MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF
URBANISATION
URB-AL NETWORK Nº7
DRAFT DOCUMENT
Experts
JORDI BORJA
HERVE HUTZINGER
MARIO COREA
Draft Document coordinated by:
JORDI BORJA
Rosario, November 2000
In collaboration with ZAIDA MUXI AND RAQUEL ROLNIK
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
THE CHALLENGES OF URBANISATION IN LATIN AMERICA.
ELEMENTS FOR DIAGNOSIS, RESPONSES AND PROPOSALS.
1st Part
10 CHALLENGES OF THE URBAN LATIN AMERICAN PRESENT
1.
Population and Territories.
2.
Social Polarisation, Deprivation and Informal Settlements.
3.
Urban Infrastructures and Movement, do they build cities up or down?
4.
The Opportunities the Territory offers have to be conquered.
5.
The Challenge of Public Spaces.
6.
Cities Competitiveness and New Economies: how they relate to Management of
Urbanisation.
7.
The Challenge of Sustainable Development.
8.
Urban Violence and Public Safety.
9.
Urbanism and Architecture as Urban Policies.
10.
A Vision for the City, the City as a Vision.
2nd Part
TERRITORY GOVERNANCE AND URBANISATION
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1. The three levels of territory governance: metropolitan, central and
district authorities.
2. Weaknesses and proposals to extend democracy in urban territories.
2.1. Centralisation and Decentralisation.
2.2. Political Organization. Executive Power and Legislative Power. Two Separate
Powers.
2.3. Policies and Governance Discontinuance.
2.4. Metropolitan Structures.
2.5. Municipal Decentralisation.
2.6. Political Cronyism and Petty Corruption as opposed to Bureaucratism.
2.7. Weaknesses of Political and Technical Tools that support Urban Planning,
Management and Discipline.
2.8. Expansion of Strategic Planning and Projects Management.
2.9. Citizen Involvement.
2.10. Management Training. A New Urban Culture Arises.
CONCLUSIONS
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CHAPTER II
MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF URBANISATION
URBAN MANAGEMENT TOOLS
NEW URBANISTIC TOOLS: SOME DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTATION
EXAMPLES.
1. Rosario, Argentina (1995). Linkage of public policy and planning tools.
2. Montevideo, Uruguay (1987). Regeneration of Declined Urban Areas due to the
existence of Social Housing.
3. San Pablo, Brazil (1990). Unique Ratio and Property Gain Fee.
4. Diadema, Brazil (1993). Social Priority Areas on Vacant Land.
5. Colombia (1995) – Property Gain Fee.
6. Riberao Pires, Brazil (1999)
CHAPTER III
EUROPEAN CITIES
INTRODUCTION
TRENDS, CHALLENGES AND POLITICAL ISSUES IN EUROPEAN CITIES.
1. Trends and Challenges.
2. The New Context for City Public Policies.
3. Priority Policies and Programmes.
POLICIES PROMOTING URBAN REGENERATION.
1. The Problems of Urban Regeneration.
2. Innovative Experiences, Open Questions.
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POLICIES PROMOTING THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION.
1. The Problems of the “Integrating” City.
2. New Experiences, Open Questions.
STRATEGIC OR INTEGRATED PLANNING.
1. What is it about?
2. Strategic Planning at Regional or Metropolitan Scale.
3. Integrated Planning: Reorganisation and Transport.
4. Urbanisation, Transport and Economic Development: A Complex Triangle.
MANAGEMENT – ASSOCIATED EVOLUTIONS.
1. What is it about?
2. Contractualisation.
3. Space and Role of the European Union in Relation to Urban Policies.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
1. The urban development of Latin American cities has been the subject of
multiple studies; focus has been made on their least favoured, most conflictive,
even catastrophic aspects. Unfortunately, this negative vision has been more
than justified and is still valid. The informal urban development, the huge social
polarisation, the persistence of urban deprivation, the social perception of a
growing and almost uncontrollable urban violence, the very objective reality of
dynamics that lead to unsustainable development (land waste, water and air
pollution, depletion of hydrologic resources, severe lack of drainage systems and
waste management systems), the increase of unemployment, illiteracy and infant
mortality rates, etc. are not inherited phenomena but current concerns that may
not be solved in the near future. In many cases, we could even say that present
urban policies do not mitigate these functional and social problems, but instead,
may even be worsening them.
The aim of this report is not to analyse or insist on these urban concerns since
they are all very well known. We believe we have “shed too many tears” over
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the evils of our cities. We will be making reference to the CHALLENGES cities
must tackle, ACTION PLANS or PROJECTS to deal with these challenges and
the stock of POLITICAL AND TECHNICAL TOOLS cities have, use or require
to implement policies for managing and controlling urbanisation.
2. The political leadership of cities is a relatively new fact in Latin America. The
decentralization of local governments has been in fashion since the 1980’s and
relates to the extension of democracy and the enhancement of government
efficiency and public-private partnership. The role local authorities are to play in
the political culture and the setting out of legal frameworks is not clear yet.
However, all countries believe it has to be strengthened. History teaches us that
local authorities have not enjoyed enough political legitimacy (in many cases
they only started to be regularly elected by local people in recent years), or have
legal, technical and financial capacities to set out regulations and guidance on
urban development or to deal with the impacts derived from the formal and
informal interventions of developers. Nowadays, however, there is a growing
willingness to set out guidance, acknowledged in many legal texts even of a
constitutional level and by international bodies. Local authorities are now
allowed and even forced not only to play their traditional role but also to become
promoters and integrators, that is to say, to implement active social and
economic policies and to understand the management of urbanisation as an
urbanism that will re-structure the real city and that will foster its economy and
its possibilities of social integration. Therefore, it seems adequate to articulate
public policies on urban development (for the inner city and for the outskirts)
and to strengthen the role of local authorities. Local authorities are also to
articulate their partnership with economic, social and cultural partners since
development and management of the urbanisation will largely depend on the
involvement of all players.
3. This Document aims at providing local authorities and city players with a
motivating framework for action and cooperation that will help them define
action ideas and action plans. We do not intend to provide an analytical study
since the reality of our cities has already been identified. We intend to focus on
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current dynamics and challenges, on identifying goals and possible action plans,
on pointing out management tools and organizational structures that will help
achieve our goals.
Some examples will be mentioned. We do not believe they are the only existing
examples neither do they provide a comprehensive picture. We hope they will
stimulate cities member of the network to share other lessons learned and
conclusions drawn, both positive and negative, in order to contribute to the draft
document, to the debate in the workshops and to the work of task forces arising
from the meeting in Rosario, in 2000. The technical and political thinking on so
contemporary and practical issues will further progress if cities, no matter their
similarities or differences, share their expertise. Lessons learned and conclusions
drawn by others can never be transferred mimetically; however, they are good at
stimulating other people’s drive. Therefore, we believe it will be excellent if
Latin American and European cities of different size and characteristics
participate in the network. Differences will contribute to the experience.
4. This document has two chapters (I and II) that generally refer to the challenges
Latin American cities have to deal with, the main action plans proposed and the
used or required tools to implement them. A third chapter, (Chapter III) refers to
lessons learned in European cities.
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About the authors: Jordi Borja has coordinated this Draft Document, in collaboration with Zaida
Muxí. They both take full responsibility on the first two chapters even though Chapter II is mainly
based on a report by Raquel Rolnik (Brazil). Hervé Huntzinger is the author of Chapter III that refers
to European cities. Mario Corea has contributed with notes and comments to the first two chapters.
CHAPTER I
THE CHALLENGES OF URBANISATION IN LATIN AMERICA.
ELEMENTS OF DIAGNOSIS, RESPONSES AND PROPOSALS.
1st Part
10 CHALLENGES OF THE URBAN LATIN AMERICAN PRESENT
1.
Populations and territories
The accelerated natural and migratory growth of the last 50 years has slowed
down considerably in the 1990’s, specially in the big cities, the inner cities and
sometimes, in the first belt. As Europe has been witnessing since the 1960’s or
the 70’s, urban growth is maintained or accentuated in the second metropolitan
belts and in the intermediate cities.
The 1991 census has shown a structural change in the Argentine urban system.
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We have been observing this change since the beginning of the 70’s. The most
significant features of this change were: The Buenos Aires Metropolitan Region
-Región Metropolitana de Buenos Aires (RMBA)– nationwide primacy
decreased while most of the big and intermediate cities, specially the capitals of
the provinces located outside the pampa, grew steadily. Studies carried out in
the mid 90’s showed a decrease in the migratory flows towards the RMBA
meaning a significant number of people stayed in the provinces. Migratory flows
started to move within the provinces: each provincial capital and some county
capitals attracted population1. Esta cita está bien
The intermediate cities face the biggest problems due to their fast urban growth.
Most of the problems relate to the expansion and coverage area of urban services
and infrastructures. The dynamics of intermediate cities growth relates to their
positioning within the urban system, economics and density. Housing, urban
services provision and urban planning deserve special attention. (Cita 2:
URBAN RESEARCH IN THE …..)
If we consider not only the inner city but also those cities with a population of
several million people, we can see that urban density in Latin America —
compared with other continents— has experienced a big growth as regards
density in the Americas. Big cities growth rate has slightly declined from 1980
to 1995, though.
Despite the decline of domestic migratory flows, rural population has also grown
in absolute numbers while farming land suffers more and more economic
concentration and the need for labour falls. These factors have resulted in an
internal exodus towards the cities. A large number of this migrating population
is young people between 15 and 35 years old. In Lima, 78% of migrants are that
old. (Cita 3 SCHUTZ, EIKE…). Based on data from the World Bank, in 1960,
47% of jobs belonged to farming and cattle raising, whereas in 1980, only 31%.
1
Catenazzi, Andrea / Reese, Eduardo Control y Gestión de las ciudades medias de la Argentina. Agosto, 2000.
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Crecimiento de algunas ciudades latinoamericanas
en relación al crecimiento total del país
ciudad
tasa crecimiento tasa crecimiento
población en miles
1970-1980
en 1995
1980-1995
crecimiento % país
1970-1980
1980-1995
Buenos A ires
1,6
0,7
10,990
1,17
1,23
Belo Horizonte
4,3
3,1
3,899
1,26
1,33
Fortaleza
3,7
3,9
2,66
1,26
1,33
Porto A legre
3,8
2,7
3,349
1,26
1,33
Recif e
1,8
2,7
3,168
1,26
1,33
Rio de Janeiro
2,2
0,9
9,988
1,26
1,33
Salvador
3,9
3,4
2,819
1,26
1,33
Sao Paulo
4,1
2
16,417
1,26
1,33
Santiago
2,7
2,1
5,065
1,17
1,27
Bogotá
4
3,1
5,614
1,24
1,32
Medellín
2,7
1,9
1,743
1,24
1,32
La Habana
0,9
1,1
2,241
1,13
1,13
Guadalajara
4,1
2,2
3,165
1,33
1,34
México D.F.
4,3
0,8
15,643
1,33
1,34
Monterrey
4,9
2,2
2,806
1,33
1,34
Lima
4,1
3,5
7,452
1,31
1,35
Montevideo
0,4
0,6
1,326
1,03
1,09
Caracas
1,7
1,3
2,959
1,4
1,44
V alencia
3,2
3,4
1,6
1,4
1,44
Source: CELADE (Centro LatinoAmericano de Demografía) “Latin America forecasts of urban-rural population 19702025” Demographic Bulletin nº 56, Santiago de Chile, 1995.
In short, when we make reference to population and territory, we would like to
focus on the following:

Inner cities density is uneven. On the other hand, their new production
profile, the crisis of their traditional economy and the possibility of
recovering redundant land from obsolete or relocated industries or utilities,
provides significant opportunities for urban regeneration.

Cities growth has been more horizontal than spatial with the resulting land
waste. Informal, non-regulated growth has been king together with
fragmented growth, the urban sprawl based on homogeneous products
(closed, self-served boroughs, industrial parks, etc). In short, fragmentation,
social and functional segregation. Urban structures of the inner cities are
generally scarce or weak. The city as a mixed use or integrating environment
is present only in some historic urban districts.
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
Outskirts witness a year on year growth. Migratory pressure will continue if
rural areas continue to be unattractive places to live in. This growth leads to
an uncontrolled and predator development of large areas in the metropolitan
region. It is a heavy burden for the future of the city since it places the inner
city under a tremendous pressure: the need for urban services provision.
Besides, this new population will occupy public spaces for street sales or
markets, will make use of social and educational equipments and will
jeopardize public safety.
It is clear now that the management and control of urbanisation needs to be
based on our existing urban environments and to accept all forms of urban
growths —to build up cities on existing urban environments, as the Urban
Program from the European Union recommends. Second, local authorities need
urban tools and urban culture to build up cities in the outskirts. Local
authorities should introduce practice guidelines not only to integrate informal
settlements (slums) but also to set a framework for urban development that
ensures their integration to the city social and functional life.
The weaknesses of the urban tools at hand and the absence, in most instances, of
local bodies with strategic management and enforcement roles over the whole of
the urban environment planning are challenges we still have to respond to.
2.
Social Polarisation, Deprivation and Informal Settlements
Latin American cities show a huge social polarisation in every aspect of urban
life. It has been possible to say that 50% of urban population live in the illegal
city (Hardoy); mention has been made to 100 million of urban poors (CEPAL,
World Bank); references to a similar number of people who suffer “from
conflicts between a qualified minority and a majority living under precarious
urban conditions; people suffering from “territorial exclusion”. This exclusion
expresses much more than the imbalances in incomes and social possibilities: it
is a factor that multiplies that same social polarisation and imbalance”2 (CITA
2
Rolnik, Raquel /Cymbalista, Renato. Regulación del Urbanismo en América Latina. Desafíos en la construcción de
un nuevo paradigma. July 2000. Page. 2.
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4: ROLNIK RAQUEL….) That in irregular, marginal settlements deprived from
the provision of basic urban services and highly dangerous for its dwellers and
for the urban environment. However, we should focus on the implications of
social imbalances and deprivation in the urbanisation process. The implications
are:

The most recent process that highly impacted on the 1990’s: urban
fragmentation (urban sprawl) due to intruding urban ghettos for the rich amid
existing urban structures. These ghettos can be “urban products”, i.e. large
urban equipments “autistic” in relation to the environment, discriminative in
favour of and essentially dedicated to consumer society practices. They
could also take the form of community housing, neighbourhoods, cities or
enclosed, self-served towns.

Urban development achieved through irregular settlements (slumming);
wasted land; water pollution related to the absence of drainage systems;
illegal hooking to basic urban services and utilities (electricity, running water
supply); dissemination of non-regulated urban services (bus systems,
sometimes health systems, district police stations, etc.); the occupation of
unsuitable land turning the settlement vulnerable to natural catastrophes
(floods, fires, land sliding, etc.); the building up of ghettos that replicate the
vicious circle of marginal urban life, etc.
Poor, deprived districts: [...] in most urban areas, more than 50% of the
population is currently living (1986) in marginal, “informal”
settlements
(slumming). Mexico – 65%, Lima – 60 %, Guayaquil – 65 %, Bogotá -55%. We
can no longer talk about marginal settlements in a spatial sense. [...] distinguish
two main groups: those located in the inner cities, in downtown areas and those
in the outskirts, the peripheries. Their problems and, generally, their origin, are
as different as their looks. 3 (es cita 5: SCHULTZ, EIKE…)

The decline of the inner city and of the districts that belong to the “formal”,
legal city but that have not up-graded their urban pattern. This lack of
renewal serves as grounds for the dialectics of social and functional decline,
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resulting in slumming4 (es cita 6): the abandonment of basic or dynamic
activities and attitudes typical of middle incomes sectors, the deterioration of
physical environment, including the architectural and historical heritage, the
loss of symbolic elements that give identity to the city, the loss of urban
safety.

The dissemination of non-regulated activities, such as street sales, which
have predatory effects on public spaces and urban services. They are also
and frequently the source of conflicts with residents actively engaged in
regulated, “formal” economy (specially store owners).

The dissemination of illegal economy-related activities and of urban
delinquency, and overall, an objective and subjective decrease of public
safety and of the quality of life of “formal”, “legal” residents.

The efficiency of urban policies designed to foster better distribution and
economic reactivation is reduced. Policies were aimed at creating new inner
cities, at building up better quality public spaces in low-income districts, but
fail due to the low demand from high-incomes sectors and the poor civic
integration of communities.

The minimum involvement of citizens and the reduced lobbying power of
deprived sectors (even when, street sellers, for instance, many times put great
pressure on local authorities).

The difficulties to regenerate these areas —to make matters worse, people’s
resistance to change and to accept different selves—, the implementation of
solutions that in theory replicate marginal living conditions: low quality
subsidised housing, physically and culturally segregated from the formal
city. Residents of the inner city have to deal with the elimination of marginal
housing from the area and the resulting relocation of squatters. Social bonds
are entangled, access to jobs become more difficult. Squatters and slummers
3
4
Schütz, Eike J. Op. cit. Pág. 80
Slums.
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should not be relocated, their living and environmental conditions should be
improved.
Other more formal developments of popular, subsidised housing have similar
impacts due to the low-income levels of the population, the bad quality of the
housing and the equipment (if any). That is why we may talk about vertical,
marginal settlements. Based on the information derived from the censuses of 19
Latin American countries in the 1990’s the housing stock was 93 million of
households: 2 out of 3 were acceptable places to live in. Out of the remaining
third, 21% were able for regeneration. Despite this fact, regional housing
policies show no tendency to housing regeneration. (acá iría la cita 7)
However, cities are not powerless. Many experiences show efficient policies can
be implemented by managing urbanisation. Experiences such as the “Favela
Barrio” Program (Rio de Janeiro), or the program fostered by CONAVI for the
“ranchitos” in Caracas, These programs start out by providing better access to
the area and some essential urban services (bus system, water supply, drainage,
waste management, etc). Public spaces are opened and equipped with public or
private funding. Streets are named and houses are numbered —this relates to
land-ownership regulating projects that support the up grading of the habitat—.
Many times these programs are fostered by NGO’s supported by local
authorities and international cooperation. In some cases, relocation cannot be
avoided (area maintenance is highly dangerous). In general, relocation to areas
further away from the formal, inner city and downtown area does not seem
socially advisable. Multiple regeneration programs have focused on damaged,
degraded downtown areas. They seem to have been successful for the city but
have implied the expulsion of many low-income residents (San Salvador de
Bahía). Others, on the other hand, have improved the area turning it into a more
attractive downtown thanks to the provision of cultural equipment, housing
regeneration, tourist attractions, improved public safety, etc. without pushing off
significant sectors of low-income residents (Mexico, Buenos Aires). It seems
highly advisable to think that public spaces and urban infrastructure policies
have to rely on distributive and integrating effects and impacts. Be aware,
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however, that these impacts will not be as immediate and comprehensive as in
European cities where social polarisation is not so big.
3.
Urban Infrastructures and Movement, do they build cities up or
down?
This extensive, horizontal, land wasting growth with its informal settlements
(slums), featured as an “isolated product” results in severe deficit of urban basic
infrastructure provision (water supply, waste management systems, power, bus
systems, social equipments, etc.). Urban services (if any) may, on the other
hand, be very expensive. This results in more urban sprawl, more unsustainable
development and less social integration.
Urban movement policies adopted by most Latin American countries and cities
in the past have contributed to deepen these negative phenomena. Priority was
given to both public and private bus and rented cars systems. Traffic congestion
and air pollution has reached very high levels. Despite that, on average only 10%
of the population owns a car, car traffic is seen as a prioritary urban movement
system. Negative impacts are well known: private cars deepen social polarisation
and affect city density. Regulated franchised public transport systems have
resulted in urban aberrations like huge concentration of bus lines on high streets
(i.e. Alameda in Santiago de Chile), no transfer possibilities to other forms of
transport, such as the subway (i.e. Rio de Janeiro), disregarding other transport
means that suit the city morphology better, such as the tram or the bicycle (i.e.
Buenos Aires). Absence of air filters to reduce air pollution; high fares without
the possibility of transfers to be borne mostly by low-income residents. Public
transport systems quality is low and therefore, mid-incomes sectors prefer
private cars: demand for public transport goes down. It is an ill-fated spiral of
negative impacts for the city.
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In Montevideo5 (esta cita no está en este párrafo) the growth of private cars
stock has had several negative consequences: an increase of traffic jams, a
perverse dynamics in relation to the public transport: since public transport
systems are inadequate, more people prefer the car. Therefore, less bus fares are
sold and companies deploy an absurd attitude (typical of a captive market
condition): they reduce bus frequency. Journeys are worse and take longer. We
believe the introduction of local transport plans to reduce car journeys within
the city is a challenge to be tackled immediately. (acá va la cita 8)
Journeys-persons a day in terms of means of transport 1972 and 1994
Journeys (in million) – Persons a Day
Means of Transport
1972
percentage
1994
percentage
Bus – Subway
1,146
10,3%
3,234
13,9%
Urban Buses (Route 100)
5,576
50,3%
1,566
6,8%
Minibuses
0,371
3,3%
12,510
54%
Free and Local Taxis
1,195
10,8%
0,568
2,4%
Trolleybuses and Tramways
0,610
5,5%
0,131
0,6%
Private Cars
1,186
10,7%
4.042
17,4%
Communting Buses
0,307
2,8%
0,802
3,5%
School and Private Buses
0,233
2,1%
N.D.
-
Foreign Buses
0,156
1,4%
N.D.
-
Bycicles
N.D.
-
0,167
0,7%
Motorcycles
N.D.
-
0,018
0,1%
Other Means
0,305
2,8%
0,148
0,6%
TOTAL
11.085
100
23,186
100
SOURCE: 1972, Gaceta oficial, Departamento del Distrito Federal, November 1972; 1994 Survey:
Origin and Destination of Metropolitan Area Residents’ Journeys, Mexico City, 1994, Mexico,
INEGI, SHCP.
Chart: Ciudad de Mexico – Evolution of public transport journeys in terms of modal distribution and
vehicle capacity
Álvarez, Luciano, “Cinco desafíos para Montevideo”. Montevideo 2020. El Montevideo que viene. Comisión financiera de la
Rambla Sur. Intendencia Municipal de Montevideo. Montevideo, 1999.
5
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Share in total number of journeys
1972
1979
1983
1985
1989
Down ( taxis, ,mini cabs, and private cars)
31,5
32,2
32,1
29
49,97
Up (metro, buses, trolley-bus
66,6
65,5
67,2
54
51,06
0,7
17
N.D
and trams)
Others (taxis no fixed route, private buses)
2,3
Source: Coordinación General del Transporte, D. D. F. 1987 y Navarro B. Thesis for a Mater Degree in Economics, 1991
We can highlight the public transport policies carried out in the past 14 years in
Mexico and some of its positive elements: a single fare and a system of transfers
(weekly, monthly tickets) for both electrically and engine driven buses [...]
public bodies running the bus and trolleybus system in D.F., commuting trains
and the subway: the Comprehensive Coordination of Transport Systems which
gives consistency to the management and planning of transport services in the
city. The “Comprehensive Program for Transport and Road Systems” provides
practical and political guidelines for decision-making [...], anyway, more and
more vehicles of limited capacity are introduced, [....] the prevalence of low
density vehicles results in saturated streets, severe environmental damage,
inefficient use or overuse of available resources, limitations to sectorial and
territorial planning possibilities, and significant inefficiencies in the global
system. […] The metropolitan public transport system requires urgent
coordination of current and multiple funding programs, fiscal policies,
infrastructure projects, etc. in order to prioritise collective transport vehicles.6
(acá va la cita 9). Illegal minibuses with no subsidies are the most used vehicles
of limited capacity.
There are, however, interesting experiences on urban movement policies that
have achieved a more sustainable and integrating system and that have turned
urban movement into a redistributing factor of urban incomes, such as Curitiba
and Quito.
Besides, although still falling short of requirements, the creation or extension of
the subway network has proven, once again, the efficiency of this means of
transport. It has also positively impacted on the rating of urban patterns, on the
Navarro Benítez, Bernardo. “Las políticas de transporte urbano en América Latina. El caso de la ciudad de
México”. Ciudades y políticas urbanas. Coordinador Fernando Carrión. CODEL, Quito. 1992.
6
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integration of outskirts and has also increased citizens’ self-esteem. The
criticisms that some experts from international finance agencies made on the
“wasting” represented by these programs (basically, the Medellín subway
system) are just another example of their urban illiteracy and of their biased
opinions when it comes to developing countries.
The provision of transport systems infrastructures, of roads and avenues for
private cars has almost always been wasted opportunities. They could have
helped building up the city, however, in many instances, they have contributed
to cities decline. Against all reasonable opinions and in opposition to lessons
already learned, we still witness policies that support “fast” urban lanes that
damage the urban pattern and result in traffic congestion. They isolate
downtown areas by contributing to their decline and/or their third sector profile.
They limit the city as a public space provider. We can mention several
examples: the “corredores” in Mexico in the 70’s, the “vias” in Sao Paulo that
almost paralysed this huge Brazilian metropolis. Bogotá and Caracas are a hint
of the urban future that lies ahead of big, even mid-size Latin American cities if
this trend continues to be supported. Even in cities with high quality urban
patterns, like Buenos Aires with its magnificent street grid and avenue system,
we can observe worrying signs: the deterioration of main avenues and their
almost impossible renovation. Corrientes Ave. was absurdly reduced to meet
traffic needs. The attempt obviously failed but with the simple enlargement of
sidewalks that prioritises pedestrian needs, the Avenue has recovered its urban
boulevard and promenade role. This resulted in the narrowing of the totally
unnecessary 6 3-metre-wide-lane avenue. Even more absurd phenomena can be
seen in mid-size cities, which density and morphology should always prioritise
pedestrian and cyclists needs. Mini-buses should be the natural option, however,
sidewalks have been narrowed to provide more room for cars and big buses.
Fortunately, there are other signs too. At least, other options and alternatives are
under debate. Not only Curitiba and Quito offer different examples. We could
also mention:
-
The recycling of “Carrera 15” in Bogotá with its new pedestrian walks,
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new laid-out gardens along avenues in downtown Mexico (Hipódromo –
Condesa);
-
The debate on the future of the Alameda and the project for the new civic
centre in Santiago;
-
The action ideas set in the Environmental Urban Plan of Buenos Aires;
-
The up grading of downtown Montevideo, etc.
This idea of building up cities is present even in the outskirts:
-
The “Longitudinal“ in Bogotá,
-
The Eixo Tamanduatehy in Santo André (Sao Paulo),
-
The Rio Cidade project and
-
The regeneration of the Avenida Brasil in Rio de Janeiro.
This Avenida Brasil is an old highway, built in the 60’s that runs all through Rio,
along 50 km and ends right into the downtown area. Ever since its construction,
the city built up alongside. Nowadays, it is an ongoing succession of periphery
districts. The city Prefeitura has designed an urban regeneration program
structured around some principles: first, fast roads and lanes have to be
compatible with the urbanity of districts alongside. Central lanes are dedicated
lanes for speed and traffic, side lanes are designed to be city streets disregarding
the purpose they were intended for: fast access and traffic distribution. Trees
bordering public spaces, pedestrian promenades and wide sidewalks, regulated
urban solutions and services. Second, fast roads and lanes should be integrated
to the public transport system, with bus-dedicated lanes, bus stops on the avenue
and transport transfer hubs strategically located where commuting trains and
subway lines come to a junction. Last —from our standpoint, this is the most
significant principle— provide for inner city conditions as the fast road runs
through the districts. The idea of integrating bus stops, pedestrian crossings,
clearly marked accesses and area-related landscape results in an enormous
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impact. Government-owned banks provided the funding; collaterals were
negotiated with the Government and offered thanks to the value for money
derived from the privatisations of land located alongside the avenue accesses.
Discussion should also focus on a comprehensive set of basic urban services
besides transport systems, water supply, power, telecommunications, etc.
Services provided through a network that make cities an integrated unit for its
residents.
Mention should be made to the risks of public utilities privatisation processes, so
much in fashion in Latin America at present. These processes have not been seen
as opportunities to build up a better city, setting guidelines, regulating rates and
establishing service quality standards that may provide for social integration (i.e.
low rate services for minimum use compared to higher rates for larger service
use) and for public spaces regeneration.
4.
The opportunities the territory offers have to be conquered.
The public sector and private developers are required to find possible
partnerships to benefit from the opportunities created by these fast, current
changes. Any urban regeneration program relies on a political project, on
cultural values, on management objectives and social changes. Conflicts and
problems are to be tackled and dealt with. Not everybody can be happy or agree
100%. On behalf of competitiveness, public investments cannot go to areas that
developers are already interested in, abandoning other areas. On behalf of shortterm return on investment, urban products such as industrial parks, office
buildings, self-served, closed districts or shopping malls cannot be justified.
They bring physical and social disintegration, they contribute to social
polarisation. Functional efficiency results in replication of urban fast roads, less
public spaces, land and energy waste, traffic congestion and air pollution,
hysterical behaviour of city residents. Speeches are made on sustainable
development while engine driven vehicles are prioritised, car density and
pollution is not sanctioned and public transport systems are not improved.
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Speeches thus seem purely hypocritical. Competitiveness, sustainability, quality
of life and governability hide a rhetorical discourse about reality. These words
are meaningful concepts when they become action plans, action ideas, guidelines
and standards comprehensively integrated to solve problems and benefit from
their synergy. In order to implement desirable criteria and principles, we have to
force political decisions made from different alternatives. Any urban
regeneration program should tackle several problems at the same time. Action
ideas cannot be sectorial; they have to approach the city comprehensively.
In the next chapter we will discuss the new technical and political tools required
to implement efficient interventions on the territory. We now detail the
opportunities we consider are action areas for attention:

Traditional downtown areas or “historic districts”: the place to make a
difference, the best possible offer. The place to make sense, the main urban
factor for city integration. A new opportunity in the globalised world, in the
peak of tourism and international congresses. A new chance for societies that
treasure culture and dreams. A significant challenge since regeneration has to
be achieved on deteriorated, high-density urban patterns with some specially
congested areas. Cities require residential zones with their own entertainment
facilities, urban safety, mix of tenures and incomes that avoid both
marginality and gentrification7.(se elimina la cita) New urban activities,
new urban functions and good-quality public spaces need to be drawn.
Funding is to be streamlined by managing and not by just regulating urban
regeneration. Urbanistic tools are usually inadequate or insufficient since
they were designed to provide a regulatory framework for urban
development of greenfield lands. These tools are more planning-oriented
than management-oriented. Mechanisms to negotiate with a big number of
land or property owners, tenants, potential investors or developers are not
flexible. However, in recent years, there have been interesting interventions
in historic districts: Montevideo, Quito, Cordoba, Santiago de Chile, Havana,
Salvador de Bahia, etc. Lately, Bogotá and Mexico. Also, some interesting
7
Se refiere a la renovación urbana que sustituye total o parcialmente sectores pobres por sectores medios,
principalmente profesionales o de medios culturales.
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proposals from cultural and professional associations such as Viva o Centro,
in Sao Paulo.

Urban Patterns and New Inner Cities: The current urbanism, or better still,
any new urban development is on brownfield areas. This has been considered
of outmost significance in recent European experiences (“to build up cities
on existing cities”). It should be of even more significance in many Latin
American cities that grow towards greenfield areas with no urban
infrastructure or service provision while the “brownfield city” maintains lowdensity areas, leaves vacant land and buildings, depopulates and fosters its
own decline. The inadequacy of urbanistic tools follows a deeper problem:
cities are to define what to do with those patterns —historic patterns in many
occasions— that are and have been negatively impacted by the urban sprawl
caused by road systems, that have seen the decline of their economies or that
have located new developments such as blocks of flats, office buildings,
shopping malls with their huge parking lots and the resulting damage to the
existing urban pattern. We believe there are three interesting ongoing
dynamics even though they do not always contribute to “BUILD UP
CITIES”:
A.
Interventions to provide for regeneration to consolidated districts:
policies aimed at public spaces, improvement of urban services
provision, cultural initiatives. Rio Cidade is, quite surely, one of the
models to consider even though many Latin American cities have already
started to walk in the same direction. It is a very interesting and highly
commendable strategy. The presence of large low-incomes sectors will
result in a less immediate and comprehensive regeneration than the one
achieved in European cities. These sectors should not, nevertheless, be
relocated and submitted to “exclusion”.
B.
Public or private (or public-private) partnerships to provide for the
regeneration of buildings and renewal of existing housing stock. This will
many times result in relocation of residents or in new uses —new
commercial or tourism-related activities. Salvador de Bahia is a well-
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known example. However there are other examples, may be not as
“flashy”. It is obvious that this strategy may derive in more social
conflicts since it almost always implies the relocation of residents and
activities. However, a good public management and interaction with
private stakeholders may reduce negative impacts to a minimum.
C.
New inner cities. Traditional districts are downtown areas but have
declined. Many suffer the consequences of bad access roads, absence of
significant buildings, visibility and urban services or equipments to
support their inner city functions. It seems very necessary to design new
strategies that will provide for inner cities on existing urban patterns, that
will make these districts more attractive places to live in and that will
foster the city comprehensively. The undesirable two-fold dynamics will
be avoided: no more economic concentration / social deprivation
processes. Strong public initiatives and action plans are required to foster
new inner cities: a) better transport systems with transfer systems and
transport transfer hubs; b) some urban, visible developments on historic
buildings or public spaces to provide image and credibility that will
attract developers and investors; c) a new regulatory framework to
facilitate new uses and new edification densities in potential new inner
cities while ensuring integration with existing urban patterns to avoid
“dedicated enclaves”.

The releasing of obsolete redundant buildings and facilities for
regeneration such as ports, railways, barracks, pseudo fast ways. They are
displaced (or preferably should be relocated) to release land for public
spaces, public buildings, etc. Redundant industrial parks, manufacturing
facilities and warehouses can be tackled similarly. The weakness of urban
tools is to be mentioned. So is the absence of expertise and means on the part
of local authorities to enforce action ideas and action plans to recover this
redundant land that in many occasions may provide for the best possible
opportunities to implement integrated programs “that can build up cities”.
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The regeneration of this redundant land is an opportunity to build up a betterdistributed and balanced city: to recover areas of special interest that are
surrounded by consolidated urban pattern, to overcome historical imbalances.
A good example is the inner axis around which urban programs were
structured in Junín, Argentina. These programs represent the possibility of a
deep recycling of the local economy, of balancing out the strong city
fragmentation: downtown and southern areas concentrate high-incomes
residents while the northern outskirts concentrate low-incomes sectors.
These strategies require to be complemented by others.
Closing down the railway system resulted in, among other consequences, the
abandonment of almost 40 hectares located in the geographical centre of the
city. The Plan prioritised a number of urban strategies including several
local initiatives derived from a new vision: the displacement of the railway
freight station, the setting up of a Logistics Activities Zone (Zona de
Actividades Logísticas – ZAL -) and the urbanisation of the railway
redundant facilities. These three initiatives broke the traditional “barrier”
that has always separated the northern and the southern areas. Grounds for
possible new public spaces and social equipments were also created. The
process was completed with the updating of urban regulations, good-quality
designed public spaces in downtown areas, a new rating of public spaces
around the ponds surrounding the city (which, by the way, represent the most
important tourist attraction) and a specially designed program for deprived
periphery sectors. At the same time, a number of new financial tools to
provide for the necessary funding are being studied and assessed.

Transport planning is to be seen as an opportunity to build up cities,
create public spaces and new “inner cities”. Cooperation instances that set
up partnership between local authorities and private players will have to be
streamlined.
It seems advisable to discriminate in favour of more urban-like public
transport —subway, tram, public transports that do not pollute— and to
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develop a comprehensive urban vision where transport planning integrates
into urban development programs. In cities where bus services account for
70% of journeys, providing clear central guidance and well-regulated land
use standards to avoid environmental damage can only reduce traffic
congestion. Transport planning is an excellent tool for public spaces
regeneration and the best instrument to provide for indirect incomes.

Action ideas for the “informal” city (the slums and squatter settlements).
It is an inherited challenge that multiplies on a day-to-day basis. However, it
can also be seen as an opportunity since informal settlements are frequently
located on strategic areas or next to new urban developments. We require
mechanisms to distribute the new value for money (the “planning gain”) that
will help funding the informal settlements regeneration programs. Any
intervention on the informal city should be designed to “build up” the city:
i.e. take into account the existing urban environment and plan for a better
quality of life. Lately, we have seen creative and wonderful examples that
have proved there are new ways to tackle this reality, while respecting
existing environments and residents.
The Favela Barrio Program in Rio de Janeiro is an emblematic example. It is
one of the most significant urban regeneration projects implemented in Latin
America. The name itself summarizes its objective: to turn “favelas” into
“barrios” (neighbourhoods), to provide for citizenship to favela residents. In
1995, 115 favelas were regenerated, that is 160.000 households and almost
800.000 people. 310 million dollars were invested in urbanisation programs:
opening streets and squares, accesses, sewage and drainage, protecting valley
depressions and deforested slopes. The most significant action, however, was to
grant ownership to occupiers and to relocate the most jeopardized buildings.
Streets were named and numbered, people whose lack of geographical identity
excluded them from the marketplace were given citizenship. Privately funded
restoration of buildings has been a very logical consequence. Works were
planned and executed by a social tissue that gave birth to a number of
employment-oriented and assistance-oriented co-operatives. The IADB has
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designated this program its “star program” and has therefore extended the
credit so that all favelas can benefit from it in the coming years. The EEC is
funding the program implementation in other squatter settlements that are not
labelled as “favelas”. This “Bairrinho” program has already provided for the
regeneration of 112 settlements.
Medellín prioritises urban policies that focus on tackling conflict areas.
Basically, spontaneous urbanisation —squatter settlements— that is almost
always illegal, chaotic and violent. It is the “Medellin District Regeneration
Program,” carried out by government-owned companies. Interventions focus on
squatter settlements that lack basic urban services. It follows several steps: first,
supported by community organizations, the provision of basic urban services:
water and power supply; access roads or streets, planning, funding and
execution of drainage systems; zoning and service provision to relocate homes
currently in highly dangerous areas. Medellín has been implementing this policy
since 1958, though more intensively in the last 3 years. 104.000 households were
provided with running water, 43.000, with drainage systems, 162.000, with
electricity. 40% of the city has benefited from this program. Among the
achievements we can mention: land sliding caused by surface waters has been
reduced in number and controlled; illegal hooking to power networks was
significantly reduced, service users payment discipline was improved (reforms
can be paid in up to 120 monthly payments at a 0,5 and 2% interest rate). There
have also been some negative effects such as: people feel motivated to locate
new settlements close to those included in the program since they expect to be
provided with basic services within 2 to 6 years; public spaces were invaded;
area density increased; higher density than expected which resulted in
difficulties to install utilities infrastructure […]. In some cases, regeneration
was costly.8(acá está la cita 10)
5.
The Challenge of Public Spaces 9 (acá figura la cita 11)
Palacios B., Alonso “Evaluación de políticas urbanas en la ciudad de Medellín” Ciudades y políticas urbanas.
Coordinador Fernando Carrión. CODEL, Quito. 1992.
9 Borja, Jordi / Muxí, Zaida . El espacio público: Ciudad y ciudadanía. Diputación de Barcelona, 2000.
8
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Nowadays, Latin American cities face a public space deep crisis that results
from their history and from new urban developments. Several factors contribute
to this crisis. The imbalance represented by the “historic districts” with their
street grid, squares and well-designed historical monuments. These streets were
widened by programs designed at the end of the XIX and the beginning of the
XX century. They have always, however, accounted for a very small part of the
urban development occurred since the 1950’s. This urban growth was of mixed
density with large amounts of derelict, vacant and under-used land and buildings
but very few public spaces. Public spaces were discriminated in favour of car
traffic and of blocks of flats that do not build up streets or squares; the outskirts
witnessed horizontal growth but they are only isolated pieces of the puzzle. In
short, a crisis that affects public space in its two dimensions: a regulating and
mixed-use element where people meet, move and socialize, and an element for
city cohesion, consistency and integration that provides for citizenship and
identity.
Current urban culture has re-rated public spaces: they are now thought of as
elements that define cities as an urban, political and cultural expression where
people live, socialise and symbolically identify themselves as citizens. It seems
only logical, then, that Latin American planners and developers try to devolve
on public spaces the leadership they had in the past, recovering their capacity to
build up cities.
Public spaces crisis has very visible impacts on the urban landscape. It also has
political and cultural impacts that we are not debating here. We just want to
mention:

The decline of urban environment: cities become less attractive places to live
in; quality of life and vitality are degraded. Streets and avenues are not safe:
urban liveliness is lost and pedestrian walking is avoided. A poor public
space contributes to social polarisation. It strengthens anonymous dynamics
and fosters predator and anti-social behaviours and attitudes towards urban
services and equipments.

Public equipments become dedicated spaces, isolated from each other
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instead of interconnected to benefit from the typical crowds of public spaces.
Positive policies should provide for quality design and public space uses to
single function or dedicated spaces such as bus terminals or railway stations,
commercial areas that may create opportunities for gardens and squares,
spaces adjoining to or surrounding health or educational equipments,
manufacturing facilities surrounding areas.

As time goes by, people make different uses of urban assets and equipments.
A well-designed public space provides for better possibilities of evolution.
We can say that public spaces are the “lungs” of modern cities.
It would be unfair not to mention the renaissance experienced by public spaces
in the present of Latin American urbanism. Let us remember some examples:

The “civic” regeneration of downtown areas to transform them into urban
entertainment providers. These areas have experienced a cultural and
commercial renaissance. They symbolise the “big city lights” again.
Architectural heritage has been regenerated. Think of the work done by Viva
o Centro in Sao Paulo.

The safeguarding and recycling of certain urban patterns, the discrimination
in favour of pedestrian walks, gardens and promenades, the new equipment
installed in squares, bus stops, etc. This frequently derives from neighbours’
claims and is achieved thanks to residents’ involvement.

The creation of new urban developments structured around public spaces
such as the extension of Rosario downtown area. The structuring of new
“inner cities” in the outskirts, as the Eixo Tamanduatehy in Santo André-Sao
Paulo.
Unfortunately, the strongest current dynamics is to transform public spaces into
road links, shopping malls with large parking spaces or self-served districts.
To “balance out” these dynamics through isolated interventions in some
monumental downtown zones thought of as being “noble”, “artistic” or
“historic” is not an alternative. Because meanwhile, the rest of the city is
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sprawling. The public space is the city. The whole city is historic.
6.
Cities competitiveness and new economies: how they relate to
management of urbanisation.
The idea of this report is not to discuss how globalisation impacts on cities and
on urban policies; however, we believe it is adequate to mention some aspects
that directly relate to the management of urbanisation.
The need to position the city within international agendas and to become
attractive to companies operating in globalised markets adds to this “dedicated
zones” trend. Industrial, technological or business parks, world trade centres or
telecommunications centres that do not integrate into the city or into the local
economy.
Those urban initiatives designed to develop the third sector are just another
example: provide services to companies, build office blocks, set out cultural and
tourist equipments and convention centres in order to look appealing to foreign
private and public investors. These initiatives might be integrated into the city
and into the local economy but, unfortunately, it hardly ever happens. Barcelona
is frequently quoted as a successful example. However, we tend to forget two
other international events celebrated that same year and that represented higher
public investments with much more arguable urban impacts. The Isla de la
Cartuja or the AVE in Seville, the Rio Centro and the Línea Vermelha in Rio
have greatly impacted both cities. Rio social polarisation was deepened.
This idea of “city competitiveness” has driven many local authorities —in
Europe long before than in Latin America— to try to “sell the city” at a low
price, willing to appeal investors, developers and companies that will bring a
“modern image”. Unfortunately, this idea forgets that the best product a city can
offer is itself, its urban quality. In Latin America we can frequently observe a
perverse mechanism: central, good quality urban patterns continuously displaced
by speculation; old inner cities decline while no new inner cities are integrated.
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Sao Paulo is one of the most visible examples.
The idea of “harsh” city competitiveness is a simplistic vision: flamboyant
public investments do not always bring the expected results. A Guggenheim
Museum does not necessarily drive a city into international agendas. Being part
of a cultural, tourist circuit does not necessarily ensure the success of a
comprehensive, long-term strategy.
This “new economy” —the latest fashion in economics— may lead cities to the
same old urban errors. Public policies aimed at building up enclaves instead of
cities. These enclaves will be dedicated areas but not necessarily competitive or
sophisticated. Besides, they will not represent a rational land supply
management but, instead, will foster urban sprawl. We may forget that the “new
economy” is nothing but economy. There is a historical opportunity: we can
build cities by articulating several technologies, activities, arts and crafts.
The competitiveness of a territory is based on well known factors only partly
related
to
urbanisation:
communications
networks
efficiency
(an
of
airport
basic
is
urban
essential);
services,
sound
state-of-the-art
telecommunications; good access to downtown and commercial areas, etc. On
the other hand we strongly believe that the most significant factor is a
foreseeable urban future offer. Economic agents find a “master plan” extremely
convenient, a “vision”, strategic planning or a set of comprehensive urban action
ideas that set guidance on a credible, attractive future scenario.
Telecommunications and transport systems have to be optimised: they are not
just “competitive economic activities”. Public transport planning has to avoid
this simplistic vision based on traffic flow. Transport systems are to be
integrated to the urban environment. They are not to be huge, heavy
monstrosities that go across districts breaking the urban or regional tissue.
Assigning or strengthening enforcement powers to local authorities will provide
for better chances of modifying this reality.
In short, we have to support the large urban projects not to achieve
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competitiveness in the marketplace but as a comprehensive planning strategy to
re-build the city, focusing on social integration, territorial balance, human
needs, employment generation, articulation of the inner city and the outskirts, a
regional urban system, sustainable development. Nothing less than turning the
cities into more attractive and better places to live in. This idea applies not only
to big cities, but to intermediate cities as well.
7.
The challenge of sustainable development
The concern for the environment is a new challenge. Cities are to have a
sustainable development. Citizenship, economy, consumer society is to grow in
a sustainable way. It is crucial to develop awareness and consciousness on how
fragile the environment is and on how scarce natural resources are. We cannot
think a city and disregard the impact it has on the environment. City
management policies have to consider greenfield land management, water and
air pollution, and depletion of natural resources.
Nowadays, urban planning has to be based on sustainable development
principles. Sustainable development has become a framework for the design of
regeneration policies. Territories turned into urban or rural landscape that
identify each city diversity are the cosmogony for urban planning. 10 (acá está la
cita 13)
The introduction of environmental issues into urban concerns tends to become a
simplistic exercise: the introduction of natural landscape to the definition of
public spaces necessity, much in “ we need more parks, more trees, more
green”, style. This confusion between “the environment” and “nature” has been
quite common in recent years. The urban environment is essentially an
environment built up by men where architecture plays a key role. The public
spaces environment has to be understood from a comprehensive standpoint, with
its cultural components that, though diffusely sometimes, generate local
identities. This notion of home, of symbolic representation of that element
10
Catenazzi, Andrea / Reese, Eduardo Control y Gestión de las ciudades medias de la Argentina. Agosto, 2000.
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society has built, this reading of architectural languages, of history or, better
still, of stories, are key components of urban environment since they give sense
to our cities’ public spaces.
Latin American cities face severe air pollution (Santiago de Chile and Mexico,
D.F., mainly). Domestic and industrial waste has contaminated rivers (Riachuelo
in Buenos Aires, the Río de la Plata to a lesser extent; the harbour and the
streams of Montevideo). Quite frequently, private developers speculation impact
negatively on neighbouring greenfield land. This land is no longer suitable for
farming and, consequently, farm products reach the city at higher prices, jobs are
lost and there is environmental damage.
This disperse, sprawling city
development is the source of continuous sustainability concerns. Cities should be
more compact, avoid uncontrolled use of greenfield land, release brownfield
land for farming uses (vegetable gardens, fruit gardens) if they are in the
metropolitan area, integrate neighbouring towns to the consolidated city.
As models, the compact city11(aca está la cita 14) and the sprawling city are
antagonistic. A sprawling city leads to larger greenfield land use and greater
decline of urban supporting systems. Urban movement patterns and pollution
factors also impact more negatively on buildings and services.
Montevideo12 has designed action plans for the environmental regeneration of
its landscape by cleaning up the contaminated streams and the harbour.
Drainage systems were extended to benefit the whole of Montevideo residents
first, and second, residents of the outskirts (the Metropolitan Area accounts for
50% of the country’s total population). Beaches were recovered, existing parks
were extended (Parque Capurro), new parks were built and watercourses were
cleaned up: drainage was provided to slums located on courses of rivers or
streams (Parque Lineal, Arroyo Migueletes).
Protecting the environment also means preserving greenfield land that surround
the city. Rosario and Montevideo are two cities that have set guidance to limit
Rueda, Salvador “Estrategias para competir” La ciudad sostenible. Garcia Espuche,A. / Rueda, S (eds.) CCCB,
Barcelona, 1999.
12 Arana, Mariano. Intendente de la ciudad de Montevideo. Conferencia en FADU, UBA, 18-19 de noviembre de
1998.
11
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the extension of certain urban zones. Planning strategies set out dedicated zones:
some for industry and others for future urban greenfield reserve.
8.
Urban Violence and Public Safety
Needless to mention the increasing urban violence and its negative impact on
public safety, public spaces, residents’ quality of life and the resulting
difficulties to attract developers and tourists. This report will only highlight
some public safety issues that impact on the development and management of
urbanisation. It will also point out some urban policies that may contribute to
increase public safety and reduce urban violence.
Among the negative impacts of urban violence on the management of
urbanisation:

It contributes to the crisis of public spaces. It generates a vicious circle since
public spaces use falls down, which enhances the unpleasant image which
contributes to the feeling of danger which leads to more abandonment, and
so on.

Urban downtown areas decline and /or become dedicated (there are safer
zones and times to move in them). This dedication tends to happen in any
kind of urban patterns; commercial streets and open markets are left to more
deprived city sectors; there is a flock of shopping malls with reserved
admission rights in downtown areas; even cultural centres become fortresses
instead of shining spots.

There is a trend towards “urban ghettos”: deprived sectors in declined
districts or informal settlements, mid-incomes and high-incomes sectors in
self-served districts in the outskirts (which, in a near future may segregate
from the city and contribute to social polarisation as in the U.S.)

Therefore, residents become “tribes” protected by private police forces, selfdefence groups. Uses and social classes segregate urban services, people look
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for scapegoats, racist and xenophobic attitudes appear and complete social
communities
are
criminalized
(i.e.
young
people
in
deprived
neighbourhoods).
Under such circumstances it is very difficult to design and develop action ideas
to build up a city, to strengthen citizenship and involvement, to implement
programs based on cooperation principles, to support initiatives and plans for
negotiation processes to be held with large economic groups, corporations or
powers that support privileges, even central authorities. It is the so-called
centrifugal machine effect.
It is not logical to spin around this negative diagnosis. Some Latin American
cities have adopted crime policies “imported” from U.S. cities, i.e. “zero
tolerance”. Though it is true that we can observe trends leading to the abovementioned circumstances, it is also true that social spurs and initiatives exist in
Latin America towards:
The regeneration of public spaces, much in fashion in many Latin American
cities even in those where urban violence is bad: Rio de Janeiro, Mexico or
Bogotá. Many times, the local authority is forced to act as arbitrator between
communities with opposing values or interests —i.e. in Buenos Aires, the
presence of young people in squares with railings—. Mexico promenades full of
open-air cafés and restaurants. Initiatives following the 24 hour-street project in
Curitibia have been studied and implemented in other cities.
At least experts and planners have adopted and now support the idea of
providing for guidance and standards of urban management that can ensure
regeneration
projects
to
create
mixed
incomes
neighbourhoods
and
developments. We would be very optimistic if we believed this is enough since
effects are quite visible. Fortunately, planners now understand the need of mixed
incomes and tenures neighbourhoods though it is not the dominant idea as in
some European countries. Implementation is still falling short of goals.
Community public spaces with their social, educational and above all, cultural
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equipment —including functional spaces such as railway stations or bus
terminals— show a tendency to become mixed use public spaces. They, together
with their surroundings, represent an opportunity to build up spaces where
people can move and socialise within certain quality and safety parameters. We
may call them “transition spaces”: they allow passing from community equipped
spaces to the surrounding streets and buildings. In Europe and North America
there have been interesting initiatives to create and develop these transition
spaces in order to build up safety in dangerous areas. Latin American cities are
deeply concerned by public safety. It is therefore quite difficult for them to adopt
this novel idea: transferring the concept of transition spaces to neighbourhoods
through a morphology that allows easy passage from streets to public spaces and
to community or private spaces (the “open block model”, for example).
However, this concept of transition spaces with an ad hoc equipment is
applicable to many experiments: different security systems (not necessarily
police force), semi-open formulas for the surroundings of culturally equipped
spaces, federal buildings or universities.
This concept may be completed by community involvement and, specially, of
social sectors at risk (i.e., young people living in deprived districts). They can
contribute to the management and implementation of social or cultural action
plans focusing their districts, or get involved in coaching, security or
maintenance activities.
We basically support city planning based on consensus, on setting out
communication channels with residents, on fostering the involvement of
difficult, conflictive, marginal communities, on building up places and times for
people to meet and socialise. In too many occasions, public safety and urban
violence are closely linked to fear of the unknown.
9.
Urbanism and architecture as urban policies.
Can we say Latin American cities apply urbanism? We are not sure. Urbanism
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has no clearly defined status in universities: it is secondary to architecture or to
engineering studies. However, urbanism does not apply to what architecture can
produce, to buildings design, but to the interaction between built and not yet
built elements. We may even say that urbanism organises emptiness, vacancy.
Under other circumstances, it integrates with sociology or urban economics.
Urbanism is a propositional discipline: its objective is the physical formalization
of its principles. It uses social and economical analysis, the law and geographic
knowledge as tools that contribute to the design of plan-programs-projects which
do not derive from future demand studies or market trends. In local councils,
urbanism is many times more apparent than real. On the one hand, Planning
Departments — usually headed by architects with the participation of lawyers
and sociologists — carry out studies and suggest guidelines. On the other hand,
Public Works Departments behave like engineers; that is to say, they isolate
matters, problems and emergencies, to tackle them on an individual basis.
Planning Departments might fall into inoperativeness if they understand
planning is about setting standards. Public Works Departments might worsen the
problems they are trying to solve — traffic congestion, transport systems —. We
consequently believe the first challenge cities have to respond to is the training
of urbanists and the integration of urbanism to local government structures. It is
about training and educating managers, about officers with the technical and
political expertise that urban planning needs. Officers that can manage
implement and assess the impacts of action plans with private and public
players.
The second challenge is to ensure well-designed projects, both formally and
functionally. This applies both to urbanism and architecture, to large
infrastructures or to interior design or equipment. Local government do not
usually have technical panels that design projects or that assess third parties
proposals — from a standpoint other than bureaucratic — The idea is to ensure
well designed projects which respond to required aesthetic goals, sustainable
development principles and good standard maintenance. Adequate materials and
technologies should be used to allow mixed uses, evolution and adaptability to
the surroundings while preserving the environment. The city image is at stake,
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the city identity is at stake, and the quality of life of its citizens is at stake... the
most efficient use of public resources is at stake.
10.
A Vision for the City, the City as a Vision
Every city, with the involvement of its democratic structures, social sectors,
culture and media representatives should agree on a “Vision for the City”. This
Vision will allow the city’s residents and activities to leap forward, to foster
initiatives and dreams and to implement innovative programs and projects. A
“Vision for the City” that will set out guidelines and standards for the control
and management of urbanisation.
We need best-practice guidelines and standards that provide for viable and
effective short and long-term projects. We need to deal with old, inherited
deficits and with the new social, environmental and economic challenges: reduce
social polarisation, efficient use of scarce resources, improve production output
and introduce innovation in the new economic realities. Designed responses
need to set out applicable norms, feasible action plans that can be built in the
short term. Otherwise, they might become a meaningless piece of paper.
We must provide for the city’s identity; its idiosyncrasy and projects have to be
visible. What is the city focusing on? Which are the city’s potentialities? How is
the city going to tackle its problems? Each city is unique and peculiar, so are its
deficits. We can study and debate lessons learned elsewhere but the local factor
will be paramount. We have to study every local fact, ascertain the pro’s and
con’s of the existing urban environment and build up the city from there. The
only “transferable” and “exportable” lesson is the pursuit of particular solutions.
Universal guidelines do not bring real approaches to actual problems but tend to
force unfamiliar codes and patterns. A generic, global approach results in
perceptions that lack local peculiarities. Minimal interventions may respond to
specific needs —urban acupuncture—. The large investments and interventions
that urban marketing or big corporations demand to move to the “noble” areas of
the city are not always necessary. The new city image cannot be reduced to a
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“globalised modern postcard”. We must provide for a regeneration that will
impact on all citizens. Regeneration that may be less expensive or spectacular
but will result in major benefits for residents.
The city has to have projects, action plans that integrate into innovative
programs: collective dreams that indulge the desire for new opportunities. The
Vision for the city shall comprehend all these dreams, shall bet on the future by
organizing the present.
What kind of vision? We have witnessed the dismantling of traditional planning;
zonification and land supply “master plans”. It has been evident that local
authorities passiveness and inoperativeness; they set out rigid standards and
waited for developers to come forward has not been the best method to turn
things around. Zonification was about pointing out how to organize cities in the
long term. It has not, however, been able to adapt to the deep sociological and
technological changes our cities have witnessed.
Urban planning principles could not be trusted since they have shown to be
inoperative, unable to bring about the necessary changes. A new form, a new
way of understanding the cities saw the light: the management of cities, the
management of ordinary problems and of regeneration projects. But let us
discuss, more in depth, the idea of a model for the city, a vision for the city.
What do we mean?
The paradigm of planning turned into the paradigm of management. We can
think one is the antithesis of the other. Management without a plan, management
despite the de facto land supply regulations. In some fortunate occasions,
management with projects resulting from consensus and through strategic
planning. If we compare strategic planning from different Latin American cities,
we may observe the same strengths and weaknesses, the same generic goals, and
mainly, urban projects not supported by execution schedules, cost analysis and
feasibility studies. These “projects” support an inconsistent and purely
circumstantial management.
The regeneration of our cities need to be structured around careful planning. It
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can be strategic planning, but integrating these four principles:

Regulative, because land use has to be regulated, guidelines have to state
what spaces are to be protected, which action areas for attention are. Cities
that loose their formal dimension are ignorant about the efficient use of
geographic, cultural and environmental conditions of their territories. If such
a thing happens, how can cities assert their existence? In Latin America over
a third of the territory is illegally occupied: guidelines and standards are
absolutely necessary as referential framework.

Operational, because they are to be efficient in the short term, able to be
turned into projects, action plans —or to be derived from projects— that will
significantly impact on the population and the territory. Projects for spatial
articulation, for public spaces regeneration, for cultural affirmation, for
economic reactivation, for social integration, for preserving the environment
and for establishing marketing plans for the city. Feasible projects because
they are supported by feasibility studies, cost analysis, social drive and
partners’ commitment to follow the best-practice management guidelines.

Strategic, since their goal is to meet the city’s objectives and to support
existing or designed opportunities. By strategic we mean the linkage of needs
and opportunities.

Practical, simple, clear, avoiding unnecessary paperwork and stages. Setting
action areas and objectives. Flexible and with efficiency monitoring
programs related to actual performance and not to norms or codes conformity
and appropriateness.
When these principles are followed, we can easily understand that a strategic
plan is a vision for the city. It requires, however, social and political
involvement. It requires prioritising projects and action areas for attention. It
needs to set out the possibility of even refusing developments as designed while
providing for negotiation tools to convert the investment to other areas. Setting
out priorities is about displaying leadership, and a long-term vision that appeals
to citizenship involvement. Leadership is about doing things, about making
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things happen. Projects performance has to be accountable to citizens. Designing
well integrated plans and projects provide for opportunities to adapt to changes,
if necessary.
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2nd Part
TERRITORY GOVERNANCE AND URBANISATION
1.
The three levels of territory governance: metropolitan, central
and district authorities.
First, it is important to outline that nowadays cities show a tendency to develop a
regional, metropolitan geometry variable in scope. This mainly occurs in
intermediate and big cities that also tend to diversification and to multiple “inner
cities”. The metropolitan territory is twice as complex: the complexity of its
administration adds to the complexity of its territory. Metropolitan areas impact
on cities and at the same time affect them functionally, socially and structurally.
When more than one city relates to a common metropolitan environment, it is
undeniably necessary to agree on a comprehensive framework for guiding future
urban developments.
Second, traditional inner cities —the central, downtown area— suffer a twofold
negative process. On the one hand, increased density and dedicated spaces. On
the other hand, decline and urban violence. Consequently, the challenge is also
twofold. On the one hand, internal: urban regeneration, fostering activities
compatible with the existing urban pattern and with round-the-clock use,
reducing the number of car journeys, etc. On the other, external: extending the
traditional downtown area, creating “inner cities” and ensuring articulation of
traditional and new downtown areas. This is very visible in cities like Buenos
Aires: an excessively dedicated downtown area of unsuitable high density at
daytime but empty at night; many “inner cities” inarticulate to the urban pattern
(Puerto Madero) or in need of regeneration (Retiro), or still, providing for urban
exclusion (declined downtown areas with a degraded, poor design housing
stock).
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We need to modify the urban scale of downtown areas and to upgrade their
articulation. Downtown areas cannot be located only in historic districts; they
have to become more comprehensive, more consolidated into a homogeneous
urban pattern built at suitable density.
We need to focus on several challenges simultaneously. We have to rebuild the
pattern that structures the urban life of inner cities. We have to reduce the
number of car and bus journeys. We need to release redundant areas for
regeneration —obsolete railway stations. Do not forget that regeneration does
not imply the disappearance of redundant buildings. We need to plan how access
roads will relate to their urban environment. We need to perform acupunctural
interventions to provide for well-designed buildings in traditional districts while
respecting mixed uses and tenures.
Last, the district dimension; districts as urban environments. Districts are
revitalised thanks to the decentralisation of local government structures. This
new tendency also refers to strong inner cities that are to be thought as urban
tissues, patterns from where to build up cities. Districts history and morphology,
districts different identities, all belong in the city cultural heritage. We have to
recycle existing districts. We have to achieve an adequate regeneration. It is not
necessary to build down urban patterns in order to foster new uses and activities.
We have to preserve the cultural background of each district; we have to respect
their diversity and their residents.
Therefore, the management and control of urbanisation has to be structured
around these three territorial dimensions or environments.
Urban planning is not about starting anew. Cities stem from their history, their
urban pattern, their architecture, their atmosphere and symbols, their civic
progress. Cities even stem from unfinished, ongoing or never implemented
urban projects and plans. Cities have to come into an agreement with their
geography, their location, their natural resources, the culture of their people and
their districts. A city is a physical and a human landscape. A city is a space
capable of holding and storing time.
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Meanwhile, any basic urban planning shall set a comprehensive framework for
action plans that, even they are designed and implemented today are bets on the
city future. It is innovation rather than invention; a process, not an end; an action
not speculation; a commitment for the public sector and regulations for the
private sector. It is about building up today the city where we would like to live
in tomorrow. We have to be loyal to the existing, inherited city and to the future,
planned city.
Some elements are to be preserved and recycled. Dialogues are fruitful when
innovation and complementarities are taken into account.
2.
Weaknesses and Proposals to extend democracy in urban
territories.
American cities that have witnessed an enormous growth and have become
international benchmarks still do not display enough leadership. This absence of
leadership derives from structural and organizational patterns that are hard to
overcome: separate powers, absence of management that discourages
community involvement, weak political leadership: Mayors cannot be re-elected
or see the position as a transitional stage. Since the re-instatement of democracy
in the 1980’s and together with the implementation of economic programs that
relate to globalisation —government modernisation and markets opening—
Latin America starts worrying about governability. This process has
significantly affected the distribution of government functions at all levels:
central, regional, and local. “In order to enhance efficiency in their new roles,
local government structures are required to embark on modernisation and
political reform. They need to strengthen enforcement powers to better regulate
the provision of urban services”13. (acá está la cita 16)
Here follow 10 recommendations that relate to a similar number of political and
administrative organizational aspects within the scope of territorial Authorities.
13
URBAN RESERCH IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD. Latin America. Edited by Richard Stren. Center for Urban
& Community studies University of Toronto. 1995. (Pág. 242-3)
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We believe reforms are required to implement urban policies that may address
the above-described challenges.
2.1.
Centralisation and Decentralisation.
Historically, Latin American cities located in either in Unitarian or Federal countries
were under double governance: the central government on the one side and the
regional or provincial authorities on the other side. This double governance made
cities dependant on central controls over scopes and resources.
Since the early 1980’s when democracy was re-instated, countries have embarked
on decentralisation processes to devolve power to local authorities. Transfer of
scopes, responsibilities and resources many times resulted in unequal funding and
opportunities.
“Central Governments declare they are in favour of sharing responsibilities
and services at present under their scope —health, basic education, land use
planning— by empowering local authorities. However, serious funding concerns
have arisen: the transferring of responsibilities from the central to the local
government has been a much faster process than the provision of necessary
funding to perform these new responsibilities. […]; Consequently, there has
been a strengthening of local political structures, which scope is nowadays
wider than in the past”14. (esta tiene que ser la cita 17)
However, these decentralisation processes were not accompanied by an effective
transfer of resources and by public instruments that may allow the management of
urban development or interventions in the existing urban environment. Besides, the
sectorial organization of central Governments deepens city problems which are only
partially addressed by different ministries and secretaries. Absence of resources,
lack of funding and sectorial unwillingness hinders the empowerment of local
authorities. Many decentralisation processes are yet unfinished.
Stren, Richard. “Introducción” Ciudades y gobernabilidad en América Latina. Ediciones Sur, Santiago de Chile.
1997. Pág. 24.
14
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In Chile, for instance, local authorities have always being secondary to central
authorities and parliament: urban concerns have always been approached from
sectorial political standpoints, from different ministries of the central
government:
“Transport issues, urban violence, education and local management: they all
impact on specific persons or families in specific places. To consider them as
city issues is new. […]. Historically, these problems were approached from a
sectorial standpoint; cities problems have been solved (if any) with the
intervention of ministries, parliament, not with action taken by local authorities.
There is no such concept as city government. Municipalities administer the city,
they do not rule; they depend from the central government. In metropolitan
areas, better called pluri-municipal areas —Santiago, Concepción, Valparaíso
and La Serena– the only coordinating power is the central government.” 15. (acá
va la cita 18).
Local authorities can only resort to weak, co-active tools to provide for the
management of urbanism or to sanction individuals or organizations that breach
regulations related to planning conditions (expropriation, demolition, etc). Local
authorities need to have enforcement powers and sanctions in order to be able to
negotiate with private players.
It is not easy to obtain international funding, either. In many cases, funding is
unavailable. Local governments depend on exceptional transfers or authorizations
granted by central authorities.
2.2.
Political Organization.
Executive Power and Legislative
Power. Two Separate Powers.
Local people in the same election elect representatives to the Legislative Body
and the Mayor of the City. The Legislative Body is a controlling body that
counterbalances (freezing?) the local government. It cannot be assured that the
Mayor will count with a majority of Representatives from his party and, quite
15
Rodríguez Alfredo; Saavedra Teo; Sugranyes Ana. “Las Ciudades en Chile”. Agosto 2000.
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frequently, that is not the case. Therefore, the executive and legislative powers
are usually in opposition. The management of city affairs becomes more
difficult. The Planning Department is usually not a priority, funds are short,
resources are scarce and it generally comes after Public Works, a factor that does
not facilitate the integration of urban management and development policies.
In such a scenario, the Executive will support isolated or sectorial plans and
projects it can implement with autonomy and the Legislative will set out
Guiding Plans and Regulations, in short, it will provide for norms and standards.
However, Strategic Planning, Visions for the cities have to respond to both
functions: the designing of projects and action plans and the setting out of
regulatory frameworks.
“Most Latin American cities support strategic planning principles; there is even
an association of cities that uses this intervention methodology. Any strategic
planning should prove efficiency to determine deprivation and bottlenecks, to
design and push forward action plans and programs (latent or ongoing) relative
to the opportunities existing in the city. It should introduce operational, social
and economic programs and, above all, take advantage of its strong marketing
capability to indulge local people and media to dream, driving into programs
performance as many organizations that do not belong to the local government
as possible. ”16. (acá va la cita 19)
2.3.
Policies and Governance Discontinuance.
Long-term policies are difficult to implement for several reasons:
-
Elected officers cannot be re-elected: Electoral systems tried to prevent
the permanence of one person in office for long periods. This resulted in
difficulties to set out long-term policies. Elected officers could usually
Herce, Manuel. “Instrumentos de transformación del espacio urbano; presencia y operatividad en América Latina”.
Lecture, Quito, Ecuador. July- 2000.
16
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stay in office only 3 or 4 years. This is still the case in Colombia and was
so, until recently, in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico…
-
Political parties weakness. Parties platforms are not sound; therefore,
re-election does not necessarily imply continuance of government
policies.
-
Unstable democracy. Absence of democracy has resulted in corrupted
government structures. Citizens regard politicians as unworthy and
unreliable. Recent history shows how fragile democracy is in Latin
America.
2.4.
Metropolitan Structures.
Present Latin American cities —all the big cities and many intermediate ones—are
pluri-municipal. This feature relates to the urban continuum, to job opportunities
and routine movement, to the use and management of urban basic services —
transport systems, water supply, waste management, health systems, education, etc.
— to the location of large urban developments —entrepreneurial cities, self-served,
enclosed districts—— and to human informal settlements. However, there are
almost no metropolitan authorities if by such we understand political, representative
bodies with planning capacity, funding for large projects, resource allocation,
coordinating management capacity for public services that, because of their nature,
require supra-national ruling.
There are, however, sectorial bodies for the management or coordination of
Metropolitan Areas, of transport systems (unless they are ruled by Federal
Authorities or fully privatised), of water supply, of waste management. These bodies
have enforcement powers but suffer from “sectorialism”, that is, they are not
integrated into urban development plans or programs. In many cases, they depend
from a higher authority (federal or provincial). When they are autonomous, they are
usually “weak”. The fact is that land supply and management, urban planning, urban
development management, large infrastructure projects, public space guidance do
not report to local democracy management. There is an obvious absence of public
policies integration and citizen involvement.
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In larger and more populated metropolitan areas this absence of metropolitan
authorities replicate difficulties of inner cities and outskirts. On the one hand, the
area main city is forced to provide for urban services but cannot enforce the
collection of taxes —health services, education, road links, transport systems. On
the other hand, periphery cities house deprived sectors since cost of living is lower.
Some outskirts benefit from urban promotion and locate enclosed, self-served
districts. This deepens land use concerns, social deprivation, inequality of
opportunities, and environmental damage.
Three schematic situations may be described:
A) Cities with metropolitan structures but dependant from central
authority. Santiago is the most explicit example. The city is
fragmented into more than 30 small administrative units (comunas).
A regional mayor appointed by the federal government runs the city.
Metropolitan powers really lie on ministries or the so-called
“seremis” (ministerial regional secretaries). Most local affairs are
therefore handled directly from the ministries.
B) Cities with metropolitan structures that are theoretically multipurpose and locally based. They are, however, relatively weak or
monopolised by central authorities. Caracas, in the first case and
Lima in the second.
C) Cities with sectorial metropolitan structures that coordinate or deliver
some specific urban services. These structures may even foster
studies and planning but have no enforcement powers. Buenos Aires
in the first case together with many other cities and Mexico or Sao
Paulo in the second.
There is no ideal solution for metropolitan governance or “real city”, though certain
recent European experiences are quite interesting: the “Big London” Statute; the
metropolitan associations set up by some Italian cities like Bologna or Barcelona
in Spain; the new regulatory framework for metropolitan agglomerations in
France that facilitates both resource allocation and planning; some new other
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ideas implemented outside Europe, like Melbourne or Toronto.
We believe there are two possible paths to set up efficient and politically acceptable
metropolitan structures:
A) Establishing a political body that stems from pluri-municipal local basis. The
higher authority, whether regional or federal, should devolve metropolitan ruling
capacities on this body. In some cases the metropolitan structure may adapt to
the intermediate existing one (provincial, departamental, or any other
denomination) and therefore avoid a new administrative body. This body should
be empowered with planning capacities actually held by inefficient municipal
agencies. Members may be elected by local people or appointed by cities. In any
case, enough democratic legitimacy must be achieved in order to plan and
manage urban development and to re-allocate public funds.
B) Creating a political body of consortial basis to design a metropolitan strategic
plan that would set the framework for territorial, regulatory plans and
infrastructure development programs. This body will coordinate public consortia
investments, will manage metropolitan urban services delivery —innovative
public solutions or franchised services. Metropolitan justice will result from
equal distribution of investments guided by “affirmative action” principles.
“To solve city conflicts, negotiation and decision-making are required at local,
regional, federal and even international levels. The metropolitan area is a good
example. Even though most Latin American cities form part of large
metropolitan areas, with the exception of Quito, there are no efficient
metropolitan authorities. In other cities we can observe a large geographical
and institutional fragmentation of government structures. Local government has
to be re-invented: we need to clearly redefine responsibilities and tasks. This
might result in the introduction of a metropolitan authority that may co-exist
with local authorities without interfering or affecting cities identities.” 17. ACA
VA LA CITA 20.
Rodríguez, Alfredo y Winchester, Lucy, “Fuerzas globales, expresiones locales”. Ciudades y gobernabilidad en
América Latina. Ediciones Sur, Santiago de Chile. 1997. Pág.54.
17
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2.5.
Municipal Decentralisation
Municipal decentralisation is a common problem for big cities in Europe and
Latin America. It relates directly to the size of cities and the way they are run.
Current, centralised structures cannot facilitate sectorial programs and
management policies. They suffer from an unavoidable bureaucratism when
trying to ensure an “objective” guidance. These centralised structures
discriminate in favour of problems, areas or concerns where cronies and
lobbyists are more powerful. This system does not provide for adequate
responses to positive phenomena such as district and neighbourhood movements
or associations who are unable to find responsible and officers held accountable
to negotiate their demands with or to set cooperation mechanisms with. This
system does not contribute to the integration modern urban societies require.
Under current democracy, it is not possible to expect that centralism may
provide for an adequate context to design and develop programs or action plans
that will provide for less political and/or social imbalance, better funding and
resource allocation. Administrative inertia and capitalist market pressures
contribute to cities’ duality rather than to integration.
With the re-instatement of democracy in the 1980’s and basically in the 1990’s,
almost every Latin American city has embarked on some sort of
decentralisation. Not many, however, have completed the process as provided in
political programs and doctrine. Municipal decentralisation in Latin American
cities encounters the typical resistance of any other process seeking political and
administrative re-structuring. Decentralisation implies empowering other people
and areas, extending democracy and fostering citizen involvement. Elected and
appointed executive officers resist changes, bureaucratic inertia stand firm. Fear
of public policies sprawling or dispersion; fear of the local centrifugal machine.
... City democratic authorities recently elected by local people face a double,
complex and urgent task: on the one hand, they are to fit and respond to social
demands, functional needs and economic goals. On the other hand, they are to
foster a rational reform. Many political factors have led centralised systems to
resist decentralisation, among others:
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-
The City Legislative Body is to approve the draft for reforms. Many
times councillors’ constituency do not agree with decentralisation;
councillors may respond to parties, cronies, neighbourhood patrons or
lobbyists who may not benefit from this process.
-
Public opinion is not generally and actively interested in a process seen
as affecting only politicians and public officers’ scope and being,
moreover, based on technical and juridical debate.
-
From a logical standpoint, we may say that community organisations get
the most benefits from decentralisation. However, they are sceptical and
fear a “fake” process leading to structures with no decision-making
capacities, inefficient and run by officers who are not held to account and
with no power to negotiate. Decentralisation would therefore be a front.
Some of the processes embarked upon in the 1980’s justify these fears.
Cities like Buenos Aires, Bogotá or Mexico have, in recent years, redesigned their decentralisation processes.
Cases such as Santiago de Chile are, however, exceptional. The city division into
small administrative units (Communes) together with the disappearance of
neighbourhood boards created in the 1960’s has resulted in political weakness of
city authority. This fragmentation has not represented a real decentralisation, a
process aimed at setting up a close, accessible to citizens structure who can thus
influence the decision-making process.
Decentralisation has proven positive anyway. Montevideo, Rosario, Cordoba,
Porto Alegre, Lima, etc. are only some cities that have completed the process
and benefited from it. Some other cities have already approved the legal drafts
that provide for the implementation of a politically very ambitious
decentralisation process, such as the new Statutes of Mexico and Buenos Aires.
In Bogotá, local councils (the “Alcaidías”) were created in the early 1990’s and
though they require new drive, their mere existence is positive. Big Brazilian
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cities have set up municipal, “central”, government structures —that is, deconcentrated structures— to foster zoned projects and action plans. It is
foreseeable that after the 2000 elections some cities —Sao Paulo for instance—
will embark on a true decentralisation process.
Why is decentralisation important for the management of urbanisation?
First, because it defines territories for urban projects, regulations for urban
development, integrated plans, etc. It is important that administrative scopes are
defined: districts, offices, communes, local councils (alcaidías), etc. aiming at
this objective since therefore consistency between the continent and the
urbanistic contents will be ensured:
a) Identity
of
some
nature:
historic,
morphologic,
socio-cultural,
correspondence with constituencies, etc.;
b) Stature for structuring projects and possible inner cities;
c) Adequate number to reduce complexities in the articulation of centralised
and decentralised affairs and to ensure resources and staffing to decentralised
bodies: professionals, computers, databases, etc.
Second, decentralisation aims at fostering urban policies to offset imbalances and to
eliminate
social
polarisation
in
the
territory.
This
confers
political
representativity, management capacity and service delivering capacity, execution
powers and tools to provide for citizens’ access, influence and involvement.
However, it is often forgotten that the possibility of influencing comprehensive city
policies —regulative and therefore regulatory, programmatic and therefore
investment-oriented or enforceable and therefore coercive — is as important as
political legitimacy and the capacity to develop “local” policies. The most
important aspect of the decentralisation process is the dialectics of
decentralisation-centralisation.
We
view
as
especially
important
the
implementation of political formulae (electoral, legislative and executive bodies
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composition, multiple territorial divisions, etc.) to facilitate this dialectics
(unification of constituencies to make them functional to decentralised
structures, consistency between executive and legislative city and “local”
positions, coordinating territorial structures to provide for city and decentralised
bodies’ officers interaction, etc.) Transparency, accountability and effective
coordination are key elements for decentralisation efficiency.
2.6.
Political Cronyism and Petty Corruption as opposed to
Bureaucratism.
Control and management of urbanisation is to be efficient in order to build up
trust among economic agents, social players and public opinion. In order to
meet this goal management and control of urbanisation is to be objective,
flexible and agile. Basically, it has to avoid authoritarian attitudes: it is to be
foreseeable both in timing and procedures. Otherwise, an urban culture that we
can call “cambalache” (TRANSL. NOTE: Literally, second-hand shop or swap.
The term derives from the title of a famous tango that explains anything, good
or bad, moral or immoral, legal or illegal is considered to be the same) is
installed: economic and social players lobby on behalf of their own interest and
systematically avoid regulations; absence of civic behaviour is eventually
legitimatised. Unfortunately, cities still suffer from flocks of “political cronies”
that claim privileges for economic groups in return of favours—millionaire,
sometimes. Design competitions are arranged “under the counter”; monopolist
practices are allowed. In the urban environment other “cronies” and petty
corruption practices co-exist: there are well-organized district patrons who pay
for their privileges in money or in votes. Norms and regulations have been set
out to correct these perverted practices. Many times the cure has been worse
than the disease, since “economic tolls” and bureaucratic times were multiplied.
Unless the public sector is cleaned up from these perverted practices, the
development of public-private partnerships or of urban planning based on
existing opportunities while remaining loyal to principles or citizen
involvement is impossible.
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2.7.
Weaknesses of political and technical tools that support urban
planning, management and discipline.
Next chapter refers specifically to these tools and highlights those that have proved
their efficiency under the present circumstances. Let us not forget that many cities
still understand urban planning as a regulative undertaking that shall set out the
norms and standards for an uncertain future. These cities have not adopted a de facto
strategic and operational culture; they have not designed plans-programs. Examples
of partnerships to foster large urban projects are almost non-existent. Many
countries face huge political and legal difficulties to introduce planning or
management tools that are commonplace in Europe such as: consortiums and urban
consensus, planning based on economic use, expropriation practices, etc. The
damaged reputation of the public sector negatively impacts on urban discipline,
management possibilities and efficiency. To make matters worse, local authorities
many times do not have the necessary enforcement powers to sanction those who
breach regulations or the technical staff to successfully object to private developers
demands. This is probably one of the most important challenges that Latin American
cities should deal with in the present circumstances.
2.8.
Expansion of Strategic Planning and Projects Management.
The success enjoyed by strategic planning in Latin America is a direct consequence of it
being able to provide for positive answers to most of the above-mentioned weaknesses.
Strategic planning is the result of consensus, of agreements. It defines strategies to turn
complex programs into viable plans. It fosters citizen involvement and government
modernisation. It combines desired objectives with opportunities wittily seen. It
supports lobbying to achieve the strengthening of enforcement powers, devolved
authority, better funding and positive central government interventions. It enhances
residents’ self-esteem, the image of the city and of its authorities. This may be true in
certain cases but in many others, strategic planning is just an abstract rhetorical
discourse that does not result in actual implementation or that only summarises a
heterogeneous list of proposals that seem to have come from the writing of Borges
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rather than from the teamwork of urban planners. A list without priorities, full of
imprecise locations, with no financial or time schedule.
We do not intend to discredit strategic planning. We believe that even imperfect plans
are useful since they foster a favourable city environment for the implementation of
ambitious programs and projects. They also drive public and private players to engage
in debate and cooperation may be, for the first time. Anyway, in order to push forward a
more efficient urban management we believe that designing a Vision for the City and
not just a Strategic Plan —or some similar plan— is paramount. It is mandatory to list a
catalogue of projects and to set out the legal, technical or administrative reforms that are
needed to develop specific management tools. Management of urbanisation is not part
of the ordinary city management neither the granting, through proper bidding, of
concessions or execution contracts. Strategic planning management is a public duty that
requires specific tools and private-public cooperation.
2.9.
Citizen Involvement.
A big issue in Latin American cities. If all the efforts used to deliver speeches on
citizen involvement were devoted to implement efficient methods to achieve
communication, participation and cooperation city democracy will be an example to
follow. We want now to point out some necessary conditions and some possible
perversions found in discourses on citizen involvement.
Latin American cities display an associative urban tissue and a diversity of
community organizations that represent a significant social asset. These community
organizations can operate as mutual benefit associations arising from survival
strategies or be the expression of resistance or vindication movements. They are
many times deeply involved in politics. Other times they arise from cultural, sport or
entertainment activities that expanded into other areas. Many districts and
neighbourhoods have witnessed the consolidation of large and well-rooted
community organizations that can be compared to trade unions. They are involved
in and influence several concerns: cooperatives, cultural associations, and political
movements. They are representative and participate in meetings or steps before
decentralised bodies. These organizations defend community of interests that many
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times have no room for solidarity under the umbrella of universal values and guided
by generous democratic goals. The support provided by NGO’s, University staff and
sometimes even local authorities or political parties has given social range and
lobbying capacities. However, this social tissue is not always present and is many
times weak. It requires, nevertheless, acknowledgment and support from local
governments to motivate and foster citizen involvement. Cities need decentralised
mechanisms and processes accessible to citizens and officers to be held to account
for their decisions.
Citizen involvement should address all citizens, not only those grouped in
community organizations. Efficient, modern, universal and adequate structures and
processes must be produced to reach and consult all residents. Political and technical
officers are to stay in closer contact with people and to spread knowledge relative to
the city, its neighbourhoods and the urban services delivered. It is amazing to see
Latin American public officers who have very little, if any, knowledge and
information about their geographical territory —including those in housing, urban
development and urban service delivery areas. These officers get in touch with
people and territory only on very exceptional occasions. It is curious and really
irritating to witness the little dissemination efforts undertaken to spread urban plans
and territory information. There is no cartography available and if any, it is hardly
understandable or only tourism-oriented. Maps systematically avoid deprived
sectors even if created by local authorities. Urban projects are not shown or
disseminated in easy, attractive language: videos, maquettes, computer-assisted 3D
models; questions are not answered and doubts are not cleared. Informative bulletins
or meetings can hardly ever attract and motivate citizens. Cities have disregarded
the visual impact new technologies can provide to the spreading of urbanistic
culture. We hope interactive sites to debate with motivated citizens will be a reality
in the near future.
In any case, big cities have embarked on decentralisation processes and have lived
some quite interesting urban planning experiences —strategic plans, participative
budgeting process. The balance is undoubtedly positive and offers interesting future
possibilities. It also derives from multiple cooperation experiences lived when
debating urban development programs for deprived neighbourhoods or informal
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settlements. We support an efficient and effective decentralisation in big cities: a
new system that will facilitate and provide for a framework which takes account of
citizens’ and stakeholders’ views, needs and participation. Decision-making
processes and executive functions must be closer to people. Fruitful involvement is
not about endless meetings, newsletters and bulletins. It is about access to
information, having a stake in the decision-making process when a citizen feels
motivated or affected. It is about having skilled, trained public officers able to
negotiate and make decisions.
In short, Latin American cities have designed two citizen involvement strategies:
a) A more institutional strategy, based on decentralisation, strategic planning and
programs-projects, participative budgeting process and negotiation.
b) A strategy supported by the articulation of public policies, community
organizations and citizen’s participation and based on information spreading,
active communication, civic bodies support, social cooperation and conflict
solving processes.
However, we reckon it is important to avoid some perversions or exaggerations
typically found in rhetorical approaches:
-
Handing over the management of urban projects or plans to community
organizations —they can of course contribute to both management and
implementation. Mystifying interesting initiatives as the participative
budgeting process: it seems that an alleged direct democracy can replace
democratic bodies whose initiatives should respond to since there lies the
power to implement best value policies.
-
Citizens are to hold the exclusive and legitimate representation of their
interests. All districts have concerns. However, even when residents
claims, criticism or proposals are legitimate and must be taken care of,
residents do not “own” the district. There are many other communities
whose legitimate interests and concerns are also to be taken into account:
shop-owners who work in the district, present or potential users of urban
equipment, services or public spaces, regular passers-by or those who
would like to move into the district if this or that action plan is
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performed.
-
Mixing up citizen involvement, decision-making and technical
formulation and designing of projects. To achieve an efficient
management of urbanisation it is essential to have information channels,
procedures to file claims and proposals, cooperation or confrontation
mechanisms, negotiation instances before political decision makers or
technical staff. However, political decision makers can not be driven
away or paralysed by harsh neighbours’ pressures, neither can technical
staff simply accept what neighbours ask for: ethics and overall sound
principles are to be respected.
2.10 Managers Training. A New Urban Culture Arises.
We can easily derive that efficient control and management policies will
hardly be implemented unless cities have sound, trained professional
managers, leaders, heads or any other name they may be given. It is not about
having good, experienced architects, lawyers, economists, engineers,
environmentalists or sociologists —so abundant in Latin America, though not
so abundant in government positions—, but about having professionals with
multidisciplinary background and most important, with management
expertise. Politicians have first been university professionals, social leaders,
private or public developers and then have been elected or appointed to public
office. In the U.S. and in some European countries, Master studies have
spread out trying to provide for basic educational standards in public
administration. They are not enough. Public affairs require some special
training that is learnt only through practice and everyday work, while in
office. Public officers cannot rely on improvisation skills. Having been
elected by local people is not sufficient background. Having been a successful
university professional is not sufficient background. Failure is almost certain
unless expertise on several disciplines, human resources capabilities and
communication skills are acquired through practice. We believe it is
paramount to provide for training and secondment programs (through formal,
academic education or otherwise). Post-graduate schools, seminars on
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planning and executive skills and training structures are to be created.
This will set the grounds for a new urban culture that will overcome the
limitations of regulatory planning and the neoliberal principle of “laissez
faire”. Since this new urban culture is only an embryo, sharing lessons
learned, experiences lived, conclusions drawn with other experts and political
leaders of this new urbanism, strategic and operational, integrated and
participative, will be especially useful. It might even be interesting to adopt
common tools such as: post-graduate studies coordination, a magazine, an
annual meeting, some legal or political joint initiatives, etc. History provides
us with an excellent opportunity to take care of the leadership displayed by
cities and to compensate the discredit of traditional planning schemes, of
neoliberal principles that force us to accept physical chaos, social deprivation,
absence of cultural identity as good urban practices.
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CONCLUSIONS
Latin American cities demand today a new urban social pact. Since the ending
of World War II until the 1960’s somehow operated a “national, popular pact”
(“populist” say its critics) that fostered a monumentalization of cities,
interventions in housing and service delivery in popular neighbourhoods, and
public spaces equipment provision. This pact existed in a context of incomes
redistribution, almost full employment and little deprivation resulting in
progress of urban integration and therefore, better socio-economic standards,
extension of rights and decreased exclusion.
Militar dictatorships of the 1970’s combined repression of public spaces with
huge fragmenting infrastructures that broke the urban pattern and contributed
to the exclusion of deprived residents. They were forced to abandon the inner
cities where they had informally settled towards declined, degraded districts.
Policies discriminated in favour of huge infrastructure works and private
speculation. Conservative local governments had followed similar policies in
previous years —Mexico in the 1970’s— or still do so —Sao Paulo.
Since the re-instatement of democracy in the 1980’s authorities have shown
certain confusion with the exception of some interesting examples already
mentioned in this chapter. We may say that authorities have shown unsolved
contradictions:
a) On the one side, awareness of metropolitan needs; on the other, need to
reaffirm municipal power derived from democratic elections. On the one
hand, decentralisation demands; on the other, discrimination in favour of
public short-term policies that may be more viable if implemented from a
centralised structure.
b)
On the one hand, concerns for economic development, for competing in a
global economy, for attracting foreign investors, for applying urban
marketing, for big, mostly sectorial or mono-functional projects,
prioritising the car to please mid and high-incomes residents. On the other
hand, absence of social integration, of public policies focusing
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neighbourhoods, absence of popular culture, undesirable quality of life, no
citizen involvement or participation.
These contradictions have resulted in dual but imbalanced policies. The market has
supported and helped prevail the fragmentation of urban patterns, urbanism of
isolated products, of private transport systems, of outsourcing significant inner
functions … rather than socialising public spaces, mixed incomes and functions
spaces, good quality transport systems, inner cities and multi purpose
developments in declined or abandoned outskirts, etc. In the best of cases, heavy
economicist policies on the one side and light social policies on the other. There
has always been absence of integrated urban policies.
We believe current historical times require designing a new urban pact expressed by
a new urbanism structured around:
a) The building up of the metropolitan territory as a structured citizen territory,
pluri-municipal, polycentric, even discontinuous but flexible to integrate rural,
greenfield and vacant land. A territory for planning and coordinating of public
policies, for redistributing incomes, for urban movement and comprehensive
access. A territory to house big urban projects that can build up cities, that can
hold democratic debate on a common future, on developments and their impacts,
on new inner cities and existing urban patterns. A physical geography to provide
for quality and meaning to its residents.
b)
Discriminating in favour of urban patterns that ensure socializing, public spaces
of any scale, monumentality, citizen and neighbour identity, cultural and
aesthetic meaning, and collective memory…. Cities are a cultural complex
product and cannot be reduced to a list of productive or consumer functions.
Urban infrastructures, urban services, architecture, public spaces design,
interaction of buildings and their surroundings … are all socially meaningful.
c) Public programs and urban projects integrate, they do not break or negatively
impact on economic, social, environmental and cultural objectives. Urban public
policies that contribute to or admit exclusion are inadmissible. Urbanism cannot
by itself eliminate social deprivation. However, it can contribute to reduce it, to
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better distribute incomes by providing good quality design and distribution of
public spaces and equipments. Urbanism can even provide for jobs. Urbanism,
above all can be tremendously effective in reducing exclusion. It is a paradox to
see that modern urbanism shows a conscious or unconscious tendency towards
increasing exclusion by fostering competitiveness, by facilitating the thematic,
consumer-oriented recycling of downtown areas, by admitting rather than
sanctioning “autistic” products such as self-served districts, industrial parks, by
discriminating in favour of cars and against good quality transport systems.
The disappearance of social deprivation requires long-term, multi purpose policies and
is supported by social subjects positioned and determined to fight. Public policy shall
account for eliminating exclusion not only by implementing action plans but also by
facilitating citizenship. Citizens are entitled to exercise their rights in the city, to fight
for their comprehensive integration to urban life.
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CHAPTER II
MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF URBANISATION
To achieve efficiency in the management and control of urbanisation we
should operate several mechanisms. We should develop programs, projects,
standards, norms, forms of management and participation that will determine
the governing features for successful implementation in each case. The
ongoing government modernisation process frequently finds that novel and
creative strategies for the management and control of urbanisation clash with
an applicable, yet to reform legal framework. Consultation processes,
consensus and flexible agreements with investors are replacing monitoring
systems that rigidly relate to regulations conformity; monitoring standards
relate to actual results or interventions. In short, emphasis is on designing the
rules of the game rather than on setting regulations applicable to results. Cities
have developed tools that streamline urban planning, that become drivers for
change that do not emphasise on forbidding. Urban planning is now less rigid
and more effective; it looks for good-quality outcomes; quality has become a
result requirement.
Funding guidance, supported by a new series of best practice guidelines, is a
completely new field in urban planning. The expansion of the capital market
and economic stability have allowed a significant increase in mortgages loans
availability and access; new financing schemes are slowly becoming valid
options to design urban management mechanisms. (ACA VA LA CITA 21)
Public-public and public-private partnerships are also new planning
arrangements suitable for implementing projects, managing city areas or
delivering urban services: public-private partnerships working on public fields.
In downtown Montevideo, the granting of concessions on very open, visible
commercial spaces —entertainment spaces or children playgrounds— so that
store owners provide maintenance to a significant area which lightning, safety
and gardens are impeccable and is thus an attractive place for the whole of the
city. (ACA VA LA CITA 22).
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“It is a new paradigm that privileges the existing city, that accepts the
continuous presence of conflicts and takes everyday management as the
starting point …the city is built up by multiple agents…it is under endless
adjustments and adaptations…tools most important feature is their logic, not
their legal or institutional design” (ACA VA LA CITA 23).
URBAN MANAGEMENT TOOLS
Below, some recommendations for a regulatory framework more flexible and
more attuned to the diversity of each city urban conditions. (ACA VA LA
CITA 24).
Controlling the endless expansion of the diffuse city, looking for a
compact, complex city profile. Incentives for vacant, under-used land
and buildings.
Progressive lot/territory tax.
Objective: To fairly distribute the costs and gains of public investments by
setting the boundary between land ownership and construction licenses.
Description: It is a tax to avoid urban land speculation, that is any land use that
will not yield taxes. Vacant and under-used land and buildings in urbanisation
or prioritary areas must be properly occupied.
Basic requirements for its implementation: It is necessary to establish a
cadastral system of urban buildings and keep it updated. It is necessary to
establish under-used criteria and policies that prioritise the occupation of areas
still vacant.
Implementation strategies and mechanisms: Regulate a progressive urban
land or urban territory tax .
Real estate consortia - Consortial urbanisation.
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Objective: Avoid speculation and provide for mechanisms that will make
viable the occupation of large vacant areas deprived from urban services and
infrastructure but within the urban pattern.
Description: Foster the urbanisation of areas deprived from infrastructure
which are targeted for urban development by providing for private-public
instruments.
Basic requirements for its implementation: A cadastre and information.
Specific regulatory framework for each public-private partnership. To be a
priority of public interest.
Implementation strategies and mechanisms: This method will compensate
for the absence of public funding. It will provide funding for social projects
without expropriation practices since the land or building will be obtained in
payment for the urban development.
2. Optimizing existing infrastructure and cutting down expansion costs.
Basic land-use ratio. It stands for equal construction rights.
Fee-paying construction licenses for developments above-basic land use
ratio: created, developed land.
Objective: Generate financial resources for urban infrastructure investments,
social, subsidized housing and urban equipments, to establish potential
densities based on urban land use and features.
Description: It provides for feasible building above basic land use ratio, by
means of a license the local authorities sell to the interested parties. Land
ownership and building licences are disengaged. Zoning for differentiated
urban development, reserves based on city zones and uses.
Basic requirements for implementation: A basic land use ratio, clear urban
reserves zoning criteria, monitoring system to control the sale and use of
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reserve land within a targeted regulatory framework frequently reviewed.
Implementation strategies and mechanisms: A stepwise implementation to
overcome complexities.
3. Urban regeneration
Urban interventions
Objective: Achieve urban regeneration faster and with a more cost-efficient
use of public resources. For example, deliver urban regeneration to
deteriorated, declined urban environments.
Description: Public-private partnerships to deliver regeneration to certain
urban areas. The local government designs the project, coordinates the
execution of infrastructures and sets out land use principles. Private partners
provide the funding. A perimetral reserve is established to be sold to private
investors to generate funds for public works.
Basic requirements for its implementation:
Both public and private
proposals and offers that conform to the operational parameters established by
law.
Implementation strategies and mechanisms: Urban and economic feasibility
assessment in every case. Funding for works, resources can even be collected
before works commence.
4. An instrument that provides for the viability of non-ocuppation
Transfer of construction potential
Objective: Compensate owners of buildings that are targeted for regeneration.
Description: Any owner of a building targeted for regeneration since it is
deemed of public interest will be allowed to use another building or will be
entitled to sell the difference between the area targeted for reserve and the total
lot area based on the basic land use ratio attributed to the zone. This if the
owner participates in preservation programmes carried out in collaboration
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with or thanks to the approval or public entities.
Basic requirements for its implementation: Transfer criteria. Preservation
plans designed on a per case basis.
Strategies and Implementation mechanisms: Problems when there is no
transfer possibility in areas where most of the buildings are targeted for
regeneration (historic districts). Maintenance costs of buildings many times
suppose a heavy burden. Articulate with the instrument of created land.
5.
Incentives for the construction of housing of social interest and
regulation of unregulated parceling or zoning.
Creation of Special Zones of Social Interest (ZEIS)
Objective: Promote the construction of housing of social interest by increasing
the offer of urbanised areas, ensuring the recovery of declined, deteriorated
housing and the permanence of residents who will not be relocated.
Description: ZEIS are vacant areas which are apt for urbanisation within
boundaries set by certain perimeters. They can also be areas that house
irregular settlements that do not conform to regulations in force and are
therefore, object of studies, interventions and specific regulations.
Basic requirements for its implementation: Define the boundaries of ZEIS.
Regulatory plans that provide for the involvement of residents in different
stages.
Strategies and implementation mechanisms: Articulate ZEIS with a broader
social housing funding program.
NEW
URBANISTIC
TOOLS:
SOME
DESIGNING
AND
IMPLEMENTATION EXAMPLES.
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Based on the principles above stated, we have witnessed the introduction of
tools to set out guidance and to regulate urban development based on the local
reality, the economic model and the existing potentialities. The diversity of
these new tools shows the local concerns and realities. Despite this diversity,
there is still a common logic that goes beyond the scope of these experiences:
willingness to intervene in the building up of the real, existing city instead of
adopting ideal, unfeasible models.
We are now presenting some examples taken from the experience in Brazil
basically, though mention is made to other Latin American countries. It is an
open list that does not refuse any of the topics studied. The fact is that these
topics are not all well documented. Therefore, access to information is
sometimes easy and sometimes difficult, which obviously does not add or
diminish their significance.
The examples will also show different difficulties faced by new urban tools:
some could never be implemented, others are still being negotiated with the
authorities and others have been or are in progress: there have been impacts,
revisions, and resistance from stakeholders. All these experiences are quite
young —the oldest are almost two decades old—, therefore none can be
considered conclusive; they will all deserve critical future assessment.
Even though they are young, these experiences are very interesting. It is
interesting to understand the diverse approaches that result from the new
paradigms, derived from dissimilar players, scenarios and economic models.
When we refuse a single, unique regulatory pattern or model, we also refuse
the idea of global solutions, mechanically transferable and exportable. The
technical model is less important than the understanding of the dynamics
involved. This understanding supposes that politics will influence regulatory
frameworks. This is how we approach the experiences: their success or failure
will depend on politics.
We mean to present the experiences lived in a similar way: we introduce the
local or regional reality; we point out some critical aspects of urbanisation
(specifically related to the tool designed and in many occasions with express
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references to the specific issues or region); we describe the urban tool; we
assess the resulting impacts (when possible). We also mention the year these
processes started and risk being a bit imprecise since, as everybody is aware of,
urban policies rely on a silent process during which initiatives come into light.
We simply refer to the year when initiatives became public, went beyond the
technical discussion and reached the local community.
1.
Rosario, Argentina. (1995). Linkage of public policy and
planning tools.18 (el número de esta cita es el 25)
It is time to describe some significant aspects of the urban management and
actions developed in Rosario in the last four years and others recently
implemented.
The context19 (el número de esta cita es el 26)
Rosario is on the bank of the Parana River, with a population of about one
million people and represents approximately a third of the overall population of
the province of Santa Fe and a three per cent (3%) of the overall population of
the country. The city history revolves around the drive, the social and
economic prosperity of the port, the manufacturing industries located in the Big
Rosario and the increasingly important commercial and banking sectors. In the
mid 1970’s the crisis suffered by the regional economy structure radically
change the city scenario. The economic reconversion of paper mills,
metalworking, steel and chemical industries among others, placed the region
before a critical economic and social situation and increased difficulties to
compete in the globalised, international markets. Changes suffered by the
manufacturing structure were accompanied by a deep social crisis, with high
unemployment rates, increased social deprivation and negative impacts from
immigrants flowing from other regions.
18
The description of action developed in the city of Rosario is based on concepts included in the Annex “Case Study:
Rosario, Province of Santa Fe. Argentina”, 2000. Corea Aiello, Mario in collaboration with Zaida Muxi.
19
Synthesis from the Plan Estratégico Rosario, PER. Point 2.1, “The city at the end of the 90’s”. Rosario, 1998
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Local authorities have in recent years fostered a number of public policies to
counterbalance this comprehensive crisis and give a new sense of direction to
the development of the city. Focus was made on existing potentialities: a
privileged geographical location in the Mercosur, with large infrastructure
investments that provide for regional axis.
Critical Aspects of Urbanisation
Rosario grew and consolidated during the so-called farming, export economic
stage. During this period the urban pattern of the city and of its region was
defined physically, economically and socially. In 1905, the first pier was
opened. The city central area had already settled its civic, commercial and
residential areas close to and around the port. In the surroundings consolidated
a territorial pattern characterized by the presence of those towns (Alberdi, La
Florida, Fisherton) located the closest to the original downtown area. These
towns were at first places where rosarinos (Rosario residents) used to spend
their leisure time. However, later on, they integrated into the Municipality.
Other towns came into existence and now form the Rosario metropolitan
region. Many started as farming colonies and railroad villages. Their
geographical location determined a radial pattern that from the original centre
expanded in all possible directions: many new settlements appeared. These
centres and this territorial expansion were basically structured around: the
roads, the railroads that were laid parallel to the roads and the river traffic. This
last factor increased the linear stress derived from the coastal development that
overlaps the radial urban pattern.
Statistically, Rosario had a population of 1.540 in 1801 (semi-rural village);
8.950 in 1854; and reached 185.000 people in 1910 and 340.000 in 1930. The
economic development and migratory public policy contributed to this
population growth.
In the second half of the XX century settled the first manufacturing activities
related with farming and grain exports (flour mills, meat processing plants) as
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well as to railway supplies (rail workshops, metalworking, etc.)
Urban expansion occurred during the so-called “imports replacement”
economic stage. Since 1929 it revolved around light metalworking: many small
and medium companies and workshops developed, all of them founded with
domestic capitals. In 1913 the last railroad company located in the area and by
the late 1920’s the first paved road from Rosario to Casilda was opened. This
road was used to transport production by truck. Passengers transport systems
were greatly improved and resulted in an urban expansion that featured:

An unregulated zoning and parcelling purely speculative in nature.

The development of large “urbanised” areas very deprived and with high costs
services.
The typical regional expansion of this period witnessed the location of foreign
manufacturing facilities in the country. Urban agglomeration was consolidated
in the northern corridor and linked communes and municipalities in an urban
continuum (Granadero Baigorria, Capitán Bermúdez, Fray Luis Beltrán, San
Lorenzo and Puerto San Martín).
Rosario Port was the most important grain export port of the country and was a
driver for economic development. However, the port lost its drive and new
private port elevators were located in the region.
From 1960 to 1970, between the two national censuses, Rosario net growth
was 103.194 people. In the rest of the agglomerate, growth was 39.014 people.
Irregular settlements developed on redundant railway land and in vacant areas
with larger or lesser inner city features. In less than one century, Rosario turned
from a semi-rural village to the second urban agglomeration in the country.
The contradictory juxtaposition between a developed urban sector provided
with all necessary services and deprived sectors develops, social polarisation
deepens.
New Public Policies and Action Tools.
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To tackle the changes occurred in the present context and to design an
integrating, transforming and sustainable project for the city, local authorities
set out a number of policies and action tools which are implemented after they
are articulated: decentralisation, strategic planning, urban planning. Besides, a
specific intervention was designed to face housing concerns.

Decentralisation
The city of Rosario embarked on a decentralisation process in December 1996,
thanks to the Decentralisation and Government Modernisation Program.
The first stage required defining the physical support for decentralisation.
Districts were zoned and an audit on the current citywide position was carried
out in order to also identify potentialities. This stage was based on a Technical
Cooperation Agreement entered into by the Municipality and the Rosario
National University. The district zoning was an interdisciplinary task that set
the grounds to define a geographical organization indispensable to set up the
overall process.
The second stage was the actual implementation of the Program. The political
and administrative reform was used as an excuse to provide for a
comprehensive transformation of the city. The comprehensive decentralisation
process was structured around four principles:
a. An administrative re-structuring, it is currently being implemented by
setting up District Municipal Centres (CMD) and a continuous improvement
process that allows monitoring achievements and assessing results to decide
adjustments if necessary.
b. A functional, operational re-structuring, an Urban Services Area (ASU)
was set up in each district to decentralise steps and work relative to public
services delivery and small and mid-size public works execution.
c. A re-definition of Urban Policies, setting out guidance to foster
transformation. District Municipal Centres were located following projects that
highly impacted on urban transformation. A “Public Works and Services Plan”
was designed on a district basis by means of consultations and participation
process in order to ensure decentralised government actions. Funding was
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provided to set out priorities and to execute the most significant works in the
short term (2000-2001).
d. A new city management model was defined, based on two essential
issues: mechanisms to spread information and to foster citizen involvement
aimed at the participation of citizens in the assessment, control and decisionmaking processes.
Even though decentralisation has not yet been completed, we can say that it has
been progressing on sound basis; its continuance is ensured.
Strategic Planning
Rosario decided to adopt this tool and in 1995 joined CIDEU (Centro
Iberoamericano de Desarrollo Estratégico Urbano – IberoAmerican Urban
Strategic Development Centre) that is located in Barcelona. As of the year
2000, the idea is to integrate efforts from the public and private sectors to
contribute to urban, economic and social development. Management is to
provide responses to five basic issues: a new economic support, service
infrastructures, improved quality of life, social equality and integration and
territory governability20.
Preliminary studies were commenced to foster the Plan Estratégico Rosario
(PER) Rosario Strategic Plan or A Vision for Rosario, based on successful
experiences lived in other cities. Researchers, municipal technical staff and
experts from different and representative city institutions were summoned. The
outcome was a Pre-diagnosis that set the basis for debate and final design of
the Final Diagnosis.
In October 1996 a Promoting Board was established. This Board embarked
the city in a consultation process to design a strategic plan. The Promoting
Board, the General Council, the Coordinating Office and the Involvement
20
Plan Estratégico Rosario, PER. Diagnostic and Design . Rosario 1998.
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Teams provided the organizational structure to implement PER. Only recently,
a Technical and Advisory Council was included.
This organizational structure provided PER with the means to achieve three
stages: Diagnosis, Designing and Implementation.
Following a deep and significant integration and consensus among players, five
strategic guidelines were defined. They summarize PER’s programmes and
projects:
1. To build up the city of employment
2. To build up the city of opportunities
3. To build up an integrated city
4. To build up the city by the river
5. To build up the city for the arts
After the PER was detailed in a written document that synthesises all these
issues, implementation is progressing, programmes and projects are being
adapted and adjusted on a day-to-day basis following changing conditions and
scenarios. Out of the 72 designed projects, more than 50% is under execution
and the remainder are being fostered with funding from the city or with
resources coming from the Federal Government, the Province or private
stakeholders.

Urban Planning 21
The Guiding Plan (under debate) structures and articulates strategic
programmes and projects for the city and its metropolitan region while
designing tools at an intermediate scale. (District Plan and Special Plans) and
specific guidelines.
The four structuring projects included in the Plan are:
The city – river system. After achieving the regeneration of the riverside,
there is a new relationship between the city and the river. The final relocation
of the Port of Rosario and the releasing of port and railway land in the central
“Nuevo Plan Director Rosario”. Book 1. Overview. Urban Projects and Special Plans. Dirección General del Plan Director.
Secretaría de Planeamiento. Municipalidad de Rosario. August 1999
21
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riverside will provide for the refunctionalisation of a large area that will house
public spaces and leisure.
The project is structured around three principles that define the transformation
of the different riverside areas: northern, central and southern. The first defines
the projects regional dimension, their functional diversity and metropolitan
scope. Particularly, a big park in the southern end, a new park in the northern
riverside close to the Rosario –Victoria Fixed Link head, and the tourism,
leisure-oriented development of the northern riverside that will include the
islands opposite Rosario. The second principle refers to the public nature of the
riverside resulting from the integration of new green spaces residents can freely
access to in the central riverside and next to the University Campus, towards
the south. The third principle relates to the valorisation of city areas linked to
the riverside, specially the one located opposite the Port of Rosario, to the
south.
The new territorial front. This project is a bet on an intended transformation:
the edge as location of logistic activities, a new way of understanding the stress
resulting from the urban – rural boundary. It provides for physical, functional
and morphological zoning of the area alongside the Avenida de Circunvalación
to create a new image for the city.
The new Avenida de 2da. Ronda that will derive from a linking way between
the Avenida de Circunvalación and the AO 12 is a road ring where logistic
infrastructures and environment reserves will be predominant.
The city – airport system. This project aims at integrating this significant
infrastructure into the city and tries to consolidate the Airport as a metropolitan
and regional communication hub. It is based on the role the city wants the
Airport to play in the region. A number of projects are structured and articulate
around the road linking the airport and the city downtown area in order to
foster urban regeneration of declined sectors and to release new land for
commercial and services developments.
The new metropolitan axis. This project applies in two scales: spatial and
functional regeneration of a redundant, obsolete railway facility that is to be
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replaced by a road axis and a metropolitan tramway, and the rehabilitation of
deprived districts located in the geographical axis of the municipality that will
therefore be integrated as new citizen identity landmarks. This last scale takes
into account irregular settlements located along some avenues that, on top of
the social problem they represent, negatively impact on the city pattern.
Within the framework of Special Plans, the Central Area Recovery and
Regeneration Plan is a significant example. This Special Plan addresses the
abandonment and decline of the Central Area, the new forms of urbanisation
and the displacement of central functions, the need to value the regional and
urban inner features derived from its urban and architectural heritage. This Plan
is currently being developed and is fostered in collaboration with PER.
As specific guidelines, it is important to highlight the Urbanisation and Land
Zoning Ordinance (passed in 1997) that introduces three differentiated
urbanisation programmes: Basic Urbanisation Programme, Comprehensive
Urbanisation Programme (basically addressing Social Housing Complexes,
Industrial or Leisure Parks, etc.), Social Interest Urbanisation Programme (for
interventions of social interest and to be implemented by public bodies and/or
intermediate community organizations) and the urbanistic Agreement
Programme to be implemented in vacant land by public bodies, private or
private-public partnerships.
Comprehensive Programme for the Regeneration of Slums “Rosario
Hábitat”22
This Programme is carried out by the Public Housing Department (SPV) of
the city SPV, and aims at “Developing and implementing strategies that will
guide informal occupation and that will enhance quality of life … by
regenerating the urban pattern … physical and social integration of the city”.
22
Synthesis from the Report: Rosario Hábitat. Programa de Recuperación de Asentamientos. Municipalidad de
Rosario. Public Housing Department. SPV, March 2000
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Today, 91 irregular settlements (approx. 115.000 people) are located in the
city. They stand for approximately 13% of the overall population and 10% of
the overall urbanised area. They are responses to “housing demands existing
outside the formal market”. “ ... The fast vegetative growth of the slums’
residents contributes to the growth of slums together with the deprivation of
mid incomes sectors…”.
The Rosario Hábitat Programme provides for: the regulation of urban pattern
and
fabric,
basic
infrastructure
and
equipment
provision,
housing
improvement, new housing to relocate families, parcel and legal title
regulation, strengthening of solidarity networks by residents involvement.
Management is based on the involvement of all sectors: technical staff, users,
planning based on ZOPP method, election of representatives among
beneficiaries to supervise the process and the pre-post assessment. The
Programme has been submitted to the IBDB for funding. The Municipality has
decided to invest part of its 2000 budget to start out the programme. Priorities
are: Villa Banana and Bella Vista, Las Flores Sur. La Tablada. Sector Travesía
y Sorrento. Circunvalación y Estudiante Aguilar.
Impacts
New and big economic, territorial infrastructures: the Rosario – Victoria Fixed
Link23; the new South Port, the new road accesses, the Rosario-Cordoba
highway will greatly impact the city and will foster new urban developments.
Transformation of the inner city will result positive as far as the regeneration
derived from Rosario Habitat Programme provides new social and integration
conditions. Such an impact is evident in the Distrito Oeste where Villa Banana
is already benefiting from the Program: Boulevard 27 de febrero was opened
and the Municipal Centre was built.
El puente Rosario – Victoria es la obra de infraestructura de mayor envergadura que se está construyendo a nivel
nacional, que cumplirá el rol de eje de articulación este-oeste entre Brasil y Chile
23
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The recovery of the riverside shows positive impacts and has modified the cityriver relationship. The regeneration and new vitality of the Central Area is a
big challenge that has awakened interest in most players, clearly shown when
called for its implementation.
Decentralisation has been widely accepted both by political and institutional
sectors. Citizens go to CMD in increasing numbers to participate and involve
in different projects. Some figures that evidence the results achieved:
When opened, the CMD located in the northern area, Villa Hortensia, could
deliver 83 different services. After assessing the needs of residents, now it
delivers 183 services. 900 turns are distributed every day that represent
approximately 1.300 people. In the first quarter in the year 2000, 11 concerts,
10 art exhibitions, 13 community secondment workshops. During the
Involvement Seminars to debate the Plan for the district, 250 representatives
from different institutions participated on average in the workshops. 1850
residents voted for choosing the remodelling project of Plaza Alberdi in 1998.
2.
Montevideo, Uruguay (1987) – Regeneration of Declined
Urban Areas due to the existence of Social Housing
The local context
Montevideo historic district is located on a peninsula that overlooks the Rio de
la Plata and has been, since 1724 when the city was founded and until the
1930’s, the inner city where urban life took place. After the 30’s it started to
decline slowly, its urban quality deteriorated as its profile became less
residential and more finance, third-sector oriented. There were 26.600 residents
in 1908. Density remained stable until the 1960’s when people started moving
out. In 1985, there were only 16.300 residents in the area.
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Historical buildings slowly dissappeared, either because of real estate
speculation or because they are left by the owners, who are no longer interested
in preserving them. In 1982, almost 12% of land in the Historic District was
derelict or vacant.
In order to stop the fast deterioration of the area, civil partners decided to avoid
the disappearance of urban spaces and buildings so linked to the city’s identity
and history. In 1982, local authorities temporarily cancelled demolition
licenses and new construction licenses in the Ciudad Vieja until they could
clearly define and instrument a policy to preserve the city historical heritage.
Simultaneously, a team staffed with four city professionals is established.
Public and private players are invited to participate in the designing of a Plan
that will set guidance and a regulatory framework for future interventions in
this part of the city.
The basic principle was to adopt a dynamic criteria for buildings and land
preservation that will ensure essential values and will avoid “freezing”:
recycling and new uses for existing buildings will be allowd. As a result of
this, people were provided with three new tools:
-
a regulatory framework aimed at giving guidance to new building projects;
-
A Permanent Special Commission aimed at fostering and coordinating
interventions recommended;
-
a professional team within the local government structures that will support
the Commission by carrying out technical studies and analysis as well as
interventions paperwork.
The Permanent Special Commission started to wok in 1982. In 1983 it carried
out one of its first taks: the basic inventory of architectural heritage located in
the historic distric that provided the grounds for any future intervention
planning.
As of 1985, buildings listed in the inventory are realeased for renovation while
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studies to recycle old residences begin. Access to loans destined to refurbish
and restore buildings and transform them into flats was provided.
In 1987, the Municipality and the Banco Hipotecario de Uruguay (government
body that finances housing projects) declared the Ciudad Vieja “urban priority
attention area”. The objective was implementing a policy that will bring people
back into the area and improve the quality of life of those living there.
Regeneration of Calle Piedras (Piedras Street)
Piedras Street was chosen for a demonstration project adopting the new
approach for the Ciudad Vieja. Piedras is a secondary street, in the Zona del
Puerto (Port Surroundings) and next to the banking sector. There is a mix of
activities that take place in this street: cafés, boarding houses, small stores,
shops and offices from bank and financial insitutions providers, car parks and
mid and low-incomes housing. Because of its location, it was designated as an
excellent opportunity to implement a regeneration pilot experience.
First, physical data were collected: buildings were rated as:
-
with historic or panoramic value,
-
without any architectural attributes and
-
derelict constructions.
Blocks were plotted on grids that showed buildings volume, the year they were
built; prior approaches, present condition, present use and some other relevant
remarks.
Some research was also made to assess residents’ needs and quality of life in
order to have future interventions provide for responses. Focus was always on
their permanence in the district.
The intervention
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The regeneration of Calle Piedras was structured around the following
principles:
-
Prioritising residential use of buildings and land, by providing
maintenance and renovation, restoration to old buildings, using vacant land
for housing projects and replacement of some properties;
-
Strengthening of district social tissue,
by providing opportunites for
residents to stay in the area and to attract more population;
-
Provide for urban vitality, by granting incentives to new commercial
activities, by establishing services that respond to the needs of local people:
schools, kindergartens, health centres, legal assistance focusing mainly on
children and young mothers;
-
Environmental regeneration of the street, by preserving the environment,
pedestrian needs and landscape.
The designation of the Ciudad Vieja as an urban priority zone enabled easier
access to housing renovation funds. There are some targeted public funds for
the renewal of Ciudad Vieja for both owners and tenants —funds to buy the
house or to subsidise the rent.
The renovation of existing buildings enabled an increased area density. More
available places for young couples that qualify for house credit lines.
This regeneration project significance is based on the firm government
decission to renovate the area and provide for attractiveness to bring people
back into the district. Necessary services and infrastructure will be installed
and will provide suitable maintenance. At the same time, social assistance and
financing possibilities will help residents stay. It is therefore in obvious
opposition to other regeneration models based exclusively on the marketplace
needs: land is revalued and gentrification is fostered.
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3.
San Pablo, Brazil (1990) – Unique Ratio and Property
Gain Fee (“Planning Gain”)
The local context
San Pablo was founded in the XVI century. From 1870 the city witnessed an
intense growth and progressively became a commercial and services centre, an
industrial agglomeration and Brazil financial and banking heart. The huge
urban growth occurs concurrent with an increasing social polarisation and
spatial segregation. Up to the 1930’s, this polarisation and segregation
translated in two main city areas: the rich centre and south west, with its
dynamic commercial streets and elite neighbourhoods and the poor, deprived,
unhealthy, floodable, overcrowded banks of the rivers.
Since the 1930’s a dramatic change in urban growth pattern occurs: the selfedification (ACA VA LA CITA 31) on open vacant lands located in the
periphery of the city became the predominant housing for low-incomes
residents. This will result in a progressive expansion and a diminished city
density. In addition, basically since the 1940’s, the verticalisation of inner
cities and the consolidation of the Centre/Southwest area as a privileged inner
city that concentrates high-incomes neighbourhoods —even some garden
cities— and the main commercial and services centres. We therefore witness
the consolidation of an urban structure duality which still prevails: a qualified,
regulated area object of many public investments that opposes a huge illegal
periphery, wildly urbanised and rarely reached by urban regulatory guidelines.
Critical aspects of urbanisation
Investments on urban infrastructures concentrated on the Centre-Southwest
area of the city, always trying to provide for urban services on still vacant land.
Meanwhile, the popular/working-class inner cities in the East-Southeast Sao
Paulo received investments only years or decades after residents located there.
In most instances, however, self-edification or self-promotion was the main
driver of urban development: streets were opened in valleys or breakwaters
thanks to daily families’ work.
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The strategy to regulate and control urban land use and occupation set a
framework that prevented investments that might house uses and occupation
patterns typical of deprived sectors. Therefore, since the prohibition of
“conventillos” (squattering) in the downtown area ruled in the beginning of the
century, the area moved to a zonification strategy (zone division) that can only
dialogue with elite property requirements, that reserves the best city areas for
the rich. As a result, there is an ongoing contradiction between the urban
regulatory framework —set out by urban planning and codes— and the
management of urban land. Urban planning, especially this zonification
strategy slowly created a virtual city where squatter settlements and slums did
not “exist” on block plans. Their future depended on housing policies designed
to foster and promote housing for deprived social sectors, excluded from the
formal marketplace. Meanwhile, local authority was integrating these
settlements into the city, little by little, extending urban services, urbanising,
stabilising the environment but never eliminating all environmental risks and
markers of deprivation and urban imbalances. The intrinsic logic of such a
contradiction replicated deprivation and precariousness at a faster pace than the
one showed by housing promotion policies and urban regulatory strategies. A
highly perverse urban dynamics was so perpetuated, though it was politically
profitable since deprived, precarious social conditions make people more
vulnerable to political “favours” and “returns” during election periods. Ever
since the 1940’s this has been the basis for San Pablo local politics.
A strong inner city located in the centre/southwest resulted from these
investments definition. Urban regulations built up a huge barrier between the
rich and the poor by preventing the city from being shared by wide sectors of
the population and by entering into a territorial agreement that, consistent with
regulations in force, ensured a precarious and uneven integration of lowincomes residents dependant on votes needs. Despite the quite high GDP
enjoyed by Sao Paulo, U$39.9 billion and its metropolitan area, U$71,8 billion,
the deprived 50% of the population accounts for 20% of the region income,
while the richest 10%, for a 30%.
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This wealth concentration is spatially expressed: in the inner cities,
approximately 1,7 million people enjoy a quality of life similar to the one in
First World big cities, while most of the 7,9 million that live in the periphery
have a deprived access to health, education, housing and incomes. On top of
the enormous unfinished urbanisation areas, this peripheral expansion model
resulted in huge commuting needs: elite neighbourhoods and 70% of jobs as
well as almost 100% of the cultural events concentrate in the centre/southwest
of the city.
New Urban Tools
In 1989, a group of people committed to respond to the needs of deprived, poor
sectors took office in Sao Paulo. They designed a Guiding Plan structured
around one principle: to try to compensate for the perverse imbalance and
duality existing in the city. On the one hand, the precarious, illegal conventillos
(squattering) and the slums, on the other hand, a concentrated, over-valued real
property market in the southwest. The tools designed were:

Unique Land-Use Ratio
The Zonification specifies land use ratios for each city block —upt to 4 ratios
in San Pablo—. This ratio regulates most of the urban land value process.
Practically all land with ample edification potentiality is located in the
southwest, which strengthens the concentration.
Adopting a unique land-use ratio that provides for edification all over the
territory, implies equal edification rights for everybody and puts a halt to the
traditional concentration inertia of the Southwest.

Property Gain Fee (“Planning Gain Fee”)
Adopting this unique land-use ratio led to the implementation of the so-called
“created land”, that is, a gain obtained by developments which land-use ratio
was higher than the basic, allowed ratio. This idea of “created land” is an
additional “planning gain” from which local authority can collect a fee from
developers and planners in return of the profits they obtain. Since location is
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one of the most competitive edges in the property market, authorities expect
that when the overvalued price of certain areas decreases, demand for other
areas will increase. This “property gain fee” will be collected from any
development which edification area exceeds ratio 1 —1 being the lot area.

Construction or Edification Area
The Plan eliminated the maximum edification ratio in each lot and thus
allowed, at least in theory, an endless use of constructed area as long as
property gain fee was paid. The limitation was another regulation that,
consistent with Building Regulations, defines the shape of the city —the stock
of construction area— estimated for each city sub-region and for every
different use. The construction area that was still available in the market and
that will yield property gain fee to be levied by authority derived from the
valuation of the existing infrastructure which provided for more o less “gain”
to the existing urban assets. Available construction area
was rated as
residential or commercial, trying to balance both uses: zones that were
predominantly residential were granted more commercial construction area and
other zones, predominantly commmecial, such as the Historic Centre, were
granted more residential construction aerea.
Impacts
The Guiding Plan was resisted by technical staff too attached to the
zonification paradigm, media politically against the local authorities, real
property brokers afraid to loose some privileges. Despite the efforts made by
local authorities, the Plan was not supported by civil society organizations. The
draft for the law that would give statutory footing to the Plan was never
approved and the city remains to this day, without a Guiding Plan.
The Sao Paulo Guiding Plan was a fundamental example of the confronting
positions that result from the Brazilian city imbalances. This was a
consequence of new paradigms that uncovered the exclusion behind traditional
urban regulations and fostered new parameters that, based on the existing
situation, were aimed at compensating differences.
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So, even the plan was defeated in San Pablo, its principles matured and became
part of technical and political debate,Eventually those principles were
integrated to many action plans designed by other cities where political and
economic conditions did not prevent teir implementation.
4.
Diadema, Brazil (1993) – Social Priority Areas on Vacant
Land
The local context
Diadema is located in the south-east of San Pablo, in its Metropolitan Region.
It was granted autonomy in the 1960’s when separated from another
municipality, São Bernardo do Campo. It is about 12 Km. in a straight line
from the Capital downtown. With 314.742 inhabitants housed in 30,7 km2 it
ranks second in density in the State of Sao Paulo, and third in the country:
10.544 inhabitants/ km2.
In the 1950’s the area was mainly occupied by farms. It lived a fast population
growth in the 1970’s and 1980’s, when population grew up to 20% a year. This
explosive growth results from its geographical location, next to the Paulista
ABC towns, where most of the car industry and petrochemical companies are
located together with many other minor industries linked to large production
output activities.
Diadema housed may manufacturing facilities though not as many as in some
other surrounding towns. Land use was mainly residential, many residents
worked in neighbouring manufacturing facilities.
Most residents were low-incomes or mid-incomes. Santo André and São
Bernardo do Campo, two consolidated commercial towns next to Diadema
prevented the development of a significant inner city.
Being so close to manufacturing facilities, Diadema houses a community that is
highly involved in politics and linked to the union leadership born in the late
1970’s. In 1982, the first Mayor from the Working Class Party (Partido de los
Trabajadores) of the State of São Paulo was elected and stayed in office until
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1996.
Critical aspects of urbanisation
Due to the fast population growth and land use pattern, in the early 1980’s,
Diadema urban environment was very precarious. Only 50% of households had
running water; 14%, drainage system and only 20% of streets were paved:
illegal land use was king.
The poor among the poor faced a specially critical situation: 80.000 people,
that is one third of the population, lived in 192 slums that accounted for 3.5%
of city area. Density in the slums was 758 inhabitants per hectare.
Land ownership was quite concentrated and controversial. Zoning established
that a large part of the land stock was for manufacturing facilities; this is not
compatible with residential use. Where residential use was allowed, building
standards were very high. Therefore, irregular, non-conforming settlements
were fostered.
With high density and litlle land to use, the manufacturing use preserved by
zoning resulted in enormous dysfunction of the real property market. Despite
being of low environmental quality, the land in Diadema was quite expensive.
Lots best provided with urban services and infrastructure were taken for
manufacturing facilities. In the 1980’s, most were vacant or under-used.
Urbanistic Tools

Social Priority Areas ( AEIS)
After negotiations among technical staff, councillors and popular movements,
local authority established two kind of AEIS: AEIS 1: vacant land for new
social, subsidised housing and AEIS 2: land occupied by slums for
regeneration. AEIS could only locate housing for low-incomes residents
(families earning up to 10 minimum wages). AEIS were thus offering more
land for this social sector. 36 privately-owned zones were declared AEIS 1, a
total of 745.502 m2.
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Local authority together with popular movement representatives defined AEIS
access criteria. Families were to earn up to 10 minimum wages, not to own any
property and to be city residents. Besides, they were to be organised in legally
existing associations that will account for the sale agreement of land.
Implementation was not easy or peaceful: land owners resisted their land to be
declared of limited use for social, subsidised housing projects. They considered
their land was deprived from its market value and insisted that local authorities
were loosing job opportunities by limiting manufacturing facilities.
Despite land owners opposition —supported by some city councillors— the
project was finally approved in 1993. Approval was possible thanks to the
political pressure from popular movements on the City Council. It is important
to point out that these movements understood the fundamentals and contents of
the plan and fought for it being given statutory footing. They were not just
fighting for a house. It is an amazing quality leap that brought long term
benefits for all low-incomes residents who could finally escape from the
traditional cronyism, the only possiblity they had to get some kind of response
to its urgent needs.

Council for Housing
One of the most significant tools for urban management in Diadema was the
Council for Housing, created in 1993. This body defined the allocation of funds
for social, subsidised housing projects.
In 1993 a meeting was held on housing issues to define policies for the
following four years. The Council derives from the committement to turn
decissions made during this meeting a reality.
The Council was a legislative body, headed by the City Housing Department
Head; its Executive Secretary was the City Housing Department Director.
Besides there was a representative from the housing dept., one from the city
council, one from the finance dept. and 5 from community organisations,
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elected democratically. Each held office 2 years. City housing policies were
debated. Strategies for an efficient use of the housing budget, agreeements
between stakeholders, action plan implementation, articulation with the budget
were all matters under the Council scope.
One of the greatest challenges was to eliminate the skills gap evidenced by
community representatives. Many times they lacked the academic or
professional training to understand the complexities of the process.
Secondment programmes helped these representatives acquire the expertise
needed to achieve goals.
Community organizations slowly and progressively legitimised the Council.
The first councillors held office from 1993 to 1994. Community leaders did not
run as candidates that year; probably they still trusted their privileged access
channels to decision making process in the Executive. The next two years,
1995 and 1996, their attitude changed: main community leaders candidacies
revealed how credible the Council had become. The Council legitimacy was
achieved with the support granted by the Executive that gave it full decission
powers in housing matters. Popular movements that at first thought they did
not need the Council because of their privileged access to the Executive started
to fight for some space within the council. They saw the Council was the only
access to housing funds. Any other “informal”, “parallel” path had been
obstructed.
Impacts
AEIS was able to double the land available for residents earning up to 10
minimum wages, between 3,5% and 7% of the city territory. As a consequence,
the price of land decreased and purchasing possibilities increased. This
increased land availability and price reduction provided for regulated
settlements in big areas; less demanding standards enabled the re-urbanisation
of most of the slums. A new property market was therefore created within the
legal framework, for low-incomes residents that before could only access to the
informal, illegal market.
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At the same time, the Council could produce transparency. Local authorities were less
vulnerable to pressures from community organizations (the habitual “cronies” of the
traditional “patronage” system).
Urban environment enhancement inmediately resulted in better quality of life.
Children mortality rate, (82,9/oo of live born infants in 1980, the highest in the
country) came down to 20,6 /oo in 1994, below the mean in the State of Sao
Paulo. This was achieved thanks to the involvement of low-incomes residents’
organizations. They “took possession” of the public tool and became players of
city policies. They participated actively in negotiations relative to regulatory
strategies and on investments allocation processes. Besides providing for
access to housing, local government provided for better quality housing, better
designed urban environment. It was in touch with the people and fulfilled its
role, mediating in land use disputes and controversies.
We need, however, mention the drawbacks and limitations of the tool.
As AEIS 1 were included in the zoning scheme, available land stok decreased
and demand increased for still available lots —even within community
organizations. At first, community organisations were forced to fight until they
could convince land owners to sell their land; negotiations were tough and
complex. In time, land owners also “took possesion” of the tool and decided to
approach community organisations: a clear evidence or market maturity. This
process resulted in acknowledment of the legitimacy of the tool; some
organisations became brokers. The negative side of it is that owners entered
into negotiations with popular movements, lowered the price of land and
achieved a valorisation.
By 1997, AEIS 1 zones had been valorised, evidence that the tool was no
longer useful. However, it had allowed thousand of people relocation in better
quality housing.
5.
Colombia (1995) – Property Gain Fee
The local context
The history of Colombia is consistent with the rest of Latin America: a colonial
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past that structured the power of the State to ensure control over the territory
disregarding any social promotion, community identity or citizenship.
Decolonisation contributed very little to land use conversion: it just represented
the continuity of a model where local elites identify with developed countries
while exploit local resources. Urban land was nothing but another possible
economic exploitation, as any other resource of the country.
The last decades witnessed the deepening of social unrest due to a rural exodus
that resulted in demographic explosion of big cities in the 1960’s: Medellin,
Bogotá and Cali. Big cities grew but did not offer formal economy jobs
opportunities. The resulting urban environment is precarious, violent and
deprived.
Critical aspects of urbanisation
Colombian urban development model is very unfair and hardly sustainable
from the financial standpoint. Local authorities face increasing costs in their
urban management budget for it is constantly transferring wealth to landowners
whose land valorises along with investments and urban developments.
Local government has not played a significant role in setting some urban
development guidance to land use and land occupation. Private investors and
developers have been completely free of controls. This consolidated an urban
model that evidences a complete absence of Government policies or social
consensus. Authorities regarded urbanisation as demand for housing and urban
services and therefore designed policies limited to a number or sectorial
programs and their funding. This concept resulted in a government structured
around bodies designed to respond to this demand for housing, water and
electricity. In short, a technocratic urban services management replaced urban
management.
Other urban issues such as urban regulatory framework, looking after the
environment, land supply management, transport systems, public spaces
equipment, manufacturing zones and open spaces were handed over to the
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marketplace or to public bodies with absolute absence of political coordination.
Only those residents with economic capacity to afford urban services could
have access to minimum-quality services.
On the other hand, absence of urban rights or liabilities on land supply resulted
in huge speculation: land ownership does not imply any liability or obligation
before the city in such a model. Those who can afford buying real property see
it as a low-risk investment with high mid-term return. This resulted in
imbalances and contradictions between the city as such and land ownership:
local authorities were not planning or managing urban supply. This model
limited public investment and interventions that were reduced to sectorial
actions. The model allowed private interventions based on both formal and
informal market drive.
Under such a model, urban planning was of little use. The main reasons of the
crisis were not the urbanistic tools but the principles around which action plans
were structured, the relationship pattern with players that did not contribute to
respond to the needs of the city. Action plans were structured around individual
players’ logic, with no common framework; they were not designed to achieve
a social, strategic agreement or pact.
New Urbanistic Tools
The political framework recommended in 1995 assumes the city as a
geographic dimension for land disputes, gains and negotiations; it overcomes
the preceding paradigm that was limited to establishing technical parameters
for building licences. The new urban system was structured around some
principles:
a. Strengthening public intervention as a key player in the building up of the
city and not as just granting permissions or restraining land supply and use;
b. Regulating the interventions of players that influence urbanisation
processes by means of a Regulatory Plan derived from a long term
agreement that defines urban rights and obligations, planning land supply
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and use;
c. Ensuring the sharing of benefits and liabilities among land owners,
developers and local authority as well as the collection of property gain fee
to finance urban developments;
d. Ensuring the legitimacy of the planning decisions by contents
dissemination and citizens involvement in the decision-making process;
e. Defining a territorial strategy that will articulate sectorial programs and
objectives for building the basis of a wide-scope agreement among private
and public stakeholders structured around the need for a city project,
derived from debate and consensus.

Urban Regulatory Plan
This plan is the most important tool to zone the territory, to provide guidance
to public investments and to regulate private developments. Its goals are:
a. Implementing city policy on land use in a defined period of time, i.e. define
the city urban development (growth, reconversion, renewal, maintenance,
etc.) and the means to make available the land that is needed for urban
infrastructure, open spaces, the equipments, social, subsidised housing and
environment protection;
b. Identifying and scheduling city action plans that impact on urban structure
and territory (infrastructure, equipments, open spaces, social, subsidised
housing, environment protection, etc) and articulate them with integrated,
urban actions that are consistent with a territory strategy for the city;
c. Setting out a regulatory and management framework for private initiatives
relative to urban management that have to conform to urban development
policies (basically, urbanisation and edification).
d. The Plan should define those areas where, prior to any intervention, a
supplementary plan is to be designed and approved, as well as overall
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development criteria or principles.
The Regulatory Plan, supported by these principles, must also be supported by
a social pact derived from citizen involvement in the designing of the Plan. It
must specify a territorial action strategy to articulate sectorial programs and
urbanisation objectives by means of integrated urban action plans. It must be
regarded and designed as a set of concrete initiatives and projects, with defined
schedules and funding, in short, a self-applicable tool.
The Plan also specifies zones and criteria to design Supplementary Plans and
the so-called Minimum Action Units perimeters where specific reconversions
based on specific projects and a re-organisation of stakeholders are expected.
The Regulatory Plan also defines particular criteria to allocate benefits and
liabilities such as land zoning, public spaces, building to land area ratio, and
eventual development results.

Supplementary Plans
The Supplementary Plans are planning tools that expand and supplement the
Regulatory Plan in limited action units. Therefore, each of these units will be
provided with necessary definitions to achieve an adequate development.
Partial Plans will specify the urban infrastructure, equipment, use, management
tools and principles to share benefits and liabilities as well as the share in the
property or planning gain obtained.
These Supplementary Plans will also adapt the existing land management tools
in order to articulate them with the Regulatory Plan. It will be mandatory to
define rights, obligations, legal framework and both private and public land
intervention. Property and planning gain fees, mechanisms for priority
edification areas, land preserves are some of the tools contained. Popular,
community mechanisms and involvement channels should also be considered.
6.
Ribeirão Pires, Brasil (1999)
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The local context
Ribeirão Pires is in the Southeast end of the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Region, in
the Gran ABC. Land use and occupation in Ribeirão Pires has to tackle all
issues derived from the fact that the municipality is fully located within an
environmental reserve the Zona de Protección a los Manantiales – Spring
Waters Protection Zone– created in 1976. Ribeirão Pires lies between the
Billings Reservoir (50% of its territory), Taiaçupeba (23,5%) and Río Guaió
(26,55%).
The Spring Waters Protection Law sets technically desirable parameters to
avoid land occupation from damaging the quality and quantity of water to be
consumed in urban areas: minimum area lots, very low land use ratios and
severe restraints on undesired uses. Unfortunately, it simply and purely restricts
land occupation but does not provide for management tools to implement its
provisions.
This Law had perverse effects on Ribeirão Pires: by restricting legal land
occupation so much it condemned almost all urban occupation to a permanent
illegality. On the other hand, the law does not provide any grounds for
compensations to cities located where land use and occupation is so restricted.
The Law does not provide any alternative for landowners who bear all the costs
of environmental protection. Landowners therefore lose all motivation, all
interest and either abandons his land or parcels it illegally.
Few years after the Spring Waters Protection Law was passed it was clear that
its enforcement was impossible in most of the territory. Land value fell in
direct proportion to the difficulties of land use. South and Southeast Sao Paulo
became the main land stock for illegal, informal use and was occupied by
deprived sectors of the population who could not afford settling in more
central, better-valued areas.
Most of the occupation (almost one million people) that currently exists within
the Spring Waters Protection Zone is people living under irregular conditions.
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This includes approximately 105.000 people. Due to its geographical location
in the metropolitan periphery, Ribeirão Pires is growing at a faster pace than
other more consolidated areas: almost 3.78% a year from 1980 to 1991.
New Urbanistic Tools
During the mid 1990’s the Spring Waters Protection Law is reviewed. The idea
is to pass a more flexible law that provides more land use possibilities and to
establish bodies to account for the management of each basin.
In 1996 the Billings-Tamanduateí Sub-Committee was established. This is a
collective body responsible for the environmental management in the Southeast
of the Metropolitan Region. It is a step towards a supra-municipal management
instance of hydrological resources. The Sub-Committee Board holds three
representations: representatives appointed by the sub-region municipalities (the
seven cities located in the Gran ABC and the Capital); representatives
appointed by the State and by citizens. The Sub-Committee is empowered to:
-
Manage the hydrologic resources of the Billings-Tamanduateí
subregion where Riberao Pires and the Gran ABC from Sao Paulo are
located;
-
Design proposals and set out recommendations for the use, protection
and recovery of Spring Waters areas;
-
Foster and support the establishment of water users associations and
their integration or articulation with NGO’s;
-
Implement actions to adapt and articulate municipal and State legal
regulations applicable to spring waters protection and city sustainable
development.
The Sub-Committee is embarked on negotiations relative to the sub-basins
management and planning strategies.
The Spring Waters Protection Law was fully reviewed and a new State legal
framework was passed in 1998. However, land use and occupation criteria are
still to be defined since technical and political consensus has not yet been
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achieved.
This transition time is especially ill fated for Ribeirão Pires since all the local
land use and occupation is at stake. The local government has decided to
participate in this process “from the bottom up” that is, defining its proposal or
interventions based on the experiences lived and derived from the occupation
of protected areas: the authorities intend to build up a plan that will link
environment protection to land occupation possibilities and economic
development. This proposal will set a parameter from which to derive state
regulations.
In 1999 the Municipality of Ribeirão Pires designs the draft for the new
Environment Protection Law applicable in its territory. This draft is structured
around:
-
The pursuit of a new scenario for sustainable development, compatible
with the city’s demography;
-
The articulation with investments focusing on expanding waste
management and drainage systems;
-
Adopting the basin as environment management unit;
-
The protection of large areas with significant vegetal coverage to foster
tourism and leisure activities.
Phosphorus contamination is higher than tolerable in the region. This fact was
considered to determine the need for infrastructure and the possibility of
absorbing human occupation. Investments in sanitary systems will have to be
articulated with environmental measures and with land use and occupation.
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The revision of the first law, technocratic and perverse in its consequences, was
based on real population processes: the environment capacity to absorb
contaminants compared to the damage they produce on human beings. This
comparison determined the maximum density for each sub-basin, the urgent
infrastructure investments to mitigate damage on existing settlements and
future ones to respond to the expected growth.
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CHAPTER III
EUROPEAN CITIES
The following is the “European” part of the Draft Document to be presented
and discussed during the Launching Seminar of Network No. 7, URB-AL
Programme to be held in Rosario (Argentina) next November.
Two questions should be asked in this preliminary stage:
Europe and cities, what is it about?
What are the objectives of this contribution?
A- Europe and Cities: A Few Basic Concepts
By Europe we mean the 15 member countries of the European Union, even
when other countries or cities may be mentioned.
As regards the topic of this Draft Document, we could mention three important
aspects that show different characteristics in Latin America, though with varied
intensities:
Europe is wealthy
In 1997, the European GDP amounted to approximately seven billion Euros,
i.e. 66% more than Japan and 25% less than the United States.
The following chart shows a comparison between GDP in Europe and
population:
EUROPE
GDP
/ 1
USA
JAPAN
MERCOSUR
1.4
1.1
0.35
INHABITANT
Sources:
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
Community spatial development scheme published by the European Commission, May 1999.

Author’s calculations.
 Wealth in urban areas is larger than the mean
This part of Europe includes the capital cities (London, Paris, Madrid,
Brussels, Stockholm…) and the large polycentric urban regions (the Dutch
Randstad, the Italian Lombardy, the German Ruhr-Maine, the Belgian
Flanders, etc.) and generates an over productivity which measured against the
GDP/inhabitant and compared with the mean, may amount from 30% to 60%24.
However, it should not be inferred that everybody is “rich” in European cities,
nor that the municipal governments of these urban areas have unlimited
financial resources to implement their policies.
 Extremely unequal urban pattern.
The history of the development of European national states, many of them
relatively new and resulting from small regional states, explains the unequal
and branched urban polycentric pattern.
We could say25 that the European population is broken down as follows:

30% or more in large metropolitan areas,

Another 30% in numerous small or medium-sized towns,

Less than 30% in rural areas structured as villages and service centres.
Of course, a frequent statement is that the vast majority of the European
population is urban. This statement is correct but we have to remember that the
European urban pattern is very unequal. However, thinking European cities as
if they represented a single form of space organisation is often an excess.
24
25
Cf. Las French regions in the European Union. INSEE Première. August 1998.
European Union / European Commission. Community Spatial Development Scheme (S.D.E.C.); 1999.
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B– Objectives of this Contribution
They follow the contents of the documents produced by the network
responsible:

Terms of reference for consultants.

URB-AL No 7: organisation and methods proposed.
Along the line of thought embedded in said documents we can find three
features that define the spirit of this contribution:

Describe urban development trends and their environmental, social,
urbanistic and economic impacts. Explain the challenges public powers
face when managing and regulating them. Enable a comparison between
Europe and Latin America within the framework set by these trends,
impacts and challenges.

Identify the implemented methods, tools, policies and programmes that are
innovative–at least a priori–, as long as they try to respond to current
challenges. Within this framework, foster a debate on the usefulness and
transferability of these tools to Latin American cities.

Contribute to the identification of the cities/urban regions that may be
particularly representative of these innovative tools and methods. In this
respect, the European references are numerous26. It is not feasible to
include explicit references in this paper, but they will all be implicitly very
present. In this respect, consultants are willing to and ready to advise the
responsible of Network No. 7, URB-AL Programme on those cities that
might be more pertinent.
Finally, this document has been prepared with a spirit of collaboration, with
the will to contribute materials. Europe and European cities are a source of
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inspiration; in our opinion, there is not much discussion in this respect. To
what extent could experience be useful and transferred to specific cases in the
context of Latin American cities? The answer to this question is one of the
tasks assigned to Network No. 7 of the URB-AL Programme, one of the items
in the agenda of the Launching Seminar.
TRENDS, CHALLENGES AND POLITICAL ISSUES IN EUROPEAN
CITIES
In the following pages, we will present an initial summary evaluation of
European cities, followed by a categorised identification of urban areas and the
priorities for public policies.
1.
Trends and Challenges
In our introduction we said that European cities, as a whole, are in proper
conditions. The gradual transformation of our societies into knowledge,
information and services economies—both companies and individuals—
promotes the global development of urban modes of spatial organisation,
characterised by mass and density phenomena, and actually favourable to the
strengthening of the nodal points of any type of network, i.e. cities.
However, this picture—that looks as if seen through rose-coloured glasses—
presents three paradoxes that are symptoms of maybe not so new but still
unsolved challenges.
26
In particular, by means of this Initiative, promoting urban exchanges performed since 1997 and after the initiative
of the Ministers of the member countries of the European Union responsible for the rehabilitation of the territory (cf.
[Réf 1]).
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Paradox 1
Cities spatial expansion occurs within a context that is close to stagnation of
total and urban population. This is the evident CHALLENGE OF URBAN
SPRAWL. It is an urbanistic challenge; it is a challenge that relates to the
significant use made of scarce resources27, to the generation of motor driven
mobility, and to negative environmental impacts, both local (noise, smoke,
blackouts...) and global (gas emissions).
Paradox 2
In the wealthiest societies and cities, there is a sector of the population whose
poverty grows and becomes concentrated. It is the so-called CHALLENGE OF
TWO-SPEED CITIES. It is not so much a question of social polarisation or
area polarisation within the same city, but rather of trends towards spatial
concentration, towards the deepening of social imbalances and unequal ways of
living, unequal job opportunities, housing quality, standards of urban public
services, etc. All this concentrates deprivation at a very short distance from
where wealth is spatially concentrated. There is an old German saying referring
to the “city that releases and integrates”. At present, the last part of this
German saying seems to be less true in several European cities.
Paradox 3
In societies and economies that have gone through decades of continuous
enrichment, except for a few periods of remarkably slow pace, some cities and
urban areas find it difficult to get out of the conditions which are typical of
economic re-conversion. In the past, all cities of urban European pattern–large,
27
A significant number of urban countries have high population densities: Netherlands (15 million inhabitants; d =
375), Belgium (11 million inhabitants; d = 330), Great Britain (59 million inhabitants; d = 242), Italy (58 million
inhabitants; d = 190), Germany (81 million inhabitants; d = 170), Average density for Europe of 15 countries: d =
116 inhabitants/sq km.
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intermediate and small—developed at pretty comparable paces. Nowadays,
there are significant differences, mostly seen in certain intermediate cities and
in the old urban areas where the manufacturing economies used to settle. This
is the CHALLENGE OF METROPOLISATION, i.e. of increasing
concentration, of regional and/or national scales, of men and wealth, and
therefore of fragile territorial consistency.
The above paradoxes and their respective challenges are of much more difficult
resolution if they are added to the deep changes experienced by the context
where public city policy must be developed.
2. The New Context for City Public Policies
Context Modification
This context modification may be summarised into six statements representing
our societies’ passage from industrial modernity to post-industrial modernity.
POST-INDUSTRIAL
INDUSTRIAL
MODERNITY MODERNITY (after 1990s)
(1950s, 1960s, and 1970s)
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WORK
ECONOMIC SYSTEM
SCARCE
ATTITUDE TO PROGRESS
PERSONAL ATTITUDE
flexibility
and
unemployment
Nationalism / protectionism and Globalisation / opening and new
Welfare State
DEPLETABLE Unrestrained
RESOURCES
CITIES
Increasing
Full employment guaranteed
profile of the Welfare State
consumption,
and Awareness
little awareness
technical progress
sense
necessary
restraint
Strong belief in the fecundity of
Important
of
Critical or cautious attitude;
power of the precautionary
principle
of
collective
values (eventually contradictory)
European cities with tradition and
history: «closed» and mixed.
Individualisation of behaviours
Urban
archipelagos;
urban
sprawl; spatial separation of
functions; urban regions.
Source: Adapted from an article by Dr. C. Wiegandt, German B.B.R., to be published with the Geographical Journal.
In this transition to a new status for societies, it is even more difficult to answer
the questions: Who bears influence upon cities? Who builds up cities? In the
past, the political powers, the “planners”28, and the tools used during the socalled “30 glorious years”29 had a great influence on urban evolution. The
collective interest prevailed and was expressed in urbanisation and
rehabilitation plans; urban patterns came after urban planning, and nobody was
to urbanise when the collective interest deemed it inconvenient.
The difference between the previous and the current period may be
summarised as follows: in the past, economic development and social cohesion
were guaranteed and “planners” could plan «calmly»; today, economic growth
and social cohesion are less guaranteed, and cities are more concerned at said
economic development and social cohesion than about spatial planning.
28
Urbanists.
Referring to the 30 years from 1950 to 1980, during which the economic growth of European countries was
significant and sustained.
29
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Urbanism has become a science subordinate to or contingent on economic and
social concerns and strategies.
This is the reason why today’s “planners” can ascertain that they manage less
than before the evolution of urban patterns. They must take into account the
market logic and the economic behaviours affecting the shaping of the city.
Difference Between Desirable and Ascertained
There is consensus in Europe, both at the level of the European Union and the
individual member states: public territorial policies—explicit or in relation to
their impact—should be included in the agenda of sustainable development.
Their most frequent expression is the need for long-term reconciliation of the
so-called triangle of objectives, determined by:

Economic and social cohesion between human groups and territories;

Long-term conservation of natural life resources and cultural identities;

Economic competitiveness of territories.
These three guiding principles are not of easy fulfilment; the same existences
of the mentioned challenges—the disorganised urban sprawl, the two-speed
city, and the metropolisation—are evidence of that.
This separation between what is desirable and what has been ascertained,
between wants and reality, is a measure of the needs to be met by appropriate
policies, i.e. policies adapted to the new context. It is actually the rationale for
the name of Network No. 7 of the Programme URB-AL: “Management and
Control of Urbanisation”. This title represents at the same time an objective to
be reached and a gap to be closed between what is desired and reality. It could
be defined as the fourth challenge of URBAN AND TERRITORIAL
MANAGEMENT.
3. Priority Policies and Programmes
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The necessary articulation of challenges, relevant political actions and the
respective priority areas and topics leads us to the following analysis.
In the first two sections we will outline the policies and tools from the
perspective of priority urban areas, providing thus a more operational and
instrumental consideration. In this respect, we will discuss first the areas
subject to policies of urban regeneration and recovery, and then the areas that
are the subject matter of policies focusing on urban, social and economic
solidarity.
In the next two sections, we will outline the policies and tools springing from
the governance (urban and territorial management), and the role of the different
public power levels. The perspective will then be of a larger scale, more
conceptual than operational (including, however, implementation examples),
more institutional than instrumental. In this relation, we will analyse
successively the strategic or integrated planning and the evolutions of urban
and territorial management.
POLICIES PROMOTING URBAN REGENERATION
1. The Problems of Urban Regeneration
Two Drivers of Urban Regeneration
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The first driver results from becoming aware of the wish to slow down—
though not to generally stop—the expansion of urban areas. The so-called
opportunity driver complements this driver for wish. Said opportunity is
provided by the hundreds or thousands of hectares within the current city
boundaries that have lost or are losing their value for (urbanistic) use and their
(economic) exchange value in this transition to information and services
society: redundant old industrial areas and associated neighbourhoods;
redundant areas devoted to transport infrastructure, mostly ports and railroads,
city accesses; downtown areas to be remodelled.
Urban renovation policies should then contribute to the urbanistic and
economic regeneration of cities, as well as to limiting their spatial growth.
A Broadly Shared Objective in Europe
In Europe, there is widespread agreement on the will to replace urban
regeneration policies for already rehabilitated urban areas (the “brownfields”)
by policies and practices applicable to non-rehabilitated areas located outside
the existing urban pattern (the “greenfields”).

In the report used as the basis for spatial development policies30, the
European Union claims for a better management of city expansion.

In Great Britain, this is the main theme of the report “Towards an Urban
Renaissance”31, by Lord Rogers, as per the request of M. J. Prescott,
Deputy Prime Minister.

In Germany, this is the central theme of the experimental programmes
“Cities of the Future” carried out by the urban research agency—the
B.B.R.—under the Federal Ministry of Urbanisation and Construction.
30
European Union / European Commission: Esquema de desarrollo del espacio comunitario (S.D.E.C.) (Community
Space Development Scheme); 1999. Page 24.
31 Towards an Urban Renaissance. 1999.
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
In Italy, the programme P.R.U.S.S.T. (Programa di requalificazione urbana
e de sviluppo sostenible del territorio) should be mentioned.

In France, it comprises a significant part of the legislative bill currently
debated in Parliament, on urban solidarity and renovation32.

The Spatial Development Committee of the EU member countries has also
defined it as one of the priority issues.
An Extremely Difficult Implementation
The implementation of major urban projects forming part of a policy of
renovation of the “city on itself” is not easy. In addition to the “cultural”
reasons33 that make it easier to conceive and execute the extensive urbanisation
of previous decades, there are three sets of factors that represent an equivalent
number of obstacles:

The complexity in terms of land and buildings faced by actions in areas
with multiple owners, which are frequently a combination of vacant,
derelict land and still occupied areas.

The higher costs of rehabilitation-development, due among other reasons to
the necessary decontamination, demolishing and transformation of existing
infrastructures. These higher costs, in comparison with the simple land
preparation or classification—for further reconversion-rehabilitation—
currently amount to 1.5 million euros per hectare (i.e. 150 euros/sq m). And
these should still be added to future works and the supply of urban
equipment to achieve a new exchange value.

Frequently, the urbanisation standards (soil law, codes or legislation) are
not applicable because they were conceived to regulate the rehabilitation of
non-urbanised areas.
32
Urban Solidarity and Renovation Act, March 2000.
Explicitly mentioned by the Italian Government and also by Lord Rogers in his report [Re.5]; there are always
valid reasons.
33
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Within this context of strong wish, ascertained will and also powerful
obstacles, we will now identify the ongoing executions, the tools applied and
those topics or questions that are still open, without reply.
Innovative Experiences, Open Questions
Nothing stops the truth. So we will now introduce, both at the same time, the
innovative tools and the open issues, the questions without reply, approached
from four different perspectives. The examples provided34 are of generic value
and always limited to a small number of countries; the intention was not to
overload this paper.
Approach and Urbanistic Tool for the Design of Urban Regeneration
Projects
-
France. Here, the approach is more oriented towards the replacement of “general
plans” with specifics for the involved areas by directive schemes with targeted
references to major intentions and the invariable components of the project.
-
Great Britain. On the contrary, the report “Towards an Urban Renaissance”
recommends that every urban regeneration project within the Urban Priority Areas
should be preceded by 3D Spatial Master Plan, very precise in terms of urban
composition and that may not be objected by holders of construction licenses.
Urbanisation Regulation
-
France. The legislative bill S.R.U. abolishes the regulations on funding35
exceeding both the legal density floor and the S.O.R. (soil occupancy rate), which
imply a higher density in existing neighbourhoods, something that in the 1970s
and 1980s was not desirable, and which is different in the present conditions.
-
Great Britain. The same report—Towards an Urban Renaissance—recommends
that different items of the budget could be used for works the constructors
negotiate with the local communities on a per project basis at the time of granting
34
35
Lower-tone references.
By constructors.
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the planning permission; there may even be a (fair distribution) equation—cross
subsidising—for works belonging to different projects. In this way, the highly
“profitable” operations could contribute to the funding of others that are not so
profitable. (“planning gain”)
-
Italy. Within the framework of the national programme “Programma di
Riqualificazione Urbana”, the urban regeneration projects supported by National
Funds are allowed not to comply with the formal procedures of the “Piano
Regolatore Generales” and thus be ruled by specific regulations.
-
The Netherlands. Within the framework of the programme “City and
Environment”, the local communities are entitled to develop experimental
programmes that do not comply with existing regulations if there is evidence that
the result will be a better project implementation.
The Owners’ Involvement
A basic previous aspect of any policy for the regeneration of underused and
undervalued urban areas is the attitude shown by public powers towards the
owners. What is the best choice, induce the owners to participate in the
recycling actions, or else replace them by means of public purchasing
processes?
The answer to this question will depend upon the specific circumstances faced
by each city. It is much more difficult for the public power to handle a myriad
of small owners than dealing with a handful of companies, frequently. Besides,
these are industrial or infrastructure companies that are located in the outskirts
or under public influence36.
The European countries have adopted different approaches in this respect,
according to their traditional search for balance between the right to property
and the management of public interests. We may consider three major
approaches:
36
According to the rules of the old public monopolies of industrial services (railroads, energy, ports, etc.).
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
Most of the times, in Germany and Switzerland, the original owner becomes a party
involved in the urban regeneration process. An extensive and thorough negotiation
is held with the local community to determine the balance between the real-estate
and fiscal rating (appreciation) and the obligations of property assignment or
participation in urban equipment. These are negotiations between parties considered
equal in terms of their capacity to perform financial calculations. This method is
also used in Great Britain (quite frequently) and France (occasionally).

A variant of this method is the owner city leasing the land to private parties. The
leasing agreement determines mutual obligations. This method is characterised by
long leasing terms (very long periods, sometimes for life) which grants to the local
community a prevailing role in the development and implementation of the
recycling efforts. This method is used in the Netherlands, as well as in Great
Britain.

A very different method is the previous purchase by legal enforcement. It is the
most frequent method in Belgium (Wallonie) and France, countries that have
public real-estate agencies. So the question now becomes knowing at what price will
the depreciated properties be purchased, land that will eventually be appreciated
with significant price increases. Is it necessary to include a clause entitling the
owner to receive a return a posteriori, because of the higher property value? Should
on the contrary the purchase price be based on the current prices for the abandoned
areas? Or else, as proposed in the report “Towards an Urban Renaissance”, should
the practice of expropriation be once again implemented (discontinued many years
ago), and should attempts be made to make it more acceptable with prices somewhat
higher than those estimated by real estate appraisers?
Funding for Higher Costs of Real Estate/Fiscal Urban Recycling
Several are the cases of urban regeneration in Europe that have been subject to
analysis. Most of the times, the market is not enough to ensure the funds for the
entire process. Special concerns in this challenge for funds are decontamination
and the provision of equipment to create new poles of urban attraction
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(infrastructures, public areas, landscaping).
For this reason, all European countries have set up public funding mechanisms
specific for urban real property recycling.
-
In Germany, there is an agreement between the federation (Bund) and the
federated states (Länder) negotiated at the second parliamentary house (the
BundesRat). This instrument, called “Stadtebauförderung”, is specifically targeted
to cities in former Eastern Germany.
-
In the Netherlands, a special fund was created in 1998/99 under the “Cities and
Environment Project” implemented by the central government in conjunction with
the top 25 cities.
-
In Great Britain, the Rogers report proposes the creation of mixed public-private
funds supported on pension funds.
-
In Belgium, in the region of Wallonie, a regional redevelopment fund was created
in 1997.
-
In France, an agreement was entered into between the government and the public
finance body—Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations—for the creation of regional
investment companies with own funds lent at a rate of 3%.
But European cities also have some neighbourhoods with problems that are
not only of urbanistic or economic nature, such as vacant, redundant
industrial lots or underused areas, but also of social and cultural nature.
Unlike the former, these are densely populated neighbourhoods or quarters.
They belong to a different category and require different policies.
POLICIES PROMOTING THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL
URBAN INTEGRATION
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1. The Problems of the «Integrating» City
These problems may be identified by means of already proven elements, as
well as by analysing the effect of policies which, in the year 2000, have been in
force for over 15 years in some countries, such as France, England and
Holland.
The Proof of Concentration in Areas with Multiple Deficiencies
The neighbourhoods that are usually considered “with problems” are those
neighbourhoods where there is spatial concentration of multiple conditions of
marginality:

Unemployment, and many times lack of education, therefore there is no income.

Marginality, economic deficiencies/economic indigence, as these are areas with
little public investment and less private investment.

No public services: education, access to public spaces.

Lack of schools.

Construction marginality, great concentration of public housing.

Marginality in social relations, with high levels of petty crime, and frequently
difficult relations between differentiated ethnic groups.
These neighbourhoods are in an extraordinary situation (in the primary
meaning of the word extraordinary); the challenge consists of bringing them
back into the day-to-day life of the city.
Much effort, great achievements, but still a lot to be done
We could summarise into one phrase the evaluation of efforts made: “Still a lot
to be done and better”.
-
The following was pretty well done:
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
The “physical” or urbanistic improvement by means of dwelling rehabilitation;
public space improvements.

Social problems and challenges were taken into account with numerous cultural
events, for leisure time, sports and education.

The recognised need for positive discrimination actions which actually and
gradually restore the conditions of equal access to public services, basically security,
education, health, social promotion. This recovery of equal access is not in effect a
positive discrimination of space—rather the supply of public services to the
residents of less favoured neighbourhoods when compared with the mean for the
entire city—but a transient positive discrimination repairing a past relative
abandonment of these neighbourhoods by public services.
-
Still to be done. In general, the external image, i.e. that which attracts
people (to reside there) and business (to invest and create jobs) is still
mediocre and discriminatory. The integration to the city life is still a
pending issue. Little by little, we realise that working basically within and
for the involved neighbourhoods was not sufficient. It is necessary to
integrate them into the city to which they belong, and work also along this
line: from the (less favoured) neighbourhood to the city, and from the city
to the neighbourhood along dual flows.
In this respect, the innovations in European countries are numerous.
2. New Experiences, Open Questions
Integrated Joint Policies
In Europe, the issue of neighbourhoods concentrating multiple manifestations
of marginality provoked joint political responses in the 1980s and 1990s,
mostly in three countries, recently followed by others:
-
England, in particular the programmes “City Challenges”.
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-
Holland, in particular since 1989-1990, the extension of the social renovation
policy to 500 neighbourhoods in 340 communal districts.
-
France, in particular with contractual instruments, “City Contracts” and “Large
Urban Projects”.
-
In Germany, the need for integrated policies for these “difficult” neighbourhoods has
recently been recognised in an annual integrated agreement, Bund/Länder37, which amounts
to approximately 150 million euros, a policy called “Soziale Stadt” (the social city) very
similar to the policies implemented in neighbouring countries for several years.
-
A similar movement developed in Finland with the start-up of the programme and
partnership called in French “Régénération des banlieues–2000” (Regeneration of
the Outskirts – 2000).
There are several common characteristics in the management of these three
countries that may be pointed out.
New Organisations or Players into Scene
-
England: At the national level, the creation of the General Bureau “Inner Cities”
within the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (D.E.T.R.).
-
France, with the creation of a specific national agency—the Interdepartmental
Delegation of the City (D.I.V.)—as executive body, and the National City Council
(C.N.V.), as guidance body.
-
Holland, where the communities of neighbours—mostly those grouping aliens
(Surinam, Indonesia)—play a very important role.
New Financial Instruments
-
37
England: The “Single Regeneration Budget”.
Referred to under “Policies Promoting Urban Renovation”.
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-
France: In addition to the funds from the National Government and the territorial
communities gathered under the City Contracts, it is worth pointing out the
contributions, once again, made by the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations.
-
Holland: An item in the global budget for “Social Renovation”, agreed between
the national administration and the cities that voluntarily commit themselves to
implement the applicable programme.
The crucial problem of funding is usually the difficulty to collect funds in an
effective and rapid manner from sources as multiple and diverse as the issues
to be worked out in these neighbourhoods.
Linking the Neighbourhood and the City
The three mentioned countries share a common and basic characteristic: the
willingness to link, and the actual linking of, policies for difficult
neighbourhoods with joint developments and policies for the entire city. For
instance, France provided that the wealthiest communities should devote a
portion of their resources to the communities that are less favoured in fiscal
terms, on the grounds of solidarity principles.
The Politicians’ Objectives: Whom should the funds be given to? Who
decides?
The implementation of programmes at national level is very different from
deciding to whom public funds will be granted. These neighbourhoods have
very significant and diverse difficulties that fall into different categories:
health, education, urbanisation, security, transport, trade, employment, etc. As
a result of this complexity, it is necessary to make intensive efforts of coordination of areas and concentration of public actions over a geography with
selective priorities.
Different modes and lines of action coexist in Europe, with three distinctive
approaches:
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-
The case of the England, where the prevailing method is the request for prices or
bidding process. Here, the cities submit bids. Only the best bids (and therefore the
best cities) are taken into account for funds distribution. The request for
competitive prices is a good method to optimise public actions. Italy applies a
similar method.
-
This is also the case of France, where the primary goal is established and then the
national government determines which are the priority locations.
-
In Holland, the prevailing principle is the cities’ willingness to commit
themselves or to participate in the applicable programmes. As it is a voluntary
method, the local communities guarantee that they will assume full responsibility
over the implementation of the policy, as well as over the projects contents. There
is a very strong subsidiariness different from the other two cases.
However, there are no extreme differences between the two methods, the one
that could be called “top to bottom” or competitive, and the other “bottom to
top” or contractual; both cases involve a significant process of negotiation and
agreement, such as in Germany, with the Länder Bund, in the programme
“Social City”.
The Issue of “Public” Housing38
The neighbourhoods with difficulties of urban integration are frequently
neighbourhoods concentrating a significant number of public houses. In the
understanding that the «integrating» city is that city that combines in each
spatial element different income levels, social groups and house types, the
issue of public housing is additional to the physical renovation of buildings and
surrounding public areas. Two aspects may be analysed in this respect:

38
Demolition/Restructuring
“Public” housing is housing built with public funds.
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In the neighbourhoods with the poorest residential image there is a
significant concentration of public housing with high rates of empty
dwellings—near 25% in the neighbourhoods of Lyon (France) that are
most characterised by this phenomenon. In order to restore the city
attractiveness, work should be done on the re-densification and
restructuring of these areas. This is leading governments—which have been
reluctant for many years—and management bodies to implement
demolition/restructuring programmes; for instance, in Lyon (the second
French city), the programme comprises 300 units to be demolished in the
period 2000/2006 and replaced by the construction of approximately 150
units of urban houses or residential estates.

The Mix of Residential Occupation and Housing
What are the political instruments to be considered in order to attain in each
neighbourhood sufficient housing variety, and the consequent variety of
occupation statuses and social classes according to income levels?

Numerous European countries, such as Holland and Germany, have
decided not to separate the industry from the public housing construction
or management organisations. The Dutch government increasingly
resorts to public assistance as a means to regulate conditions, reforming
the public housing bodies and turning them into almost “standard”
counterparts of private companies.

France has chosen a different road. The recent legislative bill still under
debate, the S.R.O., by means of high-principled provisions, prolongs the
specific nature—“high-morale individuals in charge of a service for the
general interest”—of the respective organisations39. Besides, it introduces
the obligation of social residential mixture: in the main French
39
The so-called H.L.M, i.e. Moderate Rent Houses.
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conglomerates, each communal district in the conglomerate40 should have
in its area 20% of “social” houses (public housing or equivalent). If they
do not comply with this percentage, an annual amount of approximately
170 ecus is withheld per missing house. The money is then allocated to a
housing operator acting at conglomerate level or to a local real estate
organisation. The districts themselves have to specify which actions will
be taken to repair the delay.
The Economic Development Function
The reduced housing attractiveness is usually accompanied by little economic
attractiveness; the absence of economic life is undoubtedly one of the basic
characteristics of this territorial fracture between the excluded neighbourhoods
and the everyday commercial exchanges of a city.
In this respect, the typical tool implemented is tax exemption—enterprise zone
in the United Kingdom, urban free trade area in France—by means of which
every business settled in the area receives the benefit of significant tax
exemptions.
The experience gained by these two countries in this field suggests the analysis
of three aspects:

Benefits are interesting; many businesses move in order to receive them;

The unemployed in the neighbourhood are not significantly benefited with the jobs
involved;

The fiscal cost is relevant when the volume of jobs created is taken into account.
In France, the 44 urban free trade areas that were created will be eventually and
gradually removed to be merged into a less specific and more comprehensive
territoriality.
40
There are 36.000 communal districts in France, i.e. more that the total number for the other 14 member countries of
the European Union. Therefore, all French agglomerations have multiple communal districts, sometimes near one
hundred of them, all of them with equal competence powers on matters related to urbanisation.
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This issue is still one of most difficult resolution. These difficult
neighbourhoods are, in economic terms, “hollow, empty areas”, and the right
decision would be to transform them into neighbourhoods generating economic
exchange—commerce—, and goods production—service companies. So the
requirement is for comprehensive urban renovation projects integrating
economics into the urban and social renovation, at a territorial scale much
higher than the neighbourhood level.
STRATEGIC OR INTEGRATED PLANNING
1. What is it about?
In this report, strategic—or integrated—planning defines the planning
procedures aimed at meeting the challenges represented by the three
“multiplications”.
 Multiplication of Agents Involved. In particular, the increasingly present
interaction between the public power and the market agents (and logic).
Planning is different when the objectives and logic of the market agents are
taken into account. It is necessary to find the balance between planning and
flexibility.
 Multiplication of Territories Involved. This is the consequence of the
continuous increase of mobility and distances travelled within a certain
time presumption (cf. Zahavi’s constant). Planning is different if, within the
same time presumption of 30 or 50 minutes for daily journeys, it is possible
to reach destinations inside an area with a radius of approximately 30 to 40
km; in this respect, the spatial scale of numerous European urban
agglomerations may be used as examples. At this level, planning is both
urban and regional at the same time.
 Multiplication of Sectors Involved. For a certain period, spatial planning
comprised the following: soil use, equipment provisions, location of major
industrial parks, configuration of infrastructure networks, etc. It has been
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already some time that each of the large activity sectors has gained
independence of design and implementation, evolving into the consequent
planning by sector (transportation, housing, environment, and in particular
green spaces). Frequently, the co-ordination of spatial planning with
planning by sector is a major challenge. In each sector’s attempts to have
dominant tactical objectives, the general strategy is lost or absent.
This allows to understand why urban planning has gone through 25 to 30 years
of complex history that may be summarised in three stages:
 1960s-1970s: The prevailing spatial planning had long-term objectives, and
it was inclusive and restrictive a priori, both for public and private agents.
 1990s: This stage is characterised by spatial reorganisation, with the
successive execution of urban projects, which individually generated in turn
a short-term multiple operational plan. Beginning of simultaneous and
independent planning by sector: transport, energy, environment.
 1990s and the future: There is evidence of a certain return back to a more
“holistic”41 planning, which takes the above mentioned changes into
consideration. This planning should be at the same time strategic and
flexible, urban and regional, spatial but also economic and social,
descending but also ascending.
The following are the new planning procedures. The purpose of this description
is to highlight two of the modes that seem to be of particular interest:

Planning at regional or metropolitan scale;

Planning of space and transport.
2. Strategic Planning at Regional42 or Metropolitan Scale
41
42
Global or integrated in a precise manner.
Regional in the sense of urban region, not region as administrative and political entity.
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The main objective of the strategic planning performed over the large scale that
is required by urban regions is being the instrument, the only one if possible,
for the inclusion of the spatial component in the policies produced by the
different levels of public power. If this objective is achieved, the tool would
manage to provide co-ordination, both vertically—the different levels of public
powers—and horizontally—the diverse communal districts and public agents
acting within each territorial level.
Strategic planning at regional scale is an ambitious procedure with numerous
recent developments in the European continent.
Germany
There are two categories of examples:
-
The procedure of IBA/Emscher Park, where, because of the institutional
complexity (number of districts, numerous specialised organisations, etc.) and the
significant challenge involved in recovering the attractiveness of a region of old
mining industries and steel mills in process of conversion, the Land Government
of North Rhineland/Westphalia created a reorganisation and urbanisation
“agency” with limited life, 10 years. This agency, l’IBA, received the assignment
of designing and assisting in the implementation of an integrated redevelopment
project for an area 80 km long by 30 km wide.
-
The creation of strategic planning organisations in some of the largest urban
regions of Germany—Frankfort, Stuttgart, Hanovre—represents a remarkable
evolution. For instance, in Stuttgart, the “Verband Region Stuttgart” (179 districts)
executed a Spatial Reorganisation Plan identifying, in a search for balance
between the centre city and the support (second line) cities, 36 priority sites to be
devoted to economic activities and 26 sites for housing, corresponding to the
industrial areas that would be favoured by policies of urban renovation and
restrictions on the establishment of commercial centres in non-urbanised areas
near highway crossings. The connection of this Spatial Plan with the regional
transport plan is in process of design.
France
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The legal guidance for the reorganisation and sustainable development of the territory
provides for the execution of framework agreements between the central government,
the institutional Regions and local community groups, both in urban regions—urban
agglomeration contracts—and more rural areas, organised around middle-sized
cities—region contracts.
These contracts should both express the project, or vision, of the territories, and create
the framework for the inclusion of the territorial component in the public actions of
the different levels of the higher public power. They should also define the dimensions
of each project, in relation to the environment as well as the social, economic and
spatial dimensions.
Great Britain / England
The regional level, which did not exist in England before the recent reform made by
Blair’s government, will play an essential role in this respect. If the proposals of the
Rogers document are followed, there will be a “Regional Policy Guidance” (R.P.G.)
adapted to regional specifics, sufficiently precise and designed to comprise local
urbanisation documents, in particular those dealing with the division of urbanisation
between “brownfields” and “greenfields”.
On these grounds, the regional level should be in a position to challenge the
reorganisation actions foreseen by the communities for non-urbanised areas, the
“greenfields”.
The Netherlands
In 1998, the national government implemented a specific urban policy with its own
funding.
They adopted the concept of “complete city” which is supported on three pillars:
spatial, social and economic. It is important here to identify the interactions between
the three pillars and optimise them. To receive money from the urban financial fund,
cities must produce, together with the involved local and regional organisations, their
“urban vision” within a programme of pluriannual development (M.O.P. is the
acronym in English).
3. Integrated Planning: Reorganisation and Transport
Mobility and quality of the living environment are both a necessity and a
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requirement for everybody. But there may be contradictions in meeting these
two requirements. The key for the cities to achieve high economic productivity
is offering adequate large-scale means of mobility to the production factors:
active population, qualified professionals, distributors, suppliers, etc. But said
mobility, on the other hand, has a substantial well-known negative impact on
the quality of the local and global environment.
There is an increasingly apparent need to reconcile the transport policies, and
thus the objectives of accessibility, with the urbanisation policies, or the
objectives of quality for the living environment. There are numerous examples
of this new way in Europe, with experiences already integrating these two
aspects. Based on the Initiative for Urban Interchanges II43, the following cases
may be used as illustrations.
Belgium / Flanders Region
The jurisdiction over the transportation mobility in the Flemish region44 was until
recently very fragmented between the regional government, 308 cities and
communities, the five provinces in the region, and the federal level with general
legislation on road and railroad transport.
In this unfavourable context, a joint action by the regional administration, the
provincial administrations, and the cities and communities and transport companies
allowed to reach an “agreement on mobility” in 1966.
The different parties defined a framework agreement establishing the base objectives,
as well as the decision-making process and the method for the evaluation of said
objectives. In addition, numerous enforcement agreements (initially there were 15
different types, at present, there are 19) provided in particular for planning actions,
road reorganisation, creation of ways and sites specific for trolleys and buses,
improvement of bicycle lanes, reorganisation of bus and trolley stops, increased
availability of public transport, and the contribution to be made by the regional
government to afford the expenses of public transport operations.
Initiative for Urban Interchanges – Meeting of European Ministers responsible for territory reorganisation.
Postdam, Germany, May 1999.
44 Belgium is now a federal country with three regional governments: Brussels, Wallonie, and Flanders.
43
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Germany / The Case of the City of Fribourg-en-Brisgau
The general approach of integrated transport developed by the city of Fribourg-enBrisgau, adopted in 1989, aims at the systematic promotion of means of transport with
low environmental impact. The objectives of this approach are: less motor traffic in
the city, moderate traffic in residential neighbourhoods, and priority to railroad, bus,
bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
At present, the new neighbourhoods may be reached by trolley buses that have their
own rails. Since the 1970s, when a 400 km network of bicycle lanes was built, bicycle
traffic started playing a relevant role in terms of street mobility. At the same time,
joint measures were adopted, such as the reduction of traffic in the old city, a
reorganisation of residential neighbourhoods with considerations for pedestrians, and
the introduction of speed limits (30 km/h) in several neighbourhoods. As the
regulation of parking areas is another factor for residents at the time of choosing their
means of transport, said parking locations started charging both to visitors and
customers.
Bicycle traffic doubled, while motor traffic in the city did not increase, despite the
growth in the number of vehicles. Because of the few 6,000 parking places,
neighbourhood residents switched from the daily car journey to some local or regional
means of public transport. Terminal stations offer car parking facilities to people who
continue their journeys by some means of public transport. At present, 90% of
Fribourg residents live in areas with speed limit (30 km/h). Since 1984 to date, the
number of trolley users has doubled, and infrastructure investments have enabled a
reduction by approximately 50% in the duration of trips made by this means.
Great Britain / The Case of the City of Cambridge
Cambridge is well-known after its experience called “Cambridge Package”, which has
the following three major objectives:

Optimising the access to Cambridge;

Reducing the environmental impact of transport;

Improving road safety.
This package was designed on the basis of a central programme, which in turn
operates under the “Park & Ride” infrastructure, and is aimed at reducing the area
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available to motor vehicle traffic. Some parts of the city were made pedestrian areas.
Motor traffic was forbidden, with the exceptions of buses, taxis and motorcycles in
some roads. Other roads, closed by passage-activated markings, were designated as
exclusive for buses. The intention was to reduce travelled distances and improve the
reliability of buses assigned to certain “Park & Ride” sites. Surveys made before and
after the implementation of this system allowed to determine more predictable time
schedules for the journeys.
There are two types of hindrances to parking: downtown, street parking must be paid
and is allowed only in some selected areas, or is either reserved to neighbours residing
in the area. The funds from parking lots, net of expenses for the town cleaning
services, are allocated by the Town Council to other purposes, particularly the
maintenance of “Park & Ride” sites. The bicycle lane network is well developed.
Areas of surveilled parking for motorcycles had to be created at the “Park & Ride”
sites to facilitate the switch from one means of transport to another. In rural areas, bus
trips have been co-ordinated in conjunction with the “Park & Ride” services.
The results are quite satisfactory and convincing: There is almost no motor traffic in
the city centre, with an increasing use of the alternatives offered by public transport—
in particular, the “Park & Ride” services. The economy of Cambridge is flourishing.
The city is still a pole of development, even with last year’s decrease in motor vehicle
traffic. Cambridge is the only city in the country implementing such an experience.
France
The necessary integration of urbanisation and transport is viewed as a major aspect of
the law “Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain” (Solidarity and Urban Renovation).
This view is mostly expressed as the implementation, at the level of urban
agglomerations, of Schémas de Cohérence Territoriale (Territorial Consistency
Schemes). Said schemes avoid the rigid and excessively spatial perspective, typical of
the old directing schemes (spatial planning at urban region scale). These schemes will
be the tool used in planning by sector: Local Housing Programmes (P.L.H.) and Urban
Mobility Plans (P.D.U.). They will define the policy to be adopted in terms of people
and goods movement and vehicle parking within the respective areas. They will
determine the destinations of public transportation services. They may also condition
the urbanisation of natural and agricultural areas to the creation of a public transport
network.
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4. Urbanisation, Transport and Economic Development: A Complex
Triangle
“Planners” in general tend to approve of dense (compact) multiple-function
cities. For a long time, this was the model in urbanisation trends. At present, it
is used as example, in particular in the not-very-clear-but-real consensus on
sustainable development.
Nowadays, in contrast with the past, “planners” and urban reorganisation
professionals and policy-makers are not any more the only ones who produce
the urban forms of society. Citizens are major producers too; they produce with
their mobility habits (continuous growth of individual motor mobility) or
housing habits (increasing differentiation between housing areas by social
status).
Companies have also become major independent producers, to such an extent
that they have the power to create—or destroy—jobs in Europe, a continent
where there has been constant structural underemployment for over 20 years.
At this point, an adequate example to illustrate the dormant contradiction
between the “planners”’ objectives and the behaviours of companies is the
issue of the location of shopping centres or office districts.
In many European countries, the public powers have established tools that
provide a framework for the location of said activities that generate great
amounts of mobility (customers, suppliers). For example:
-
In England, the “Policy Planning Guidance” 13 is a national directive that must be
followed by local communities, providing that said activities should be located in
areas that are sufficiently served by public transport, i.e. within already urbanised
networks, and that, on the other hand, the areas that are not covered by public
transport services should be exclusively used for activities that generate jobs and
slightly intensive mobility.
-
In Holland, the national territory reorganisation plan of 1991 consisted of the so-
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called A-B-C policy which was aimed at locating companies and economic
activities «at the right places», based on the following types:
A- Activities generating high volumes of jobs or customers and visitors: Town
centre location, connected to national railroad networks (theatres, museums,
public office buildings).
B- Activities generating medium volumes of jobs or customers and visitors:
Location at urbanised boundary networks, with dual access by motor vehicle and
public transport (large shopping centres, hospitals, research centres, office
districts).
C- Activities depending exclusively on motor vehicle mobility (storage, logistic
areas): Location in the outskirts without intensive public transport access.
In both cases, the results of the implemented policy were evaluated. Their
scope was quite limited. The problem is due to the fact that the local
communities in the outskirts are firmly willing to accept requirements for the
establishment of economic activities, obviously including those that create
large numbers of jobs, and which are consequently a source of significant
revenues for the local treasuries.
The evident fiscal attractiveness of the settlement of economic job-creating
activities results in France into a gradual loss of the independence from the
fiscal authority that the communities have at the individual level. Out of a
voluntary spirit highly stimulated financially by the national government,
numerous urban agglomerations are adopting structures more related to the
conglomerate contracts45 where the fiscal revenues derived from said economic
activities will have unified rates and will be reserved for the allocated level.
MANAGEMENT-ASSOCIATED EVOLUTIONS
1. What is it about?
The above leads us to discuss the importance of management. A very
significant aspect, from all the perspectives of the mentioned urban policies, is
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the linking of both the different territorial government scales and the different
aspects of action in the cities: spatial, economic, social. This dual linking might
be represented as the search for a co-production of public welfare, i.e.
management suitable for the current urban challenges. This word describes
precisely the issue under discussion, in the documents issued by those
responsible for the network URB-AL N° 7, on the new urban management
models.
Added to the previous sections, the following are examples of two issues
common to European cities which are discussed jointly by urban policy
makers:

Contractualisation;

The role of the European Union in relation to national urban policies.
2. Contractualisation
The public power has seen its role in relation to cities and urban policies
evolving along two lines:
BEFORE
AT PRESENT
Direct action
Have others do it
Control powers
Promotion competencies (in addition to others)
This does not mean that the public power has no longer a vision on cities, or
that it has decided not to do anything else. It means that agreements are
45
Cf. Section “Strategic or Integrated Planning”, item 2.
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reached for the implementation of objectives that have been defined in a joint
manner. With different formulae adapted to the specific context of each
country, this general trend is called “contractualisation”.
This movement may be illustrated with the following cases:
-
Finland. In 1997, the government set up a committee of urban policies involving
representatives from several ministries from the top 10 cities, the association of
community and regional governments, the chambers of commerce and industry,
and the academic environment. The responsibilities of this committee comprise
the follow-up and analysis of territorial evolutions at urban and regional levels, the
recommendation of contents for said policies to the central government, and
finally, the implementation of urban programmes and the definition of research
priorities in the cities.
-
The Netherlands. The policy for the 25 Dutch cities46 is implemented under
covenants gathering all contractualised actions together with time execution
indicators. As shown here, the contract method cannot be separated from followup and compliance.
-
France. The expression of the policy promoting the urban, social and economic
integration of problematic neighbourhoods are the city contracts; this is a proper
term to define the intention of bringing said neighbourhoods back into the city.
These contracts—there are 248 of them for the period 2000-2006—result from the
commitment of the national level, the regional and departmental governments, and
the political structures of the urban agglomerations where these neighbourhoods
are inset.
There remains a last issue to be discussed, the space and role of an extremely
singular government level: the European Union.
3. Space and Role of the European Union in Relation to Urban
Policies
Urban policies in Europe fall in a box with four sides:
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-
Globalisation, i.e. that variable of all external variables with the highest
influence (frequently, within a market logic).
-
The individualisation of behaviours, i.e. social groups have more influence
than political decisions.
-
Decentralisation, regionalisation and restitution47, i.e. the multiplication of
sub-national government levels and the consequent limitations in terms of
the direct jurisdiction held by national governments.
-
The growth in power and influence of the European level.
The influence of the European Union becomes particularly evident with the
structural funds, representing approximately 45% of the European budget; at
present, there is a strong debate over these funds, as a new six-year period
(2000-2006) has just begun for the doctrine and rules on the application of said
funds.
-
The main objective of the European structural funds is cohesion, i.e.
balance between the economic and social opportunities in the European
territory (territory with single currency and free movement of people,
capital and goods).
-
Since their inception, these funds have been basically allocated to
“portions” of territory with economic indicators (GDP per inhabitant) and
social indicators (unemployment rates) below a jointly defined European
standard. There were then non-eligible and eligible territories, those
lagging in terms of economic and social development.
-
The identification of the territories and the actions to be assisted with
structural funds was characterised by two features:
46
Mentioned under “Policies Promoting Urban Renovation”, 2.
47
As in Great Britain (Scotland, Country of Wales) and Spain, with the «historical autonomies»: Catalonia, Galicia,
Basque Country.
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
The scale was preferably regional, there being no consideration for the smaller scale
of cities in each region or neighbourhoods in each city.

The actions were determined on the basis of their functional object: ongoing
education, industrial conversion, fishing or shipyard industries, research and
technology and business related activities, etc.
At present, the debate over the doctrine and rules for the application of these
structural funds, a debate involving cities, member countries and organisations
in the European Union, is focused on a much more important consideration
than the past specifically urban dimension.
-
What is the relation between the consideration of urban problems and the
problems by sectors or aspects? What is the intention, to choose between a
“site-centric” or “sector-centric” vision?
-
When the commitment is assumed to consider broader than urban issues
and policies, what type of arbitration is it necessary to make between the
different rules for funds application? The reason for this question is that
there are precisely designed application rules at the European level, and on
the grounds of agreed general urban objectives, the national governments
enjoy broad powers to distribute the funds between the cities and urban
programmes they directly contractualise with the cities.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
ARANA, Mariano. Alcalde de Montevideo. Conferencia en Jornadas sobre Gestión de
ciudades. FADU, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 18-19 de Noviembre de 1998.
BALTRUSIS, Nelson / MOURAD, Laila Nazem. “Diadema – estudo de caso” in Rolnik, R.
Regulação urbanística e exclusão territorial. Revista Pólis no 32. São Paulo: Pólis, 1999
BENTES, Dulce. “Aplicação de novos instrumentos urbanísticos no município de Natal” in
Rolnik, R. e Cymbalista, R. Instrumentos urbanísticos contra a exclusão social. Revista Pólis
no 29. São Paulo: Pólis, 1997.
BORJA, J. “Los desafíos del territorio”. Seminario Internacional El renacimiento de la
Cultura Urbana. Frente a la Globalización: Ciudades con Proyecto, PER, Municipalidad de
Rosario, Rosario, 1999
BORJA, J. / CASTELLS, M. Local y Global. La gestión de las ciudades en la era de la
información. Editorial Taurus, Madrid 1997. México 2000.
BORJA, Jordi / MUXÍ, Zaida . L’espai públic: ciutat i ciutadania. Diputació de Barcelona,
2000. –Ed en español 2001, Ed. Gustavo Gilli.
BOTLER, Milton / MARINHO, Geraldo. “O Recife e a regularização dos assentamentos
populares” in ROLNIK, Raquel e CYMBALISTA, Renato. Instrumentos urbanísticos contra a
exclusão social. Revista Pólis no 29. São Paulo: Pólis, 1997.
CARRIÓN, Fernando (coor) Ciudades y políticas urbanas. CODEL, Quito. 1992.
CASTILLO, Juan Carlos
/ SALAZAR, José. La planeación urbanística en Colombia –
evolución y perspectivas. Bogotá: Ministerio de Desarrollo Económico / Viceministerio de
Vivienda, Desarrollo Urbano Y Agua Potable / Proyecto de Apoyo a la Gestión Urbana, 1995.
CEPAL. Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe. Informe “Alojar el desarrollo:
una tarea para los asentamientos urbanos.” Iberoamérica ante HABITAT II . Actas de las
jornadas celebradas en la Casa de América, Madrid 30-31 mayo 1996. Ministerio de Fomento,
1996.
CRESPI, Ana María / INDA, Nelson. Renovación urbana – la calle piedras. Documentos de
Arquitectura 8. Montevideo: Habitplan Consultores, 1989.
______________________________________________________________________Red URB-AL N°7- Documento Base
133
DAMASIO, Esther (ed.). Vazios urbanos e o planejamento das cidades. Cadernos de
urbanismo año 1 no 2. Río de Janeiro: Secretaria Municipal de Urbanismo, 2000.
HERCE, Manuel. “Infraestructuras y Oportunidades de Renovación Urbana”. Seminario
Internacional El renacimiento de la Cultura Urbana. Frente a la Globalización: Ciudades con
Proyecto, PER, Municipalidad de Rosario, Rosario, 1999
HEREDA, Jorge et allii. “O impacto das AEIS no mercado imobiliário de Diadema” in Rolnik,
R. e Cymbalista, R. Instrumentos urbanísticos contra a exclusão social. Revista Pólis no 29.
São Paulo: Pólis, 1997.
MARQUES, María Teresa. “Cidade potencial”. Revista Construção ano XLII no 2243. São
Paulo: Pini, 1991.
McCARNEY, Patricia (ed.) The Changing Nature of
Local Government in Developing
Countries. Center for Urban & Community studies University of Toronto. 1996
MINISTÈRE de l’Équipement, des Transports et du Logement, des Transports et du Tourisme,
France ; La loi Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain; mars 2000.
MINISTÈRE de l’Équipement, des Transports et du Logement, des Transports et du Tourisme,
France. Public –Prive. Quel amenagement pour demain? Direction de l’Architecture et de
l’Urbanisme. 1994
NAVARRO BENÍTEZ, Bernardo. “Las políticas de transporte urbano en América Latina. El
caso de la ciudad de México”. Ciudades y políticas urbanas. Coordinador Fernando Carrión.
CODEL, Quito. 1992.
PALACIOS B., Alonso “Evaluación de políticas urbanas en la ciudad de Medellín” Ciudades y
políticas urbanas. Coordinador Fernando Carrión. CODEL, Quito. 1992.
PROYECTO MSP / PROGRAMA ECOS – OUVERTURE. El desarrollo urbano en el
Mediterráneo. La planificación estratégica como forma de gestión urbana. Área Metropolitana
de Barcelona, 1998.
RODRÍGUEZ, Alfredo / WINCHESTER, Lucy. “Fuerzas globales, expresiones locales”
Ciudades y gobernabilidad en América Latina. Ediciones Sur, Santiago de Chile. 1997.
ROLNIK, Raquel, “Instrumentos de Gestión Urbana” para Viceministerio de Vivienda y
Desarrollo Urbano. Oficina de Planeación Estratégica /OPES –Brasil, julio1997.
______________________________________________________________________Red URB-AL N°7- Documento Base
134
RUEDA, Salvador “Estrategias para competir” La ciudad sostenible. Garcia Espuche,A. /
Rueda, S (eds.) CCCB, Barcelona, 1999.
SÃO PAULO(Cidade). Plano Diretor de São Paulo ao alcance de todos. São Paulo: Secretaria
Municipal do Planejamento, 1991.
SCHÜTZ, Eike J. Ciudades en América Latina. Desarrollo barrial y vivienda. Ediciones Sur,
Santiago de Chile. 1996. (1987)
SOARES, José Arlindo e PONTES, Lúcia. Recife – os desafios da gestão municipal
democrática. São Paulo: Pólis; Recife: Centro Josué de Castro, 1998.
STREN, Richard. (Ed) URBAN RESEARCH IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD. Latin America.
Nº 3. Center for Urban & Community studies University of Toronto. 1995.
STREN, Richard. (Ed)URBAN RESEARCH IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD. Perspective on
the City. Nº 4 Center for Urban & Community studies University of Toronto. 1995.
STREN, Richard. “Introducción” Ciudades y gobernabilidad en América Latina. Ediciones
Sur, Santiago de Chile. 1997.
URBAN Task Force, Final Report. Chaired by Lord Rogers of Riverside. Towards an Urban
Renaissance. of the; London ; 1999.
______________________________________________________________________Red URB-AL N°7- Documento Base
135
BIBLIOGRAFÍA
ARANA, Mariano. Alcalde de Montevideo. Conferencia en Jornadas sobre Gestión de
ciudades. FADU, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 18-19 de Noviembre de 1998.
BALTRUSIS, Nelson / MOURAD, Laila Nazem. “Diadema – estudo de caso” in Rolnik, R.
Regulação urbanística e exclusão territorial. Revista Pólis no 32. São Paulo: Pólis, 1999
BENTES, Dulce. “Aplicação de novos instrumentos urbanísticos no município de Natal” in
Rolnik, R. e Cymbalista, R. Instrumentos urbanísticos contra a exclusão social. Revista Pólis
no 29. São Paulo: Pólis, 1997.
BORJA, J. “Los desafíos del territorio”. Seminario Internacional El renacimiento de la
Cultura Urbana. Frente a la Globalización: Ciudades con Proyecto, PER, Municipalidad de
Rosario, Rosario, 1999
BORJA, J. / CASTELLS, M. Local y Global. La gestión de las ciudades en la era de la
información. Editorial Taurus, Madrid 1997. México 2000.
BORJA, Jordi / MUXÍ, Zaida . L’espai públic: ciutat i ciutadania. Diputació de Barcelona,
2000. –Ed en español 2001, Ed. Gustavo Gilli.
BOTLER, Milton / MARINHO, Geraldo. “O Recife e a regularização dos assentamentos
populares” in ROLNIK, Raquel e CYMBALISTA, Renato. Instrumentos urbanísticos contra a
exclusão social. Revista Pólis no 29. São Paulo: Pólis, 1997.
CARRIÓN, Fernando (coor) Ciudades y políticas urbanas. CODEL, Quito. 1992.
CASTILLO, Juan Carlos / SALAZAR, José. La planeación urbanística en Colombia –
evolución y perspectivas. Bogotá: Ministerio de Desarrollo Económico / Viceministerio de
Vivienda, Desarrollo Urbano Y Agua Potable / Proyecto de Apoyo a la Gestión Urbana, 1995.
CEPAL. Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe. Informe “Alojar el desarrollo:
una tarea para los asentamientos urbanos.” Iberoamérica ante HABITAT II . Actas de las
jornadas celebradas en la Casa de América, Madrid 30-31 mayo 1996. Ministerio de Fomento,
1996.
CRESPI, Ana María / INDA, Nelson. Renovación urbana – la calle piedras. Documentos de
Arquitectura 8. Montevideo: Habitplan Consultores, 1989.
DAMASIO, Esther (ed.). Vazios urbanos e o planejamento das cidades. Cadernos de
urbanismo año 1 no 2. Río de Janeiro: Secretaria Municipal de Urbanismo, 2000.
HERCE, Manuel. “Infraestructuras y Oportunidades de Renovación Urbana”. Seminario
Internacional El renacimiento de la Cultura Urbana. Frente a la Globalización: Ciudades con
Proyecto, PER, Municipalidad de Rosario, Rosario, 1999
HEREDA, Jorge et allii. “O impacto das AEIS no mercado imobiliário de Diadema” in Rolnik,
R. e Cymbalista, R. Instrumentos urbanísticos contra a exclusão social. Revista Pólis no 29.
São Paulo: Pólis, 1997.
MARQUES, María Teresa. “Cidade potencial”. Revista Construção ano XLII n o 2243. São
Paulo: Pini, 1991.
______________________________________________________________________Red URB-AL N°7- Documento Base
136
McCARNEY, Patricia (ed.) The Changing Nature of Local Government in Developing
Countries. Center for Urban & Community studies University of Toronto. 1996
MINISTÈRE de l’Équipement, des Transports et du Logement, des Transports et du Tourisme,
France ; La loi Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain; mars 2000.
MINISTÈRE de l’Équipement, des Transports et du Logement, des Transports et du Tourisme,
France. Public –Prive. Quel amenagement pour demain? Direction de l’Architecture et de
l’Urbanisme. 1994
NAVARRO BENÍTEZ, Bernardo. “Las políticas de transporte urbano en América Latina. El
caso de la ciudad de México”. Ciudades y políticas urbanas. Coordinador Fernando Carrión.
CODEL, Quito. 1992.
PALACIOS B., Alonso “Evaluación de políticas urbanas en la ciudad de Medellín” Ciudades y
políticas urbanas. Coordinador Fernando Carrión. CODEL, Quito. 1992.
PROYECTO MSP / PROGRAMA ECOS – OUVERTURE. El desarrollo urbano en el
Mediterráneo. La planificación estratégica como forma de gestión urbana. Área Metropolitana
de Barcelona, 1998.
RODRÍGUEZ, Alfredo / WINCHESTER, Lucy. “Fuerzas globales, expresiones locales”
Ciudades y gobernabilidad en América Latina. Ediciones Sur, Santiago de Chile. 1997.
ROLNIK, Raquel, “Instrumentos de Gestión Urbana” para Viceministerio de Vivienda y
Desarrollo Urbano. Oficina de Planeación Estratégica /OPES –Brasil, julio1997.
RUEDA, Salvador “Estrategias para competir” La ciudad sostenible. Garcia Espuche,A. /
Rueda, S (eds.) CCCB, Barcelona, 1999.
SÃO PAULO(Cidade). Plano Diretor de São Paulo ao alcance de todos. São Paulo: Secretaria
Municipal do Planejamento, 1991.
SCHÜTZ, Eike J. Ciudades en América Latina. Desarrollo barrial y vivienda. Ediciones Sur,
Santiago de Chile. 1996. (1987)
SOARES, José Arlindo e PONTES, Lúcia. Recife – os desafios da gestão municipal
democrática. São Paulo: Pólis; Recife: Centro Josué de Castro, 1998.
STREN, Richard. (Ed) URBAN RESERCH IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD. Latin America.
Nº 3. Center for Urban & Community studies University of Toronto. 1995.
STREN, Richard. (Ed)URBAN RESERCH IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD. Perspective on
the City. Nº 4 Center for Urban & Community studies University of Toronto. 1995.
STREN, Richard. “Introducción” Ciudades y gobernabilidad en América Latina. Ediciones
Sur, Santiago de Chile. 1997.
URBAN Task Force, Final Report. Chaired by Lord Rogers of Riverside. Towards an Urban
Renaissance. of the; London ; 1999.
______________________________________________________________________Red URB-AL N°7- Documento Base
137