Community planning and urban design in contested places. Some insights from Belfast

Although social conflict due to the presence of different groups divided by cultural, religious or ethnic issues plagues many contemporary cities, community and participatory planning methods still pay little attention to segregation in contested spaces as a specific matter of concern. This paper aims to contribute to filling this gap through the development of a novel tool to be implemented during community planning processes in contested cities, particularly in (visual) mapping processes. The pilot area for developing the lexicon has been selected within the city of Belfast, which has been struggling for years with problems related to inter-religious sectarian conflicts. The material effects on the urban structure of the long process of defensive planning during the so-called Troubles and within the post-conflicts peace programmes have been investigated by analysing urban artefacts including edges, borders, barriers, doors, visual control points. The paper suggests that a simple, recognizable lexicon may contribute to honing community planning methods in contested places by integrating the traditional methodology of visual mapping with a tailored taxonomy of elements of urban conflict, which may be used at many stages of the planning process, including developing a visual map, design and planning, and developing and implementing an action plan.     

Climbing the city. Inhabiting verticality outside of comfort bubbles

Over the last couple of decades, urban sports have been studied – as well as, in many cases, celebrated – as critical forms of using urban space. Urban climbing, a practice also known as “street bouldering,” “buildering,” “structuring,” and “stegophilia,” has been much explored in this vein. While we acknowledge the importance of bringing to light the political and playful dimensions of the urban spatial experience, in this piece we would like to focus on a slightly different question. We approach it as a powerful means to probe and understand the finest constitution of urban environments and, more amply, urban morphology. By doing so, we wish, on the one hand, to zoom in as closely as possible onto the actual bodily practice of climbing, and, on the other, to attend its methodological implications in terms of a reflection on bodily techniques in the context of a natural history of the city. We describe urban climbing as a peculiar corporeal operation carried out at and, more precisely, on the limits of environmental control. In conclusion, the article suggests that, by highlighting the meaning of inhabiting a vertical open space of a peculiar kind, a close-up study of urban climbing might help to develop contemporary urban theory.     

RESILIENT URBAN DESIGN METHODS AND PRINCIPLES BASED ON THE COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEM THEORY

Uncertainty exists in the current urban development of contemporary cities and is getting diversified and complicated. Identifying and adapting to such uncertainty is partly defining the future development of urban planning and design. The concept of “resilient city” is developed from the current scientific demands in urban planning and design. This article suggests that Complex Adaptive System as a new system theory would help resilient city planning and construction. According to the Complex Adaptive System theory, a resilient city should possess the adaptability of its components, diversity, autonomy, appropriate redundancy, slow-variable management, and identification, in order to improve the ecological, social, and economic resilience and vitality of the city.     

The urban grid and entangled planning cultures in Senegal

ABSTRACT

In Western (Eurocentric) research traditions of urban and planning histories, sub-Saharan Africa is generally denied an urban past, an urban settlement design culture, and especially an indigenous practice of grid planning. It is against this historiographic background that indigenous grid pattern settlements in Senegal are analysed, with relation to the gridded tradition of colonial settlement design. In light of both cultural sensitivities inherited in African studies and the diffusionist paradigm which seeks a supposed singular ‘origin’ for the grid plan – it is demonstrated that urban grid planning emerges independently in Senegal, before European colonization. In shifting the discussion from morphological essentialism regarding the genealogy of the grid towards a more interactive and processual approach of ‘entangled histories’, this article also provides insights into the dynamic criss-crossings between top-down and bottom-up cultures of urban planning. This Western-cum-indigenous formalistic entanglement is exemplified by analysing how such important contemporary Senegalese cities as Dakar, Touba, and Diourbel have been built. On the methodological level, we utilize a variety of secondary and primary sources, including archival material, an analysis of recent maps, satellite imagery, and direct observation.     

Towards modern urban housing: redefining Shanghai's lilong

This paper examines both the traditional and the modern aspects of the lilong, traditional low‐rise row houses adapted from the Western tradition to accommodate the families of Chinese workers from the beginning of the Treaty Port era in the late 19th century to the establishment of the People's Republic in 1948. The paper aims to redefine the abstract concept of the lilong, arguing for their potential to be rethought as a typology of low–medium rise‐high density (LMRHD) housing today. In particular, the paper delivers a practical answer to a conceptual question: how does lilong provide the dwelling identity of Shanghai, China, taking into account its form, meaning, and culture? The emergence of both lilong and Western modern housing is rooted in a crisis of space and the economic drive of modern cities. Lilong architecture and the normative living programme embedded in the typology of modern housing have been proper development housing strategies in modern Shanghai. By closely examining both the physical and community aspects that make lilong a mediating agency between Chinese locality and Western modernity, the paper presents the assumption that the architecture of lilong does not confine itself to certain forms or physical configurations; instead it is an “abstract concept” of an urban neighbourhood – the spatial organization, architectural practicality, casual formation of semi‐private space, and community lane‐life – a concept that should be taken into account for the design of urban housing today. The redefinition of lilong is a conceptual idea that will serve as a point of departure for the last part of the paper: a discussion of the possibility to develop this housing strategy for today's situation. This paper also presents the preliminary strategies for the designing of the new LMRHD housing.     

Urban theory since A Theory of Good City Form (1981) – a progress review

Kevin Lynch's magnum opus A Theory of Good City Form (1981) is well known as a normative theory of the city. The intersection of human purposeful activity and city form is a principal feature. However, little attention is given in the literature to a small appendix in the book, A Theory of Good City Form (1981), in which the theories that explain the form and function of the city are classified and reviewed. The brief review insightfully reveals embedded values that are implicit in urban theory. We use a similar classification to review the progress of urban theory since Lynch's brief assessment noting the city's complexity can only be effectively explained through multiple historical and theoretical, value‐laden perspectives. The values are the bridge between human purpose and city form, between substance – the city – and procedure – decision making about the city, that is between urban theory and planning (procedural) theory. Finally, the review is concluded with the implications of urban theory, informed by A Theory of Good City Form, for urban morphological design theory as well as planning (procedural) theory.     

The making and remaking of Hackney Wick, 1870–2014: from urban edgeland to Olympic fringe†

This paper is concerned with issues of urban change in areas of London that have become the focus of regeneration strategies predicated on accommodating growth and development within existing city boundaries. Its focus is in the Lower Lea Valley in East London, which developed in the nineteenth century in the context of its peripheral location with respect to central London and which continues to lie at the seam between urban authorities. Today, this whole area is subject to regeneration plans based on addressing the physical and social manifestations of this transforming peripherality – including environmental impacts of industrialization, post-industrial piecemeal development, spatial disconnection, and long-standing patterns of social deprivation – by creating a framework geared towards attracting new investment, population and employment and, in the process, addressing the impediments to change that are seen to have been posed by fractured local policy. Taking one small part of this larger area, Hackney Wick, which is beside the 2012 London Olympic site in the London Borough of Hackney, the paper turns to planning history to explore its development from the nineteenth century in relation to urban boundaries. It uses this exploration as the basis for reflecting on the significance of contemporary boundary adjustments and plans predicated on facilitating the creation of local centrality for the remaking of an urban ‘edgeland’.     

Homo Economicus in a Big Society: Understanding Middle-class Activism and NIMBYism towards New Housing Developments

Abstract

Problems of housing supply and affordability in England have long been recognized by policy-makers. A key barrier to supply is seen to be community activism by so-called not-in-my-back-yard activists (NIMBYs). The localism policy agenda, or devolving decision-making down to the local level, is central to how the UK coalition government seek to overcome this opposition. This conceives NIMBYism as a demonstration of homo economicus – of the rationality of economic beings seeking to maximize their utility. In this view, residents would not accept large urban extensions in suburban areas because they took on localized costs with no obvious benefits, unless incentivised appropriately. In this paper, we use analysis of British Social Attitudes Survey data as well as the results of the first review of middle-class activism in relation to public services to identify the likelihood of residents being incentivized by this version of localism to accept new housing. We conclude that the evidence on the individual and collective attitudes suggests that it is unlikely that localism will deliver new housing. Importantly, the political power of affluent and professional groups means they can ensure that their opposition is heard, particularly in the neighbourhood plans delivered through localism. The paper argues that planning for housing needs to understand communities as homo democraticus – as actively engaged in negotiating between complex interests with respect to support for new housing.     

Drawing white elephants in Africa? Re-contextualizing Ernst May’s Kampala plans in relation to the fraught political realities of late-colonial rule

In 1945/1946, the Colonial Administration in Uganda commissioned Ernst May – planner of Das Neue Frankfurt (1926–1930) – to design the Kampala Extension Scheme and the smaller Wandegeya Development Scheme. The past decade has seen increasing scholarly interest in the neglected ‘African’ episode of Mays planning oeuvre, but this literature has not explicitly examined how May’s planning articulated with the fraught political realities of late-colonial rule. Utilizing previously undocumented archive material and a theoretical frame informed by governmentality studies, this paper examines these articulations, particularly those relating to tensions and contradictions in Colonial government arising from the would-be turning-point from indirect rule to a bio-political rationality of development and welfare. It is shown that while May’s submitted plans spoke directly to the tropes of urban improvement, African detribalization and labour stabilization, which informed the ‘turning point’ in colonial policy, May’s elaborate socio-spatial interventions and the style in which these enunciated racial difference proved unpalatable to a colonial administration stifled by the rationality of the economic domain of government, by constraints on how difference could be enunciated and by African urban politics.     

Hygiene and public health in Santiago de Chile's urban agenda, 1892–1927

This article discusses the incorporation of ideas about hygiene and public health into urban projects in Santiago de Chile. Changes in the institutional framework were supported and led by professionals that worked closely with the State. The article covers the period from 1892, when the Hygiene Council (Consejo de Higiene) was founded, to 1927, when the Ministry of Welfare (Ministerio de Bienestar) was created to take charge of public health. By focusing on institutional components rather than theoretic discussions, this paper also intends to contribute to an understanding of urban modernization in Latin America during the twentieth century. While hygienic issues appeared from the late nineteenth century as an explicitly urban concern, precedents can be dated back to the late Colonial era when the Bourbons raised similar questions, with more or less effectiveness, in most Hispanic colonial territories. For this reason, the article includes a first section that deals with the notable efforts of that period to improve urban hygiene – efforts that are crucial to understanding the contemporary Latin American city.     

Exploring the relationship between landscape characteristics and urban vibrancy: A case study using morphology and review data

Urban vibrancy is a vital component that supports urban form and is dependent on the physical entities in urban landscapes. Thus, the relationship between urban landscapes and urban vibrancy is a major concern for city planners. While existing studies mainly capture mixed land use, density, and accessibility properties of the physical environment, urban characteristics depicted by the city morphologies have seldom been addressed. To fill this gap, a novel framework is proposed in this paper to explore the relationship between landscape characteristics and urban vibrancy. First, research approaches for delineating multi-level urban landscape characteristics – including places, land use, and single and multiple landscape elements – using spatial metrics were analysed. Then, place-based reviews from social media data were applied as proxies to quantitatively measure urban vibrancy. Finally, regression analyses were proposed to assess the relationship between landscape characteristics and urban vibrancy. Satisfactory regression model performances were attained with adjusted R² values of 0.65, 0.65, 0.66, and 0.67 at each landscape characteristic level. The results indicate that changes in urban vibrancy are variable and highly dependent on the proposed multi-level characteristics. These findings may provide guidance for city planning and urban landscape design.     

From a top-down to a bottom-up urban discourse: (re) constructing the city in a family-inclusive way

This paper focuses on urban discourses as powerful instruments intertwined with the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion. First, three dominant contemporary urban discourses developed in the field of urban planning are scrutinized on their inclusiveness of families and daily family life. The attractive city, the creative city and the city as an emancipation machine are examples of urban discourses communicated top-down via reports, debates and media attention. It is argued that these three discourses do not address families as urban citizens nor the very notion of reproduction and its daily manifestation. The exclusionary character of contemporary urban discourses does not only result in a neglect of urban families, it also legitimates non-intervention when it comes to family issues. This conclusion activated the search for an alternative discourse as expanded in the second part of the paper. This alternative discourse is constructed from the bottom-up and is rooted in the day-to-day experiences of urban families themselves. It is a refined discourse, with interrelated geographical scales including the city as a whole, the neighbourhood, the street and the home. This is a city that integrates—as families themselves do—the different domains of life. The city is appreciated for its qualities of proximity, the neighbourhood for its ethnically mixed children’s domains, the street as an urban haven and the house as the place that accommodates private life for each member of the family. This alternative discourse is called the balanced city. The empirical basis is drawn from middle-class urban families in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.     

Sanitizing Jakarta: decolonizing planning and kampung imaginary

ABSTRACT

This article offers a critical view of the water and sanitation sector within the broader trajectory of Jakarta’s spatial development and planning. Its territorial focus is on kampungs and it traces their historical journey from the periphery of the colonial city – Batavia and its modern planning domain – to the centre of the post-independence planning regime. ‘Kampung’ is an indigenous term for rural-agricultural settlements. In the colonial period, it was used to label non-European and non-Chinese settlements in and around the city. Colonial modernity created certain stigmatizations: kampungs came to be seen as undisciplined and insanitary communities, sources of insurgency and threats to public health. But the kampung realm was also (re)produced through practices of segregation within the colonial planning system. The imaginaries of colonial modernity linger on within today’s planning practices, resulting in a persistent failure to improve the environmental health of kampungs and the city as a whole. Postcolonial kampungs remain as a cosmopolitan enclave open to different cultures and socio-political contestations. The article argues that, given the kampung’s resilience in varying socio-ecological conditions, urban kampungs should be seen not as a problem, but as an opportunity for new planning approaches.     

Urban management in developing countries

This paper reviews current thinking about urban management in developing countries. It does so in the context of recent contributions to a debate on the nature of urban management (Stren, 1993, Cities 10 120–138; Mattingly, 1994, Cities 11(3) 201–205; Werna, 1995, Cities 12(5) 353–359). The paper therefore considers various definitions of the process. This is seen to focus on both the strategic and operational concerns of urban development. It considers the holistic characteristics. This embraces both city and institution building. The contribution of town planning is assessed. This is viewed as a disappointment, despite its potential relevance. The process of providing infrastructure is assessed. This requires all the players to participate, irrespective of organisational location. Integrating the organisational arrangements is therefore acknowledged. This helps to confound attempts to impose an idealised organisational model for urban management, emphasising instead inter-organisational arrangements and their unifying planning process. The wider aim to decentralise urban management is acknowledged. Hence, urban management should be driven by the lowest level of competent government. Urban management is therefore seen to have a twin objective: first, to plan for, provide and maintain a city's infrastructure and services, and second, to make sure that the city's government is in a fit state, organisationally and financially, to ensure that provision and maintenance.     

Between normative product-oriented and alternative process-oriented urban planning praxis: how can these jointly impact on the rapid development of metropolitan Maputo,Mozambique?

ABSTRACT

This paper explores recent urban planning praxis in the metropolitan area of Maputo, capital of Mozambique – occurring in a context of high socio-spatial imbalance and rapid expansion. This involves different agents besides government institutions, at different stages. Based on relevant critical literature, the authors identify both a normative praxis, usually regulatory and product-oriented, and an alternative one, usually process-oriented, in urban development. In Maputo, the former is predominantly that which is regarded as ‘official’ and is linked to land titling, whereas the latter is closer to what actually happens ‘on the ground’ and often involves ‘unofficial’ land allocation. In reality both forms of praxis interact in complex ways. The paper draws on recent research and aims to better understand how these forms of urban planning praxis can both be developed to better address existing socio-spatial imbalances in a context of rapid urbanization – and hence has wider relevance for Sub-Saharan Africa.     

Alienation of social control: The Chicago sociologists and the origins of urban planning

This essay explores the origins of modern urban planning in a series of exchanges between city planners and urban sociologists in the 1920s and early 1930s. It was at the 1925 meeting of the American Sociological Society on “The City”, which the pioneer urban sociologist Robert E. Park and his colleagues from the University of Chicago organized, and planners from the Russell Sage Foundation's Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs attended, that this exchange began. There the sociologists articulated a theory of urban life which helped planners unravel the social implications of physical planning. This sociological theory had both shaped and been shaped by an on‐going series of practical reforms in which Park and his students had been involved. At the core of their theory was a fascination with social control (the means by which groups regulated the behaviour of their members) and a reform strategy which is best described as the alienation of social control. Park and his students explored new forms of social control as the means to eliminate those wasteful aspects of metropolitan life which were out of step with the urban‐industrial order. Following the 1925 meeting planners and sociologists began to develop a strategy and a policy of urban planning, a strategy for rationalizing not only the physical and economic structure of the metropolis but its social order as well.     

The experience and legacy of French colonial urban planning in sub‐Saharan Africa

This paper examines the activities of French colonial authorities in the urban planning arena in sub‐Saharan Africa. It reveals that, despite the dearth of information on these activities, especially in the relevant English language literature, the French were very active in the planning field before and during their colonial era in the region. While these activities might have been intended to do no more than facilitate the attainment of French colonial development objectives, they have far‐reaching implications for contemporary development efforts. It is argued that French colonial urban designs, schemes and legislation have negative implications for urban transportation, housing, land tenure and the growth and development of urban centres vis‐à‐vis the rural areas. Problems in these areas are aggravated by the fact that post‐colonial authorities in the region have opted to inherit and vigorously enforce the planning legislation and schemes crafted by their colonial predecessors.     

The history of urban growth management in South Africa: tracking the origin and current status of urban edge policies in three metropolitan municipalities

ABSTRACT

For many cities in the Global South, colonialism played a dominant role in shaping their urban form. The historical objective of planning in colonial mother-cities was dealing with poor health and living conditions, therefore a planning approach similar to that followed in post-war Britain would appear beneficial in post-colonial cities, characterized by environmental and physical infrastructure unable to cope with massive population growth. Urban growth management is a discourse born in an attempt to control the growing industrial city in the early twentieth century, and in recent years applied through instruments such as urban edges or growth boundaries to limit urban sprawl and encourage higher density urban development. In South Africa, the principles of compaction and urban growth management formed part of the post-apartheid planning agenda towards transforming the inefficient and fragmented landscape inherited from separate spatial development. Consequently, urban edges and urban growth boundaries formed key components of municipal spatial planning frameworks since the early 2000s. The purpose of this paper is to explore the origin and status of urban edges in three metropolitan municipalities in South Africa to aid in understanding of these spatial instruments in the south.