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Corruption and organized crime in the field of urban planning
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Although corruption and organized crime are the focus of a great many recent studies published in political science, sociology, and criminology, very few of these studies pay much attention to the spatial dimension and urban scale of these phenomena (Hall, 2013; Weinstein, 2008). For example, the inquiries that pivot specifically on the problems of corruption and organized crime in the domain of urban planning are a handful1. This omission is somewhat bizarre given the extent of the phenomena in question. For instance, according to Transparency International (2013), some 21% of people interviewed in countries all over the world admitted they had paid bribes for “land services”, and another 21% had greased palms for “registry and permit services”, which includes land registry and building permits. In fact, many researchers have noted that corruption is particularly rife in the planning sector (Chiodelli & Moroni, 2015; Cullingworth, 1993; Gardiner & Lyman, 1978; Murray & Frijters, 2016). Moreover, the research available at present entirely lacks in-depth case studies that would provide greater insights into the real mode of operation of corruption in a specific political-institutional system. The present paper is a first attempt to fill this gap. In particular, it conducts a detailed study on some recent episodes of corruption in the field of urban planning in the municipality of Desio, close to Milan (Italy). These episodes took place in an environment characterized by the rooted presence of a mafia-type organization known as the ’Ndrangheta2. The analysis aims to shed light on the various types of corruption that prevail in the planning field related to the case in question. It outlines the main issues at stake, the key public agents involved, and the stages of the planning process most vulnerable to corruption. This makes it possible to formulate some general hypotheses about the main institutional factors determining corruption in the planning domain, and about the role of mafia-type organized crime within this framework.Published versio
Lasting community wellbeing embracing health and liveability: comparison of Lisbon and Tokyo
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Planners in many major urban areas are facing challenges affecting lasting community wellbeing (LCW), which is a key foundation for overall sustainability. LCW involves people’s immediate and long-term satisfaction with decent individual and socio-ecological daily lives mainly within the scales of the neighbourhood and city-region. Community recognizes the multiple and flexible relationships of people, typified by mutual commitment and support. While the concept of community does not entail living proximity and geographical organization (e.g. on-line community, professional community, etc.), we use the concept here with emphasis on the maintenance of community in neighbourhoods, which are geographically organized areas for people living close to each other, but in many cases do not have (or have lost) community characteristics. Neighbourhoods could be considered the base level for community characteristics that are desirable for lasting wellbeing, and that build up to the city-region’s level of community cooperation towards sustainability. In these terms, community is a useful perspective for considering the sustainability of daily lives. With this perspective, comparative study of city-regions with different sizes, such as Lisbon and Tokyo, becomes possible because what matters for decent individual and socio-ecological daily lives within community (and potential or visible progress towards sustainability through them) at neighbourhood scale is more shared than different. With recognition of what is similar, difference will be presented as a fascination (thus respectful and enjoyable), rather than something impossible to comprehend (thus fearful and hopeless). This paper presents key features of LCW as an analytical framework and reports on an evolving comparative study of LCW centred on two city-regions – Lisbon and Tokyo – that are very different in size, history, culture and other characteristics. The viability of this comparison rests on the common features of LCW, which embrace notions of healthy and liveable cities. The research takes a bottom-up approach informed by literatures related to LCW, each city’s own forward-looking planning documents, current and emerging initiatives, public discourse and direct experience. Similarities found demonstrate the value of common features, while differences suggest the key importance of understanding contextual factors. This research also attempts to understand changes in mind-sets and behaviours regarding health and liveability among people in these cities.Published versio
Geodesign as support to opinion making, in local, regional and territorial scale: case studies in Brazil
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017In Brazil, since the promulgation of federal constitution, in 1988, and the City Stature, in 2001, the interests about “participatory planning” became not only a desire but a law, determining that any decision in territorial planning should be constructed considering collective values. Notwithstanding, we observe lack of methods to support the intention, and in most cases a misunderstood about the sense of participation. The idea of “participation” is understood as to “win the game”, and not to choose alternative futures that are more adequate to social, economic, environmental and cultural context. In this sense, the proposal of Geodesign (Steinitz, 2012), based on a framework that stablishes steps to be followed, is a very robust methodology to support opinion making and to arrive to decision making. We conducted three case studies in Minas Gerais, Brazil, in different scales and challenges, but all of them in areas with conflicts of interests. The case study in regional scale was Quadrilatero Ferrifero, an area of 1.000.000ha characterized by historical cities, environmental resources, axis of urban growth and the most important economic area in the state due to mining activities of gold and iron ore. The case study in district scale was Pampulha, an area of 10000ha in the city of Belo Horizonte, projected by Oscar Niemeyer that had just been nominated as Unesco’s heritage because of its unique modernist architecture and urban landscape. The goal was to discuss risks of not appropriated changings in the landscape, especially urban densification, damaging the harmony in visual axis. The case study in local scale was about a slum, an area of 25ha, with the goal to face complex problems and to give support to legal regularization, considering budget restrictions, fast changing realities and needs in urban and environmental improvements. All case studies demanded studies about systems that represented vulnerabilities and attractiveness in the areas, costs and targets to be respected and achieved, and definitions about groups of interests from different sectors of society.Published versio
Study on suitable mode of urban spatial form in northern shaanxi coupling with fractal landform of loess plateau
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The self-similarity (fractal characteristics) of the unique gully landform of Loess Plateau has been demonstrated adequately. Urban spatial distribution rooted in the landform also has an obvious feature of self-similarity, to forms a relatively stable and harmonious relationship between human being and nature over the past thousands of years. With the rapid development of energy industries and urbanization in Northern Shaanxi, the soil erosion and other ecological problems are getting intense. The contradiction between loess gully landforms, which is a regional and critical ecological factor, and urban spatial development becomes sharper. It brings a tremendous impact on existing relationship between human being and nature. With the help of fractal theory, this research made a coupled correlation study between the topography, which in Northern Shaanxi energy-rich region with fractal characters, and the urban spatial form, so as to explore a realistic way for urban spatial development adapted to landscape environment in Northern Shaanxi . Hopefully, this paper will provide a reference for other research about urban spaces in ecologically sensitive areasPublished versio
Visibility of Turkish immigrants in Amsterdam
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Throughout history immigrants have always played a significant role in shaping the streetscape of Western European cities through their amenities, which are characteristic for the immigrant neighbourhoods. Some of the oldest examples of these are the Jewish and Chinese neighbourhoods located in many of the major cities like London, Paris, and Amsterdam. However, it was after the 1960s that the immigrants influenced and changed the cultural landscape of European cities the most. This was due to the arrival of labour migrants from Italy, Turkey, Greece, Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and Yugoslavia to northern European countries as a result of trade recruitment. This happened to support the need of workers in labourintensive sectors due to the developing post-war economies (Vermeulen and Penninx 2000). The arrival of guest workers along with the migration from the post-colonial countries, later on followed by migration from the cold war areas, made a significant change in the demographic and spatial organization of major cities (Vermeulen and Penninx 2000). More the immigrants settled, stronger they became visible on the streetscape of European cities through their shops, restaurants, cafes and religious places. These amenities which have distinctive languages, signs, or ways of street uses that they generate, created characteristic immigrant neighbourhoods, recognized as, for example, African neighbourhoods, Turkish neighbourhoods, Surinamese neighbourhoods, and many others.Published versio
Spatial injustice of central area public spaces and its production mechanism: a case study in Nanjing, China
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Like many other large cities in China, Nanjing central area has experienced a large scale urban regeneration since twenty-first Century, mega-retail-Led regeneration, which transforms the original residential land to commercial land, dominates the process. Large scale and huge volume flagship stores emerge on the regenerated land affected by the commercial building model coming from the developed countries. The emerging space form is also supported by the local government, because it can quickly make the image of the city catch up with the international standard, significantly enhance the level of physical space environment and bring considerable economic income. Nevertheless, more and more attention has been paid to the negative social effects brought by this space form. Taking the central area of Nanjing as the research object, based on 2000-2015 historical topographic maps, this paper reveals the transformation characteristics of central area space form in Nanjing, it shows that the space form has been transformed from the dispersed, high density and low plot ratio to the concentrated, low density and high plot ratio, in the meantime, it has produced many so-called “public spaces”. According to the authors’ firsthand survey data, this paper finds that the so-called "public spaces" are just the outdoor spaces separately belong to different commercial flagship stores, and in which there exist obvious spatial injustice. The injustice embodies in two aspects: one is the function simplification, the “public spaces” only bear the commercial and transportation functions, which can not meet the requirements of the central area public spaces to carry a variety of social activities; the other is the environment exclusiveness, the “public spaces” just designed to attract the young middle class with a consumption orientation, which can hardly be used conveniently, comfortably and with dignity by all regardless of age or economic circumstances. This paper also analyzes the production mechanism of space injustice from the aspect of China’s land regeneration system, and the local government entrepreneurialism and the capitalization of space production are defines as the root cause. In accordance with the analysis result, this paper suggests the public policy attributes of urban regeneration should be strengthened through the reformation of the land regeneration system and planning-making system, and the improvement of public participation, so as to obtain the realization of spatial justice.Published versio
Critical distance in urban planning. Will smart, sustainable and resilient narratives save our cities? Insights from Delhi metropolitan area
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017New Delhi is the second largest megacity in the world with a population of 26 million inhabitants (United Nations, 2016). Its metropolitan area its under severe vulnerabilities due to the lack of control of planning instruments on urban transformations. Needs in housing, resources (water and energy), infrastructures, transports, public services (health and education) among others are definitely going beyond local and regional government response capacities (Kapuria, 2014). Planning efforts, polices and regulations seem to have been instrumentalized under distinct historical moments, namely colonization, state control over land and nowadays capitalism and globalization. This leaded to the advent of an unplanned urbanism, with its extreme consequences and risks. It is intended to establish this nexus by revisiting the key planning moments in Delhi along with its different socioeconomic, cultural and political frameworks across time. Finally, we draw conclusions on how contemporary urban development models such as ‘sustainability’, ‘resilience’, ‘participated governance’ or ‘smart cities’ are being framed, perceived and applied under the context of Delhi urban planning instruments, polices and research. It seems that these narratives are serving as means to achieve specific goals by different drivers and actors. The discourse of sustainability is used to sell gated urbanizations for higher income classes, situated in greened areas, far way from slums and pollution. Resilience and horizontal governance is pursuit by the state as a mean to make citizens resistant and accountable to deal with city problems withdrawing public institutions from its own responsibility. Smart Cities Agenda is based on a huge investment on technologic information systems (Delhi is home to many ICT companies) on the hope to end mobility and pollution problems, leaving aside the fact that 77% of Delhi population live under poverty, in precarious housing or without infrastructure (sewage systems, water distribution and services) (Kushwaha, 2016). It is intended to highlight the importance of this reflection for a deep rethinking on concepts and practices in urban planning field, specially in what concerns its normative generalization without taking into account the influences and consequences of distinct political, social,Published versio
Pedagogy built on working with communities
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Preparing students for practice is the key challenge in planning education. Since the late 1990s, the issue of how to balance theory, methods, skills, and practice oriented courses in the core curriculum has been widely debated. Partly as a result of the greater emphasis in the 2006 Planning Accreditation Board guidelines on plan making skills, and partly in response to the increasing demand from students for hands on learning, most planning schools in the United States have by now incorporated practice oriented courses into their core curriculum(Edwards and Bates 2011, Vidhardi, et.al. 2012). Depending on how each program defines what planning is or ought to be, the strategies to incorporate practice oriented learning into the curriculum ranges from special seminars, internship requirements to studios (Lang 1983, Long 2012). Over two thirds (69%) of the 80 schools listed in the 2015 Planetizen Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs by now have a studio course requirement. Still, studio pedagogy is neither “dominant, not does it play a significant role in the earliest stages of planning education” (Long 2012, 438). Several questions remain on how to define, incorporate, and assess learning outcomes of studios in planning education (Long 2012, Vidharthi, et.al. 2012).Published versio
Comparison of two urban development’s models and redefinition of urban planners’ role - a case of Yuzhong district, Chongqing, China
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Urban planning’s aim is to seek social equity, to achieve social goals through the development of spatial manipulation and management system in the face of market economy and government ideology. In the face of the complex urban planning, planners should be targeted to the big city and small-town planning, which should be strictly controlled at the macro level, planners and government should be the leading force and actively advocate all fields of the city to cooperate together. When it comes to the community and village level, residents can be encouraged to participate in the community’s planning to their initiative, and the planners and government can formulate a series of rules and regulations to guide them appropriately, in order to create more local characteristics of the environment. Planners should have the basic quality of the space aesthetics , also need to consider the principle of market economy and social operation’s mechanism behind the space, finding an association between market rules and social relations and spatial structure, to make planning policy and management regulations to achieve a better tomorrow through the improvement and adjustment of city spatial entity.Published versio
For an anti- and post-crisis territorial regeneration agenda. The Friuli Venezia Giulia region as a study area
No full textBook of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017The territorial impact of the longest and most severe post-war economic crisis is interacting, in Italy, with endemic territorial neglect that exposes people and local communities to devastating risks and a permanent state of insecurity and uncertainty. The "low carbon future" has also assumed, in the institutional and scientific literature and beyond its direct environmental implications, wider technological and socio-economic implications. A decades-long cycle of "reterritorialization", based on the regeneration of "territorial capital", can therefore become a major "Country project", at both local and national levels. It should be aimed at assuring security to the people exposed to risks, redevelopment of the settlements, certainty for investments, basic efficiency in the residential, production and service systems. It should also be oriented, on a broader horizon, towards the low carbon future. The huge financial commitment and the European fiscal compact are often considered the real constraints to the feasibility of such projects. However, the simulation (qualitative and quantitative) that is conducted in this paper, with reference to the Friuli Venezia-Giulia Region (not particularly large although functionally rather complex and governed with a Special Statute of Autonomy), demonstrates that the main problem is not so much financial nor the constraints on public budgets because most of the resources, in the regeneration of territorial capital, would be private (household savings), while public resources (essentially regional) should above all play a leveraging role. The problem appears rather to be cultural and political.Published versio