Cities must choose: help grassroots climate groups grow or risk losing them
A study of Berlin and Gothenburg reveals six distinct ways cities engage with citizen-led sustainability initiatives—from tolerating them to partnering with them. The findings show that how municipalities interact with these groups directly shapes whether local solutions scale up or fade away, with major implications for cities' climate targets and community buy-in.
Originaltitel: Balancing scaling and autonomy: Municipal modes of engaging with grassroots initiatives
In cities across the world, grassroots groups organise around alternative forms of provisioning, for example in the form of energy cooperatives, food-sharing networks and repair cafes. Many local governments recognise the potential of grassroots initiatives to spearhead and provide civic engagement for sustainability transitions. In this article, we explore how municipalities relate to grassroots initiatives (GIs) in the fields of food, mobility and repair. We also examine how these relationships affect both the scaling of grassroots-initiated practices and the autonomy of GIs. The analysis is based on empirical studies in Berlin and Gothenburg. Our analysis identifies six different municipal modes of engaging with GIs: (1) tolerating – letting unauthorised grassroots practices continue, (2) authorising – granting formal permission to GIs, (3) coordinating – inviting or making GIs visible on public platforms, (4) adjusting bureaucracies – facilitating the operation and expansion of grassroots-initiated practices, (5) partnering – using public procurement of GI services and (6) municipal replication of grassroots-initiated practices. Our contribution lies in the identification of different municipal modes of relating to GIs and how these modes shape the scaling of grassroots-initiated practices on the one hand, and the autonomy of GIs on the other. We furthermore highlight the emerging municipal replication mode, which implies rethinking the very idea of what municipal infrastructure should encompass. Learning from GIs, municipal responsibilities may include not only the infrastructures for transport, energy, water and recycling but also infrastructure for repairing, reusing and sharing.