Nourishing Urban Resilience through a Territorial Food Systems Approach
The global scientific and political discourse on sustainable urban transition has gradually acknowledged the significant role of food in enabling a more equitable, just and ecological scenario for city-regions. Emerging research and policies underline the effectiveness of adopting a food system perspective to address food sustainability's complex nature, providing ways to understand and analyse barriers and synergies within food scenarios (Sonnino, 2023). The system perspective provides a holistic scope accounting for all food-related socioeconomic activities and stakeholders participating in (producers, delivery companies, resellers, and consumers) or influencing (policy-makers, advocators, organisations) the food supply chains (Cabannes & Marocchino, 2018). However, translating such a comprehensive approach into policy frameworks involves significant challenges. In such circumstances, cross-scale and multidisciplinary planning can help overcome sociopolitical and institutional limitations and resistance to change in planning systems (Béné et al., 2019; Kassis et al., 2021). Therefore, the current international food debate supports integrating food and spatial planning policies as a means to promote and implement a food system perspective in policies. Spatial planning can offer procedures to protect and manage peri-urban and rural farmlands and reconnect them to the nearest cities through a food relocalisation process, allowing physical and cultural proximity between producers and other food stakeholders (Brandt et al., 2019). Nevertheless, policy frameworks with such integration are scarce and often limited to sectoral approaches, lacking a more significant commitment to a food system perspective, such as in the Portuguese context. In Portugal, the COVID-19 pandemic scenario sped up the creation of the first National food strategy (Estratégia Nacional de Segurança Alimentar e Nutrição), explicitly but timidly referring to the food system and food relocalisation in their guidelines (Portuguese Government, 2021). The strategy acknowledges local-regional self-provisioning as crucial for a just, sustainable, resilient food transition. Nevertheless, the National food policy framework still needs to refine the approaches to translate the strategic plan's vision and goals into local actions and establish methods to monitor the policies' progress and effectiveness. Given those circumstances, the present project aims to analyse to what extent the current policy frameworks in Europe support food and spatial planning’s policy integration and how it can promote a more sustainable, just, and resilient food transition. The research argues that spatial planning can significantly contribute to creating territorialised/localised food systems, fostering linkages between urban centres and agricultural landscapes and territorial cohesion. Therefore, this research will conduct a literature review examining the contextual policy frameworks in which i) food planning embraces a systemic perspective, ii) spatial planning procedures contribute to the territorialisation of food systems, and iii) food planning practices inform spatial development strategies. Moreover, the literature review’s results will help illustrate the primary rationales and practices while developing a conceptual framework related to the food system perspective and spatial planning. The conceptual framework will assist in a deeper analysis of the Portuguese scenario, considering its differences in spatial planning systems and governance to elaborate a new conceptual proposal for promoting food relocalisation strategies at a city-region level across the country.
Copyright (c) 2024 Daniel Maia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Energy-dependent urban densification towards a new strategic development model in Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa’s rapid urbanisation must be understood as integrated into a peculiar culture and serving the needs of a rapidly developing society. Against a rigid and partially outdated urban planning framework, new policy-driven urban development is necessary to achieve sustainable city growth and deal with contextualised factors. For this purpose, this study looks at the urban setting of Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. It demonstrates that renewable technologies may be used as a tool towards a net zero strategic territorial development, with ongoing horizontal growth finally able to be the cradle for an energy transition towards a different urban development model. The research proposes a theoretical framework setting on-site energy production as a constraint for urban densification; by capping maximum energy consumption in a building within the maximum amount of energy produced on-site, the morphological dimensions could be controlled: (1) dwellers’ density, (2) site coverage, (3) floor area ratio, and (4) number of storeys. This approach would address urban and energy challenges by controlling horizontal and vertical expansion through clean energy generation. Subsequently, such an energy-driven urban transition would limit the exposure to the risks deriving from rapid urbanisation and climate change, paving the way to a regulated, strategic, and sustainable territorial development model. This research aims to set up a method of easy implementation for energy-self-sufficient urban areas, guiding the region towards sustainable development. It will be of interest to researchers, policymakers and institutions, and NGOs working for sustainable urban development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Copyright (c) 2024 Federica Fiacco, Kezala Jere, Gianni Talamini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Greening the void: actions for the de-sealing and renaturalisation of soils in brownfield regeneration processes
The decommissioning of large industrial sites has started a long and complex ‘season’ in which different actions for their reuse and regeneration have emerged. In addition to the preservation of existing structures and the construction of new buildings (obtained after the demolition of existing facilities), projects have emerged that have chosen to combine the actions with specific soil desealing interventions. This 'demolition without reconstruction' has generated a new permeability of soils previously 'sealed' by built volumes or surfaces and created the conditions for the construction of new public facilities (e.g. public parks), the partial renaturalisation of areas, and the creation of new Ecosystem services. The analysis of a selection of brownfield redevelopment experience, characterized by a common interest in the partial de-impermeabilisation of soils, makes it possible to compare both the spatial effects produced by these processes and the relative variety of planning policies adopted to foresee and implement these interventions. The contribution proposes the identification, analysis, and comparison of some regeneration processes of large brownfield sites, selected in different Italian cities (Milan, Turin, Trento, etc.), which are characterised by the promotion of partial soil desealing interventions and the implementation of Nature-based Solutions. The contribution also intends to analyse the correlations between planning policies and de-sealing, highlighting the objectives sought, the results obtained (in terms of green areas), and any concepts/terms considered to support/guide this type of intervention.
Copyright (c) 2024 Emanuele Garda https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Digital Seascapes: digital technologies for building resilience of coastal environments
Global strategic goals for creating sustainable resilient cities and growing concern over the climate crisis, including human impacts upon coastal waters and degradation of marine environments, requires that coastal cities empower and inspire communities to cherish city seascapes by developing innovative solutions. (Leyshon, 2018, Toomey et al., 2020, Fletcher and Potts, 2008, Zsamboky et al., 2011, Nursey-Bray, 2017). Place based digital technologies in this regard have the potential to create marine citizenship by building and nurturing relationships between people and marine environments to establish and care for the sea as a shared resource. (Cigliano et al., 2015, Conrad and Hilchey, 2010, Kelly et al., 2020, Willis and Gupta, 2023, Holland, 2021) This research used a community co-design approach in Plymouth- UK’s first national marine park to explore whether place-based digital technologies can engage communities with the marine spaces and make coastal areas more accessible; especially for excluded neighbourhoods close to the sea. Using the collaborative community-led concept of a city marine park (Pittman et al., 2019), it also explored the role of digital technologies within marine spatial planning practices for creating marine citizenship against the challenge of building coastal resilience. By facilitating access to temporal and biodiverse marine spaces such as rocky shores (inter-tidal rockpools), place-based digital technologies can create new ways for communities to access and engage with the sea/marine environment; in turn establishing a sense of place. We argue this can contribute to coastal resilience by establishing stewardship of city seascapes as a ‘blue commons. Further, an integrated approach using digital placemaking within marine spatial planning can help build community capacity and the necessary cross-sector collaborations for addressing challenges around resilience.
Copyright (c) 2024 Ashita Gupta, Katharine Willis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Redefining Urban Neighborhoods: Applying the 15-Minute City Concept in Seoul
Background and Objectives This study proposes a new method using daily mobility data in order to redefine neighborhood boundaries, reflecting residents’ actual travel patterns. Inspired by the '15-Minute City' concept, which focuses on creating accessible zones based on travel time, this approach seeks to transform urban planning by aligning neighborhood planning with actual mobility patterns. We aim to apply this methodology to Seoul's existing Neighborhood Plan, which is segmented into 116 zones based on population size, to assess potential new area definitions. Furthermore, this study compares our new zone boundaries with Seoul's '2030 Neighborhood Plan' to assess the congruence of functional neighborhood boundaries. Methods This study focused on residents living in the Seoul Metropolitan Area and used the 2016 and 2021 National Household Travel Survey data. We employed network analysis based Community Detection techniques using the Louvain algorithm to delineate neighborhood zones of Seoul. The research focuses on selected travel data within a 15-minute timeframe, focusing on walking and cycling modes, to examine the nature and extent of neighborhood-based activities. We compared travel and neighborhood patterns between 2016 and 2021. Additionally, the study quantified the extent to which these derived boundaries align with the 116 neighborhood zones outlined in Seoul's 2030 Neighborhood Plan using the Jaccard Index. Results Using community detection on Seoul's mobility data, we discovered dynamic neighborhood zones distinct from the conventional 116 zones. The analysis of travel data within a 15-minute timeframe revealed new neighborhood zones that more accurately reflect residents' actual walking and cycling patterns, diverging from existing planned zones. Furthermore, a comparison with the 2030 Community Plan using the Jaccard Index identified both alignments and discrepancies, highlighting areas with potential for urban planning improvements. Conclusion This study redefined neighborhood boundaries precisely, enabling a comparison with Seoul's current neighborhood zones. By evaluating the extent to which existing urban plans reflect actual mobility patterns, the research offers insights into the complex dynamics of urban movement and functional neighborhood structures, suggesting ways to improve the precision and adaptability of urban planning.
Copyright (c) 2024 Jung Woo Kim, Bumjoon Kang https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Knowledge production processes for spatial justice in transition times
In this paper, I discuss invited (including co-production) and activist bottom-up forms of knowledge production to highlight their relations with power and their transformative potential in affecting the construction of more socio-environmentally just urban space for vulnerable communities of human and non-human. My goal is not to produce normative and conclusive answers on the topic. It is to reflect on the potentialities of each of these forms of knowledge prodcution in triggering ontological and epistemological changes in oppressive frames of thinking and action. It highlights problems to be faced by different actors when involved in even small planning actions opposing stressful and unjust ways of living. The first part of the paper reflects on recent theoretical transitions that have influenced ways of conceiving knowledge production to outline an interpretative framework which is oriented to highlight differences and possibilities in the transitions from a style to another of knowledge production. In the second part, I tell the story of Taranto an industrial city in a post-modern, ecologically oriented Europa which has seen almost 25 years of conflicting truth on its industrial and polluting past, present and future, which has involved different actors (including professionals) and ways of knowledge production in different periods to solve the "working or dying" dilemma. Nowadays, after years of knowledge conflicts, it seems that we have arrived at "the end of double truth". I trace the changes and permanence in producing knowledge through my own although "light" involvement and conversations with citizens, professionals and activists. The interpretation confirms that coproduction produce material, tangible effects. However, they are unable to change power relations among actors and the dominant onto-epistemologies of spatial injustice. On the contrary they are reproductive and diffusive of reproductions of dynamics and logic of oppression. They are used as a way to channel vulnerable communities' discomfort into a stream of actions that facilitate adaptation to unjust urban and regional transformations. They also reproduce delegitimization, disempowerment and isolation of dissonant voices ( of activist s and experts) or attempts of independent thinking as unacceptable costs for making any process effective. As a result, innovative ways of participation strengthen the division between professionals and public administration, which sits on the one side and citizens on the other, while associations assume an ambiguous role. Coproductive forms of engagement diffuse a conception of citizens' engagement as a value-free process based on individual and contingent choices in a context of efficient urban management. Bottom-up collective actions offer more opportunities to transformative interactions. When characterized by genrative thinking and critical openness they are not only focused on tangible and intangible effects. Although ineffective in producing "material" results in the short run, the intangible impacts of these generative collective actions can be relevant in producing a regime shift towards more green socio-environmental urban transformations. By looking at intangible effects, bottom-up knowledge production processes can reconnect people to power relations and redefine the ambiguous role of planners, associations and professionals, which currently risks preventing rather than promoting transformative changes. These processes have to be seen as spaces opened to emergent active collectivities that can help nurture the idea of planning as practice for the caring of places.
Copyright (c) 2024 Valeria Monno https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Neighborhood Transformation. A Case of Gastronomic Displacement. Market forces and place identity
How a city is being transformed due to market forces in a developing country? How do city planning authorities deal with private actors to ensure people’s lives improve? This proposal deals with these questions int the context of a mega city experiencing growth in South America’s Peru. The Santa Cruz neighborhood, in Lima, Peru can be traced to the 1900s when a small portion of one big Hacienda was partitioned, subdivided in small lots, and sold to former slaves (Orrego Penagos 2013). It evolved into basic housing units, concentrating woodshops, car mechanics, basic services, and alike, a “typical” low-income mostly black neighborhood. It coexisted in an otherwise upscale area that took advantage of cheap labor nearby, not a rare phenomenon in South American cities. This reality changed in the early 2000s when affluent investors identified Santa Cruz as cheap land for business; interestingly, the first investors were high-end “eclectic” restaurants. Nowadays Santa Cruz has become a gastronomic hub and a dynamic economic area in the city of Lima (Matt and Garcia 2019; Aguirre Sosa et. al. 2023). With new investment, land prices increased, resulting in forced displacement of the local population; legal actions for evictions, repossessing of land, and active protests by local residents and advocate grassroots organizations, are now happening (Claux 2022). Given the complexity of the Megacity of Lima, and the mixing of racial and cultural realities to this gentrification phenomenon, this case study reflects more nuances worth studying. How do residents react to the change in the character -and value- of their neighborhood? How are planning officials supporting -if at all- local residents? Or big investments? Through detailed review of city documents and local interviews, this paper aims at bringing lessons on how this process has been (mis)managed. We find continuous contradictions between the neighborhood “attractiveness” and historic marginalized populations. Who has the right to the City and how market forces redefine such a question is at the core of our research.
Copyright (c) 2024 Cecilia Giusti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Exploring Contradiction and Coherence of Rural Commodification in Mandalika Megaproject, Indonesia
The Indonesian government has recently promoted megaproject development to boost national economic growth. This policy has triggered socio-spatial transformations in various regions, particularly in tourism development projects that leverage the attractions of local rural landscapes. In addition to large-scale physical development activities, the business cycles/processes inherent in mega-projects utilizing international capital investment force the governance of rural spaces to change according to entrepreneurial logic. This transformation process is closely related to commodification, where rural spaces are considered productive when activities are oriented towards commercialization and financial profit accumulation. Traditionally associated with isolated and idle space, rural spaces are now experiencing dynamic socio-spatial transformations and exposure to the external world, influencing the community's life and its physical landscape. Research on the commodification of rural spaces in the literature shows that the original social, cultural, and spatial characteristics may be permanently lost and replaced with new features and governance logic. This leads to a contradictory process where communities often experience negative externalities from detrimental development, such as eviction, loss of livelihood, and a decline in environmental quality. However, a coherent hybrid process between original and new rural spatial governance characteristics is possible. This process is considered more just and brings positive benefits. Recent research on the commodification of rural spaces still leaves a knowledge gap regarding how these processes of contradiction and coherence can occur. To address the research problems mentioned earlier, this research will utilize the theoretical frameworks of the Creative Destruction Model (Mitchell, 2013) and the Production of Space (Lefebvre, 1991). The Creative Destruction Model can systematically and periodically understand the process of rural commodification through the process of capitalization. Meanwhile, Lefebvre's theory emphasizes that rural space's (re)production process cannot be separated from power relations among actors and their manifestations in socio-spatial practices. Such a framework can reveal their values and perceptions of how space is reproduced. This research argues that coherence and contradiction in commodification are closely related to the efforts of stakeholders to align values and visions in planning/managing rural spaces. Furthermore, megaprojects involving complex actor relations and extensive impacts on the built environment make the effort to align values and visions increasingly challenging. This research analyzes the commodification processes in rural tourism areas resulting from mega-project development in the Mandalika Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in West Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. The SEZ has been one of the most productive tourism mega-projects in recent years, utilizing various natural, cultural, and international sports event attractions. Through conducting a field survey, archiving secondary resources, interviewing stakeholders, and applying content analysis to the data, this research seeks to generate original insights and contribute to the field of rural (planning) studies.
Copyright (c) 2024 Isnu Pratama, Delik Hudalah, Armei Rapudin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Exploring Urban Transformations: An In-depth Analysis of Festival des Cabanes as a co-production of public spaces in Lille
As part of a collaboration between MetroForum (the Chair for Metropolitan Transitions at the University of Lille) and WAAO (the Lille Centre for Architecture and Urban Planning), we are offering a presentation and analysis of public spaces based on the Festival des Cabanes. The Festival des Cabanes is a year-long event that brings together local authorities, associations, architects and the general public to design, build and install huts (cabanes) in various public spaces across the city. This paper is an opportunity to present a reflexive study of public space(s), which we are questioning on the basis of fieldwork and the discourse of those involved, in order to provide “food for thought” on this polysemous concept. Public spaces are understood here as 'physical place(s) that create(s) social links (the public square)' (Aubin 2013: 2). Taken together, these elements make it possible to move away from the 'classic' software of planning and construction, proposing a break with the past by creating spaces for experimentation, sharing and co-elaboration in the city. Through the construction of huts, archetypal architectural objects considered a priori for their own sake, the project in reality embodies a much broader form of production of public spaces and involves co-production between players (metropolis, towns, companies, associations, the public, etc.). We approach this initiative as a moving process that raises questions at every stage. From the search for sites to set up the huts to the life of the huts after the festival, not forgetting the guided tours, the relationship with the landscape and mobility... We see these huts and their integration into the chosen environment as a way of awakening imaginations and collectively questioning our everyday natural environment. The huts are experiments that call into question the "role of the designer, negotiating the consideration of different types of knowledge (professional, user, political), but also, in the background, different representations and images of the city" (Bacqué and Gauthier 2011: 23). The route will be unique in that it will run along the banks of the Deûle (canal) through ten or so communes. From negotiation with elected representatives to define the public spaces that are available and appropriate (safety, regulations, conflicts of use, etc.) to their appropriation by residents (a category that we are defining on the ground), this initiative highlights the complexity of public spaces as places to live, to pass through and to experience conflict. In Lille, for example, they will be installed in urban gaps to revive neglected living spaces. Finally, the reflective work carried out alongside the installations, through the involvement of residents and users and the dissemination of its productions, is also designed to raise public awareness of the research and reflection process around our ways of living in the city, and to give the festival a dual dimension of experimentation and collective reflexivity.
Copyright (c) 2024 Victoria Sachsé, Marc Dumont, Frédérique Delfanne, Léonie Debrabandère https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Research-driven approach to develop Odense (DK) as a resilient port city.
Port cities, historically hubs of global trade and commerce, are experiencing profound transformations, driven by geopolitical changes, technological advancements, demographic trends, and environmental challenges such as sea-level rise. With the changes in the maritime industry and migration of port functions away from central urban areas, numerous waterfronts, which once hosted traditional port activities, are now characterised by underutilised land and infrastructure (Girard et al., 2014, Hein, 2016). As a result, architects, planners, local governments, and private stakeholders continue to embrace urban regeneration, transforming their waterfronts into vibrant urban areas. The process of waterfront regeneration often entails repurposing former port infrastructure and land for mixed-use development, including residential, commercial, and recreational purposes (Giovinazzi and Moretti, 2010). However, since waterfront regeneration projects often prioritise real estate development and mass tourism, they can also have negative social and environmental impacts (Moccia, 2012, Hein, 2016). To facilitate truly sustainable and resilient waterfront regeneration projects, there is a need for a paradigm shift towards a more holistic planning approach. The project case study is located in Odense, the third biggest city in Denmark, and its port is changing from a productive and industrialised harbour into a residential one. These urban development transformations require a deeper understanding of the local dynamics (environmental, social and economic) and external ones, such as climate change. The research aims to reveal common features of resilient port cities, drawing upon case studies, mapping techniques, and a design-based methodology to inform the development of sustainable urban strategies for enhancing the quality of life for the community of Odense Port.
Copyright (c) 2024 Alberto Innocenti, Martin Valinger Sluga, Louise Hedegård Madsen, Siw Mortensen Raunholt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Tracing Rental Housing Financialization - A Spatio-Temporal Approach
The increasing relevance of institutional investors on rental housing markets has recently caught the attention of researchers and policymakers alike. Despite producing relevant insights, the literature on (rental-) housing financialization has traditionally been lacking comprehensive quantitative evidence. Drawing on arguments from both theoretical and applied contributions, we thus propose a quantitative approach to empirically capture housing financialization as a spatio-temporal process. Therefore, data concerning juristical owners, built structures, as well as company activities and ownership chains needs to be assembled and merged. We then derive several measures of rental housing financializaton from these data. To exemplify the value of the proposition, we draw on the case Vienna after the 2008 financial crisis. It can be shown that there has indeed been a significant increase of financialized ownership in rental housing featuring a pronounced spatial pattern, despite the city’s longstanding tradition of decommodified housing provision. This is perceived as a particular challenge for future urban planning.
Copyright (c) 2024 Selim Banabak, Leonhard Plank, Justin Kadi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Principles and rules for spatial planning governance and government in Italy
The paper argues for the need in Italy for a law reforming the planning system as a spatial government activity, which would provide the country with new principles and rules. Consistent with the approach of the Italian Constitution, it is necessary that from these new principles and (few) rules descend regional laws that allow for more effective operations in the respective local municipal systems and the vast metropolitan and regional area. In Italy, we need a national law that is a frame of reference for regional laws aimed at innovating the order and contents of town planning by offering a repertoire of tools that can be used in the field of the relationship between general and particular interests and between public resources and private investments, as well as in the field of the real estate regime, by allowing decision-making and planning processes based on the cooperative dialogue of institutions, making plans more effective and flexible, favouring an operation consistent with the pursuit of shared objectives and values for the conservation, innovation, transformation and development of the territory and the city. Furthermore, the paper intends to highlight that the overcoming of the current national town planning law 1150/42 as integrated by Law 765/67 must be oriented towards the definition of principles aimed at introducing at least some substantial innovative features: - in the planning system and the practices connected to it, such as that of subsidiarity and cooperation between institutions and planning levels in place of the current vertical structure of the hierarchical and sub-ordinate system; - in rethinking the nature and effectiveness of plan contents (structural and strategic, regulatory, operational); - in addressing on a concrete and realistic basis issues such as those of the property regime and the environmental sustainability of territorial transformations; - in redefining the framework of welfare endowments and services, starting from achieving essential levels of services concerning civil and social rights to be guaranteed throughout the national territory and the duties of private and public subjects. The paper intends to emphasise that in Italy, after the reform of Title V of the Constitution in 2001, the overcoming of the current national spatial planning legislation requires a law of principles and a general method of planning, a law with constitutive characteristics to legislative action by the Regions, capable of enhancing the institutional autonomy and governmental autonomy of the regional and local territory, of valorising differences, of identifying those solutions that are suitable for the specificity and diversity of the territories. The paper supports and relaunches planning as an activity of territorial government through a plan that can dictate rules not only for the performance of private initiative but also for public policy and concrete actions of the institution responsible for that plan; it is necessary to move from a plan that exercises public authority (often only formal) to a plan that includes public-private and public-public negotiation transparently and helpfully for the general interest, making it possible to evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of such negotiations not only based on reaching some 'agreement' but of consistency with the 'structural' contents of the plan (constitutive and foundational) and the operational pursuit of the strategies made explicit.
Copyright (c) 2024 Prof. Carolina Giaimo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Exploring Relationships and Conflicts Between Practices, Policies, and Regulations in Wood Pasture Social-Ecological Networks: The Case of Tuscany
Wood pasture is a neutral designation that, following a geographical approach, indicates a type of landscape with trees where grazing is the main driver. From a socio-ecological perspective, wood pasture systems vary depending on the interactions between ecological components, stakeholders involved, management systems, and governance systems. As a practice, wood pasture takes on multiple forms, including traditional, contingency-driven practices based on the economic and land availability of the shepherd/farmer, and innovative practices within agroforestry activities. What distinguishes practitioners' activities is primarily the approach with which a land management plan on the company's territory is or is not designed. In all cases, in Italy, wood pasture practices are regulated by multiple sectoral regulations, which, by not directly considering silvopastoralism, do not facilitate its diffusion and tend to cause the informal execution of practices. In this landscape, an experimental representation of wood pasture practices is proposed as complex socio-ecological systems composed of intersectoral interactions to analyze their characteristics. The hypothesis is that existing relationships are often unstable, non-reciprocal, and conflicting, increasing the distances between different types of practitioners and hindering the diffusion of agroforestry silvopastoral practices. The research's objective is, therefore, to understand how socio-ecological systems of woodland grazing are structured, specifically answering the questions: i) who are the main actors constituting the socio-ecological systems of wood pasture? ii) What are the interactions between the actors? iii) What externalities do these interactions produce? The study context was chosen regionally to have a common regulatory framework regarding forest regulations, measures of activated common agricultural policy, and landscape plans. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with shepherds, farmers, and public officials. Data processing was done through network analysis, allowing the representation of the interaction system of individual practitioners and connecting systems, assessing the degree of collaboration between parties (among shepherds, between shepherds and the political and regulatory system, between regulatory and political sectors). The analysis creates a network composed of nodes and edges, where nodes represent social and ecological actors, while edges represent various types of relationships, whether conflicting or not, between actors. The representation is obtained by calculating three centrality indicators: degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and closeness centrality. The first measures a node's involvement through the number of connections, the second identifies the probability that a node is on the shortest path between two others, highlighting key actors and ecological components in the network, and the third is used to evaluate the average closeness of actors in the network. Preliminary results identify multispecies and multilevel networks forming wood pasture systems where actors in veterinary, agronomic, forestry, landscape, and environmental sectors have non-reciprocal relationships with shepherds and show poor correlation between them. Furthermore, the network highlights the distance between practitioners aware of agroforestry silvopastoral practices integrated into an official knowledge network and shepherds who have been trained through direct or transmitted knowledge moving in informal networks. The multilevel representation model offered by network analysis, experimented in the territorial context of the Tuscany region, is proposed as a model to be implemented and applied to other territorial bases to understand often isolated silvopastoral systems, connect them to territorial data, and assess social and ecological relationships. This methodology, by facilitating the interpretation of wood pasture production systems, has the potential to highlight system criticalities to promote dialogue between sectors, the creation of trans-sectoral collaborative models, and the sharing of knowledge.
Copyright (c) 2024 eugenia epinelli, carlotta Gianni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Active Mobility User Experience: a framework for a better understanding
Problem Statement: Contemporary urban challenges such as health issues, air pollution, climate change, and space scarcity (Pogačar and Šenk, 2021; Mela and Girardi, 2022) necessitate a shift in the future of urban mobility towards active modes of transport. However, despite the evident benefits, many cities worldwide remain entrenched in a car-oriented mobility culture (Koszowski et al., 2019). To dive deeper into the constraints of increasing active modes’ share in cities, this research focuses on the human-environment interactions in walking and cycling. In this regard, we want to develop a better understanding of what constitutes the daily walking/cycling user experience and how should we study that as a fundamental strategy to promote a shift in daily mode choice decisions towards active mobility. Studying the details of human-environment interactions lies in the necessity of capturing user experience in mobility (Müller and Meyer, 2019). User experience (UX) encapsulates the multifaceted dimensions of an individual's interaction with the urban environment during their daily commute. It goes beyond the physical act of movement, encompassing emotions, perceptions, and the overall quality of the journey. By delving into user experiences, planners gain insights into the factors that either encourage or discourage the adoption of active modes, providing a foundation for evidence-based decision-making. To conceptualize user experience within the field of mobility, with a focus on UX for active modes, this study explores existing literature on walking and cycling user experiences systematically, revealing an absence of a comprehensive framework to apprehend and analyze the multifaceted elements shaping the UX of active mobility. In response to this gap, this research introduces a novel framework tailored to study the UX of active mobility modes. The framework is structured around three interconnected dimensions: the built environment, the natural environment, and subjective characteristics. Methodology: The methodology used in this research is a systematic literature review. The review process involved searching for relevant literature in various databases, including Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science. The search was conducted using keywords such as "active mobility", “walking”, “cycling”, "user experience", and "framework". The inclusion criteria for the literature were that it should be published in English, peer-reviewed, and relevant to the topic of active mobility user experience. Results: The results of the literature review led to the introduction of a framework to study user experience in active modes. The framework contains three main components: built environment, natural environment, and subjective characteristics. We believe this framework is concise, comprehensive and applicable to various contexts and enables researchers as well as practitioners to investigate and enhance the daily experience of pedestrians and cyclists. The built environment component of the framework is essential because it provides the physical infrastructure for active mobility. The quality of the built environment can significantly affect the user experience of active modes. For example, poorly maintained sidewalks or bike lanes can make it difficult and unsafe for users to travel. On the other hand, well-maintained infrastructure can make active modes more accessible and enjoyable for users. The natural environment component includes the natural surroundings, such as parks and green spaces and weather conditions. These elements can play a significant role in improving the activity’s pleasure and comfort. Lastly, The subjective characteristics component includes the psychological and emotional aspects of the user experience, such as attitudes, perceptions, and emotions. For example, if user is in a bad mood, or have negative memories of certain walking/cycling situations, this can possibly affect their mode choice at the moment. On the other hand, if user perceives active modes as enjoyable and beneficial, they may opt for active modes as a mediating activity.
Copyright (c) 2024 Mahtab BaghaiePoor https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Local contention in energy and water related projects. Discussions of environmental justice
Climate change dynamics trigger very diverse effects at spatial and territorial level, and their impacts on the territorial domain are typically contentious, in that they entail structural distributional issues at different scales in relation to different populations, as literature in the environmental domain has shown since long (Swyngedow Heyned 2003; Mohai, Pellow, Timmons Roberts 2009). Moreover, the possible policy directions to tackle them, in terms of prevention, mitigation and adaptation, open distributional games very difficult to tackle with traditional public policy tools (Schön Rein 1994) and with horizontal governance arrangements. Recent cases of mobilization in local conflicts about energy production and water management in Europe and the Mediterranean show the urgency to address these distributional issues and the difficulties related to a transition to different models of production and consumption. Forms of mobilization and insurgency make the underlying contentious dimensions manifest, even in the face of strong sustainability rhetoric, and they resort to complex a repertoires across the offline and online spheres, thus producing new types of spatialities (Leitner, Sheppard, Sziarto 2008). The paper will critically discuss issues of mobilisation and insurgency in three cases of local contention related to energy production and water management. Looking more in detail into these cases, some elements seem to recur: the diversity of stakeholders and their perspectives, the alertness and networking ability of local communities, the ability to counter decisions backed by local, national, or international power with forms of insurgency, the ability to unveil and challenge sustainability rhetoric and discourses, the capacity to play across a range of offline and online mobilization strategies and tools. What lies at the heart of the cases that will be discussed are the inequality patterns made evident by these mobilisations: they entail for instance native populations in the face of state governments, poorer farmers in the face of larger farming corporations, local village inhabitants in the face of large internationally backed projects. Unpacking these recurring elements, the paper will highlight dynamics of contention, mobilisation and insurgency, looking specifically at how local communities get to identify and define themselves in relation to the commons impacted by decisions taken by supra-local actors, how they get together through different online, offline and hybrid strategies, how they enact and make forms of conflict manifest, how they deploy their strategic ability to create wider support networks and to challenge dominant climate and sustainability related rhetoric.
Copyright (c) 2024 Carolina Pacchi, Ruggero Signoroni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Community planners in Jerusalem: the role, changes over time, and what works.
How do you manage a city whose residents are not only diverse, but also in conflict with each other? Diverse in terms of religion, language, culture, socio-economic power, and world views, and in a conflict that is rooted in history, geopolitics, and religion. It is a city of global importance, yet very much a place where individuals live their daily lives. In his 1988 Foreign Affairs essay, then-Mayor Teddy Kollek made the case for greater self-governance of Jerusalem’s different communities. This idea gave way to the establishment of Community Councils that would allow Palestinians, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and secular Jews a greater say in determining their urban landscape and daily life. Jerusalem’s Community Councils began opening their doors in various neighborhoods in the late 1980s, providing social and administrative services to residents. In 1998, the role of community planners (CP) became embedded in Community Councils. Community planners and the work they have engaged in have since played a role in shaping the city. My research sought to examine the role of these community planners, how it has changed over time, and how we can begin to evaluate success. As part of my research, I interviewed dozens of planners and key stakeholders and collected more than 60 stories of successes and failures. Drawing inspiration from Rohe’s (2009) chronology of neighborhood planning in the United States, we identified different time periods for CPs. We identified a period of growth and impact, followed by a drastic decline, to today, where CPs are neither thriving nor sinking. Their ability to be effective is very much influenced by the city’s leadership and the mayor’s tolerance for discourse, conflict, and public participation. The municipality's planning department has already taken an interest in these findings, potentially incorporating them with their work to evaluate CPs’ roles. When examining their role, we identified three archetypes of CPs who then adopt one of two approaches. We found that CPs embrace, or are pushed toward, being primarily planners, organizers, or coordinators. Within these three main roles, they may engage in both bottom-up and top-down initiatives. Here, we showed that the role of community planners can be understood through different lenses. These findings are relevant to any institution that has community planners - in Jerusalem and beyond. The framing can help CPs and others make sense of their role, determine their priorities, and evaluate their purpose in each community. This impacts training, budget, and management regardless of where they work. Finally, there’s the evaluation of success. CPs in Jerusalem have operated without any discussion about what success entails. Despite this, we were still able to identify stories of resounding success. We found that successful community planners, or effective community planners, unknowingly adopt methods of strategic planning. This begs the question - should community planners be trained in strategic planning? If so, how can they, as strategic planners, fit into systems of centralized urban planning? My research is lacking in some areas. First, I focused on 3 of the existing 28 community councils, and in an attempt to collect data that would be comparable in some way, I did not examine the role of community planners in East Jerusalem (Palestinian communities) or ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. Second, I only began to scratch the surface of success in community planning. I hope more research on these topics will be conducted in the future. Despite these shortcomings, this research is the first of its kind in Jerusalem; moreso, its findings are relevant to other cities grappling with the role of community planners and different approaches toward urban governance.
Copyright (c) 2024 Galya Globerman, Dr. Emily Silverman https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This vision, launched in November 2003 in the new Athens Charter proposed by the European Council of Town Planners, seems to be irrelevant to what we do on a daily basis, as well as to a series of guiding documents and regulations that emphasize the need to impose a transformation, not just of cities, but of ways of life in order to guarantee the desired sustainable development, set out in 2015. But, no, this statement in no way opposes what has been defined and only alerts us to something we already knew: the past offers lessons for the future and that the city and its urban heritage are the basis on which we build the city of the future. Some of the great challenges facing humanity today have to do with cities, which is why the 2015 SDGs advocated the need to Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. We know that they are the human habitat par excellence, but we also know that they have to change, that the green transition is urgent and desirable. It's not just a question of calling for more environmentally friendly public transport planning, or the introduction of green or natural-based solutions, but of a transition of the city and its society, which together uses the beautiful and the sustainable to create a new physical and social reality, as advocated by the New European Bauhaus. However, in this construction, culture, the knowledge accumulated over the years will certainly play a crucial role, and this is what the history of the transformation of cities, or their urbanism, has revealed to us, and it is with this awareness that we must prepare the response to the radical transformation that the city needs. But will it be so radical or will the approach be radical? We believe it will be precisely that, and that's precisely what the title of this essay tells us. What we create will be radically new, but it will be a construction based on what exists today. Let's not fool ourselves, it's not about avoiding change, on the contrary, it's already necessary and desirable, let's not resign ourselves to it, but it is necessary to work with what exists today so as not to compromise either the sustainable future or identity. As Carl Elefante stated " The greenest building is the one that already exists " with this in mind we what to discuss how we can build tomorrows city with the one we already have today.
Copyright (c) 2024 Margarida Calmeiro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Superdiversity in public spaces: urban practices for religious plurality in the contemporary city. The experience of the "Sustainable Religious Tour" project in Torpignattara, Rome.
Inspired by this conference track, the paper discusses the relationship between the concept of superdiversity and public urban space, starting from a university-funded engagement project entitled "Sustainable Religious Tour: An Itinerant Path to Discover the Sacred in Tor Pignattara", led by the authors. Tor Pignattara is a neighborhood of Rome characterized by strong religious and cultural diversity due to increasing migration flows. The project aimed to actively engage the local community, schools, businesses and the third sector to enhance the material and immaterial heritage of the neighborhood through free public walks connecting the various 'invisible' places of worship in Tor Pignattara. A striking body of work in urban planning analyses the multicultural city (Baumann 1996; Sandercock and Lyssiotis, 2003; Fincher and Iveson 2008; Fincher et al. 2014). This paper seeks to add to the debate using the concept of superdiversity (Pemberton, 2022). In particular, the paper focuses on the relevance of co-creating knowledge, intercultural dialogue, and active citizenship in the making of a 'superdiverse' public space. Public space is a complex system of interactions, practices of use and hybrid material and immaterial spaces. Religious diversity in urban contexts - especially the superdiversity resulting from the increasing mixing of people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds (Vertovec, 2007) - implies that urban dwellers coexist and share space. Thus, public space represents the arena where superdiversity becomes visible through the interplay of religious spatial strategies and urban structures (Becci et al., 2017). In light of this, the paper analyses the practices promoted by the Sustainable Religious Tour project and their contribution to the creation of an inclusive public space, and offers some ongoing lessons on: Disseminating the practice of narration and self-narration as a model for understanding places and intangible heritage, Reformulating conventional practices of urban space use to promote social cohesion and negotiation between different types of users, To develop a model of social and cultural sustainability. Finally, the "Sustainable Religious Tour" project is leading to an unplanned outcome: the creation of a collective project proposal for the realization of a "Garden of Religions". The proposal, which is still under development, involves neighborhood committees in the adoption of a green space where a plant/tree symbolizing each religion present in the neighborhood will be planted, thus addressing issues of appropriation, and belonging.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sara Altamore, Marta Scialdone https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Unplanned anarchism as a response to the anarchism planned in the governance
In contemporary politics, participatory governance is justified as a way of decentralising power. As it weakens the state’s control and decentralises its power, it is a way of governing that embraces a certain anarchism but in a coordinated manner. However, it appears to empower the individuals and societies that already have considerable economic and societal power in the political society at large.( e.g. Kohler-Koch & Quittkat 2013) With regard to planning, the participatory planning processes that emphasise individualistic channels of participation may end up only engaging the strongest individual stakeholders particularly in the well off neighbourhoods. Focusing on the individual participation it may even weaken the neighbourhoods’ use of hierarchical and centralising coordination agencies, such as community associations, important for the more vulnerable communities. Thus it may contribute to the trend of regional inequality, and increase the vulnerability of the vulnerable communities. (Guilluy 2014) The participatory governance’s tendency to individualism in participation thus does not necessarily engage the majority population, while the weakening of state-centric representative government weakens the institution of majority representation. One response to this may be the different populist movements that aim to return to the representative democracy, undoing participatory and technocratic ways of government (e.g. Hopkin & Blyth 2019). But another would be the unplanned anarchic takeovers that reject both the state and the individual driven ways of planning. Such “anarcho-communitarian” tendencies may often be seen to be at play in the populist-like, identitarian movements, if they do not aim at higher level representative democratic goals. These would mainly be the types of group-identity communitarian segregationists, which however usually do aim at state-like communities that simply undo the individual liberties and are in this sense hard line communitarian and not at all anarchist (Lukes 1995). More to the point are the movements that remain strongly anarchic in that they (1) do not align in representative politics, (2) do not create static hierarchic organisation, and (3) do not aim at state-like power, but act against it, while also (4) want to act and be heard as a collective, a community, however disparate, and not as individuals. These could be strongly localised movements, a prime example of which is the separated anarchist enclave of ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes in Bretagne (Verdier 2021), or collecting more disparate members over a larger region, such as the gilet jaunes movement, in spite of its mobilisation in political purposes by different parties. In this presentation I will first shortly present the fragmentation problem of the combination of centralising planning and decentralising processes. Drawing from Jacques Rancière's ideas on unplanned politics rising from the people directly, I will then analyse the difference of the populist and anarcho-communitarian solutions, and finally consider whether the anarcho-communitarianist movements, in theory and in light of the recent examples, could have a capacity of collecting the disparate voices of the vulnerable communities in the fragmented states.
Copyright (c) 2024 Paul Tiensuu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In the contemporary context of a profound crisis of public spaces in general and the Portuguese context in particular, questions of intensive touristification, fast gentrification, and concentrated immigration are reshaping the use and values of traditional urban spaces. The introduction of new public actors, new communities, and associated different social practices, often lead to feelings of estrangement and alienation within local communities while overlooking the potential of these reshaped public spaces to expose our limitations to accept and integrate a difference. On the other hand, the estrangement of urban spaces leads to the discovery of different ‘of-map’ and ‘invisible’ places whose use and value are also currently being rediscovered and/or shifted. In this context, we propose the use of Foulcault’sheterotopia as a framework for the exploration of bothtraditional and invisible public spaces. We argue that due to its complexity and ability to embrace contradictions and conflicts, Foulcault’s heterotopia can be used as a valuable concept for describing, analyzing,and creating speculative designs for a new democratic city. Through the positive lens of heterotopias, we analyze twenty publicly accessible spaces in the citiesof Lisbon and Cascais, both traditional and invisible, trying to tackle their fragility and explore how theirconceptual redefinition can contribute to the idea of the social city. Moreover, we propose several architectural-artistic ad-hoc speculative designs based on the very contradictions and fragility of the analyzed spaces.
Copyright (c) 2024 Catarina Todorovic Caldeira, Ljiljana Cavic https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“Grappling with global land administration’s technologies: From the ‘stuff of bits’ to sites of jurisdictional encounter”
Rapid technological advancements have occurred in the capacity to collect, store, and map information regarding land, use, ownership, and other land relations. Spatial Data Infrastructures, and Geographic Information Systems have been constructed that record, sort, and store multiple forms of land and property data in complex, and often privately owned or managed systems. These are made increasingly interoperable with land law and governance as Land Administration Systems (LAS). Which have become established as a crucial ‘public good infrastructure,’ and as a key component of economic and social development, and sustainability. Multiple international standards, regulatory instruments, normative agendas, and multilateral agreements have been created to foster their development, standardise their construction, and foster legibility across and within borders. Local land and real property law converge with these ever more sophisticated cartographic and administrative technologies, and in turn, with the aspirational, and regulatory, domains of the international. Spatial conflicts, land scarcity, housing insecurity, have all also become increasingly foregrounded from the local to the global. From states securing food bowls across borders, to tokenised interests in real property in material, virtual, and even interstellar worlds. The boundaries between law, technology, and political economy have become deeply blurred as value is created and extracted through digitalised systems of interest and analysis in land, and property data, that cross borders, span domains, and bring more phenomena into markets. The politics of ordering and apportioning the spatial, is increasingly caught up in complex webs of finance, culture, and technology. However, the construction of land administration, and information, systems is generally presented as a technical endeavour, concerned simply with identifying, mapping, and recording, a material world whose politics is negotiated elsewhere, in the community, the state, the courthouse, the market. Of creating the artefacts, instruments, databases, and technologies, that provide a foundation from which the politics, and law of land, might be constructed. A basis from which to build the institutional, economic, social, articulation of land politics in the contemporary world. This often embeds a highly proprietary approach to land, and to land politics, as foundational. Bringing much of the world, and land into possessory view. However, while the foundational (and highly elusive) legal quality of possession (whether of rights, or property, or another interest) has often constituted what we imagine the political to be contested over at all (and has thus provided the grounds for legal dispute), proprietary approaches have also been considered manifestly insufficient as a reasonable basis for moral claims, or concepts of justice. Because, seeking to reduce politics to possessory characteristics embeds as foundational a compromisingly immoral, and ultimately illogical (Hume; Benjamin), accommodation of violence and exclusion as the basis of human sociality. They are, furthermore, at odds with many customary and traditional ontologies of land. In this paper I argue that Land Administration’s production of data and information as sufficient in describing land – alongside its specific cross-jurisdictional and international character as increasingly produced through a realm of international regulation and professional expertise, is contributing to the reduction of politics itself to distribution, and (drawing the scholarship of jurisprudence of jurisdiction) I argue that this in turn introduces a new set responsibilities and accountabilities of those individuals and institutions, who engage in the production of land data systems, and technologies. I also outline a provocation to planners interested in data driven governance, especially where seeking to embed international land governance frameworks in their approaches to land justice.
Copyright (c) 2024 Ani Landau-Ward https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Making children’s walks greener: the role of informal green spaces in home–school routes
Urban green spaces are usually associated with parks, forests and street greenery. However important and noticeable they may be, these flagship green spaces do not dominate urban landscapes. What makes cities green is mainly informal green space – vegetated areas not formally recognised or protected, such as recultivated landfills, brownfields or semi-private and even private greenery. While there is no doubt about the importance of informal green spaces for urban sustainability and resilience, little is known about the extent to which they contribute to active transportation, for example making pedestrian walks greener and thus more attractive. Our study fills this gap by focusing on the role of informal green spaces in ensuring visual exposure to greenery during the walks. We used the children’s home–school routes as an example to assess the visual exposure to different categories of informal green spaces during children’s walks. We conducted network and viewshed analyses for multiple spatially explicit data on primary school children, pedestrian street networks, and high-resolution urban green space maps using Lodz (Poland) as the case study city. We found that informal green spaces leverage visual exposure to greenery during children’s home–school walks. The shortcuts through informal green spaces are an important part of children’s home–school routes. While street greenery and parks make the children’s routes greener in the city’s centre, informal green spaces play a particularly important role in enabling children to see the greenery in the city’s suburbia. This further shows the necessity of integrating different categories of green spaces into urban planning. Specifically, securing and formalizing informal green spaces is essential and could broadly support making urban transportation more sustainable. In particular, green corridors support non-motorised mobility by providing an attractive, healthy and safe opportunity to move around the city.
Copyright (c) 2024 Mojtaba Khanian, Edyta Łaszkiewicz, Jakub Kronenberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
All-inclusive 15-minute city? A fine-grained analysis of spatial accessibility inequality in Amsterdam
The '15-Minute City' is an urban planning concept that seeks to ensure that all essential human needs are within a 15-minute walking or cycling distance (Khavarian-Garmsir et al., 2022). Since it was coined by Carlos Moreno in 2016 (Moreno, 2016) and adopted by the Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo in her 2020 re-election campaign, the concept has received widespread attention among policymakers and academics (Moreno et al., 2021). However, the concept has also received criticism, not the least from the perspective of transport justice (Pozoukidou and Chatziyiannaki, 2021, Willberg, Fink and Toivonen, 2023). One strand of critique focuses on the problematic average person that is central to the concept, while both walking and cycling speeds, but also needs and preferences, are unique to every person. Other criticism is directed towards the concept’s focus on inner city areas with relatively well-off populations, while more peripheral urban areas with another composition of the population are ignored. In the further uptake of the 15-minute city concept, it is vital to consider how it includes different social groups to make sure everyone has fair access to essential amenities and services. An important prerequisite for that is having a detailed understanding of how accessibility is distributed across cities and social groups today. The primary objective of our study was to estimate differences in accessibility, identify areas and social groups that face accessibility disadvantages, and propose potential solutions for improvement. Through an extensive review of existing literature and study cases related to the 15-minute city framework we identified the lack of a flexible tool that allows for a fine-grained analysis of accessibility. Therefore, we developed the '15-Minute City Index', a tool that assesses the spatial accessibility at a low spatial scale, with dynamic parameters on cycling and walking speed, and a flexible inclusion of specific services and amenities. Our tool calculates accessibility in reverse, starting from the amenities. Different layers of amenities can then be added up in a flexible way, with potentially also including weights, to get a complete spatial overview. We applied our quantitative evidence-based methodological approach to the case of Amsterdam, a city that is known for its high levels of active travel. By combining small-scale socio-economic and demographic data with our novel 15-minute city index, we could carry out a detailed analysis of inequalities in spatial accessibility. The results revealed clear disparities in the index among different parts of the city, with population density and street network playing a significant role. Further, the 15-minute city index shows that slightly slower walking or cycling speeds can have a large effect on spatial accessibility. In terms of social groups, the index is lower among populations with non-western migration backgrounds and the elderly. The study not only presents methodological innovation through a newly developed tool, it also enhances the understanding of spatial accessibility within Amsterdam's context and contributes to transport justice debates on the 15-minute city concept.
Copyright (c) 2024 Petar Koljensic, Thomas Verbeek https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In the name of ‘common’.Urban commons as a trick to redefine actors and their roles in the urban regenerationproject in the city of Turin.
In the last twenty years, the urban commons' concept joined, in a very controversial way, the academic and professional debate on urban planning and city-making (Buchs & al., 2019). Inside this debate the “commoning practices” act to protect some part of the city from the market and the neoliberal forces that try to capture it (Harvey, 2012; Festa 2017). But what happens if these practices are promoted by the administrations? How do they change the roles of public and private actors and owners in the urban transformation project ? In the last ten years, in Italy, we observed the emergence of specific experimental public policies that mix commoning practices with urban regeneration processes. In this framework the city of Turin could be an interesting case study to observe how ‘urban commons’ and the processes they trigger, become a new field of urban public policies (Ostrom, 1990; Dellenbaugh & al., 2020). In 2016, the City of Turin adopted the “Regolamento dei Beni Comuni” with the idea to use this administrative tool as an opportunity to define a local welfare policy (with an European funding ) by regenerate spaces managed in a shared way by different local subjects (NGO, active citizens, informal group, small enterprises) able to offer diversified public services and adhering to the demands coming from the different neighborhoods. Today we can affirm that, despite the premises, the revitalisation process of real estate has prevailed over the process of social inclusion and civic activism (Saporito,Vassallo, 2020) which is crucial to define an urban common. The paper will explore the possible misunderstanding linked to the idea of institutionalization of communing processes as a lost opportunity for the construction of an alternative model of transformation of the city that starts from the horizontal collaboration between municipality and local private and public actors.
Copyright (c) 2024 Ianira Vassallo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Publicness of Urban Commons. Insights from the Brussels Commoning Scene.
If care is one dimension of welfare that we need to reappropriate to protect the foundations of a democratic society and democracy (Tronto, 2013), publicness is the other. Well before and independently from the current privatization processes resulting from the market intervention, “the organizational mold of the welfare state at the various levels in which it translates collective, public values, interests, and goals - from everyday practices to systemic organizational effects - tends to generate communication blocks, separations, and segmentations of social relations, isolation, irresponsibility, indifference, privatization of issues - in short, privatism' (De Leonardis 1998). The final consolidation of the institutions and the operating systems of the welfare state corresponded in fact to the loss of a lively public sphere - as a basic, fundamental public good - which was animated and precisely constituted around the collective definition of welfare problems and solutions. While these observations were formulated at the end of the 90s, in the context of an emerging welfare mix season and its ambiguities, they appear to be still very - or even increasingly- relevant today, given the more recent developments of the welfare systems and in particular, given the proliferation of urban commons. Centred on care practices and fueling social cohesion, while improving the conditions of our living environments, urban commons almost inherently represent a complementary layer of existing welfare infrastructures - as the working hypothesis at the core of my ongoing research project. However, their operational systems and conditions may fuel the risk of increasing privatism in the sphere of welfare. Vis-à-vis such a risk, in this paper, I will investigate the publicness of the urban commons as a capacity to contribute to the identification of welfare problems and issues and the elaboration of solutions in the public sphere, as they concern the very social bond that we share. To critically assess such a capacity, I will examine the commoning scene of the Brussels Capital Region, based on my direct implication as an activist and researcher since 2011 and having co-coordinated a regional study on the local urban commons (2022-2023). I will focus in particular on three initiatives, considering their long-lasting and mature trajectory, which led them from being bottom-up, precarious initiatives and the initiators of the commons movement in Brussels to becoming influential policymakers. The Community Land Trust of Brussels (since 2012) is an organisation aiming at making homeownership accessible for low-income families; Etats Généraux de L’Eau à Bruxelles, since 2002, aims at the collective and individual re-appropriation of water management infrastructures, from the micro-scale of a private garden to the macro-scale of a valley; Communa (since 2013) operates as a platform for the temporary occupation of vacant buildings. As markers and their conditions of publicness, I will address the following dimensions and their triangular relationship: 1. the porosity of their operational conditions, allowing for a de-fragmentation of concerned communities, and their welfare needs, rights, and responsibilities; 2. the transcalarity of their ecologies, necessarily implying a multilayered and complex approach to problems and solutions, thus generating communicative and participatory dynamics and sustaining the public discourse around welfare issues; 3. their transformative capacity of policies and the related narratives, allegedly allowing to overcome the privatism of contract-based agreements at the origin of numerous forms of common-public collaborations.
Copyright (c) 2024 Verena Lenna https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Navigating Contradictions: Institutions of Commoning and their governance impact in Naples
The surge in social inequality across Europe, especially in urban areas, has worsened since the 2008 economic crisis. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in Mediterranean countries and is intricately linked to the gradual weakening of the welfare state affecting the entire continent since the last decades of the previous century. The complexity of this outcome arises from the interplay between exclusionary market forces and state policies that, whether due to incapacity or reluctance, fall short in fostering inclusion (Fregolent and Nel·lo, 2021). In some cases, in response to this condition, residents have independently sought to provide for their own services through collective action and cooperative forms of organisation, also targeting the collective management of public spaces to counter the risk of misuse and privatisation (ibidem). Within this context, this paper aims to explore the case of the city of Naples. Over the years, the concept of uso civico e collettivo (collective uses) has developed through interactions between activists advocating for the collective management of public spaces and the public administration, which was previously under the leadership of a neomunicipalist mayor. The core idea involves the legal acknowledgment of the right to civic and collective use. This is actualized through declarations made by communities who collectively take care of publicly-owned assets, treating them as urban commons (Harvey, 2012; Dellenbaugh et al., 2015; Stavrides, 2016). In Naples, the Municipality recognizes these declarations, acknowledging the potential for resource redistribution and the generation of significant cultural, social, political, and pedagogical value. This recognition justifies the shared responsibility of the local administration in managing costs and ensuring essential functions like utility expenses and major maintenance (Micciarelli et al., 2022). The case of Naples appears to redefine the collaborative relationship between citizens and institutions, as well as between citizens and urban spaces underscoring the collective value of certain self-organising practices within the city (Ostanel, 2017). Practices based on the concept of urban commons exhibit a dual nature, as highlighted by Enright and Rossi (2018). On one hand, they serve as sites for post-capitalist experimentation; on the other, they are vulnerable to the commodification of social relationships. A critical perspective warns of potential risks, including co-optation by governments, turning such initiatives into mere service-providing organisations. This risk is particularly pronounced in fragile contexts like Naples, where the depletion of resources has diminished institutional presence. As institutions recede, self-managed socio-spatial practices emerge, offering services at zero cost, filling gaps that the local authority struggled to address (Pascapè 2020). The aim of this work is therefore to explore the contradiction and the possible impact of the institution of collective uses for urban governance by exploring two specific urban commons in Naples where the intense work of commoners had led to public investments and the successful request of services by the local community. The preliminary field research has revealed how commoners are navigating the inherent contradiction of being utilised as instruments in the context of welfare state reduction, while simultaneously striving to offer tangible solutions to the ongoing welfare crisis. This dual role underscores the complex dynamics and challenges faced by commoners as they grapple with the evolving landscape of social welfare. Presenting the work of an ongoing research, this work aims at sharing critical reflections on the mid-to-long-term challenges faced by neo municipalist institutions.
Copyright (c) 2024 jorge mosquera https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Changing the narrative: Medium-sized cities as potential frontrunners of mobility transition?
While metropolises are regarded as epicentres of innovation and change, most Europeans do not live in large cities but in various small and medium-sized cities and settlement types. An effective transport transition must therefore also develop solutions for the challenges of the transport system outside metropolitan areas. Focusing on the specific framework conditions and challenges of small and medium-sized cities can help to emphasize the specific transformation potential of small and medium-sized cities and can contribute to leveraging their potential. Small and medium-sized cities (20,000 - 50,000 inhabitants) in particular face distinct challenges when it comes to implementing a local mobility transition: On the one hand, as a particularly large group of communities, they are of great importance as a place to live and work and thus generate a high proportion of traffic volumes. On the other hand, due to their limited financial and human resources, they seem to have only a limited ability to independently establish goal-oriented transport planning in a dynamically changing mobility world. Against this backdrop, the submitted article deals with the question of how small and medium-sized cities can independently shape the transformation towards an urban mobility turnaround and works out their potential for transformation in the area of mobility and transport transformation at the spatial, actor and governance levels. Statistically, medium-sized cities have comparatively high car ownership and car use rates. This goes hand in hand with a perceived dependence on the car, which is both culturally and habitually conditioned. At the same time, however, medium-sized cities tend to have sufficient facilities for daily needs, education and health care within a limited spatial extent and thus good spatial conditions for non-motorized local mobility. In theory, they somewhat naturally fulfil a key characteristic of the concept of the 15-minute city. At the level of actors and governance, there is an area of tension between the professional specialization and personnel strength of administrations in large cities for shaping change processes, and the supposed agility, rapid coordination and decision-making processes, and personal proximity of administrative units in smaller cities. The two levels of investigation are empirically addressed by a GIS-based accessibility analysis of a total of 40 medium-sized cities based on the 15-minute city framework and by qualitative interviews with 36 local actors from the fields of local politics, administration and mobility services in 3 medium-sized cities with special focus on interactions at the local level with regard to transformation and change. The aim of the contribution is to tear down the often-received dichotomy between urban and rural areas and to focus more on the many municipalities that are neither metropolitan nor rural. In this way, it seeks to reframe the narrative: Small and medium-sized cities are key players in a sustainable transformation and have great potential for transforming mobility themselves.
Copyright (c) 2024 Maximilian Birk https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Integrating Critique as a Game Changer: Using Universal Design (Design for all) to inform the Scholarship on Public Space
As an avowedly interdisciplinary area of inquiry, the scholarship on public space has been informed not just by urban design but also by the social sciences, public health, engineering, law, and other disciplines. Such a marriage of traditions has changed the game multiple times and, in some cases, eventually transformed the field. This paper will explore how this game-changing might become more systematic – an arranged marriage rather than an extended courtship! -- so scholars and practitioners studying public space might effectively integrate tensions and criticism from related fields. Our example comes from universal design (also called design for all) and urban design’s critique of its rigidity and one-size-fits-all stance (Nelischer and Loukaitou-Sideris (2023). The critique mocks the universal design of physical, tangible spaces that facilitate access and use by people of any age and ability (Lynch et al. 2018). But, while an imaginary, generic user may not be appropriate, embracing inclusivity and access is certainly consistent with urban design’s ethos. How might our thinking on public space credibly address this criticism without dismissing it altogether? How might we endogenize this conflict within our scholarship? We respond to this in three parts. First, drawing on previous scholarship (Verma 2011), we use Sunstein’s idea of incomplete theorization to develop a set of dialectical tensions or dilemmas between urban design and universal design. Next, we address these dilemmas and cast them as “essential tensions” for the scholarship on public space (Verma 1995). Finally, using the case of fair housing laws in the United States (Nolan 2023), we illustrate how these ideas might help to include some lessons from fair housing in the design of public spaces.
Copyright (c) 2024 Dr. Niraj Verma, Corey Nolan, MPA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Navigating Urban Futures: Towards Sustainable and Resilient Coastal City of Izmir
This study delves into the repercussions of urban issues with the growing climate emergency, a water problem illustrated by major floods and periods of drought, an agricultural problem, industrialization, spotlighting migration, overurbanization, and pollution while exploring solutions through sustainable and resilient initiatives. In this study, we focus on Izmir: a coastal city, emphasizing the unique challenges and considerations associated with its geographical location. The study begins with an analysis of the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, particularly its endeavors to create a smart and inclusive city. The primary objective is to scrutinize the aftermath of industrialization, emphasizing migration, overurbanization, and pollution, and subsequently explore sustainable and resilient initiatives. This study aims to provide insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with urban development, with a specific focus on Izmir. The research employs a dual methodology, incorporating a comprehensive literature review and a case study centered on the city of Izmir. Theoretical frameworks from urban studies, environmental justice, and sustainable development guide the analysis of global urban dynamics and the specific case of Izmir. Global urbanization rates have surged, with cities consuming disproportionate amounts of energy and contributing significantly to carbon emissions. Despite cities generating substantial GDP, they simultaneously pose ecological challenges. The study critiques prevalent "smart city" development models, advocating for a paradigm shift towards inclusivity and participation. It underscores the necessity of recognizing environmental justice, particularly concerning class, gender, and geography, for global sustainability. Limitations include potential biases in data sources and the inherent challenge of predicting future developments accurately. Future research should delve into the practical implications of sustainability initiatives, especially within marginalized communities. The study implies that addressing these limitations is crucial for developing effective urban policies. Transparent, democratic, and participatory processes are deemed essential for smart city development. The paper contends that technological advancements should not overshadow the socio-political and economic structures integral to cities. It urges a reevaluation of current urban development approaches to address political, geographical, and financial challenges. Sustainability initiatives carry the potential to influence societal attitudes, corporate social responsibility, and environmental consciousness. The paper calls for a departure from purely technological solutions, advocating for an inclusive, justice-oriented approach that accommodates diverse social groups' vulnerabilities. This paper contributes by critically assessing existing smart city models and championing a more inclusive, participatory approach grounded in environmental justice. Emphasizing the need to balance social, economic, and environmental sustainability aligns with the UNDP's Sustainable Development Goals. The case study on Izmir provides practical insights into the challenges and opportunities inherent in implementing sustainable and resilient initiatives within a specific urban context. In conclusion, this study provides a comprehensive exploration of urban challenges and potential solutions, with a particular emphasis on the dynamic landscape of Izmir. The paper advocates for a holistic approach to urban development, acknowledging the intricate interplay of environmental, social, and economic factors.
Copyright (c) 2024 CoHE 100/2000 Doctoral Fellow, Eylem Keskin, Res. Assist. Aysu Gürman, Prof. Dr. Ipek AKPINAR https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Authority arenas and innovations in Cairo’s climate governance
Climate governance is polycentric, with diverse standard-setting centers and no chains of delegation, and is transnational, existing outside of the realm of national states. This transnational and polycentric nature motivated innovations to accountability and authority that create bases of legitimacy parallel to representative democracy (Bäckstrand, Zelli & Schleifer 2018). Cities have often voluntarily adopted and helped create new forms of accountability and authority and engage in horizontal and vertical governance chains outside of nation-states. Accountability and authority innovations stem from diverse urban climate governance rationales. Among these are democratization, entrepreneurialisation, decentralization, orchestration, or securitization. However, conflicts often arise between democratic legitimacy bases and those rooted in economic rationales, technocratic tendencies of climate governance, national security interests, or emergency approaches to the climate catastrophe (MIttiga, 2022). Studies lack on how cities adopt climate governance mechanisms in nations without the representative democracy characteristic of free and fair elections. Transnational polycentric climate governance can present a tool for democratization that is especially valuable to such a context, or it can repeat existing patterns of power-sharing, dispossession, and marginalization. The paper explores this Hypothesis through the case study of the Greater Cairo region, one of the largest urban agglomerations in Africa. The scope of the study includes actions in Cairo that explicitly use climate change in their rationales, led by governmental and non-governmental actors of all scales. The representative sample includes projects of hard and soft intended impacts and climate change sectors. The paper is the third of and builds on two other papers by the author that focus on Cairo’s climate governance. The first maps the inclusion and exclusion of actors from climate actions, and the second analyses the types of accountability and authoritarian practices. Building on the analysis of inclusion and accountability, this paper explores how they lead to forms of authority through discursive legitimacies (Bulkeley 2012), the resulting control of resources (Purdy 2012), and centrality in governance networks (Di Gregorio et al. 2019).
Copyright (c) 2024 Ahmed Tarek Alahwal https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0