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Co-creating collective imagination. How to produce thought-images for urban reframing?
Get PDFThis paper situates epistemological challenges of community-based practices and social innovation research within the perspective of urban transitions. It explores characteristics of innovative, contextualized and generative planning stories. Insights about transformative imaginaries are distilled from an explorative case of reframing urban challenges by thought-images. Planning – as a critical discipline co-creating and supporting explorative paths towards a sustainable future – cares about approaches that can deal with community building for change. This implies an expanded language of planning. Decisive dimensions and characteristics of such a language, and how to build it, can be learned from ‘concept grants’ serving urban policy in Flanders. These grants serve multidisciplinary teams to reframe inchoate situations conceptually, to root those concepts into ongoing and new local processes, and to prepare for implementation. Collective re-framing makes stakeholders ‘see’ the potentials of a unique situation. They can feel how new collaborative coalitions can lead to effective change. They can imagine a different future and the capacities needed to bring it into reach. They incorporate imaging a thought-image while collectively creating, testing, refining and actualizing it
Urban river regeneration as a tool for healthy city planning: the case of Shenzhen Futian river
Get PDFIn the last decades, urban river regeneration (URR) has been increasingly adopted to solve environmental issues, especially in China. The prevalence of this trend is due in part to the fact that,besides solving water pollution problems, urban rivers are a potential new source of open publicspace for contemporary cities. Due to the extremely rapid urban development, available public space in these cities is shrinking and becoming more and more inadequate. In this context, URR can
enhance the quality of the built environment, social life, and public health. This study aims to investigate the influence of URR on social life by analyzing people's behavior and perception of space. Due to its geographical location and its urban context, Futian River in Shenzhen has been chosen as a case study. Methods adopted include direct observation, interview, and survey research. The study is expected to explore the influence of urban river regeneration on social life, adding new
knowledge for future healthy city planning in contemporary urban environments.publishedVersio
Healthy city of tomorrow
Get PDFIn London the 32+1 Boroughs are testing methods, in terms of physical environment’s and urban design, to respond to Healthy City model starting from urban open space design. The investigation field is supplied by the different Open Space Strategies OSS written by each Borough giving specific solution in term of design parameters to increase physical activity, elevate air and water quality, play and sport activities, open space deficiency and accessibility. The paper will discuss all sets of innovations introduced which have the potential to reshape the lifestyle and working patterns of urban residents, and to assure sociospatial justice. In UK they start again, using urban design, to interlace open space with services and residence at the local level, as was the local planning and urban design Anglo-Saxon traditiondraf
Land policy tools in flood risk governance: The differentiated experiences arising from the basins of the Rivers Evros (Greece) and Scheldt (Belgium)
Get PDFLand policy as an all-encompassing practice has been providing a wide variety of instruments to proactively and reactively deal with disasters and promote resilient territories. Historical experiences related to periods of post disaster recovery (the rebuilding of cities after World War II, earthquakes, fires, floods) have revealed the importance of the land policy system as well as the institutional structures that in combination to planning policy determine the efficacy of the safety environment of the affected areas. The operation of expropriation and compensation mechanisms, land re-allocation provisions, land amalgamation and readjustment and the redistribution of land development rights have proved to be highly critical in disaster management cycle, and principally, during the recovery-reconstruction and the prevention-mitigation phases. What has to be underlined in this respect is the way the aforementioned tools and mechanisms have developed historically under accentuated demands posed by crisis or disaster conditions and are implemented in different institutional vis a vis spatial planning contexts aiming to fostering resilient communities. Set in this context, the aim of this presentation is to examine the effectiveness of land policy in two distinct settings of flood risk management: the Evros River Basin in Greece and the Scheldt River in Belgium. This comparative approach allows to identifying the different obstacles and potentials that could contribute to the formation of an integrated land and safety-resilience strategy
Farming in a city without farmlands. Cadastral mapping of agriculture in Turin and early assessment of multifunctionality viability
Get PDFIn Turin, agriculture still does not officially exist in the zoning of the masterplan. Recently, the City opened to the opportunity to include agricultural areas in the plan, a subject still under discussion. Peri-urban agriculture is a controversial topic. Not only it is impactful on the landscape and on the ecosystem, but it also is scarcely profitable due to price volatility. However, peri-urban farming is often not negligible in dimensions. In the City of Turin, the productive farming soil amounts to at least 650 ha and it is even more extensive (10,000 ha) by looking at the cities of the first belt. The study shows that the agricultural sector of the City is currently struggling, and the very role of agriculture, in peri-urban areas, may be under discussion. Can agriculture, in Turin, become environmentally sustainable, integrate multifunctionality, recover its social value and dialogue again with the historical cultural heritage of the green belt? Before answering these questions, it was necessary to have a starting point. This paper will present the state of affairs of agricultural cadastral parcels and farmers in Turin.publishedVersio
Regional Transition, Territorial Differentiation, Composition for sustainable trajectory
Get PDFThe art to compose social transactions, environmental transactions have progressed with the explicit method of negotiation and mediation on the common project (Forester, 1999). Social knowledge and policy planning could progress when they specify how the different transactions can be combined so to reinforce the requirements of sustainability on a territory. The construction of public policies have made possible to integrate these contradictory pressures inside a public policy who may stabilize the space of negotiation. The case of Venice Marghera demonstrated in the 1990 the social capability to articulate two levels of negotiation, between city council and polluting enterprises, between Unions, enterprise and National government on the stages a of depollution and new technic of refinery. The main analytical question intends to integrate the local public actions inside an articulated public policy (Crosta,1999) The current process of sustainable transition is involved after 2015 in a new period with a diversity of local actions for sustainability. They have to be composed with parallel actions and policies, researching some convergence. In the french case of Loire Atlantic, we may identify three type of transitional territories, each one develop his own conception of ecological transitions. Urban metropolis transition demonstrates his capacity of coordination on the economy of energy and management of risks inside a coordinate model of sustainable urban development. Municipal and institutional coordination are supporting the extension of urban environmental transactions Countryside territories support the land protection but they require extended mobility, and are also reluctant to the economy of energy facing the gasoline struggle. Peripheral territory are struggling between precarious life styles, urban consumption and constraint of mobility. At the regional level the coordination of action by explicit public politics, require more flexibility in a federative combination between differentiated territorial actions. Some conflicts emerge between urban and rural population, between stable and precarious population v workforce are developing at regional level. The institutional innovation have to be combined with their planning capacity so to support purposive trajectories of development
How to connect freight logistics, persons mobility, and spatial planning in and between urban regions? Perspectives from different European urban nodes on TEN-T corridors
Get PDFPlanning for Transition – book of proceedings 31; 2European urban nodes are vital for the effectiveness of the European core transport network (TEN-T), for passengers and freight transport. Yet, this role also comes with challenges regarding liveability, a battle for space with other functions in densely populated and growing urban nodes. Effective solutions should be designed at the level of the functional urban area of freight and logistics which exist at a different spatial scale from a passenger transport perspective, as examples of Vienna and Rotterdam illustrate. Urban nodes that are stimulating multi-modality ambitions and solutions should include freight and logistics. Regional opportunities for transit oriented development (TOD) could be combined with potential freight hubs, logistics oriented development (LOD). Initiatives can be taken within the urban nodes as well as on the corridor between the urban nodes, as is illustrated by several examples (Venlo (NL) and Lauterbourg (FR)) that relieve spatial and transport pressure in Rotterdam respectively Strasbourg. European tools and funding exist that could support urban nodes in dealing with these complex challenges and investment needs, both from transport and regional policy. An analysis of the STRAT-Board database shows that ESI funds are used by the majority of urban nodes for investments in mobility and infrastructure.
Sex (Roles) and the City
Get PDFIn the last years a new wave of feminism arise, showing how the violence against women is still present in contemporary society. Violence against can be intended both as direct (domestic violence, harassment, …) or structural (pay gap, less opportunity, less listening in the public arenas). The paper aim to show different aspects of structural violence affecting women, coming form urban environment. They can be recognized in more difficult in access to houses, to public spaces, to spaces of self-organization; in the preference given to private transports than to public ones in the mobility management of the cities; in the difficult to conciliate productive and reproductive activities; the lack of representativeness of women in the design and planning disciplines. The last issue is object of different international research in recent years, and can be one of the causes of the little attention payed by planners to gender issue
A knowledge-driven approach to urban transformations: densification strategy of the central parts of Bergen, Norway
Get PDFThe municipality of Bergen has launched a radical strategy for densification. A total of 50 percent of the need for new housing should be covered within Bergen's central parts. Bergen is the second largest city in Norway and it is known for its intimate relations between a beautiful west coast landscape and, from a Norwegian perspective, a dense urban structure. Much is at stake when introducing a radical program for densification. A report has been prepared that records the area's character and identifies and analyses potential transformation areas. With assistance from Western Norway University of Applied Sciences and consulting firm Asplan Viak, GIS is used as a tool for obtaining operational information and analysis models. The work has been financed by the Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation. Information is provided about what characterises and distinguishes Bergen's central parts. A new analytic GIS-based tool is developed for measuring the spatial attributes that constitute an area's attractiveness. This tool combines the Space-Syntax and Spacescape methods. Eleven major transformation areas are identified and issues such as ownership, possible obstacles to implementation and overall potential for development are analysed. A step-bystep implementation is proposed and recommendations are made which address critical obstacles
A collaborative learning approach to promote positive interdependence in a “Planning Sustainable Cities” course
Get PDFFollowing the scholarship of teaching and learning, this study is contextualized in a “Planning Sustainable Cities” course. It presents a collaborative learning approach to promote positive interdependence. Under certain conditions, collaborative learning approaches can promote among students each other’s efforts to learn, resulting in positive interdependence (cooperation). However, cooperation is not always facilitated, and it might be challenged when students have diverse backgrounds. This study incorporated elements of mixed-methods and design-based research approaches. Pre and post-intervention surveys were conducted with 23 international students as well as in-depth interviews and focus group discussions on the type and level of collaboration, and student’s view of cooperative learning. Based on the results of the descriptive phase and the literature, we addressed two key issues during the design phase: improving group dynamics and facilitating collaboration in the Learning Management System (LMS). No outside enemy interdependence was observed (negative interdependence with another group). Means interdependence is the most predominant characteristic of positive interdependence present in group work and positively perceived by the students. In the collaborative learning approach that was designed, both a group dynamics workshop (analogue/in class) and group pages in the LMS seem to help in improving means interdependence