II - PhD Workshop

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Open Access
A Planned Risk?
(AESOP, 1999) Snary, Christopher D.
Main theme of PhD Planning applications for waste disposal units are notoriously met by considerable local opposition. In the case of waste incinerators much of this opposition has been centred upon the potential that the emissions have to pose a health risk. There has been a tendency among waste management companies to view such concerns as irrational, and consequently to approach the problem with a view that education and the provision of information will induce positive changes in people's perceptions towards waste incinerators. This approach has been widely criticised for: being unsuccessful at reducing the level of local opposition accompanying incinerator planning applications; not realising that the problem goes well beyond NIMBY and involves issues of risk perception, trust, and fundamental decisions about the most appropriate waste management strategy (1); and, not making decisions through fair and competent discourse (2). It is increasingly being realised that risk must be looked at within a social context (3); (4), and that non-uniform scientific approaches to assessing environmental risk could be producing non-consistent results (5). Much literature and past research has established risk as a socially constructed problem. Theories on public perception of risk indicate that risk has physical, psychological, social, political, ethical, and economic dimensions (6); (7); (8); (9); (10); and (11). Therefore, it can be said that the effective assessment of risk requires an interdisciplinary approach that recognises the inherent scientific and social pluralities; an integration of scientific and non-scientific perspectives that are both expert in their contexts; and a recognition of citizen knowledge and expertise.
Open Access
A Study of the Behaviour and Cognitive Maps of Tourists in the City
(AESOP, 1999) Wilson, Julie
Lutz and Ryan (1997) have observed that in the 1980's in the UK, both central and local government turned to tourism as one means of generating economic growth. The decline in the inner cities of the UK stimulated a range of urban regeneration policy initiatives and an increasing importance was attached to tourism as a possible generator of employment, albeit often in association with retail and property development and linked to wider civilisation policies. Along these lines, Murphy (1992) notes that urban tourism cannot be regarded as an 'isolated attraction' of the city but is by definition strongly anchored in the urban morphology and the functional urban system. Furthermore, it is clear that within cities, few facilities could be identified as exclusively intended for 'tourists'. A second difficulty with the study of urban tourism is inherent in the wide variety of motives, spatial origins and patterns of behaviour of visitors to cities. (Ashworth, 1989) Existing research has tended to concentrate on the profiling of single cities using facility and supply side approaches, or adopting an ecological approach by attempting to map the tourist 'district' within a city. Further to this, policy approaches have been initiated, following a realisation by planners that the growth of urban tourism requires the ongoing provision of a high quality tourist experience. More recently, there has been a need for cities to compete for tourist markets - cities which may display similar touristic attributes. (Page, 1993). Promoters of urban tourism are increasingly conscious of the necessity for a distinctive 'position' within the marketplace.
Open Access
About the Grenoble PhD Workshop, July 3-6th 2024
(AESOP, 2024)
Thematic Workshops 1# The role of narrative in urban and planning research Room T204 Juliet Davis & Jean-Michel Roux 2# Supervising your supervisor: what can and should you expect from your supervisor? Room T205 Myriam Houssay & Renaud Le Goix 3# Alternative scientific writing: filmic methods Room T206 Noa Schumacher & Laure Brayer 4# Co-producing the research with non-academic actors Room T207 Adriana Diaconu & Frederic Santamaria
Open Access
«Are there identifiable trends in Planning Research? .... I wouldn't say so; there's actually no planning research at all!»
(AESOP, 1999) Fubini, Alex
The title of my paper is provocative; I intend to say that - at least in Italy- planning research has been extremely static over the last 40 years, with the consequence that no new trends in research have been developed. Through a discussion on the meaning of planning as a profession, on planning teaching as intended in Italy and a comparison with other European cases, derives my suggestion for a new planning teaching strategy based on a critical and theoretical formation of the student rather than on his/her practical training via professional simulation. The Italian context; «too much means nothing». Since the '60s the concept of planning reform has been linked to a wider and more comprehensive context including land and local authorities reforms, where the latter were considered prerequisites for the former to happen. Planners attributed themselves a political role (land and planning reforms are different though, being the first a political matter and the second a social, theoretical and technical one), with the consequence of impoverishing the planning profession as a whole.
Open Access
Book of abstracts : AESOP PhD workshop 1999, Finse, Depertment of Geography Univeristy of Bergen, Norway
(AESOP, 1999)
The AESOP PhD Workshop 1999 aims at constituting a small forum of discussion of PhDs in Planning Issues, bringing together a group of PhD students from AESOP member schools and a group of well known planning professors in an informal environment. The focus of the workshop is dedicated to the specificity of a PhD in planning. We are focusing on the role of paradigms in planning research, the role of theory and methodological approach, the relation between theory and empirical analysis in a PhD thesis. We will as well discuss the process in PhD work from idea to final thesis and whether there are identifiable trends in planning research. The workshop is structured into plenary lectures and group sessions. There will be five lectures by the invited teachers. There will be group sessions on Sunday and Monday at which the PhD students will present their papers, and group sessions on Tuesday at which there will be sought a structured discussion on the different theoretical and methodological aspects of the work with a PhD thesis. Structure of the workshop The workshop is structured in three types of sessions with specific, and different objectives: Plenary sessions of approximately 90 minutes length. There will be 5 such sessions - two on Sunday morning, two on Monday morning and one on Tuesday morning. In these sessions the invited professors and lecturers will present their lecture followed by a discussion. In these discussions all participants are urged to approach the themes of discussion in the light of their own training background, research and practice experience, as well as in the context of the planning school you come from. It is fundamental to keep track of the content of these plenary sessions in order to adress the topics in group sessions, after the PhD presentations.
Open Access
Change of the Urban Periphery: Indicators of Restructuring Existing Spatial Structures
(AESOP, 1999) Friedrich, Sabine
The urban development in the last fifty years in Western Europe is characterized by the period of postwar growth, which has provoked the sub- and disurbanisation. The present agglomeration is the result of these processes. This newly developed urban creation is now consolidating and at the same time a process of renewal has begun. This become visible in the increasing need of change, which for example is represented in the growing rate of fallows, costs of renewal for the owners of the buildings but also shown in a more and more small scale and differentiating change of the social structure. In the building investment balance-sheets of Switzerland, in 1989 the costs for urban renewal has forced up the costs for new construction (Wüest and others 1990). But most of these renewal projects take a planless course, in the way for example of facade renovations, modernisations of the ground plans and therefore only short time superficial improvement is produced. Still the demolition rate is less than 0.5 per mille (Wüest and others 1990). And still the urban sprawl of the agglomeration is faster than the population growth. The existing potentials to limit the growth were used inadequately. For the understanding of the growth processes and the slowly starting restructuring of «the urban» there has to be developed a deeper knowledge of the reasons. The period of urban growth was a result of the fordism, which had its dominant period between 1950 and 1975. The need for land for industrial use in the booming branches and residential areas for the employees exploded the borders of the traditional cities. The urban development moved more and more into the environment, the periphery, deep into the urban hinterland.
Open Access
Designing Enviromental Planning Strategies that Intergrate Stakeholder Beliefs and Scientific Models: A Case Study of Lake Lanier
(AESOP, 1999) Coffin, Sarah
Integrated assessment modeling (IAM) is a method for handling complex issues, integrating information from various scientific disciplines and stakeholders, such that decision-makers are informed of the science as well as the stakeholder interests (van Asselt and Rotmans, 1995). It was popularized as the method for studying the impacts of global climate change on various environmental factors such as agricultural production. The focus of IAM is on process, with integration among disciplines and stakeholders, offering solutions that otherwise would have been ignored by a study with singular focus, for example climatology (Rotmans et. al., 1997). While typically focusing on the larger issues associated with global change, we find the IAM exercise offers lessons in integrating multiple disciplines and community interests in studying the impacts of the environmental issues associated with planning. We have applied IAM to the issue of water quality, focusing on the effects of various determinants on the water quality of a rapidly urbanizing watershed. Lake Sidney Lanier was created in 1956 as one of the US Army Corps of Engineers projects designed to manage water flow and supply, river navigation, and to provide additional power supply to the rural regions in the Southeastern section of the US. The project involved construction of the Buford Dam, which impounded stream flow from the Chattahoochee River, just south of where it is joined by the Chestatee River. Originally intended to serve rural communities, Lake Lanier is now considered part of the rapidly growing Metro Atlanta, Georgia Region of the US, providing additional important economic development opportunities such as recreation and tourism. As a multi-use reservoir, the lake provides recreation, water supply, electrical supply, navigation,and flood control. In 1991, Lake Lanier was the most frequently visited of the Army Corps lakes in the US. Given the region's rapidly developing urbanization, the Lake Lanier watershed is facing increasing pressure to make wise land-use decisions, thus bringing more focused attention to the area (Hatcher, et. al., 1994; Beck, et. al., 1998; Kundell, et. al, 1998; Limno-Tech, inc., 1998).
Open Access
Economic functions and spatial planning
(AESOP, 1999) Ploeger, Ralph
Introduction In 1990, the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy wrote that in the last decades the big cities transformed from pioneer into slow developer concerning economic growth (WRR, 1998). This trend developed in spite of national spatial policy, which promoted concepts stressing concentration of activity in and around big cities and mainports. Real trends point in another direction. Since 1960, all metropolitan areas in The Netherlands have undergone a significant spatial economic transition. The city is not the place where activities concentrate anymore. Since the sixties economic growth has increasingly been concentrated at the edge of the city, or even the periphery. Urban researchers stress that it is better to refer to what we used to call the city as part of an urban field, that has a spatial structure that is less obvious. Theoretical background When looking at the spatial dynamics of economic activity through the eyes of a spatial planner, it is important to understand that functions are essentially free to move and that a city is not (Salet, 1998). Even though economic geographers today realise that firm behaviour is not just regulated by economic forces, and that spatial, political and temporal forces also play a role in decision making, planners have to realise that the city as such is not the natural focal point of the economy, and that economic activity does not have a natural tendency to locate in this centre. It is the other way around. For a number of reasons, maybe not relevant anymore today, economic functions located in the city. As a result, it became the focal point of essentially unattached economic activity, and resulting natural interrelations generated a surplus value. Today, when firms have to choose a location, the mixed activity pool in the central city area is a location condition to consider.
Open Access
Economic-Geographical Aspects of Development of International Tourism in Bulgaria
(AESOP, 1999) Gasanov, Zaur
Bulgaria is one of the South-eastern European countries, in which the tourist activity in the last years has developed substantially. The economic-geographical study of recreational resources and economic activity and the evaluation of their their rational usage in Bulgaria may have practical significance for consideration of organizational-methodical problems of realization of the recreational potential in Azerbaijan. I have for this reason undertaken an investigation of the Bulgarian tourist industry, aiming at a comparative evaluation of the tourist potentialities of Azerbaijan. Bulgaria possesses favourable recreational resources. The premises for development of seaside recreation are significant. Of the 378 kms. of the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria about 100 kms. Have beaches with quartz sands. The northern and central parts of the coast are specially well endowed with beaches of considerable size. The general beach areas constitute 7 million. sq. meters, and with allowance for 16 million sq. meters of dunes this roughly accounts for the ability of the Bulgarian coasts to accept in a season (120-150 days) 5-6 million visitors, and in the peak weeks 0.7-0.9 million people recreating on the coast. The recreational resources of the inland regions in Bulgaria have been utilized to a much lesser degree than the seaside, though in Bulgaria there are good conditions for development of inland tourism as well; 28.2 % of the country's territory are mountains, from which 2,5 % are in a high-mountainous belt higher than 1600 m. above sea level. The duration of the possible recreation season in the mountains constitutes 210-240 days, making a profit of the needed infrastructure investments reasonably secure. In Bulgaria there is an impressive material and technical basis for tourism. But this material and technical basis have a rather uneven geographical distribution, about 60 % is concentrated in the seaside districts, the concentration in large resort complexes is characteristic such as : 'Golden sands', 'Albena', 'Sunny beaches ' etc. According to the forecasts, in year 2000 the number of hotel rooms on the coast will reach 470 thousand.
Open Access
Environmental Management and Planning System in Thailand: The Theory and Practice of Using Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in Decision Making Process
(AESOP, 1999) Pimcharoen, Orapim
Introduction That environmental management should be an integral part of economic development has now world - wide recognition. The problem is how to apply this principle effectively in practice. The incorporation of environmental concerns into the planning process is a relatively new procedure for developing countries. An important step which has been taken is that most developing countries now have ministries and agencies which are responsible for environmental protection (Biswas, 1992). In addition, various methodologies and tools have been introduced and aimed at integrating a full consideration of environmental impacts into development activities. Whilst the tools may be similar or common, the practice is made more difficult by the different contexts of each country. Developing countries such as Thailand had themselves undergoing major and significant changes in their socio-economic systems which are different from the Western industrialised countries. Many developing countries are rapidly modernising by acquiring advanced technology. They therefore have jumped some stages of development, and this often presents a strange combination of old and new technologies operating side by side. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an instrument widely used internationally and has become a standard tool in decision-making process associated with large scale development projects. The EIA process is often based on procedures transferred from the Western industrialised countries to the developing countries. The question is how appropriate and effective are such procedures in helping to deliver the new objective of sustainable development.
Open Access
From Idea to Dissertation or From Practitioner to Researcher
(AESOP, 1999) Nilsson, Kristina
A practitioner of municipality planning lives in a system of hierarchical organisations and are often expected to work in a technical-rational way and give realistic alternatives possible to implement in a narrow future. In the past time planners were respected professionals in the local authority and in the duty for the politicians. But today in the post-modern era it is not that easy to be a planner, the planning processes are questioned and criticised not to be enough flexibel and useful in a new liberal society. In this questioning of the past and in a vacuum before something new, it is understandable that the practitioners ask the researchers how to handle the situation. After 18 years as a planner in urban and regional planning I started for teaching at the newly established planning education at an also recently established small university in Karlskrona, Southern Sweden. During the years of teaching I had profited from my earlier experiences from practice and the new situation gave me motives to reflect over my earlier practice. The question started to grow, what is going to happen with the planning profession in the future, what knowledge and competence are going to be expected from the planners? My questioning got so urgent to me that instead of asking other researchers I started own research studies in which I have combined my interest for planners competence with a focus on sustainability issues in comprehensive planning. Research is a quite different way of thinking than practice. The researcher doesn't accept the ordinary description or explanation to something without scrutinise both earlier knowledge and thinking about a phenomena or questioning the phenomena itself. Research is to study critically, test, develop ideas, theories, perspectives, way of observing and understanding phenomenon.
Open Access
From Theory to Methodology and Back Again: The Need for Planning Researchers to Engage with Methodological Concerns
(AESOP, 1999) Campbell, Heather
Concerns associated with the development and implementation of the methodologies which underpin empirical investigations often seem to be treated as if they are of marginal significance to the research endeavour. For example, refereed journal articles seldom discuss the detailed decisions surrounding the conduct of a piece of research. This element is omitted in favour of concentration on the theory informing the research and the implications of the findings; yet it is the methodology which provides the link between the theory and the findings and consequently is instrumental in determining the validity and reliability of the conclusions. The result of this lack of discussion and engagement with methodological concerns has been the creation of something of an academic myth that carrying out a study is a relatively straight-forward and unproblematic undertaking. Experience suggests quite the reverse and that moreover if the quality of research is to develop and progress in the planning field there is much to be gained from open and honest discussion of the theoretical and practical issues associated with the methodological aspects of research. The purpose of this paper therefore is a plea for greater engagement with methodological concerns. In the context of this discussion it is assumed that methodology includes both the techniques used in the field to collect data and also the approach adopted to analyse and interpret the resulting material. The paper is divided into two parts, the first examines existing perspectives on research methods in planning while the second focuses on the seemingly poorly developed relationship between theory and methodology.
Open Access
High-Rise Housing Estates as Vehicles of Social Exclusion in Post-Socialist Cities
(AESOP, 1999) Egedy, Tamas
Housing estates cannot be considered merely as products of the socialist system since they can also be found in Western Europe thought their significance and role differ from that of the former socialist countries. Housing estates on the housing market of Western countries are important, nevertheless they represent only a low proportion of the whole dwellingstock (P. Dunleavy 1981, U. Herlyn 1989, E. Van Kempen - S. Musterd 1991). In spite of that, from the beginning of the 1980's almost all western-european governments made attempts to carry out various programs on modernization and rehabilitation of housing estates. The problems in East-Central European countries turn up to be more serious, since the number of dwellings in housing estates and people living there goes far beyond the West-European scales. (W. Rietdorf - H. Liebmann - T. Knorr-Siedow 1994, E. Müller 1997). Building quality is in many cases lower and rehabilitation is very needed, However, steps for renewal have not been accomplished as yet. The idea of housing estate and the building of the first housing estates in Hungary dates back to the turn of the century, but an overall expansion was not accomplished till after the II. World War. Considering the size, building material and technology, we can talk about generations of high-rise estates, which apart from the built environment show significant differences in terms of the natural and the social environment (Hegedûs J. 1987, Szelényi 1990, Kovács Z. 1998).
Open Access
How ringroads change urban areas On the relationship between planning, administrative and private activities, and their impact on urban territory
(AESOP, 1999) van Nes, Akkelies
The project's purpose and scope Up to now the average age of a street was about 1000 years, while the usage of urban space is changing almost continuously. These changes affect in particularly a street's location, its capacity and its design. They influence the future physical structure of the street's immediate surroundings, i. e. its architectural form, the usage of land, the treatment of floor space, transformation processes in general and even the city's future form. During the last 40 years the various functions of streets in Norway have changed considerably. Due to an increase in urban population and car traffic the transport capacity of the urban street system had to change. The new turn towards upgrading of the urban main road system in the mid 80s, particularly through constructions of tunnels, has emphasised the importance of urban transformation through development of the street network. New streets that are intended to account for the city's increasing traffic, influence the use of space in the vicinity of newly established roads. These changes in turn affect urban transformation, changes in floor space and the global development (the concept used as Hillier) of the future city area. It will be particularly interesting to investigate the changing neighbourhood along a new road, especially at points where it crosses other roads in the urban grid.
Open Access
In search of the urban field: Past, present and future of urbanisation and urbanisation policy in the Netherlands and Europe
(AESOP, 1999) Bontje, Marco
At the end of the 20th century, the future spatial design of the Netherlands is being debated heavily in the public sphere. The government intends to publish the Fifth Report on Physical Planning before the end of this year. This provokes a lot of discussion about which direction planning policy should take. Quite often, scientists and politicians mention the formation of so- called urban fields. This would be the next step in the process of continuous deconcentration of population, work and services: first there were cities, then monocentric urban regions, then polycentric urban regions (like the Randstad) and now, the urban fields are supposed to be the 'next big thing'. These urban fields lack a clear centre. Population, work, services and recreational facilities are spread across a large area. The mobility pattern connected to this is characterised by a 'criss-cross' pattern: daily travels are no longer for the largest part between suburb and city, but more and more city-to-city and suburb-to-suburb. This formation of urban fields might actually be happening, but it might as well not be. So far, a lot of visionary things have been said about the urban fields, but empirical evidence was hardly presented. Are we really heading for urban fields in the Netherlands? What consequences would this have for Dutch planning policy, at the moment still aiming at a compact city development?
Open Access
Institutional Potential of Housing Cooperatives for Low Income Households: The Case of India
(AESOP, 1999) Ganapati, Sukumar
Several countries have often considered Housing Cooperatives as a third sector alternative to the public and private sector for low-income housing (1). They emphasize different roles of the cooperative; for example, as tenant management organizations that replace public housing management (2); as community based and self-help organizations (3); or as vehicles for group credit (4). The cooperative organizations have also obtained preferential treatment (e.g. subsidies, land allocation, etc.) based on the rationale that they benefit low-income households (5). However, there is scarce literature on the institutional capacity of the cooperatives to serve low-income households and the conditions under which they do serve such households. As the experience of the housing cooperatives in New York, Sweden, Turkey, and India indicate, they serve a range of income groups, and they may or may not reach the lower income strata. This paper examines the organizational potential of the cooperatives to indeed provide housing to low-income households, and the institutional conditions under which the potential is achieved. The examination is based on the Indian context, using the three cities of Bombay, New Delhi, and Madras as empirical basis. Although the study is based in India, it offers broader lessons for housing policy on the role of collective organizations like cooperatives for low-income housing. The study is especially germane in the present context when international agencies are emphasizing an enabling approach to housing (6). The examination is done by a comparative institutional analysis of the Housing Cooperatives in the three cities. There are two dimensions affecting the functioning of the cooperatives: (i) the internal governance features of the cooperative (e.g. management), and (ii) the external institutional framework (e.g. laws, policies). As a collective organization, the cooperative has several features that potentially aid low-income households.
Open Access
Interdependencies of Spatial Planning «in» and «for»Europe Effects of European spatial planning perspectives on the spatial planning systems of the Nordic countries especially at the regional planning level
(AESOP, 1999) Bohme, Kai
A new catchword, as bright and promising as a rainbow, echoes in our circles: «European Spatial Planning». The term covers at least two different concepts. Ever since the first official draft of the «European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP)» was presented and adopted in Noordwijk (1997), European Spatial Planning has been mainly connected to the idea of planning for Europe. In addition, however, there is another conception, a bottom-up approach, on which the ESDP is based: European spatial planning also describes the variety and diversity of spatial planning concepts and systems within Europe. In this contribution I will try to briefly examine the interrelationship between planning for Europe and planning in Europe, focusing on the Nordic countries and especially their regional planning level. The principal aim is to investigate, how different European spatial planning systems influence the spatial planning approach for Europe and vice versa. To facilitate discussion, I use a grouping of European national spatial planning systems into certain families, one of which covers the Nordic countries. In the first part of the paper I look at the question of families/groupings of spatial planning systems in Europe. Proceeding from this to the main topic of this paper, the second part touches the question of the influence of the ESDP on the Nordic countries as manifest at the regional planning level. Since spatial planning is not included in the competence of the European Commission, the ESDP is designed as a bottom-up and not a top-down process. In fact, it is an inter-governmental approach adopted by the EU member states, although it has often be claimed that the ESDP is a product of French, German and Dutch planning thinking and planning traditions (Rusca 1998). Viewed from the perspective of planning families, this would mean that the ESDP rests on a mixture of Napoleonic and Germanic styles. If this is the case, what would this mean for planning in Europe, i.e. the bottom-up dynamics? Even more problematic s the reverse side of the coin: Would the top-down pressure strengthen harmonisation tendencies affecting other planning traditions in Europe?
Open Access
Interpretation of a Disposal for the Coordination Between the Actors of Planning: The Agreeement of Program as a "Space of Interaction
(AESOP, 1999) Tessitore, Paola
Presentation of the research: subjeet and ease-study The central subject of the research is the relations between actors in the implementation of Public Works in Italy. The Agreement of Programme is a disposal for coordination introduced by the national law 142/90 regarding the renewal of the competences of the local bodies. In the law the recourse to the Agreement of Programme is suggested for the "definition and implementation of public works, interventions and programmes of interventions that require for their complete realization an integrated action of municipalities, districts and regions, of national administrations and other public subjects, anyhow of two or more of the subjects above". The research puts forward an interpretation of this disposal for coordination by building up some hypothesis that take start from the literature on the theme and compare it with three concrete case-studies. The main references come from the reflections of the Planning theory on the ethical dimension of Planning, from the critical contributions of the Public Policy Analysis, and from some last achievements of the Sociological disciplines: actor-based approches, theory of action, principles and applications of principles in planning.
Open Access
Local Agenda 21 as a Challenge to Planning
(AESOP, 1999) Niemenmaa, Vivi
This is a research scheme aiming at Ph.D. in planning geography. Main interests are in Local Agenda 21, planning theory (participation and communicative planning) and urban studies. Study concentrates on Local Agenda 21 as a challenge to planning process. The purpose of the study is to find out if local Agenda 21 is renewing planning processes. Background Local Agenda 21 (LA21) is based on UN's Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro 1992 (UNCED 1992). In the Summit's action plan, Agenda 21, it was recommended to all local authorities in the world to initiate their own Local Agenda 21 process supporting sustainable development. ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) estimated in 1997 that more than 1800 local governments in 64 countries have established a Local Agenda 21 process (ICLEI 1997). The Association of Finnish Local Authorities (1998) has announced the number of Finnish municipalities working with local Agenda as 252 (total number of municipalities 452), and in Sweden all municipalities (288) are implementing LA21 (Svenska Kommunförbundet 1995). Strategies for local sustainability are thus now dominated by LA21 (Selman 1996:107). Different organisations have defined what local Agenda 21 could mean in practice. Also the municipalities which have been forerunners implementing LA21 have moulded general understanding of LA21. Irrespective of who has defined LA21, the importance of participation and communication between different actors is highly emphasized. During the interactive process people try to find a common view of the sustainable community. Sustainability is seen to be secured only if there is widespread popular involvement in the process. Justification for broad public participation is seen as a social justice and as a functional legitimation.
Open Access
Local Economic Neighbourhoods
(AESOP, 1999) Hagetoft, Jonas
Until today, urban renewal and regeneration strategies have not managed to reverse the processes of social exclusion and economic segregation. Still, people living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods have fewer options to improve their quality of life than the mainstream resident. Individual problems remain in spite of all efforts to improve social conditions by physical upgrading and improved public services. One of the most important causes is unemployment. There is an obvious need for local economic development (LED) in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, which has been recognised throughout Europe. The Swedish Government relies on the economic growth in small and medium sized enterprises to solve the unemployment crisis. At the local level, in municipalities and city districts, it will become necessary to promote these enterprises to contribute effectively to economic growth and to reduce unemployment. Being a neglected area, there is a great need for knowledge about local economy and its impacts on the social conditions. Strategies aiming at local economic development have the potential to reach beyond the creation of job occasions. The image of a neighbourhood is very important in regeneration projects and can be positively influenced by LED strategies. Further, LED approaches have the potential to provide residents with the self- confidence, knowledge and skills to enter the ordinary labour market.