The pure and slave science of large scale urban projects: convergences between Belo Horizonte north and south projects, Brazil
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Date
2016
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AESOP
Abstract
Recent world prospects of urban population growth have put cities at the centre of global challenges debate. All over the word, massive investments are pushing urban regeneration initiatives, essentially through Large Scale Urban Projects (LSUPs). In the last three decades, this group of urban interventions has been linking urban renewal, mobility infrastructure improvements, and large architectural interventions through public private partnerships and selective deregulation in urban policy. This paper analyses the dichotomy between the pros and cons of global LSUP to discuss the agents’ role in two Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Area LSUPs.
In general, the arguments in favour of LSUPs associate these with international urban design, architecture and city management best practice. In this background, LSUPs are a ‘pure science’ oriented by urban design technique. On this basis, LSUPs distortions and impacts tend to be blamed on external factors, such as lack of political will or speculative action of economic forces. On the other hand, LSUPs can be criticised for being a 'slave science' to neoliberal determinism in urban policy, i.e. a final product of market friendly urban policies. On this basis, LSUPs problems are not a distortion, but result of a bigger process.
The paper discusses how that such pure and slave dichotomy has an important role in LSUPs production by comparing two LSUPs in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The first one uses the Aerotropoles approach to articulate a set of interventions in the North Vector of Belo Horizonte. The second one named C-SUL is a new district driven by new urbanism concepts.
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Proceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the south
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