Street Environmentalism: Civic Associations and Environmental Practices in the Urban Governance of Third World Megacities

THIS ACADEMIC DISSERTATION considers how residents can achieve healthier living in large Third World cities. Urban growth driven environmental questions have posed a major challenge for Third World city authorities and, consequently, new social space has opened up to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as civic associations, which have entered the urban scene. This organized, collective urban civic action, termed “street environmentalism”, is the main focus of this thesis, and its central question involves the possible contribution that such action can make to urban governance on environment-related issues. There is clear recognition of the fact that collective action does not start up automatically and that certain societal barriers prevail. The study analyzes how street level potential might be realized with the help of local civic associations and their professional leaders.

Chapter 1 frames the research question and provides some methodological and conceptual background. Chapter 2 examines Third World megacities within a global framework, starting with an overview of urbanization in the South – some basic concepts and statistics. From the global sphere, the analysis moves to the level of urban neighbourhoods as living environments. The chapter ends with a brief introduction to the institutional reasons why city authorities have failed to fully manage urban growth processes, and the implications of this.

Chapter 3 analyzes the premises for collective action and the rise of NGOs such as civic associations, as a force for responding to and alleviating the urban crisis. It begins with an interpretation of the underlying reasons why collective action, in the face of massive urban crisis, is still so scarce amongst the residents in most megacities; and why there have been relatively few coordinated efforts to bring about change at street level. Old and new social movement theories, along with illustrative case studies, are presented.
Chapter 4 presents empirical evidence, with the analysis of five NGO case studies from Cairo and Delhi that examine the collective action taking place in the streets to improve people’s living conditions. The work of the NGOs covers the core issues in the brown agenda: slum upgrading; sanitation; water conservation; air pollution mitigation; and solid waste disposal. The chapter ends with a synthesis of these civic associations and their characteristics, in the light of the theoretical framework presented earlier.
The concluding Chapter 5 presents some examples of how urban-based knowledge, innovations or practices can be scaled up and transferred between cities, as well as a summary of the main results of the study and future research priorities and policy implications.