Civil society strategies on urban waterways : stewardship, contention, and coalition building

Urban, industrial waterways-with their contamination, environmental injustice, and nebulous development futures given changing economies-present multiple problems that are confronted by environmental civil society organizations. Despite the many problems, these groups view urban waterways as some of the last available open space in the city and as potential public amenities and natural resources that merit revitalization. This work focuses on the means by which citizen groups and nonprofit organizations-which are often in positions of relatively less power and authority vis-h-vis public and private actors-attempt to engage, be heard, and leverage influence over decision-making on and end use of three New York City river resources. Depending on the situation and the groups involved, strategies rooted in conflict or collaboration rise to the fore. Civil society organizations select from "insider" strategies based on cooperation with government, "outsider" strategies that depend upon advocacy and pressure tactics directed towards either government or the private sector, and "independent" strategies like stewardship, education, and environmental monitoring that engage with the resource, regardless of the political and policy context.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Campbell, Lindsay Kathleen

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• JoAnn Carmin.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37658

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37658