scholarly journals Fragmentation in Urban Movements: The Role of Urban Planning Processes

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 727-748 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esin Özdemir ◽  
Ayda Eraydin
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina Berglund-Snodgrass ◽  
Dalia Mukhtar-Landgren

Urban planning is, in many countries, increasingly becoming intertwined with local climate ambitions, investments in urban attractiveness and “smart city” innovation measures. In the intersection between these trends, urban experimentation has developed as a process where actors are granted action space to test innovations in a collaborative setting. One arena for urban experimentation is urban testbeds. Testbeds are sites of urban development, in which experimentation constitutes an integral part of planning and developing the area. This article introduces the notion of testbed planning as a way to conceptualize planning processes in delimited sites where planning is combined with processes of urban experimentation. We define testbed planning as a multi-actor, collaborative planning process in a delimited area, with the ambition to generate and disseminate learning while simultaneously developing the site. The aim of this article is to explore processes of testbed planning with regard to the role of urban planners. Using an institutional logics perspective we conceptualize planners as navigating between a public sector—and an experimental logic. The public sector logic constitutes the formal structure of “traditional” urban planning, and the experimental logic a collaborative and testing governance structure. Using examples from three Nordic municipalities, this article explores planning roles in experiments with autonomous buses in testbeds. The analysis shows that planners negotiate these logics in three different ways, combining and merging them, separating and moving between them or acting within a conflictual process where the public sector logic dominates.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn J. Hickey

Post-industrial waterfronts are often characterized by a time-gap or a moment of standstill between the collapse of a previous use and the transition to a new and future use. However, conventional planning processes often leave these areas in a curious limbo while they are being prepared or while their futures are being determined. Changing contemporary conditions demand that planners re-evaluate urban planning and development approaches. Transitional uses and temporary interventions must be recognized as legitimate and important aspects of the planning process especially in these ephemeral landscapes as they provide an outlet for innovative and adaptive practices. This paper discusses three case studies. The cities of Melbourne, Amsterdam and Hamburg implemented unique and adaptive projects along their waterfronts as mechanisms to catalyze redevelopment and foster social engagement during indeterminate times. This paper explores these projects and applies the strategies used in each to Toronto’s vacant and extensively underutilized Port Lands.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (40) ◽  
pp. 83-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stina Hansson

AbstractUrban planning is increasingly focusing on the social aspect of sustainability. The 2014 report Differences in Living Conditions and Health in Gothenburg shows important and increasing inequalities between different parts of the city, a development seen in cities across the world. The city of Gothenburg has set as its goal the decrease in inequalities by joining forces with civil society, the private sector, academia and people living in the city. Participation and inclusion become important tools in city planning processes for the authorities to understand local conditions, particularly to understand the living conditions of people in socio-economically marginalised areas, whose voices are rarely listened to, and to enable their active participation in shaping outcomes. In this article, we explore the role of trust in improving urban planning, and in shaping possibilities for participation that is positively experienced, in the sense that it increases people’s sense of control over their neighbourhoods. Based on empirical work in Hammarkullen, a socio-economically marginalised area in Gothenburg, the article shows how specific local configurations of trust have an impact on local development plans. It further shows how participatory practices coarticulate with the local social situation to shape outcomes in a certain way. Grounded in the empirical study, the paper argues for the importance of understanding the local conditions of trust and how they interact with planning processes in shaping outcomes and future possibilities of cooperation. Further, the paper argues for the need to take the local conditions of trust into account early in the planning phase.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn J. Hickey

Post-industrial waterfronts are often characterized by a time-gap or a moment of standstill between the collapse of a previous use and the transition to a new and future use. However, conventional planning processes often leave these areas in a curious limbo while they are being prepared or while their futures are being determined. Changing contemporary conditions demand that planners re-evaluate urban planning and development approaches. Transitional uses and temporary interventions must be recognized as legitimate and important aspects of the planning process especially in these ephemeral landscapes as they provide an outlet for innovative and adaptive practices. This paper discusses three case studies. The cities of Melbourne, Amsterdam and Hamburg implemented unique and adaptive projects along their waterfronts as mechanisms to catalyze redevelopment and foster social engagement during indeterminate times. This paper explores these projects and applies the strategies used in each to Toronto’s vacant and extensively underutilized Port Lands.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-259
Author(s):  
Esin Özdemir

This article discusses the relationship between the expert knowledge and the prospects of politicizing and democratizing urban planning. The term ‘experts’ refers mainly to urban planners, yet also includes architects, engineers and lawyers, who are specialized in planning. The article begins with a review of the critical literature on communicative planning, agonistic pluralism, agonistic planning and discussions on what needs to be done in planning focusing on the role of the expert knowledge. It argues that expert knowledge can gain different and multi-dimensional roles in urban planning processes, leading not necessarily to techno-management, yet contributing in their inclusiveness and conflict sensitivity. Encompassing both technical support and objective intermediation for local communities, it can both be utilized to build an agonistic space and help the communities better utilize the existing communicative/collaborative channels to voice their disagreements. By this way, it contributes in the politicization and democratization of planning processes. With this argument, the article also aims to challenge the strict distinction between ‘the politics’ and ‘the political’ as well as the related communicative–agonistic divide. The argument is supported by evidence from a case study on two informally built residential neighbourhoods in Istanbul, where there has been an active citizen opposition and involvement in a planning process.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 187-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Maria Badach ◽  
Anna Stasiak ◽  
Andrzej Baranowski

Abstract In civil societies, urban movements are one of the tools in the process of spatial governance. In Poland, urban activism is beginning to develop together with a budding participation in public life. Therefore, there is a need to assess the scope and effects of the urban movements’ actions. The aim of the study was to determine and evaluate their impact on the spatial development in three Polish cities - Poznań, Gdańsk and Gdynia, especially in regard to the procedures in local urban planning and the process of participation. On the basis of the data collected during research and community interviews conducted in these cities, the following factors were analysed: the background and current profile of urban movements, the extent, regularity and effectiveness of their actions, the planning and spatial development initiatives undertaken, their cooperation with the local authorities and their contribution to the enhancement of participatory mechanisms.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 89-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Scholl ◽  
René Kemp

This paper assesses the role of urban experiments for local planning processes through a case-based analysis of the city lab of Maastricht. In conjunction with this, the article offers three contributions, as additional elements. Firstly, the paper develops a set of defining characteristics of city labs as an analytical concept which is relevant for discussions about (collaborative) planning. Secondly, it refines the literature on collaborative planning by drawing attention to experimentation and innovation. Thirdly, the paper assesses the potential of city labs to contribute to the innovation of urban governance. The work draws from the literature on experimentation and learning as well as the literature on collaborative urban planning. In the conclusions, we discuss the potential of city labs as vehicles for learning about new urban planning approaches and their limitations as spaces for small-scale experimentation. The paper is based on research for the URB@Exp research project funded by JPI Urban Europe.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 5033
Author(s):  
Linda Novosadová ◽  
Wim van der Knaap

The present research offers an exploration into the biophilic approach and the role of its agents in urban planning in questions of building a green, resilient urban environment. Biophilia, the innate need of humans to connect with nature, coined by Edgar O. Wilson in 1984, is a concept that has been used in urban governance through institutions, agents’ behaviours, activities and systems to make the environment nature-inclusive. Therefore, it leads to green, resilient environments and to making cities more sustainable. Due to an increasing population, space within and around cities keeps on being urbanised, replacing natural land cover with concrete surfaces. These changes to land use influence and stress the environment, its components, and consequently impact the overall resilience of the space. To understand the interactions and address the adverse impacts these changes might have, it is necessary to identify and define the environment’s components: the institutions, systems, and agents. This paper exemplifies the biophilic approach through a case study in the city of Birmingham, United Kingdom and its biophilic agents. Using the categorisation of agents, the data obtained through in-situ interviews with local professionals provided details on the agent fabric and their dynamics with the other two environments’ components within the climate resilience framework. The qualitative analysis demonstrates the ways biophilic agents act upon and interact within the environment in the realm of urban planning and influence building a climate-resilient city. Their activities range from small-scale community projects for improving their neighbourhood to public administration programs focusing on regenerating and regreening the city. From individuals advocating for and educating on biophilic approach, to private organisations challenging the business-as-usual regulations, it appeared that in Birmingham the biophilic approach has found its representatives in every agent category. Overall, the activities they perform in the environment define their role in building resilience. Nonetheless, the role of biophilic agents appears to be one of the major challengers to the urban design’s status quo and the business-as-usual of urban governance. Researching the environment, focused on agents and their behaviour and activities based on nature as inspiration in addressing climate change on a city level, is an opposite approach to searching and addressing the negative impacts of human activity on the environment. This focus can provide visibility of the local human activities that enhance resilience, while these are becoming a valuable input to city governance and planning, with the potential of scaling it up to other cities and on to regional, national, and global levels.


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