The role of local actors in transforming the urban fringe

In interpreting the transformation of rural space, much attention has been given to the macro scale processes shaping capitalist society, particularly those of accumulation and uneven development. Often, the role of the individual and of local agency generally is relegated to that of a pawn. However, with the retreat of the central state from many domains, the role of the individual and particularly the local community in shaping development processes has received more and more attention. Proactive roles have been recognized increasingly for communities and individuals in relatively depressed regions as being an integral part of the emerging ‘new economy’, but the urban fringe has received little attention from this perspective. Glimpses of the role for local agency come partly from research into urban fringe agriculture over the past 20 years which has profiled the role of the individual farmer and farm family, but little progress has been made in the appreciation of locality, or socially constructed localized action space, in the urban fringe, particularly in its manifestation through the actions of local groups, organizations and communities. A conceptual framework is proposed to advance our understanding of local agency in the processes of differentiation within the urban fringe. Local agency acts upon the transformation of the local environment to become one of the driving forces behind the process of uneven development and, more generally, differentiation of urban fringe space.