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An ecosystem services based environmental sustainability assessment tool for land use plans
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The mostly used and agreed sustainability definition is maybe the first one made by United Nations World Conference on Environmental Development (1987) in the Brundtland Report stating that sustainability is a development approach that enables progress today without compromising from the abilities of future generations to develop themselves. There is a consensus that human activities must be sustainable and meanwhile there has to be fixed level of disruption of resources based on human activities that reduces the ability of this capital to sustain for the humanity in the future (Arrow et.al, 1995). In this aspect, land use planning is one of the most critical tool that shapes our living environment by setting the limits of development and urbanization. Hence planning process itself is an important factor in sustainable development. After a detailed literature review including several researches in the fields of landscape planning, landscape ecology, environmental impact assessment, ecosystem management Leitao and Ahern remark that sustainable land use planning is an inevitable conclusion of the evolution of the planning discipline into the 21st century where new social values such as the key concepts of sustainability (solidarity between present and future generations and the need to balance development with nature) are increasingly being seized upon into planning process and regulations (2002). In addition, there are various scientists claiming that sustainability is one of the integral parts of the landscape planning process (Forman, 1995; Grossman and Bellot, 1999). However it has been observed that planning discipline wasn’t rapid enough to fit into the principles of ecology and therefore sustainability must be adopted more efficiently in planning process and administrating lands for which new tools are required (Leitao and Ahern, 2002) since its spatial component is strongly related to inter-dependence of land uses and to spatial processes such as fragmentation (van Lier, 1998).Published versio
Planning education in the case study of the course of metropolitan planning in Istanbul
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017After completing my urban planning degree in early 1990’s, I started to work in local government. It did not take me long at all to notice the great gap between education and practice, just like Tasan-Kok et al. (2016) pointed out recently. Every day, drawing cities anew that were never approved of as they are anyway and putting my signature under urban failures were all I was doing in the municipality. But the person who kept writing minutes and petitions in the Chamber of Turkish Urban Planners in opposition to practice meetings; that was also me. Besides, the same person was editing theoretical articles of academicians for a local governments journal. Despite their value, the signatures put under documents of the municipality kept losing effect once they entered the city, making them resemble drops in the ocean. They were being imprisoned within the limits of the role planning was able to play in urbanization (Campbell and Fainstein, 2005). And what is more, that same pen used blood as ink most of the time. The production of inequality never slowed down in the process of capitalized urbanization (Harvey, 2016). The meetings of the Chamber amounted to beating the air, with the rare exception of a concrete outcome: a petition. Because filing charges against a planning project, without even knowing if you will win the case or not, could be described as participation in urban planning back in those days in Turkey. The journal’s range and hinterland, on the other hand, was limited like that of an “island”, just as its name suggested. I was educated to be a planner, I wished to plan cities, I believed that I was able to change cities, that I was able to change the world. However, I was weak. So I returned to the academy, as a field of power, because the educational environment could give me a chance to forget that I was a planner myself. At that point of my life, I was far away from and oblivious of using reflexivity tools like Bourdieu did in Homo Academicus (1988).Published versio
How to approach urban complexity, diversity and uncertainty when involving stakeholders into the planning process
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Complexity, diversity and uncertainty are three key attributes of contemporary cities which mark their recent evolution and strongly condition the task of urban planners and public officials (Fernández Güell et al., 2016; Fernández Güell, 2006; Camagni, 2003). The first common feature of all large and medium-sized cities is the high level of complexity of the operational processes that take place within the city and in its hinterland. Complex systems such as the climate and the economy are characterized by being spontaneously self-organizing and adaptive to changes that happen in their context (Holland, 1995; Stacey, 1995). Just as well, it is widely accepted that cities are one of the best examples of complex systems (Portugali et al., 2012; Allen, 1997). As a rule, complex cities experience unpredictable non-linear dynamics and they are capable of self-transformation in order to adapt to changing contexts. Therefore, urban problems are multidimensional and complex since they emerge in an intricate dynamic network of relationships from societal, economic, environmental and political issues. The operational complexity of cities has been a recurrent handicap for urban planners because it complicates urban analysis and policy making. In the past, planners have tried to deal with complexity with either sophisticated mathematical models or just plain narratives, in both cases without much success. Despite its challenges to analysts, the phenomenon of urban complexity should not be obviated or simplified in excess; on the contrary, it should be conceptually understood as much as possible. The understanding of complexity can facilitate a more informed and evolutionary vision of cities than the standard reductionist and static approaches of many planning processes.Published versio
The anthropology of modernist mass housing: a tool for urban planners
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Although the modernist failure myth largely descends from Jane Jacobs’ work, many of its advocates abandoned the observational method on which the American author grounded her work. Not only generalizations about the alleged failure of modernist architecture ignored non-environmental factors and disregarded the differences which characterize modernist public housing neighborhoods, but also they were unable of getting direct knowledge of how real life works in them. If we assume that each modernist public housing neighborhood is unique and different from all the others, as it is certainly the case, then we need to get first-hand knowledge of how it works. Starting from the review of anthropological research on modernist mass-housing in different countries this section of the course will discuss the implications of such research for urban planners.Published versio
The gap between planning and reality: the evaluation of commercial land use planning implementation in Kaohsiung city, Taiwan
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The urban planning system in Taiwan has followed the America and Japan systems aiming at controlling and directing private development rights. The statutory plan, the land use control measures as well as zoning ordinances are the main tools for the conformance-oriented plan. To make the conformity, the land development rights tend to be assigned in advanced along with the collective strategies of zoning plans. In most high-density cities in Taiwan, such land use control and management tools are considered highly important for better development orders and environmental quality. Nevertheless, the overall zoning ordinance implementation in Taiwan is considered weak for the two following main reasons. First, the actual urban development of Taiwan could date back to Qing dynasty and the modern urban planning system has been implemented from 1964. Second, to cope with the existing urban form and speedy population increase, mixed land use was widely adopted in the zoning ordinance. As a result, a variety of the types of land use seem to be acceptable in different zones. For instance, residential buildings are allowed to be in commercial districts as well as most service uses are allowed to be in residential districts. Furthermore, property markets, political influences, and citizens' expectations are three major factors on how developments are actually carried out. As a result, in reality, many land development events might, on one hand, comply with the zoning ordinance. Yet, the actual use afterwards fails to comply with the master plan and planning vision on the other hand. Take Kaohsiung city for an example, approximate 35% of commercial districts in the downtown area are occupied by pure high-end residential developments. It further indicates that the zoning plan in Taiwan has rather weak control power to the actual development.Published versio
Teaching-in-the-field in a “hub” accommodating migrants in transit in Milan. challenges and opportunities for a “social and urban analysis” course
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The paper reflects on a teaching-in-the-field experience carried out in the context of the course of “Social and Urban Analysis” for students at the third year of bachelor in Planning at Politecnico di Milano. The course integrates the competences of two professors who are experts in urban sociology with a particular attention to inequalities and welfare provision, and in urban planning with a particular attention to immigration issues and multi-ethnic contexts. For this specific course, a collaboration was established with Fondazione Arca, a big third sector agency that assists homeless, drug addicted, vulnerable and deprived groups in Milan and in other cities. Arca currently runs the main centre -called “hub”- destined to accommodate refugees and migrants in transit arriving at Milan´s Central Station, where they receive basic services like food, short term accommodation, medical advice, orientation towards other existing services. Arca started to work on this issue in October 2013, in a first instance intervening in more “emergential” ways inside the station, and then finding new spaces to offer more structured services. The hub was opened in May 2016 thanks also to the significant support of the Municipality of Milan. Other public, third sector and voluntary bodies contribute to deliver different services inside the hub. This centre has been able to integrate the work of different public and third sector actors, becoming a best practice of “welcoming” migrants in transit in Europe.Published versio
Environmental versus urban planning and management – a comparative analysis between metropolitan areas of Fortaleza (Brazil) and Lisbon (Portugal)
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The process of industrialization in Portugal, if compared to the rest of Europe, occurred belatedly, coinciding with the same period in Brazil, in 1940, 1950, 1960. During this period a large number of people migrated from the countryside to the major cities in search of better living conditions, and settled in the territory, in a continuous process for decades. The public authorities’ actions were quite limited in these two countries. However, in Lisbon between 1935 and 1948, one third of the city was expropriated by initiative of Duarte Pacheco, then Minister of Public Works and Speaker of the House in Lisbon. The centralizing policies comprised a strong territorial intervention in a period of intense population growth, the city was endowed by planning instruments that allowed to tame urban expansion. In Portugal until 1965, the public administration took over exclusively the planning and production of urban land, acting with some urbanistic coherence. This fact was not observed in Brazil, considering that the instruments of urban management were created after the enactment of the Federal Constitution in 1988, decades after the great immigration. Thus, the population that migrated from the hinterland into the Brazilian state capitals, for the most part settled in remote areas, far from any infrastructure, often occupying conservation or risky areas in the proximity of railways or next to flammable activities.Published versio
Mobicampus-udl: combing web-based travel survey and smartphone app data collection to understand and manage urban mobility behaviour
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Reducing car dependence in general and driving alone in particular has become an important public policy issue. Universities are recognised as special generators in transportation planning processes. Large university campuses contribute in a variety of ways to the travel demand. However, university populations are underrepresented in travel behaviour studies in particular regular household travel surveys. The aim of MobiCampus-UdL research is to understand Lyon’s university communities daily travel behaviour characteristics not just from a travel demand modelling perspective but as well to help campuses managers in planning coherent measures prioritising various range of mobility management strategies/urban design solutions appropriate to the diverse mobility needs and fulfil sustainability goals. The data used specifically was generated by an online travel survey conducted among several higher education institutions. Another issue of the project is exploring the potential of smartphone travel data collection. As we know university populations are tech-savvy, that was a good opportunity to plan a panel recruitment of voluntary participants who will respond to the first wave of the web survey. The objective of this experimental approach is to verify if this new method of data collection can improve quality/accuracy in temporal and spatial data. This paper aims to report on first findings from and experiences gained in the conduct of a comprehensive travel survey at University of Lyon (UdL). The paper offers a very preliminary results of an ongoing research project MobiCampus-UdL. A detailed description is dedicated to research method and data collection. Preliminary analysis on surveyed campuses shows when compared to the employees from the same university, university students are more likely to share favourable modal split towards active transport modes that include public transport and sustainable travel modes.Published versio
Local identities on change- urban waterfront regeneration within the global city Istanbul
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Over the last decades, many cities worldwide have promoted urban waterfront regeneration for a variety of reasons building on the particular scenery of these sites. The success of the first well known urban waterfront regeneration project, Baltimore Inner Harbor regeneration (1960), has served as a prototype for cities around the world with the desire to position themselves in the race to become Global Cities (Harvey 1989) by providing strategically located high-quality investment opportunities to attract global capital, or by constructing attractive spaces to promote tourism and leisure. Nowadays, almost every city at water's edge is engaged in regeneration projects with strong political impetuses and interest from various parties: authorities, developers and neighboring communities (Hoyle 2001).Published versio
Public spaces as a planning dimension: Milan case studies and potentialities
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017After a long apathy phase, a combination of increased real estate pressures and international initiatives like Expo or the latest Triennale revival, heavily activated in Milan the realization of new public spaces and revitalization of old ones. Which include, among others, starchitects new inner city neighborhoods and landmark buildings, new design and fashion urban network spaces, car limitation policies to extended urban pedestrian areas. However, Milan urban renewal path is concretizing through heterogeneous results as they were the proceedings which inspired these transformations. Indeed, each of these modified areas has been individually conceived, being absent any meaningful high scale planning indication outlining an overall transformative vision of the city. This is clearly reflected in the Milan increasingly fragmented geography (Secchi, 2013), where the collective urban dimension has been often degraded to the rank of a public spaces collection to be consumed, rather than an urban structuring spatiality seeking connections. Such an attitude drives to the weakening of the heterogeneous but highly intertwined urban complex which has always characterized this city. The overlap of historical compact frames and contemporary fragmentations, as well as different densities, gave rise to the actual Milan spatial condition, where emerge considerable public spaces potentials that could lead to fertile experimentations. But if public spaces are trivialized, they end up becoming self-referential entities, missing the task to condense differences and relations of the city.Published versio