City visioning and the turn to community:The case of Derry/Londonderry

In the 1980s, urban re-imaging and place marketing were vital elements in the strategies of post-industrial cities aiming to redefine their role, make themselves more competitive and attract global investment and tourists. By the early 1990s, the questionable effects of trickle-down economics on deprived housing estates and the rediscovery of the 'community' as a social partner shifted both the substance and process of vision exercises. This paper examines the experience of building an input into a city vision that aimed to address social and ethno-religious segregation in Derry/Londonderry. Designing a consensus statement for a city that cannot agree its name, was wrecked by bloody violence and has its hinterland fractured by a contested international border, is a difficult and delicate process. The city had a population of 105 800 people in 1998, but is divided by the river Foyle between the mainly Catholic Cityside (to the north and west) and the mainly Protestant Waterside (to the south and east). The analysis connects with the literature on urban policy that emphasises the importance of argumentation and democratic debate in strategic planning and local regeneration (Forester, 1989; Healey, 1996). The paper concludes by arguing that strategies for 'listening' would help to shape a vision that could mobilise community interests around some common urban regional issues and help to promote social and ethno-religious polarisation as mainstream policy concerns.

Smart City-Regional Governance: A 'Dual Transition'

This paper introduces the concept of ‘dual transition’ in relation to the notion of ‘smartness’ in city-regional governance. This consists of two intersecting dimensions, a broader change in political-economic and societal circumstances which surround city-regions, and a more detailed, local change towards ‘smartness’ in policy practices. Although ‘smart’ seems to have become a somewhat ubiquitous adjective in urban policy, it seeks to project policies that seek to go beyond a one-dimensional ‘growth agenda’ by addressing also the multifaceted quest for social, economic and environmental sustainability. The underlying shift in discourse, rationality and suggested policy responses in both dimensions may be captured by the concept of ‘transition’ in relation to policies and governance. Originally developed in conjunction with broad political-economic regime change, such as post-authoritarian democratisation, the idea of ‘transition’ has also been applied to the more specific concept of sustainability as ‘sustainability transition’.

Coordonner les transports et l'urbanisme dans un contexte urbain concret : le TOD comme instrument d'action publique, le cas de Sainte-Therese, QC

Le concept de transit-oriented development (TOD) est habituellement abordé en tant qu'ensemble fixe de caractéristiques physico-spatiales. Cette approche ne s'avere pas suffisante pour comprendre comment le TOD peut être pertinent pour coordonner les transports et l'urbanisme dans un contexte urbain concret. Afin de combler cette lacune, nous proposons d'étudier le TOD en tant qu'instrument d'action publique, adopté, produit et utilisé par les acteurs sur le territoire en fonction des enjeux, des ressources et des contraintes qui y sont présents. Ce travail exploratoire est fondé sur une étude de cas de la mise en place du TOD a Sainte-Thérese. Pour comprendre comment se sont arrimés les intérêts des acteurs impliqués et ce qui en a résulté, la collecte de données se fait a l'aide de sources écrites, mais aussi d’entretiens semi-directifs avec les acteurs clé. Les résultats de l'étude confirment la pertinence de l'approche adoptée pour aborder le TOD. Le TOD comme instrument d'action publique peut être qualifié d'opérateur de congruence, car il permet de faire converger les intérêts différents, et même potentiellement contradictoires, qui sont en jeu sur le territoire. Cependant, il n'y a pas de formule passe-partout: la production du TOD se fait en grande partie de façon incrémentale, en fonction des conditions sur le territoire. La mise en place du TOD n'exige pas nécessairement l'invention d'un nouveau cadre d'action et peut se faire en grande partie a l'aide des outils existants. Toutefois, pour pouvoir se servir pleinement de ces outils, le leadership des acteurs clé s'avere crucial.

Segregation unter Stagnationsbedingungen

Anlass der Untersuchung sind Verstärkungen von strukturwandel- und globalisierungsbedingten Wandlungen unter Schrumpfungs- und Stagnationsbedingungen. Denn Stagnations- und Schrumpfungstendenzen in einer Region sind selektiv, sie begünstigen über verschiedene Mechanismen Polarisierungen und Marginalisierungen: Die allgemeine Entspannung am Wohnungsmarkt hat erhöhte Mobilität und damit sozialräumliche Segregierungen und Polarisierungen der Wohnungsversorgung zur Folge. Leerstände und ausbleibende Investitionen begünstigen Polarisierungen von baulich-räumlichen Qualitäten. Diese beiden Entwicklungen überlagern sich im Stadtraum und verstärken sich gegenseitig. Dabei verbessert sich die Wohnungsversorgung in den benachteiligten Quartieren kaum, so die Ausgangshypothesen. Die Untersuchung fragt nach den Wirkungen des Nebeneinanders von Wachstums-, Stagnations- und Schrumpfungserscheinungen auf unterschiedlichen Maßstabsebenen, dem Zusammenspiel von sozialstrukturellen und qualitativen Veränderungen der baulich-räumlichen Gegebenheiten in den Quartieren sowie in innerstädtischer Differenzierung. Dabei interessieren besonders die Einflüsse eines regional entspannten Wohnungsmarktes und dessen Folgen für die Verwertungsstrategien im Wohnungsbestand auf Segregationsprozesse und die Wohnungsversorgung. Als Fallbeispiel der Untersuchung dient die Stadt Kassel. Der sozialräumliche Fokus liegt auf drei Typen benachteiligter Quartiere: Neben den in der aktuellen Diskussion zumeist betrachteten gründerzeitlichen Arbeiterquartieren und den Großsiedlungen der 1960/70er Jahre wurden auch die peripheren Geschosswohnungsbausiedlungen der 1950er/60er Jahre in die Untersuchung einbezogen, um den unterschiedlichen Rahmenbedingungen und Wirkungen in den Quartierstypen auf die Spur zu kommen und damit letztlich Grundlagen für stadtentwicklungspolitische Strategien zu erarbeiten. Die kleinräumigen Analysen von sozialräumlicher und baulich-räumlicher Struktur sowie zur Wohnungsversorgung deckten Parallelen und gegenläufige Entwicklungen zwischen den unterschiedlichen Quartierstypen auf; es ergaben sich verschiedene Anhaltspunkte zur Erhärtung der Ausgangsthesen. So wurde z.B. deutlich, dass sich unter den Marktbedingungen stagnierender Städte die Wohnflächenversorgung in den benachteiligten Quartieren kaum verbessert. Hierin zeigt sich ein entscheidender Unterschied zu stark schrumpfenden Städten, in denen sich die Versorgungslage (fast) durchgängig verbessert. Wohnungsmarktbarrieren wirken offensichtlich unter Stagnationsbedingungen für bestimmte Bevölkerungsgruppen weiter. Da sich ihre Wirkung aber für weitere Kreise der Bevölkerung abschwächt, verschärfen sich sozialräumliche Konzentrationen. Vor allem aber wurden Überlagerung und gegenseitige Verstärkung dieser sozialräumlichen mit baulich-räumlichen Polarisierungen deutlich, die vor allem aus stadträumlich konzentrierten Investitionen in den Gebäude- und Wohnungsbestand resultieren. Letztlich zeigt sich damit, dass regulierende Eingriffe nicht nur im Rahmen des Umbaus und der Erneuerung der Quartiere erforderlich sind, sondern insbesondere auch in den Wohnungsmarkt und dies auch bei entspannter regionaler Marktlage. Andernfalls ist weder eine angemessene Wohnungsversorgung aller Bevölkerungsgruppen noch der Zusammenhalt der Stadt(Gesellschaft) zu gewährleisten. Dabei ist die Stadtpolitik permanent mit der Gleichzeitigkeit von (wirtschaftlicher) Standortpolitik und sozialer Stadtentwicklung konfrontiert, die sie im Sinne einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung gegeneinander und miteinander abwägen muss.

Comparación de las dinámicas de uso y apropiación del espacio público en parques de origen informal y formal: parque Villa de la Torre y parque Cayetano Cañizares

El interés de este estudio de caso es comparar las dinámicas de uso y apropiación del espacio público en parques de origen formal e informal, y discutir sus implicaciones en la vida social y urbana, teniendo como zonas el parque Villa de la Torre (informal) y el parque Cayetano Cañizares (formal). Este trabajo se enmarca en conceptos de uso y apropiación del espacio público, a partir de los cuales se examinan las dinámicas de formalidad e informalidad de los parques zonas de estudio, explorando qué efectos puede tener su origen, y revisando si el parque informal implica falta de apropiación y usos conflictivos, o si por el contrario, las dinámicas que en espacios públicos se dan pueden incluir dinámicas positivas y negativas indistintamente de su origen.

Resilience planning, economic change and the politics of post-recession development in London and Hong Kong

For much of the 1990s and 2000s, the emphasis of urban policy in many global cities was on managing and mitigating the social and environmental effects of rapid economic growth. The credit crunch of 2008 and the subsequent recession have undermined some of the core assumptions on which such policies were based. It is in this context that the concept of resilience planning has taken on a new significance. Drawing on contemporary research in London and Hong Kong, the paper shows how resilience and recovery planning has become a key area of political debate. It examines what is meant by conservative and radical interpretations of resilience and how conservative views have come to dominate ‘recovery’ thinking, with élite groups unwilling to accept the limits to the neo-liberal orthodoxies that helped to precipitate the economic crisis. The paper explores the implications of such thinking for the politics of urban development.

Scenarios of technology adoption towards low-carbon cities

Technological change has often been presented as a readily accepted means by which long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions can be achieved. Cities are the future centers of economic growth, with the global population becoming predominantly urban; hence, increases or reductions of GHG emissions are tied to their energy strategies. This research examines the likelihood of a developed world city (the Greater Toronto Area) achieving an 80% reduction in GHG emissions through policy-enabled technological change. Emissions are examined from 3 major sources: light duty passenger vehicles, residential buildings and commercial/institutional buildings. Logistic diffusion curves are applied for the adoption of alternative vehicle technologies, building retrofits and high performance new building construction. This research devises high, low and business-as-usual estimates of future technological adoption and finds that even aggressive scenarios are not sufficient to achieve an 80% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050. This further highlights the challenges faced in maintaining a relatively stable climate. Urban policy makers must consider that the longer the lag before this transition occurs, the greater the share of GHG emissions mitigation that must addressed through behavioural change in order to meet the 2050 target, which likely poses greater political challenges.

Green infrastructure and ecosystem services - is the devil in the detail?

Background - Green infrastructure is a strategic network of green spaces designed to deliver ecosystem services to human communities. Green infrastructure is a convenient concept for urban policy makers, but the term is used too-generically and with limited understanding of the relative values or benefits of different types of green space and how these complement one another. At a finer scale/more practical level– little consideration is given to the composition of the plant-communities, yet this is what ultimately defines extent of service provision. This paper calls for greater attention to be paid to urban plantings with respect to ecosystem service delivery and for plant science to engage more-fully in identifying those plants that promote various services. Scope - Many urban plantings are designed based on aesthetics alone, with limited thought on how plant choice/composition provides other ecosystem services. Research is beginning to demonstrate, however, that landscape plants provide a range of important services, such as helping mitigate floods and alleviating heat islands, but that not all species are equally effective. The paper reviews a number of important services and demonstrates how genotype choice radically affects service delivery. Conclusions – Although research is in its infancy, data is being generated that relates plant traits to specific services; thereby helping identify genotypes that optimise service delivery. The urban environment, however, will become exceedingly bland if future planting is simply restricted to monocultures of a few ‘functional’ genotypes. Therefore, further information is required on how to design plant communities where the plants identified:- a/ provide more than a single benefit (multi-functionality) b/ complement each other in maximising the range of benefits that can be delivered in one location and c/ continue to maintain public acceptance through diversity. The identification/development of functional landscape plants is an exciting and potentially high impact arena for plant science.

A reestruturação produtiva e as novas formas de organização do trabalho: a experiência do transporte alternativo no município de Belém/PA

The study made in this thesis analyzes the new form of work organization at the urban collective transportation sector, so called Altemative Transportation which is a new form of public transportation that appears in the Brazilian urban context by the mid ninety' s, this work is made by independent or sub-contracted workers, usually organized in cooperatives . It reflects the investigation of new forms of precarious work, unformal which has been expanding in the urban transportation sector. Thus, discusses non regulation of the services sector problem the ways of survival of exc1uded workers from the formal work market mainly afier the capital productive restructure. It has as privileged area of investigation, the sector policy of urban transportation that make field of the main nets of political articulations that define the dynamic of the urban space. It is known that the urban collective transportation allows the access to the production, circulation and general consumption being necessary to the mobility of the resident population, mainly to those with low purchasing capacity. It becomes a field of empirical investigation at the Belem municipal, located at the Amazonic region - north Brazil. The main points dealed on this research start from concrete relations from the daily life of workers that deve1op their activity on the altemative transport mediated with theoretical references needed for understanding and interpretation of the studied reality. The investigation strategies were built from the abstract (theorical knowledge produced for the reality analyze) in concrete by the investigation quantitative-qualitative from this area of urban policy, making up possible the formation of a references chart to the analyses of the studied subject. Rescue his historicity, from characterization of the urban space of the metropolitan region of Belem passing true the forms of organization and urban services performances while essential production and reproduction element of the social relations. Identifies the main individuals that historically have been participating in the construction of the municipality transport policy and the ways of expression of the local political strength relations. Outstand the State paper on the net of established relations near the local power, as well as outstand the importance of social sciences in the understanding of urban policies in the transportation area, trying to bring input to the academicals -scientific debate .The above e1ected and mentioned points in this study are crucial for a critical reflection of the transportation policies. That relation is not given, but historically built at the power relation chart that makes up this unique area of the urban policies

O corredor cultural: espaço de materialização da exclusão social em Mossoró-RN

In contemporary society, social exclusion is an actual and pertinent theme, because it presents itself as a challenge to management and planning of the public policies. In this perspective, the thesis entitled "The Cultural Corridor: space materialization of social exclusion in Mossoró-RN" is a moment of apprehension and analysis of the local reality from the urban policy implementation that emphasized an enterprising model, which has, as the concrete space to urban renovation manifestation, the cultural complex called cultural corridor. Because of the investigation and the directional hypothesis, it is possible to say that the urban development policy implemented in Mossoró, starting from the 1990 decade, based in the model of modernizing/enterprising management, has been causing an intensification of a society parcel exclusion from the city public space, since this public policy didn't prioritized job market increasing, as well as population incomes improving, poverty and social inequality reduction, at the same proportions it promoted geographic space reorganization with directional actions to build the "spectacle city"

Desenvolvimento Urbano e Cidades Inclusivas: Estudo Analítico do Princípio Constitucional da Função Social das Cidades

The reality of Latin America points out that the industrialization and urbanization are complementary processes associated each other. Thus, by consequence of the demographic growth, observes the aggravation of an urbanization completely disordered and without infrastructure capable of guaranteeing rights and basic services to the population. In parallel, the dissemination of information, the valorization of human dignity, promoted by social welfare, and expectations of consumption aggravates the tensions among social actors, leading to the Theory of the Right to Development to worry about the (re)construction of cities. Before this reality, the Federal Constitution of 1988 proposed a participatory urban policy, grounded in the ideal of confrontation of social exclusion of a more comprehensive, represented by the principle of the social function of cities, which must be stratified into four inclusion´s central axes, namely: the social in the strict sense, the economic, the cultural and the policy. The Analysis of each of these dimensions, keeping the focus on reality and the Brazilian legal system, composes specific objectives of this work. Thus, through deductive research, with use of technique bibliographical and interdisciplinary, this dissertation aims to make connections between social function and development, proposing an analytical concept for the proposing an analytical concept for the principle of social function of cities, through the study of its basic elements. With this, purports to demonstrate how results, firstly, that the juridical study, to fully understand the process of marginalization, must maintain multidisciplinary perspective, own social sciences. Also aims to demonstrate that the dimensions of inclusion are formed by fundamental rights, individual and collective, of liberties and of social guarantees and that without respect to all of them there is no way to talk about implementation of urban development and nor, consequently, about inclusive cities. At the end, after checking the main legal instruments of urban policy that emphasize the community participation, provided for in the Statute of the Cities, and that potentiate the breakup of the circles of exclusion, the work want contribute to the clarification and the awaken to the importance of a new perspective democratic of development in the country, grounded in the appreciation of the individual for realization of modern management, decentralized and that, therefore, inserts the effective participation of urban communities in the acting of the State

Cidades pequenas, grandes problemas :perfil urbano do Agreste Potiguar

In view of the diversity and the heterogeneity of the existing cities in Brazil, our approach refers to the urban and non-metropolitan areas. Aiming to foment the studies on small cities e to apprehend the sociospatial configuration of the urban environment in such cities, this piece of work elaborates and analyzes the urban profile of the small cities of the Agreste Potiguar region, using as a theoretical reference landmark the production of the urban and regional space, from the decade of 1970 to 2000. Starting from this reference, this piece of work presents an urban sociospatial characterization of the small cities of the Agreste Potiguar region, with emphasis on the economic framework, on the population dynamics, on the main social data, culminating in the main characteristics of the local daily life. The study of the small cities of the Agreste Potiguar region makes it possible the comprehension of the problems that involve the cities of this size, above all, those inserted in economically fragile regions. In the analyzed period, the changes occurred in the productive structure of the State of Rio Grande do Norte triggered a great crisis in the economy of the Agreste Potiguar region. This aspect, allied to the insufficient performance of the public power, contributed to the sprouting of some sociospatial problems, amongst which may be distinguished: the economic fragility, the generalized unemployment, the lack of security and the urban infrastructure absence sufficient to take care of the social demand. Even facing the existing problems, the small cities must be seen as potential spaces, capable to promote the regional development. To do so, it is necessary a process of democratization of the public administration, an ample popular participation and the establishment of a new urban policy, that aims at the social promotion of the individuals, the guarantee of basic necessities and the access to the necessary services to a dignified life

O uso de geotecnologias no planejamento ambiental: o plano diretor municipal de Tambaú - SP

A Lei Federal 10.257, de 10 de julho de 2001, regulamentou os artigos 182 e 183 da Constituição Federal de 1988 no que trata da política urbana, especialmente da propriedade, sendo obrigatório para municípios com mais de 20.000 habitantes. Até então, os planos diretores municipais vinham sendo feitos levando em conta apenas as respectivas áreas urbanas, A partir desta lei, tais planos tiveram de levar em conta também as áreas rurais, integrando-as no processo do planejamento municipal sustentado. Analisando-se os planos diretores municipais recentes, elaborados a partir dessas novas diretrizes, nota-se que a maioria ainda enfatiza a área urbana, em detrimento da área rural. O objetivo deste trabalho foi, a partir de um estudo de caso, avaliar e validar metodologias e tecnologias rotineiramente empregadas em Geociências e Ciências Agrárias.