I met Eugene McCann, scottish (as we can guess) and professor of geography at the SFU, who just published a paper called "Policy boosterism, policy mobilities and the extrospective city". He uses the example of Vancouver to analyse global cities. To introduce the several notions I found very interesting and to keep writing about Vancouver Greenest City, here is a first article about one of the main aspects Eugene deals with in his publication : the role of global cities.

It has become very important to "put yourself on the map", to have a global profile. From a political and business viewpoint, having a global profile is :
 what will provide them investments (businesses and tourism) ;
 what will make them competitive ;
 what will attract and keep new residents who are also tax payers ;
 what will make the potential local market grow (like local media).

So on a basic politico-economic sense, having a global profile is seen these days as the main way for cities to be successful and prosper (because they have enough money to provide the different services and infrastructures that people need), whereas prior to the 1970’s, most money of local governments came from taxations and provincial and federal governments. But these sources tended to run dry so cities had to attract more entrepreneurs and find new ways to get revenues. One of these ways is having a global image to be attractive on the global market.

In the geographic litterature developped by people like John Friedman, it is said that the cities which identify themselves as global cities are those which "have large concentration of particular advanced services" like international law, international advertising, accountancy, etc. In Canada, the city which has the biggest concentration of such services is by far Toronto. Vancouver cannot compete in that field of services but they can compete in terms of reputation for being green and livable, that’s what they try to to. So there is a global competition to attract investments, and also people.

The next interesting question is whether the urban actors (mainly cities) can have an influence on a national and international level According to Eugene, they have a certain influence and they keep trying to have one. But it depends on the specific issues. For the Olympics for example, the local companies and the city of Vancouver succeeded in influencing the federal government to be the national city competing at the global level to get the Olympic Winter Games. And the Olympics are not just two weeks, it’s all the development of the area (facilities, buildings...).

At first, Eugene started his paper with the case of the mayors of Vancouver and Toronto trying to influence Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, on the summit for Climate Change in Copenhagen and also for the oil sands in Alberta. "And it’s not clear that they really had an influence on him". The difficulty is that they come from very different political starting points, parties are different between the local level, the provincial level and the national level.

"Policy mobilities"

What is interesting is that, for example in Copenhagen, there was also a place for the mayors since there was, just before the international summit for national governments, a summit for mayors coming from all over the world. In Canada there is a national federation of cities, trying to have an influence on governments. And internationally, there is something similar : ICLEI. So rather than individual policies from cities trying to have influence, they join together and are now actors who can have an important international role. Certain cities must even be promoted and protected for the reputation and the economy of their country. New York and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is the best example.

But cities can influence in a less political way. "Policy mobilities", according to Eugene’s publication, is "a term that evokes the social production and circulation of knowledge about how to best design and govern places". That is what Vancouver is trying to do with a lot of communication hoping that other cities could be inspired by its initiatives. Indeed, in the 20th century, some cities were inpired by others, for example in terms of urban planning. Vancouver’s authorities know that since Hong Kong developers were the ones who developed parts of Vancouver, at least parts for people immigrating from Hong Kong in 1997 (asian economic crisis) who wanted to find similar places. So Vancouver doesn’t look exactly like Hong Kong, as developers had to adapt to the local context, but there are similarities.

The ‘European style’ streetcars in Vancouver during the Olympics (2010)

Brussels’ street cars

For years, North American’s local governments have gone to Europe and they brought back reports, pictures and even experts to come to say what works well and what doesn’t. But "it never seemed to get anywhere". During the Olympics, Vancouver imported street cars from Brussels. "Citizens would be able to experience what a ‘European style’ streetcar in Vancouver would be like." Yet, even if he admits that european street cars are great, Eugene thinks that it seems to be difficult to bring them back here because people are too resistant. Indeed, most North American inhabitants are afraid that :
 it knocks children down ;
 it hurts businesses along ways for street cars ;
 it congests traffic.

At first, people found it ridiculous, "a waste of money" told me Amanda Mitchell, Greenest City Planning Analyst for the City of Vancouver. But actually, "that was the most brilliant solution to bring [the street cars] in Vancouver". People had prejudices against street cars, they thought it was "loud, out-of-date, unsecure". With this experience, people think it’s "sexy, comfortable, modern, fantastic...", explains Amanda. Anyway, even if everybody doesn’t agree on the success of that experience, a project of a route downtown for street cars is planned.

So Vancouver is trying to share its experience, its initiatives, its solutions... "They genuinely think that they have done some good things here, and they have, and they feel like they can help other cities by telling the story. It’s a valid process but sometimes it’s more like they want to sell their project than if they just wanted to advise some practice." This conclusion comes from the Highlands, from Eugene McCann, and he will explain more deeply this criticism of Vancouver Greenest City in the next article.

See you soon, Be(gree)n