Measuring experiential qualities of urban public spaces: users’ perspective

This paper presents an index for measuring experiential qualities (EQs) of urban public spaces through users’ perspective. The index is underpinned by interrelated qualities of comfort, diversity and vitality, inclusiveness, and image and likeability. It is then applied to two public spaces in the Australian city of Brisbane: Queen Street Mall and South Bank Parklands. The index extends the user-centred measuring tools and can be used by practitioners, authorities and scholars to highlight users’ needs and concerns. Findings from case spaces revealed deficiencies and provided a deeper insight into EQs through integrating urban design qualities, perception and management measuring items.     

Beyond the public–private controversy in urban water management in Spain

This paper critically analyzes the Spanish privatization model of urban water management implemented over the last three decades. The high concentration of private participation in the industry, the absence of competition, and regulatory deficiencies appear to have put the interests of water customers at risk. Improvement of governance is not guaranteed simply by changing water-system management from public to private. In Spain, an array of institutional reforms are needed to rationalize a change in management structure for this service, reorganize technical operations, improve the administrative framework, increase transparency, and promote citizen participation. This paper moves beyond the simple public–private controversy and contributes to the literature by using fieldwork conducted by the authors to assess private participation in the management of urban water services in Spain; by identifying gaps in the privatization processes as well as failures in the industry; and, above all, by proposing reforms to Spain's institutional and regulatory frameworks for the industry.     

‘The Rhinish Greeks’. Bailout funds for local government in German federal states

In response to the budgetary problems of local government in Germany, some federal states (Länder) have established bailout funds for their highly indebted local authorities. These schemes commit local governments, on a contractual basis, to strengthen their own consolidation efforts in return for fiscal aid. The ambitious aim is to reduce short-term borrowing considerably or to eliminate annual deficits completely.

This article provides an overview of the structure of the schemes with respect to the amounts and sources of funding as well as the conditions of participation and potential sanctions. Furthermore, this contribution explains the motives of the governments of the federal states to establish these schemes.     

Does public ownership of utilities matter for local government water policies?

What differentiates local governments that implement water policies on equity and the environment? Analyzing a 2015 national survey of 1,897 U.S. municipalities, we find municipalities that own their water utilities are more likely to report policies to protect low-income residents from disconnection and implement water resource management. Respondents from 8% of municipalities report protecting residents from disconnection. State economic regulation of municipally owned utilities and Democrat-majority municipal governments are positively associated with local policies to protect low-income households from shutoffs but bear no association with resource management. Both municipal ownership of utilities and state economic regulation may play a role in meeting certain local water policy goals.     

‘Compact’ or ‘Sprawl’ for sustainable urban form? Measuring the effect on travel behavior in Korea

This paper measures and identifies the effects of urban form on travel behavior in Korea. The characteristics of urban form include urban size, density, distribution and clustering. Using cluster analysis, urban form in Korea is categorized into two groups: group 1 (i.e., large-sized, high-density, equally distributed and highly clustered areas) and group 2 (i.e., small-sized, low-density, unequally distributed and highly dispersed areas). The results showed that the large-sized, high-density, unequally distributed and dispersed pattern is a relevant strategy for both groups to minimize vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT) per capita. For group 1, increasing the average travel distance may be an efficient strategy to reduce the number of automobile trips. For group 2, however, decreasing the average travel distance may be a more efficient strategy. Previous recommendations for a so-called compact urban form require more validation before adoption in Korea. Different strategies are required for areas that show different characteristics in order to reduce VKT. It is important that planners and policy decision makers understand the relevant implications of urban form on travel behavior and energy use in order to implement spatial urban developments aimed at sustainability.     

The role of ‘early-phase mining’ in reframing net-positive development

The term ‘net-positive development’ has gained significant recognition by both academics and professionals, especially in architecture. A net-positive development increases or creates economic, social and ecological capital(s) and makes a positive contribution to ecosystem services. Designing how excess resources may be used beyond a site's boundary is a very appealing notion, but difficult to put into practice without the tools and methods to support net-positive development. The effectiveness and potential impact on community design of ‘net-positive development’ is questioned when its evaluation is limited to a quantitative analysis only. A broader definition of net positive is offered that equally places social dimensions alongside ecological health through ‘mining’ for synergies and leverage points in the early stages of a design project. An emphasis is placed on the undervalued first step in the design process of ‘mining: evaluating the dormant, inherent potential’. This can be done through a process of questioning the conventional parameters of a context's predefined limits. A framework is also provided that can prove beneficial at this phase. It is posited that strong mining can provide full-spectrum change where true positive benefits, on multiple scales and for multiple stakeholder interests, are achieved.     

Complexity in urban agriculture: the role of landscape typologies in promoting urban agriculture’s growth

This research identifies the potential shortcomings of local initiatives to encourage urban agriculture projects by comparing citywide efforts with existing community projects. It investigates how more effectual policy might be developed to accommodate a fuller range of urban agriculture projects, and how urban agriculture stakeholders might use clearer promotion processes to meet stated goals. It hypothesizes the important role of clear urban agriculture definitions, typologies, and links to associated benefits towards meeting the stated goals of policy-makers. Utilizing San Francisco in California as a case study, this paper investigates recent efforts at citywide urban agriculture promotion.     

The birth of ‘land use planning’ in American urban planning

Although the concept of ‘land use planning’ is now firmly enmeshed in American urban planning, its meaning still remains vague. This paper aims to clarify the meaning by examining the historical development of land use planning in the USA. At the beginning of the twentieth century, city planners viewed a city as an organic unit of public facilities. While city planning thereafter provided potential elements of land use planning, such as zoning, zoning surveys and land use classification systems, the idea of land use planning itself was actually derived from rural county planning and was initially utilized in urban county planning as a guide for zoning in the 1930s. After bringing about a change in the way cities were viewed, that is, as a pattern of land use and population density, land use planning was further employed as a guide for urban redevelopment policies in the 1940s, and finally reaching full integration into city planning in the 1950s and 1960s.     

The more the better? The role of stakeholder information processing in complex urban innovation projects for green transformation

To fight climate change and to cope with the energy crisis, a green and sustainable transformation of the existing urban space is needed. Key for the increase of a city districts’ energy efficiency is the successful management of urban innovation projects. Urban innovation projects target heterogeneous innovation fields like heat supply, thermal insulation, mobility, and smart city approaches. They cover various technological and social innovations, affect almost all areas of urban life and economy, and, hence, need to involve heterogonous stakeholders. As such, urban innovation projects are more complex than many other projects, which results in difficulties of the implementation of the innovations alternatives in the local urban environment. This study focuses on the role of stakeholder involvement breadth and depth to foster the likelihood of implementation of new solutions in urban innovation projects. We ask how information processing capabilities affect the efficacy of stakeholder involvement. The empirical analysis provides evidence based on text mining of planning documents and survey data from 106 German urban innovation projects. The results reveal the benefits and challenges of stakeholder involvement and show how digital tools may help to overcome information processing obstacles.     

Transnational urban spaces and urban environmental reforms: analyzing Beijing’s environmental restructuring in the light of globalization

In this era of globalization, ‘transnational spaces’ are being created within urban settings, providing a direct connection between the ‘local’ and the ‘global’. Corporate headquarters, hotels, shopping malls, and airports are typical examples of such spaces, which while located within an urban territory, are often conceived by foreign designers, developers, and manufacturers, as well as maintained by multinational companies and banks. Such local–global interconnection is giving urban management a new shape, as urban management practices are now frequently intertwining with global construction and property management approaches. This paper argues that, at the same time, a set of new mechanisms that may help to tackle problems related to the urban environment and infrastructure is unfolding. Starting with a conceptual discussion of the role of globalization in urban environmental restructuring, this paper subsequently explores the context of Beijing and the environmental management possibilities introduced in this city by global actors (through the examples of World Tower, IBM Tower, and ABN AMRO and ING head offices). Beijing, due to China’s recent economic opening process, provides an intriguing backcloth to demonstrate how transnational urban spaces—standing in-between the local and the global—may canalize environmental innovations from the ‘global’, putting globalization at work for a better urban environment.     

Procedure or performance? Assessing citizen’s attitudes toward legitimacy in Swedish and Norwegian local government

A common understanding prevails that political systems generate legitimacy by both democratic procedures and performance in service production. With the increase of NPM models in local services, some scholars argue that performance is becoming a more important source of legitimacy than conventional legitimacy originating from the procedural side of governance. The aim of the article is to discuss and analyze the importance of and relation between these sources of legitimacy. The article examines three hypotheses: (1) the trade-off hypothesis, (2) the synergy hypothesis, and (3) the independence hypothesis. Based on citizen surveys in Norway and Sweden, our analysis argues that the dimensions are synergetic.     

Temporary use and the onto-politics of ‘public’ space

This paper is situated amidst concerns that public spaces are diminishing in both quantity and quality (Low & Smith, 2006), with this trend exacerbated by the excising of state budgets for their provision, maintenance or development, their privatisation and/or devolution of their management to corporate interests. Here we interrogate what ‘public space’ is using the lens of temporary use projects undertaken on privately-owned land. As a distinct form of DIY urbanism, it could be argued that temporary use projects might be least likely to promote enduring change but, in this paper, we demonstrate that it is their very transience that enables the interstices between the actual and the possible to be exploited in innovative ways. We explore how a distinctive methodology associated with temporary use projects, and a reconceptualisation of what public space is, creates new opportunities to restore the emancipatory potential of (increasingly) emaciated public places.     

The flagship concept of the ‘4th urban environment’. Branding and visioning in Malmö, Sweden

In the process of turning the post-industrial city of Malmö, Sweden, into a knowledge-based, creative city, new urban planning strategies and visions are being developed. An important component of developing the “knowledge city” is the spatial conceptualization for renewal of urban life. One such concept introduced in Malmö is “the 4th urban environment” (det 4.e stadsrummet). In this article, based on critical urban studies, the development, branding, and practice of the 4th urban environment as a strategy to generate a creative economy and knowledge city is critically analyzed as part of a neoliberal planning discourse. The article raises the question, what kind of vision is “the 4th urban environment”? What is it an expression of; what does it mean for planning practice and to urban development? Contextualizing and investigating trends of neoliberal planning ideas are important to an understanding of the social and economic consequences of unequal power relations. The 4th urban environment and its application in Malmö is illustrative of existing neoliberal planning practices in a Nordic context, and in other similar economies with legacies of redistribution policies and long-standing leadership of the Social Democratic Party. This article focuses on what is articulated within discourses that re-present particular notions of space and place, to gain a better understanding of what neoliberal planning does to space.     

The real estate ‘tsunami’ in Spain: the administration of urban growth in the case of Arroyo de la Encomienda and Valladolid,Spain

The ‘Bilbao effect’ was a key argument in the debate over Oslo's new opera house, set to open this spring. Geographer Marius Hofseth presents Norway's largest urban development project in light of political debates on the role of culture in urban development.     

‘Orthodox’ and ‘alternative’ explanations for the reduction of urban violence in Medellín,Colombia

In 2016, 43 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world were located in Latin America. In reducing levels of urban violence and preventing future outbreaks, approaches developed in Western Europe and North America are the most influential and have been subjected to considerable testing in high-income urban environments.

This article focuses on Medellín, Colombia. By drawing from qualitative data collected in Medellín, the article scrutinises claims that the social urbanism policies caused the significant reduction in homicides. An alternative explanation for the reduction in homicides is then presented, focusing on the methods of the perpetrators of violence.     

Contemporary tendencies in Colombian urban planning: the case of the ‘Planes Parciales’ in Medellín

After decades of internal conflict, Colombia is experiencing economic growth and urbanization. It remains, however, one of the most socially unequal countries in Latin America. Medellín, acclaimed the most innovative city, implemented large-scale transport infrastructures to link socially excluded areas to the city; new educational and cultural facilities; new public spaces and housing projects, rooted in the Barcelona model. This so-called ‘social urbanism’ has shifted local perceptions, though its socio-economic impact has been questioned. This paper focuses on the less analysed transformations in planning policy and management through two instruments: the Land Use Plan (Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial – POT) and the ‘Plan Parcial’. The research, based on a desktop review, interviews and site visits, examines the application of these instruments in Medellín, reflecting on how they contribute to achieving the aims of ‘social urbanism’. The paper explores the differences between ‘rhetoric’ and practice that are reflected in those between the city’s overarching plan (POT) and the implementation of ‘planes parciales’, focusing on redevelopment, urban renewal and urban expansion. Such differences mirror the deficiencies in the adaptation of the ‘urban project’ Barcelona model in Medellín, and provide the basis for a call to develop ‘social urbanism’ that is genuinely more socially, territorially comprehensive and inclusive.     

‘The field of grain is gone; It's now a Tesco Superstore’: representations of ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ within historical and contemporary discourses opposing urban expansion in England

Ideas about the difference between rural and urban areas are woven into the fabric of English society. This paper asks how two different campaigns against urban expansion and rural homebuilding in England – one interwar and one more contemporary (related to the production of the ‘National Planning Policy Framework’ document) – represent the difference between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ and how they use these representations to justify and naturalize their arguments. Utilizing interpretive textual analysis to compare the two periods, we show that, whilst planning has undergone significant paradigm shifts during the period between the two campaigns, in both archives a dominant ‘rural idyll’ is (re)produced and reinforced through the representational themes of beauty, nature, purity, an elite educated class, and a traditional social order. This is strongly contrasted to the representation of the ‘urban sphere’ as an unnatural, ugly, modern, and socially fragmented dystopia. ‘Urban’ areas are therefore constructed as the constitutive ‘Other’ to the rural idyll. In this way, the apparently natural urban characteristics associated with built-up areas are represented as ‘out of place’ within the rural sphere. These representations work to justify the argument that ‘development’ is a threat to the intrinsic characteristics of the countryside and should not be allowed to take place. This rural idyll/urban dystopia binary is argued to continue to have an important influence on shaping policy debate.     

Silver bullet or trojan horse? The effects of inclusionary zoning on local housing markets in the United States

Many local governments are adopting inclusionary zoning (IZ) as a means of producing affordable housing without direct public subsidies. In this paper, panel data on IZ in the San Francisco metropolitan area and suburban Boston are used to analyse how much affordable housing the programmes produce and how IZ affects the prices and production of market-rate housing. The amount of affordable housing produced under IZ has been modest and depends primarily on how long IZ has been in place. Results from suburban Boston suggest that IZ has contributed to increased housing prices and lower rates of production during periods of regional house price appreciation. In the San Francisco area, IZ also appears to increase housing prices in times of regional price appreciation, but to decrease prices during cooler regional markets. There is no evidence of a statistically significant effect of IZ on new housing development in the Bay Area.     

Councillors’ perspectives on democratic legitimacy in English local government: politics through provision?

Much has been made of the dual-polity concept of local government. By comparison less has been made of conceptualising local government’s dual-purpose role. The political and service provision roles of local government tend to be kept separate for purposes of scholarly investigation. Local government is synonymous with service provision, but its governing role is often overlooked or downplayed by higher levels of government. Is local government as a politically representative institution merely a quaint and unnecessary hangover from the past? The paper reports the findings of research conducted among councillors and assesses their perspective on the legitimacy of local government to make decisions and to govern locally.