A different “we” in urban sustainability: how the city of Chattanooga, TN, community defined their own sustainability path

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to try to understand the process of community building that helped transform the City of Chattanooga to become one of the greenest cities in the country and why the sustainability program worked for Chattanooga. Design/methodology/approach In total, 30 key informants, identified through snowball sampling, were interviewed. To corroborate the interview data, numerous documents were reviewed and repeat field visits to Chattanooga and surrounding area conducted over a period of three-and-a-half years. Interview data were analyzed using MAXQDA qualitative data analysis software. Findings Findings show that the transformation process from “the dirtiest city in America” to “green city” was mainly a community agenda. Led by concerned private citizens and visionaries, Chattanooga went through aggressive community mobilization, citizen empowerment and participation in environmental improvement, building of social capital and economic revitalization. Research limitations/implications Research limitations include under coverage and researcher bias. Practical implications Lessons for cities that share the same industrial history as Chattanooga. Social implications Community-building and community participation can work in a collectivist culture. Originality/value The lead author collected the data, conducted analysis and did all the writing with mentoring from the co-authors.

Commoning the Smart City: A Case for a Public Internet Provision

“…Similarly, Hu (2015:XVII) reminds that "the all-but-forgotten infrastructures that undergird the cloud's physical origins [are] often originated in a state's military apparatus", where 'the cloud' is a catchy metaphor for the Internet: "a cultural fantasy, always more than its present-day technological manifestation" (p. 97). This is never been more true than for Chattanooga, Tennessee, which in 2010 was the first city in the United States to offer 1 Gbps high-speed Internet (at the time, over 200 times faster than the national average), thus transforming the image of a polluted and failing city into the thriving 'Gig City' (Kitheka et al 2016). More notably, this super-fast Internet was offered via the municipal and non-profit Electric Power Board, making it the largest public investment in the US on the matter (EPB 2015).…”