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Empty housing: critical review on theoretical explanations of housing vacancy
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The issue of housing vacancy as a spatial phenomenon, as an outcome of urban restructuring or as part of a rhetoric developed around urban generation, has been considerably debated in the fields of housing and urban studies and policy-making. However, the definitions and the conceptualizations of empty, underused, vacant or abandoned housing in urban agglomerations as topics to look into, as well as the theoretical frameworks developed to understand the procedures and the reasons behind their emergence, are diverse and sometimes controversial, depending on the disciplinary origins and epistemological paradigms adopted. The essay attempts to provide a better understanding of the various types of urban housing vacancy through a critical review on key theoretical frameworks in the fields of housing economics, housing studies, geography and spatial planning to identify key points and assumptions between various disciplinary perspectives; as well as to reflect on whether more or less multidimensional explanations are able to grasp the complexity of the phenomena, which as it is argued, occur in many different contexts for many different reasons. For the purposes of this paper, the most prevailing concepts and theories used and translated by planners and researchers in urban studies to explain housing vacancy phenomena, are explored. The review focuses on literature dating back to the 1960's and attempts to cover the debate on housing vacancy, with a reference mainly to North-American and European cases, through the following three conceptual frameworks: i. housing vacancy as mobility "opportunity" ii. vacancy as demand variation and iii. vacancy as a "shrinkage". Four key concerns are discussed in detail regarding each of the conceptual frameworks: the extent of attention paid to spatial aspects and to cross-scalar relationships, to actors' role and impacts, as well as the understanding of vacancy as part of context-dependant historical processes. The paper concludes with a more general reflection on whether these commonly used theoretical frameworks are able to touch upon the complex social, economic, political and cultural relationships embodied in housing and conceptualize housing not only as a "composite commodity".Published versio
Sydney is not Australia: What can Australian transportation planning policy makers learn from the European dimension of planning?
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017There is much that Australian policy-makers could (and should) learn from their European cousins. Vettoretto (2009) identifies “good governance” as one of the central strengths of Europe’s planning and policy-making practice, noting that policy-making should support, among other things, regulation through sense-making, strategic representation and advocacy. These tenets make the European approach to planning attractive to communities that feel isolated or left out of broader strategies for economic development that inform transportation planning. However, the transfer of European planning concepts to the Australian context, particularly for transportation, faces an uphill battle (as per Pojani & Stead, 2015). Australia’s major transportation planning agendas appear more interested on increasing mobility and urban densities in capital cities at the expense of improving regional community sustainability and connectivity. This has the effect of making busy transport systems busier, and promotes a classist system for promoting economic growth – not just between cities and regional areas, but between biggest city and next biggest cities, and so on. The density of international flights to Sydney and Melbourne make it commonplace, and often a pragmatic requirement, for residents who live anywhere other than the South East of the Australian continent to fly first to one of these two cities to access connecting international flights. This is the equivalent of having to fly from New York to Miami to fly to Lisbon, or from Lisbon to Istanbul to fly to South Africa. The inconvenience of having to fly South to fly North (intercontinentally) is only exacerbated for regional communities that first have to fly to a capital city, then on to Sydney or Melbourne, then on to their international destination. This makes international mobility the most inaccessible for the communities already provided with the least infrastructure, and struggling to maintain sustainable communities due to the attraction of the populace away from regional agricultural communities and into the coastal cities. Furthermore, this inequity in accessibility works against the Australian Government’s aspirations for promoting new (migrating) Australians to settle in regional areas. To provide strategic representation and advocacy for regional communities, Australia’s transportation planning, and the planning and governance of its aviation network, can and should learn from a more balanced, more European dimension of planning. By reviewing the current state of the country’s aviation network (airports, tourism assets, passenger routes, supporting infrastructure and supporting governance mechanisms), the authors have identified the policy-making opportunities for the Australian State of Queensland to learn from European planning approaches. By taking the European perspective of developing regulation through sense-making, this research identifies a range of aviation network design and regulation principles that promote the interests of regional mobility and inclusion, sustainable communities, and advocating equitable access to international transport and economic growth opportunities for the State of Queensland.Published versio
Tourism as economic resource for protecting the landscape: introducing touristic initiatives in protected areas of Albania
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The paper aims to investigate the relation between landscape and tourism, with a special focus on coastal protected areas of Albania. The relationship between tourism and landscape is mutually reliant: there is no tourism without landscape attractive features and, on the other hand, landscape needs economic resources to be conserved and protected. The survival of each component is strictly related to the other. Today, the Albanian protected areas appear as isolated islands, too far away from each other to build an efficient network and to avoid waste in terms of energy, economy and work force. This study wants to stress the importance of cooperation in terms of common strategies and the necessity of introducing a touristic sustainable model in Albania. Comparing the protection system of neighbor countries of the Adriatic-Ionian region and through a desk review on the best practices of protected areas that benefit from touristic activities, the study proposes the creation of the Albanian Riviera Landscape Park. This action will impact positively the whole southern Albania territory, introducing a sustainable tourism network aimed at valorizing the local heritage and stopping the coastal exploitation processes. The main output is the definition of future development scenarios in Albania with the establishment of new protected areas and the introduction of touristic initiatives.Published versio
Which standards for public open space? a new conception for the 21st century city
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017What all historical centres have in common is that they are built along streets, and streets make up most of their public space. Streets make up between 25 and 35% of the land area of these urban centres. It is not too difficult to see the impact of modern ideas of city planning on the urban fabric. Watch whatever city on google maps and shift outwards to almost any new development begun in the latter half of the 20th century. All these areas are characterized by having fewer streets; greater distances between intersections; mid to low building coverage; either high or low rise buildings and density; but always extensive open spaces, mostly green areas. Cities are made of buildings and the spaces between them, both private and public (Marshall, 2004). Planners and policy makers have invested more in the design and regulation of the built up areas, standards mandating parks and gardens being a notable though limited exception to the rule. The recent critique of contemporary urbanism, has stressed the need of interconnecting again the two separate halves. In this paper we deal with the problem of what should we demand from public open space (POS) in the cities of the 21st century. In particular, we address the question of the balance between streets, public parks and gardens. Eventually, we ask the question of how much POS is needed and what are the best ways to supply it? Until fairly recently, “orthodox” planning culture would have answered unanimously in favour of more parks and gardens, a trait severely criticized by Jacobs in the following quote: In orthodox city planning, neighborhood open spaces are venerated in an amazingly uncritical fashion, much as savages venerate magical fetishes… Walk with a planner through a dispirited neighborhood and though it be already scabby with deserted parks and tired landscaping festooned with old kleenex, he will envision a future of More Open Space (Jacobs, 1961, p. 96).Published versio
The new “planning amnesty” in Portugal: how far should plans accommodate noncompliant development?
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017In 2014, Portugal introduced legislation1 imposing amendments on statutory plans to accommodate illegal structures “that are incompatible with land management instruments or land use restrictions” applied to productive units such as industrial, farming, waste management and quarries. The initial deadline for application was January 2016, but was extended until June 20172. This amendment also introduced “subtle” changes, to include buildings in which construction had not been finished, and some types of warehouses. The pressure for a solution to illegal development arose from restrictions on real-estate transactions and conditions placed by the EU on eligibility for its funding mechanisms. Though not intended as such, this new legislation has several similarities (but also important differences) to other planning amnesties implemented in other Mediterranean countries. How far should plans accommodate noncompliant development? The object of the paper is to formulate a perspective on the new planning amnesty in Portugal and to elaborate on expected results, built on the experience of similar programs in other Mediterranean countries.Published versio
“Village In the City” In China as Product of Population Tratification and Social Relationship Reproduction-Case of Jiangdong Village in Nanjing and Xibali Village in Xi’an
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017According to Marx’s definition, capital is a value in motion, and value is decided by social labor time necessarily put in the production of commodities. The capital’s motion can be divided into four phases: production, realization, allocation and value proliferation. The four phases form a cyclic process. Through this process, capitals go through infinite reproductions. It is an upward spiral course, but this cycle won’t continue perfectly forever. David Harvey says, when consumption is weak, in order to mitigate the overcapacity crisis caused by excess capital accumulation in production field, productive consumption is needed to stimulate economic growth. Current large scale infrastructure construction and urbanization construction in China is this process. These constructions consume a large amount of means of production like steel and cement, so values of steel and cement are realized, and excess capacity is used. Also, the Cold War after the Second World War and the large-scale urbanization of suburbs in America were effective measures of using productive consumption to mitigate excess capacity in production field. But the scale of Chinese urbanization is much larger. Within three years from 2011 to 2013, China consumed 6.5 billion tons of cement, which was even more than the total volume 4.5 billion tons consumed in the 20th century in America. The construction activities alone absorbed 25% global steel production. But Harvey believed that capitals transforming from production field to urban built environment just transferred and postponed the problem of excess accumulation of capitals but didn’t eliminate the problem. He also views the initial stage of current global economic crisis as ‘urbanization’s financial crisis’. Urban investments normally take a very long time, and it takes even longer time to get mature. So usually it’s very hard to judge when capitals are over accumulated or when over-accumulation will occur on investing in built environment.Published versio
Designing with uncertainty: a form behaviour approach to behavioural scientific studies
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The expeditious rise of the Modernism discourse -and its contributions on the architecture and urban design theory and practice at the beginning of the 20th century -has given much of its place to harsh criticisms and brand-new questions in the following years. According to Lang (1987), major developments arising from the Modern Movement such as unprecedented growth in human knowledge, major social changes, and increase in the standard of living made design praxis difficult rather than making it easier. Lang legitimizes this speculative and critical point of view with the assertion of having the technological ability to construct buildings, neighbourhoods, and cities in a wide variety of ways without fully understanding the ramifications of designing for human behaviour. Within this critical approach, after mid-1900s a new field of environmental studies – generalized as behavioural sciences -has emerged in the context of man and environment relationship which deals with the complex systematic interactions between the people and built environment.Published versio
Boundary-making around a “transgender ghetto” in a neighborhood: a case in Alsancak, Izmir (Turkey)
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017This study inquires how a transgender community negotiates and re-identifies its living and working space against the socio-spatial boundaries drawn by urban planning decisions, media images and policing strategies. It develops as a case study in Alsancak, a central-city neighborhood in Izmir, known as "the tolerant city" in Turkey. Alsancak is notorious for housing a transgender community most of whom are sexworkers. In the "sexed city", the sexual codings of the urban spaces and the populations associated with them demonstrate the modern societies´ conflicts and contradictions (Knopp, 1995). This study assumes that social identities and differences are established through constantly negotiated power relations, at which space plays a major role. Identities have spatial dimensions which are "constructed together and constructed through interaction" (Massey, 1994). Urban planning, policing strategies and media images are part of the dominant power relations that draw socio-spatial boundaries around marginalized groups as "others". However, boundary drawing is not only an act of control by the powerful but also an act of resistance by the weak (Pratt, 1999). Through their everyday practices, individuals and communities (here, transgenders) can produce, negotiate, and re-define such socio-spatial boundaries through social interaction, social conflict and social struggles. Despite the prevailing stigmatization, criminalization and policing of transgender people in Turkey, Alsancak neighborhood with its diverse socioeconomic, religious and ethnic groups, and commercial and service uses (with a vivid night-life) appears as a safe space for the transgender community. Transgender community lives and works in the inner streets of the neighborhood, which they call the "transgender ghetto". They experience significant social consequences ranging from discrimination to violence, even in this relative "safe space". Through archival research on urban planning decisions and media images about this transgender ghetto and in-depth interviews with local associations (including a LGBTI association), this study compares the socio-spatial acts of boundary drawing by the powerful and the weak. The findings of the study will be interpreted for developing urban planning decisions for an "inclusive city".Published versio
Participatory approach to regeneration processes in polish cities and regions
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Cities are changing day by day - they are in the constant circle of life - arising, decaying, reviving. However, their changes are mostly connected with its users - nowadays we can observe increasing participation of inhabitants, local activists and non-governmental organizations in the urban regeneration processes (Żylski, 2014). Authors present the impact of EU Cohesion Policy 2014-2020 on regeneration processes which are implemented in Polish towns, cities and metropolis when emphasizing general formal and legal framework including examination of the possible distribution of EU funds for regeneration projects within the regional operational programs. Authors focus on different approaches to the implementation of Cohesion Policy in Polish regions - and researched into Pomeranian province and Mazovian Voivodship as study cases. First, there is a need to establish definition needed to the research. The definition of the regeneration process used in the research comes from the Polish legislation (Act on regeneration, 2015). The regeneration process is defined as ‘a process of counteracting crisis situation in the degraded areas, lead in complex approach due to integrated actions in favor of local community, space and economy, concentrated territorial, conducted by regeneration stakeholders, basing on local regeneration program’. Moreover, it is important that the groups of stakeholders are also listed there. Among them, inhabitants of the area, owners, perpetual users, administrators, other inhabitants, local entrepreneurs, units of local government are mentioned. The importance of various stakeholders’ participation is also mentioned in The Guidelines for regeneration actions in operational programs 2014-2020 prepared by Polish Ministry of Economic Development (2016). Participatory approach is important for the social dimension of the regeneration. Participation of the local communities and multiple stakeholders in reimagining and reinventing public spaces. Moreover, it strengthens the connection between the place and its users (Placemaking and the future of city – draft, 2012). The pioneer in the placemaking – community-based approach to the regeneration process - is U.S. nongovernmental organization Project for Public Spaces which has helped numerous communities in creatina public spaces together. Basing on the polish legislation, the participatory approach consists of preparation, leading and evaluation the regeneration process ensuring the active participation of stakeholders during consultations and works of The Regeneration Committee (JL, 2015). In that part of the research, more important than the definition of participation method is the methodology of it. There is a growing need for authorities but especially for communities to understand that the consultation of the regeneration process is not the only activity for various actors to participate the whole process. Creighton James L. (2005) in his publication mentioned 4 steps of Continuum of participation: 1. Inform the public, 2. Listen to the public, 3. Engage in problem solving, 4. Develop agreements. However, the step: ‘Engage in problem solving’ is the most extensive in tools for co-operation between various actors. Moreover, Sherry Arnstein (1969) evolved eight-rung Ladder of Citizen where the highest rungs are 'Delegated Power' and 'Citizen control' what shows how much citizen are able to do. The rightness of choosing the participatory approach for the urban planning involves Jane Jacobs’ philosophy - ‘Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody’ (Jacobs, 2014).Published versio
The substantive impact of a procedural rule: the case of the Dutch ‘ladder’ for sustainable urbanization
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Since the dawn of the new millennium, the Netherlands, world famous for its protected Green Heart, growth centers, main ports and prohibition of out-of-town shopping malls, has been busy dismantling its national planning (Zonneveld and Evers 2014). In 2012, it opted to decentralize, deregulate and replace all remaining national urbanization policies with a single procedural rule called the ladder for sustainable urbanization. The ‘ladder’ owes its name to the three steps that local zoning plans must consider when granting rights for new urban development (see text box below). In short, they must argue that (1) a regional need exists, (2) explain the siting within the urban fabric and, if out-of-town, (3) consider multimodal accessibility. This substantiation should be included in the plan’s explanatory notes. Like many regulatory instruments, the ladder is a procedural rule aiming to achieve substantive ends, in this case, reining in the overproduction of housing and commercial property on car-dependent greenfield sites which had characterized post-2000 urban development in the Netherlands (Janssen-Jansen and Mulders 2012). One could easily be forgiven for not believing that a requirement to explain planning decisions in non-binding explanatory notes would overcome the powerful economic logic of land development. Indeed, an initial evaluation found the application of this rule in local plans to be clearly inadequate (Evers 2015a). Even so, the ladder – and more particularly its enforcement through the court system – has since been blamed for hampering development and in the summer of 2017, less than five years after it entered into force, it was relaxedPublished versio