Inclusive city governance: International lesson drawing from progressive urban leadership

摘要

This paper outlines concepts that may be able to help us better understand the power of place in our globalising world. More specifically, it aims to show how good place-based leadership can promote inclusive urban development in both developed and developing countries. An opening section discusses the struggle that is now taking place in many communities across the world between ‘place-less’ and ‘place-based’ power. In the era of globalisation ‘place-less’ leaders, that is, people who are not expected to care about the consequences of their decisions for particular places and communities have gained extraordinary power and influence. A conceptual framework is introduced to show how ‘place-based’ power can be understood and explains how this local power can, depending on the national and local context, be expanded. A second section offers a way of understanding inclusive place-based leadership. Described as ‘New Civic Leadership’, the model posits the existence of five overlapping realms of leadership in any given locality. The areas of overlap are termed ‘Innovation Zones’ and it is these new political spaces that provide many possibilities for scaling up participatory and co-productive planning. The third section provides three cameos of inspirational civic leadership drawn from different countries to illustrate the argument. A final section identifies emerging themes for future work in development studies. In particular the paper makes a plea for scholars to give more attention to the role of place-based leadership in bringing about progressive change.