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Paper short abstract:

This paper reports from participant observation with London residents and experts concerned with improving urban water. The function of cost-benefit modelling for translating between local imaginaries of rewilding and expert practices of asset-making will be discussed with particular focus on scale.

Paper long abstract:

London's rivers and streams count among the most polluted in Europe. At the same time, various community-driven and state-sponsored initiatives to improve urban water courses are under way. Drawing on ongoing participant observation with North London residents and urban water experts, this paper explores their environmental imaginaries and traces the translation from imagined riverine wilderness to economic asset through the practice of cost-benefit modelling. Whereas residents concerned with their local rivers imagine river restoration as the creation of sites for encountering urban wilderness, experts tasked with delivering urban water improvements navigate a funding landscape premised on demonstrating the economic benefits of public expenditure. However, both residents and experts converge on calling for the construction of sustainable drainage systems such as urban wetlands that remove pollution before it can enter urban rivers while simultaneously creating sites for experiencing urban nature. In order to secure funding for these schemes, experts translate imaginaries of re-wilding into the economic calculation of green infrastructure benefits with the aid of cost-benefit modelling software. The paper finds that the benefit most sought after by residents, namely water quality improvement, is attributed only negligible economic benefit in the practice of turning urban water into an economic asset. The paper discusses the ways in which scale, both as level of economic measurement and as scope of spatial attribution, might trouble the alignment of local imaginaries of re-wilding with expert practices of asset-making.