At a Crossroads? Urban Governance in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Era

• In Event: 40821 - Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4. Environmental Justice & Climate Policy

Abstract

Urban governance regimes embody the organization of powerful actors within cities and, as such, these regimes play a significant role in creating, perpetuating, and transforming urban inequality. Prior research on urban governance regimes has explored their spatial and temporal variation, focusing particular attention on the causal role of political-economic change in shifting their composition and aims. However, sizable political-economic change often, also, embodies widespread ideological change. Here, we explore whether ideological change is, on its own, sufficient to foster the transformation of urban governance regimes. Specifically, we focus on the mainstreaming of diversity, equity, and inclusion values that occurred after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. To gauge the responsiveness (or not) of urban growth regimes to this ideological change, we qualitatively analyze the climate change action plans (CAPs) developed by Canadian municipalities and their local, national, and international partners and funders over the same time period. Using content analysis, we examine the 24 English-language CAPs developed by Canadian urban governance regimes, finding that CAPs generally lack social equity considerations. Further, when CAPs do consider social equity, we find that tangible actions aimed at improving such equity are either absent or deprioritized relative to actions related to improving the physical infrastructure of cities; that articulated social equity actions tend to focus exclusively on physically vulnerable demographic groups, neglecting socially vulnerable groups; and that CAPs often shift the onus of climate adaptation onto individual residents, with the likely consequence of exacerbating existing social inequities. These preliminary findings provide tentative support for the claim that widespread ideological shifts, alone, are not sufficient to foster change within urban governance regimes. These findings also paint a clear portrait of organizational decoupling, underscoring the necessity of studying urban governance regimes from an organizational perspective.

Authors

• Lora A. Phillips, Western University

• Xavier Ronan Muller, Western University