a theoratical review of the elements of Planning system and the current trends in improving its design

Planning System Design

The creation and establishment of a planning system depends on the context drivers such as:

• Legal system which is a byproduct of the  political governance system 
• Institutional system  that stems from the government agencies mandates and  responsibilit
•  Development Proces and its various actors
• Existence of a defined urban planning professional bodies

Public administration efforts focused on managing new developments and improving the built environment through improving and defining the planning system. Local governments had no separate identity and were strictly controlled through a central system .presently, decentralization is happening progressively – central and local governments are partnering although power and responsibilities are being transferred, it more has to do with responsibility and expenditure .Resources and ability to make key decisions still lie with central governments.

A Systems  

The planning systems can be structured in three patterns:

1-Centralized pattern distributed in one or more planning tiers

2-Balanced responsibility distribution over different tiers

3-Decentralized system with high degree of autonomy on each tie

Planning operates within legal frameworks that are either Regulatory framework with strict public policies and rigid controls. Or Discretionary framework that are flexible and open

B Functions 

Planning systems differ in their scope, methods of operation from country. But, they are formed by three main functions:

Strategic planning-Focusing on long term vision that integrates the drivers based on an evaluation of strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities  of the built environment and its different dimensions.

Plan Making  

Providing spatial frameworks based on which developments are planned on the national, regional, city, neighborhood and specific locations. Plans may have different content such as :Strategy ,Policy ,Statutory measures ,Project, Structure Land use, Settlement pattern,Housing, Retail, Leisure and Tourism ,New planned districts 

Development controls 

Legal and administrative procedures operating at the local level aim to control the location, form, character, activity of the urban development and may include the use permutations within the building affecting the site use.

Urban planning profession is now becoming more open to address beside land use infrastructure programs and integrate more with the sectoral processes responsible for urban finances. It is producing a more open, flexible and proactive planning that takes into consideration community inputs.

C Types of plans

 Structural plans:

 Originated in the United Kingdom – their flexibility and general guiding principles enable diverse solutions Operating usually at the regional and sub regional level, they are broad in scope covering in addition to land use, infrastructure, landscape, social considerations and economic goals as well as the institutional analysis. Structural plans require intersectoral integration and a robust financial analysis.

Master Plans:

Oldest version of city planning going to 3,000 BC, the plan aims at specifying at the municipality on  local level the land use zones for an administrative area whether it is a planned district or general zone. 

Local plans:

 Usually providing detailed and specific spatial design plans for a specific area, they focus on short term goals either putting in more controls where it is needed or specifying changes spatially where changes are about to happen .

Action Plans:

Based on community participatory processes outputs. It responds to an immediate need or negotiation over specific issue or challenge. They lack the legal status of a plan and in that case highly depend on the municipality management team to support it

D Range of Urban Planning Tools

Planning tools: techniques and information to plan transport, residential housing, landscaping

Information tools: baseline and periodical data as well as impact monitoring and exchange of information through networked

Policy Tools: general or specific guidelines or indicators

Fiscal tools either incentives such as tax relief or  disincentives such as tax subsidies, lifecycle costing, procurement policies

Decision making tools assessment, mediation sessions, workshops, stakeholder engagement

 Educational tools conferences, workshops, task forces, case studies, training,

 

Participatory tools:

• §  Participatory mapping of settlements for inhabitants
• §  Community lead socio economic analysis,
• §  collective modeling of housing,
• §  collective analysis of trends in life histories of residents,
• §  collective goal and priority ranking,
• §  inspirational individuals life stories,
• §  formal community champions

policy agenda for a sustainable urban future

City in the Developing World - it is one of the reference topics  to focus and centre my attention on why urban leadership is increasingly needed and how can our daily decisions be linked to a holistic perspective. A particular them in this topic that has always intrigued me is urban policies.
So what about urban policy?
Urban policy needs to be assessed in the context of development policy as a whole. But, since the 1980’s, policies took the neo-liberal turn which encouraged free market shaping urban space and its components. In that sense, policy shifted away from a policy of urbanisation containment to strategies which enabled the increase in urban areas overall productivity.
Increasingly, international development agencies are also encouraging structural adjustment programmes that link macro – economic performance of nations to the urban management programs focusing on economic, social, demographic and environmental conditions.

The thinking behind this is stated in a famous paper prepared by the World Bank in 1990 – urban policy and economic development –it explains the interrelationship between urban economic activities and the gross domestic product of nations.

The United Nations development program agrees in that increasingly, urbanisation is contributing to a stable economy –it is a major shift from neighbourhood policies that revolved around slums upgrade, housing provision, municipal services connections and housing finance schemes.
It is the city wide reforms that are capable of translating macroeconomic objectives and economic development strategies into tangible initiatives and projects that will contribute to city development.
To increase productivity, there is also a need to look at infrastructural deficiencies

•   outdated building codes,
•   governance structure for housing markets
•   improvement of the municipal system and financial institutions for urban development.

Government shifts from the role of provider to enabler by creating the adequate regulatory and financial frame within which private sector, SME, community associations play an active role in fulfilling their needs.

Urban concentration is a reality that brings with it the hegemony of urban productivity. Such emphasis might impact social inequalities and may affect the urban space quality in between city regions. There will be an increased pressure on the environment due to newly formed urban nodes
Policy makers will need to balance the enormous demand for urban housing due to the increased importance of cities in national economies and the challenge of social integration and inclusiveness.

reflections on ecological design

The human being is a living creature. He is a part of  nature itself thus follows a defined and known life cycle; this lifecycle is  the sequence of day, month, year through out the different seasons .

The cycles of a man's life  consisting of birth, up-bringing, marriage, fatherhood, retirement, death is the complete path for one’s life leaving away for his children and his grandchildren to continue this journey.This is the definition of sustainability on the inidvidual level.

His successors will also draw other cycles for their life that connects with who they are and their personas but also connected to their fathers, family, tribe , communities, nation.

These multiple life cycles form  society and through them and their lives that the continuity of the historical, cultural aspects of a society is preserved.

These social cycles have been the foundation of anthropology in understanding how communities and societies are formed.

These interrelationships unveil  the invisible connections of the communities to the way it constructs meanings of the space  with time through its activities  

In designing our  plans and thinking about our development frameworks of design schemes, wether we are practitioners,

planners,policy makers, there needs to be more awarness to the mental plans of the city as a reflection of  these cycles .

The city becomes an ecosystem that through obeservation will reveal to us  the interaction of the different activities within it.

Sequence is  in the ecological cycles of earth, flora and fauna as well as in the sequence of the day (dawn, noon, sunset, late night) and the seasons ( winter , spring , summer, fall). 

 Our urban ecosystem is connected to the wider ecosystem in nature and thus a bigger picture also needs to be considered when we talk about enviromental consideration - it is not only how much we are impacting the enviroment around us.

it is about also how the cycles inside our masterplans link to the bigger cycles of the context we are living in and to think about how we will reflect these nodes of linkages without making the plan too rigid that it can not allow for the community to retrace meanings and emabed it in the framework.

 

The human life cycle is centered on the individual by excellence .As a living creature, the human being moves, migrates, grows and changes and by consequence is not static.

So, the concept of human life is one that does not accept state in one location and one era. We need to under-stand this flexibility ,resilience and adaptibility as it becomes crucial to strive to it since it is at the core of sustainable development.

One must not confuse stillness and presence with statism because it is in stillness that one observes his achievement and contemplates its proceedings. 

Therefore, he must be present to do so meaning being alert and conscious .Consciousness in this sense is a faculty that one uses to optimize his cycle. Our plans become more tolerant in  providing the community places of stillness. 

places of meaningfull meditation as people strive not only to be engaged but also to disengage , not only to connect but also to disconnect.

 The human life is a journey through out space and time- it the series of small choices we make , which route we take, which district we live in - most of our choices are affected indirectly with the planning challenges and opportunities that our city provides.In this sense, the plan needs to be in line with the choices that the community is making on daily basis and call for also a reevaluation of these choices mitigating the one chosen by constraints and putting weight on opportunistic choices- ones that may enhance the experience of one's life inside the city.

This motion through out space and time begins from the moment the human being is reflected in his small travels such as his day going to work and leaving his home. Our plans need to account for the small journeys , how they will look like , what they will mean to the community.

So, Respecting cycles of activities, of flows,of seasons, of time and space would allow our plans might to last  more than the next generation. 

Permeability - shaping how people move within cities

Permeability and crowdsourcing

Permeability is defined by the ability of the urban tissue to offer different routes, through and within it and measures opportunity for movement. Accessibility is a product measure of permeability; it is actually the product of the individual and the cadastral system the cadastral street patterns which is the layout of urban blocks shows the public space network and pinpoints pain areas that are blocking permeability in an urban area.

By defining the spaces that define the blocks ,we can analyze the nature of the tissue of the development.

By analyzing the tissue, we can understand better the relationship between the buildings and the space around them; this relationship will give us insight on their permeability.

Riba student winner award, restituted spaces ,Piotr Lesniak,University of Edinburgh Edinburgh UK

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Old Souk,Dubai - http://www.dubaiwall.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/old_souk.jpg

is the availability of vistas, which are the views corridors in a tissue

represents the ability to seek different routes .

The measure of permeability is the degree of the grid texture; finer grid permits higher visual and physical permeability than coarser grids.

http://thewhereblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/new-city-old-urbanism.html

links essentially to the mental map of the city for its visitors and residents-

it is the amenability of its tissues for new imprints-

new crowd courcing techniques are rewriting the way permeability has been deisgned - the sheer volume of information relating to how citizens view their city permeability means that designers ,urban planners and policy makers may be more and more challenged - 

NYC launched a competition last year AND GUESS WHO WINS- A WAY FINDING APPLICATION -this gives a real indication that permeability is one of the most important quality that citizen look in cities because it is what helps moveand experience its spaces.would be interesting to see what types of urban information such application might tell us ?

So What is Accessibility for Public Spaces?

Public space should be accessible to and used by all. (Arendt ,1958) It is particularly important, as Fraser (1990) and Hartley (1992) argue, that by claiming that public space as an embodiment of the public realm, it should include and foster interactions between different groups of the society. It should also offer excluded groups an opportunity to claim their rights of representation within the general community.

Demographic accessibility refers to the link between the production activities of the space and the output generated to the entity operating it whether it’s a public or private agency. The production activities,  such as retail, can be analyzed through the formal and informal programs that the implemented design generates as well as the one designed for [N1] [N2] .The inclusivity of the public space is established collectively through the diverse groups that uses is to engage in dialogue, debate and oppositional struggles. Key aspects of inclusive public space are its suitability for gatherings and encounters and its accessibility as an arena through which privacy is contested (Mitchell 1995)>Inclusive public space also encompasses the range of wage groups it serves and being served to. Demographic accessibility is important since it allows for various perceptions of the space to surface. In fact, (Ramon, 2004) advocates that variables such as age, sex, social class and ethnic identity affect the way urban life is perceived[N3] .

Physical accessibility is defined by the nature of the network that links the urban space to its surrounding urban fabric. The nature of these networks , highway or a pedestrian street, can change their role from  linkages to obstructions facilitating or preventing exchange processes and therefore the inclusivity as a quality of Publicness. “Environments, individuals and/or groups perceived either as threatening, comforting or inviting may affect entry into a public space” (Tiesdell and Oc, 1998: 648).

Symbolic accessibility can be distinguished by the degree of users’ engagement with the space in terms of active/passive engagement. The nature and the scope of activities incorporated in the public spaces can either allow or prevent the emergence of spaces of representation. The impact of the spaces of representation vary depending on the flexibility of such a representation. If it is narrow, it would only allow for representations of selected groups, if it is wide, it would allow for overlapping representations and increase its circle of influence beyond the development to the city scale.

This could even extend to national scale especially in extraordinary events such as the place de martyrs in Beirut in becoming an arena for multiple representations for Lebanon over the past two years. By outlasting mortal lives, it memorializes and thereby conveys a sense of history and society (Arendt 1958). Public spaces are defined in terms of the social encounter and exchange “where groups’ interest converge ’( Borja and Muxi ,2001;Glazer and Lilla 1987;Vernez Moodar 1992;Sorkin 1992;Tibbalds 1992;Worpole 1992). It reinforces the collective identity of the community (Valle Del,1997; Franck and Paxson,1989;Gehl,1987;Lynch 960;Whyte,1980;Kenstler 1993;Ruddock 1996). 

Reinforcing residents’ feelings of belonging to the city is attributed to the actions that can be carried out in public space which reflects an opportunity to urban justice (Borja, 2000).

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why research on public space is now more important for policy makers?

In an era of globalization, the role of public policy makers and urban designers is increasingly concerned in marketing their cities by advocating that they are integrated into the global map. Technology, and most precisely the upgrade of information technology sector, becomes essential in marketing the urban space as being connected with the global flows of capital, people (Porter et al. 2000 cited in Marshall 2003:18).

Subsequently, global urban projects described as  large scale developments built to accommodate high-end functions, are  increasingly initiated such as Cyberport (Hong Kong) ,Tokyo Rainbow Town, Muang Thong Thani(Thailand), Luijazui and the  Pudong Redevelopment Area (Shanghai),New Downtown(Singapore), Putrajaya (Malaysia) (Olds 1995,Marshall 2003).

 However, under the pressure of economic development and global agenda, Public spaces are increasingly privatized and purified   (Graham and Aurigi   1997, Graham and Marvin 2001).

As a result, investigating interventions that aim at providing inclusive public space in the context of a global agenda will provide linkages in between the growing urban research on the privatization of public space and the actual urban design practices and products.

Therefore, the study of possible urban interventions targeting the public space of suburban developments spurred by the global agenda is important.

These interventions need to be based on a conceptual framework that will synthesize the design attributes of  public space with the development goals set by the global agenda.

In particular, there needs to be a more thorough exploration on  how the purification and privatization of public space can be reversed through urban interventions that can benefit from the recent growing research on retrofitting suburbs that share the same attributes of global projects .

In addition, the analysis needs to take into consideration how public space were conceived  in the context and the reasons behind the particular design and policy decisions which lead to the particular characteristics of these spaces.

Importance of  global projects

Research on Globalization developed intensively (e.g. Castells 1989; Harvey 1989; Giddens 1990; King 1993; Sassen 1991) during the last decade although it is believed to start during 1970’s (Waller stein 1974; Castells 1989; Harvey 1989; Giddens 1990; King 1993; Sassen 1991).

However, the focus of the research was on mainly economic and political processes that generalized globalization debate into abstract forces affecting the urban space. Global projects are emerging concepts that deal with the specificities of the urban space being remodeled to respond to global agenda. As such, they offer an opportunity to investigate specific articulations in space and time.

Urban research on globalization based on a locale is needed as it provides new directions in term of being more empirical and specific and leading to practical interpretation of theoutput of the design process .

 

§  Importance of the study  public space

Although privatization of public space has been researched on since 1980, the research focused more in identifying the problems and ills of such a privatized ’’public space’’.

Starting from a more activist perspective, there needs to be more  thinking on interventions that capitalize on existing research and address the possibility of the success of such interventions within the global context.

The  approach will be essentially more multidisciplinary as public space is defined by integrating multiple layers in terms of anthropology than sociology, urban interventions formulated shall offer the opportunity of a holistic integrative approach