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The (non)planning in the Global South: (re)thinking a critique to urbanism through the theory of dependence
No full textProceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southThere are several differences in the patterns of urbanization between the countries of central capitalism and the peripherals ones, in special, the Global South. The differences are due the specific inclusion of each country in the global capitalism. The theory of dependence and post-colonialism developed this idea. One of these ideas that seem particularly special to understand is the theory of overexploitation of work in the periphery of capitalism. This line of thinking believes that international value transfer is the reason for our underdeveloped and peripheral country condition. These losses, or value transfers, have historically been offset by internal exploitation of the workforce in several expedients along the time of work favoring the accumulation of capital, either by reducing capitalists spending with constant capital or allowing reduction in variable capital. In regarding to the latter, I emphasize that there are various expedients that workers are exposed out of the workcapital (whether formal or informal) that end up favoring the accumulation; among many (such as children's informal work) housing self-constructions can be interpreted in this sense. And then is possible to understand the relationship with the urbanization phenomenon in these dependent countries. In the article I intend to discuss the relationship with the "lack" of urban planning of in certain areas of underdeveloped cities like a intentional strategy of both the government and capital, in order to ensure workforce at low cost to the appropriation of capital. From this perspective one can understand the economical factor that determines the existence of such landscape recurring in the peripheral countries: the slums and informal settlements. This form of housing provision reveals capital's need, in underdeveloped countries, to maintain part of population living at low costs as a means to guarantee the low expenditure with workforce, maintaining a network of informal economy.publishedVersio
How do building regulations increase the cost and limit supply of affordable housing? Insights from a case study in Ahmedabad, India
No full textProceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southMuch of the discussion on affordable housing in cities of developing countries has focused around the constraints in urban land markets that raise the cost of serviced urban land, making housing unaffordable. It is well known that urban land is being used inefficiently, resulting in the high cost of both urban land and the built space. However, land is only one of the supply‐side constraints, and unreasonable building regulations pose absurdly high costs on society by preventing the formal housing market from producing affordable housing that low‐income groups can actually afford. The cost of building formal sector housing increases due to building regulations that set standards for formal sector development. Building regulations establish minimum standards such as FAR, building height, setbacks and margins, open spaces, parking, elevators, and other requirements which directly increase the construction cost, and prevent land from being developed intensely by limiting the quantity of habitable floor space that can be built. Building standards directly determine how much it costs to build the cheapest formal sector housing and thus directly influence the quantity of affordable housing that is built within the formal housing market, and the rest is then pushed into the informal housing market. People who cannot access expensive and limited supply of formal sector housing are then forced to find housing in the informal sector which causes proliferation of slums.publishedVersio
The study of urban communities’ openness under the background of China’s institutional Change - A case study of the Zhongyuan District in Shanghai
No full textProceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southAs an important part of urban life, urban communities have long been focused and hot issue of research. In the present institutional framework of China, institution has become a major factor sculpturing the urban space. Under the background of economic and social transformation as well as institutional change, China's urban communities have been in deep and rapid change also. Since market-oriented reform, China’s economic system transforms from planned economy to socialist market economy gradually, at the same time, great changes on the system of urban land supply and housing supply system have also taken place. China’s urban land supply system has undergone a transformation from the mechanism of administrative allocation, the land lease old system, urban land reserve system to the stage of urban land supply basing on the macro-economic control. Its evolution dominated by the central government, driven by the local governments, is affected by the economic system and economic structure. It represented as the adjustment of land property right. China’s country housing supply system also experienced from the founding of the benefits distribution system to the monetization of housing distribution system.publishedVersio
Understanding the space-time structure of urban activity space based on the cell phone signaling data: a case study of Shanghai
No full textProceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southSeveral attempts have already been made to analyze urban activity space, but the datasets employed have typically been neither dynamic nor fine grained. Against this backdrop the mobile phone signaling data is both highly mobile and yet still localizable in space, which makes it a uniquely useful tool for conducting large-scale, representative urban space-time structure research. The development of information communication technology provided an effective approach for the data collection of residents’ temporal and spatial behavior and an opportunity for the transformation of research methods on the interrelationship of the urban spatial environment and individual behavior. This could bring about the opportunity to derive land-use information from mobile phone signaling data. Since China's reform and opening, the cities have experienced a profound change in terms of society, economy, and space, along with the reform of land system, financial system and housing system. Nowadays, China's urban space is still in the phase of reconstruction, which will affect the urban spatial structure and thus the urban activity space. While with the development of globalization and informationization, especially the mobile information and communication technologies have accelerated the changes of people's daily life, which will affect the urban activity space and thus affect the urban spatial structure.publishedVersio
Linking planning pedagogy with practice and innovation: a workshop with practitioners to evaluate planning studio products
No full textProceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southThis paper explores the relationship between planning pedagogy and planning practice. It reports on a workshop with planning practitioners, which sought to evaluate the recent products of two planning studios in the Bachelor of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia). The purpose of the workshop was twofold: 1. Examine what constitutes sound planning studio pedagogy in relation to what planning professionals expect from planning graduates when the latter enter the workforce. Are students being trained to meet the demands of the current job market? To answer these questions, studio products were evaluated both in terms of content and graphic quality. 2. Examine whether planning academia is at the forefront of innovation. Can planning practitioners learn from student ideas? What constitutes an “innovative planner” in the Australian, and more broadly, the Western context? Are planning studios more effective than traditional planning courses in fostering innovation and creative thinking among students?publishedVersio
Indigenous rights and urban development: property and land title in the Tacoma-Seattle hierarchy
No full textProceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southThe conventional wisdom surrounding central US cities and their smaller, regional siblings is that the larger city played a winning card somewhere in its colonial or industrial-area history: for instance, a deeper port, a better rail connection, a surfeit of resilient entrepreneurs. Seattle and Tacoma have their own version of this tale. As the story goes, despite a deep natural harbor and early designation as the western transcontinental railroad terminus, Tacoma was usurped in its expected regional primacy by the savvy boosterism and determined mountaineering of Seattle’s pioneering early settlers. This paper examines the accuracy of such accounts of the region’s persistent urban hierarchy, by introducing and documenting an alternative explanation - based in tribal oppression, property rights, and the role of legal land title in urban development and capital investment. Through close reading of historical sources and land use documentation, including 19th century treaty grants and reservation boundaries, as well as related secondary analysis regarding tribal sovereignty, urban development, and natural resource claims, the historical importance of Seattle’s absence of Duwamish land rights, as compared to Tacoma’s significant Puyallup reservation, is demonstrated. While early settlers and civic leaders in Tacoma did not diverge from dominant patterns of racism and indigenous oppression, they did occasionally acknowledge the presence and land tenure of Puyallup natives. Careful examination of two policy events - the Boldt Decision (1974) and the Puyallup Land Settlement (1988) – shows that for over a century, the costs and uncertainties of unclear tribal claims cast a long shadow over infrastructure and urban development interests in the Tacoma area.publishedVersio
Small town urbanization in China: evidence from the land development perspective
No full textProceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southThis paper examines land development and the consequential socio-spatial transformation in China’s small town urbanization over the past two decades. Specifically, it investigates bottom-up institutional innovation and newly emerged dynamic multi-scalar governance in small town urbanization. The research assesses how the institutional and spatial changes have reshaped local socio-economic structures and reconfigured people’s daily life in small towns. Bounded by the urban and rural dichotomy, research on China’s land use system tends to fall into two separate camps, urban and rural, leaving small towns largely neglected. In contrast to the well-investigated top-down urbanization in China’s major cities, which is primarily driven by the central government’s ambition in industrialization, the bottom-up urbanization in small towns driven by spontaneous rural industrialization has drawn considerably less scholarly attention. This research addresses this deficiency by articulating the perplexing and changing institutional settings of land acquisition and development, spatial-territorial reorganization, and their direct socio-economic influence on local economies and people’s lives.publishedVersio
Social conflicts, urban violence and planning strategies: issues and evidence from the North and the South
No full textProceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southThis roundtable investigates new forms of planning and governance in face of growing social inequalities, emerging conflicts and escalating violence in urban areas subjected to the externalities of a global economy and to the risks and vulnerabilities locally produced. In order to deal with social unrest, new public policies are being proposed to pacify or recuperate degraded and dangerous areas. This process is taking place in many cities, by means of different plans and programs. The papers will examine conflict in different urban settings and cultures, dealing with the question of tensions in informal and formal areas. We intend to explore social conflicts as they relate to urban violence and planning. All papers acknowledge that existing public policies are failing in promoting social inclusion, spatial integration and basic human rights. We hope to foster a critical analysis of current planning strategies for dealing with conflict and depressed areas and to contribute for the dialogue between planners from different parts of the world. The first paper by William Goldsmith (Department of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University, CRP/Cornell U.) – “The Drug War and Inner City Neighborhoods” examines how violence evolving from drug trade in the United States depressed big-city neighborhoods is affecting local residents and the surrounding city and metropolitan area.publishedVersio
Power relations in climate adaptation planning: learning from Santiago, Chile
No full textProceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southSantiago de Chile, like many of Latin America’s megacities, is dealing with the threat of worsening water shortages and floods in the face of climate change, in a context of high extant socio-spatial inequality. Seeking to address increasing vulnerability, the city’s Regional Government engaged in a planning process from 2010 to 2012 to produce a Climate Adaptation Plan for the city with recommendations on reducing urban vulnerability to climate change (Krellenberg & Katrin 2014; Barton et al. 2014). Despite being hailed as a ‘meticulously participatory’ process, however, and against the best efforts of its political and professional supporters, the resulting plan was neither ratified nor implemented by the city’s authorities.
In a context of socio-spatial inequality and increasing vulnerability, this study asks how a participatory planning process with significant political backing failed to achieve its goal of reducing the city’s climate vulnerability. The methodological approach involved an in-depth ethnographic-inspired case study with semi-structured interviews purposively selected on the basis that they participated in the planning process on behalf of public, academic, civil society, and private sector entities. Interview questions were designed to elicit information on the social rules acting at each phase of the process, and were refined during the course of fieldwork in line with observed phenomena.publishedVersio
Institutions, practices and professional performance. Case studies to the history of planning in Brazil
No full textProceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southThe starting point of this article is the result of the investigations and inquiries carried out by members of a collective entitled Territorial Studies Group and Urban History (GESTHU), registered in the Directory of the CNPq Research Groups and based at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Dedicated to the analysis of the role of urban settlements in the structuring of territory from a historical perspective, we seek to understand the nature of the interventions within the social and state agents from records of the action programs both public and private in order to compose a repertoire covering the various entrepreneurships, actors and confrontations. It is an effort aimed at carrying out studies questioning the political and territorial experiences and urbanistic organization of space at various periods in Brazilian history. We believe that many of these practices are territorial planning precursors and we recognize that the imperial and republican projects have common ground when mean the “invention of territories” with the conquest, appropriation and fixation in different regions. The perspective of this article is the analysis of actions taken in different locations in Brazil and the characterization of their materiality. We understand that the complex process of conquest and control of space during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries imposes a discussion of the differentiated importance - within the overall policy implemented by the Brazilian State - of the social determinants of spatial organization including the circulation of ideas, discourses, thoughts and the urban practices, as well as the professionals responsible for planning.publishedVersio