Integrative Planning of Post-Suburban Growth in the Glatt Valley (Switzerland)
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Raumforsch Raumordn (2016) 76:109–122 DOI 10.1007/s13147-016-0403-x WISSENSCHAFTLICHER BEITRAG Integrative Planning of Post-suburban Growth in the Glatt Valley (Switzerland) Constance Carr1 · Evan McDonough1 Received: 25 September 2015 / Accepted: 26 May 2016 / Published online: 6 June 2016 © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016 Abstract This paper addresses conditions of post-subur- Integrative Planung als post-suburbane ban urbanisation. Our empirical base is drawn from obser- Entwicklungsstrategie im Glattal (Schweiz) vations of integration initiatives in the region of the Glatt Valley, a rather undefined area extending from the City of Zusammenfassung Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit Bedin- Zurich towards the airport and spreading over a number of gungen der post-suburbanen Entwicklung in der Schweiz. small municipalities. Under growth pressure, municipali- Die empirische Basis bilden Beobachtungen von Raumpla- ties are coordinating housing, transportation, and economic nungs- und Governancepraktiken im Glattal, einem nicht activity, and this is generating new post-suburban forms. klar abzugrenzenden Gebiet, welches sich von der Stadt To understand these processes, qualitative methods were Zürich bis jenseits des Flughafens erstreckt und viele klei- used, relevant documents surveyed, and conversational in- ne Gemeinden umfasst. Unter Wachstumsdruck koordinie- terviews with actors in the area conducted. A process of ren die Gemeinden den Wohnungsbau, die Verkehrsplanung infrastructure consolidation was observed, which moved to- und die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung. Somit entstehen neue wards integrating functional pathways and optimising cap- post-suburbane Räume. Diese Urbanisierungsprozesse in ital accumulation, and attracting and catering for business der Region wurden mittels qualitativer Maßnahmen analy- development and high-income earners. To date, the region siert. Relevante Dokumente wurden ausgewertet und Inter- has proved to be diverse and dynamic, while also further- views mit Akteuren der Region durchgeführt. Dabei konn- ing certain modes of fragmentation and social stratification. te ein Prozess der Konsolidierung von Infrastrukturen zur The results reveal post-suburban forms that are place spe- Optimierung der Kapitalakkumulation beobachtet werden. cific and path dependent insofar as they are driven by par- Dieser fördert die Anziehung von Betrieben, pflegt die wirt- ticular arrangements of governance that emphasise a certain schaftliche Entwicklung und die Ansiedlung einkommens- mode of integrative planning. This form of post-suburban starker Haushalte. Bis dato entfaltet sich die Region vielfäl- growth is also producing new forms of fragmentation. tig und dynamisch, fördert aber auch Formen der Fragmen- tierung und der sozialen Schichtung. Die Ergebnisse zei- Keywords Post-suburban · Switzerland · Zurich · Glatt gen ebenso post-suburbane Formen, die ortsspezifisch sind Valley · Integrative planning · Governance und welche sich durch historisch gegebene Governance- strukturen und damit verbundene spezifische Modelle der integrativen Raumplanung ergeben. Diese Form von post- suburbanem Wachstum produziert neue Muster der Frag- Dr. Constance Carr mentierung. [email protected] Evan McDonough Schlüsselwörter Post-suburban · Schweiz · Zürich · [email protected] Glattal · integrative Planung · Governance 1 Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning, University of Luxembourg, 11, Porte des Sciences, 4366 Esch-Belval, Luxembourg 110 C. Carr, E. McDonough 1 Introduction planning may seem unrelated: the former addresses mor- phologies, structures and functions of new patterns of urban There is a vast literature addressing and explaining the vari- space where sectors may or may not relate to their sur- ous suburban forms that convincingly deconstructs the old- roundings, while the latter suggests that a certain balance is fashioned ‘Leave it to Beaver’ notion of suburban places achievable as a result of certain recipes for planning. Both being simply dormitory landscapes of white single-family are buttressed by their own scholarly discourses. These two housing and reveals how suburbs have diversified over the strands are addressed here because this research has found last few decades. In fact, a number of scholars have erad- that the strategic practice of integrated planning is, how- icated the notion that such places are sub-urb altogether. ever surprisingly, a driving force guiding development in These scholars (Burdack/Hesse 2007; Young/Keil 2010; this case study of a European post-suburban built environ- Phelps/Wood/Valler 2010; Phelps/Wood 2011) have under- ment. taken important work, revealing that processes of urbani- sation and suburbanisation are changing so that the ways 2.1 From Suburban to Post-Suburban suburbs are built, lived, and functionalised can now be con- ceptualised as processes of post-suburbanisation. Yet, so The archetypal imaginary of the ‘suburb’ still often re- far much of this literature has focused primarily on North calls post-war Levittown-modelled ‘sprawl’, the easily America. Exploring post-suburbanisation beyond the An- recognisable North American model of homogenous, low- glo-American sphere is thus one of the objects of this pa- density, car-dependent, self-isolating residential corporate per, which aims to address post-suburban socio-political subdivisions built on greenfields (Jackson 1985;Fishman and economic processes taking place in Switzerland and to 1987; Peck 2011). In planning theory and urban studies, assess how these reflect contextual place-specific and path- this settlement type is often considered the antithesis to dependent modes of governance and land-use regulation. the ideal of diverse, compact, walkable, mixed-use and The research focuses on a specific area of the greater Zurich purportedly more sustainable city centres, a revered built region: the Glatt Valley. This is a region that in the past form associated with continental Europe especially (Ja- has been viewed as suburban Zurich but is now a place of cobs 1961; Beatley 2000). A large vocabulary exists to employment and inward commuting trips associated with describe such spaces, including “Zwischenstadt” (Sieverts ever-increasing economic activity. It is also an area where 2003), “postmetropolis” (Soja 2000), “Netzstadt” (Oswald/ state-driven infrastructure projects and integrative planning Baccin/Michaeli 2003), a “middle landscape” between the practices have been instrumental in its transformation. urban and the rural (Rowe ), the “100-mile city” (Sudjic This paper shows how the integrative planning practices 1992), “the next slum” (Hesse 2010), urban subcentres, of local governance are driving this trajectory of devel- multinucleated metropolitan regions and centreless cities opment in the Glatt Valley, revealing that on-going pro- (Parker 2004: 83). While the diversity of suburbs may be cesses have produced a built environment that is distinct widely understood, the term ‘suburban’ still often takes from that which might be expected in either the traditional on a pejorative meaning as it continues to be frequently European city or the classic post-war suburb. The argument juxtaposed to its supposed opposite, the idealised city, is structured as follows. First, the literatures are reviewed, which is also an out-dated term and arguably “an ideo- beginning with the current literature on post-suburbs and logical representation of urbanization processes” despite followed by a short discussion on integrative planning and “the explosion of the city form” (Wachsmuth 2014: 75). densification, as these are guiding principles in Swiss plan- Moving away from this classic image, these attempts aimed ning circles. Next, the object and methods are described. to refocus the lens on suburbs to more accurately assess This is followed up with a review of the planning practices their function, importance, and sociopolitical economic ge- that drive the ongoing post-suburbanisation process, focus- ography. Alluding to the declining usefulness of the term ing on available planning instruments and an analysis of ‘suburb’, Fishman (1987: 29) asked, “[A]s both core and local governance structures. Lastly, the contribution of this periphery are swallowed up in seemingly endless multi- paper to the international literature is explained. centered regions, where can one find suburbia?” Although certain discourses within urbanism may still employ the trope of an essential binary between urban and suburban, 2 Literature convincing empirical evidence suggests that these gener- alising definitions have lost relevance and usefulness with The arguments delivered in this paper are situated at the regards to understanding, and finding planning solutions nexus of two streams of scholarly literature: post-subur- for, the contemporary city-region. ban urbanisation and the practice of integrative planning. Kling, Olin and Poster (1995) helpfully introduced the At first glance, the notion of post-suburbs and integrated term ‘postsuburban’ to imply a break from the previous sub- Integrative Planning of Post-suburban Growth in the Glatt Valley (Switzerland) 111 urban model. Here contemporary growth still produces new are not produced by an evacuation of the state. Rather, the residential spaces outside of the central city, but this trajec- process is guided by a set of deliberate decisions, in a cer- tory also includes increasingly diverse functions, including tain context of “blended scales” (Affolderbach/Carr 2016) business districts, logistics