Results from Barcelona 2010 on the topic

Transport and Mobility

The following are the results of the GAP at the Degrowth Conference 2010 in Barcelona that are particularly relevant for this working group

The document first presents a summary, including links to other working groups (in red & capital), and then the complete results of those Barcelona working groups with some relations the current one

Summary:

Some infrastructure projects (nuclear-based production, incinerators, high-speed trains and large scale dams) should be abandoned, while others (highways, ammonia-based production and airports) should be drastically limited. Reduce and eliminate production infrastructure of toxic chemicals. Reduce the transport infra-structure and make it more collective.

Companies that build or use infrastructure which are currently indebted, such as building and transportation companies, should be closed with state support and support for their workers should be provided.

Foster policies, incorporating a multi-criteria evaluation to have an energy system with the highest EROI and the lowest environmental impact and material throughput with least transport distance (trade, social metabolism, indicators)

Working Groups from 2010 GAP in Barcelona with some connections:

Moratoria on new infrastructures

Proposals

• Eliminate/nationalise mega-construction companies (due to their levels of debt) that drive the building of infrastructure projects as ends in themselves.

• Some infrastructure projects must clearly be abandoned: Nuclear, ammonia production, incinerators, high speed train and large scale dams.

• Some infrastructure must be limited: highways, long distance transportation and airports.

• At the same time, transformation of some existing infrastructure must be promoted: smaller more compact cities, converting car based infrastructure to walking and cycling and open common space.

Research questions

• Research the full life-cycle impacts and components of infrastructure materials.

Activities

• Support social campaigns that change the imaginary of people regarding the need to travel, long distance travel, levels of consumption and production and dependence on infrastructure.

• Support communities that fight large infrastructure projects.

Cities and degrowth

Key research proposals

• How does the decentralisation of political power in the city relate to bottom-up processes and the degrowth agenda? (address concerns of concentration of power and democracy)

• How does the ‘right to the city’ (Henri Lefebvre) connect to the degrowth agenda? (the right of all urban dwellers to take part in the production of the city, transforming social, political and economic relations in urban spaces)

Key political proposals

• Reshape and reform current cities instead of building (eco)cities and (eco)neighbourhoods from scratch.

• Relocalise urban life with multifunctionality (public space as a commons) in mind

Other research proposals

• Why isn’t there planning by people vs. planning for people? How do you get people to plan for themselves? Barriers, preconditions and counterforces to encourage planning by people (users) and not only for people (consumers)

• How do we degrade the car as an urban transportation mode through taxes?

• How / what is the relationship between ecological urban development and gentrification?

• How to build local social and ecological resilience in cities / bioregions

Other political proposals

• Raise awareness on the need for the shift to degrowth cities

• Develop and implement an ecological degrowth neighbourhood plan using a bottom up process (collectively decide what areas to remove, to recycle to preserve…)

• Scale and distance as planning parameters

• Make initiatives in the city that are already working on paradigm change visible to understand potential of cities as social-political space