GEOGRAPHY, PLANNING AND DESIGN.
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Regulating Coastal Zones. International Perspective on Land Management Instruments
Fellow: Rachelle Alterman Abstract: Regulating Coastal Zones addresses the knowledge gap concerning the legal and regulatory challenges of managing land in coastal zones across a broad range of political and socio-economic contexts. In recent years, coastal zone management has gained increasing attention from environmentalists, land use planners, and decision-makers across a broad spectrum of fields. Development pressures along coasts such as high-end tourism projects, luxury housing, ports, energy generation, military outposts, heavy industry, and large-scale enterprise compete with landscape preservation and threaten local history and culture. Leading experts present fifteen case studies among advanced-economy countries, selected to represent three groups of legal contexts: signatories to the 2008 Mediterranean ICZM Protocol, parties to the 2002 EU Recommendation on Integrated Coastal Zone Management, and the USA and Australia. This book is the first to address the legal-regulatory aspects of coastal land management from a systematic cross-national comparative perspective. By including both successful and less-effective strategies, it aims to inform professionals, graduate students, policy makers, and NGOs of the legal and socio-political challenges as well as the better practices from which others could learn. |
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Linking planning theory, implementation analysis and planning law
Fellow: Rachelle Alterman Abstract: The privilege of being selected to write my academic autobiography for this special book faced me with the challenge of delving inwards into my “academic being”. I now realize that three seemingly unconnected themes have been intertwined in my work: planning theory, implementation analysis, and planning law. I picture them as the beacon, the compass, and the scale. Planning theory is the beacon because it provides planners with the normative-ethical light, with a sense of public mission. Implementation analysis is the compass because it offers realistic directions that planners should take in order to achieve their missions. Planning law is the scale – the proverbial symbol of justice. It helps planners to balance contending goals and interests. However, what is considered appropriate or just also differs from country to country. So, I have adopted the powerful perspective of cross-national comparison to provide an additional sense of scale. The connections among these ingredients are the backbone of this chapter. Interspersed are chronological accounts of my roles as a student, planning educator, builder of new academic institutions, and a researcher with a resolve to transfer knowledge across continents and disciplines. Keywords: planning theory, planning law, compartive analysis |
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Between Informal and Illegal in the Global North: Planning Law, Enforcement, and Justifiable Noncompliance
Fellow: Rachelle Alterman Abstract: Much research has focused on the widespread phenomenon of “informal” construction in developing countries, where planning laws are dysfunctional. However, in recent years scholars have used this term with reference to Global North countries as well, where planning laws generally do function reasonably well. In this chapter, we take on a difficult task: to try and distinguish contexts or situations where indeed, planning law fails to the extent that noncompliance should be regarded as justifiable. To do so, we first demonstrate the difficulties and elusiveness of making a judgment of when noncompliance merits the term “informal”, thus calling for conceptual criteria. Once the challenges and dilemmas are exposed, the paper proposes six situations – or criteria– when noncompliance may be justifiable. Each is accompanied with real-life examples. The chapter concludes by pointing out the deep shortcomings in the interrelationships between regulatory planning on the one hand, and the grossly under-researched enforcement functions. |
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Urban open spaces as a commons: The credibility thesis and common property in a self-governed park of Athens, Greece
Fellow: Paschalis Arvanitidis Abstract: Although abandoned, unused or underused urban open spaces can play an important role in urban well-being, the traditional approaches of state management and privatization have failed to revive them, due to the lack of necessary public funds, low private investment interest or the vagueness of property rights. Therefore, a solution might be to manage this land as a commons, where local users collectively undertake governance of the resource. The current paper explores a successful initiative, the Navarinou Park initiative in downtown Athens, in an attempt to consolidate the experience gained and to draw policy recommendations for the success of such actions. In this endeavour, the paper employs Ostrom’s Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) framework to analyse the park as a commons and then, building upon this, proceeds to explore the credibility of the institution along the lines of the credibility thesis and its underlying theory, with particular reference to the Formal, Actual and Targeted (FAT) institutional framework. The paper concludes that Navarinou Park is a functional, long-standing and credible institution, successfully serving the manifold needs (recreational, environmental, social and political) and interests of the local population. Thus, in line with the Credibility Scales and Intervention (CSI) checklist, an advisable intervention would likely comprise a subtle blend of condoning and co-opting; governments to leave the daily praxis undisturbed while fostering a regime within which this praxis is permitted to flourish. Keywords: Commons, Socio-Ecological Systems (SES), Credibility thesis, Formal, Actual and Targeted (FAT), institutional framework, Endogenous property rights. |
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From Commons Dilemmas to Social Solutions: a Common Pool Resource Experiment in Greece
Fellow: Paschalis Arvanitidis Abstract: Common pool resources frequently give rise to social dilemmas in which individuals have to choose whether they would overexploit the common good to maximise their short-term personal returns or whether they would refrain from doing so for the sake of the long-term social benefit and the sustainability of the resource. This chapter used a laboratory experiment to explore this in Greece, and to assess whether subjects, by communicating with each other, manage to cooperate and to form institutions that overcome the commons’ tragedy. For this purpose, three experiment sessions were undertaken with 77 final-year undergraduates in economics. The game was played in eight rounds, where every two the rules were slightly different. The study recorded the decisions (and earnings) of the subjects in each round, examining whether, under different communication conditions, they would refrain from personal maximisation towards the sustainable use of the resource. It was found that individuals in commons dilemmas are not always confined to their narrow self-interest, but that small-group, face-to-face communication enables them to articulate cooperation-facilitating institutions and achieve outcomes that are almost socially efficient. Keywords: Common pool resources, Commons dilemma, Institutions Game, Experimental economics, Greece |
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On Marx’s human significance, Harvey’s right to the city, and Nussbaum’s capability approach
Fellow: Claudia Basta Abstract: In this article, I juxtapose David Harvey’s idea of the ‘right to the city’ and Martha Nussbaum’s central human capability of ‘control over one’s environment’, and I approach them from the perspective of their mutual convergence on Marx’s conception of human significance. In particular, I compare how Marx’s conception reverberates in Harvey’s right to the city as human right and in Nussbaum’s control over the environment as central human capability. I discuss how the language of capabilities through which the latter scholar articulates her political liberalism offers ‘important supplementations’ to the language of human rights through which the former scholar articulates his critical discourse. I conclude that the evaluative character of Nussbaum’s capability approach could advance a novel stream in planning theory centred on human development. To elaborate on such potential, I propose the notion of people’s ‘urban functionings’, and I discuss how this notion could provide new interpretative lenses through which to renew the idea of ‘right to the city’. Keywords: human capabilities, human significance, Marx, the right to the city, urban functionings |
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From justice in planning toward planning for justice: A capability approach
Fellow: Claudia Basta Abstract: This article discusses the relevance of Rawls’ Theory and Sen’s Idea of justice to contemporary planning theory by drawing on the writings of the two philosophers. Besides providing a comprehensive account of what the two respective frameworks imply for the foundation of public planning and for the relevant evaluative practice, this article proposes an interpretation of these theories that overcomes their polarization into competitive frameworks. The main position of this article is that the notion of capabilities set forward by Sen is in fact an extension of, rather than in tension with, the notion of primary goods set forward by Rawls. By discussing a number of simple planning cases, this article concludes that by connecting the sphere of just principles with deliberation on the actions which can advance those principles, Rawlsian “justice in planning” provides the basis for Senian “planning for justice.” Keywords: Amartya Sen, capability approach, John Rawls, primary goods, public reasoning. |
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If neoliberalism is everything, maybe it is nothing
Fellow: Edwin Buitelaar Keywords: neoliberalism, urban planning, classical liberalism, planning theory |
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Cities, Economic Inequality and Justice. Reflections and Alternative Perspectives
Fellow: Edwin Buitelaar Overview: Increasing economic inequality in cities, and the spatial translation of that into more segregated neighbourhoods, is top of the political agenda in developed countries. While the overall living standards have increased in the last century, the focus has now shifted from poverty to economic differences, with a particular focus on the gap between the very poor and the (ultra-)rich. The authors observe a common view among policy-makers and researchers alike: that urban-economic inequality and segregation are increasing; that this increase is bad; and that money and people (in the case of segregation) need to be redistributed in response. In six compact chapters, this book enriches and broadens the debate. Chapters bring together the literature on the social effects of economic inequality and segregation and question whether there are sizable effects and what their direction (positive or negative) is. The often conflated concepts of economic inequality (and segregation) and social injustice is disentangled and the moral implications are reflected on. The book is essential reading for students and academics of Planning Theory, Planning Ethics, Urban Geography, Urban Economics, Economic Geography and Urban Sociology. |
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Simple Planning Rules for Complex Urban Problems: Toward Legal Certainty for Spatial Flexibility
Fellows: Edwin Buitelaar, Stefano Moroni, Stefano Cozzolino Abstract: In the course of the nineteenth century, many countries attempted to simplify their regulatory systems; since then, however, the entire legal apparatus has become ever more complex, being based on the (debatable) notion that law must mirror the growing complexity of society. Owing to this presumption, complex land-use and building issues have rapidly generated a host of equally intricate rules. However, some critics have argued that complex systems require exactly the opposite treatment, that is, simple rather than complex legal rules. This article explores the concept of simple rules for urban development, investigating what they are, why they are superior, and how they can be achieved. Keywords: simple rules, complexity, land-use issues, regulation, planning law |
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Building obsolescence in the evolving city. Reframing property vacancy and abandonment in the light of urban dynamics and complexity
Fellows: Edwin Buitelaar, Stefano Moroni, Anita De Franco Abstract: This conceptual article analyses how both policymakers and academics often discuss the state of buildings. Property vacancy and abandonment are generally approached statically, in an undifferentiated way and responded to with ad hoc public policies. However, there is great variety in the causes and effects of a building's state of affairs. This article adopts a more complex and dynamic view of building obsolescence to better understand the development of a building and the reasons behind its current (temporary) state. It basically shows that a different set of policy options come into the picture when viewing the city as a complex evolving system, rather than as a ‘made order’ or ‘organisation’. Rather than policy rules and actions that are reactive and correct for undesired urban outcomes, these (framework) rules are anticipative as they facilitate and incentivize change before a building reaches a socially unwanted state. Those policy options are empirically illustrated. Keywords: Complexity, Urban planning, Vacancy, Obsolescence, Jane Jacobs |
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Adaptive and anti-adaptive neighbourhoods: Investigating the relationship between individual choice and systemic adaptability
Fellow: Ian Carter and Stefano Moroni Abstract: Recent work on ‘anti-adaptive’ neighbourhoods has highlighted a number of common features, including scale of design, number of designers, mono-functionality, percentage of public space, planning rules and system of ownership. This article aims to provide a more general conceptual analysis of adaptability and anti-adaptability in terms of degrees of individual choice, where an individual’s choice set is understood as a combination of individual freedoms, both physical and normative, and of individual normative powers. Individual choice is constitutive of adaptability, and its ‘non-specific’ value helps to explain why adaptability is itself seen in a positive light. Thus, the article points to a potentially unifying explanatory factor that can help us to better understand the various common features of anti-adaptive neighbourhoods highlighted in the recent literature. The final part of the article discusses some of the implications of this reasoning for policy and design. Keywords: Freedom, anti-adaptive neighbourhoods, individual choice, adaptability, complexity |
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Responding to a complex world: explorations in spatial planning
Fellow: Angelique Chettiparamb Abstract: This article discusses three aspects in relation to Complexity Theory. First, from an understanding of time and space specificities in the rise of theories, it discusses the wider socio-political reasons that may account for the rise of complexity theory and its interest for planners today. The rise of the third sector in governance, the decentralisation of the nation state, the rise of informality, the exponential rise of information and knowledge in every sphere of human and non-human activity and the rise of new normative ideologies are argued to provide the social context for interest in complexity theory. Second, this article positions complexity theory within general social science theories and argues that complexity theory best suits the second-order realm of social science theorisation. Third, this article positions complexity theory within planning theory and suggests that complexity theorists within planning might engage with the theory in three ways. These are by suggesting new ways of ordering of society and space by configuring or re-configuring planning systems in the first order, unravelling new opportunities for actors to work in society and space with largely self-organised entities and finally by searching for and discovering new dynamics for systems in the first order in society and space. Keywords: complexity theory, complexity theory and agency, complexity theory and meta-theory, complexity theory and structural analysis, multi-layered structures, rise of complexity theory, second-order theorisation, social science theory |
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Meta-operations, autopoiesis and neo-systems thinking: What significance for spatial planners?
Fellow: Angelique Chettiparamb Abstract: This essay introduces the theory of legal autopoiesis to planning. It discusses the main tenets of neo-systems thinking and elaborates on select claims and concepts from legal autopoiesis for planners. The claims and concepts are then used to re-analyse a published case study describing the after-effects of the implementation of a Compulsory Purchase Order in the regeneration of the Docklands in Cardiff. The re-interpretation draws attention to the added insights brought into focus by the theory. The significance of neo-systems thinking for planning is then discussed. The article concludes that the new epistemological framings connects the universal to the particular with implications for current understandings of planning concepts such as public interest, consensus, situatedness, contingency and justice. Neo-systems thinking thus deconstructs ‘how to’ dilemmas for planners from a non-normative standpoint at a meta-operational level. Keywords: compulsory purchase orders, legal autopoiesis, meta-operations, neo-systems thinking |
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Articulating ‘public interest’ through complexity theory
Fellow: Angelique Chettiparamb Abstract: The ‘Public interest’, even if viewed with ambiguity or scepticism, has been one of the primary means by which various professional roles of planners have been justified. Many objections to the concept have been advanced by writers in planning academia. Notwithstanding these, ‘public interest’ continues to be mobilised, to justify, defend or argue for planning interventions and reforms. This has led to arguments that planning will have to adopt and recognise some form of public interest in practice to legitimise itself. This paper explores current debates around public interest and social justice and advances a vision of the public interest informed by complexity theory. The empirical context of the paper is the poverty alleviation programme, the Kudumbashree project in Kerala, India. Keywords: Public interest, complexity theory, poverty alleviation |
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The production of informal space: A critical atlas of housing informalities in Italy between public institutions and political strategies
Fellow: Francesco Chiodelli Abstract: The paper analyses the plurality of urban informal practices that characterize contemporary Italy in the sphere of housing, focusing on its complex connections with a variety of public institutions (e.g. laws, regulations, policies and practices). The paper discusses five cases of urban informality in Italy: the squatting of public housing in Milan; Roma camps in Rome; the borgate romane (large unauthorised neighbourhoods in the capital, which were built in the 1960s and 1970s and which have subsequently undergone a long and complex process of regularization); unauthorised construction, by the middle class, of second homes in coastal areas of Southern Italy; illegal subdivision of agricultural land as a standard mechanism for urban expansion in Casal di Principe, Naples.From these cases emerges a complex picture of hybrid institutions that shape and govern housing informalities. These hybrid institutions are composed of multifaceted networks of actors, policies, practices and rules that exist in tension with each other and contribute to favouring and shaping the production of informal space in different ways (e.g. through their action, inaction and structural features). Against the backdrop of this varied institutional framework, a selective tolerance driven mainly by politically-mediated interests emerges as the distinctive feature of the public approach to housing informality in Italy. The paper aims to develop an innovative research approach to informal housing in Italy by overcoming traditional boundaries between research ‘objects’ and by looking at political uses and forms of institutionalisation that are deployed across housing informalities. By doing so, it also contributes to the literature which analyses informality through the lenses of state theory. Simultaneously, it represents a call for international research to investigate the similarities in the patterns of housing informality – and their multifaceted politics – in Mediterranean welfare states. Keywords: Informality, Illegality, Housing, Urban planning, Public institutions, Southern Europe |
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The complex nexus between informality and the law: Reconsidering unauthorised settlements in light of the concept of nomotropism
Fellows: Francesco Chiodelli, Stefano Moroni Abstract: This article discusses the relations between unauthorised settlements and regulation in the Global South. It starts from the concept of “nomotropism”, by which is meant “acting in light of rules” (acting in light of rules does not necessarily entail acting “in conformity with rules”). Application of this concept foregrounds the underlying relationship among rules, informality and transgression. The aim of the inquiry is to provide new bases for reframing the problem of low-income unauthorised settlements and redefining practices of land-use regulation in the Global South. Keywords: unauthorised settlements, informality, illegality, nomotropism, global south, urban planning |
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Does planning keep its promises? latin American spatial governance and planning as an ex-post regularisation activity
Fellow: Giancarlo Cotella Abstract: Spatial governance and planning systems empower the public authority to steer and control spatial development. Whereas most comparative studies on how this occurs focus on the European continent, less knowledge is available on the global South incremental urbanisation. The cases of three Latin American countries – Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru – are here discussed, highlighting the role played by the logic of necessity (and the resulting necessity-market) as the main driver of plot-by-plot urbanisation. The analysis shows that, in the three countries, spatial governance and planning systems are scarcely capable to address societal needs ex-ante and limit their activity to ex-post regularisation actions. Keywords: Spatial governance and planning systems; necessity; incremental urbanisation; Latin America; global South |
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Spatial governance and planning systems in the public control of spatial development: a European typology
Fellow: Giancarlo Cotella Abstract: Although the functions of spatial governance and planning systems are generalizable, 30 years of comparative studies, especially in Europe, have shown the heterogeneity characterising these ‘institutional technologies’. This contribution builds on the materials of the recently concluded ESPON COMPASS research project to propose a European typology on the capacity of public authorities to control spatial development, a crucial aspect for the life of entire cities, regions and countries. Based on the opinions expressed by respective national experts, the systems of 39 countries (28 EU and 11 non-EU) are compared in relation to the mechanisms to allocate land use and spatial development rights as well as to the prevalence of the state vs. the market in guiding the development decisions. As a result, the European systems are placed on an X-Y diagram, which makes it possible to cluster them in consistent types that raise new comparative observations and general findings. In summary, the capacity for public control of spatial development looks variegated in Europe, although limited overall. Even if the power relations between state and market established in each institutional context are certainly influential, the models adopted for allocating spatial development rights also play a role in determining the observed trends. Keywords: Spatial governance, spatial planning, spatial development, systems, public control, Europe |
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How Europe hits home? The impact of European Union policies on territorial governance and spatial planning
Fellow: Giancarlo Cotella Abstract: Despite the lack of competence on the matter, through time the European Union (EU) developed a number of spatially relevant concepts, initiatives and sectoral directives. An EU territorial governance framework progressively consolidated and the Member States gradually adapted in order to reflect its growing complexity. Building on the results of the ESPON COMPASS project, the article sheds light on this process, often referred to as Europeanization of territorial governance. To do so, it presents and compares the perceived impact that a number of sectoral directives, spatial policies and guidance documents developed at the EU level plays in shaping territorial governance and spatial planning in the 32 countries that participate to the ESPON programme. Keywords: EU territorial governance, spatial planning systems, Europeanization, ESPON |
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Abandonment as a Social Fact. The problem of unused and unmaintained private buildings in a neo-institutional perspective
Fellow: Anita De Franco Abstract: This book provides a multidisciplinary approach for the study of the “abandonment” problem at the inter-section among urban studies, neo-institutionalist perspectives, and social ontology. An analytical framework (based on descriptive and operational issues, factors, reasons, policies) has been built to interpret the phenomenon of abandonment and possible ways of intervening. The work considers the Italian situation in general terms and examines the case study of Milan in depth. The purpose of the book is to show that the problem of the “abandonment” of urban buildings should be understood as a social fact and not as a brute fact. Thus, in this work the “abandoned” state of buildings is considered as not directly related to certain physical variables; rather, it entirely depends on human evaluations. Crucial information in this regard is how institutional frameworks (e.g. sets of rules of conduct) influence individual behaviour and actions through time. The neo-institutional approach helps to highlight how the problem of abandonment is articulated with respect to property rights, formal constraints, reasons behind policy decisions, intervention strategies and implementations. Keywords: Abandoned buildings, Social Facts, Institutions, Vacancy, Dereliction, Regeneration, Reuse |
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Regulating Urban Foodscapes During Covid-19 Pandemic. Privatization or Reorganization of Public Spaces?
Fellow: Anita De Franco Abstract: This paper describes how the municipality of Milan incentivized the occupation of public spaces by private activities. From a methodological viewpoint, this study adopts a neo-institutionalist view on “foodscapes”. The approach is mainly conceptual but empirically illustrated, to discuss the spatial implications at stake. The first section provides an introduction on how Covid-19 pandemics made the relations that link objects and people in urban spaces more visible. To do this, the focus of our attention will be on restaurant businesses, which are among those that have had to review their way of working radically in the face of specific epidemiological issues but also the more general changes taking place in urban areas during the pandemic. The second section is devoted to the spatial analysis of emerging foodscapes in Milan, highlighting the distribution of restaurants outdoors (i.e. on urban streets). The third section discusses the issues affecting local businesses and restaurant entrepreneurs in Italy in the aftermath of the first year of the pandemic. Section concludes. Keywords: Urban foodscapes, Regulation, Covid-19, Restaurants |
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The city as an information system: Urban agency, experiential inputs and planning measures
Fellow: Anita De Franco, Stefano Moroni Abstract: From the point of view of urban agents, the city can be seen as an information system. In this article, we focus on the city as an information structure insofar as it is an experiential context. Therefore, we will not deal with the “analytical information” about city X that is available while being elsewhere. We will instead deal with the “experiential information” which is accessible while being/acting in city X. A large part of urban experiential information reaches individuals without any specific conscious focal awareness. For the individuals operating in the city and using the city (residents, shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, developers, consumers, tourists, etc.), experiential information is crucial. At the personal level, experiential inputs help to positively regulate an individual's psycho-physical state. On an interpersonal level, experiential inputs help to structure and coordinate agency among human agents, and between them and physical elements of the environment. In discussing experiential information, the attention is not merely on human senses, but, first of all, on the vehicles that convey such information: images, sounds, smells, artifacts, behaviours. Taking experiential information seriously implies new ways to interpret the functioning of cities and modes of urban intervention (e.g. planning and urban design). Keywords: Experience, Senses, Perception, Information, Experiential information, Non-propositionality |
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Complejidad e incertidumbre en la ciudad actual
Fellow: José Miguel Fernández-Güell Overview: Este libro se plantea tres objetivos principales. En primer lugar, pretende exponer de la manera más divulgativa posible, pero sin excluir la valoración crítica, la evolución histórica tanto del pensamiento sistémico como de los estudios del futuro. Un segundo objetivo es plantear y presentar un modelo conceptual que explique el funcionamiento sistémico de la ciudad, para lo que se ha huido de los modelos cuantitativos repletos de algoritmos matemáticos. El fin de este modelo no es reproducir con precisión matemática las dinámicas urbanas, sino proporcionar un instrumento de trabajo o de juego –según se conciba– que permita esbozar con facilidad las situaciones cambiantes que experimenta la ciudad, así como determinar las implicaciones más relevantes de los cambios en sus sistemas funcionales. El tercer objetivo es acercar el pensamiento sistémico al mayor número de profesionales, estudiosos, alumnos y grupos de interés urbanos con el afán de informarles y concienciarles de la utilidad de afrontar los retos urbanos con mentalidad sistémica. Este trabajo se ha concebido en el ámbito académico, por lo que se ha realizado un esfuerzo por utilizar de manera coherente la terminología sistémica para analizar y debatir los conceptos centrales aquí tratados. El libro está organizado en dos grandes partes: una divulgativa y otra propositiva. La primera parte está dedicada a revisar las principales aportaciones realizadas al pensamiento sistémico y a los estudios del futuro, tanto a nivel general como en el ámbito urbano. En la segunda parte se analiza la utilidad de los modelos conceptuales para abordar e interpretar los sistemas complejos, concretamente las ciudades. |
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Planificación estratégica de ciudades
Fellow: José Miguel Fernández-Güell Overview: Este libro persigue dos fines principales: por un lado, actualizar y ampliar un campo de conocimiento, el de la planificación estratégica, que crece paulatinamente y que atrae la atención de las nuevas generaciones de urbanistas; por otro lado, mantener vivo el debate sobre la crisis y validez de la planificación urbana contemporánea, para lo que se utiliza siempre un tono optimista sobre las posibilidades de la buena gobernabilidad para superar los desafíos de futuro. La planificación estratégica se ha incorporado con naturalidad al acervo urbanístico. Pruebas de ello son los numerosos planes elaborados en todo el mundo, así como la creciente atención del entorno académico hacia este proceso. La pervivencia y vitalidad de la planificación estratégica han hecho que se perfeccionen muchas de sus herramientas básicas y que se hayan producido aportaciones innovadoras de otras áreas de conocimiento, lo que ha añadido mayor complejidad y sofisticación a estos procesos. Todo ello ha llevado al autor a revisar en profundidad la primera edición de este libro (1997). El resultado ha sido una transformación rigurosa y crítica de la estructura y los contenidos iniciales, entre cuyas nuevas aportaciones destacan: 1, la explicación de la crisis que vive la planificación urbana contemporánea, así como de los factores agravantes, internos y externos, que minan su recuperación; 2, la ampliación de las bases conceptuales de la planificación estratégica de ciudades, con los principios de sostenibilidad y gobernabilidad unidos a los de competitividad y habitabilidad; 3, la profundización en la metodología, con mayor detalle en las fases que atraviesa un plan estratégico; y 4, la introducción por primera vez de todo un abanico de instrumentos analíticos, como las técnicas de microsegmentación de la demanda urbana, el análisis de clusters, las matrices de posicionamiento, el diseño de escenarios de futuro y el marketing urbano. |
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Incorporating a Systemic and Foresight Approach into Smart City Initiatives: The Case of Spanish Cities
Fellow: José Miguel Fernández-Güell Abstract: At the dawn of the twenty-first century, cities face serious societal, economic, environmental, and governance challenges. Under the term “Smart City,” numerous technology-based initiatives are emerging to help cities face contemporary challenges while the concept itself is evolving towards a more holistic approach. Nevertheless, the capability of smart initiatives to provide an integrated vision of our cities is still very limited. Eventually, many of these initiatives do not fulfill satisfactorily their initial objectives because they fail to understand the complexity, diversity, and uncertainty that characterize contemporary cities. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to display an urban functional system, capable of interpreting the city in a more holistic way, and to incorporate foresight tools so as to formulate Smart City visions in a more participatory way with the involvement of local stakeholders. Keywords: smart city; urban complexity; systemic approach; foresight tools; urban visions |
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Spatial governance and planning systems in the public control of spatial development: a European typology
Fellow: Umberto Janin Rivolin Abstract: Although the functions of spatial governance and planning systems are generalizable, 30 years of comparative studies, especially in Europe, have shown the heterogeneity characterising these ‘institutional technologies’. This contribution builds on the materials of the recently concluded ESPON COMPASS research project to propose a European typology on the capacity of public authorities to control spatial development, a crucial aspect for the life of entire cities, regions and countries. Based on the opinions expressed by respective national experts, the systems of 39 countries (28 EU and 11 non-EU) are compared in relation to the mechanisms to allocate land use and spatial development rights as well as to the prevalence of the state vs. the market in guiding the development decisions. As a result, the European systems are placed on an X-Y diagram, which makes it possible to cluster them in consistent types that raise new comparative observations and general findings. In summary, the capacity for public control of spatial development looks variegated in Europe, although limited overall. Even if the power relations between state and market established in each institutional context are certainly influential, the models adopted for allocating spatial development rights also play a role in determining the observed trends. Keywords: Spatial governance, spatial planning, spatial development, systems, public control, Europe |
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Global crisis and the systems of spatial governance and planning: a European comparison
Fellow: Umberto Janin Rivolin Abstract: Inadequate regulation of spatial development is at the origin of the current global crisis and increases, in years of crisis, the unequal distribution of wealth. The importance of the related risks for democracy draw attention to the systems of spatial governance and planning, through which States regulate spatial development. In Europe, the countries most affected by the unequal effects of the crisis have spatial planning systems that are traditionally based on the preventive assignation of rights for land use and development through a plan. The systems of other countries had established beforehand that new rights for land use and for spatial development are rather assigned only after the public control of development projects and their distributional effects. Despite the evidence that some models can operate better than others in ensuring public government of spatial development, the improvement of spatial planning systems is, however, limited by their complex nature of ‘institutional technologies’. Especially in a context of crisis, planners are responsible for the increase in public awareness concerning the role of spatial governance in economic and social life. Keywords: Crisis, space, governance, planning systems, Europe |
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Planning Systems as Institutional Technologies: a Proposed Conceptualization and the Implications for Comparison
Fellow: Umberto Janin Rivolin Abstract: Spatial planning systems have become the subject of much comparative research in recent years. This has resulted in very general classifications, while a definition of the subject of comparison remains vague. Any attempt at comparative evaluation has proved therefore to be difficult and controversial, impeding further theoretical and institutional progress. Against this backdrop, the present contribution is aimed as an effort towards conceptualization. The notion of ‘institutional technology’ is adopted in order to understand planning systems as specific social constructs, thus encompassing also the shaping of respective planning cultures. Implications for analysis and comparison are discussed. |
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Habermas revisited: Resurrecting the contested roots of communicative planning theory
Fellow: Hanna Mattila Abstract: Communicative planning made its breakthrough in the late 1980s and 1990s, and has remained one of most discussed topics in the field of planning theory ever since. Seen against the notable popularity of communicative planning in the field of planning practice, it is striking how much criticism the theory of communicative planning has attracted during the past two decades. A fair share of this criticism has been levelled against the main theoretical source of inspiration of the theory, the philosopher Jürgen Habermas. This study revisits the Habermasian roots of communicative planning. It aims at resurrecting and recasting the Habermasian roots of communicative planning theory not only by replying to criticisms encountered by the theory but also suggesting some novel uses for Habermas's philosophy in the field of planning. Keywords: Communicative action, Communicative planning, Habermas, Planning theory, Geography, Planning and Development |
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Can collaborative planning go beyond locally focused notions of the “public interest”? The potential of Habermas's concept of “generalizable interest” in pluralist and trans-scalar planning discourses
Fellow: Hanna Mattila Abstract: This article approaches the concept of public interest in planning from the point of view of Patsy Healey’s collaborative planning theory on one hand and, on the other, from the perspective of Habermasian philosophy, one of the sources of inspiration for collaborative planning. In its original form, the theory of collaborative planning prioritized the ways in which local communities can communicatively define the interests they share and have an influence on the places they share under the current conditions of pluralism of ways of life. This article asks whether collaborative planning theory can also look beyond locally focused notions of the public interest and whether the theory is useful also for trans-scalar problem solving, for instance, in the multicultural metropolises where the different locally defined “public interests” often contradict with each other. This article compares Healey’s answers to this problem with ones that could be derived from Habermas’ philosophy. It argues that in order to look beyond the locally focused notions of the public interest, the theory of collaborative planning could benefit from revisiting Habermas’ concept of “generalizable interest” and especially Habermas’ positioning of this concept in his works published after The Theory of Communicative Action. Keywords: collaborative planning, communicative action, cultural pluralism, generalizable interests, public interest. |
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Aesthetic justice and urban planning: Who ought to have the right to design cities?
Fellow: Hanna Mattila Abstract: This paper brings together two diverse approaches to urban planning. The first approach views planning as a means to distribute goods or welfare in society, and therefore considers the promotion of social justice to be the central objective of planning. The second approach highlights the role of planning as a means to produce aesthetically pleasing everyday surroundings. I will explore the concepts of ‘aesthetic welfare’ and ‘aesthetic justice’ developed by the philosopher Monroe Beardsley, and argue that an aesthetically pleasing environment is an important source of aesthetic welfare in society. My contention, then, is that the fair distribution of this welfare should be one of the objectives of public planning policies. This objective, however, is difficult to achieve, since the question cannot only concern the distribution of the aesthetically good environment. This is because there often is no agreement on the criteria for the aesthetically good environment. Thus, I will eventually reject the idea of aesthetic justice as distributive justice that Beardsley advocates. Instead, I will turn to some contemporary theories of justice that question the model of distributive justice, arguing that theories of justice should go beyond the distribution of goods, and encompass also the conception and production of goods. Thus, as I will maintain, aesthetic justice will be eventually best promoted by opening the aesthetic dimension of urban planning (among other dimensions of it) to public participation. Keywords: collaborative planning, distributive justice, social justice, urban aesthetics, urban design. |
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What can urban policies and planning really learn from John Rawls? A multi-strata view of institutional action and a canvas conception of the just city
Fellow: Stefano Moroni Abstract: One of the most influential theories of justice in planning theory and practice has been, without doubt, that of John Rawls. The very idea of the just city is indebted to Rawls’s view. However, the way in which Rawlsian theory of justice has been imported into planning often seems debatable. This article aims to discuss this aspect critically. The objective is not merely to discuss certain planning approaches inspired by Rawls; it is also to investigate, in more general terms, what meaning and role (any theory of) justice could and should have for planning and urban policies. In revisiting John Rawls’s view, the article is structured around two points: first, a critical discussion on how Rawls’s theory of justice has been generally applied to urban policies and planning; second, an exploration of an alternative way to interpret and apply certain Rawlsian insights (often undervalued) in this field. The article is not intended to defend and recommend Rawls’s normative theory as a whole (i.e. in its entirety), but to evidence certain Rawlsian contributions of a general nature that are particularly important. Nor is it the aim of this article to contribute directly to the development of a specific substantive idea of the just city; instead, it is to highlight fundamental methodological and analytical caveats that are crucial in this regard. Rather than a “theory of the just city”, this article develops a “meta-theory of the just city”: that is, an approach specifying precautions and conditions for any coherent and convincing just city theory. Keywords: Just city, John Rawls, difference principle, equity, institutions |
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Action and the city. Emergence, complexity, planning
Fellow: Stefano Moroni, Stefano Cozzolino Abstract: Since Jane Jacobs' ground-breaking work, cities have come to be seen as complex dynamic systems. This has had an impact on explanations of urban phenomena, but far less on the issue of planning. A serious consideration of the issue of complexity poses entirely new challenges for planning. This article will first of all consider a fundamental question: why is the city complex? The second question is the following: what is the role of planning in complex cities? |
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Conditions of actions in complex social–spatial systems
Fellow: Stefano Moroni, Stefano Cozzolino Abstract: The chapter deals with the limits of regulation in complex systems, and is structured around three main questions. (i) Why is the city a complex system? Aside from the city having multiple objects and elements it is complex due to the fact that ‘the city is action’. The city is the emergent result of actions and continuous interaction over time. While actions are intentional behaviours with their own internal logic, the interactions of plural actions imply the emergence of unintentional socio-spatial configurations and an overall uncertainty of the system. By acting, we (intentionally) bring about certain things, while (unintentionally) provoking other things. (ii) What are the conditions within which actions take place? ‘Conditions’ for actions change from place to place. We will distinguish different kinds of conditions for action according to two main variables: first, we consider their nature, which can be ‘social’ or ‘material’; second, we focus on their genesis, which can be independent from human intervention or dependent on human activity. (iii) On which conditions can planners (effectively) intervene (and how)? Although planning rules are only one of the many conditions that influence actions in space, they represent the only condition that can be directly altered by planners to avert or favour certain situations in complex systems. It is exactly because the city is a complex system that only certain types of rules are better suited to deal with it. This brings us to two types of rules: directional rules to directly obtain a given order of urban actions, and relational rules to indirectly foster self-coordination of urban actions. This reasoning brings to the fore regulations that are relevant for the planner to consider when dealing with a dynamic city in action. |
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Unused private and public buildings: Re-discussing merely empty and truly abandoned situations, with particular reference to the case of Italy and the city of Milan
Fellows: Stefano Moroni, Anita De Franco Abstract: There is much debate today over the problem of unused buildings. This debate is often conducted in alarmed and concerned tones. Our idea is that it is indispensable to reconsider the issue with greater critical reflection and some necessary distinctions: in particular, between situations and aspects relating to public buildings and situations and aspects relating to private buildings; and, within the latter category, between totally natural and legitimate situations and truly problematic ones. To this end, we shall focus on definitory issues, quantitative issues, ethical issues and policy issues. We shall do so with particular attention to the Italian situation, which we believe is especially challenging, and to a specific case study, the city of Milan. However, part of what we shall say also applies to other contexts. |
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Multiple functions of drawings
Fellows: Stefano Moroni, Giuseppe Lorini Abstract: In the twentieth century, the functions of written or spoken language were extensively studied. The functions of drawings were studied less. This was largely due to a kind of ‘verbal-centrism’ that dominated the general discussions on the mechanisms of interaction and communication. This article explores the various possible functions of drawings, focusing on architecture, urban design and planning. It initially attempts to build a typology of the different functions of drawing and, later, to discuss relevant aspects such as the relationship of each function with reality. The article concludes by dwelling on the theoretical and practical importance of this approach. |
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The (anti) adaptive neighbourhoods. Embracing complexity and distribution of design control in the ordinary built environment
Fellow: Stefano Cozzolino Abstract: While cities as a whole work as complex adaptive systems, the same cannot be said of many of their neighbourhoods constructed in the 20th century. The formation and perpetuation of anti-adaptive-neighbourhoods is a very recent and still under-explored phenomenon in urban history. The paper investigates the causes behind this phenomenon and suggests policy and design implications to generate neighbourhoods and built environments that are more adaptable. It demonstrates that contemporary discussions can be enriched if we pay more attention to certain underestimated urban factors that guarantee the incremental adaptation of the built environment: action, ownership, and time. Keywords: Built environment, urban design, self-organization, complexity, adaptability, neighbourhoods. |
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‘Organic’ approaches to planning as densification strategy? The challenge of legal contextualisation in Buiksloterham, Amsterdam
Fellow: Sebastian Dembski Abstract: Urban development in the Netherlands has been dominated by a master-planning approach in combination with a proactive land policy, but has recently witnessed the emergence of a new type of flexible planning, which is increasingly used as a densification strategy. The Buiksloterham area in Amsterdam is a pioneering case study of a more flexible approach to planning in the Netherlands, commonly known as organic transformation, combining formal and informal instruments in an innovative way. The case study demonstrates the tension between the planners’ desire for maximum flexibility in terms of land uses to enable mixed-use and organic development, and the legal certainty required by planning law (via the legally binding land-use plan), demanding exact predictions of future impacts to safeguard environmental norms. How can planning steer densification and enable mixed-use development, while at the same time accommodating the self-organising potential of society in an increasingly dynamic and unpredictable world? Using the concept of ‘legal contextualisation’, the paper argues that densification through organic approaches is possible with the current legislation but is not a panacea given the challenge of safeguarding environmental norms under conditions of uncertainty about the actual development. Keywords: organic development, planning and law, Netherlands, densification, land-use plan, legal certainty, self-organization. |
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How do planners manage risk in alternative land development models? An institutional analysis of land development in the Netherlands
Fellow: Sebastian Dembski Abstract: While risk is a key concern in property development, it tends to be discussed by planners only relative to the effects of regulatory planning on private sector risk. Yet planning encompasses a broad range of activities that go beyond its function of regulating private sector development. Despite active approaches to land development being commonly used across different planning contexts, frameworks for analysing public sector strategies to address risk are rarely discussed. We attempt to redress this deficit by investigating the actions of public sector development actors with regard to risk across three different land development models: public land development, land development by public-private partnership, and land readjustment. Using recent Dutch experience, we conduct an institutional analysis of each land development model in order to highlight the effects of alternative governance structures on risk as a particular transaction attribute, from the perspective of public sector planning. Our findings indicate the importance of highlighting the role of public risk in alternative models of land development where there may be a tendency to adopt institutional arrangements without due regard to this, and point to possible future applications of institutional analysis at the particular, rather than the general, level. Keywords: Risk, Land development models, the Netherlands, Institutional analysis, Transaction cost theory |
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The Transformative Potential of Institutions: How Symbolic Markers Can Institute New Social Meaning in Changing Cities
Fellows: Sebastian Dembski; Willem Salet Abstract: Planners use symbolic markers in order to frame processes of urban change and to mobilise actors. How can we explain the fact that in some cases the symbolisation of new urban spaces manages to enhance and enlarge the meaning of social change while in other cases the symbolic markers remain powerless and might even have a reverse effect? The authors doubt whether the sophistication of symbolic markers as such has much impact. The explanation for the success or failure of symbolic communication is sought within the framework of institutional embedding. This conceptual paper attempts to elaborate institutions' transformative potential through their use of symbols. To this end, it undertakes a reappraisal of institutional thought in order to conceptualise institutional transformation, the establishment of a conceptual linkage between the transformative potential of institutions and symbolic markers, and the design of an operational model of research for the institutional investigation of symbols in the planning of changing cities. Keywords: Risk, Land development models, the Netherlands, Institutional analysis, Transaction cost theory |
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Wicked problems and clumsy solutions: Planning as expectation management
Fellow: Thomas Hartmann Abstract: In 1973, Horst W Rittel and Malvin A Webber introduced the term ‘wicked problem’ in planning theory. They describe spatial planning as dealing with inherent uncertainty, complexity and inevitable normativity. This contribution picks up the concept of wicked problems, reflects on it from a planning-theoretical perspective, and proposes the use of Cultural Theory’s concept of clumsy solutions as a response to wicked planning problems. In discussing public participation processes in spatial planning, it is then shown what clumsy solutions mean for spatial planning. The four rationalities of Cultural Theory are then used to explain why public participation in planning can become wicked, and how these rationalities provide a response that copes with this wickedness. Keywords: polyrationality, participation, expectation management, uncertainty, complexity |
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From diversity to justice – Unraveling pluralistic rationalities in urban design
Fellow: Thomas Hartmann, Mathias Jehling Abstract: For Jane Jacobs, the city is a fundamental unit of diversity; she develops her ideas in the city around this key axiom. Diversity provides an ethical orientation and thus defines what a just city should achieve. For Jacobs, justice is represented by peoples' inherent right to ‘make cities’. According to Jacobs, cities become just places by their ability to facilitate the spontaneous dynamics among social fabrics and urban spaces to generate the beauty and value of cities. This contribution picks up this claim for diversity and develops a theoretical lens to explore how diversity is incorporated in urban design. We use a theory on pluralism—Cultural Theory—to analyse forms of managing urban space in different types of goods. This is applied to analyse four idealistic urban spaces in the city of Leipzig. Keywords: Justice, Economic goods, Cultural Theory, Grid and groupUrban space, Leipzig |
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Looking for innovation – Trajectories of land transaction and readjustment in West Africa
Fellow: Mathias Jehling Abstract: Transition in land use rights and tenure structures from agricultural to urban land constitutes the basis of urban growth in West African cities. A multitude of highly adapted forms of land transaction and readjustment have emerged to facilitate this transition. While these provide access to housing for the middle class as well as poor households, their complexity presents challenges to planning for sustainable urban development. We argue for a new perspective to better understand the various forms of land transaction and readjustment, one that bridges normative frameworks. Drawing on the concept of Ordinary Cities, we perceive these forms as innovations, both within and across cities. Specifically, we use the concept to analyze processes in the municipalities of Abomey-Calavi (Benin) and Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso). Through a qualitative approach, local cases of land transaction and readjustment are analyzed. Five trajectories of land delivery are identified that combine statutory and customary land use rights along with formal planning processes and informal practices. We then discuss practical issues in the analysis of planning systems. As well as providing a holistic view, this opens up the possibility of transnational learning across the Global South and North. Keywords: Ordinary cities, Land use rights, Suburbanization, Hybridity, Grounded theory |
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How modern are renewables? The misrecognition of traditional solar thermal energy in Peru's energy transition
Fellow: Mathias Jehling Abstract: The ubiquitous claim for ‘modern’ energy access leads to profound transformative dynamics in energy systems in the global South. However, the policies' effects on existing socio-technical forms of energy provision must be considered. In this paper, we highlight the case of Peru, where the ‘modernisation’ of the energy systems endangers an established practice of renewable energy use. In the city of Arequipa, households widely rely on solar water heaters that have been manufactured locally since the 1930s. Applying an institutionalist approach, we analyse actors and institutions of this local energy system. We identify a disconnection of existing renewable energy practices from national policies and their marginalisation by international cooperation agencies. We show how the misrecognition jeopardises the livelihood of people involved and provokes the loss of contextualised innovation potentials. Thus, we discover a dichotomy of ‘modern’ energy policies and ‘traditional’ practices of solar thermal energy. Based on this case study, we therefore stress the need to include local energy practices into the energy policy framework for ensuring technological and social gains. We also emphasise the need to generally shift away from a top-down approach with generalised globally applicable solutions to more inclusive governance and policy formulation. Keywords: Energy justice, Peru, Global south, Renewable energy, Institutions, Innovation. |
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The Varying Interpretations of Public Interest: Making Sense of Finnish Urban Planners’ Conceptions
Fellow: Raine Mäntysalo Abstract: During the past decades, the concept of public interest has been severely criticized. It nevertheless remains to be a key normative reference point against which public planning may be evaluated and justified. The article claims that there are multiple conceptions of public interest that coexist in everyday planning practice. These conceptions are grounded in the age-old debate on the duties of the State. In the article, four different approaches to public interest were recognized on the basis of two dimensions of the concept. These dimensions are individual/collective and regulation/non-regulation. The theoretical assumptions were tested with interview data of Finnish planning professionals. The coexistence of multiple conceptions of public interest was revealed. This ambiguity makes public interest dubious as a rhetorical tool. Without the explication of the discursive context, the concept is largely devoid of meaning. Thus, when truly seeking justification to planning decisions, with reference to “public interest”, the explication of the context and the discursive framework applied is necessary. Keywords: Public Interest, Common Good, Urban Planning, Planning Profession, State. |
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The “deliberative bureaucrat”: deliberative democracy and institutional trust in the jurisdiction of the Finnish planner
Fellow: Raine Mäntysalo Abstract: This article seeks to elaborate on Forester’s notion of the planner as a “deliberative practitioner”, aiming to add sensitivity to the institutional conditions of planning, focusing especially on Finland. In terms of trust, the concept of deliberative practitioner mostly focuses on interpersonal trust as a planner’s resource in mediating particular interests. Thereby, when applied to the Finnish context, institutional trust may be undermined as a key resource for the Finnish planner’s jurisdiction, justifying his/her proactive role and authority in bringing broader concerns to the planning agenda. This undermining prevents the acknowledgement of important institutional resources that the Finnish planner has in coping with the tensions between communicative ideals and neoliberal realities. A more context-sensitive and institutionally responsive theory of communicative planning is needed to help the planning professionals and other stakeholders conceive the deliberative ideals as supportive for the planners’ institutionally strong agency. Hence, the notion of the “deliberative bureaucrat”. The article seeks to develop an outline for such a theory by drawing upon studies of legal culture, the sociology of professions, deliberative democracy theory and the concept of trust. Keywords: Legal culture, trust, deliberative democracy, planner profession, neoliberalism, Finland |
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Legitimacy of Informal Strategic Urban Planning—Observations from Finland, Sweden and Norway
Fellow: Raine Mäntysalo Abstract: In Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian cities and urban regions, strategic approaches in urban planning have been developed by introducing different kinds of informal strategic plans. The means of improving the strategic quality of urban and regional planning have thus been searched from outside the statutory land use planning system, determined by the national planning laws. Similar development has also taken place elsewhere. When strategic plans are prepared outside the statutory planning system, these processes also lack the legal guarantee for openness, fairness and accountability. This is a serious legitimacy problem. In this article, the problem is examined theoretically and conceptually by combining democracy- and governance-theoretical perspectives. With this framework, four different approaches to legitimacy are derived: accountability, inclusiveness, liberty and fairness. The article concludes that strategic urban planning must find a balance between the four approaches to legitimacy. Concerning political processes, this requires agonistic acknowledgement of different democracy models, excluding neither deliberative nor liberalist arguments. Concerning administrative processes, it requires acknowledgement of the interdependence of statutory and informal planning instruments and the necessity of developing planning methods for their mutual complementarity—thus avoiding the detachment of informal strategic planning into a parallel planning “system”. |
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Graphic rules in planning: A critical exploration of normative drawings starting from zoning maps and form-based codes
Fellows: Stefano Moroni, Giuseppe Lorini Abstract: This article is focused on the rules that we create using drawings (designs, pictures, paintings, etc.) which will be termed ‘graphic rules’. Its attention is therefore not simply on the use of images in normative documents but also ‘as law’. We will delve into one of these types of graphic rules: that is, graphic rules used in urban planning. The fact that graphic rules are widespread in planning practices, and indeed typical of them, makes rules of this kind a particularly significant field of interest for planning theory. An important point to stress is that while analysis of images used descriptively has been under way for some time (although in many respects it is anything but conclusive, despite what is generally thought), analysis of images used as rules is still in its infancy. To gain deeper understanding of these particular and widespread forms of (graphic) rules is therefore both theoretically and practically important. Keywords: form-based codes, graphic rules, non-sentential thought, normative drawings, normativity, planning theory, zoning maps. |
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A multi-level rationality model for planning behaviour
Fellow: Camilla Perrone Abstract: This chapter is about rationality as a frame of reference for choice, planning and decision-making and that is susceptible to evolutionary and revolutionary tendencies. To begin with, rationality as it is commonly used in today’s planning debate no longer holds and the debate is progressing towards new understandings. This is a rather challenging and perhaps a somewhat controversial statement, knowing that the mainstream planning debate on rationality, communicative action and intersubjective reasoning is already far beyond the traditional, but still dominant, ‘rational choice theory’. This existing planning model positions two rationalities – the technical and the communicative – as opposing and complementary extremes that frame and explain planning behaviour in the governmental domain. Between these extremes, a multitude of realities regarding public choice, planning and decision-making can be assigned, each reality representing a specific course of action. However, to relate public choice, planning and decision-making to the governmental domain only is increasingly perceived as a limitation. Consequently, developments within planning practice require additional and innovative steps outside the existing rationality model for planning behaviour. This chapter proposes a multi-level expansion of the rationality model for planning behaviour. The rise of social movements, civil initiatives and collective action, as well as the ongoing democracy crisis, inspire the idea of seeking rationalities beyond the governmental domain. These new movements, initiatives and actions no longer relate to approaches within the traditional range from command-and-control government to shared governance. Consequently, planners and decision-makers are looking for frames of reference that include processes of self-governance. Building on the concepts of dynamic patterning, co-evolution and multiple layering, taken from the complexity sciences, a new rationality model will be constructed with multiple frames of reference for public choice, planning and decision-making. |
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Grounds for future gendered urban agendas: policy patterns and practice implications
Fellow: Camilla Perrone Abstract: This paper takes the international debates of the UN and the EU regarding a New Urban Agenda as its starting point for reconceptualising a gendered urban agenda for the twenty-first century. While recalling the controversial debate on the implementation of a ‘gender mainstreaming strategy’, the paper reflects on the need to reconceptualise gender as a constitutive versus nominal essence to advance the debate. Theoretical criteria are suggested that mirror the complexity of gendered practices and create the conditions for their flourishing. These are further explicated for their policy relevance. The domains addressed include (inter)urban connectivity and the question of women’s food-growing/agriculture in a city-region context. Gender-sensitive policies, inspired by an analysis of an urban life experiment in Mondeggi, Italy, are suggested. Keywords: gender, urban agenda, policy making, planning theory, food, agriculture |
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‘Downtown Is for People’: The street-level approach in Jane Jacobs' legacy and its resonance in the planning debate within the complexity theory of cities
Fellow: Camilla Perrone Abstract: Jane Jacobs suggested that ‘just and diverse streets’ reflect the functioning of the city as ‘a problem of organised complexity’. The topic has recently been at the centre of the debate on her work. This paper looks at Jane Jacobs's reconstruction of the way a city works with reference to self-organisation and ethical aspects (trust and respect for diversity). The paper uses ‘Street-Level epistemology’ (SLe), which is a theory on the knowledge of ordinary people, in order to examine different ways to approach contemporary complex urban systems, resulting from myriads of self-organised practices and ‘vital little plans’. The paper employs Jacobs's early works on cities, in particular, a chapter in her book titled ‘Downtown Is for People’, to outline a proper Jacobsian Street-Level approach (SLa) substantiated by an ethical-cognitive component. This SLa is associated with the Complexity Theory of Cities (CTC), to improve the understanding of how complex, non-linear, discontinuous, and contingent urban systems work while constantly progressing and transforming. The paper draws on Jacobs's legacy and advocates progress through specific advancements in the debate around theoretical planning within CTC that describes the city as an emerging complex order. Keywords: Street-Level epistemology, Street-Level approach, Jane Jacobs, Ethics, Self-organisation, Complexity theory of cities, Planning theory |
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Embracing Uncertainty Without Abandoning Planning
Fellow: Ward Rauws Abstract: The uncertainties that are part of the development trajectories of cities challenge spatial planners in designing productive interventions. This paper explores how complexity theory can support planners in dealing with these uncertainties intelligently. It presents a dynamic, time-sensitive understanding of spatial transformations that helps to clarify the interconnected and changeable nature of the underlying processes. The paper continues by proposing an adaptive planning approach that strengthens the responsiveness of urban areas to both expected and unexpected changes. The argument is made that adaptive planning first and foremost implies a focus on influencing and creating conditions for development, followed by attention to content and process. Based on an imaginary case of inner-city transformation, the paper distinguishes key conditions for guiding spatio-functional configurations and supporting capacity building of local actor coalitions. |
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Adaptive planning: Generating conditions for urban adaptability. Lessons from Dutch organic development strategies
Fellow: Ward Rauws Abstract: The development of cities includes a wide variety of uncertainties which challenge spatial planners and decision makers. In response, planning approaches which move away from the ambition to achieve predefined outcomes are being explored in the literature. One of them is an adaptive approach to planning. In this paper, we argue that adaptive planning comes with a shift in focus. Instead of content and process, it is first of all about creating conditions for development which support a city’s capacity to respond to changing circumstances. We explore what these conditions may comprise and how they can be related to planning. First theoretically, by portraying cities as complex adaptive systems. Then empirically, through an evaluation of the practice of organic development strategies in which development trajectories are only minimally structured. Based on a review of 12 Dutch urban development projects, two of which are analysed in detail in this paper, we identify a series of conditions on spatio-functional configurations and the capacity building of local actors which enhance urban adaptability. Keywords: Uncertainty, urban planning, flexibility, responsiveness, self-organization |
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Self‐Organization and Urban Development: Disaggregating the City‐Region, Deconstructing Urbanity in Amsterdam
Fellow: Federico Savini Abstract: The idea that cities are self‐organizing systems, and that the state has a limited capacity to control and shape them, has gained momentum in the last decade among planning professionals, designers and politicians. Recent political discourse on new localism and liberal individualism builds on a similar understanding of cities, giving responsibility to citizens and their collective associations in light of state rescaling. The consequences of such perspectives for urban development have yet to be conceptualized. This article proposes a critique of the use of self‐organization in policy practice, building on the argument that this concept destabilizes two constitutive categories of urban intervention: spatial boundaries and temporal programmes. In so doing, self‐organization conveys two peculiar understandings of agency in city‐regional spaces and of urbanity: the disaggregation of city‐regions and the deconstruction of urbanity. Looking at the recent change in Amsterdam's urban development practice, I show that, while self‐organization is used to emphasize that city‐regions constitute interconnected systems of dynamics, when applied in policymaking it in fact leads to the disaggregation and fragmentation of urban regions. Moreover, while the capacity of self‐organization to deconstruct codified notions of urbanity that frustrate urban relations is often celebrated, its use in policy produces newly exclusive urban fabrics. |
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Don’t blame public law: the legal articulation of certainty in Amsterdam land-use planning
Fellow: Federico Savini Abstract: In Amsterdam, development contracts are increasingly used to provide legal certainty for stakeholders in land-use planning. Under changing conditions, they are more difficult to adapt than other legal frameworks. This paper investigates the legal articulation of certainty; it scrutinises how instruments of both public and private law are interacting with each other and how they limit adaptation in practice. Two cases from Amsterdam are presented to demonstrate that development contracts signed between governments and private sector developers are more rigid than zoning regulations in the face of changing circumstances. The paper concludes that, instead of deregulation, a careful articulation of different legal instruments can enhance adaptive capacity. Keywords: adaptation, Amsterdam, development contracts, land-use regulations. |
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Dilemmas of planning: Intervention, regulation, and investment
Fellows: Federico Savini, Willem Salet Abstract: Planning through processes of “co-creation” has become a priority for practitioners, urban activists, and scientific researchers. However, urban development still shows a close instrumentalism on goal-specific tasks, means, and outcomes despite awareness that planning should enlarge possibilities for social change rather than constrain them. The article explores the dilemmas of planning agency in light of the contemporary need to open spaces for innovative practices. Planning is understood as a paradox; a structural tension between organization and spontaneity. The article provides a detailed profile of three specific dilemmas stemming from this condition. We distinguish and conceptually explore the dilemmas of intervention, regulation, and investment in current practices. The article provides a specific understanding of today’s planning dilemmas, exploring the key notions of “space and time” in the intervention dilemma, “material and procedural norms” in the regulation dilemma, and “risk and income” in the investment dilemma. We suggest that planning practice today needs to make sense of these dilemmas, navigating through their extremes to find new contextualized forms of synthesis. Keywords: dilemma, interventions, investments, regulations, urban development. |
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Responsibility, polity, value: The (un)changing norms of planning practices
Fellow: Federico Savini Abstract: To address the social, spatial and environmental problems of cities, planners often promote and engage with spatial practices that are intended to be experimental, innovative or transformative of existent processes. Yet, the actual nature of the novelty of these practices is often not explicit nor problematised by their proponents. This article develops an institutionalist framework to better appreciate the variegated nature of change in planning practices. It understands planning as embedded in, and simultaneously impacting on, three types of institutionalised norms: operational norms that define and allocate responsibilities among actors, collective norms that (re)produce planning polities and constitute the spatial-temporal context of their actions and constitutional norms that substantiate the idea of value defining the eligible stakeholders of a particular process. The article mobilises this framework and argues that contemporary planning practices convey a (a) shifting of responsibility towards individuals and households, (b) disaggregation of city regions through polycentric localism and (c) the reproduction of the process of accumulative valorisation of land. The article concludes reflecting on the complexity institutional change. Keywords: institutions, polity, practices, responsibility, value. |
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Swiss land improvement syndicates: ‘Impure’ Coasian solutions?
Fellow: Sina Shahab Abstract: An increasing number of planners have explored the implication of Coase theorem for planning theory and practice. As there are often a large and dispersed number of actors involved in planning issues, the application of ‘Pure’ Coasian solutions has proved to be limited. However, some studies argue that when the conditions for a ‘Pure’ Coasian solution do not exist, ‘Impure’ Coasian solutions may still be achievable. This article examines how, when conditions of ‘Impure’ Coasian solutions are available, local authorities in Switzerland use land improvement syndicates as a policy instrument in order to achieve negotiated solutions in relation to development processes involving multiple landowners. With a syndicate in the commune of Cheseaux as an illustrative example, the article analyses how this policy instrument has been utilised to reduce transaction costs, correct information asymmetries and clarify property rights. The focus has been on an interpretation of the Coasian theorem that identifies attempts to reduce transaction costs and clarify property rights as the main roles of governments or local authorities. Keywords: Coase theorem, land improvement syndicates, land readjustment, planning policy instruments, property rights, transaction costs |
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Accounting for transaction costs in planning policy evaluation
Fellow: Sina Shahab Abstract: The costs incurred in the design and implementation of planning policy instruments are not always considered sufficiently. In order to increase the efficacy of planning policy instruments, these transaction costs need to be taken into account. While such transaction costs are expected to vary according to their institutional design and arrangements, up to now there has been no systematic research concerned with how planners should consider transaction costs, and other institutional aspects, as evaluation criteria in planning policy analysis. This paper investigates how, and in which stages, these costs can be included in planning policy design and analysis. Using the literature of transaction costs and new institutional economics, this paper proposes a framework for integrating these costs into evaluating planning policy instruments. This framework consists of different factors that influence transaction costs in designing and implementing a planning policy instrument. Although some researchers have discussed the influence of factors concerning the characteristics of transactions and transactors, there has been limited consideration of the importance of factors related to the characteristics of a policy. This paper argues that policy characteristics, such as, simplicity, age of the policy, precision of the policy, policy approach, public involvement and participation, and policy credibility and consistency, can affect transaction costs in any policy. Therefore, the paper concludes that, in addition to transaction and transactor characteristics, a ‘policy characteristics’ category should be included to emphasise the importance of policy selection and design in transaction costs of a planning policy instrument. Keywords: Transaction costs, Planning policy instruments, Policy design and analysis, Evaluation criteria, New institutional economics |
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Impact-based planning evaluation: Advancing normative criteria for policy analysis
Fellow: Sina Shahab Abstract: Planning decisions have considerable impacts on both natural and built environments. The impacts of these decisions may remain for many decades and many are irreversible. In order to gain a better understanding of these long-standing impacts, planners require a systematic approach to evaluate the planning policy instruments utilised. The literature on planning evaluation shows that most studies have taken a conformance-based evaluation approach, where the success of a planning policy instrument is based on the degree of conformity between the policy outcomes and its intended objectives. While evaluating such criteria is necessary, it is hardly ever sufficient largely because of unintended effects. This paper proposes an impact-based approach to planning evaluation that incorporates all the impacts, intended and otherwise, that a planning policy instrument may bring about, irrespective of the initial objectives of the policy. Using a number of economic and planning theories, this paper argues that, in addition to conformance and performance, other normative evaluation criteria, such as, efficiency, equity, social and political acceptability, and institutional arrangements, should be included to emphasise the importance of planning decisions and their substantial impacts on quality of life, social justice, and sustainability. Keywords: Planning evaluation, policy analysis, welfare economics, New Institutional Economics, normative evaluation criteria |
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Complex private-common property rights in institutional and planning theories
Fellow: Aleksandar D. Slaev Abstract: This research focuses on a substantial gap between theories of institutions and property rights: institutions are accepted as complex social structures, but property rights are generally considered as simple, that is, either private or public. Although usually unacknowledged, this simplified understanding of property rights is actually based on Samuelson’s theory developed six decades ago. According to Samuelson, the inherent characteristics of goods determine whether they are privately or collectively consumed commodities. Although Samuelson does not propose a mandatory unambiguous link between types of consumption and types of ownership, his theory implies that in principle, private goods are consumed and owned privately and public goods are consumed and owned publicly. Thus, in Samuelson’s theory, institutions are redundant. This article maintains that people need institutions and organisations because resources are scarce, and most resources are too expensive for individual use/consumption. To access such resources, people form groups and create organisations and institutions, thereby reducing the individual costs of use and consumption. As complex systems, institutions generate complex property rights – common/collective to the members of an organisation, but private to that organisation (the union of members). Furthermore, institutions determine the patterns of interaction between planning and the market (as the two main mechanisms of exercising property rights) at all levels of the multilevel structure of organisations and society. The article argues that Buchanan’s theory of clubs offers a more accurate explanation of the nature of property rights as relevant to institutions. Keywords: common property rights, institutions, organisations, planning theory, planning–market relationship |
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Property rights and methods of nomocratic planning
Fellow: Aleksandar D. Slaev Abstract: This paper examines the methods of planning of complex systems. More precisely, it applies property rights analysis to the methodology of nomocracy, a leading branch of the theory of complexity in planning. To study the methodology of planning, the paper focuses on its objectives and methods, as well as the characteristics of nomocratic rules. It briefly examines the literature on the methods of planning of complex systems, the methods of the nomocratic approach, and the methods of regulation theory. It then develops a theoretical structure of the methodology of nomocratic planning by employing property rights analysis and finds that the purpose of nomocracy is the allocation of entitlements. Finally, to emphasise the importance of property rights, it discusses some specific findings of Holcombe’s work “Planning and the Invisible Hand”. Holcombe’s work is a well-developed study of the relevance of the nomocratic approach to market functions; planning practices, such as zoning; and topical issues of contemporary urban development, such as sprawl and related new urbanism/smart growth principles. This paper focuses on Holcombe’s particularly critical view of the latter. However, while the application of property rights analysis fully supports Holcombe’s understanding of the positive connection between nomocratic planning and the market, it also leads to a more favourable view of zoning and new urbanist principles. The paper concludes that the main objective and defining characteristic of nomocratic rules is that they serve to allocate property rights over commonly owned resources. Keywords: methodology of planning, nomocracy, planning and regulation, planning of complex systems, property rights |
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Types of planning and property rights
Fellow: Aleksandar D. Slaev Abstract: This research contributes to the debate concerning the nature of planning in complex systems, and particularly to the theory of teleocracy (the approach based on direct provisions aimed at specific ends) and nomocracy (the approach based on rules aimed at general rather than specific ends). It draws parallels with the theory of regulation and establishes a connection between rules, regulation and the nomocratic planning of social activities. It then suggests that a property rights analysis of the forms of social coordination/organisation can be instrumental in understanding the nature of social interactions. Based on the theory of property rights, the study concludes that the use of different types of planning, regulation or market mechanisms of social coordination is closely related to the concrete form of ownership over the resources employed in any given social activity. Keywords: planning theory, property rights, regulation, teleocracy and nomocracy |
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Allocation of risk and benefits—distributional justices in mountain hazard management
Fellows: Thomas Thaler, Thomas Hartmann Abstract: In view of the anticipated climate change, many countries face increasing risks of flooding. Since the end of the 20th century, the traditional hard flood protection measures have been increasingly complemented with spatial flood risk reduction measures. These measures, though in the public interest and as such, benefitting many people, almost inevitably affect landowners adversely. In other words, spatial flood risk reduction measures affect private land. The impact may extend from mere decreases in property values as a result of changes to zoning plans and to obligations to tolerate certain acts related to the construction or maintenance of water defence structures. Most of the time, implementation of spatial flood risk reduction measures thus discriminates between landowners, as some profit from better protection but others are affected negatively by the measures. Spatial flood risk reduction measures thus raise issues of social justice. Compensation plays a crucial role in flood risk management to mitigate the impact on land. How and in which cases this compensation is paid differs from country to country. Some national jurisdictions compensate for loss as a result of lawful administrative acts if and to the extent that it is considered unreasonable for this loss to be the full responsibility of the affected party. In this paper, we compare two different legal compensation frameworks in two European countries: Austria and the Netherlands. Based on a comparative analysis, we discuss how these different compensation schemes affect social justice, both in terms of substantive distributions but also in terms of procedural justice. Keywords: flood risk management, spatial flood prevention measures, compensation, spatial planning, social justice |
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Allocation of risk and benefits—distributional justices in mountain hazard management
Fellow: Thomas Thaler Abstract: As financing protection against mountain hazards becomes increasingly challenging and therefore investments have to be prioritized, dilemmas of justice emerge: some local governments and individuals benefit from natural hazard protection schemes, whereas others loose. Decisions on whom to protect often caused contradicting concepts of political understanding, which differ in interpretations of fair resource allocation and distribution. This paper analyses the impact of different philosophical schools of social justice on mountain hazard management in Austria. We used data from a spatially explicit, object-based assessment of elements at risk and compared potential distributional effects of three political jurisdictions. We found that—depending on the respective political direction—various local governments gain and others loose within the actual distributional system of mitigation strategies. The implementation of a utilitarian policy approach would cause that high income communities in hazard-prone areas would mainly benefit. Consequently, this policy direction would encourage the public administration to ignore their own failure in the past natural hazards management and prevention. On the other hand, following a Rawlsians approach mainly peripheral communities would gain from new policy direction who often show besides natural hazards problem mainly large socio-economic challenges. Finally, the most radical change would include the implementation of a liberalism policy, whereabouts the state only provides hazard information, but no further mitigation measures. These findings highlight the distributional consequences of future mountain hazard management strategies and point to the crucial selection of policy direction in navigating the selection of various adaptation schemes. Keywords: Social justice, Political economy, Risk reduction, Distributional consequences, Mountain hazards. |
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Political feasibility of 1.5°C societal transformations: the role of social justice
Fellow: Thomas Thaler Abstract: Constraining global climate change to 1.5°C is commonly understood to require urgent and deep societal transformations. Yet such transformations are not always viewed as politically feasible; finding ways to enhance the political feasibility of ambitious decarbonization trajectories is needed. This paper reviews the role of social justice as an organizing principle for politically feasible 1.5°C transformations. A social justice lens usefully focuses attention on first, protecting vulnerable people from climate change impacts, second, protecting people from disruptions of transformation, and finally, enhancing the process of envisioning and implementing an equitable post-carbon society. However, justice-focused arguments could also have unintended consequences, such as being deployed against climate action. Hence proactively engaging with social justice is critical in navigating 1.5°C societal transformations. |