Institutionalizing a policy by any other name: in the City of Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Plan, does climate change policy or sustainability policy smell as sweet?

What difference does framing make to the values, operationalization, and possibilities for social change embedded in urban policy? Framing is defined by Heinelt and Lamping in this special issue of Urban Research and Practice as a mechanism used to construct and stabilize a knowledge order according to a predetermined conception of the world, placing particular policy choices in particular orders of preference. We will investigate this question via the specific case of the highly regarded City of Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Plan (GCAP) (2010-2020), as a new species of hybrid policy that builds upon a 20-year history of sustainability and climate policy in that city. Our starting point for this investigation is the hypothesis that sustainability and climate change framing for urban policy attract different sets of actors, motivate and mobilize different actions and participation, and entail different lessons and learning opportunities. That is, they represent different knowledge orders. The

Meg Holdena* and Majken Toftager Larsenb

1. Introduction

What dif erence does framing make to the values, operationalization, and pos ibilities for social change embed ed in urban policy? Framing is defined by Heinelt and Lamping in this special is ue of Urban Research and Practice as a mechanism used to construct and stabilize a knowledge order ac ording to a predetermined conception of the world, placing particular policy choices in particular orders of preference. We will investigate this question via the specific case of the highly regarded City of Vancouver’s Gre nest City Action Plan (GCAP) (2010-2020), as a new species of hybrid policy that builds upon a 20-year history of sustainability and climate policy in that city. Our starting point for this investigation is the hypothesis that sustainability and climate change framing for urban policy attract dif erent sets of actors, motivate and mobilize dif erent actions and participation, and entail dif erent les ons and learning op ortunities. That is, they represent dif erent knowledge orders. The

POLICY CHOICE IN LOCAL RESPONSES TO CLIMATE CHANGE

intermixing of these knowledge orders in real political contexts permits the construction of a knowledge arena, where knowledge politics is in play and new syntheses become possible.