutionalism (Greenwood & Hinings 1996; Powell & DiMaggio 1991) is selected to
provide an understanding of how policy fields, and the organisations within them, become more
isomorphic and less adaptive as they mature, thus constraining policy innovation. Sociological
insititutionlism has been criticised for ignoring the role of human agency (Dillard et al. 2004); and
literature on adaptive organisations to climate change therefore provides an organisational level of
attributes that increase a policy organisation‟s ability to lead change (Lonsdale et al. 2009; APSC
2007). Literature on policy entrepreneurs (Kingdon 1984/1995; Roberts & King 1996; Mintrom 2000;
Mintrom & Norman 2009) is selected to examine the role individuals play in creating policy change
and innovation, while literature on transformative leadership (Rook & Torbett 2005; Auguste &
Woodcock 2003) is explored on the assumption that the internal culture and processes of policy
organisations as well as policy per se will need to adapt in order to successfully facilitate transitions in
urban settlements.
The framework is tested on a case study of a New Zealand city council, Waitakere City Council, and
its 18-year transition in developing an „Eco City‟. This case study was selected as the Eco City
transition can be tracked over an 18-year timeframe providing experience of and the timeframes
required to create both organisational change in the council itself and change in the city.
The case study is developed through nine elite interviews with former key staff members and political
representatives.2 Four people (staff and one political representative) were initially selected and
interviewed because of their instrumental roles in initiating the Eco City transition and because they
remained involved throughout most of the 18-year transition. Those preliminary interviews identified
five additional staff members to interview due to their involvement in Council programmes and in
functions critical to the Eco City transition.
The interviews was supplemented by analysis of Council reports including a report commissioned by
Waitakere City Council on its sustainable development transition (Waitakere City Council 2010, report
unpublished), which provides an overview of the Eco City and some key success factors, and
Auckland Regional Council (2004, report unpublished) research on enablers and barriers to residents
reducing private vehicles trips in the township of New Lynn, Waitakere, which provides case study
specific barriers to transitioning from peak oil. The Council‟s sustainability strategy (Waitakere City
Council 1999), partnership policy (Waitakere City Council 2009), and a quadruple bottom line
evaluation of a major water catchment restoration programme (MorrisonLow 2010, report
unpublished) were reviewed to provide background and measures of effectiveness of two key
approaches taken by the Council to implement their transition – developing partnerships and
empowering the community.
Interviewees were all asked a common set of questions and then specific questions pertinent to their
role in the Council (see Appendix 1). Thematic analysis of the interviews, documents, and interview
2 Waitakere City Council, which existed from 1989 to 2010, was amalgamated into the Auckland Council in 2010.
5
summaries was carried out. Relationships between the themes were identified from repeated reading
of the data and relationships noted in a data spreadsheet. Several of the interviewees were contacted
a second time to explore specific themes and context in more depth. All interviewees were sent the
case study write up and asked to provide feedback on the accuracy of the information, which in turn
stimulated further discussion to add depth to key themes. Enablers and constraints identified in the
case study were then assessed against those in the Framework.
Question 3 Consideration is given to two concepts of social and technological change utilised in the
Framework – Multi Level Perspective (MLP) and Resilience – on how their insights on social and
technical change might be practically utilised within urban policy aimed at facilitating sustainability
transitions.
The research is underpinned by a realist epistemology position, which, based on March and Furlong
(2002), would argue that:
while some factors shaping social and policy practice can be observed, there are deeper
structures that cannot
the interrelationships of a number of factors are needed to understand the nature of social
phenomena.
In light of this position, the framework is tested through qualitative research of an in-depth case study.
Attention is also paid to the particulars of the case study rather than on generalisations, and research
is reported through rich written descriptions rather than numbers (Creswell 2003). Based on
Creswell‟s recommendations (2003: 196) the accuracy of the qualitative case study research findings
has been validated by:
Triangulation of data: using interviews and council reports
Member-checking: allowing interview participants to check specific elements of the findings
Presenting discrepant data
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3 Challenges facing urban policy in the 21st Century
The policy investigation supporting the Auckland Sustainability Framework concluded that the region
would experience exponential and often highly unpredictable change over the following 30 years.
Since the adoption of the Auckland Sustainability Framework (ASF) in 2007, a number of international
research and policy reports published suggest that the severity and rate of change that 21st century
cities are likely to experience is greater than the ASF anticipated. These reports include Hirsch
(2008), CSIRO (2008), Stern (2009), and the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil & Energy Security
(2010). Drawing on these and other reports, this section highlights specific characteristics of the
impacts that the peaking of global oil production and climate change will have on New Zealand cities.
3.1 Peak oil and climate change
3.1.1 Global oil supply
With oil below $10US a barrel from late 1940s to early 1970s (Lloyd 2010: 15), cities enjoyed rapid
urban expansion predicated on cheap personalized transport. This shaped the design and form of
many cities, including those in New Zealand, where cheap oil contributed to a low-density urban form3
resulting in energy intensive land use patterns and transport systems.
However, the era of cheap and predictable oil prices is drawing to a close as oil nears peak
production globally. Peak production of oil refers to the point at which the rate of global oil production
has peaked and will soon begin a long-term and permanent decline. Peak oil is a highly contentious
issue in terms of when it might occur, what impacts it might have, and what role public policy should
play in response.
While debate continues over how much oil is left in current and undiscovered reserves, consensus
has grown over the last 5 years that global oil production will peak within this decade (Dantas et al.
2006; Hirsch 2008; Lloyd 2010; UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security 2010). Even
the Energy Information Agency of the US Department of Energy (EIA), who historically has been
relatively optimistic over energy reserves, now predicts global oil supply will decline soon after 2012
(see Figure 1). Hirsch (2008) predicts that after peaking, global oil production will decline by 2–5% pa.
The remaining global oil reserves after peak production are more expensive to extract and of lower
quality. For example, early US oil, and oil extraction in the Middle East up until today took only one
barrel of oil to extract and process 100 barrels, an energy returned on energy invested (EROEI ) of
100:1. New oil fields are considerably less productive, with EROEI ratios approximately 12:1 for deep
sea oil and (4.1) for Canadian tar sands (Lloyd 2009). In addition there is a shortage of engineers,
drilling platforms and refinery capacity to meet projected demand and addressing these shortfalls is
3 The average density of the Auckland region is only 989 inhabitants per km
2, with central Auckland reaching an
average density of 2,326 people per km2
(Statistics New Zealand 2008). In comparison, Amsterdam achieves around 4,500 inhabitants/km
2 (Leunig & Swaffield 2008).
7
predicted to take at least a decade of concerted effort (The Joint Operating Environment 2010). New
oil fields requiring deep sea drilling also pose environmental and economic risks as evidenced by
BP‟s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
Collectively, declining supply, increasing costs of extraction and increasing world demand particularly
from growing economies such as China, India and the Middle East (Statistical Review of World
Energy 2010) are expected to create volatile and persistently higher prices for oil (Hirsch et al. 2005;
Hirsch 2008; Lloyd 2010).
Figure 1. EIA depletion profile for world liquids (Lloyd 2010).
3.1.2 Impacts of peak oil
Energy consumption is strongly linked to GDP rates (Figure 2) and rising oil prices have been
predicted to lead to a slowdown in the global economy. The exact nature of that relationship is
uncertain. Hirsch (2008) predicts a linear relationship whereby a 1% decline in oil production would
lead to a 1% decline in global transport which will lead to a 1% decline in global GDP. Smith (2010)
predicts a less linear trajectory, with the world experiencing a cycle of supply crunches, oil price
spikes, and economic recessions. As oil supply contracts, resulting price spikes will force businesses
and consumers to cut spending in other areas, creating an economic recession, which in turn will
reduce demand for oil, allowing prices to drop and the cycle to repeat. International organizations,
including the UK Industry Task Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security (2010) and the US Joint
Forces Command (2010), are warning that another supply crunch is likely by 2013.
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Figure 2. Global energy consumption against global GDP. (Source: Lloyd (2010), who argues that
the decoupling of GDP from oil in the last five years reflects China‟s massive increase in coal
consumption since 2001.)
New Zealand is vulnerable to volatile oil prices due to its high vehicle use, which is the second
highest in the OECD measured by vehicle kilometres travelled per person (Ministry for Environment
2010). New Zealand is a net importer of oil, currently producing 55,000 barrels of oil and consuming
148,000 barrels in 2009 (Smith 2010).
While analysis on the potential economic impacts of peak oil on New Zealand is relatively sparse,
Australian analysis by CSIRO predicts that if oil production declines abruptly and if vehicle and fuel
technology is unable to rapidly transition from oil dependency then: “oil price increases will affect
weekly fuel bills, increasing from A$40 in 2007 to between A$50 and as high as A$220 per week in
real terms by 2018 for a medium passenger vehicle” (2008: 11).
This could lead to a 40% reduction in local freight and passenger trips accompanied by a possible 3%
decrease in GDP in Australia (CSIRO 2008). The transport dependency of New Zealand and
Australia are similar and New Zealand cities and towns are likely to feel the effects of oil price
increases through increased fuel prices, increased prices for many good and services, and
diminished GDP growth and/or global economic shocks. Industry sectors particularly impacted
include retail (Lloyd 2010) and international tourism (Leap 2009).
3.1.3 The degree markets can address peak oil
Debate also exists over the degree to which markets will address peak oil and how much public policy
intervention is required and in what forms. For example, New Zealand‟s Minister of Finance, Bill
English, when questioned over what steps the Government was taking to reduce New Zealand‟s
economic vulnerability stemming from dependence on oil, argued that public policy should aim to
ensure price changes flow quickly through the economy and should leave adaptation to individual
choice (English 2011). This appears to be based on the assumption that as oil prices rise, individual
9
consumers will make rational decisions to reduce their vulnerability to oil creating an aggregated
reduction in social vulnerability. When questioned about his views on a Dunedin City Council report
on reducing the oil vulnerability of their city, English commented “We do not believe an overall
bureaucratic plan will do a better job of adapting than individual New Zealanders can do” (English
2011).
CSIRO‟s analysis of Australia, however, suggests that “there are likely to be only moderate
preparatory responses by individuals and businesses, therefore government intervention will be
required” (2008: 11). This is due to a number of factors including business and public belief that
technology will address the problem and the relatively inelastic nature of demand for oil because
consumers cannot easily or quickly find alternatives (Smith 2010). There may be limited options for
individuals to reduce their vulnerability to higher oil prices over the short to medium term, as many
alternatives for transportation and the redesign of urban settlements will require long lead-in times to
be available to the mainstream market. The Hirsch report to the US Department of Energy on peak oil
(2005: 64) emphasises the long transition time required, warning that:
….. the world has never faced a problem like this. Without massive mitigation more than a decade
before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy
transitions were gradual and evolutionary. Oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary.
Household vulnerability to oil price rises varies across a city, both because transportation options and
costs vary depending on location (Brookings Institution 2006), and because low-income households
usually have very little income surplus to cover increased transport costs. Often those two factors
have combined to amplify the vulnerability of poorer households. Evidence from Australia suggests
that poorer households are becoming more concentrated on the urban fringes due to cheaper land,
which increases their dependency on private car use (Newman et al. 2009). If adaptation to increased
oil prices is largely left to market forces and individual choice, Newman et al. warn that cities might
become more geographically divided between rich and disadvantaged communities (2009).
Last, due to the predicted pattern of price spikes rather than a smooth and continuous oil price
increase (Smith 2010), consumers may delay those decisions which require significant personal
investment. New Zealanders, for example, travelled less while petrol prices were high in the 2008
spike but reverted to normal practice as soon as prices fell again (Krumdike 2010). The likely trend of
price fluctuation reduces certainty to households and businesses about whether they should make
more permanent investment to reduce their vulnerability to oil prices, for instance buying more
efficient vehicles or moving house. Donavan et al. (2008), in a report to the NZ Transport Agency,
therefore argue that prices alone will not drive adaptation but that policy reform will also be required.
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3.1.4 The belief in a technological fix to peak oil
In 2010, at an Urban Design Protocol workshop4 for New Zealand local council urban planners, Tim
Heath, a retail economist, argued that urban planners had to shift their thinking to align with retail
trends, including the trend for businesses to locate at strip-malls at the edges of urban settlements as
opposed to town centres. When asked how this particular trend, which could increase people‟s
dependence on private vehicle transport, might be impacted by the trend of peak oil he replied that
there would be no impact, because “they will simply design a new fuel to put in our tanks” (Heath
2010). Heath‟s scenario is based on the assumptions that a technological solution will emerge that
will be roughly the same price and compatible with current transport technology.
However, the speed at which technology can be developed and then diffused into mainstream
markets tends to be over-estimated in arguments that technology innovation will substitute oil, or that
alternatively powered vehicles will replace petroleum powered ones. Michael Pacheco (2006) from
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory‟s National Bioenergy Centre warns that the world needs
to start working on replacement fuels 20 years before oil peaks, and that the world is already behind
schedule. Electric vehicles utilising smart grid technologies are a promising technology option, but
Newman (2009) estimates that even moving a small proportion of such vehicles and supply systems
into the transport system could take 20 years.
Last, CSIRO argues that “technology alone will not be sufficient to meet the fuel supply gap” (2008:
11), reflecting BP exploration manager Richard Miller‟s (2004) response to arguments that technology
will fix the oil shortage problem:
this is a classical economist‟s view: something will turn up, when the price is high enough …
But there isn‟t anything conceivable that could replace conventional oil, in the same quantities
or energy densities, at any meaningful price….When oil gets too expensive, surviving
Americans will still obtain energy from alternative sources, but in much smaller amounts and at
much higher prices. (p. 10)
Using biofuels as an example, some studies show that it takes more fossil fuel to produce biofuel than
the resultant biofuels can generate (Pimental & Patzek 2005), while other studies demonstrate that
biofuels cannot fill the oil gap; one study found that if all the solar energy from every bit of plant matter
in the US (food crops, lawns, forests) was converted to biofuels, it would still only meet half the 2006
US demand for fuel (Pimental 2007).
Responding to peak oil therefore is not just about technological change and the development of a
new fuel or more efficient cars, it is also about social change, and about changing the patterns of how
people travel and consume energy. Newman et al. (2009) suggest that it will require that we design
4 The Urban Design Protocol workshops are a series of workshops related to an urban design protocol
developed by the NZ Government that has been signed up to by all city councils in NZ.
11
cities in which we drive 25–50 % less than we do today, and these cities will need to be proactive in
that redesign in order to transition at a rate that maintains “the social fabric of the city in the process”
(p. 33).
3.1.5 Climate change and its interactions with peak oil
At the same time as the world is approaching constraints in oil production it is also witnessing the
systematic breakdown of many of the ecosystem services on which humanity relies, with the
regulation of climate being the critical example (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Urban
responses to climate change can be categorized as mitigation or adaptation responses. Mitigation
aims to reduce green house gas emissions to a level that prevents an increase of more than 2oC rise
in global temperature, which is the maximum increase believed possible before severe global impacts
arise in terms of wide spread food and water shortages, ecosystem degradation and acceleration and
irreversible changes to the climate system (Warren 2006).
Incorporating expected global population increases and a 2% GDP growth rate, preventing an
increase of more than a 2oC rise, would require the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by
80% from a 1990 baseline by 2050 (Stern 2009). This is a substantial undertaking and is expected to
require structural transformation in urban energy and transport systems.
However, even if global temperature increases are limited to 2oC it is still estimated that the majority
of coral reefs will be destroyed globally, three billion people will be exposed to water shortages, and
up to 220 million more people will be exposed to the risk of hunger as a result of changes in global
cereal production (Warren 2006). Locally, New Zealand settlements will have to adapt to increased
extreme weather events: water scarcity or flood risk resulting from changes in rainfall patterns;
heatwaves; the spread of vector-borne tropical diseases (Auckland Regional Council 2006b; Ministry
for the Environment 2008); and the prospect of climate-change refugees seeking settlement (Stern
2007). Globally these impacts will require structural changes in city systems, particulary those cities
situated in vulnerable coastal areas or cities likely to experience climate-related water shortages and
extreme temperatures. It will also require city systems and communities to become better able to deal
with natural weather disasters such as flooding and storms.
Adding to the complexity of dealing with peak oil or climate change is the consideration of whether
policy interventions or new technologies developed to address one issue will either aggravate or help
address another issue. For example two technological responses to reduce oil vulnerability are the
conversion of solid coal to liquid fuel and industrial biofuels. Unless technology eventuates that can
capture carbon emissions released during the process, Lloyd (2010) predicts that the conversion of
solid coal to liquid fuel would exceed the worse case IPPC climate change scenario. First generation
biofuels also increase carbon emissions and have already reduced agricultural land for food
production. For example, biofuel plantations converted from rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia
have carbon debts of over 400 yrs (Fargione et al. 2008). Biofuels production has already had
12
significant impact on food stocks and food prices (Shiva 2008) at a time when close to a billion people
worldwide are malnourished (Newman 2009). Industrial production biofuels require significant
quantities of water, which in many parts of the world could aggravate water shortages (Shiva 2008).
In New Zealand locally produced second generation biofuels (ones produced from waste products,
e.g., dairy by-products) are possible but, due to production capacity, the relatively low energy return
on the energy invested (EROI), and the need for blends in current vehicle stock, Krumdike (2010)
estimates that ultimately New Zealand biofuels are unlikely to provide more than 10% substitution for
oil for the New Zealand market.
Peak oil and climate change have the potential for strong synergies in policy response. Road
transport is the second highest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand (after
enteric fermentation) and transport greenhouse gas emissions increased by 76% between 1990 and
2007, falling slightly in 2008 due to the global recession and increased oil prices (MfE 2010).
Reducing the need for petroleum-based transport will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
3.1.6 Urban transitions required
A number of government and academic reports that examine the impacts of climate change and peak
oil recommend that urban settlements need to transition to low-energy low-carbon transport systems
and urban form, and indicate the need for significant change in urban infrastructure, technologies,
government policies and social and business practices (see for example ARC 2007; ; Krumdike 2010;
Newman et al. 2009; UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil & Energy Security report 2010; World Bank
2010). Reports recommend significant increases in investment in public and active transport
infrastructure (Newman et al 2009, Krumdike 2010), increased intensification of urban settlements
and mixed land use and reduced urban sprawl (Donavan et al. 2008; Krumdike 2010; Newman et al.
2009; World Bank 2010). Donovan et al. (2008), in a report to the NZ Transport Authority,
recommend that historic market distortions in travel and land use in New Zealand have subsidised
private vehicle trips and low density urban land use, and these will need to be removed to facilitate
transport modal transitions. This would require policies for road and parking pricing, zoning for urban
containment and mixed land use, and infrastructure investment based on a „manage and price‟
versus „predict and provide‟ transport provision.
Many policy initiatives to change transport behaviour and reduce fuel use and carbon emissions,
have proved effective. Driving restrictions, congestion charging, and incentives for hybrid or
alternative fuel vehicles resulted in emission reductions of up to 5 tCO2e over a period of 40 years in
Barcelona, Stockholm, and Zurich (Hoornweg et al. 2011). Improvements to infrastructure, such as
the efficiency of public transport, high-density housing, energy-efficient criteria for building codes and
waste-to-energy programmes, are all potential tools available to cities. For example, in terms of urban
form and land use, studies have shown that carbon emissions per capita in inner-city
neighbourhoods of high-density apartments with close public transport were approximately half that of
13
large, single family homes in suburbs far from commercial activity (6.42 tCO2e and 13.02 tCO2e
respectively) (Hoornweg et al. 2011).
3.1.7 Problem characteristics of peak oil and climate change
In summary, peak oil and climate change exhibit the following problem characteristics:
1. The stakes are high: e.g., failure to undertake a smooth transition from oil dependency could
result in a long-term series of global recessions.
2. The impacts will pervasive and cascading: e.g., declining oil reserves will impact urban
settlements across the globe and have cascading impacts on the price of goods and services
and GDP growth.
3. Structural change and significant adaptation will be required: e.g., patterns of urban form,
transportation, supply chains, and consumption have been shaped by cheap oil. The end of
cheap oil requires a structural redevelopment of these patterns.
4. Some suggested technological solutions could intensify other global change issues: e.g.,
converting coal to liquid fuel creates carbon emissions and converting food crops to biofuel
crops is already aggravating global food shortages.
5. Facts are uncertain and contested: there is contention over when peak oil and climate
change will occur, how both issues will play out, and how they might be addressed. This has
helped delay policy and consumer responses on these issues.
6. Shocks and surprise events are likely: climate change at current levels is estimated to
increase extreme weather events. If the global temperature increases crosses the 2oC
threshold, climate change is expected to have highly non-linier impacts
7. Time is running out: to avoid social disruption urban transitions to reduce peak oil and climate
change vulnerability may take decades; however, oil is likely to peak within this decade and
irreversible damage to the climate has already occurred.
Characteristics 1 and 3 stress the need for urban transitions, characteristics 1–4 and 7 suggest that
urban policy agencies will need to facilitate those social and technical transitions to ensure the
transitions are timely and equitable and do not exasperate other critical issues. Characteristics 2, 5,
and 6 suggest the unpredictability of the impacts might result in cities increasingly experiencing
shocks and unexpected events. Collectively these characteristics of climate change and peak oil
suggest that urban transitions in response to global change cannot be largely left to the market but
urban policy agencies will need to actively facilitate transitions and prepare settlements for an
increase in shocks and unpredictable events.
14
The following section explores the nature of social and technological change and the capacity of
urban policy agencies to facilitate urban transitions in response to peak oil and climate change.
15
4 Adaptive public policy organizations
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its
success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things
(Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532)
There are extensive reports and research on alternative energy and transport systems, on the design
of less energy intensive urban form, and on innovative ways to reduce resource use and pollution.
Many of these urban solutions have been implemented, in a somewhat piecemeal fashion, both in
different cities internationally and in New Zealand, tangibly demonstrating that these approaches can
reduce carbon emissions, oil dependency, and environmental degradation. Public agencies are
increasingly producing city strategies similar to the Auckland Sustainability Framework, stating the
need and commitment for taking these approaches. However, policy innovation and implementation
in transitioning urban settlements are relatively sparse compared with the growing number of
strategies and reports on urban agencies‟ shelves. Therefore this section explores the following
questions:
What factors might constrain policy agencies in facilitating social and technical transitions in urban
settlements? Conversely, what factors enable urban policy agencies to facilitate social and technical
transitions in urban settlements?
These two questions are examined by developing an Adaptive Urban Policy Framework (Figure 3)
consisting of five levels of influence on policy practice:
1. The social and physical landscape: the macro social institutions and physical structures that
shape the context within which the policy agency operates
2. Socio-technological regimes: the social and technological systems that provide the dominant
means of realizing different social functions (e.g., land transport, residential energy)
3. The organisational field: the association of actors that frequently and influentially interact with
an urban policy agency and the field-specific institutions that develop between those actors
4. The urban public policy organisation: in New Zealand this is usually a city or regional council
but also include parts of central government
5. Individuals: within a policy organisation.
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Social & Physical Landscape
Social-Technological Regimes
Urban Policy Organisational Field
Urban Policy Organisation
Individuals within Organisation
Figure 3 Five levels of influence on policy agencies attempting to facilitate urban transitions.
The Framework‟s multi-level perspective recognizes that organisations are embedded within broader
social and physical contexts and their ability to effect change is deeply influenced by those contexts.
However, individuals (Giddens 1984) and collectives (Sewell 1993) posses agency and through their
actions over time, perpetuate or alternatively challenge the institutions that underpin those social
contexts. Understanding how policy agencies create change therefore, requires a combined analysis
of the roles of structure and agency (Giddens 1984) across different levels of society.
At the landscape, social-technological systems and organisational field levels, this framework focuses
largely on factors that shape cities and policy institutions and that tend to constrain policy agencies
facilitating change. Disrupters to the stability of these three levels are also examined. At the
organisational and individual levels, the framework focuses primarily on the role of individual and
group agency, and those attributes and processes that enable policy agencies to facilitate urban
transitions.
The arrows in Figure 3 indicate how the influence of broader structural levels of society permeates
across the lower levels, while the actions of individuals and agencies can also influence the levels
above them.
Direction & weight of influence
17
4.1 The social and physical landscape
The social landscape is comprised of social structures (after Giddens 1984; Sewell 1993) that
transcend any particular city or sector and that have increasingly transcended national boundaries as
a result of globalization of trade, communications (Friedland & Alford 1991), and culture.
Social structures and institutions are often used interchangeably, and have been defined in a variety
of ways. For clarity within this framework, social structures are dominant macro-level institutions and
patterns of social/economic relationships operating at the landscape level that manifest across
different organisational fields, shaping the institutions of those fields. Institutions at the organisational
field level are generally specific to that group of actors operating within that field (Potter et al. 2009).
Institutions explain how social life is developed into consistent and stable patterns (Sewell 1993) and
can be defined as „social rules‟ (Potter et al. 2009) or cultural schemas (Sewell 1993) that become
embodied in formal laws or governing bodies (e.g., the state), or can form the basis for organized
systems of knowledge, beliefs, norms and resource distribution (e.g., the institution of capitalism,
democracy, and family). Institutions provide urban societies with greater certainty and capacity for
collective life and are maintained through pressures to conform to certain ideals and behaviour, which
makes them an enduring aspect of social life (Giddens 1984: 24).
While there are no specific actors at the landscape level per se, the institutions, and distribution of
resources are constantly maintained, sometimes consciously but often unconsciously (Sewell
1993:3), through the collective actions of individuals and organizations. Therefore institutions are
created, maintained, and changed by society as a whole. Institutions are not solely reinforced by
people and organisations] within a specific city but are also shaped and reinforced by individuals and
collectives nationally and globally. Institutions have a marked tendency to favour some interests over
others and therefore these favoured groups have a greater vested interest in maintaining incumbent
institutions than others (Baumgartner & Jones 1993).
The landscape level in this framework is also comprised of the built and natural environment. The
built environment, including urban form and patterns of land use and physical infrastructure, is long
lived with high sunken investment costs, and therefore tends to change incrementally and becomes
locked into particular trajectories such as low or high density urban form. As such, the existing built
environment can inhibit transformative policy change.
The term landscape is used as a metaphor to reflect the relative hardness of the social and physical
factors at this level, which makes them relatively resistant to rapid or significant change compared
with the lower levels (Geels 2002). However, change always occurs at the landscape level. The
dynamic nature of the landscape is evidenced by the shifts in social values and paradigms wrought
by, for example, human rights and environmental movements. Often these shifts, which often
gradually build momentum over the longer term, are accelerated by shocks or events such as a
18
global economic recession or disasters (e.g., the Three Mile Island event). These movements which
mobilise around issues such as climate change or human rights are often heralded by special interest
groups, scientists, and future thinking policy professionals and are gradually taken up by the wider
policy community as growing public concern raises issues onto political agendas (Baumgartner &
Jones 1993).
In addition, there are multiple institutions at the landscape level and lower levels that shape social life
and these often lack internal coherency, creating tensions between different norms, belief systems,
and values which in turn challenges and changes established institutions (Friedland & Alford 1991;
Sewell 1993).
The physical environment, including climate, the terrain, and natural resources including the fresh
water supply, has shaped the historic location, form, and development of cities (Munford 1964).
Changes to the physical environment, such as climate change-related extreme weather events,
coastal inundation, and water supply shortages, can stimulate shifts in social values, lift new issues
onto political agendas, and can stimulate technological innovation.
At a city level, specific events can create windows of opportunity for significantly changing the built
environment. If a major power plant is decommissioned, a window of opportunity is created to rethink
the city energy system, or if major natural disaster destroys part of a city as it did for Christchurch in
2011, an opportunity to rebuild the area in a significantly different way is created. In these instances
structural change in urban design and infrastructure can be more easily introduced at least physically
if not institutionally. A shift in urban development thinking is evidenced in the draft Christchurch City
Centre plan (Christchurch City Council 2011) with a strong emphasis on public transport, walkability,
and use of green infrastructure. What generic factors might inhibit the Council to implement this new
direction is explored throughout the framework. Issues arising from environmental trends can also
disrupt the current trajectory of a city.
To summarise the landscape level (Table 1), social institutions and physical structures at the
landscape level provides the macro-context within which urban policy agencies operate. The
landscape level is more stable than the lower levels of the framework often shaping and maintaining a
city‟s current development trajectory. Landscape level factors therefore constrain significant rapid
change but equally, when shocks occur or slower social or physical trends cross a critical threshold
and disrupt existing institutions or physical systems, they permeate across the many different
organisational fields and organisations within society, creating widespread disruptions to current
institutions and providing windows of opportunity for change.
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Table 1. Landscape summary of barriers to and enablers of policy agencies facilitating urban
transitions
4.2 Social-technological regimes
A socio-technical regime is an institutionalised means of realising a social function such as transport,
energy or housing (Smith et al. 2010: 440). Regimes can be nested within each other; for example, a
private vehicle regime is nested within a land transport regime, which is nested within a broader
transport regime. A significant number of regimes would operate in any urban settlement.
A regime forms part of the Multi Level Perspective (MLP) of socio-technical transitions developed by
Rip and Kemp (1998) to analyse how one technology has transitioned to a radically new one to fulfil
the same societal function. Fundamental to the concept of a regime is the idea that a technology does
not exist as a discrete technological entity. Instead, using the private motor vehicle regime as an
illustration, the technology exists within a broader social-technological system comprised of industrial
networks, sectorial policy, special interest groups, consumers and their practices, knowledge
networks, systems of production and distribution, infrastructure, the symbolic associations consumers
have with private vehicles, and the media that help creates those associations (Figure 4). The social
actors within this regime include vehicle manufacturers and their suppliers, vehicle owners, public
agencies and transport planners, scientists, banks, insurance companies and societal groups
including environmental groups, road lobby groups, etc.
The different elements within the regime develop inter-dependencies that create specific patterns of
production and consumption, which tend to lock society and a city into a particular socio-technical
trajectory (e.g., a city dominated by private vehicle use and its supporting infrastructure). These path
dependencies arise from:
1. The „routines, habits, beliefs, resources, capabilities, knowledge, and past experience‟ of the
social actors within the regime which collectively create inertia to shift from the incumbent
technological solution (Smith 2006: 441; see also Dosi 1982; Nelson & Winter 1982). For
example, investors and customers are often sceptical of a new, unproven technology, people
develop daily transport habits that are difficult to break, and over time customers and transport
Landscape summary
Barriers to transitions Enablers of transitions
Stability of social institutions
Dominant paradigms (e.g., the imperative for economic growth)
Invested power interests
Long-lived nature of built environment
Shocks (e.g., natural disaster)
Emerging social & environmental issues
Shifts in social values & paradigms
Periods of renewal of the built environment
20
professionals adopt common assumptions and limitations about how urban life and transport
should operate.
2. The sunken investment in hard and soft infrastructure for the existing technologies (e.g., car
manufacturer plant and professional networks and R&D), make transitions expensive and often
cognitively difficult (Scrase et al. 2009). In addition, incumbents seek to protect those sunken
investments (Scrase et al 2009)
3. The cultural expectation and symbolic associations that society and consumers have with the
incumbent technology, e.g., the sense of personal independence in owning a car.
4. The co-evolution of other socio-technical regimes such as housing, where patterns of land use
have co-evolved with the growth of private vehicles. For example, Auckland‟s rapid suburban
development following the 1950s motorway development created a low density built environment
that now locks many residents into private car use. Providing public transport services to, or
transitioning away from, a low density urban form is expensive and slow.
5. Government policies and professional associations, regulations and standards (Unruh 2000i;
Walker 2000) have co-evolved with the current transport regime reinforcing the incumbent
technology and often creating barriers to the introduction of niche technologies.
6. Current practices having developed greater economies of scale compared with niche
technologies (Arthur 1988; Dosi 1982).
According to MLP, once a particular regime matures, further innovation within that regime tends to
optimise current technologies versus transforming them (Rip & Kemp 1998); for example, over time
the private vehicle regime has become significantly more fuel efficient but has remained
predominantly powered by the combustion engine and oil.
However, socio-technical regimes are never „closed for good‟ (Geels 2002: 1258); transitions occur
as a result of processes of co-evolution of technology and society within and between the three levels
outlined in MLP (Geels 2004; Shove 2007), namely the landscape that largely mirrors this
Framework‟s landscape, the incumbent regime, and alternative technological niches developing
within protected spaces in the regime. Shocks or pressures from social or environmental trends at the
landscape level can disrupt the trajectories of the incumbent regimes. For example, global concern
over climate change has stimulated innovation within transport regimes, including changes to the
performance of private vehicles (e.g., cleaner, fuel efficient), and new transport policy aimed at
internalising the externalities of transport (e.g., London‟s road user charging policy, Greater London
Authority 2010).
Those disruptions also stimulate niche developments within socio-technical regimes (Geels 2002;
Smith et al. 2010) (e.g., such as electric vehicle technology) where they are protected from normal
market constraints and selection (Figure 4). This protection allows them to experiment, learn by
21
doing, form social networks (e.g., supply chains, user–producer relationships) that facilitate
innovation, and develop a better understanding of new technology, environmental impacts, user
needs, and the policies needed to develop the niches (Hoogmaet al. 2002). Niche protection is
created through specific sectors (e.g., the military), public R&D, and support from specific niche
customers (e.g., the small but committed customer base for organic food or electric cars).
Figure 4 The social-technological system of a private vehicle transport regime & factors constraining
sustainability innovation (after Geels 2002).
To be successful beyond a small, targeted, niche market, niches eventually need to be taken up by
their incumbent regimes. Geels and Schot (2007) argue that timing is critical to whether niches are
successful in doing this. If a landscape change creates a significant pressure on a regime at a time
when a niche is not yet fully mature, the niche will not be able to take advantage of the opportunity. If
New technologies, e.g., electric
cars, wireless charging
Socio-technical
regime
Technical
niches
Industrial networks: Fuel companies; car manufacturers, garages,& the road construction industry develop interdependencies and vested interests in status quo
Knowledge networks: Sunken costs of incumbent research reduce radical innovation
Culture symbolic meaning/Media: The car as a symbol of independence maintained by multi-million dollar marketing strategies
Infrastructure: Longevity & sunken investment in roads; development of low density urban form & commuter suburbs increase private vehicle dependency
Increasing climate change evidence
Technology & Production: High investment costs in car manufacturing create entry barriers to alternative vehicles. Industry routines, habits, knowledge limits radical innovation
Sectorial policy: E.g., only partial internalisation of environmental costs of motor vehicle
Consumer practices: Maintains high mobility lifestyles reinforcing societal expectation; user habits & routines built around private car use
Special interest groups: E.g. road lobby groups maintain car friendly policies.
Peaking global production of oil
Landscape level
Time
Disrupters to regime
22
the niche is fully developed then it may have the opportunity either to replace the regime by
competing with it (e.g., electric public transport) or be subsumed into the regime as a means of
reducing the landscape pressure (e.g., hybrid cars). This latter adoption, however, might over time
push the incumbent regime trajectory in a new direction, e.g., further stimulating electric vehicle
development.
Regime transitions, Geels (2002) argues, do not occur through a sudden shift from one regime to
another but grow gradually out of old ones through a series of adaptations and reconfigurations
between producers, suppliers, users, regulators, etc. Berkhout et al. (2004) believe that some
transitions occur through a planned and coordinated approach by the niche actors. Geels and Schot
(2007) differ from Berkhout et al. (2004) in how coordinated these transitions are, believing that no
transition is coordinated from the outset but rather coordination develops as the niche matures. MLP
is increasingly used in one field of policy practice termed „transition management‟ to explore how
transitions to sustainable socio-technical systems might be facilitated by policy (Kemp & Loorbach
2006; Scrase et al. 2009; Smith et al 2005) which reflecting Berkhout et al‟s contention that transitions
can be planned and coordinated..
Transition management in the Netherlands has attempted to collectively facilitate sustainability
improvements in a current regime while supporting the development of radical niche innovations to
eventually replace or revolutionise the incumbent regime (Kemp & Rotmans 2004). The aim is to
create a more seamless transition over a 20-year period, based upon the rationale that while the
incumbent regime improves its environmental performance, niche technologies can mature to the
extent that they can provide real alternative options to consumers. Once consumer options are
available, policy then can use pricing and other tools to further disrupt the incumbent regime
stimulating greater uptake of niche technologies. Niche policy support is not based on picking winners
but on providing an enabling environment for a range of technologies to evolve, through for example
public R&D investment in green technologies. The transition management process often begins by
bringing together actors from the incumbent regime and niches to undertake collective re-visioning
and to establish long-term programmes of government intervention and business innovation
MLP and socio-technical transition policy is still a relatively new field, and while there is considerable
understanding of what locks society into certain technological trajectories, there is less understanding
of what might accelerate the unlocking of those trajectories.
To summarise (Table 2), technologies which provide urban functions such as transport or energy are
comprised of systems of interdependent social, institutional and technological factors termed social-
technological regimes. These regimes tend to resist radical change, and tend to optimise the
technology in the current regime versus replacing it with a radically different niche technology.
However opportunities for regime transitions do occur through landscape disruptions. Niche
innovations need to be mature enough, however, to take advantage when those disruptions occur.
23
Policy (at different governmental levels) may support regime transitions through internalising
externalities of the incumbent regime, through supporting niche development, and through facilitating
sector programmes aimed at improving the current regime.
Table 2. Social-technological systems summary of barriers to and enablers of policy agencies
facilitating urban transitions
Social-technological systems summary
Barriers to transitions Enablers of transitions
Invested interests of the incumbent regime industry
Routines, habits, beliefs, resources, capabilities, of
the incumbent regime actors
Policies, standards, knowledge systems that co
evolve with the incumbent regime
Societal expectations & symbolic meaning associated
with incumbent regime
Sunken investment in infrastructure & high cost of
change
Economies of scale of incumbent regime
Landscape disrupters: e.g., resource supply issues,
environmental issues
Policy disrupters: internalising externalities of incumbent
technology
Niche protection for commercialising alternative technologies
Coordinated sector programmes to improve regime
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4.3 The organisational field
The concept of organisation fields was developed out of the work of sociological institutionalists, one
strand of New Institutionalism. The organisational field under examination here is the actors and
organisations that most interact with and influence urban policy agencies and the field-specific
institutions that influence their thinking and practices. These actors include other councils and urban
agencies, local government institutions, parts of Central Government (including the NZ Transport
Agency, Ministry of Social Development, Ministry for the Environment), the professional associations
of public agency staff and importantly, the residents and community, and business groups living in the
urban settlement.
4.3.1 Nature of public policy institutions
Starting with other government actors in the policy organisation‟s professional field, sociological
institutionalism provides insights into how urban councils and public agencies adopt common thinking
and behaviour within their organisational fields, which can constrain their ability to change
(Greenwood & Hinings 1996). Over time, actors within this field shape the formal and informal
institutions of urban councils/public agencies and these become more stable as the field matures
(Greenwood & Hinings 1996). Formal institutions in New Zealand include the Resource Management
Act and the Local Government Act 2002, informal institutions include the practices, beliefs, norms and
paradigms accepted by specific professions working in urban public policy and planning. These
institutions help determine which problems get onto the public agenda, how problems are framed
(March & Olsen 1989), which actors can participate in the policy process (Parsons 2001) and,
therefore, what organisational and policy practices are considered desirable or legitimate.
As outlined previously, the institutions of organisational fields are influenced by the landscape level.
For example, the paradigm of economic growth that permeates the landscape level has become a
dominating lens in the local government organisational field in New Zealand particularly since the
1990s, creating a filtering effect on how other urban functions (social and ecological) are conceived
and prioritised in urban policy (Howell & Mortimer 2009). For example, Waite and Williamson (2007:
21) in a report on Auckland state that “social, cultural and environmental features matter to cities as
they attract high skilled workers to live and work there”. Arguably, the environment also matters
because it provides the ecosystem services cities need to survive, and social and cultural features
matter because they provide urban communities with their sense of identity and quality of life.
Filtering goals around a narrow economic outcome can have implications for environmental and
social policy at the city council level. Environmental amenity may become prioritised over the more
fundamental management of life supporting ecosystem services (Howell & Mortimer 2010). Social
policy, in the meantime, can be encouraged away from those who most need it. For example, Grimes
(2006:13), in a report to the former Government Urban and Economic Development Office in
Auckland, cautions that “government policies cannot be too oriented towards the poorest residents,
25
otherwise the rich will flee to communities that cater for their own needs”. If one lens or paradigm
becomes a dominant institution in the urban policy organisational field, the ideas, language, and
interventions can become framed around that lens or paradigm (Howell & Mortimer 2010).
Policy therefore is not the objective and rational science championed by Herbert Simons and Harold
Lasswell, where problems are defined and decisions are made on comprehensive and best evidence
Rather the dominant paradigms, theories, and values used within policy development determine
which problems get prioritized and how they are defined, which outcomes and whose values and
goals count, and which evidence is accepted (Stone 2002). Attempting to introduce policy innovation
that runs against dominant paradigms is challenging.
Lindblom (1968) also argues that policy is not a rational process: but for two additional reasons that
collectively constrain policy innovation and rapid change. Lindblom believes that policies usually
reflect reactive compromises made between the divergent views of proximate policy makers (those
actors within or influencing the policy process) rather than the best rational option based on complete
evidence. In addition he believes that evidence will always be limited, due to gaps in data, the time
required to collect it, and the human ability to process it; therefore, whether a policy intervention is
optimal cannot be made with any definitive certainty. As a result, policymakers tend to take
incremental policy steps, either in order to avoid stakeholder backlash or to be able to track the
impacts of a policy and reverse it if implementation throws up unexpected issues (Hayes 1992;
Lindblom 1959). Lindblom (1968) argues this leads to incremental policy adoption and constrains
radical policy innovation. Therefore it would be difficult to introduce radical shifts in policy as part of
facilitating urban transitions.
4.3.2 Nature of the issue
The nature of the issue is a critical factor in how difficult it will be to initiate change. Issues such as
peak oil or climate change need to reach the policy agenda before any action constrained or
otherwise can be taken. Agenda setting and the reasons why coalitions are mobilized around some
issues and not others has been a focus of considerable political research (e.g., Marris 1971; Olsen
1965; Wilson 1973). In the context of global issues such as climate change and peak oil, Wilson‟s
theory on concentrated and diffused impacts (1973) is particularly useful. Wilson argues that people
and groups will mobilize for issues and policies that affect them personally in a concentrated way
(e.g., their income or immediate neighbourhood) rather than in a diffused way (e.g., something on the
periphery of their life or in the future). This can be in terms of both benefits and costs to them. Many
climate change and peak oil policy interventions have diffused and future-focused benefits compared
with immediate and at times concentrated costs, which could partially explain why both issues have
struggled to gain public support despite the significant risks they pose. For example, when New
Zealand urban councils have tried to intensify a city neighbourhood, in part to address climate change
26
and oil vulnerability issues at a macro-scale, local residents have often mobilized against the change
if they feel intensification will negatively change the identity of their local neighbourhood.
Policy makers, the media, and members of the public also need to be convinced that the issue is
open to Government intervention (Baumgartner & Jones 1993; Giandomenico 1989). New
Zealanders‟ belief that human activity is the cause of climate change fell steadily 63% in 2003 to 50%
in 2010; rising slightly (53%) in 2011 (UMR 2011). Lack of public belief that climate change is the
result of human action reduces the pressure on the government to intervene.
However, as landscape pressures becomes more serious and persistent, new issues such as climate
change or new concepts such as sustainable development begin to be acknowledged in the rhetoric
of public sector communication. This is often done consciously or unconsciously to maintain an
agency‟s legitimacy within its organisational field (DiMaggio & Powell 1991). Often individuals or
groups within these agencies attempt to create real change but are unable to move their organisation
beyond „non-disruptive‟ responses that do not challenge dominant paradigms or power structures
(Handmer & Dovers 1999). Indeed, policy reports and plans, (such as Long Term Council Community
Plans), often echo the rhetoric of the advocates of change at the front of the document but side with
those seeking to maintain the status quo in the actual policy decisions (Stone 2002).
4.3.3 Field disrupters & opportunities for change
Despite the stabilising forces outlined above, which constrain policy innovation and urban transitions,
institutions within organisational fields are always being contested, both by organisations and actors
within the field or by “destabilizing events or processes” occurring outside of the field (McAdam &
Scott 2005: 16) often at the landscape level. For example, a change of central government can
change which issues or ideas are deemed legitimate. Equally, global shocks, such as the 2008 oil
price spike, might offer a window of opportunity for individuals and advocacy groups to increase
support for their issue/intervention (e.g., climate change/public transport) and get it moved further up
the political agenda (Kingdon 1984/1995). They can do this through a number of means: by creating a
narrative of an escalating problem or crisis (Stone 2002); by aligning the issue to a commonly
accepted symbol (e.g., security); or by broadening the framing of the issue in order to appeal to a
larger constituency (Stone 2002).
Baumgartner and Jones‟ (1993) examination of American politics over the long run identified a
process of long stable periods of macro-policy based on one set of principles, and then short volatile
periods of policy change when new issues and policy principles reach and disrupt political and public
agendas. These periods appear to occur after windows of opportunity open up and Baumgartner and
Jones believe they act more like waves of self-organising and emergent change, created by the
accumulated actions of multiple actors and factors. As new issues or policy principles/approaches
27
replace old ones, new institutions form around them, privileging them over others and stabilising
policy until the next cycle of disruption.
Baumgartner and Jones (1993) note that policy innovation has often occurred at the lower levels of
government who often operate under less political or media risk and can sometimes be more nimble
in experimenting with new policy ideas. Successful experiments at lower levels of government then
get lifted up onto the national agenda.
4.3.4 Nature of the community
While policy research has often explored what creates public support for new policies in terms of the
nature of the issue (Wilson 1973), disrupters to institutions (Baumgartner & Jones 1993), and agenda
setting processes (Stone 2002), the research field has less to say on whether some communities are
more likely to support measures to address future risk than others. To this end the section turns to
community resilience, a rapidly growing field of research that examines the characteristics and
processes that enable some communities to prepare better for and successfully cope with shocks and
significant change than other communities.
Much of the community resilience research has focussed on disasters (e.g., Brown & Kulig 1996/7;
King 2006; Norris et al. 2008; Paton 2006a & b, 2007; Rose 2004), which are generally discrete
periodic events compared with climate change and peak oil, which are persistent pressures (although
climate change will cause for example increased extreme weather events). However, a review of
resilience across different disciplines and contexts (Norris et al. 2008) identified that resilience is
increasingly recognised as the ability to adapt (or transition) in the face of risk as opposed to the
ability to resist or bounce back from a shock. A review of general community resilience characteristics
therefore appears a useful research area to increase understanding of what builds a community‟s
ability to adapt or transition in response to global change.
Two models of community resilience, Paton (2006b) and CCCR (2000), and a body of resilience
literature are reviewed to identify attributes that may increase the capacity of communities to support
and implement urban transitions in response to global change.
Paton‟s (2006b) model of community resilience was developed to assess the level of resilience that a
community has to prepare, respond and recover from a range of disasters. Paton defines resilience
as “a measure of how well people and societies can adapt to a changed reality and capitalize on new
opportunities offered‟ (2006a: 8). General social resilience attributes were selected on the following
criteria: they contribute significantly to resilience; they are amenable to change; and they are
potentially within the control of planning processes (Paton 2007: 20).
The Canadian Centre for Community Renewal (CCCR) model of community resilience was
developed to help communities assess and plan responses for social and economic shocks, primarily
with rural Canadian towns where the nature of exploiting nature resources has created a pattern of
28
boom and bust towns. Community resilience is defined by CCCR as: “the ability to take intentional
action to strengthen the personal and collective capacity of its citizens and institutions to respond to
and influence the course of social and economic change” (CCCR 2000: 1–5).
CCCR identified 23 attributes of resilience through literature and theory; and these are refined
through 10 years of practical application. They are not seen as an exhaustive list but are believed to
be those attributes most predictive of community resilience in the context for which they were
designed. Collectively, these two models and a review of community resilience literature suggest the
following community attributes are important for adaptive resilience:
Community competency (Norris et al. 2008; Paton 2007): refers to the capacity of communities to
identify, mobilize, and address issues, which in turn requires the collective ability for critical
reflection, problem solving, flexibility (Norris et al. 2008) and the cultivation and use of knowledge
and resources (Goodman 1998: 259). The following attributes appear to be prerequisites for
developing community competency.
Communication and critical awareness (Norris et al. 2008; Paton 2006b): whereby individuals,
communities (including public agencies) have access to information on global and local issues
and frequently discuss what those issues mean for their city.
Sense of community, place attachment, social networks and citizen participation: whereby
residents feel a sense of attachment and commitment to the place and the community in which
they live (CCCR 2000; Norris et al. 2008), and residents take action for others through for
example voluntary work, mutual assistance and cooperation (CCCR 2000; Norris et al. 2008).
Social networks are present creating bonding and bridging social capital (Norris et al. 2008).
Individual and collective efficacy: city residents believe they have individual (Paton 2006b) and
collective ability (Paton 2006b; Norris et al. 2008) to deal with challenging situations.
Empowerment, trust and active democracy: citizens are empowered to be actively involved in
democratic processes (CCCR 2000; Norris et al. 2008) through public agencies‟ processes,
sharing of power and social support. Citizens trust the information public agencies provide and
believe those agencies strive to meet citizen‟s needs (Paton 2006b).
Resources, equity and social support: the city has an adequate level and diversity of economic
resources, and there is procedural and distributive justice in allocating those resources (Paton
2006b). Widespread support exists for education at all levels (CCCR 2000). There is fairness
towards/in vulnerability to risks (Norris et al. 2008) and the community supports those most
vulnerable to risks (CCCR 2000).
Leadership and collaboration: public leadership is visionary, representative, and builds
consensus (CCCR 2000) and leadership is present at all levels (CCCR 2000). Public and
29
stakeholder organisations have developed processes and cultures for working together in
collaborative ways (CCCR 2000; Norris et al. 2008).
Paton (2007) emphasises that building resilience cannot be just an individualist pursuit; resilience
needs to be built at and across community and institutional levels. The understanding that “people are
resilient together, not merely in similar ways” (Brown & Kulig 1996/7: 43) is reflected in Rose (2004),
Norris et al. (2008) and Pfefferbaum et al. (2005). Paton‟s model (2006b) stresses the importance of
having linking attributes which bind resilience attributes across individual, community and institutional
scales. These linking attributes are: community competence, procedural and distributive justice,
empowerment and trust, and environment–behavioural links. This also infers that the resilience
attributes are interdependent and therefore a community needs to possess a degree of all of them.
CCCR‟s participatory model is designed to empower communities in assessing their resilience and
taking collective action and therefore the planning process itself is an opportunity to build community
competence, empowerment and trust.
Many community resilience attributes are dynamic, and research has demonstrated that individual
and community resilience may be worn down by repetitive shocks and stress (Norris et al. 2008) or as
a result of changes in community membership and goals (Paton 2007). Equally, general resilience
can be built up over time through increased community and economic development. Many resilience
attributes can take years (e.g., place attachment), decades (e.g., social capital), and even
generations (e.g., social equity) to develop.
To summarise the organisational field, (Table 3) constraints to a policy agency facilitating urban
transitions include established field institutions, the incremental nature of policy change, and
issues/policy interventions with diffused impacts. The organisational field‟s institutions and public
perception of issues can be disrupted however, when issues such as climate change create growing
societal concern resulting in gradual shifts in social values at the landscape level. These are often, as
outlined in the landscape section, accelerated by shocks and events (such as climate change related
natural disasters or oil price spikes). When these disruptions occur, some communities possess
collective attributes that increase their willingness and capacity to undertake individual and collective
action to minimise future threats. However, a policy organisation also needs to have the institutional
capacity to engage and empower their communities to adapt to future threats including threats arising
from global change, which leads us to the organisational level of the framework.
30
Table 3. Organisational field summary of barriers to and enablers of policy agencies facilitating urban
transitions
Organisational field summary
Barriers to transitions Enablers of transitions
Field level paradigms
Political compromises, incomplete knowledge
& risk aversion resulting only in non disruptive
change
Lack of public/media interest/belief in issue;
lack of belief in Gov to address issues or
diffused impact/benefit on vocal/powerful
groups
Disruptors
Immature organisational field with evolving institutions
Concentrated issue/policy impact on vocal/powerful groups
Current policy/field level paradigms losing positive image
Policy innovation reframed to broaden support
Nature of the urban community Strong community leadership & collaboration, a sense of community, strong social networks, social capital and civic participation. Trust built between urban council and community. Community resources, equity & social support
Capacity building across public sector
Institutions developed for joined up inter-organisational planning
Emergence of professional networks of policy agencies instigating urban transitions
Richer analytical frameworks of social & technical change adopted within specific policy professions
Lower levels of government acting as innovation laboratories
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4.4 The organisation
Baumgartner and Jones (1993) argue that policy and political systems are not resistant to change in
the long run, that windows of opportunity for change open periodically but those short periods of
change cannot be planned and directed. Mintrom‟s (2000) research on policy entrepreneurs suggests
a less passive approach to policy change, whereby individuals, groups and organisations have been
instrumental in strategically forcing windows of opportunity for change to occur. This reflects the
concept of individual agency (Giddens 1984) and collective agency (Sewell 1993). The organisational
and individual levels of the framework therefore examine research on organisational change,
leadership, and policy entrepreneurs to identify the attributes of organisations, and the individuals
who work within them, that create significant policy innovation.
A review of literature on adaptive organisations to climate change (public and business organisations)
identifies a number of attributes which support organisational innovation and adaptability;
1. Situational awareness: an organisation requires processes and resources to develop excellent
situational awareness of external and future drivers of change. Importantly the organisation needs
to analysis and articulate how those drivers might impact on its responsibilities (PACT5; UKCIP
2008). Equally an organization needs to maintain a dynamic situational awareness of its
immediate environment, including inter-organizational politics, and the mood and concerns of
local citizens and stakeholders.
2. The ability to plan for, identify, and seize windows of opportunity for change: opportunities for
policy change occur in infrequent bursts. For urban councils these opportunities often occur when
new capital works are required, when new political parties are brought into power, or when an
event or crisis mobilises broader support for an issue. Situational awareness enables
organisations to identify emerging windows of opportunity but the ability of an organisation to
understand how to leverage those opportunities is critical (Longsdale et al. 2010; PACT, no date).
3. Leadership: outlined in detail in section 4.5 on individuals.
4. A clear and shared vision with priority goals for moving towards that vision: articulating the
direction of the organisation helps align different parts of an organisation. Visions that have been
developed with staff are more likely to gain buy-in and be pursued by the organisation as a whole
(Stone L. 2006). For public agencies this would also require developing visions and goals with a
broad range of stakeholders. In addition, organisations operating in a rapidly changing
environment need to evaluate continuously whether new developments in their external
environment require a shift in their activities and at times they may need to review of the
5 PACT (Performance Acceleration through Capacity-building Tool) was developed by Alexander Ballard Ltd with
Hampshire County Council (HCC). The tool arose from research on change management for the EU-funded ESPACE project. The website can be accessed at http://www.pact.co/home
32
continued relevance of their goals. This process of strategic reflection is central to a learning
organisation (see 6 below).
5. A culture of working together internally and externally: having shared visions and goals contribute
to aligning teams; but working together also requires staff with excellent interpersonal skills,
communication and facilitative skills as well as technical skills (Longsdale et al. 2009). In addition,
the more complex an issue, the less likely it can be solved by specialist expertise alone (Casey
1993) and the more likely it will require multi-disciplinary teams who have a range of technical
skills and interpersonal skills (APSC 2007).
Global change issues cannot be solved by a single organisation. An urban policy organisation
needs to develop effective skills and processes for working collaboratively with other agencies,
stakeholder groups and communities. Again, this requires excellent interpersonal skills and
processes for engagement; it also requires the time for relationships, trust and shared
understanding to be developed between groups (Longsdale et al. 2009). For public agencies this
involves utilizing routine and statutory stakeholder engagements (Longsdale et al. 2009: 17). And
critically, as outlined earlier in the community resilience literature, urban policy agencies need to
implement community engagement processes to develop community and institutional resilience.
6. A significant learning culture: developing the traits above will often require an organization to
reverse many aspects of its current culture (Fowler 1997). Organisational change needs to go
deeper than implementing new technical processes; rather, an organization needs to create the
enabling conditions for staff to “adopt new basic operating assumptions and institutional
structures” (Handmer & Dovers 1996: 502). To do this, people and the organisation as a whole
need to be conscious of and able to reflect on their existing ideologies and assumptions. This
ability has been termed as double loop learning (Argyris & Schön 1978), which moves from
asking “are we doing things right?” to asking “are we doing the right things and do our operating
assumptions still hold true?” This enables organisations to reframe their role and purpose, and
broaden the problem framing of issues such as climate change, thus creating possibilities for new
and more comprehensive areas of exploration (Longsdale et al. 2009). Characteristics found
within organizations with a significant learning culture (UKCIP 2008:74) include:
seeking new ideas outside of the organisation
encouraging and exploring dissonant information and ideas
providing informal as well as formal spaces and processes for learning
creating a culture where „mistakes‟ are accepted and used as an opportunity to learn
accepting there is no one right way of doing things
33
providing opportunities for staff and political representatives to question core
assumptions of an organization‟s purpose and how it works.
7. Change is embedded in implementation mechanisms (UKCIP: 77): to move from rhetoric to real
and long-term change, organisations need to systematically embed new organisational culture
and policies into its mechanisms of implementation. Breaking down the traditional silos between
policy development and programme implementation is also critical, particularly for complex
problems such as climate change where knowledge is uncertain and there are no silver bullet
solutions. Policy development therefore needs to be informed by those working in implementation
and then needs to be modified as programmes are implemented in response to what is and isn‟t
working (APSC 2007). Policy for complex problems therefore is not a linear process stepping
from problem definition, policy design to implementation then evaluation; rather, it needs to be an
iterative process of learning and adaptation “with policy changing in response to implementation
as well as vice versa” (Mulgan & Lee 2001: 4).
8. Creating momentum through catalyst projects: Using catalyst projects is a strategy used by urban
public agencies, which consolidates experimentation, learning, and embedding in implementation.
For example Citiesplus
(2003), a long-term sustainability framework for Vancouver, identified a
series of catalyst projects to help initiate and drive Vancouver‟s transition process towards a
sustainable city. Sebastian Moffatt, who led Citiesplus
and a number of urban sustainable
development projects internationally, believes catalyst projects form a critical component of
strategies for managing urban transitions:
A catalyst project should be a combination of new policy and new technology (or process).
Every city and every neighbourhood needs at least one. If it is any good, it will have spun
off another catalyst project well before it is completed. It will also reveal the need for new
policy. (Moffatt 2011)
Catalyst projects aim to leverage system change in a city using the public agencies limited resources.
They do this by being part research, part adaptive management, and part sustainability education of
the public and, importantly, local professionals who take part, learn and then begin to own the new
urban approaches in their subsequent work (Moffatt 2011).
To summarise the organisational level, situational awareness can enable organisations to recognise
and leverage off what Baumgartner and Jones (1993) describe as windows of opportunities for
implementing policy change. In turn, organisations need a strong vision to steer those opportunities
towards a desired urban trajectory. Complex issues such as climate change and peak oil require
inter-disciplinary understanding, and organisations need to bring different disciplines together
effectively and build strong teams and internal and external collaborative processes. Organisations
need to develop a deep learning culture as transitions may involve much experimentation within in a
rapidly changing external environment. As outlined in the community resilience literature,
34
organisations need to build an organisational culture and processes for engaging their communities
meaningfully in discussion on global issues and in civic decision-making. Finally transitions have to
be systematically embedded through implementation mechanisms, including district and asset
management plans and catalyst projects.
Table 4. Organisational summary of barriers to and enablers of policy agencies facilitating urban
transitions
Urban Policy Organisation Summary
Barriers to transitions Enablers of transitions
Narrow, short term & local focus
Lack of direction & long-term planning
Sustainability vision largely rhetoric
Structure, culture & processes within organisation generates silo thinking
Expedient community consultation approaches
Organisational culture & skills Situational awareness
Shared vision & goals
Organisational change processes to align to new vision
Leadership
Significant learning culture
Internal & external collaboration
People skills & technical skills valued
Policy practice
Vision embedded in implementation mechanisms
Diverse policy concepts used
Integration of policy development & implementation
Engagement processes designed to build community empowerment, trust and active democracy
Catalyst projects
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4.5 Individuals
Individual leadership is one of the most commonly cited attributes mentioned in the literature on
adaptive organisations (Lonsdale et al. 2010); therefore while the individuals explored here operate in
policy agencies they are considered important enough to have their own level.
Two types of leaders are characterised at the individual level – policy entrepreneurs within the
organisation and leaders who create the enabling conditions for an adaptive organisation. Policy
entrepreneurs are people (staff or political representatives) involved in public policy who try to
significantly change the current way of doing things in a specific area of their interest and are
prepared to work beyond established institutional arrangements to achieve this (Mintrom & Norman
2009). Leaders in this context are defined as people who hold formal or informal leadership roles
within an organisation and whose actions create the enabling conditions for the organisation to adopt
new thinking and practices. A person may play both roles at the same time and both roles share
many of the same characteristics.
Literature was reviewed for specific characteristics relating to; enabling organisations to be adaptable
(Longsdale et al. 2009; Snowden 2005; UKCIP 2008) the ability to address complexity (Augustine &
Woodcock 2003), and the ability to be innovative (Chambers 2005; Rooke & Torbert 2005; Senge
1990).
4.5.1 Leading adaptive policy agencies
Rooke and Torbert (2005) have developed a leadership model that differentiates seven leadership
profiles based on a leader‟s internal „action logic‟. Rooke and Torbert define action logic as how a
person interprets their own actions and their surroundings and how they react when their power or
safety is challenged. The model is relevant to the Framework‟s consideration of agency]] as it
compares the action logic of lower level leaders who are not change agents with those who are.
Thousands of executives from business, government, and NGOs internationally have been surveyed
and characterised into seven different profiles, which are seen as a continuum in leadership
performance (Table 5). Only the top three profiles – individualists, strategists, and alchemists – who
collectively make up 15% of all executives surveyed, show a consistent ability to innovate and
transform their organisations (Rooke & Torbert 2005: 2). A breakdown of profiles for government
agencies is not given.
Table 5 Seven transformations of the leadership mode, (adapted from Rooke & Torbert, 2005: 3)
Action logic Opportunist Diplomat Expert Achiever Individualist Strategist Alchemist
% of sample
profiled
5% 12% 38% 30% 10% 4% 1%
36
As the four categories of non-change agents (the opportunist, diplomat, expert, and achiever) make
up the majority of formal leaders, this provides more context to the challenge of creating change than
a list of leadership change agent attributes would. For example, Rooke and Torbert comment that the
dominant leadership profile, the Expert, tries to exercise control by perfecting their knowledge and
tends to limit innovation if ideas comes from others who they do not consider experts. They also tend
to view collaboration and skills such as social intelligence as a waste of time. This would suggest they
are less equipped to deal with complex issues where knowledge cannot be perfected and where
collaboration and different ways of understanding a problem are required. Achievers, who are the
second most common leadership profile, hold a more complex understanding of the world, build
strong teams and can successfully implement change programmes. However, their focus on
delivering results constrains their willingness to reflect on goals and practices (Rooke & Torbert
2005), which is critical for the double loop organisational learning highlighted in the organisational
level section.
Exploring the top two of the three change agent profiles identifies attributes needed for policy
innovation associated with urban transitions. The Strategist leaders believe their organisations are
able to transform and they work effectively with people with different action logics to enable change.
They are comfortable with dealing with the conflict that invariably arises in change processes. Finally,
strategists generally work beyond both the typical boundaries of their sector and their individual or
organisational interests. This has led many of them to challenge current paradigms within their
sectors. The rare Alchmist leader is able to lead social transformations. Typically charismatic and
focussed on truth, Alchmists are described as people who are able to catch unique historic moments
and “create symbols and metaphors that speak to people‟s hearts and minds” (Rooke & Torbert 2005:
6), which can occur at an organisational or societal level. In this, they are perhaps able to create short
windows of opportunity for transformative change.
Rooke and Torbert provide less detail on the processes strategist and alchemist leadership take to
facilitate change. Other literature, especially literature focussed on organisations adapting to climate
change, commonly highlight the following leadership processes:
Creating and consistently reinforcing a guiding vision and goals for the organisation that builds
support from those who need to implement that vision (Augustine & Woodcock 2003; Longsdale
et al. 2009; UKCIP 2008).
Developing a realistic picture of the adaptation challenge and ability to mobilize sufficient
resources for the job (UKCIP 2008)
Leading with a „light touch‟ so that ideas can emerge from across teams but consistently
monitoring and adjusting team performance and culture (Augustine & Woodcock 2003). This
suggests less hierarchal structures and shifts in managerial cultures (Chambers 2005; Snowden
2005).
37
Investing time and resources in relationship building, organisational and staff learning processes,
and open-access knowledge systems (Augustine & Woodcock 2003; Senge 1990; UKCIP 2008).
4.5.2 Leading policy innovation
Looking now specifically at leadership in policy innovation, policy entrepreneurs have been defined
through “their desire to significantly change current ways of doing things in their area of interest”
(Mintrom & Norman 2009: 650). As described by Baumgartner and Jones (1993), significant change
in policy is unlikely to occur just because a policy entrepreneur believes change is required. Policy
entrepreneurship is mostly likely to be observed when new challenges demand significant change to
established policy versus incremental adjustments (Mintrom & Norman 2009). At these times people
attempting to bring in new policy ideas are, however, more likely to be successful if they possess the
following interrelated characteristics:
Creativity (Mintrom 2000): includes the ability to conceptualise of problems and solutions in new
ways.
Conviction, passion, and persistence (Mintrom 2000: 89): policy entrepreneurs strongly believe in
the need for change and for their specific ideas and they are prepared to invest their resources
for the future benefits of achieving change (Mintrom & Norman2009). Innovating change is a
substantive task and passion and conviction are required for entrepreneurs to stay the distance.
Social perceptiveness and acumen: policy entrepreneurs have strong interpersonal skills and, like
the Strategist and Alchmist leadership profiles, they are able to understand other people‟s
differing world views (Mintrom 2000), concerns, and motives (Mintrom & Norman 2009). They are
usually well hooked into and make use of their policy networks to develop and promote their
policy innovation (Balla 2001; True & Mintrom 2001; Walker 1969). These aspects provide them
with a number of advantages when driving policy innovation. First, their networks provide them
access to alterative policy ideas or stimulus for new ideas (Balla 2001; Mintrom & Vergari 1998).
Second, they are able to understand the political and social dynamics within their area of interest,
including which individuals or groups are important to bring on board, and how they may need to
frame or tailor their arguments to ensure they are taken seriously by different audiences (Mintrom
2000). Third, their well-attuned social antennae help them pick up weak signals that indicate
where and when windows of opportunity for change might open, enabling them to prepare for and
take advantage of those opportunities (Kingdon 1984/1995).
The ability to mobilise support for change: closely linked to having strong networks and
understanding the world views and concerns of others is the ability of entrepreneurs to frame a
problem or an argument for change in ways that mobilise support from a wider constituency
(Mintrom & Norman 2009; Roberts & King 1991) and that build strategic coalitions of support,
often well in advance of attempting to create the policy change (Rabe 2004). They tend to be
38
persuasive communicators (Mintrom 2000) and good storytellers (Stone 1997/2002). Last, they
often reduce the perceived risk of adopting new policies by implementing working models of their
proposals themselves to provide proof of their viability (Quinn 2000).
The ability to build strong teams: the social acumen of policy entrepreneurs provides the ability to
build strong teams, and they often create teams consisting of very different skill sets and
knowledge (Mintrom 2000; Roberts & King 1996). The combined attributes needed for policy
innovation may be distributed across a team rather than embodied in a single person. For
example one person may have vision while another is good at systematically embedding change
in decision-making processes.
Policy entrepreneurs often get radical policy innovation adopted through what appears at the time, to
be incremental change and therefore it is worth clarifying the distinction between incremental and
significant policy change. Over the long run, Baumgartner and Jones (1993) argue that significant
change occurs over short periods of time. Over the short run this significant change can be more
difficult to identify. Mintrom (2000) argues that what over the short run looks like incremental change
can represent a step change towards more radical policy innovation. He cites school choice policy in
Minnesota where policy entrepreneurs deliberately took a series of policy change steps, pushing for
more radical steps at each stage.
Following this argument, policy entrepreneurs might strategically take a stepped change approach,
whereby they hold a long-term goal in view and need to ensure that each policy step heads them
towards that goal. Initially, they might frame the problem so it can still be taken seriously by those
from whom they need support. For example, Rabe (2004) identified that policy entrepreneurs
attempting to bring in greenhouse gas reduction initiatives commonly emphasized the economic
opportunities of green growth to play down the perception that environmental protection limits
economic growth. Parsons describes this as dressing the innovation or issue up “in old clothes in
order to get the policy accepted” (2001: 573).
To summarize the individual level (Table 6), leaders who can facilitate significant organisational and
social change consistently are in the minority of formal leaders, but they are the people who are
fascinated by and understand the underlying drivers behind the way individuals, organisations, and
broader systems operate. They believe change is possible and have the skills to facilitate it. The more
common and traditional styles of leadership, the „Expert‟ and the „Achiever‟, while providing value to
an organisation, are less reflective, and often create barriers for deeper change and innovation.
People who lead policy innovations have high degrees of social acumen, build strong teams, are
extremely good communicators, and are well linked into social and professional networks. All of these
attributes enable them to mobilise support for their policy innovation, while their persistence enables
them to keep pushing through the resistance to change, often over years, in order to implement their
policy innovations, often through a step change process.
39
Table 6. Individuals level summary of barriers to and enablers of policy agencies facilitating urban
transitions
Individuals Summary
Barriers to transitions Enablers of transitions
Leadership focussed on self-interest or short-term goals or constrained by single disciplinary thinking
Individual disrupters
Visionary leadership
Holistic thinkers who think & act beyond their organisations boundaries & interests
Significant social perception & acumen
Ability to recognise & seize opportunities for change
Creativity & willingness to challenge status quo
Building adaptive agencies
Representative, adaptive & collaborative leadership
Conviction, persistence & ability to mobilise resources required for change
Ability to frame innovation to increase broader acceptance
Leading with a light touch but consistently evaluating progress
Ability to build strong committed multi-disciplinary teams
40
41
4.6 The Adaptive Urban Policy Framework
The social structures at the landscape level shape the institutions of the public sector at the
organizational field level and the social practices, norms, and values of urban communities. Social-
technological regimes that fulfil social functions such as transport co-evolve with the built environment
at the landscape level, developing tight interdependent systems of technical, social, institutional, and
physical elements. Collectively these factors tend to lock urban settlements into specific development
trajectories inhibiting sustainability transitions.
However, disruptions to the physical landscape and to social institutions and cultural values at the
higher levels occur, often through the accumulating pressure of social and ecological trends at the
landscape level, which can manifest as critical events or shocks. These trends and shocks disrupt the
lower levels, creating windows of opportunities for sustainability transitions. At the organizational field
level, policy organizations may adopt the rhetoric of sustainability to maintain legitimacy in the face of
changing cultural values but only implement non-disruptive measures. Significant policy innovation,
however, has often been driven by groups of instrumental individuals whose situational awareness,
vision, and social acumen enable them to frame policy innovation in a way that can mobilize support.
Urban transitions can take decades to achieve and in order to implement a significant shift in policy
direction requires policy organizations to align their internal culture to that new urban vision. To
address complex problems and implement new approaches, policy agencies need to have a strong
learning culture and the skills to work collaboratively, internally, and externally with key stakeholders
and their urban community.
Table 7 summarizes the barriers to and enablers of urban policy organizations successfully instigating
significant policy changes at each of the five levels. However, as Longsdale et al. (2010: 3–4)
comment, “lists of attributes on their own are of limited use especially as many of the concepts used,
though sounding good, have many potential interpretations and do not give specific detail to explain
how they might be used”. The elements of this framework are therefore tested and refined in Section
5 using the context and detail provided in a case study of a New Zealand city council, Waitakere City
Council (WCC) and its 18-year transition in developing an „Eco City‟.
42
Table 7. Barriers to and enablers of urban policy agencies facilitating urban sustainability transitions
Barriers to transitions Enablers of transitions
Landscape level
Stability of social institutions
Dominant paradigms (e.g., the imperative for economic growth)
Invested power interests
Long lived nature of built environment
Disruptors
Shocks (e.g. natural disaster)
Emerging social & environmental issues
Shifts in social values & paradigms
Periods of renewal of the built environment
Social-technological systems
Invested interests of regime industry
Routines, habits, beliefs, resources, capabilities,
of the regime actors
Policies, standards, knowledge systems that have
co evolve with regime
Societal expectations & symbolic meaning
associated with incumbent regime
Sunken investment in infrastructure & high cost of
change
Economies of scale of incumbent regime
Disruptors
Current technology losing positive image due to landscape
disrupter e.g. resource supply issues, environmental issues
Internalising externalities of incumbent technology
Niche protection for commercialising alternative technologies
Coordinated sector programmes to improve regime
Organisational field
Field-level paradigms
Political compromises, incomplete knowledge &
risk aversion resulting only in non-disruptive
change
Lack of public/media interest/belief in issue: lack
of belief in Gov to address issues or diffused
impact/benefit on vocal/powerful groups
Disruptors
Immature organisational field with evolving institutions
Concentrated issue/policy impact on vocal/powerful groups
Current policy/field level paradigms losing positive image
Policy innovation reframed to broaden support
Capacity building across public sector
Institutions developed for joined up inter-organisational planning
Emergence of professional networks of policy agencies instigating urban transitions
Richer analytical frameworks of social & technical change adopted within specific policy professions
Lower levels of government acting as innovation laboratories
Nature of urban community Strong community leadership & collaboration, a sense of community, strong social networks. Trust built between urban council and community.
Community resources, equity & social support exist
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Barriers of transitions Enablers of transitions
Urban Policy Organisation
Narrow, short-term & local focus
Lack of direction & long-term planning
Sustainability vision largely rhetoric
Structure, culture & processes within organisation generates silo thinking
Expedient community consultation approaches
Organisational culture & skills Situational awareness
Shared vision & goals
Organisational change processes to align to new vision
Leadership
Significant learning culture
Internal & external collaboration
People skills & technical skills valued
Policy practice
Vision embedded in implementation mechanisms
Diverse policy concepts used
Integration of policy development & implementation
Engagement processes designed to build community empowerment,
Individuals
Leadership focussed on self-interest, or short-term goals or constrained by single disciplinary thinking
Individual disrupters
Visionary leadership
Holistic thinkers who think & act beyond their agencies boundaries and interests
Significant social perception & acumen
Ability to recognise & seize opportunities for change
Creativity & willingness to challenge status quo
Building adaptive agencies
Representative, adaptive & collaborative leadership
Conviction, persistence & ability to mobilise resources required for change
Ability to frame innovation to increase broader acceptance
Leading with a light touch but consistently evaluating progress
Ability to build strong committed multi-disciplinary teams
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45
5 Case study: The Waitakere City Council ‘Eco City’
In 1992, three years after the Waitakere City Council (WCC) was first established, a political coalition
was elected to Council on the campaign platform of creating an Eco City. This political coalition in
collaboration with the senior officers intentionally brought about new ways of thinking and operating
within the council and, in contrast to many urban public agencies, took sustainable development
beyond rhetoric and began to apply sustainable development practices within its urban settlement.
This case study of WCC‟s Eco City transition is used to provide an initial assessment of the validity of
the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework. A case study can also provide a more nuanced understanding
of how a policy agency developed its capacity for facilitating urban transitions and illustrate how
factors at different levels of the framework are interdependent. This also helps identify which factors
are within the control of a policy agency and which are not. The case study is presented as a
chronological narrative beginning with factors which initiated the Eco City transition and goes on to
describe the enablers and constraints WCC experienced as it implemented the transition within its
organisation and out in the wider Waitakere community.
5.1 Enablers experienced
5.1.1 Initial disrupters at the landscape & organisational field levels Leading up to instigation of the Eco City in 1992, a number of disrupters occurred to established scail
structures and public sector institutions nationally and international institutions, which created more
fertile ground in which the concept of an „Eco City‟ could take root. First, there was growing concern
and activity on environmental and social issues internationally and within New Zealand. At the
international level in 1987 the Brundtland Commission, convened by the United Nations to address
accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources, published Our Common
Future. Our Common Future framed the environment and social-economic development as a single
issue and raised sustainability onto political agendas internationally. In 1992 the United Nations Rio
Earth Summit also focussed on the interdependencies between ecological and socio-economic
systems and developed Agenda 21, a comprehensive plan of action for transitioning towards a
sustainable development pathway. Global, national, and local organisations were encouraged to
apply Agenda 21 within their localised contexts (United Nations 1992).
At the national level the Labour Government was strongly linked to these international movements,
signing up to a number of international environment conventions during its 1984–1991 terms.6 The
Government also instigated a major natural resource and environmental legislative reform through the
establishment of the Resource Management Act (RMA) which was eventually passed under a
6 Including the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, 1989; South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone
Treaty, 1985
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National Government in 1991. The RMA replaced the Town and Country Planning Act as the key
legislative framework for local government and represented a shift in thinking about the environment
– incorporating „sustainable management‟ as a stated purpose at the heart of the RMA framework.
Exploration of New Zealand‟s potential futures had also been undertaken by the Commission for the
Future (1976–82) and the NZ Planning Council (1982–91) and while both were disbanded by
successive governments because, some argued, they challenged status quo assumptions (Frame &
Pride 2009), the work initiated discussions on how the future might not be just a continuation of the
past.
There was a significant reform of New Zealand local government in 1989, which led to the
establishment of Waitakere City Council and a new group of local councils operating in the Auckland
region. In a drive for efficiencies (WCC 2010), the Labour Government nationally amalgamated 700
local authority units into 86, while in Auckland 30 local authority units were amalgamated into seven,
with Waitakere City Council being created out of Waitamata City and three borough councils. This
shook up the existing local government sector (or organisational field) creating fewer and larger
councils. The 1989 reform also required councils to develop 10-year financial plans which in turn
demanded new skills and processes in long-term planning within the local government sector:
Most of the councillors had been used to running their fingers along a column of figures, not
having plans that took you out 10 years, 20 years, despite the fact that a great deal of where their
money went, .......water, sewage, environment are all long-term things. (ex staff 1)
Historically, New Zealand local government has had a narrower role than many local public agencies
internationally, one commonly described as providing infrastructure services to property (e.g., waste,
water, sewage, local roads) rather than, for example, social services such as education, welfare and
policing. In addition to this relatively narrow role, successive Governments between the ‟80s and early
‟90s put pressure on councils to rely increasingly on the market to deliver many urban outcomes,
reflecting the influences neo-liberal thinking was having on public policy internationally and in New
Zealand over that time period (Ralston Saul 2005).
However, sustained population growth in Auckland placed pressure on existing urban infrastructure
and drove demand for new housing. Councils found that market-led responses to urban development
(e.g., infill housing and cheaply built apartments separated from public transport and other public
facilities) were creating less than optimal social and environmental outcomes for their communities.
So, while local councils were being directed to rely on markets, the growing failure of the market to
provide wider social and environmental benefits from urban development led some councils, including
Waitakere, to adopt a broader remit on how their cities developed.
47
5.1.2 Disrupters to the established organisational culture A new Chief Executive, brought in to lead the new Waitakere City Council in 1989, initiated an
intentional organisational change process. He started by creating a distinct combination of senior
management that included women and people with policy and strategy expertise, both of which were
unusual in New Zealand local government at the time. This team combined established local
expertise with new thinking and combined public and private perspectives.
However, substantive change occurred when a coalition of councillors was elected onto Council in
1992. They were young, diverse in their backgrounds, and the majority were women, which broke the
mould of traditional local body representation (WCC 2010) and brought different perspectives and
expertise to the elected Council. The coalition won on the platform of creating an „Eco City‟, which in
part was based on re-creating the identity of the area, from being the poorer west suburbs of
Auckland to becoming the Eco City of Waitakere:
Some people put their names forward for election who were quite different and they were very
young in their approach and fresh and aspirational and they were elected, I think, because they
offered people living in that area – who probably didn‟t have a good self image – hope and pride.
(ex staff 5)
Bob [Harvey] wanted to change the image from Westie – you know, gas guzzling, Foxton
slacks… all the kids going out of the area for education, bad suburbs kind of stuff – to Waitakere
because that was a new name……. the [new] identity was the gorgeousness of the landscape,
the creativity of the people, the ethnic diversity, the potential to make a better places. (ex staff 1)
5.1.3 Nature of the Waitakere community While there was something distinct about the mix of councillors, interviewees commented that there
was something distinctive about the community that elected them. Waitakere had a small population
of 150,000. The area was made up of large dormitory suburbs (WCC 2010) with many residents
travelling to other parts of the region for work and facilities. Waitakere had relatively high social
deprivation, which intensified in the late ‟80s arguably as a result of the Government‟s policies
including market rents for social housing and the liberalisation of markets 7 (WCC 2010). As well as
the more traditional working-class communities, Waitakere also attracted wealthier, creative, and
politically active people, thus creating a demographically diverse mix of community. Interviewees
commented that many residents tended to remain in the west and contributed this stability in part to
the superb environment – the ranges and coast that surrounded the settlement. The small size, mix of
7 Nationally “income inequality grew very rapidly from 1988 to 1992, with higher incomes increasing and lower
incomes decreasing in real terms.” (Source: Ministry of Social Development 2011 Household Incomes Report).
48
demographics, the core stable community, and connection to the land may have created a more
receptive community for a transition to an Eco City.
There‟s a really strong sense of identity and it‟s quite rooted in the landscape…. People tend to
stay. There might be transients amongst certain groups and maybe amongst certain parts of
[Waitakere] city … but an awful lot of people that worked at the council were actually born here
and went to school here ... and they‟ve gone away and come back here and their parents still live
here. (ex staff 3)
We should actually be doing a lot worse than we are on the basis of our demographic profile but
we haven‟t so there‟s clearly a whole host of factors in there but the fact that we‟ve got quite a
range of people in different backgrounds, it‟s a big contributor. (ex staff 3)
Over the 1980s and 1990s social deprivation was increasing and perhaps due to this trend there was
a sense of energy for change in the community:
We became aware of some quite strong community initiatives… and that was partly because of
the deprivation of the west … There were leaders who loved the west, could see the challenges
and who had been fighting for improvements for a long time. (ex councillor 2).
In contrast, a Salvation Army policy analyst and long-term resident of South Auckland describes how
over the last 20 years young potential leaders in South Auckland have been moving away from their
communities, creating a leadership vacuum and a hollowing out of social capacity (Johnston 2007).
The community leadership capacity in West Auckland, however, remained.
5.1.4 A tangible vision with strategic capability to implement it
The Eco City provided an extremely tangible vision, which was based on “changing a suburbanised,
job deficient, car dependent, relatively deprived area, back into a set of urban-based communities
connected by public transport with locally available jobs and recreation opportunities” (WCC 2010:
31).
The Mayor and those in key political roles strongly and consistently articulated this vision internally
within the council and out into the community (WCC 2010). The Chief Executive insisted that every
staff member was able to clearly articulate how his/her role contributed to the Eco City vision:
I spent three years chairing the planning committee when I first got on the council, so I learnt a lot
about the regulatory regime…. I was always dealing with the rules, there was no strategic vision,
there was nothing to go this is where we‟re trying to get to, here‟s the principles and the way, the
values, this is the way we want to operate. (ex councillor 2)
For about two years, Bob gave the same speech … Now for me that implies a reframing, that we
knew that in order to get traction, in order to change the way the money was spent and where the
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resources were allocated we had to get people to accept a different direction and we needed to
be able to paint a picture of what that would look like… it was very concrete. (ex staff 1)
In response to the newly elected Council, the Chief Executive changed the structure of the Council,
away from a traditional one reflecting the processes of local government to one that reflected the
outcomes that the new councillors was wanted to achieve. Unusually for local councils at that time, a
Strategy and Development Unit was set up to develop and hold the strategic direction of the council.
Agenda 21, which emphasised the inter-relationships between people, the environment and the
economy, became the basis for the Council‟s work programme. The articulation of Agenda 21 was
the Council‟s „Green Print‟ which provided the Council‟s overarching strategy and remained a guiding
document for a considerable period of time:
I still think that the biggest change was the Green Print… That was an articulation of the idea of
stating where you wanted to get to, who you had to work with to get there, what long term change
you were looking to and then what were the steps over a 10-year period to get there. (ex staff 1)
WCC was well aware that it had limited resources in terms of staff and funding to achieve its vision
and strategy and would have to use those resources in a significantly different way. In response the
council strategic approach represented four interrelated shifts in policy thinking for local government
at that time:
1. strategic long-term planning
2. the idea of the council delivering social, economic and environmental outcomes as opposed
to delivering property services
3. the partnership approach taken by WCC with other public agencies, the business community,
community groups, NGOs and residents to achieve those outcomes, and
4. the idea of integrated policy making in contrast to developing environmental, or transport or
economic outcomes in silos.
These shifts collectively enabled WCC to understand the interrelationships between different issues
and outcomes and often to achieve multiple outcomes from the one activity instead of trading one
outcome off for another. The Green Print‟s focus on multiple outcomes cut across the different
departments of the Council which meant that Council departments had to reframe their role and
purpose. For example teams responsible for potable and wastewater had to shift from their traditional
role of delivering water services and start delivering on environmental, social and economic
outcomes. This demanded new policy thinking and new Council approaches.
As an illustration of this shift, a major water catchment restoration programme „Project Twin Streams‟
was designed not only to reduce flooding and water pollution which was its original driver, but it was
also designed to engage the community in environmental protection, build social capital, and
50
generate local employment. In 2010, seven years after the programme began, evaluation of the
programme indicated that “natural, social, human and produced capital had all been accumulated as
a result of PTS” and will continue to do so (MorrisonLow 2010: 1).
While the idea of pursuing win-wins and long-term planning is relatively common today it was
innovative thinking for New Zealand local government in the early „90s and importantly WCC moved
beyond rhetoric to action partly through instigating systematic policy procedures. The council
expected staff members to have gained the buy-in of all relevant departments before new policies or
programmes were presented to Council which interviewees believed helped develop win-win policy
interventions:
So we had a structure that every report that went to council was read by representatives from
each of the units... it meant over time you developed confidence in each other and backup and
that made such an incredible difference. (Ex staff 1)
Reports to Council also required an explanation of how they gave effect to the Green Print, and some
Councillors would actively check the alignment of Council reports to the Greenprint, demonstrating a
strong political commitment to ensuring strategy influenced Council decision-making. Without this
commitment by senior staff and councillors, the Green Print and the eco city strategy it represented
might never have been comprehensively implemented.
Members of the Strategy and Development Unit invested energy in developing relationships with
critical teams (e.g., asset managers) to ensure the strategy and policies they developed could and
would be translated into action. Policy staff members in the unit were expected to do „the hard yards'
to get their heads around any topic area in which they were working. These processes and
commitments to internal collaboration helped to gradually embed the vision and strategy into the
investment programmes and activities of the council.
5.1.5 A collective belief that change was possible Interviewees often spoke of a shared belief between staff and councillors that change was possible,
and commented on a critical mass of staff and councillors having a shared desire to learn and make a
difference in a much more strategic way than was common in local government at that time:
I feel quite excited about it every time I think about that opportunity which we sort of grabbed….
All of us wanted to learn and try to do things differently and I guess it was part of the excitement
of saying we can see the problems here, the challenges in the west, how on earth do we start
turning it round? (ex councillor 2)
People felt they were collectively changing things, making the world a better place … This was
different from other councils where eyes didn‟t light up. (ex staff 6)
51
Senior staff and the new councillors worked closely together and senior officers were committed to
creating an organisational culture that delivered the aspirations of the elected Council. This was
different from the culture within their organisational field of taking a more managerial approach:
It was very unusual to find senior staff and politicians sitting down and working very
collaboratively with a certain degree of trust and respect both ways, not the „them and us‟ that is
often in many councils. (ex councillor 2)
A critical number of the original councillors and senior staff worked together over a number of political
terms, which provided a realistic time frame to implement organisational culture change, develop new
ways of working with their community, and oversee major projects on the ground.
5.1.6 Situational awareness, international networks & seizing opportunities Another key characteristic distinguishing Waitakere from many other types of councils was the ability
of key staff and councillors to draw threads between international movements and their local city
context (WCC 2010). They invited international experts and alternative thinkers in urban design and
sustainable transport and water management to present leading-edge concepts that started to
challenge and open up the thinking within the council. They were also invited to international forums,
which exposed staff and politicians to new ideas, linked them into international networks of people
and local authorities undertaking similar sustainable development journeys, and gained early
credibility within WCC‟s organisational field for the Eco City approach.
WCC also looked for external opportunities to implement their strategy. This leveraging was important
to expand the Council‟s limited influence and resources:
A developer came to the party and the government all of a sudden runs a prize for best library
design, the drought occurs, something comes up and you seize that and then the changes hang
off that rather small component.(ex staff 1)
For example, WCC used the 1993/4 Auckland water crisis, the result of a major drought, as a means
of introducing the idea of sustainable resource use to their residents while the crisis was at the front
of residents‟ minds. They provided residents with „gizmos‟, simple water saving devices they could
install in their toilets. WCC eventually achieved the lowest per capita water consumption in urban
New Zealand (WCC 2010). However, WCC were not successful in advocating for a water demand
management approach when the issue of regional water supply arose and piping water from the
Waikato River went ahead.
5.1.7 Creativity & willingness to challenge the status quo Key senior staff members were prepared to challenge existing paradigms and explore a range of
different policy approaches. For example, the head of Strategy and Development was described as
being willing to challenge the „sacred cows‟ of policy.
52
She would just challenge…the rationale for government intervention… which starts with a
standard economic textbook thing of you have to have a problem or a market failure before you
intervene. She would challenge that and say Why? Who said? Is this some kind of biblical thing?
(ex staff 5)
Conversely, the head of the Strategy and Development unit brought economics and pricing tools into
the environmental space, which had traditionally used regulatory tools. By challenging staff to utilise a
broader approach, she “forced people out of their boxes” (ex staff 5) and opened their minds to
alternative ways of solving problems.
In the late ‟80s and ‟90s, cities and urban issues were not high on the central government‟s agenda,
and urban settlements were commonly understood in policy “as just places people lived” (ex staff 1).
Waitakere City Council, however, chose to try and lead urban development in Waitakere and as
mentioned previously, drew on divergent thinking nationally, and on internationally leading planning
approaches, including McHarg‟s Design with Nature (1969), for inspiration. This led to the Waitakere
District Plan being developed on the principle that an urban settlement needs to sit within, and relate
to, its natural environment. Waitakere was often described during the process of the District Plan, as
one third settlement, one third rural, and one third wilderness, and it was to preserve WCC‟s rural
functions and wilderness areas that a compact urban form was adopted in the District Plan. The
District Plan eventually won a number of awards nationally and internationally for its content and for
its community engagement process (WCC website
www.waitakere.govt.nz/abtcnl/pp/districtplan/history.asp).
WCC continued to facilitate sustainable urban development through its redevelopment of town
centres. This included the New Lynn town centre where WCC again drew on leading thinking for
urban development, this time from the New Urbanism movement, which advocates for mixed land
use, the reduction of motorised transport, a focus both on neighbourhood level planning, localisation
of goods and services, and compact urban form. In addition, WCC consistently advocated for urban
issues and the relationship between urban and the environment to be given more priority in
government agendas.
5.1.8 An intentional organisational change programme The Chief Executive implemented an extensive culture change process within the council to align the
whole of the organisation (approx 600 people) to the new vision, goals, and values. All staff had to
attend a multi-day retreat, called the Eco City experience, which introduced staff to the Waitakere
vision, strategy, and way of working. Senior management also intentionally identified and developed
champions for the change process across the council (WCC 2009):
53
We did heaps and heaps of training, heaps, on all sorts of levels…. over time shifting people,
letting them ask any question they wanted to because still if they wanted to walk out they‟d walk
out, it‟s not censoring but gradually over time it built up understanding. (ex staff 1)
WCC attempted to build a culture where open discussion could take place and dissenting views were
allowed, experiments could fail and achievements were celebrated (WCC 2010). A critical number of
staff across the council began to embrace the new thinking and were able to translate that thinking
into their own area of responsibility. The culture change was a gradual transition requiring a decade
of culture change, and not everyone in the Council was receptive. The commitment and consistency
from senior management and politicians during those first 10 years was therefore critical.
Recruitment criteria were developed to encourage soft skills sets across the organisation, including
good communication and empathy, as well as technical skills. These people skills were critical for
facilitating integration within the council and for working with external stakeholders and the
community. Recruitment also deliberately encouraged a more diverse range of staff – including more
diverse ages and more ethnic representation (WCC 2010). The Strategy and Development Unit
created an inter-disciplinary team and recruited people with different skill sets to support a more
holistic approach to delivering outcomes. This disciplinary mix appeared to have helped challenge
some of the institutionalised thinking within the council which was constraining the Eco City approach.
5.1.9 Working with others to achieve goals One of WCC‟s key policy approaches was taking a partnership approach and working with other
public agencies, the Waitakere business sector, NGOs and residents to collectively achieve
outcomes. As their aspirations were considerably bigger than their influence, WCC needed to bring
others on board to support the Eco City transition. WCC developed a partnering policy document
(WCC 2009: 10) that describes the rationale for this approach: “Successful city building now relies on
a diverse range of groups and agencies working together in many different ways – pooling
knowledge, resources, assets, ideas, energies and commitments to make change happen”.
The policy outlines a continuum of partnerships, allowing for a flexible approach in working with
others depending on circumstances. Core principles stress holding a holistic outcomes focus,
developing partnerships based on mutual respect, and ensuring equality in working relationships. A
practice guide for staff was developed to help build staff capacity and specific partnering champions
within the council were resourced and supported. A number of successes were attributed to this
approach, including the social benefits achieved through Project Twin Streams (MorrisonLow 2010)
and central government and public private partnerships that facilitated the New Lynn Transit Oriented
Development (WCC 2009).
WCC spent enormous effort advocating their goals to other public agencies and setting up external
partnerships in attempts to gain support and investment to implement them. Some interviewees,
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however, felt that that WCC did not achieve enough benefits for the effort expended, particularly in
terms of advocating public transport initiatives with central government.
5.1.10 Facilitating environmental improvements within a technological regime
WCC continued to adopt a broad role in meeting its sustainability outcomes for its settlement,
including instigating a cleaner production programme with local businesses. For example, WCC
facilitated a sustainability transition within the local printing industry to address the effects that toxins
from the printing process were having on worker health and to address the environmental impacts
that printing chemicals were having in the trade water system. WCC wanted to demonstrate how
environmental printing could be done using low Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) cleaners and
vegetable rather than chemical-based printing inks. The timing for instigating change was right. The
industry was poised to move from plate and ink printing to digital printing, which looked to impact the
viability of many small firms that existed in Waitakere. In addition, research had just been published
linking the toxicity of printing ink used by the industry to health issues experienced by print workers:
We were hearing about examples of printers driving home from work getting breath tested and
finding they were over the alcohol limit. They hadn‟t been drinking at work, they‟d just been working
in the alcohol fumes which came from the cleaning compounds they were using. There was also a
link between people working in the printing sector and alcohol abuse, and this was linked to their
use of the alcohol cleaners. (ex staff 6)
This created an appetite within the sector to explore change. WCC brought together different
organisations including local printers, their supplier, and the union, who then collectively agreed to
reduce toxicity and waste in the printing sector. There was a high degree of interest and energy
present within the group and the social acumen and passion of the project coordinator may have
helped create a catalyst for change: “I think the big success was we managed to actually pull together
quite a diverse group of people who had never talked together before and they all had the same
vision. We shared a common goal.” (ex staff 6)
An initial challenge was to get printers to agree to trial new vegetable-based ink and recycled paper.
In response WCC offered to pay a small premium for their corporate print runs to incentivise the trials.
WCC then worked with the other Auckland councils to develop a larger market for those printers who
choose to transition, i.e. they created a new and secure market for technology adoption.
This enabled a broader uptake of the environmental technology, the early adopters were provided
with a safe, equitable market, and over time other printers realised if they didn‟t transition they would
lose work from some large customers. The programme, even at this small city scale, generated
ripples throughout the printing industry. The project helped to stimulate nationwide adoption of low
VOC cleaners, vegetable based inks, leading to a reduction in industry-related health issues: “Health-
55
related claims had dropped by $1.2 million around the printing industry in one year because of the
shift away from the VOC”. (ex staff 6)
5.1.11 Adopting new technological niche for urban sustainability
As well as facilitating improvements to current social-technological regimes, WCC also attempted to
facilitate the market adoption of an emerging niche technology for stormwater and catchment
management, Low Impact Urban Design and Development (LIUDD). In contrast to conventional hard
engineering approaches, LIUDD manages stormwater by utilising natural systems and minimising
impervious surfaces through low tech devices including swales, rain gardens, green roofs, and ponds.
Compared with conventional development, LIUDD slows peak stormwater flows and reduces water
pollution and stream erosion.
LIUDD was a very new technological approach to stormwater management. Research on barriers to
LIUDD adoption undertaken in the Auckland region in 2004 (Easton et al. 2004) identified common
barriers to niche technology uptake including lack of awareness by developers and residents of
LIUDD as an alternative to conventional approaches and of the additional benefits that LIUDD
approaches can provide, concern over the cost and performance of LIUDD compared with
conventional approaches, lack of demonstration sites to emulate, and lack of skills and knowledge
within the stormwater and construction industry to design, build, and manage LIUDD approaches.
To address this, WCC again used their international links to bring in experts in the field to explore
how LIUDD might provide benefits to WCC. WCC built provisions for LIUDD in the WCC‟s District
Plan and developed LIUDD guidelines in its code of practice for infrastructure (WCC 2008) in order to
facilitate uptake of LIUDD approaches by developers and residents. WCC incorporated LIUDD in new
public buildings and developments to provide demonstration sites. This included partnering with
research agencies to design and monitor the performance of a green roof utilising native plants on the
new council civic building, which helped translate LIUDD design principles to New Zealand conditions
(Landcare Research 2011).
WCC also adopted a LIUDD approach for a major water catchment restoration project, Project Twin
Streams. Project Twin Streams was originally driven by the need to address significant flooding
issues in one suburban catchment. Staff decided that the traditional engineering approach of building
dams and stream channelling would be too expensive and would use an extensive amount of land.
Instead, the Council initiated a major stream restoration project that included buying 100 properties in
the flood zone and then undertook extensive riparian management to improve the catchment water
quality, increase biodiversity, and open the streams up for active transport and public open space.
The project was made possible by a substantial 10-year grant from Infrastructure Auckland.8
8 Infrastructure Auckland was established in 1998 and one of its roles was to allocate grants for transport and
stormwater projects in the Auckland region.
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5.1.12 Working with the community as a core strategic approach The collaborative approach WCC took with the community was a key policy innovation based upon
the belief that it is critical to work with the community in order to achieve outcomes: “A lot of people
believed that that collaborative community way of working was a strong way of working, a respectful
way of working, very challenging and very scary for some of the government departments.” (ex staff
3)
The first District Plan was a critical step in engaging the wider community in long-term implementation
of the Eco City vision. District plans in New Zealand at that time had tended to be very regulatory and
prescriptive. WCC, however, saw the Plan as the opportunity to engage the community in the issues
facing the city, and get community buy-in for a sustainable development approach. Key to the vision
was halting urban sprawl and developing a compact urban form with intensified urban centres.
Because issues such as urban sprawl are complex, WCC held approximately 100 pubic
engagements and used visual communication to get that complexity across in an assessable way:
We used two images, one was of the compact city… it was just a diagram going here‟s the
problem….all the stuff the urban stuff does to the natural environment…We also used a
painting,... as if you were flying over the city and you could see the surrounding of harbours and
you could see the magnitude of the bush. Those were the two symbols of what we were trying to
achieve….to manage urban growth in a way that didn‟t damage the environment and was good
for people. But it also started to let people see the city as a whole...using some images that you
talk to rather than the long reports that we still write and we expect people to read and they simply
won‟t. (ex councillor 2)
Many of the councillors were prepared to listen and to try to find common ground with residents
objecting to the District Plan, increasing informal pre-discussions on the District plan before the
planning hearings. In addition, Dorothy Wilson, the Deputy Mayor at the time, who led the District
Plan development was skilled at achieving political consensus for the hundreds of individual decisions
the Council needed to make to ratify the Plan. Very few decisions failed to reach a consensus. As a
tangible indicator of the effectiveness of that process, WCC was possibly the only council who did not
receive objections to its urban intensification provisions (WCC 2010).
Most urban residents, however, do not get directly involved in their council planning processes and
have very little day-to-day contact or knowledge of what councils are doing. Therefore in the early
days, the Mayor focused on getting the wider community to feel they actually owned or were
connected with WCC. Here the Mayor‟s creativity and ability of creating a sense of occasion was
crucial. He encouraged a wide range of people and groups to get involved in the Council‟s vision,
supporting public art, music, sports, Maori culture, and theatre. Public events were important
especially to connect those hard to reach residents:
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We had a wonderful older women‟s weekend in the council building, we took over the whole
building and had workshops and food and music… and I remember women going “Wow, I feel
different about this place now because it‟s actually ours. It‟s not yours, it‟s ours”. (ex councillor 2)
Over time WCC moved from a community engagement to a community empowerment model. This
started early on with the Council‟s approach to working with community groups in order to support
those groups in achieving their goals rather than trying to direct community-led projects.
The Council eventually began to employ community groups and individuals to implement council
projects including environmental programmes. Project Twin Streams, for example, not only adopted
new LIUDD technologies but also contracted community groups to implement the community-based
stream restoration programme. This was based in part on a belief that successful stormwater
management needs to gain the support of the local community, as it requires their active knowledge
and commitment in terms of behaviour (e.g., not tipping pollutants down stormwater drains and
minimising the impervious surfaces of their properties). Equally, the approach aimed to achieve
multiple outcomes from the one programme, i.e. improve catchment water quality, connect people to
their streams, improve social capital, and create local employment. Monitoring indicates that 12,500
individuals, representing a diverse range of the community, volunteered in this programme
(MorrisonLow 2010). Monitoring also suggests that social capital increased in geographic areas
where residents were most aware of Project Twin Steams, in terms of civic engagement and trust in
neighbours (MorrisonLow 2010). Over the 5 years until its disestablishment in 2010, WCC began to
focus on place-based empowerment programmes whereby specific staff would build relationships
with and support specific neighbourhood communities.
There were different philosophical views within the Council on the approach that should be taken in
working with the community. Some people believed that the Council‟s priorities should focus on what
the community believed were the issues to be addressed, thus creating a very community-led Council
agenda. Others strongly believed that while the community should be part of everything the Council
did, be it stream restoration or town centre redevelopment, the Council still needed to prioritise issues
that might not be currently on the community‟s agenda but were necessary for long-term community
well-being. The strong engagement process from the latter viewpoint was in part to increase the
community‟s knowledge of emerging issues and to provide them with a more informed understanding
of why the Council was pursuing certain goals (e.g., urban intensification). However, this highlights
the potential challenge in providing participatory forms of local decision-making while at the same
time ensuring that more diffused and emerging issues such as climate change are still prioritised on
public and political agendas.
5.1.13 Working with iwi
Early on in the Eco City transition, key political representatives and staff built formal relationships with
the local iwi and as a first for the Auckland region, the council resourced Māori to participate in
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planning processes (WCC 2010), which led to the creation of Te Taumata Runanga, a standing
committee of the Council with a role in the decision-making process on matters of concern and
cultural significance to the Māori community. Staff were given training and support for effectively
working with Māori, including understanding Māori tikanga and te reo Māori9 (WCC 2010).
5.1.14 Demonstrating early success through tangible catalyst projects WCC implemented many visible public projects which some interviewees believed, helped gain
acceptance by both staff and the community: “People loved the building of libraries; they loved the
building of sports centres and stadium, all of that sort of stuff. So they vaguely knew, in my view, that
this was greenie stuff”. (ex staff 1)
The new urban development facilitated by the Council-owned land development agency and the
Council-led redevelopment of urban centres and transport projects, started to put in place the
physical foundations required for a sustainable development transition and these investments
showcased sustainable urban design (WCC 2010). The Council‟s emphasis on infrastructure and
town centre development, both of which support economic development, was also believed to be
more acceptable to Central Government at that time (WCC 2010).
5.1.15 Leadership & innovation While part of WCC‟s ability to initiate and implement the Eco City vision arose from the synergistic
mix of councillors and officers, the contributions of individuals were critical. A number of key
individuals both within the Council and from the community provided the leadership that enabled
WCC to pursue many of its goals. Several key individuals within the council are described below to
illustrate some of the attributes they brought to the transition process.
The Mayor, who served six consecutive terms (18 years), was charismatic and creative with strong
communication skills. He was known and liked by residents, and with a diverse background in sports,
business, and politics he was able to “cross political boundaries, broker deals and build bridges with
diverse groups and individuals” (WCC 2010). He had the confidence to speak about the Eco City
internationally, and the Eco City‟s international coverage helped gained its acceptance in NZ. Last,
while councillors and staff changed over the years, the Mayor consistently carried the Eco City vision
forward.
Several key women councillors, including two deputy mayors, were exceptionally good at working
with communities and in building consensus within the Council. They were holistic thinkers, they had
courage and persistence in achieving council goals, and they had the intellectual capacity to put detail
and implementation mechanisms in the vision.
9 Māori tikanga are general behaviour guidelines for daily life and interaction in Māori culture based upon the
Māori world view and Te reo Māori is the Māori language.
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The initial CE was committed to delivering the political vision (WCC 2010) and was described as
being “amazingly unafraid”. He was prepared to take risks and deal with the conflict that change
processes inevitably generate. He was also able to recognise the strengths of his staff and empower
them to succeed.
The head of the Strategy and Development unit was described as having the ability to see where
WCC needed to go and put that into a stepwise plan of action, internally and externally. She was
/central to linking the council to international and national networks of best urban practice, she
understood the need to work with the implementation departments of the council to translate strategy
to investment and, as previously mentioned, she challenged and broadened conventional policy
thinking.
Without leadership from staff who managed key infrastructure or regulatory functions in the council,
strategies are unlikely to become implemented on the ground. One infrastructure manager in
particular was seen as being particularly proactive in engaging in the new concept of sustainable
development. He consistently sought out examples of how other cities designed and managed their
infrastructure. He was a holistic thinker but was also able to take a pragmatic approach to bedding
the strategy down in the Council‟s asset management system and infrastructure plans (WCC 2010).
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5.2 Barriers Waitakere‟s Eco City vision created a gradual transition that experienced successes but also
experienced the following barriers.
5.2.1 Internal resistance There was considerable internal resistance to the new management and councillors, especially in the
first 3 years. There was also internal resistance to new ways of operating, perhaps due to fear of the
unknown and fear of failure. The latter may have been more of an issue for staff responsible for
physical structures and those in regulatory roles: “All my staff were engineers and I think there‟s an
inherent feeling that we can‟t build things that fail. That inhibits innovation and you tend to take the
tried and true”. (ex staff 4)
Equally, the adoption of the new niche technology of LIUDD met a number of barriers internally.
Despite building provision for LIUDD approaches into the District Plan, interviewees leading the
LIUDD approach found Council consent officers would continue to reject or stall building and resource
consents that utilised LIUDD approaches. This created barriers for developers and residents adopting
LIUDD as it created extra delay and cost involved in consent processing.
… in the early days of the eco city, [WCC] bought over some people from Australia, ...and these
guys said the biggest barrier to change are going to be your regulators,...and I thought to myself,
„Oh that possibly couldn‟t happen in Waitakere city, we‟re all on the same page‟… Lo and behold
that proved to be the case. (ex staff 4)
Interviewees believed this internal resistance to facilitating new practices and technologies often
occurred when staff had not been part of developing the new approach, as they felt no ownership to
make it work: “What I found out with people, is that unless it‟s their own idea they won‟t support it”.
(ex staff 4)
Generally, however, it was individuals who either created or broke down the barriers. Often a new
senior staff in a formally resistant unit would have the ability to see how they could robustly translate
the Eco City approach within their council function, and change occurred. At other times a person with
decision-making power would just find the ideas unthinkable.
5.2.2 Constraints imposed by some traditional policy mindsets and tools
Sometimes resistance also appeared to be a consequence of ingrained thinking within specific
professional groups, for example, one interviewee commented on the difficulty of shifting the transport
planners from a demand and supply model for transport to an approach using investment and policies
to manage transport demand. In addition, the traditional tools used, such as transport models, tended
to reinforce conventional thinking. Traditional tools like transport models however carry a certain
authority: “I know what models are like, they have all sorts of assumptions but they become like little
pieces of magic, everybody believes the result”. (ex staff 4)
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The other tool cited as creating a barrier to change was cost benefit analysis, which often proved a
barrier to WCC‟s multiple-outcome approach because the social and environmental aspects of WCC
projects were hard to measure. WCC often lacked baseline data and it was often difficult to quantify
the multiple benefits of programmes such as Project Twin Streams into single financial figures. Single
financial figures, however, frequently had more power than, for example, narratives of community
engagement in WCC programmes, making it more difficult to communicate the benefits of WCC‟s
LIUDD and community empowerment approaches:
The challenge has always been around the cost benefit. It‟s always come down to the argument
about the dollar,… we say all the right things, sustainability, environmental, social, cultural, but
when it comes to actually putting our hands in the pocket we only understand the dollar sign. (ex
staff 4)
5.2.3 Loss of key change agents
Despite the organisational culture change and processes for strategy implementation there was still
loss of momentum in the overall strategy when key staff or councillors moved on. Individuals often
held strong relationships with other organisations, they often generated excitement and buy-in from
others, and in the political realm they were at times replaced by councillors who did not support the
Eco City vision. As highlighted in the Rooke and Torbert (2005) leadership model, leaders who can
draw people around a new direction are rare and cannot easily be replaced when they move on.
5.2.4 The nature of Waitakere’s built environment Waitakere is geographically spread out, with relatively low population density, and interviewees in the
case study commented that the low density urban form limited what could be done to create a more
sustainable transport system.
5.2.5 Shifting social practices Auckland Regional Council research in 2004 examined how residents in New Lynn, which has a large
new-immigrant population, might be encouraged to reduce private vehicle trips and increase their use
of public transport. Identified barriers from that research included: lack of supporting infrastructure
(see 5.2.4); lack of public transport services (including difficulties in getting competing bus companies
to provide integrated ticketing); concerns over personal safety travelling by bus; and the symbolic
association between personal transport and personal independence, where the research identified
that many new immigrants would stop catching public transport as soon as they could afford a car, as
driving a car was a symbol of achieving success and independence in their new country (Auckland
Regional Council 2004, report unpublished).
5.2.6 Limited role and influence of the Council
Finally, the limited direct influence of local public authorities was seen as a significant barrier to
WCC‟s ability to instigate change. Waitakere's urban form and land use is shaped by the region‟s
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urban form, by the regional transport system, and by labour markets, which collectively influence
where urban growth occurs and where business and industry locate. Central government is
responsible for regional transport, while the Regional Council and other Auckland councils collectively
help shape regional urban form. In addition, none of these agencies has much control over the global
market factors affecting firm location and therefore jobs or local residential housing markets.
WCC could work within its own sphere of influence and grow that sphere through a strong advocacy
role and through its empowerment of community organisations but there were limits to what it could
influence or afford. The Council invested enormous effort in advocating its goals with local
developers, business sectors, and other public agencies. Sometimes progress would be made but
then receptive staff in those other organisations left, or the central government‟s priorities changed,
setting back the progress WCC had made. This limited influence will continue to constrain New
Zealand local councils‟ attempts to facilitate significant urban transitions. In a recent media article,
commentator Rod Oram (Oram 2011) describes how the three major cities in NZ have each recently
released progressive city strategies based on compact urban form, sustainable development, and the
maximisation of their city‟s economic potential. Oram argues that one of their biggest challenges will
be persuading central government to “engage constructively” in supporting these strategies opposed
to what Orum describes as the government push for “more roads, low density sprawl and the least
investment it can get away with”.
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5.3 Analysis against the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework
WCC has often been regarded as a change agent both in Waitakere itself and in New Zealand local
government. WCC introduced a sustainable development approach, LIUDD, urban centres
development and compact urban design before most New Zealand cities. The Council has also been
innovative in policy thinking by taking an integrative approach for managing for multiple outcomes and
adopting community empowerment approaches. When assessed against the Adaptive Urban Policy
Framework some key factors and insights can be highlighted from the WCC case study.
5.3.1 The Landscape and field levels
There were significant disruptions at the landscape and field levels that created enabling conditions
for WCC to instigate a sustainable development approach. The amalgamation of local government in
New Zealand in 1989 created a new group of council organisations providing a window of opportunity
to introduce new people and new thinking into the local government organisational field. Waitakere
was unique among New Zealand councils in grasping that opportunity.
There was growing concern about global environmental issues and social inequality and in response;
forums and networks on sustainable development and futuring were developing internationally and
nationally. Reports such as Agenda 21 provided blueprints for how local government might approach
sustainable development. Key individuals within the Council were adept at making the linkages
between these movements and the Waitakere context, drawing on expert knowledge and resources
from their national and international networks. Bringing international experts to New Zealand and,
conversely, presenting the Eco City vision at international forums, exposed the council to leading
edge thinking and importantly, helped gain credibility within their organisational field for the
sustainable approach on which they had embarked.
In 1989 Waitakere was a low density collection of townships and suburbs with a growing population
and a historic under-investment in physical and social infrastructure (along with the rest of Auckland).
The Government‟s ideology at the time of relying on the market was a potential constraint on WCC‟s
approach of taking a more strategic approach to urban development. However, urban growth and
intensification left to market responses was producing poor environmental and social outcomes,
which provided the impetus for WCC to broaden its role. Similar to Rabe‟s (2004) findings of policy
entrepreneurs involved in GHG reduction initiatives, key individuals in WCC were adept at framing the
new sustainable development approach in the dominant public service paradigm of the time both by
adopting economic tools and by investing in tangible infrastructure.
Growing social deprivation and concern for environmental degradation in Waitakere created an
appetite to instigate a new vision and approach from Waitakere community leaders. The new Council
was elected by a distinctive and diverse community, who appeared to have been inspired by the
promise of an improved identity for their community.
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WCC also seized windows of opportunity created by disruptions from the landscape level to
accelerate change, including leveraging off flooding issues to introduce community-engaged
catchment management, and leveraging off the 1993/4 Auckland drought to encourage household
water conservation.
WCC was able to move urban growth and sustainability onto the public agenda through extensive
public engagement designed to get people to think differently about their city. Building community
buy-in facilitated their ability to implement a degree of urban intensification. They also gained public
support by delivering tangible short-term projects that provided concentrated benefits to residents so
these might secure support for the policies with more diffused and long-term benefits, including
transport and water management. This reflects Wilson‟s theory on concentrated and diffused impacts
(1973). Over time WCC broadened out from a community to a community empowerment approach to
build capacity within the community to contribute to the Eco City vision.
WCC also spent considerable energy on building coalitions of support with NGOs, the private sector,
and government agencies to implement discussion outside their remit. However, there were
significant limits to their influence on shifting central government priorities, and market forces outside
their control constrained their ability to achieve many of their goals.
5.3.2 Socio-technological regimes WCC attempted to influence several existing socio-technological regimes, including adopting LIUDD
for storm water management, facilitating a shift from the private transport regime to active and public
transport use, and reducing toxins in the printing regime.
WCC introduced LIUDD as a catchment and stormwater management technology through Project
Twin Streams, through the design of new council buildings, and through provisions in the District
Plan. Significant flooding issues and Infrastructure Auckland‟s substantive funding for stormwater
projects collectively created a window of opportunity to implement the LIUDD based Project Twin
Streams. WCC encountered many of the technological, social, and institutional barriers highlighted in
MLP when a niche technology competes against the incumbent regime. The Council also met barriers
internally, particularly from consent staff who delayed or rejected LIUDD consent applications, which
in turn reduced developer and community adoption of the technology.
Waitakere‟s low density urban form (at the landscape level), which had co-evolved with the private
car regime, constrained the ability of WCC to facilitate major shifts from private to public transport due
to the high sunken cost of existing infrastructure and the low population base to run financially viable
public transport services. External barriers included inertia from central government for rail
development and the symbolic association between car ownership and personal success that many
local residents held. Staff also met with internal organisational barriers including difficulty in shifting
the paradigm of thinking and the tools used by transport planners from a predict-and-supply model to
managing transport demand.
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Finally, WCC was successful in improving the environmental performance of the local printing
industry, which stimulated a nation-wide adoption of cleaner production within the printing industry.
Economic, health, and environment drivers for change came together at the same time, which helped
WCC secure interest from the different players within the printing industry. WCC reduced industry
resistance to new practices by funding a trial to prove the new materials could work and by creating a
niche market through enlisting other Auckland councils to support early adopters of environmental
printing.
5.3.3 The Organisational Level
At the organisational level, a new larger organisation, new senior management, and a radically
different group of politicians provided the critical mass for initiating the Eco City transition.
Senior officers undertook an intentional organisational culture change process to build the
commitment and the capacity of staff to deliver on the Eco City vision. Many councillors and staff had
strong communication and facilitation skills that enabled them to bring their colleagues and external
stakeholders on board for that journey of implementation.
Key change agents within WCC spent considerable time in the early 1990s working with the
implementation teams of the council to translate strategy into action. The need to embed change in
implementation mechanisms is outlined in the adaptive organisation literature but is less frequently
discussed in policy innovation literature. Systematically embedding new thinking and principles into
council units that implement policy through building strong relationships between policy and
implementation staff was a key factor in WCC‟s success. Importantly, this was coupled with a
comprehensive programme that exposed all staff and councillors to sustainable development
approaches and to WCC‟s core values and principles. Many of the key change agents worked
together for over 6 years, providing time for those changes to be bedded down.
Specific policy and planning tools, including cost benefit analysis and transport models, constrained
the transition. These tools appeared to have built in assumptions and concepts that were not aligned
to the new direction. Equally, some professions, including engineering and consent staff appeared
less innovative than others, possibly because their responsibilities had inherent structural or legal
risks attached to them.
All the organisational attributes outlined in the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework, including situational
awareness, a clear vision and goals imbedded in implementation mechanisms, and a culture of
working together internally and externally, are reflected in the WCC case study. But these
organisational attributes appear to have first belonged to individuals or groups of individuals who then
deliberately institutionalised them in the Council over a decade of change management. The WCC
case study therefore demonstrates that adaptive policy agencies can be created through the
leadership and attributes of a critical mass of individuals.
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5.3.4 The individual level
At the individual level, several key individuals identified in the research exhibited characteristics of
Rooks and Talbot‟s (2005) „strategist leaders‟ namely, thinking and acting across societal levels,
dealing with conflict, and believing their organisation had the ability to transform. These individuals
enabled organisational change to occur through aspects mentioned in the Adaptive Urban Policy
Framework, including creating and consistently reinforcing a guiding vision and goals, investing in
relationship building, and organisational learning. In specifically leading policy change, key individuals
reflected a number of the attributes of the Framework – conviction, passion and persistence,
persuasive communication, and social acumen. Passion and flexibility were identified in the
interviews as important paired attributes to avoid passion leading to people becoming dogmatic in
their beliefs. Additionally, a strong interdisciplinary policy team was developed and policy
entrepreneurs within the Council were unafraid to challenge existing paradigms or test new
approaches.
5.3.5 The nature of the transition
The Eco City illustrated a paradigm shift by the WCC in how cities should develop and in the role
local government should play in facilitating that development. In terms of Baumgartner and Jones‟
(1993) punctuated process policy change, while the Eco City vision was rapid in its initiation through
the Eco City political platform of 1992, it took over a decade to be adopted across most parts of the
organisation, and will take even longer to be implemented on the ground. Interviewees used the
metaphor of a tug slowly turning a ship around to describe the process of shifting Council staff and
councillors onto this new course. This suggests that institutions do not naturally re-orientate to a
newly adopted policy direction and that policy change at this scale requires a consistent commitment
and management over a decade in order to be institutionally bedded-in. A major turnover in key staff
or political representation, for example, could reverse such a paradigm shift, especially when the
initial shift is as innovative in its organisational field as WCC‟s.
To avoid any community/interest group backlash and to be able to step back from approaches if they
didn‟t succeed, WCC took an incremental approach in many of its policies for the reasons outlined in
the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework. At times they realised they could not drive through change for
which the community was not ready and had to step back from some ideas. However, the Council‟s
approach to town centre redevelopment and to developing rail capacity was intended to catalyze a
decisive shift in the city‟s trajectory, in the way that major changes to the physical landscape can.
Baumgartner and Jones (1993) contend that the short periods of opportunity for policy innovation
within their punctuated equilibrium model cannot be planned or directed, only capitalised on. WCC‟s
ability to initiate the Eco City does in part appear to be due to the fortuitous assemblage of external
disruptors to established institutions and the synergistic mix of new councillors and staff who came
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together and who were able to utilise weak signals for change that were being created through
international movements and local issues (see Figure 5).
Figure 5 Initial disrupters creating opportunities for change.
In this sense the assemblage of factors could not be collectively pre-planned; however, it is wrong to
imagine there was simply an empty window of change into which the key actors were able to step.
While global trends created opportunities for the Eco City, pressure to rely on market forces by
successive Governments could have constrained WCC, and WCC could have remained largely a
provider of property infrastructure services. Instead, key actors, sometimes in unison but often as a
loose network, enlarged windows of opportunity through creating linkages with international
movements, through creating a compelling vision, through having the expertise and commitment for
working with their community, and through their ability to work within existing political paradigms while
at the same time challenging and knocking some of the bricks out of them. One of the interviewees
quoted Bob Harvey as saying “it is wrong to be right at the wrong time” to stress how important sense
of timing of key individuals‟ was in judging when those windows of opportunity were opening.
Key individuals strategically embedded that change both into the implementation mechanisms of the
organisation and into the culture of the council itself. It was this persistent focus on culture change
and on the implementation of the vision that distinguishes the Eco City from other sustainable city
visions that have failed to move off the printed page of Council strategies.
Landscape
Org. fiel d
Organisati on
Initial disrupters creating opportunity for change
Growing knowledge/concern over environmental issues Global political movement on sustainability
Individuals/Gov. hooked into global movements
Current neo - liberal policy losing support
Social networks exploring sustainability
Local community mobilization
Local Gov Reform 1998
Eco city political platform
New Organization New CE/Management
New vision and approach for council
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6 Synthesis
The key findings of the thesis are summarised in this section against the following research
questions:
1. Can urban transitions in response to global change be largely left to the market or will urban
policy agencies need to actively facilitate transitions?
2. What factors might constrain policy agencies in facilitating social and technical transitions in
urban settlements? Conversely, what factors enable urban policy agencies to facilitate social
and technical transitions in urban settlements?
3. How might policy agencies make use of insights into the social and technological change
explored in the framework, namely resilience and MLP, in their policy development?
The synthesis draws on the characteristics of peak oil and climate change from Section 4 and on two
theories of social and technological change explored within the Framework – Resilience and MLP – to
address question 1. The enablers and barriers identified in the Waitakere City Council case study are
compared with the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework and key findings are summarised to address
question 2. Finally, consideration is given to how policy agencies might utilise insights into social and
technological change provided by the concepts of MLP and resilience in their policy analysis to
facilitate urban transitions to address question 3.
6.1 Why urban agencies will need to facilitate urban transitions
6.1.1 To ensure new technologies can compete with incumbent regimes
As a conceptual tool for understanding urban transitions, MLP reflects a broadening of explanatory
power of innovation models over the last 50 years, from factors within the control of the firm, to
networks of production, and finally to a system of firms, customers, industry supply chains, regulators,
professional and social institutions, the physical environment, and culture. Due to the
interdependencies between these later factors, society and cities become locked into certain
trajectories even when that incumbent technological solution has become suboptimal (Arthur 1988).
So while market forces, including price signals, are critical in stimulating sustainability technologies,
there are institutional, physical, and social barriers that policy agencies can help overcome (Clayton
et al. 1999; Elzen 2002).
Left to the market, innovation will predominantly optimise the incumbent technology (e.g., increase
car fuel efficiency) rather than radically changing it, unless significant disruptors to the regime occur.
Even then, alternative niche technologies need to be at a mature stage of development to take
advantage of windows of opportunity created by any regime disruption. In addition, some niche
technological solutions could intensify other global change issues, for example, converting coal to
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liquid fuel will increase energy-related carbon emissions, and converting food crops to biofuel crops is
already aggravating global food shortages.
Collectively, these factors indicate that public policy at different governmental levels is required both
to disrupt the incumbent regimes to drive change and to support the development and
commercialisation of sustainable niche technologies.
6.1.2 Markets alone will be too slow to create smooth transitions
It can take decades to fully mainstream new or even improved technologies, particularly those that
need to be embedded in the built environment, and these timeframes may result in cities becoming
significantly impacted by rising oil prices and climate change before a transition to reduce oil
dependency or adaptations to local impacts of climate change can occur. As outlined in Section 4, the
world needs to start working on replacement transport fuels 20 years before oil peaks (Pacheco
2006), and even moving a small proportion of electric vehicles and supply systems into the city‟s
transport system could take 20 years (Newman 2009). However, markets may not fully respond until
significant and consistent impacts are felt, for example, on fuel prices. Public policy is required to
accelerate and thereby create smoother transitions in urban functions such as transport.
6.1.3 Limitations to rational decision-making
Bill English argued in Parliament (2011) that fuel prices will stimulate individual New Zealanders to
make sensible decisions to reduce their dependency on oil and therefore the Government‟s role is
primarily to ensure that changes in price flows quickly through the market. MLP, however,
demonstrates that people and groups develop cultural practices and symbolic associations with an
incumbent technology, which, along with cognitive factors such as habit and skills, also contribute to
individual‟s decision-making. These non-price-related influencers on behaviour can collectively delay
an individual‟s decision to reduce dependency on oil, especially as oil prices are expected to continue
to fluctuate (Smith C 2010), creating uncertainty for consumers about the relative risk of peak oil. This
reinforces CSIRO‟s analysis that “there are likely to be only moderate preparatory responses by
individuals and businesses”, in Australia to peak oil, and “therefore government intervention will be
required” (2008: 11).
6.1.4 Co-dependency of technology with the built environment
MLP also illustrates how infrastructure and the built environment has co-evolved with the private
motor vehicle in New Zealand, creating low density urban form that, while providing lifestyle benefits,
has reduced the transport options of many suburban and peri-rural residents. New Zealanders are
vulnerable to peak oil, having the second highest vehicle use in the OECD (Ministry for Environment
2010).
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Evidence in Australia suggests that poorer households are becoming more concentrated on the urban
fringes due to cheaper land, which increases their dependency on private car use (Newman et al.
2009). If adaptation to increased oil prices is left to market forces and individual choice, cities might
become more geographically divided between rich and disadvantaged communities. Instead,
Newman et al. suggest that cities will need to be redesigned in form and function so that residents
can drive 25–50 % less than they do today, and cities will need to be proactive in that redesign in
order to transition at a rate that maintains “the social fabric of the city in the process” (2009: 33).
Redesigning less oil- and carbon-intensive cities will require united action from a range of parties long
before significant price signals hit. The facilitation of those parties is arguably better placed with public
agencies than left to the invisible hand of the market.
6.1.5 Resilience is a collective social attribute
Resilience research has demonstrated that having a community made up of resilient (or adaptive)
individuals does not necessarily create a resilient community. Rather, people need to be resilient
together to prepare and respond to societal wide threats, and resilience has to be built across
individual, community, and institutional scales (Paton 2006b). Attributes including critical awareness
of future risks and social cohesion help build collective social resilience, and these qualities operate
largely outside the market (Stone 2002). The development of community resilience attributes can be
supported by the culture and practices of urban policy agencies. Urban agencies can choose to focus
solely on risk reduction interventions directed at individuals‟ behaviour, or they can intentionally build
collective community resilience qualities. WCC did this by adopting a community empowerment
approach in their investment programmes including Project Twin Streams, which increased local
social capital as well as environmental capital (MorrisonLow 2010). Many collective attributes
including social capital and social equity can take decades or generations to build, so developing
general community resilience requires a sustained long-term strategy.
In summary, while market forces will always be a major driver in urban transitions, urban policy
agencies will need to facilitate those social and technological transitions to ensure the shifts are rapid
enough to minimise the impacts of global change, are equitable across the urban community, and
that solutions do not exasperate other major urban and global issues.
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6.2 Refinement of the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework
The barriers to and enablers of policy agencies facilitating the urban social and technical transitions
that were identified in the Waitakere City Council case study are now compared with the Adaptive
Urban Policy Framework and key findings are summarised.
The Waitakere City Council case study demonstrates that the enablers of and barriers to an urban
council initiating a sustainable urban transition were present at the five levels of the Adaptive Urban
Policy Framework. Most of the constraints and enablers at the landscape, social-technological field,
and organisational field levels identified in the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework were present in the
case study and these are indicated in dark red in Table 8. All but one of the enablers at the
organisational and individual levels identified in the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework were present in
the case study and these are also indicated in dark red in Table 8. A number of additional factors
across the levels were identified in the case study and these are indicated in bright red in Table 8.
Some of the additional factors are specific to New Zealand local government, including „the limited
role of local government‟, although the breadth of role that any organisation has would be a universal
determinant on what it could influence. Having a new organisation, new senior management, and new
set of diverse yet synergistic politicians was a specific combination of events that occurred in WCC at
that time, but these events collectively represent a more generalised theme of a major disruption to
the culture of the organisation. Some additional enablers also provide more detail to the original ones
in the Framework, for example, having „tangible‟ as well as „shared‟ visions and goals.
The additional constraints found within the case study are:
Limited role & funding of New Zealand local government
Diffused urban responsibility across many public agencies
Risk aversion to innovation by some public agency professions
Incumbent policy tools reinforcing traditional thinking
Reliance on market forces
Individual and group resistance to change
Loss of momentum when key staff/ councillors leave
The additional enablers found within the case study are:
Periods of pressures on the built environment
A relatively stable community that has diverse socio-demographics and a relationship with
the local natural landscape
Establishment of a new organisation & new senior management
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New, diverse & synergistic political representation
Tangible vision & goals
Shared belief that change is possible, and passion
Strong officer-councillor relationships
Reallocation of resources to deliver on new vision
Intensive community engagement to create holistic understanding of issues/innovation
Change agents in organisation long enough to embed change
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Table 8 Barriers and enablers identified for the eco city transition assessed against the Adaptive
Urban Policy Framework
Key: Black – factors in draft framework not found in case study; Dark red – factors in draft framework
found in case study; Red – additional factors found in case study; Italicised Grey – subheadings
Barriers Enablers
Landscape level
Dominant paradigms (e.g., economic growth)
Invested power interests
Long-lived nature of built environment
Disruptors
Shocks (e.g., natural disaster)
Emerging issues challenging existing paradigms
Periods of renewal of, or pressures on, the built environment
Social-technological systems
Societal expectations & symbolic meaning associated with incumbent regime
Co-evolved regulations, knowledge systems & capabilities of regime actors with incumbent regime
Economies of scale of incumbent regime
Disruptors
Current technology losing positive image or resource supply issues
Policy responses
Niche protection for commercialising alternative technologies
Internalising externalities of incumbent technology
Sector programmes to improve or replace regime
Organisational field
Political compromises, incomplete knowledge & risk aversion resulting only in non-disruptive change
Lack of public/media interest/belief in issue; lack of belief in Gov to address issues or diffused impact/benefit on vocal/powerful groups
Field level institutions
Limited role & funding of NZ local Government
Diffused urban responsibility across many public agencies
Risk aversion to innovation by some professions
Incumbent policy tools reinforcing traditional thinking
Reliance on market forces
Disruptors
Immature organisational field with evolving institutions
Concentrated issue/policy impact on vocal/powerful groups
Current policy/field level paradigms losing positive image
Policy innovation reframed to broaden support
Lower levels of government acting as innovation laboratories
Nature of the urban community Strong community leadership & collaboration, diverse socio-demographics, relatively stable community, a sense of community, strong social networks and a relationship with the local natural landscape. Trust built between urban council and community.
Community resources, equity & social support exist
Capacity building across public sector
Institutions developed for joined up inter-organisational planning
Emergence of professional networks of policy agencies instigating urban transitions
Richer analytical frameworks of social & technical change adopted within specific policy professions
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Barriers Enablers
Urban Policy Organisation
Narrow, short term & local focus
Lack of direction & long-term planning
Sustainability vision largely rhetoric
Structure, culture & processes within organisation generates silo thinking
Expedient community consultation approaches
Individual and group resistance to change
Loss of momentum when key staff/ councillors leave
Disrupters
Establishment of new organisation & new senior management
New, diverse & synergistic political representation
Organisational culture & skills
Shared tangible vision & goals
Shared belief that change is possible, passion & a focus on ends not means
Organisational change programme to align to new vision
Leadership
Significant learning culture
Internal & external collaboration
Strong officer-councillor relationships
Situational awareness
People skills & technical skills valued
Policy practice
Vision embedded in implementation mechanisms
Reallocation of resources to deliver on new vision
Diverse policy concepts used
Integration of policy development & implementation
Intensive community engagement to create holistic understanding of issues/innovation
Engagement processes designed to build community empowerment, trust and active democracy
Catalyst projects
Individuals
Leadership focussed on self-interest, or short-term goals or constrained by single disciplinary thinking
Disrupters (to other levels)
Visionary leadership
Holistic thinkers who think & act beyond their organisations boundaries and interests
Significant social perception & acumen
Ability to recognise & seize opportunities for change
Creativity & willingness to challenge status quo
Building adaptive agencies
Representative, adaptive & collaborative leadership
Conviction, persistence & ability to mobilise resources required for change
Ability to frame innovation to increase broader acceptance
Leading with a light touch but consistently evaluating progress
Ability to build strong committed multi-disciplinary teams
Change agents in organisation long enough to embed change
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While primarily drawing on research literature, the Framework has not been applied to a range of
urban policy organisation case studies to test the generality of each enabler or barrier and therefore
should only be seen as an illustrative example of the types of enablers and barriers an urban policy
agency might face when attempting to create sustainable urban transitions. This is particularly true for
the additional findings of the WCC case study, although it is likely that many would to be relevant to
other cities. Further case studies would be required to test their generalisation.
However, a number of initial insights can be drawn from the final version of the Framework that could
be explored within further case study work:
1. The enablers of and barriers to a policy agency initiating urban transitions can be found across
the five levels of the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework.
2. There are significant interrelationships between the five levels of the Framework that constrain
urban transitions and associated policy innovation:
At the landscape level the built environment and societal structures and macro-institutions
shape and maintain a city‟s development trajectory and provide the macro-context within
which urban policy organisations operate. These landscape-level factors are slow moving
and constrain rapid and structural change.
Social technological regimes co-evolve with the built environment and societal institutions
situated at the landscape level, as well as with associated policies at the organizational field
level. These cross-level interdependencies, along with the vested interests, routines and
capabilities within the incumbent regime, can lock society and cities into a technological
solution even when it is becoming suboptimal. These factors constrain the ability of
alternative technologies to gain significant market share.
Established public sector institutions at the organisational field level, which are shaped by
landscape level institutions and values, create an environment of policy conformity versus
innovation.
3. Interactions between the five levels of the framework also enable urban transitions and
associated policy innovation:
While the landscape level generally constrains rapid change, when disruptions at the
landscape level occur they can influence widespread change as they permeate across the
other levels and across multiple regimes and organisational fields.
Opportunities for change are often created through an assemblage of disruptive events
occurring at the different levels of the framework. This means the timing has to be right to
instigate significant change. Entrepreneurial individuals sometimes in unison but often as a
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loose network are able recognize and enlarge these windows of opportunity to initiate policy
innovation.
Success in facilitating urban transitions requires more than the identification of the right set of
interventions. It also requires the right attributes at the organisational and individual levels,
the right attributes within the community, and the presence of broader enabling institutions at
the organisational field-level to support change.
When landscape disruptions to a social-technical regime occur, mature niche technologies
have the opportunity to significantly change or replace the existing regime. Policy innovation
at the organisational field level, which is often driven by individual agencies, can increase
regime disruption through policy by, for example, internalizing the externalities of the
incumbent technology or by supporting the development of niche technologies.
4. Policy innovation has to be embedded within the culture of the organization, and into the
organisation‟s implementation mechanisms to achieve action on the ground and to ensure
momentum is maintained even when key individuals leave the organization. The organisational
and individual levels of the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework (Table 8) outline a range of
attributes and processes that build the capacity of urban policy agencies to facilitate change in
urban settlements. The WCC case study demonstrated that many of these organisational
attributes were intentionally developed within the council over a decade of change management.
This suggests that the capacity for facilitating significant change can be built within policy
agencies in the same way community resilience research suggests general resilience can be
developed within communities (Paton 2006b). Groups of key individuals in policy organizations
are instrumental in developing adaptive policy organizations. They may have complementary
skills, some in initiating and creating visions of change and others in bedding change into
implementation mechanisms.
5. Urban policy organizations are only one influencer in urban transitions and therefore need to work
with other organizations to extend their influence; they also need the skills and institutions to do
this effectively. Their limited role, especially New Zealand city councils, however, may ultimately
limit their ability to effect substantive or rapid change.
6. Equally, societal expectations of high consumption lifestyles and the deeply held paradigm of
limitless economic growth have shaped modern urban societies. These social paradigms, which
are established at the landscape level, will pose significant barriers to sustainable urban
transitions.
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6.3 Utilising concepts of social and technological change in urban policy
The concepts used consciously or unconsciously in policy analysis create “templates for
interventions” (Shove 2010: 280) and therefore dominant policy concepts can influence how and
whether a city adapts to global change. Jake Chapman (2003: 27) argues that managing complex
adaptive systems (such as cities) requires a “richer repertoire of conceptual models” than are
commonly used. In a similar vein, Kenneth Galbraith, in response to the oil crisis in the 1970s, argued
against policy relying blindly on any one concept and set of assumptions, rather that each new
situation needs its own examination:
Over the years, if imperfectly, socialists have had to learn that faith is not enough. Things have
to work. Frequently the best course is to rely pragmatically on the market. Now…the lesson for
conservatives is equally clear. Faith in the universal efficiency and beneficence of the market,
however devout, is also not enough. Here, too, ideology is not a substitute for thought.
(Galbraith1979)
This suggests that the policy organisational field needs to be reflective in the dominant concepts on
which it relies, not allowing policy concepts to become rigid ideologies. No one concept or theory is
likely to be true for all situations, but routine thinking or blind faith in traditional approaches can
prevent people and organisations from considering a problem or situation in new and different ways
(Mintrom 2011). This is just as true in the field of policy analysis, and when faced with new problems
such as climate change and peak oil, policy analysis and agencies require new or more integrative
thinking in order to respond effectively.
Two concepts of social and technological change have been explored in this thesis, Multi Level
Perspective (MLP) and Resilience. This section now considers how these concepts might be utilised
in urban policy practice.
6.3.1 Taking a systems approach in analysis & implementation
MLP conceptualises a social-technical regime as a complex dynamic system where transitions occur
through the interactions of a range of parties and across landscape, regime, and niche levels.
Community resilience research also emphasises that resilience is a system characteristic built across
individual, community, and institutional levels, and socio-ecological resilience research undertaken by
the Resilience Alliance (2010) suggests that two things are critical when assessing the resilience of a
system. First, there is a need to look at the scales above and below the foci of attention, as system
behaviour (e.g., people‟s transport choices) can rarely be fully understood by just examining one
scale (e.g., the household). Second, policies fail when too much detail from one component of a
system and too little detail from the rest of the system are considered (Resilience Alliance 2007:6).
The challenge therefore is to map the wider system in the initial stages of the policy analysis and then
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identify enough but not too many critical factors to build a comprehensive understanding of a
problem.
This suggests that policy should take a systems approach when both assessing the adaptive capacity
of a city and its functions against the impacts of future threats, and when seeking to understand and
influence the wider social, physical, and institutional factors that lock a city into a sub-optimal
technological trajectory. Therefore, if we were analysing the risks and vulnerability of a city‟s transport
system to future drivers of change, and how socio-technical transitions might best occur, the initial
policy questions might be:
1. What were the critical decisions, events and processes that shaped today's transport
system?
2. What is the long-term behaviour of that system – its stocks and flows (e.g., mileage driven,
transport modal share, transport related CO2 emissions)?
3. What current factors contribute to those major behavioural patterns (e.g., which formal and
informal institutions lock those patterns in? How are new social trends (e.g., school drop or
mega malls) influencing the overall transport system? And what therefore is the city‟s
transport systems current trajectory?
4. What issues and benefits is the current system contributing to (e.g., social accessibility
benefits, climate change, congestion costs)?
We might then stretch our thinking forward in time and ask:
5. What emerging forces of change are likely to impact the transport system? Will the impacts
be temporary or persistent and to what degree might they cascade into other city systems?
6. Who or what is vulnerable to those forces of change (e.g., which communities/businesses
have a high dependency on private vehicles/oil)?
7. What resources does the transport system or wider settlement have to address risks (e.g., do
vulnerable communities have high levels of social capital and trust in the council, which could
be used to develop community based transport innovations)?
8. Where are the key leverage points in the transport system to create change (e.g., how might
public policy disrupt the current transport regime to drive innovation? How might policy
support a range of transport niches to develop?)?
9. Will the current or proposed solutions to address future change address the underlying
problem or will they only treat the symptoms over the short term? Will they create other
problems? Can they be designed to solve other problems too?
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Systems analysis is challenging, as it requires thinking of a city as a system, as being part of global
systems, and as having many interrelated subsystems. Then for each system under assessment it
requires a holistic understanding of how that system works. It usually requires multi-disciplinary
thinking where different experts need to be prepared to stretch their thinking, to be flexible, and to
reflect on their underlying and sometimes unconscious assumptions in order to create
interdisciplinary understanding of a problem. Having strong communication and facilitation skills as
well as technical skills in policy teams can also help process of exploration and integration.
Understanding the complexity of urban systems may also involve drawing on the experiences of non-
technical experts and on people who will implement subsequent policies as this can provide a more
holistic understanding of problems and of the consequences of potential interventions (Resilience
Alliance 2007: 7). Therefore, having the organisational culture and skills to work collaboratively
internally and externally is critical for system thinking.
6.3.2 Building both general & specific resilience as risk management strategies
The review of community resilience literature identified a range of general social resilience attributes
that collectively build a community‟s capacity to recognise and respond to a range of threats. Urban
policy might develop paired strategies that aim to build:
General resilience to increase a settlement‟s ability to respond to a range of pressures.
Social attributes of general resilience include foresight, learning, and institutional flexibility.
These are of particular importance, because they enable urban communities to assess long-
term risks systematically, innovate, build a constituency of support to implement urban
adaptations, and cope better with surprise. The general resilience attributes can therefore be
seen as the generic building blocks for facilitating urban transitions.
Specific resilience to enable a settlement to withstand, bounce back from or adapt to a
specific threat. In response to a flooding threat, such examples would include planning
restrictions on building on a city‟s flood zones, creating flood banks, and citizen education on
responding to floods.
This distinction between general and specific resilience can be useful in formulating strategies to
build the adaptive capacity of cities to respond to global change. Specific resilience assessment
would enable an urban council to identify those people and things most at risk from a specified
shock/pressure, and the specific adaptations required, providing a focus for short-term policy
intervention. General resilience assessment, on the other hand, enables an urban policy agency to
assess how adaptive an urban community might be against both unpredicted shocks and a range of
predicted ones.
Not all scholars accept the idea of general attributes of resilience; Allenby and Fink (2005) argue that
resilience is not a global characteristic of a system but can only be determined with reference to a
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specific system and specific challenges. General resilience attributes therefore may need to be
treated as an indication not a prediction of how a community might adapt to any specific set of
pressures. Context is critical and assessment of any city or its subsystem should pay attention to the
nature of the threat /change and the nature of the system under examination.
Building general resilience can occur through direct community development programmes (e.g., the
neighbourhood empowerment programmes WCC was developing) or through the multi outcome
approach that; for example, WCC took through thier Project Twin Streams community engagement
approach, which built local social capital as well as achieving environmental benefits (MorrisonLow
2010).
To illustrate the distinction between general and specific resilience, Table 9 provides questions and
measures for general social resilience, and then questions and measures to assess specifically a
city‟s resilience to one issue – peak oil. The general resilience questions were developed from the set
of resilience attributes outlined in Section 6.2 and measures were identified from New Zealand and
international survey data.
Table 9 Assessment questions & measures of general resilience and specific urban resilience
relating to peak oil
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General social resilience characteristics
Assessment questions Possible measures
Is there a high level of collaboration between the
council and other organisations to pursue city goals?
Evidence of joined-up planning between public
agencies in settlement. (provide examples)
Are urban agencies systematically assessing long
term risks to their settlements? (CCCR) and are
those risk assessments influencing their decision-
making?
Evidence of broad long-term risk assessment by
urban agencies (including oil and climate change
vulnerability studies)(provide examples)
Is community input into local & regional decisions
pro-actively encouraged through formal and informal
processes? (CCCR 2000)
Does the community believe in its collective ability to
influence its future positively? (CCCR 2000)
Residents‟ level of confidence in council decision
making (Quality of Life Survey 2008)
Is there a high value given to the well-being of
vulnerable populations in the settlement? (CCCR
2000)
The proportion of children living in households
with gross real income less than 60% of the
median equivalised national income. (Statistics
NZ. Census).
Do residents have financial resources to cope with
change /shocks?
Household Ability to cover costs of everyday
needs (Quality of Life Survey 2008)
Do residents have a strong sense of community, and
are they investing their time and energy in
strengthening the community? (CCCR 2000)
The proportion of residents who feel a sense of
community in their local neighbourhood (Quality
of Life Survey 2008)
Number of formal unpaid work hours outside of
the home (StatsNZ 2008a)
The degree that residents feel other people can
be trusted (Quality of Life Survey 2008)
To what degree do residents feel they have access
to support in times of difficulty?
The degree people feel that have available
support during difficult times (Quality of Life
Survey 2008)
Is the local economic base diversified and not over-
reliant on a single industry? (CCCR 2000)
Diversity of businesses sectors (Census data of
employment Stats NZ ANZSIC data)
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Is the local workforce innovative and
entrepreneurial?
Rate of business innovation by type (settlement
survey)
Specific resilience characteristics to peak oil
Assessment questions Possible measures
Have councils communicated and engaged the
community on the need to take action on peak oil?
Proportion of residents who are aware of peak
oil impacts on their settlement and support
action to address those impacts (add to Quality
of life Survey)
Which key business sectors are most vulnerable to
rising oil prices? Are they reducing their vulnerability
rising oil prices?
% of oil vulnerability assessments undertaken
for settlement‟s key business sectors
Does current urban form and design reduce
dependency on private vehicle use?
Sprawl index based on; low density, low mixed
real-estate uses (drawing on Ewing et al 2002)
Which residents have alterative transport options to
private motor-vehicles for accessing employment &
basic services?
Mode transport used and distance travelled to
work (Census data)
Vehicle trips to work mapped against low
income households (NZ Census data ) or the
NZ deprivation index ( University of Otago),
Ease of access and affordability of public
transport (Quality of Life Survey 2008)
% public investment in public transport against
roading investment over last 10 years
(settlement assessment public investment)
Transport component of national CPI (Statistics
NZ CPI index)
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The measures in the table can be used for large urban communities using survey data. However, it
could also be refined as a participatory planning tool for smaller settlements and neighbourhoods.
The CCCR assessment tool (2000), on which the table draws, is designed for communities to assess
their own resilience, and the participatory and collaborative nature of their tool helps build community
knowledge of future risks, and engages them in planning for responding to those risks. By using
participatory assessment tool of future risk, communities and local government can actually reinforce
or build social and institutional resilience characteristics. Participatory tools like CCCRs are designed
for working with smaller communities (< 30,000) and are therefore only suited to the neighbourhood
scale of a city or to rural towns.
6.3.3 Taking collaborative whole sector & multi party approaches
In terms of policy practice, MLP has provided a theoretical foundation for a policy approach adopted
by the Dutch Government termed „transition management‟, which aims to create managed transitions
towards sustainable waste, transport, energy, and water systems (Kemp & Rotmans 2004). The
transition management process often begins by bringing together actors from the incumbent regime
and niches to undertake collective re-visioning and to establish long-term programmes of government
intervention and business innovation. Who is selected for those forums is considered crucial to the
programme‟s ability to shift trajectories radically. Experience has shown that if a group is overly
dominated by incumbent players, their invested interests and institutionalized beliefs will constrain
efforts for structural change (Scholten 2008). Kemp and Rotmans (2004) also recommend that the
personal attributes of the actors are critical and that these people need to be forerunners, visionaries,
diverse thinkers, and people ready and with the ability to lead change within their own organisations
(Walford 2011).
Applied examples of the transition management approach, however, have been criticized for not
tackling structural issues and institutional reform, and therefore not disrupting the incumbent regime
and power interests (Scholten 2008). As this is an emerging policy approach that public agencies and
more recently NGOs10
are adopting, more research into success factors would be valuable.
Less ambitious examples of joined-up approaches involving urban councils also exist, demonstrating
the facilitating role an urban policy agency might take to improve or help change incumbent socio-
technical regimes in their cities. One example is the sustainability improvement of the printing industry
led by the WCC, which is discussed in section 5.1.11. Another example relates to trialling niche
transport technology in cities in UK. A New Zealand based company, Halo IPT, has developed
technology that enables electric vehicles to be charged wirelessly so that vehicles can be charged
while parked at the side of the road, or a bus can be charged while picking passengers up at a bus
10
For example, Forum for the Future is leading a sector-wide sustainable shipping initiative in Europe (/www.forumforthefuture.org/project/sustainable-shipping-initiative/overview) and a UK dairy sector programme (see http://www.forumforthefuture.org/blog/dairy2020-kicks)
85
stop. Wireless charging radically improves the performance of electric vehicles and the technology is
initially and predominately targeted at urban settlements. To take this niche development beyond the
lab, the company needed to work with a consortium of organisations to trial, demonstrate, and refine
the technology in an urban settlement. This included the local authority of the city, the local power
utility, the car manufacturer, and a charging provider (for smart metering so car owners could sell
their surplus power back to the local power utility). This collaborative partnership cut the red tape
typically associated with inserting new infrastructure into a city and enabled the consortium to apply
for EU funding grants. Trials are now underway in cities the UK and France (Mortimer & Stancu
2011).
Halo IPT has not yet attempted to trial their technology in New Zealand, both because of New
Zealand‟s low density urban form, which makes the technology less cost effective and because
compared with the UK and EU, NZ lacks central government policies to stimulate the electric car
market (Mortimer & Stancu 2011) This emphasises that to stimulate new technologies in a city often
requires supporting policies at different levels of government. The trials in the UK for example have
policy support at the city, national and EU levels.
6.3.4 Developing an adaptive policy culture
Complex issues including climate change, urbanisation, and peak oil will create exponential change
over the next decades and much of this change will be unpredictable. In addition, resilience and MLP
illustrate the dynamic complexity of the social, technical, and ecological systems that shape our cities,
with urban transitions occurring through the combination of multiple factors, some that are within the
influence of an urban agency, many that are not.
These insights suggest that urban policy for facilitating urban transitions will need to be able to
operate within an environment of uncertainty. While policy should seek best evidence, evidence will
always be partial, and forecasts of trends and policy impacts cannot be overly predictive. To describe
the shifts required in public health policy, Plsek (2001) draws on Richard Dawkins‟ analogy of
throwing a rock and a bird for differentiating between the thinking inherent within classic science and
the science of complex adaptive systems. This is an equally tangible metaphor to describe the role of
urban public agencies and the limits to evidence-based policy when confronting complex, wicked
problems. When responding to climate change and peak oil impacts on complex systems such as
cities, public agencies are throwing birds and not rocks in their intervention strategies. We can predict
the trajectory of a rock, but when we throw a bird or the city confronting global change, the trajectory
is far less predictable. Like a bird, a city is not inert, but alive, self-organising, with emergent
behaviour, and climate change and peak oil will create impacts to that city‟s trajectory we cannot
accurately predict.
To respond, urban policy will need to develop approaches that assume surprise is likely as opposed
to maintaining policy approaches that assume issues and outcomes can be well predicted (Wildavsky
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1988). This requires adopting foresight techniques that maintain a dynamic and holistic understanding
of emerging trends and possibilities. It requires policy experimentation and adaptive management,
which in turn require that policy design and implementation are integrated and iterative processes
(Mulgan & Lee 2001: 4).
Last it is not enough to identify the right policy interventions to successfully initiate urban transitions.
Timing is critical and urban policy agencies need to be able to identify when windows of opportunity
are opening to introduce transformative change. In addition, in order to be successful, policy agencies
need to develop the right organisational attributes and have staff with the right individual attributes to
both initiate and implement change. This often requires deliberate and long term organisational
culture change. These attributes have been outlined in table 8.
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7 Conclusion
In terms of advancing theoretical understanding of policy innovation, this thesis recognises that all
theories provide a partial understanding of complex situations (Midgley 2000: 77). In order to provide
a more comprehensive understanding of the barriers to and enablers of urban policy agencies
facilitating change, the thesis draws on a range of theories examining change at different levels and
integrates their insights into the multi-level framework. The case study research finds that critical
processes of change often occur through the interactions between societal levels, for example, when
disruptions at the organisational and landscape levels coincide, creating windows of opportunity for
entrepreneurial individuals to initiate policy innovations.
The WCC case study exhibited the majority of the enablers and constraints identified at the
landscape and field levels and all but one of the enablers at the organisational and individual levels,
indicating that collectively the insights drawn from the different theories were relevant for examining a
New Zealand local council attempting to facilitate an urban sustainability transition. This reinforces the
argument presented in this thesis that single theories used on their own in policy, provide a partial
understanding of how change occurs in complex systems such as a city. Rather, policy analysis
needs to draw on and integrate a range of theories and concepts of social and technological change.
In terms of further research, to test whether the enablers and barriers in the Framework can be
generalised to other New Zealand councils or urban policy agencies internationally, further case
studies could be undertaken of urban agencies attempting to embark on urban transitions. WCC
provided an example of a council-wide change of direction to facilitate the vision of the Eco City, and
similar case studies could be explored and compared to WCC. In addition, comparative case studies
of councils who have attempted a sustainability transition in a specific function such as transport or
urban intensification could be undertaken and the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework could be used
as analytical framework for this research.
While the community resilience research outlined in the thesis identified a range of factors that
increase a community ability to address and respond to disasters and economic shocks, there is a
need for more research to examine the degree to which these factors can also be applied to
communities responding to persistent pressures such as peak oil and climate change. In addition, the
enabling attributes credited to the WCC community could be explored further to identify whether the
same attributes (e.g., stability and diversity of community, attachment to the natural environment)
contribute to other communities ability to successfully prepare for peak oil and climate change.
The WCC case study also suggests that cost benefit analysis and transport modelling approaches
constrained policy innovation and this raises the question of how well conventional policy analysis
and the assumptions that underpin traditional policy analysis tools support policy aimed at facilitating
sustainability transitions. This is an area of research which could be further explored. New policy
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approaches such as the Dutch led transitional management is still at the experiential stage. More
research on what has created success or failure is important to develop this policy approach further.
Finally, in terms of applied policy research, the WCC case study suggests, reinforced by Baumgartner
and Jones‟ research (1993) that new policy approaches are more likely to be adopted when windows
of opportunity open through the combined influence of different factors often operating at different
levels of the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework. In addition, key factors which enable these policies to
become adopted and successfully implemented include the personal and collective attributes of the
individuals driving the new approach. Therefore when policy analysts are assessing whether a
successful policy implemented in another city would be effective in their own, they could investigate
what historic factors led to the policy first being introduced and then what factors, including the
attributes of the people involved, were then key to successful implementation. This could provide
additional information for the comparative policy analysis, including the attributes that might be
required within their own policy organisation and city community to adopt and implement successfully
the policy in question. The five levels of the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework might therefore be
used as an additional tool for comparative policy analysis.
In terms of policy practice, the thesis has argued that while markets are a critical driver of urban
transitions urban policy agencies will need to facilitate those social and technological transitions to
ensure the shifts are rapid, equitable and sustainable enough to minimise the impacts of global
change. This suggests urban policy agencies adopt a broader and more adaptive role in urban
governance. Like WCC this is likely to require a strong facilitation role where councils increasingly
work closely with the business and community sectors to meet urban outcomes.
The thesis is also based upon the premise that the concepts of social and technological change used
within policy processes shape problem definition and influence which interventions are considered.
The thesis argues that the complexity of global change requires urban policy agencies to adopt a
richer and more integrative set of concepts of social and technological change. These concepts in
turn also suggest policy agencies need to take a less anticipatory and a more adaptive and
collaborative approach to responding to complex issues such as climate change and peak oil.
In other words, urban policy agencies need to adopt new forms of thinking and practice, but, as
outlined in the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework, there are many constraints. Policy actors are not
outside the boundaries of the conceptual models presented in the thesis; rather they form part of
these complex systems. Cognitive factors such as habit and knowledge outlined in MLP, and
institutional factors including professional norms and belief systems outlined in MLP and Sociological
Institutionalism, constrain the adoption of alternative policy concepts and practice. Indeed adopting
more complex change models may carry risk for policy agencies. Shove (2010) argues that climate
change policy has limited itself to those theories of social change found in economics and psychology
and which focus on individual behaviour change. This focus on individual behaviour, Shove believes,
89
allows public agencies to step back from making structural changes that might disrupt existing power
interests, reflecting one barrier in the Adaptive Urban Policy Framework.
Policy actors therefore need to recognise that they are constrained by a range of social, political, and
institutional factors in being adaptive in the way they carry out policy and in the degree they can
facilitate urban transitions. The Adaptive Urban Policy Framework has been developed to illustrate
where some of those constraints might lie and, importantly, to identify the range of individual and
organisational attributes that might build the capacity of policy agencies to lead urban transitions
successfully in response to global change.
90
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9 Appendix 1. Interview Questions
Questions to all interviewees
Role and timing of events using time line
1. When did you start working for WCC? Where had you worked before? What was your role?
Drivers for change
2. Why did WCC take the eco city approach at that time and not other councils, what do you think
was different about WCC from other councils in Auckland/NZ at that time?
Urban policy and planning challenges dealing with issues like climate change and
environmental limits
3. Back in the 1990s sustainability and issues like climate change were not a common council focus
and were pretty contentious. How did WCC (or staff within WCC) introduce climate change and
sustainability internally and externally? What key barriers did you experience? How did you
overcome these? Can you give an example?
4. Were global issues more difficult to introduce and get traction on? Was peak oil looked at?
Learning processes
5. Did you find that any of the politicians and staff‟s operating assumptions need to be challenged or
reviewed to take on a sustainability agenda? What were they? What new assumptions/concepts
were introduced? How was this achieved? What barriers to you meet?
6. Working closely with the community approaches has been a key part of the eco city transition.
Why did WCC decide to take that approach? What worked and why? What didn‟t work as well
and what were the challenges of bringing in that approach to council?
Barriers to sustainability transitions
7. Aside from those barriers already discussed so far what were some of the key barriers WCC
experienced in implementing the eco city? May be internal or external to WCC. What did you
personally find the most difficult?
Outcomes and time required
8. What key outcomes do you think WCC has achieved with the Eco City?
9. What were the most difficult outcomes to achieve?
10. What time periods are required to make substantive shifts towards sustainability in a city? The
internal cultural shift and the shifts within the community?
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Specific questions to specific staff
1. Why did you bring the district plan under the policy unit? (Staff 1, Councillor 1)
2. Were any mainstream policy approaches found to be inadequate for dealing with issues such as
sustainability or climate change? What were they? Did they need to be supplemented or
replaced by alternative approaches? (Staff 1, 5,7)
3. ASF strong focus on future uncertainty and the need to move away from predict and provide
planning approaches – did similar concerns arisen at WCC? If so what approaches did WCC
adopt instead? What barriers were there in doing this? Could you give a specific example? (Staff
1, 5,7; Councillor 1)
4. Has urban policy in NZ changed towards the WCC model over last 18 yrs? Or is WCC approach
still unique? Where shifts do you see urban policy still needs to take? (Staff 1, 5,7, Councillor 1)
5. How did the councillors deal with vocal criticism from community in response to eco city and
proposed policies? Did you find this was different to other councils? (councillor 1)
6. How supportive have the community been of the eco city, has that support changed over time?
(councillor 1, staff 3)
7. What were Waitakere‟s overarching community development goals? How would you describe
WCC overall community development approach (staff 3)
8. At the time that Project Twin Streams began what would have been the traditional approach to
dealing with the flooding and stormwater issues? (Staff 4)
9. I see at least three distinct alternative approaches that PTS takes; restoring natural systems to
manage stormwater; working with the community to do it; taking on a very holistic agenda (not
just water objectives). Am I missing any, would you frame them in a different way? (Staff 4)
10. What led you to take these distinctive approaches? What initially enabled or drove these
approaches? (Staff 4)
11. What did you need to put in place to enable you and your team, your contractors, WCC etc adopt
these approaches? What were the most important enablers/ changes? (Staff 4)
12. What barriers did you encounter in adopting these approaches? How did you overcome them?
(Staff 4)
13. To what extent have each of these approaches become more mainstream in urban stormwater
management in NZ? (Staff 4)
14. Did PTS shift the way in which you (and you team/WCC) thought about stormwater
management? (Staff 4)
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15. What do you think have been the most valuable outcomes of PTS and why? (Staff 4)
110
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