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Operational research in spatial planning
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The need to develop new methods supporting spatial planning is nowadays one of major challenges of modern urban planning. Discourse on new ways of urban management gains new meaning and is in fact a discussion about the contemporary urban planners skills and tools. The paper presents new solutions which could provide a support for coordinated, rational, and transparent decision making under conditions of risk and uncertainty. MCDA is a is a sub-discipline of operational research and was developed in 1960s in the business sector. MCDA is used in the situation of having multiple, usually conflicting, criteria and therefore has a potential for implementation in spatial planning. Some examples of using the MCDA methods for the purpose of urban management are offered. General evaluation of the proposed approach is conducted in order to identify strengths and weaknesses that could be addressed in further research. So far, it seems that bringing together economics, operational research, ICT, and applying them in the field of urban studies, could improve city policy making and urban management. It seems fair to say that urban planners might have no other choice but to look far outside their own academic discipline in search of new tools; therefore, the paper encourages a discussion on whether methods derived from operational research could be incorporated into spatial decision making process.Published versio
Sounds in the city workshops: integrating the soundscape approach in urban design and planning practices
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017This paper discusses urban sound and is based on the work of the Sounds in the City2 team, operating out of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. The team's focus is an approach called soundscape, which is a departure from a more traditional approach to urban sound. Urban planning education and practice have traditionally been focused on noise mitigation, concentrating almost exclusively on reducing urban noise levels. However, this method has its limitations because a quiet city is not necessarily an interesting or better one. The soundscape approach, on the other hand, encourages positive sounds in urban environments while mitigating only unwanted sounds and it also necessitates planning the environment far in advance rather than waiting for noise problems to occur. This approach is attracting the attention of many as an innovative and positive shift in the way we create, manage and control sound in our cities. It also presents the opportunity for more collaboration between planners, designers3 and sound experts to improve our urban spaces. Soundscape has been defined by a diverse International Organization for Standards (ISO) working group of soundscape researchers and professionals as “the acoustic environment as perceived and experienced by people or society, in context” (ISO 12913-1, 2014).Published versio
Using boundary objects to make students brokers across disciplines - a dialogue between students and their lecturers on Bartolini’s node-place-model and interdisciplinarity
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Competencies required for steering urban development sustainably are scattered among various disciplines. Most prominently, this has been acknowledged by the growing community of planners in the field of transportation and urban development promoting an integrative approach known as transitoriented development (TOD). Disciplinary traditions including different ways of thinking and doing as well as a strong vertical organisation of public administration form major obstacles for TOD and other interdisciplinary approaches to urban development. The implementation of TOD principles in plans and planning policy is usually dependent on strong actors brokering across disciplinary and departmental boundaries (Thomas and Bertolini, 2017: 145). “Boundary objects” (Wenger 2000) can help sustaining the effort of individuals promoting integrative planning approaches against institutional and disciplinary rigidness. These objects allow practitioners of different disciplines to discuss common challenges without constant guidance of experts in multiple disciplinary fields. The development of boundary objects is therefore crucial in order to support current “brokers” (ibid.) and provide continuity when brokers are unavailable. We believe that the node-place-model (NPM) by Bertolini (1999) can be such a boundary object. We test our hypothesis as part of two design studio courses confronting urban design students with the task of developing their own design brief based on a node-place-analysis – a systematic quantification of both accessibility and activity at transit stations. We conducted the course twice while testing our approach on two scales: a city-wide node-place-analysis of the City of Munich with the goal of designing a small city quarter and a node-place-analysis of the entire metropolitan region of Munich with the goal of developing a spatial strategy for the City of Ingolstadt, a key economic node within the metropolitan region. The paper is of dialogic, discursive nature. The lecturers and the students discuss whether or not the node-place-model enables us to understand better the relationship between transit and urban development and to develop spatial strategies based upon an integrative approach. Our discussion reveals that the node-place-model, despite of or perhaps due to its compelling simplicity, cannot necessarily bridge disciplinary boundaries successfully. The model does not comprise mechanisms about how both domains are qualitatively linked. It simplifies node and place into quantitative variables without providing sufficient guidance on operationalisation. Operationalising the model is often subject to misinterpretation. The schematic quantitative nature of the model incites users to blindly apply calculated results. We therefore reject our hypothesis and conclude that the node-place-model may not be suitable as a boundary object in planning practice. Due to above mentioned shortcoming, it cannot serve as a common tool across disciplinary boundaries. However, both lecturers and students see value in the model as a didactic instrument. It initiates food for thought during a discursive process that may lead students to become brokers across domains. The model forces students to connect and integrate knowledge of multiple domains. It raises awareness for the pitfalls of interdisciplinary issues, but at the same time also enforces a critical stance on simplified quantitative implementations.of multiple domains. It raises awareness for the pitfalls of interdisciplinary issues, but at the same time also enforces a critical stance on simplified quantitative implementations.Published versio
Understanding differences in the governance of macro-regional cooperation
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Since 2009, the gradual establishment of four so-called EU macro-regions has signaled a more comprehensive macro-regional strategy at the EU level. Up until now, such macro-regions have been established in four European areas: the Baltic Sea (2009), the Danube river (2010), the Adriatic and Ionian Seas (2014) and the Alpine mountains (2015). Since they have only been in place for about 2 to 7 years, macro-regions can still be considered a very recent phenomenon. Hence a systematic empirical overview of them is still in a primary stage (e.g. EC, 2016a). When EU macro-regions were first launched, they were defined as areas ‘covering a number of administrative regions but with sufficient issues in common to justify a single strategic approach’ (EC, 2009: 5). From this definition, two elements are apparent. Firstly, EU macro-regions are composed of a number of smaller (regions or municipalities) or larger (nation-states) territorial entities each of them addressing their respective desires. Secondly, EU macro-regions correspond to areas with common issues, which may be geographical or sectoral in nature. These issues need a strategic approach in order to be addressed. Such an approach demands ‘integrated frameworks [which help] to identify needs and allocate available resources’, the so-called EU macro-regional strategies (Samecki, 2009: 1). Based on these two elements, it is fair to conclude that EU macro-regions encompass both a territorial and a functional dimension. Therefore, I argue that macro-regions are hybrid forms of organization balancing between these two dimensions.Published versio
Social housing and rehabilitation of central areas: the experience of zeis 3 implementation in São Paulo, Brazil
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The debate on urban interventions in central areas is probably one of the most controversial issues among architects and planners. Depending on how state and market act on the production of space, the development of certain urban areas occurs or their decay. In response to the decline process, the governments of several cities of the world have been developing urban policies of intervention in these central areas, basically in two ways: through their eradication, or through their rehabilitation. Recently the implementation of social housing policies has been defended as a strategy to cope with city centre decline. The aim of this paper is to analyse the case of São Paulo, Brazil. Over the last hundred and fifty years it has grown very quickly, presenting both rise and decline processes. Since the 1970s the municipality has been implementing several plans in order to revert the decline, and recently with the aim to provide social housing. The paper is divided into this abstract and four more sections. First a little historic appraisal of the public responses to the decline process, followed by a view on the rise and decline of São Paulo city centre. The next section will analyse the policies proposed and implemented by the municipality for the centre and then analyse the implementation of ZEIS 3, a type of inclusionary zoning, searching to understand it results in a rehabilitation process. This paper is partially result of a post-doctoral research project financed by FAPESP (São Paulo State Research Support Foundation), Process # 2015/26447-7.Published versio
From macro-level policies to micro-level practices: changing global economic landscapes and proliferation of middle class gated communities in Mexico
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Gated Communities are a global phenomenon that has gained academic attention in the past three decades. The discussion about these fortified enclaves may have started in the United States of America (Blakely & Snyder, 1997; Marcuse, 1997; Davis, 1998; Low, 2001), but in the last decade, the debate has extended worldwide, particularly in contexts of large socio-economic disparities like Latin America. Gated Communities in countries like Mexico are no longer a “privilege” of the affluent classes but it has become a common choice for middle class groups. The conditions of insecurity, violence, and growing distance between socio-economic groups have normalised the presence of these enclaves to the point that municipal authorities, developers, financial institutions, and citizens, consider them as a desirable residential option for orderly urban development. The process of normalisation of gated communities in Mexico for the middle classes is not a simple matter of choice. On the contrary, the emergence and proliferation of gated communities can be linked to the policies promoted by global financial institutions. The proliferation of these large-scale enclaves for the middle classes could only happen in a context of neoliberal urbanism. Since the 1990s, national economic, housing, and urban development policies have aligned to global financial interests by deregulating planning, changing land tenure options, financialising housing development, and promoting a debt-driven economy (Zanetta, 2004). The “borderless world” of free market housing strategies is actually contributing to the creation of physical walls, fences, and gates segregating people by income. Segregation by design has become common in Mexico with tangible and intangible borders and the governance problems and tensions are already taking a toll. The growing inequality in the country is increasing strains between social groups fuelled by fear. Aspirations and anxieties are changing everyday practices decreasing shared spaces and increasing spending in security. The promised wall along the Mexican border by Trump is not that different from the walls separating poor neighbourhoods from middle class and high-income gated communities in most Mexican peripheries. The experience in Mexico where global economic policies have shaped modern peripheries can serve as an example to understand how trends are shaping political, economic, and spatial relations. European countries are known for urban development and housing policies that foster diversity, inclusion, multiculturalism, and sustainability. However, the current political context of fear, farright movements, and anti-immigrant groups might aim to promote divisive urban developments like those in Latin America. Learning from the proliferation of middle class gated communities in Mexico can provide some hints of the challenges and the risks of these sort of enclaves in terms of urban governance in the long term.Published versio
Systematic sharing of experiences and knowledge obtained in pilot projects
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Pilot projects are implemented in order to obtain knowledge and experiences that can be reused later on – either in other pilot projects, in large-scale projects or even in the legislature. In this paper, we address the question of efficient and effective distribution of insights between pilot projects. We present detailed considerations on the required structures to share the experiences and knowledge obtained by evaluations of the stages of a pilot project. Foremost, a systematic interaction between project participants and a central collection of experience is required. The collection should be publicly and freely available. By establishing such structures, the reuse of existing knowledge and experiences is significantly simplified. A common structure for pilot projects, for example, allows for information sharing between equal stages of pilot projects. Given that the obtained knowledge and experiences of these individual stages are easily accessible, the hampering need to review a comprehensive final project report is eliminated. For future pilot projects as well as large-scale projects, the cost associated with reusing existing experiences and knowledge is reduced and the cost-benefit ratio improves. We exemplify this by investigating systematic information sharing between equally structured pilot projects. To that end, we present the relevant background on knowledge management as well as project structuring – two complementary parts for the success of pilot projects – and contribute their systematic linkage for an efficient and effective reuse of knowledge and experiences.Published versio
Regional integration in ethnic and religious contexts: taking Germany and china as examples
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Recently, caused by the precarious situation ,a large quantity of refugee are facing a immigrant condition, which is one of the major city development problems in the European region. It also brings social, religious and cultural integration to receiving country, which will be a new challenge in the future urban planning. As we know , the effective regional development strategies to consider different religious and cultural backgrounds will benefit urban stability, harmony and diversification. So this paper will analyze the developmental experience of Germany and China, comparing the referential value of different regional integration strategy under the East and West context. Germany, for example, new status policy protects a large number of refugee camps in most cities, which also makes change to city resource allocation and facilities utilization , as well as urgent need of residential projects and new requirement constructions. Taking Germany as an example, we can see what kind of influence this "top-down" policy will give to city. Compared with China which is another political system, as a multiply nationality country, there is a long history about regional integration in China. Taking Xi'an Huimin Street as an example, to discuss the pros and cons of the "bottom-up" self-built development model.Published versio
Evaluation of the institutional framework and policies of spatial planning in Greece
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The study, examination and classification issues relating to the planning process are imperative for today's society, which often faces significant territorial problems. As a field of expression of the various public policies, the actual space is regulated with certain tools that are activated and promoted by the planning legislation. In particular, regional planning as a strategic level may provide the necessary guidance, incentives and solutions to any kind of problem. Thus, the interdependence of the individual parameters constituting the planning process (policy - legislation – plans – spatial structure) and the circular route followed can be perceived.Published versio
Deciphering planning concepts from a perspective of Lacan’s four discourses - a case study of urban village in British planning policy
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017With the explosion of available information in the contemporary age, numerous new planning concepts are being invented in pursuit of better urban environments. When we read books about future cities, listen to the speeches of renowned architects and urbanists, browse edge-cutting urban design projects or audit discussion of urban development, countless new concepts pop up in texts along with models, drawings and videos such as eco-village, smart city and numerous -isms. Many concepts in planning are notoriously difficult to define. If we are asked to give a definition of smart city, the answers are often curtailed to individual perception. What is the ‘smartness’ of cities? Optimal transport, efficient energy consumption, data networking, social networking or even all the above-mentioned characteristics? Many planning scholars and practitioners doubt the validity and effectiveness of some planning concepts, such as public interest (Campbell & Marshall, 2002), smart growth (Downs, 2005) and sustainable development (Marcuse, 1998). It raises a question for this research: how much can contested planning concepts influence urban planning policies and future urban development? This paper tries to open up a new perspective to view this question with the help of Lacan’s Four Discourses theory, focusing on a particular planning concept – urban village - in the context of British planning policies.Published versio