Presentation short abstract

This paper explores the limits of post-growth municipalism in Barcelona and London. Through archival and ethnographic analysis, we unpack the contested cultural politics of urban mobility transformations and reflect on pathways to strengthen post-growth municipalism through agonistic pluralism.

Presentation long abstract

Post-growth municipalist initiatives are frequently met with complex and multi-faceted resistance, often driven by local growth coalitions. Yet there is insufficient research unpacking how exactly the dynamics of contestation can hinder or enable progressive urban change. In theory, both post-growth and municipalism encourage transformation processes that are shaped by democratic co-creation and agonistic pluralism but, in practice, conflicting interests and imaginaries can stall and water down initiatives which are sometimes abandoned altogether. To explore this tension, we study the evolution of two potentially post-growth urban mobility transformations: the Superblocks in l’Eixample, Barcelona, and Liveable Neighbourhoods in Islington, London. Both initiatives contain post-growth imaginaries of slowness and conviviality but in neither Barcelona (once an emblematic example of municipalism) nor London (governed by a traditional centre-left party) did post-growth imaginaries flourish and develop into a shared political horizon. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, we explore how the post-growth potential of these initiatives was overshadowed by (1) elite capture of their imaginaries which (2) fuelled corrosive antagonism, especially visible in print and social media, and (3) was intensified by the tight timescales of urban experimentalism that limited opportunities for productive, agonistic contestation and cultural acceptance. We compare the cultural politics of contestation in both cases, and the ways in which technocratic and paternalistic attitudes foreclosed agonistic pluralism even in the context of Barcelona’s municipalist city government. We conclude by reflecting on the lessons which emerge for post-growth municipalism, especially the need for a new and more holistic approach to political listening.