Theme and Objectives

1. Congress Topic

The Local Organising Committee and the General Rapporteur propose to focus on ‘strategic urban projects’ in a complex, multicultural and diverse context both in developed and developing countries.

Strategic urban projects are defined as projects, coordinated by public actors in close co-operation with the civil society, private sector, and other semi–public actors. Strategic projects are considered necessary to achieve normative policy objectives and goals (such as sustainable development and spatial quality, poverty reduction, disaster prevention, security, etc) embedded in strategic planning processes at different policy levels. Strategic projects have an impact on a larger area, and aim to transform and innovate the spatial, economic and social-cultural development of this larger context through a punctual intervention. Strategic projects aim to integrate different goals and objectives of the different policy sectors, the ambitions and goals of stakeholders - the civil society, the private sector, as well as the inhabitants and users of the area, which can be called the ‘actors’ in a development process. 

Strategic urban projects aim to consolidate, to transform, to restructure or to re-use the urban areas/spaces for new and emerging demands from public and private (individuals, economic and cultural) actors in society. The quality of life in cities has become a crucial asset for attracting households and businesses and maintaining a sound basis for economic and cultural life. Strategic urban projects play an important role in the regeneration, transformation and spatial and social innovation of cities. In this way the congress doesn’t want to focus on ‘pure’ real estate operations. 

Strategic urban projects try to engage often vulnerable inhabitants in the improvement of their own living conditions by involving them in the project definition, the process design, the decision-making process, project development and implementation.

Today opportunities for strategic projects often can be found in inner city areas characterised by a multicultural and diverse social context, as well as at broader city or metropolitan levels.

The congress is looking for ‘strategic’ cases in very different locations: in the North and South, the East and the West. ‘Strategic’ does not necessarily mean ‘big and expensive’. It means ‘important’ in a certain context, influencing reality, creative and innovative regardless of the project’s scale. Interesting and eye-caching examples certainly are found in Barcelona, Lyon, Hamburg, Glasgow and other cities in developed countries. But also for instance the projects in Ho Chi Minh City (the Tom Hoa Lo Gom sanitation and rehabilitation project), in Durban (Cato Manor project), in Nairobi (the Safer Cities project), …, can have a strategic and structural influence and create better living conditions for the inhabitants.      

Parallel Sessions

Within this context the congress will focus on the following sub-topics:

(1) A KEEN EYE
The role of and the need for contextual visioning as a framework for the design and development of strategic projects
We will try to find a more conceptual and operational framework for the development of visions. Visioning as a way to give sense to what we do is considered as an essential activity in process and project design. But why do we need a vision, what is a ‘vision’, how can it be developed and by whom? Is visioning a way to communicate with involved actors, a way to negotiate objectives and to reach commitments? How can a vision be a medium to create qualitative spaces and projects? Which innovative operational methods and tools (for instance scenario building, the use of metaphors and concepts, action research, competitions, research by design, city debate, etc) can be used for visioning? How can sustainability and spatial quality be introduced in ‘visioning’?

(2) A USER’S TOOL
Looking for innovative tools for the planning and realization of strategic projects
Traditional planning tools, on their own, no longer seem adequate to deal with a changing society and its growing complexity:

- the capacity to achieve a commitment and to implement decisions is increasingly challenged by a growing mutual dependency of the actors involved;

- increasing and difficult to manage institutional and spatial complexity; as a reaction various administrations are developing even more bureaucratic rules and instruments as a consequence of their own sectoral logic. The result is a growing fragmentation and separation between different policy fields and levels. In this context, traditional policy tools and instruments based on control and regulation, such as land use plans and fixed master plans, seem unsuitable to meet the current challenges;

- tools are not oriented towards policy and plan implementation;

- tools are more oriented towards the creation of legal security than to sustainable and qualitative development.

A broadening of the arsenal of instruments and tools available for commitment building and implementation-oriented projects seems necessary. This sub topic explores innovative instruments, with special attention to more tacit, informal and indirect instruments, which are needed to enhance the capacity for implementation. By exploring the current technical tools and instruments applied in strategic projects and by identifying learning experiences in different countries and contexts, different approaches and instruments can be evaluated. Which instruments and tools, traditional or innovative, are used in today’s interesting cases? Are they efficient and do they lead to a ‘good’ result? Which objective(s), specific tools and instruments have been mobilized in interesting cases? How to deal with informal economy and activities in projects in developing countries?

(3) ARENA of INTERESTS
Managing real estate and public private partnership in strategic projects
Technical, legal, financial, organizational and ownership factors are influencing the execution of projects. This sub topic will focus on the role of real estate and the involvement of the private sector in the planning process and project execution. These factors will be identified and analysed in the light of case studies in order to arrive at proper instruments, the tools and means for process design and project development. In this topic too the tension between commercial objectives and collective or public values (sustainable development, spatial quality, social–cultural values and people’s interests) will be dealt with. The topic will address the following questions: What is the logic of investors and developers? How do they decide to participate and cooperate in projects? Which criteria do they use? Have new types of organizations (public, private or mixed) been developed to realize projects? How can ‘cooperation processes’ be developed and organized? Who should be the ‘director’ and who the ‘manager’ of such processes? What can be the role of informal institutions in such a process? What is the relation between informal and formal institutions? What can be the role of formal agreements in a process between public and private sector?

(4) LET’S WORK TOGETHER
The involvement of inhabitants and users in process and project development
All over the world the issue of participation has remained on the agenda for almost 40 years. The involvement of citizens in decision-making and planning- collaborative planning (Healy) - is also a hot topic today and, of particular relevance to local scale - where locality is regarded as a key aspect of urban projects (compare with the Cairo congress). Of course the notion itself of ‘participation’ has changed fundamentally over time - in its definition, in its content and in its practice, largely due to changing circumstances. If real collaboration and co-production of policy is possibly feasible, then how can we deal with the many obstacles to people’s involvement? Are ‘policy agreements’ between actors a suitable instrument? How can we deal with a multicultural and diverse population? What does ‘participation’ mean in the development and implementation of strategic projects in different contexts? What are the obstacles when it comes to involving people? And what does ‘involvement’ mean? What are the reasons to involve people? At which stages of project development can people be involved? Who are these ‘people’ (stakeholders): individuals, civil society, etc? How can we deal with power and/or interests in relation to people’s values and visions? What can be the role of ‘agreements’ between authorities and people? These are some of the issues that need to be addressed.
 

The congress aims to discover innovative implementation-oriented approaches for planning policy products (innovative spatial concepts, innovative policy instruments for planning, participation and co-production, process architecture and management). Innovation comprises:

-          ways in which new development dynamics can be introduced in a hybrid spatial and complex context;

-          new ways to develop new promising spatial concepts;

-          new ways in which concepts are implemented in multi-actor and multi-level government settings;

-          new ways to engage people in project development.

And finally the following basic question should be dealt with in the four workshops:

-          What about the possible negative effects of urban projects: gentrification resulting in the expulsion of initial inhabitants; programmes which are not related to the needs of inhabitants creating a kind of gated community,…?

-          How to deal with the commercial (often huge) ambitions of developers which are often in contradiction with spatial quality and the needs of people and the city? How to deal with the power and the means of developers and the interests and influence of other actors?

-          How to relate spatial transformation with social-cultural and economic innovation?   

2. Motivation

International developments in spatial planning

All over the world planners are looking for ways to overcome the gap between planning and implementation and between long-term and short-term objectives. Within the context of the changing role of the government, traditional planning approaches appear to be too passive and ‘control’-led. They need to be adapted or combined with more dynamic tools in light of a changing society.

Other planning approaches and instruments that intervene more directly and rapidly, coherently and selectively, and which focus on a specific social reality or spatial dynamics are necessary. Strategic projects represent one of these instruments. As experiences in many cities have proven in the past, they are able to play a key role in the regeneration and transformation of urban areas.

In the 1960s and 1970s spatial planning in a number of countries evolved towards a system of comprehensive planning at different administrative and policy levels.  This approach to planning via a single policy field (i.e. spatial planning) met with fierce opposition from other, and usually more powerful, policy fields.  Although physical plans enjoyed formal status and served as official implementation guidelines, when it actually came down to it, other policy fields (because of their budgetary and technical resources) were needed – and were easily able to sabotage spatial plans, if they wanted.  Moreover it became increasingly clear that a number of different planning concepts – such as the coherent, convenient and compact city, long advocated by planners – could not be achieved solely through physical hard planning.

In the eighties we witnessed a retreat from strategic planning, fuelled not only by the neo-conservative disdain for planning, but also by postmodernist scepticism, both of which tend to view progress as something which, if it happens, cannot be planned. Instead, the focus of urban and regional planning practices was on projects, especially for the revival of rundown parts of cities and regions, and on land use regulations.

The growing complexity, an increasing concern about the rapid and apparently random development, the problems of fragmentation, the dramatic increase in interest (at all scales, from local to global) in environmental issues, the growing strength of the environmental movement, a re-emphasis on the need for long-term thinking and the aim to return to a more realistic and effective method, all served to expand the agenda. In response, more strategic approaches, frameworks and perspectives for cities, city-regions, and regions had again become fashionable in Europe by the end of the millennium.

Implementation is too frequently understood as merely making a new generation of “land-use” plans, and is not sufficiently aimed at public-led transformations and concrete actions - which anyhow should be in close cooperation with public and private actors. As long as real action is not included in spatial planning policies, the shift towards a more qualitative and sustainable development seems unlikely. The result is a loss of credibility in spatial planning as a policy domain, and further fragmentation of policy initiatives and spatial developments.

In this context, all over the world planners, academics and practitioners are looking for more strategic, feasible and development-oriented approaches, combining long-term visioning with concrete actions and projects. The congress hopes to achieve the ‘exploration and evaluation’ of interesting cases and theories about the ‘trialogue’ between:

-          visioning as a way to frame concrete actions,

-          urban projects as a way to change reality in a sustainable and qualitative way,

-          co-production as a way to involve all actors in policy making and implementation.

In many countries there is already a considerable amount of experience regarding the relation between implementation and planning. In some countries the shift from a regulative, bureaucratic approach towards a more strategic, implementation-led and development-led approach has yet to take place. The capacity to initiate and to carry out integrated projects, in collaboration with the private sector and other policy levels and administration, still remains insufficient. A lot of knowledge is still to be developed: in terms of visioning, process and project management, the capacity to involve actors, new policy instruments and tools, technical and financial mechanisms, ‘design’ process, etc.

Though the local level is the most appropriate level at which to manage strategic projects, it is precisely there where knowledge, means and specialized personnel to develop a proper, integrated and innovative approach is lacking. To make this problem even more acute, there are no structural networks between the different administrations and policy levels to disseminate experiences and knowledge.

This is an important topic in Belgium, and of particular interest for the city of Antwerp. The city of Antwerp is willing to share its experience and to learn from other cases.

The organizers are convinced that, given the international planning context, this topic will be attractive both for practitioners and academics in different contexts, from developed and developing countries.

General Rapporteur: Fernanda Magalhães, Brazil      

LOC Co Chairs: Jef Van den Broeck, Jan Verhaert

LOC Members: Kristiaan Borret, Wim Cassiers, Hardwin De Wever, Griet Geerinck, Dries Willems