In thinking about the integrated city, for me the most important thing is to
recognize, first of all, that there are at least three distinct, if you like
interests around this concept. The first interest is urban planners. I mean if you
look at the history of urban planning, you look at post Second World War and
there's full of examples of urban planners coming up with what they call
integrated city designs. The second group of interests actually are Corporal
business interests. I mean for urban planners the integrated city is the holy grail
for business interests and particular corporate interests, it is business
its money making. Is the integrated city.
And best encapsulated I think currently, the concept of smart cities
and what the smart city conjures up in terms of an integrated city.
The third sort of key player, obviously, are governance.
I mean, local regional national and EU governments because here,
you come into the process whereby the integrated city becomes a process.
One element is about combining different disciplines
and the second element around the integrated process
is about integrated governance recognizing that there is a need for
multi-stakeholder, a multi sectoral participation, in the process.
So, that's the first thing I think, to recognize that there are if you like
different strands of the integrated city.
The second thing, I think, I really want to make.
What is the evidence that we actually have integrated cities?
It's a dream in a way, because in reality on the ground, the evidence is that what
we've had instead, is top-down processes for integrate, integrated cities, in other words
It's a very technocratic driven process.
The second thing, I think, which
is also evidence-based and very clear. Is that most of integrated development or
so-called integrated city development has been infrastructure biased.
In other words, the proportion of money being spent on infrastructure
has been in the ratio of about three to one.
That element of infrastructure development, in my view, has actually accelerated.
the other evidence, is that what we now have increasingly, are not integrated cities.
We have segregated cities. Spatially segregated and increasingly economically segregated
especially in capital and big cities Where as I say you've seen these flows
where these big flows of foreign investment have come in
and one of the best ways of making money, in the current economic climate has been through
infrastructure and property speculation.
So that's my second point, my third point really is that
since what I referred to as the 2008 watershed and for me,
why I say it's the watershed. Because it's not.
it wasn't just about the economic crash, that we're referring to.
I also think it's remarkable to remember
that it's 2008 that smartphone emerged. Because it created the fourth dimension I think,
to our lives, in a much much more fundamental way than the internet had prior to that.
So since 2008 I think that there's been an increasing
realization that the environmental impact of climate change is happening
faster than anyone at actually thought. And it's gone a higher up the agenda
and since then, I think the whole concept of the integrated city has become more
contested and in some places a real conflict, between business as usual models
versus if you like reactions from the ground, independent movements.
Classic example for example the Ghazi Park in Turkey, which was blocked by protests
for a business-as-usual model to convert green space into a shopping mall.
If you look at other examples, not so successful for example Stuttgart.
The mobilization and indeed a referendum to block the development of Stuttgart.
And the local people are still complaining about how they were if you like row roaded.
And here in Brussels, where we are, you've had the movement which was called picnic
Which sounds very very quaint, but actually was fundamental,
because it was about addressing the issue of pollution in the city center
and now as a result of that. We've actually seen that suddenly we've got
a car free center of Brussels. Which in the past it was thought could never happen
recognizing that there has. That there is now this tension.
What we also need to recognize. Is that the old model is decaying, in my view.
But, it's not dead and because of that I think we're in a period right now. We have the new model emerging
But it's not largely under the radar you can see it in small components.
But you don't see it in its entirety and I think historically moments of this kind,
take time to work through and I think we will see hopefully, in the next decade,
that that new model becomes more dominant
and that leads me to my last thing
What do I see as the integrated city? For me there are some
key components of an integrated city that have to be addressed.
Firstly it has to focus on people and planets.
We have to move away from the idea that city development is infrastructure led.
Sure, there has to be infrastructure changes and stuff like that,
I'm not denying it, but the primary focus has to be on
people and not actually recognizing the constraints of the planet.
Second thing, we have to rethink our local democracies. We need more more radical
verb forms of direct democracy. We need to re-engage people in local politics.
Because if we do not do that, the integrated city becomes simply a technocratic concept,
because ultimately for me, cities are people.
and it's people that we have to actually engage with
in order to integrate the city
The third thing which is related to that. I actually feel that it's essential to
engage people not an abstract way. But engage them in actually defining what
they want in terms of neighborhood services. That people actually have a say
in how they are involved in designing and defining the spaces that they live in.
The fourth thing is the most contentious I think, which is about
developing an integrated housing market. Because unless we're able to do that
then the reality is is that housing. The housing market and housing as a tool
increasingly is just for speculation. Is causing segregation. And segregation not
just in terms of where people live, but also segregation in terms of the places
and services that people use. So you take a city here that were're in in Brussels.
There are parts of this city now, where if you walk into a primary or secondary
school you will find that part of the local population is not represented there.
Because even though we live there, their children go elsewhere, because they
can afford to. And it's only those who can't, who are then in those schools
and those schools are failing. And then you have a vicious cycle and
Then the fifth for me is about moving towards a municipal or people ownership
of energy, water and what I would call mobility solutions, those have to be,
I think locally owned and locally defined and we see examples of this already,
in the way that energy companies are doing it. Hamburg as a city is taking over its
its own energy supply and the last point simply is that, yeah, we have to have
integrated cities that are globally connected. But which actually trade and
produce locally and for me that means in using new technology so 3d printing
for an example opens are all kinds of possibilities for having global a supply chains.
But with a low low co2 footprint attached to them and for me link to that
idea o ff you like, local source sourcing and local production.
Is the idea of the integrated city as reintegrating itself into its hinterland
and therefore creating viable and sustainable rural communities around it.
Whereas right now, what we have, our cities urban sprawl and rural dormitories where
people escape. Because they don't want to bring up their kids inside the city and
simply commuting and create additional problems for the model that we currently have
For more infomation >> Gay Democrat Sends Mike Pence a Vulgar Salute – Then Runs and Hides Like a Coward - Duration: 2:31. 
No comments:
Post a Comment