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Re-positioning of the key actors in the context of mega projects: canal Istanbul
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 southMega projects are described as large-scale and high-cost infrastructure investments which have single purposes (Flyvbjerg et al., 2003; Lehrer and Laidley, 2008) either provide transport options or connect megaprojects and mega-events to each other (Kennedy, 2015). Mega project theme is being criticized in the literature from different aspects; however, complexity, risk and uncertainties are always parts of its critiques. Giezen (2012) claims that mega-projects are usually full of political procedures. Risk and uncertainties might be averted in infrastructure phases, and he phrases that idea as ‘keeping it simple’. Nevertheless, as he admits this is not possible for political perspective of mega-projects. Due to this awareness in the literature, one of the example of political complexity is key actors’ positions through the project.
Political environment and key actors’ relationships between each other are diverse considering countries institutional structures. When we look at Turkish system, political environment always has strong influence over institutional framework. Neoliberalism restructuring in Istanbul has been started since the mid-1980s with flows of capital from global into Turkey (Keyder, 2005) and European integration which is a consequence of global tendency to be part of an inter-governmental network (Keyman and Koyuncu, 2005). These inter-governmental and global policies have triggered to include mega-projects on politicians agendas (Candan and Kolluoglu, 2008). This influence can be seen most of mega projects which are started and used as buzzword in Turkey after 2010.publishedVersio
Complex and multiple realities: understanding poverty and vulnerability context in Lagos informal settlements
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 southVulnerability has been identified as a major hindrance to sustainable livelihood, social and economic development and poverty alleviation. The concept of vulnerability has evolved over the years and it has been applied in various disciplines. For examples, it has been widely applied in the fields of natural hazards climate change and poverty and sustainable livelihoods. This paper focuses on vulnerability from poverty and sustainable livelihoods perspective. DFID (1999) defines vulnerability as trends, shocks and seasonality, which people have limited or no control over, but affect their livelihoods. Vulnerability consists of two sides – external and internal. The external side consists of risks, shocks and stress to which an individual is subject to, while the internal side refers to a lack of means to cope with risks, shocks and stress (Chambers, 1989).
This paper examines the vulnerability contexts within which the residents of informal settlements pursue their livelihood and what they are vulnerable to. The theoretical underpinnings of this research are, first, that the urban poor pursue their livelihoods within multiple and complex vulnerability contexts, which exacerbate their poverty. Second, it is theorised, that vulnerability is closely linked to asset ownership. The poor are particularly vulnerable because they have limited assets to cope with shocks and to build a sustainable livelihood.publishedVersio
Urban plannıng for whom? Dıscussıng spatıally constructıon of counter hegemony
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 southBasic question for us, urban plannners, is that for whom we practice this profession; %99 of the world or not. New urban space policy is reqiured and it is inevitable. This era gestate a shift to radical urban policies regarding all issues such as public space, housing, daily life, working conditions, economy, production and consumption patterns, environment and so on. Since space is a mere subject of capitalism and power relations, the essence of planning and urbanism which is principally aimed at creating equitarian and collective community, well-defined, qualified and convenient urban public spaces, has got loose. Dialectically, urban social movements for "urban right" increase in recent time. Rise of these movements are more or less associated with urban question. This article presents this claim with certain illustrations and makes an analytical geographical mapping for Middle East.
Upon these frequently increased urban struggles and challenging urban policies, urban planning practices s should develop a new way and discuss the radical urbanism. This article aims to represent critical assessment of the challenging/contradictory urban space policies, physical aspect of urban hegemony and call for radical urbanism forms. In especial, housing environment phenomena is focus of interest where significant inequalities take place and originate from, as daily life practices engrave there. How to plan justice is a deep problem and this study searches possible forms of constructing counter hegemony of urban space.publishedVersio
Ghana’s proposed 40 year National Development Plan: challenges and prospects for planning education and practice
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 southGhana is not new to development plans. The Guggisberg Plan (1919-1927) was indeed one of the first in Africa. There is however a big gap between plan preparation and implementation. Currently, the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) has proposed the development of a long-term national development framework to guide future development. Given the seemingly strong support for the formulation and implementation of a 40-year development plan, this paper seeks to answer two key questions: Does Ghana need such a long-term development plan, and secondly what does it mean for planning education and practice? The paper critically examines the conceptual-theoretical issues and throws up some reflections as to whether the proposed plan represents a real need or a business-as usual approach to development planning, planning education and practice in Ghana.publishedVersio
Nature in the city: interactions and contradictions
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 session has as theoretical reference the field of Political ecology of urbanization, seeking to articulate some interactions and contradictions related to the multiple ways that nature reveals itself in the city. The session welcomes topics discussing disputes over natural assets such as land, water, air, and biodiversity, resulting in social and environmental conflicts leading to different notions of justice, vulnerability and risk. Discussing nature in the city may help the understanding of the emerging concept of the urban commons; their forms of appropriation and reproduction as in water fronts, urban agriculture, protection areas among other contentious uses. The session aims to explore the role and agency of social agents involved, their forms of representation, appropriation or knowledge relates do nature.publishedVersio
Conceptualizing the right to necessity and the right to space production: insurgent versus legal rights in Planning contexts
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 major problem with theories of the right to the city is that they inherently assume that states are the sole provider of rights and that, in liberal–democratic countries, legal rights are conceptually universal and apply to all individuals equally. I challenge these assumptions and maintain that in some situations, when the state and its governing apparatus violate or deny the very basic rights of a social or ethnic collective, the group itself becomes an alternative source of informal rights. I conceive this violation of basic needs as a necessity state of affairs, which constitutes a true and proper source of law and it makes the right to space production and the right to necessity. Thus, the state of necessity is the source of these informal rights and law, and necessity gives them the legitimation they needs. The disadvantaged groups, the community, not the State, give it the legitimation they need. As Agamben suggests in his State of Exception, that necessity has no law and necessity creates it own law. From this perspective, the right to the production of space is a plane of contradictions and struggle over the distribution of resources and rights among people in general, and between the state and its local government and planning and development institutions in particular. Seen in this light, it is clear that the right to the production of space entails not only formal legal rights but also the informal rights, the right to necessity, generated and invoked by disadvantaged groups.publishedVersio
Burle Marx legacy on the qualification of the urban space and landscape
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 southBurle Marx was one of the most important landscape designers of the 20th century. His contribution to the qualification of several urban landscapes was extremely significant. He was an artist who knew exactly how to deal with lines (whether they were straight or curve, or even diagonal ones), contrast, harmony, proportion, rhythm, balance, color, tone, texture, mass, and any other artistic element or principle in order to create exuberant tropical compositions of vegetation under the light and a profusion of curious plastic designs on the floor. This personal skill evidenced his graduation in Art and his artistic eye in these tridimensional and spatial compositions.
This paper aims to present and critically analyze the relevance and value of his work in the context of the urban space taking into account some of his main landscape projects in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Belo Horizonte, such as the Flamengo Park (Rio de Janeiro, 1954), the Garden of the Safra Bank (São Paulo, 1982), the gardens of Pampulha (in the 1940’s) and the Ibirapuera Park (São Paulo, 1953) – although the last one was never materialized in terms of those several gardens projected by the landscape designer.publishedVersio
Structural origins of subversion in capitalist societies: some reflections about planning
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 proposes to carry out a rereading of two of our contributions regarding public planning theme (urban and regional in principle) that have been produced at two different times within the trajectory of our reflection in more than 20 years. There are two moments marked by two different positions on ways of planning that apparently - and only in appearance - are opposites: the first, in the mid-1990s, we held discussions and defence of a planning called "communicative" by its creators (RANDOLPH 1995); now, in the second, in more recent times, we are defending the need to rethink the planning and begin to propose another form what we call "subversive" (2007 RANDOLPH, 2014).
By observing these two "ends" of the trajectory it seems that there was, in this period, such a deep inflection of our reflection we should have made obsolete that debate of 1995. But, somewhat paradoxically, this is not the case as will be noticed from our efforts to recover the older approach.publishedVersio
Activisms and the city
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 postulate that the city, its space, production and planning are neutral and objective has been contested by several authors. They highlight the political and ideological aspects of the city, and its use as reinforcement to certain dominances. This critical perspective focuses both in the city’s role as a maintainer of the capitalist mode of production and class relations, and as a maintainer of other oppressions – such as gender, ethnic and religion – which also are strengthened in the city and by the city.
This article has as its main subject the propositions leaded by citizens which are alternatives for the hegemonic urban planning and management. With the city of Belo Horizonte as the main context, the goal is to investigate the impact of social movements, activisms, committees, collectives etc. who aim freedom, justice and equality for the cities they live in. These groups will be named as “urban activism stritcto sensu”1(free translation), as well as did Marcelo Lopes de Souza in 2006. For them, the struggles are not only for accessing urban resources, but also for putting in practice the “right to the city” in its broad sense: The right to participate and reclaim the decisions and transformations of the city.publishedVersio
A historical perspective on National Spirit and the Shape of Public Space：the experience from the evolution of the Central Park in Chongqing, China (1928-2013)
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 southFrom the the theory of the production of the space which is created by Heri Lefevbvre, there is a reconciliation between mental space which is the space of the philosopher and the real space which is the physical and social spheres. Basic on the understanding above the modern public space is not a fixed place but an open and extended system which is continuously constructed by the national sprit, local culture and economic during the dynamic evolution. What is also means, the public spaces are concentrated reflect to the local experiences. The evolution of China’s modern public spaces has a unique process which is closely related to the transformation of the national spirit since modern times. Specifically, the urban park of China did not come out from the functional requirement of modern city but a national landscape in a local context. And the following process of the park also affected by the specific idea of nations. As a physical space which is the representation of local culture and public sphere, the historical perspective on the public park of China can give a general picture of the evolution process of modern China’s public spaces since the 20th century.publishedVersio