Environmental Activism and Social Networks : campaigning for bicycles and alternative transport in west London
By: BATTERBURY, Simon
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ArticlePublisher: Thousand Oaks : Sage Publications, November 2003Subject(s): Bicycle Planing; London; Ealing; Social Networks; Environmental Citizenship; TransportThe Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science 590, p. 150-169Abstract: A key element of sustainable development in cities is the implementation of more effective, less polluting, and equitable transportation policy. This article examines the role of activist organizations promoting transport alternatives in London, Britain's capital city and its largest metropolitan area. Major national, citywide, and local policy changes have permitted citizens' groups to work more actively with progressive elements in government planing, breaking down citizen-expert divides. In West London, the most congested sector of the metropolis, an environtmental based social network, the Ealing Cycling Campaign, promotes cycling as a sustainable transport alternative. Its strategies require active cooperation with the local state rather than radical oppositional stance more commonly found among urban social movements. Environmental citizenship needs to be founded on social realities and conduced in mainstream political systems if it is to be effective in complex urban environments
A key element of sustainable development in cities is the implementation of more effective, less polluting, and equitable transportation policy. This article examines the role of activist organizations promoting transport alternatives in London, Britain's capital city and its largest metropolitan area. Major national, citywide, and local policy changes have permitted citizens' groups to work more actively with progressive elements in government planing, breaking down citizen-expert divides. In West London, the most congested sector of the metropolis, an environtmental based social network, the Ealing Cycling Campaign, promotes cycling as a sustainable transport alternative. Its strategies require active cooperation with the local state rather than radical oppositional stance more commonly found among urban social movements. Environmental citizenship needs to be founded on social realities and conduced in mainstream political systems if it is to be effective in complex urban environments
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