2015 Definite Space – Fuzzy Responsibility, Prague, 13-16th July

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Open Access
Meeting the Challenge of Public Responsibility: Planning as Institutional Design
(AESOP, 2015) Alexander, E. R.
“Planning must critically reconsider… the issue of repositioning the public responsibility” our Track chairs said. This can be understood in several ways. One is as responsibility to publics, i.e. accountability, which involves public values. Another is as responsibility of the public, raising structural issues. A useful approach for addressing these is institutional design (ID). What is ID, who does it and where, are answered and reviewed. How ID is done involves knowledge and methods. Public values and their relationship to ID are explored. Here "repositioning" means prioritizing accountability vs. other values e.g. efficiency or equity. Concrete implications are developed in discussion of public value promotion and conflict. Public responsibility in the structural sense conventionally refers to the public sector: state and government. Here "repositioning" means sharing responsibility with others: private actors and the market, NGOs and civil society. ID explores repositioning alternatives of non-traditional forms of governance and service delivery: public-private partnerships, outsourcing and privatization. Selected cases show relevant ID applications; for institutions effectuating public values and as arenas to mediate value conflicts: EU institutions, metro-regional planning in New York and Queensland, and military base closing in the USA; to reposition and share public responsibility: New Towns and planned communities in Britain and the USA, groundwater conservation in Apulia. The discussion and cases show how ID can help planners to effectively reposition public responsibility. Keywords: planning, institutional design, public responsibility
Open Access
Reevaluating the analytical power of regime theory
(AESOP, 2015) Akkila, Ilona
How is urban space produced? Planners, politicians, building companies, real estate owners, investors, entrepreneurs and citizens are all entangled in the process, but the challenge is how to describe this complex, multi-actor process? Urban politics is a spatially and temporally bound process between the actors involved. There is no single institution or actor which explains the local political process; rather, there are several, dissonant actors cooperating on emerging agendas. The construction of power between them depends on the agenda, the composition of actors and their relations. To understand these intricate courses of action, I suggest the application of a case-sensitive urban regime analysis. Whilst regime theory is based on the context of North American cities in the 1980s and 1990s, it still offers an insightful analytical tool to investigate urban politics. Urban regime theory enables the examination of politics from the inside, rather than outside, similar to urban governance theory. Although urban regime theory has been accused of ethnocentrism, I believe it is suitable for research in European or even Nordic cities if one is sensitive to the legal, economic and political differences amongst different countries. I will illustrate this by presenting a case study I have conducted in Finland the city of Lahti. My aim has been to re-evaluate the analytical explanation power of regime theory in today´s Nordic city. Keywords: urban regime theory, city center, urban renewal
Open Access
Dilemmas in the development of a curriculum for urban planners in a globalized world (DRAFT – 23 June 2015 (not to be cited)
(AESOP, 2015) Emile, Dopheide; Brussel, Mark; Flacke, Johannes; Kuffer, Monika
A number of dilemmas present themselves in the development of a new curriculum for urban planning and management for a changing target group from the global south. These dilemmas include the definition of a proper balance between general planning knowledge and skills versus specialized knowledge and skills; between theory and practice; between an academic versus a more professional orientation; and between examples and case studies from developing countries versus examples and case studies from European and North-American countries. Based on actual experiences, this paper discusses the dilemmas in designing a curriculum for a changing target group as well as the challenge to develop a curriculum for the urban planner in a globalized world. It further discusses the potential of the international development agenda as a structuring element for the development of such a ’global’ curriculum. A number of good arguments exist to use the international development agenda in the development of such type of curricula. At the same time it underlines the importance of the development of a critical view towards the same agenda to ensure a proper link with the local practices of urban planning and management. The paper invites for a further exchange of experiences and a debate on the dilemmas to develop a global curriculum for a global target group.
Open Access
Education for sustainable spatial development: some reflections on teaching students of planning and related professions
(AESOP, 2015) Howes, Michael
In 1992 national governments committed themselves to pursue sustainable development at the Rio Earth Summit. Urban areas play a critical role in this commitment as: they are where the majority of the world’s population is located and are growing rapidly; they have large and increasing ecological footprints; and, they host the infrastructure and industries that generate the lion’s share of greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and waste. Urban and environmental planners can play a vital role in improving the sustainability of these areas, but how can they be best be prepared to face such a challenge? This paper examines how strategic changes can integrate the values of sustainability into built environment programs at universities. A specific case study is used based on a first year course in sustainability that the author convenes for a large and diverse group of undergraduate students. It is argued that in their future professional life, planning graduates have the potential to be agents of change by transforming the urban form as well as how the state interacts with the private sector and the community. This analysis is undertaken using the theoretical framework of ecological modernisation that underpins the idea of sustainability, offers a strategic pathway to transform publicprivate-community interactions, and approaches sustainability as a design challenge. The somewhat ambitious goal is to synthesise the empirical evidence, the practical experience, and theoretical framework into a coherent whole.
Open Access
Spatial planning and health policies: synergy or fragmentation? Evidence from Portugal through the lens of the territorial cohesion concept
(AESOP, 2015) Santinha, Gonçalo
The significance of spatial planning for health and well-being is well recorded. While there has been recently an increasing body of literature in academic circles and public policy guidelines illustrating the importance of both fields working closely, evidence shows that cross-sectoral integration between spatial planning and health policies is still scarce. This article aims to develop a deeper understanding of how this integration can be considered in conceptual terms and how it is actually embraced in practice by health decision-makers. Drawing upon the concept of territorial cohesion, the new EU political objective which highlights the importance of considering the spatial dimension for public policies cross-sectoral integration, the article presents and discusses the results of a research held in Portugal aiming to understand how territory and spatial policies taken into account in health decision-making processes. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews to current and former national and regional health decision-makers were conducted for this purpose. The research also comprised the analysis of the main national and regional health policy guiding documents. Findings show that, although decision-makers and policy guiding documents value the importance of promoting a cross sectoral integration of both domains, there is still a long path ahead to integrate in a comprehensive manner the spatial dimension in health policies. The article concludes by pondering on the added value of using the conceptual framework proposed based on the decision-makers perspective and on the new institutional EU policy context.
Open Access
The Teaching Practice Research of International Student Urban Design Course in China UniversitynaInternational Urban Design Course in HKU and TJU as Cases
(AESOP, 2015) Jingshu Chen
In recent years, more and more international students are coming to China as exchange students or pursuing dual-degrees. Some of them choose to study in urban planning or urban design course while their undergraduate background are architecture, sociology, engineering or geography and so on. More and more architecture and urban planning schools began to start the urban design course for international students. Most of them choose the project approach as the teaching method which can kindly fit for a three months or half a year course schedule. But they also notice the problems as coordinating the group design work, guiding the design direction, supplementing the design expertise or understanding the planning policy of China. This article takes the urban design course teaching process in the University of Hongkong and shanghai Tongji University as cases. It will address different approaches in urban design teaching for international students and compare the work of students. The teaching process combine diversified teaching modes like lecture teaching or social survey but all around a real design project. The participants of the course including the professors from different background, the manager or designer of design company and the local government. The article tries to provide a new method for other Chinese university which can be used in future teaching.
Open Access
New perspectives in planning education: how planners can collaborate in interdisciplinary work environments
(AESOP, 2015) Gedikli, Bahar; Babalık-Sutcliffe, Ela
The ever-networking contemporary society has impacted on urban areas, making their physical, social, economic and organizational dimensions more complex. Consequently, sustainable spatial development has become a challenging aim, which requires planners to collaborate with professionals from other disciplinary domains. Many urban sustainability problems necessitate joint action of different practitioners/researchers (representing public and private institutions and/or nongovernmental organizations). Their involvement may range from the physical/design dimension to technical/engineering, sociological, economic, environmental and organizational dimensions. These public and private actors explicate their standpoints, negotiate, and develop a common response to a specific problem. Given the increasing need for collaboration with different professionals, planning education should be improved in such ways to prepare students for interdisciplinary work. Furthermore, today city planners increasingly work in international projects/ institutions requiring a global as well as a multicultural understanding of urban problems. Both interdisciplinary and multicultural approaches should be incorporated into planning education. This study portrays the findings of an international interdisciplinary programme (an Erasmus Intensive Programme), where 45 master students from 9 different countries with different disciplinary backgrounds (city planning, architecture, sociology, geography, territorial sciences) came together. They worked in teams to develop sustainable spatial development projects for an urban area in Ankara. Based on questionnaires with students, the study shows students’ perspectives about interdisciplinarity; what new perspectives they learned from one another, what challenges they faced. The outcomes help us understand the achievements and challenges that interdisciplinary experiences present, provide lessons in preparing similar programmes, and better prepare planning students for interdisciplinary work environments.
Open Access
Competencies revisited an educational approach to conceptualise planning as a boundary discipline
(AESOP, 2015) Gilliard, Lukas; Thierstein, Alain
The paper presents a systemic view on the purpose and impact of planning education. We introduce a system model, which bases upon the assumption that the objective of planning education is equipping students with competencies to resolve current and future challenges. Planning education has always focussed on instruments for this purpose. Among other reasons, established statutory instruments have become less effective in steering urban development due to a shift of power from public towards private stakeholders, e.g. in terms of funding. Thus, we propose a shift from formal qualifications suited for public planning control towards a problem-based and impact-orientated approach. The educational term ‘competence’ serves hereby as a measure of employability. The ‘wicked’ nature of planning problems distinguishes knowledge in planning. Knowledge is contextual and constantly transforming. It can however be deconstructed in a defined context. Then, we can assign an observable impact to a certain state of problem or intervention. These constructs of knowledge can help us to make informed decisions. The challenge is to apply and transform these contextual constructs to other settings. This requires proficiency in analysing, evaluating and creating constructs. Public planning control and its instruments consist of normative goals, which dictate the reason and extent of planning. In case of a problem-based approach, it is the role of a planner to recognise situations, in which his knowledge helps making an impact towards intended futures.
Open Access
European Union Cohesion Policy and the (Re-) Production of Centrality and Peripherality through Soft Spaces with Fuzzy Boundaries
(AESOP, 2015) Telle, Stefan
Abstract The paper discusses the co-evolution of the mode of governance of the European Union (EU) and the rationale of EU Cohesion Policy. It is argued that the process of European integration has led to the challenging situation of heightened complexity of decision-making at the EU level under the community method. As a consequence, consensus-seeking deliberation and policy-experimentation are becoming increasingly important in EU governance. In this context, the paper argues that the alignment of Cohesion Policy with the EU 2020 objectives of smart, inclusive, and sustainable growth may be explained by a shift toward a post-political mode of multi-level meta-governance. Adopting Neil Brenner´s spatialized version of Bob Jessop´s strategic-relational approach, the paper analyzes EU Cohesion Policy as a spatial strategy and spatial project in the period from 1988 to 2014+. The main finding is that EU territoriality is markedly different from the territorial arrangement of the Keynesian-Welfare-National-State. Crucially, EU territoriality appears more flexible and issue driven, which is interpreted as a consequence of a more experimental way of decision-making at the EU level. Future research will use the framework developed in this paper to investigate effects of the making of this soft European space on the (re-) production of socio-spatial polarization in Central and Eastern Europe.
Open Access
Lessons learnt from teaching practices of participatory neighbourhood planning in China
(AESOP, 2015) Chang, Ying
Healey (2010) has questioned the limitations when planning theories and ideas travelled from developed countries to other places. In 2006, there is a new international university opened in Suzhou China, with close cooperation with Liverpool University in the UK. Since 2010, a new programme of Urban Planning and Design (was called Civic Design as the same as the parent department at Liverpool University) was started and in the spring of 2013, a new module of Neighbourhood Planning was taught. During this module, participatory planning methods (Barton, 2010; Sanoff 2000) were introduced and assessed for the group work at local community. This paper will introduce the teaching practice of Neighbourhood Planning, with a focus on how participatory planning methods were taught, received, developed and applied in the context in urban China. At the end, an evaluation was made based on students' and residents' feedbacks. Lesson and experiences will be concluded for future teaching and practices in China.
Open Access
The use of studio pedagogy in environmental planning education
(AESOP, 2015) Dedekorkut-Howes, Aysin; Bosman, Caryl
Teaching environmental planning is challenging at the best of times with wicked learning and teaching issues such as diversity of skills and knowledge required, the role of science and values in environmental decision making and political viability but periods of rapid political and economic change can present additional difficulties. This paper overviews the current state of environmental planning education and the challenges it is facing as well as suggestions on how and what to teach environmental planners. While the benefits of studio pedagogy which involves a student-centred, collaborative, inquiry/problem-based approach based on a ‘real world’ project is well documented, particularly in the United States and Australia these courses are becoming less prominent in the planning curriculum. We argue that studio pedagogy is an ideal learning and teaching environment and approach to overcome the challenges of environmental planning education in particular because studio pedagogy teaches students how to work successfully, in a collaborative way, with ‘wicked’, complex issues. Evidence from planning studios are used to illustrate how studio pedagogy can be useful in overcoming the wicked learning and teaching issues that arise in environmental planning education and producing successful environmental planning graduates that are leaders in their field.
Open Access
Encountering the Unfamiliar in International Studies in Planning
(AESOP, 2015) Butt, Andrew; Ratnayake, Rangajeewa
The opportunities of internationalised planning curricula are manifold. For students this includes scope to expand their horizons for planning careers and to develop more reflective understandings of planning issues in their ‘home’ environment (Yigitcanlar, 2013). For educators, it provides a fertile environment for exploring cross-cultural encounter, a space to investigate varied planning traditions, and to situate examples for teaching. Within planning education, professional and academic discourse offers a way for students from diverse backgrounds to communicate and conceptualise field studies within a common (universal) understanding of traditions of planning practice and public policy solutions, but also to consider those contingent on place and culture (Healey, 2012). The ethical and political implications of working internationally can, however, be masked within the seeming familiarity of planning language, concepts and techniques. Planning is inherently political and contextual, yet the explicit dilemmas of the political and economic setting can appear hidden during a field project where the apparently universal notions of effective spatial planning are central to the dialogue amongst a diverse student group. Using the example of four joint field/project visits (2010-2014) involving Australian and Sri Lankan planning students in tsunami and conflict affected areas of Sri Lanka, this paper draws on student reflections and observations to explore the explicit encounters with ethical dilemmas and political settings. It then considers the implications and transferability of these lessons for ethical reflection in planning practice within the home setting.
Open Access
Not to Split Hairs: EU Territorial Cohesion a Contradiction in Terms
(AESOP, 2015) Faludi, Andreas
Amongst various territorial cohesion 'storylines', 'Coherent EU Policy' is its unique selling point. State territories as frames are unsuitable for spatial relations and functional areas crisscrossing state boundaries. However, if they were considered in earnest, states would become concerned. If this were to happen –which so far it has not and will not unless we change our thinking about the EU construct– then his would challenge their control over their territories. A defining characteristic of states being this, their ‘territoriality’, EU territorial cohesion policy would undermine their very existence as sovereign states, so it will always hurt itself on the wish of member states to sustain their control their territories, people and resources. Also, states will always have considerations other than managing various spatial networks in mind. Their integrity and prosperity and, importantly, their administrations retaining power depend on electoral consent articulated in and by territorially defined constituencies. Networks come second. Without splitting hairs, therefore, we may say: In an EU seen as a collection of member states, territorial cohesion is a contradiction in terms. One would have to consider another form, like an EU as an archipelago or as a cloud.
Open Access
City Crafting in a Contested World: An Elected City Councilman’s Perspective
(AESOP, 2015) Throgmorton, James A.
Very few planning scholars have served as elected officials. I have, twice: first in the mid-1990s and most recently from 2012 to the present. Service as an elected official generates a very different perspective from the one typically available to planning scholars and professional practitioners. In brief, it enables one to see that urban planning as typically practiced (at least in the U. S.) addresses only some of the factors that shape the transformation of cities. This broader perspective available to elected officials might point the way toward inventing a new practice, which could be called “City Crafting.” This paper explores city crafting in a small city located in the Midwest of the United States, with a special focus on a rapidly redeveloping area just south of the city’s downtown. After briefly explaining what I mean by city crafting and how it differs from conventional planning, I narrate a story based on my own personal experiences as a scholar engaged in practical action. The story focuses primarily on the City Council’s May 20, 2014, meetings and the Council’s consideration of a several interrelated topics, including proposed adoption of a new “Form Based Code” for the new “Riverfront Crossings District” south of downtown. After briefly recounting the aftermath of this new Code’s adoption, I conclude by considering the implications for planning and planners.
Open Access
Engaging action research with urban planning practice in identifying new courses of action for sustainable urban development
(AESOP, 2015) Larsen, Majken Toftager
New workable approaches to urban sustainability are often explored within temporary and interdisciplinary project structures located outside direct formal jurisdictional authorithy and every day planning practice. In this context multiple examples of cross-border collaboration can be identified where researchers engage with urban practitioners in knowledge production processes also popularly coined as modus 2 or action research. There is a great need for critical reflection on the methodologies applied in specific contexts of collaborative knowledge production in order to get a better understanding on how to arrive at actionable conceptions of urban sustainability. I take my point of departure in the Interreg project Urban Transition Øresund (2011-2014) involving urban planners from five municipalities and an interdisciplinary team of researchers from five research institutions all located in the Oresund region. The project has been set up with the ambition to develop models for collaboration and approaches to work more thoroughly with sustainability in urban planning processes. Based on my findings from being a research participant in the project I claim that action research can support the creation of inter-collegial spaces of social learning to discuss professional values, norms and challenges around sustainability. But what also has become apparent during the project is how the normative drive for enhancing democracy through collaborative knowledge production may be obscured by competing conceptions of participation based on the logics of the knowledge economy as well as they may be pervaded by internal conflicts of different knowledge interests among researchers and their partners
Open Access
Being and planning
(AESOP, 2015) Sturup, Sophie; Low, Nicholas
Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition wrote of the substitution, in modern times, of the ‘social’ for the ‘political’, thereby creating a situation of ‘worldlessness’ wherein the ground on which we could be held to account for our self-construction has disappeared. This ‘worldless’ world, in Peter Wagner’s words, is ‘a world in which social relations may have global extensions, but are so thin and ephemeral that contemporary modern human beings are held to realize their own lives in a social context that they cannot conceive as their own’ (Wagner 2012, 66). Planning is left trying to construct a collective reality in an ephemeral and indeterminate social context where the only ground for determinations of truth and right is individual opinion. In this paper we approach the question of ‘worldhood’ from the ontological and phenomenological perspective of Heidegger’s Being and Time. We attempt a preliminary exploration of the ‘Being’ of planning and the ‘Being’ of planner as Dasein (the one that is there, for whom the world occurs). Our task is to identify the ‘worldhood of the world’ of planning and planner, and relate Heidegger’s insights to the problem of ‘worldlessness’ facing the planner in today’s modernity. From Being and Time we take two aspects of Heidegger’s thought of helpful potential for planning in a worldless world, his concepts of authenticity and truth, noting that Heidegger always thinks in terms of both the positive and privative (or deficient) modes of qualities with which Dasein relates to Others and to the world.
Open Access
The coding turn in urban and regional planning : the role of planning institutions
(AESOP, 2015) Alfasi, Nurit
The paper deals with the growing tendency to articulate planning policies in principles and codes discussed in recent planning theory and reflected in planning practices. While this tool arouses interest and enthusiasm, very little attention is given to the way it affects planning thought and impacts – or should impact – the act of planning and the institutions involved. After discussing historical decisionmaking frameworks that applied planning codes, the paper turns to the decision-making frameworks designed to operate comprehensive land-use plans in regulatory planning systems, and to the problematics of zoning and outline plans as a regulatory device. It then discusses the meaning of the transition to planning codes and elaborates on the conditions to turn it into the dawn of a new, liberal and democratic planning framework for planning legislation.
Open Access
The Art of Creating Consistency: Planning Strategies in the Age of Active Citizenship
(AESOP, 2015) Boonstra, Beitske
This paper addresses the emerging practice of civic initiatives in urban development, and the struggles professional planners and governments face in finding adequate strategies in dealing with this form of ‘active citizenship’ – strategies that reach beyond the inclusionary and disciplinary confines of participatory planning approaches. Based on empirical studies of 14 civic initiatives in Denmark, the Netherlands and England, and a theoretical hybrid of complexity theory (selforganization), actor-network theory (translation) assemblage theory (individuation), and recently developed post-structuralist planning theories, this paper argues towards a planning strategy that does fit the age of active citizenship. The paper argues that planners should no longer focus on organizing involvement in formal planning processes or setting up frameworks to counter fragmentation. Instead, planners should focus on creating consistency between a redundancy of spatial interventions and planning strategies that evolve from active citizenship. Creating consistency is based on three lines of thought: the need for conditions that do not constrain, but rather open up possibility spaces, the need for a facilitating planner who does not mediate but rather navigates between planning initiatives, and most importantly, a flat ontology of planning strategy. This flat ontology states that there is no a priori or ontological difference between the intentions and performed behavior of planning actors (including civic initiatives). By opening the spectrum for many others, navigating between these emerging others, and being able to empathize with the behaviors and strategies of these many others, potentials for consistency can be recognized and acted upon
Open Access
Scenario work as an instrument for strategic assessment of Urban planning – case otaniemi
(AESOP, 2015) Mäntysalo, Raine; Grišakov, Kristi; Syrman, Simo; Schmidt- Thomé, Kaisa
The scenario work methodology has been well developed in the context of strategic business management. As the strategic approach has recently gained interest also in urban planning, there have been attempts to apply the scenario work methodology in this context, too. However, in order to do so, further development of the methodology is needed, especially regarding considerations on spatiality and the public sector perspective. In this paper, the scenario work methodology is studied with a focus on developing it into an instrument of strategic assessment in urban planning. The scenario work consists of first identifying and analyzing local potentialities, development trends and driving forces, and then generating imaginatively and synthetically normative and explorative scenarios for the future development of the planned area. It opens a window for longer term visionary possibilities, but also less desirable developments, commanding strategic awareness in assessing the impacts of the planning alternatives in preparation. In the paper, scenario work is developed into a strategic assessment tool and, further, a platform for adjusting different interests in urban planning, by examining it through a case of planning the Otaniemi area, in the city of Espoo neighbouring the capital city of Helsinki, Finland. The area hosts the main campus of Aalto University, which, together with the local government, has high ambitions of developing the area as a world class hub of research and innovation. However, this planning scheme has been challenged by the.
Open Access
Beyond resilience: The role of leadership in progressive planning
(AESOP, 2015) Hambleton, Robin
Resilience has become an influential concept in planning theory and, to some extent, in planning practice. This paper, by drawing on research on the role of place-based leadership in promoting progressive planning and urban innovation in cities in fourteen countries, will suggest that resilience is a concept with serious limitations. On the plus side, the concept has proved itself to be valuable in enhancing understanding of the ability of an ecological system to absorb disturbances and recover from shocks and stresses. But the meaning of the word is now being stretched and applied in an inappropriate way to socio-political systems. The growing misuse of the term is eroding its usefulness in relation to pressing public policy debates. The evidence suggests that, as with the term sustainable development, powerful interests appear to be using the word resilience to promote a depoliticised, or managerial, view of city politics and planning. In much of the recent literature on resilience fundamental social conflicts are downplayed, power structures are neglected, and major challenges facing cities, particularly growing inequality in societies, are overlooked. Research for a new book, Leading the Inclusive City, suggests that paying attention to leadership, and particularly various forms of place-based leadership, can provide helpful insights on how to tackle social and environmental ills. The paper suggests that it may be possible to strengthen resilience theory and practice, certainly as it relates to urban and regional governance, by injecting ideas drawn from the study of place-based leadership.