New Settlements in the South – Urban Models for the 21st Century?1
Peter Gotsch and Michael Peterek2
Summary
The planning of large city extensions and new towns is once again at the top of the agenda – not only in the fast developing economies of South-East Asia but in many of the mega-cities world-wide. These new settlements, with up to several hundred thousand inhabitants, are not a mere consequence of increasing urbanisation, population growth and centralisation, but also an effect of the respective cities’ ambitions to become part of a global network of profitable ”world cities”. Besides the efforts to decentralise, the development approach of most of the new cities is hence determined by concepts stemming from a neo-liberal free market economy: de-regularisation of the public sector, privatisation of planning and administration, big transnational financial corporations and developers, special economic zones... The visible outcome often is an internationally standardised architecture, consumer-orientated, exclusively targeting the international economy and the higher income groups. This results in an increasing process of physical, functional and social segregation and polarisation between the new and the existing, the formal and the informal city. It is still an open question whether these new settlements will be capable of contributing to the solution of today’s pressing problems of urbanisation (population growth, urban poverty and segregation, ecological crisis) or whether they will instead even aggravate the already existing tensions and negative trends.
1 This paper seeks to provide and develop a framework for a comparative study of various new town experiences in different contexts and continents. It is based on preliminary data from an ongoing research at the University of Karlsruhe on contemporary new towns (”Parallel Cities in the South”) and was first published (in German) as a conclusion for a series of case studies in the journal TRIALOG, no. 75 (2002) ”New Settlements”. As part of an ongoing research, we have to stress its hypothetical, preliminary and discursive character. 2 Peter Gotsch is an architect and urban planner. He leads the Laboratory for Planning in a Global Context (GLORA) at the Department of Urban Design at the University of Karlsruhe. Michael Peterek, architect and urban planner, is professor for urban planning at the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt am Main. Both are co-editors of TRIALOG, the Journal for Planning and Building in the Third World, edited in Darmstadt in Germany. Contacts: [email protected] (Peter Gotsch); [email protected] (Michael Peterek). New Settlements in the South
The planning of large city extensions and the conception of new towns with several hundred thousands of inhabitants is once again at the top of the agenda – not only in the fast developing economies of South-East Asia but in many of the mega-cities world-wide. Undoubtedly, the 21st century will be the century of the mega-cities – the overall fate of mankind will be decided in its cities and urban agglomerations.3 Hence one of the most pressing questions of the upcoming century will be how the critical consequences of accelerating urbanisation (population growth, urban poverty, social polarisation, ecological crisis...) can be dealt with. On one hand, it seems that the contemporary cities elude any efforts of conventional ”top-down” planning: the real ”innovations” come ”from below”, seemingly uncoordinated and based on the energies and the million-fold will to survive of its inhabitants.4 On the other hand, new towns and new settlements stand for the ambition to modernise the respective cities, at least to some extent, by using an institutional and rational way of planning. And one hopes that with an economic ”trickling-down” effect, these developments may also lead to an amelioration of other problems. It is still an open question whether such expectations of an endurable urban development can be fulfilled by the new city extension projects, or whether some of these projects will even aggravate the already existing problems and tensions by their own nature. Depending on personal viewpoints and assessments, this opens a wide field of debate. The paper presented here aims to contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon of the ”New Towns in the South”, outlining some characteristic features of selected examples.
Looking Back New cities do not represent a new planning concept.5 Even the avant-garde of the 20th century dreamt of solving the urgent problems of mankind for once and for all with the conception of ideal new settlements. Two major urban models of the first half of the 20th century are, despite all their differences, remarkable here – the socially progressive, but architecturally rather conservative Garden City by Ebenezer Howard, and the functionally differentiated, vertical ”Radiant City” of Le Corbusier.6 Those two also shared the two basic principles that still determine most of the new town concepts of today: on one hand, the public right to regulate and control the urban land, and on the other hand, a strong and central planning authority. Both concepts were central to the development of new cities after the Second World War. Among these were new towns and satellite cities with a distinct welfare state approach, prestigious new capital cities, especially in the extra-European context (like Brasilia, Chandigarh, Abuja), or new industrial cities (for instance Ciudad Guyana), and many others. Yet disillusion followed soon, as it seemed that the promise of an ideal world could never be realised out of planners’ minds. On the contrary, it became clear that in most cases the newly planned cities got their actual vitality and true usefulness only by subsequent transformations and adaptations on the part of their users. The more flexibly they could adapt to these mutations, the more successful the different models were. Apparently, time is what is needed for a propitious urban development. ”New towns” then became out of fashion for some time. The reasons for this were manifold, including the breakdown of the modern functional doctrine, the declining demand caused by the ”limits to growth” emerging in the industrialised world, or the lack of economic resources in the developing countries. However, today it seems that the circumstances have changed once again: particularly in the cities of the South, where we face a new wave of urban mega-projects backed by
3 See Hall and Pfeiffer, 2000; UNHCS, 2001; www.worldbank.org; www.prb.org and others 4 See Ribbeck, 2002 5 For one of the best historical accounts and overviews of New Towns, see Erwin Galantay, 1975 6 For the two examples cited here, see Robert Fishman, 1977 - 2 - New Settlements in the South all the relevant institutional actors (planners, politicians, investors).
Development Factors Contemporary new settlements and city extensions are, almost without exception, linked to the growth dynamics of large urban agglomerations. As strategies to control urban development, they are spatial instruments to organise either demographic or economic growth. Within the economic context, they are to a large extent determined by the same factors that drive the processes of economic globalisation. Hence, today’s new towns relate very closely to the phenomena of ”globalisation” such as international flows of capital and a new international division of labour. While on one hand the new settlements are deployed by cities as strategic instruments to gain advantage within an increasingly global competition, they are on the other hand and at the same time directly grounded to and founded by the global networks. As newly emerging spatial models, new towns allow us to study the interrelation between altering economic circumstances (sometimes referred to as neo-liberalism) and new urban landscapes.7 As the case studies demonstrate, not only the global factors, but also the singular place and the local context have to be taken into account when considering the development of contemporary new settlements. A closer study of different developments suggests that the driving factors differ significantly in different continents and regions:
- The driving force of the new town developments that are popping up all over South and Formattati: Elenchi puntati e South-East Asia seems to be economic development and the desire to become integrated into numerati the global economic flows, despite an enormous demographic pressure. New towns representing this type of driving factor can be found in cities such as Hanoi New Town, Saigon South or the projects from Shanghai.8
- The situation is quite different in the less advanced countries (or some regions) of India, Egypt, and China. As the examples from those poorer countries with ”strong” governments suggest, new cities here serve as the means of more traditional strategies aiming at a ”controlled” demographic development (i.e. decentralisation and relocation policies).
- The major motive of new towns in the almost fully urbanised continent of Latin America (with urbanisation rates well above 80%) is a growing demand for security, comfort, social segregation and a modern consumer-oriented lifestyle. Cities like Alphaville, Nordelta, Curauma may represent this type.
Typologies Four basic types of new cities can be categorised according to their distance from the former centre:
- ”Alternative growth regions” are components of comprehensive physical planning Formattati: Elenchi puntati e programmes. They are conceived at a considerable distance from the existing centre in order numerati to divert population flows. They are dependent on the installation of incentives such as the founding of a new capital or the existence of specific local resources (raw materials, energy, tourist attractions). Historically, these strategies can be found in many large and expanding countries: St. Petersburg, Brasilia, and Canberra may represent the first pattern (new capital city), Lover Silesia (mining), Magnitogorsk (steel) or ”Costa Iberica” (tourism) the latter. Contemporary examples can be found in Southern Egypt (Toshka project).
- A second type of new settlement related to contemporary decongestion strategies of metropolitan regions is represented by the ”functionally independent new towns”. They are installed at a distance of approx. 60 to 100 kilometres from the former centre. While daily
7 Sassen (1991) and Massey (1984) have produced fundamental works in regard to this discussion. 8 Including Pudong as well as the eleven planned new satellites. - 3 - New Settlements in the South
commuting becomes impracticable, important cultural and administrative ties are maintained; the ”mother city” retains significant control functions. Examples for such semi-independent towns can be found in the London and Paris metropolitan regions after the Second World War, or in the vicinity of contemporary Cairo, Shanghai, Beijing, São Paolo, and Jakarta.
- ”Satellite towns ”, probably the most prominent examples of new cities, are comprehensively planned new settlements in the vicinity of metropoles that are built in order to alleviate demographic pressure. As such they maintain close functional and organisational ties with the ”mother city”. Satellite towns can be found in almost every metropolitan region in the world. The European as well as North American post-war experiences are again noteworthy. To include prominent contemporary examples, we can point out the various satellites of Hongkong, Shanghai, or Cairo.
- ”Parallel cities” (or ”twin cites ”) are types of new towns that are located in close relation and adjacent to existing urban centres. They are characterised by a dimension which is comparable to the ”sister city”. Some contemporary examples intend to develop a symbiotic relation to the ”old” city by focusing on new internationally oriented business and services. While Nova Huta or Islamabad are historic examples for this approach, Saigon South, Hanoi New Town, or Navi Mumbai are remarkable contemporary cases of this type.
Spatial Models A typical feature of the contemporary new town developments is their sheer size and vertical density. New cities such as Hanoi New Town, Bumi Serphong Damai (Jakarta), Nordelta (Buenos Aires), or Pudong (Shanghai) demonstrate that sizes of thousands of hectares and hundreds of thousands of inhabitants have become the development standard. Although such population figures have to be related to the millions of residents of the present mega-cities, it can be presumed that these gigantic new developments will impose various (and serious) implications and problems on their respective environments (cp. below)9. The fact that the physical and organisational structure of almost all of these new developments is conceived according to the ”old” and energy-consuming urban model of the industrialised countries of the North may point out some of the problems. As far as innovative urban solutions for the future are concerned, one can hardly find any of them. The ”risk-free” solutions comprise conventional physical and functional zoning and mobility concepts based on the individual automobile. The uniform and interchangeable architectural language is based on stereotype models from ”everywhere”, and seemingly evolves without any relation to the local context. However, this drive to universality10 at the same time seems to provoke a new longing for identity, character and image, which paradoxically appears to originate from global parameters. This may best be illustrated by the ”theming” concepts of the German, French, Italian, Chinese, and Brazilian Towns in Jakarta, or the Tourist or Legend Villages etc.11 One of the much sought-after exceptions from the above scheme is the Toshka City Project by Dahan & Farid in Southern Egypt, planned in the tradition of Hassan Fathy. In its attempt to develop urban structures and typologies out of a local context, this example can be seen as a remainder of an almost extinct and never sufficiently recognised critical regional (modern) style.12
9 For an extensive discussion of some South-East Asian cases, e.g. Jakarta, see Rimmer, 1998 10 A feature that certainly has to be differentiated from the universal style of the modern developments of the 60s. 11 In fact, a serious need arises to develop new theories on the implications of concepts that originate in the print and film business such as ”theming” for the spatial disciplines. For one of the few serious attempts, see: Beeck, Sonja, 2002 12 Cp. Kenneth Frampton’s essay ”Towards a critical regionalism ” - 4 - New Settlements in the South
It seems quite unquestionable that these developments are the expression of an international standardisation of urban forms and functions. Within a neo-liberal context, where exchange values are more esteemed than use values, the city and its physical elements turn into mere exchange commodities. The universal toolbox of post-modern urbanity of almost any new town world-wide includes the detached ”villa”, the residential high-rise apartment block, the mall, the country club, the entertainment park, the university campus, the office tower, the technology park, the international schools, the golf driving range, and so on. These tendencies towards universalisation and standardisation can be observed in the formal language of architecture, as well. While methods of construction and detailing remain rather simple, what is important is a narrative, semiotically meaningful ”exterior”, representing a legible ”image”.13 Ironically enough, the architectural language of a ”colonial style” is often being rediscovered in the new cities surrounding the post-colonial mega-cities to symbolise an image of solidity, luxury, comfort and safety. While the architectural language is part of a kind of marketing semiotics, the infrastructure and services developed along with the projects are mostly private, based on fees and focused on individual consumption. Although one can hardly do without any amenity of a modern consumer society, there is almost nothing that remains free of charge. The use of public parks, museums and educational or recreational facilities becomes increasingly exclusive.
Planning Methods and Actors The majority of the new cities are developed with a rising share or even under the leadership of the private sector – following a wider trend away from government-run programmes towards private development and holding models. The projects presented here are a variation of these tendencies. While modern Egypt is a classical example for the ”traditional” state-oriented approach, public -private planning models can be found in market-adoring China and Vietnam, while privately built new settlements are on the agenda in post-colonial Argentina, Brazil or Indonesia.14 In the ”socialist” cases, the political system still retains a strong role as landowner and regulator of the development. Along with the extended size and scale of the projects, there is a significant trend towards an increasing size and internationalisation of the respective planning and developing corporations. The new cities are usually planned by ”elephant partnerships” between the government and large international companies. It is noteworthy that the ”geography” of project structures and organisation is becoming increasingly complex and illegible.15 Additionally, the planning teams are composed of international staff members who have almost exclusively been educated in the Western world;16 and quite a few of them belong to a young and increasingly mobile class of ”expats” who skip around the world from project to project.17 Another remarkable feature is the part that internationally renowned architecture and planning offices and ”big names” play in the early planning process in order to provide the projects with international prestige and profile. The master plans of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture with Rem Koolhaas (OMA) for new developments in Hanoi, of Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) and Kenzo Tange for Saigon, of
13 Often, this can conveniently be selected from the Internet. The interested reader may check out the links we provide in our reference list at the end of the text. 14 The trend towards privatisation is confirmed once more by the current plans in India to attach a gigantic economic zone to Navi Mumbai. 15 The development of increasingly complex corporate ”geographies” in the construction and development sector seems to follow other economic sectors like e.g. the media or telecommunication industries. 16 For Rimmer (1998), this represents one of the main reasons for the world-wide proliferation of the North American urban models. 17 Within this context, Paterniti (1997) has coined the term ”laptop colonialists”. - 5 - New Settlements in the South
Albert Speer & Partner for Anting in Shanghai etc. illustrate this point. After all, what differentiates the ”new” towns from the older ones, developed at the turn of the last century, is that short-term economic goals are their driving components and that they are part of sophisticated and advanced marketing networks. Consequently, most of the projects are backed by extensive demand studies and market analyses, and promoted with the newest marketing techniques. Of course it remains to be seen whether the projects will be as profitable in the long term as expected. In any case, it is remarkable that a universal dissemination and application of the principles of an ”unbounded” market economy – even within the remaining supposedly hard-core ”socialist” regimes – today leads to new ”neo-liberal” planning tools that almost entirely annul the common standards and regulations of planning control. The various concepts deploy methods such as long-term tax exemptions and land leases, and circumvent local labour laws. However, while they nurture themselves from international capital flows, new risk scenarios arise in case these resources should be cut off and diverted to other competing regions. The interrelation and entanglement of the institutional with the informal sector is rarely recognised or understood, and does not appear in the reports of success. However, the majority of the projects could not have been realised without the deployment of the informal sector, whether at the level of cheap informal labour or at the less favourable level of bribes and corruption among key persons in order to facilitate development. Too few of the projects concentrate on the provision of cheap housing for the majority of the population (as the projects of the 1970s in Egypt, or others in Singapore) and even fewer plan to provide a social mix of residents (as the Indian architect Charles Correa intended for Navi Mumbai). The target population of the majority of the contemporary new cities is affluent and mobile and driven to leave the crammed and ”dangerous” inner cities to find security, comfort and a Western style of life at the outskirts.18
Physical Context The infrastructural context is a strategic key element within the process of development of a specific location. The new towns of the 21st century are extremely well-networked places within the perimeter of metropolitan regions. As such, they are embedded in a context of various transport and communication networks, airport terminals, container ports, power stations and grid systems. 19 Along with these elements, new cities are essential parts of the currently evolving complex ”urban regions”. Within the context of an increasing urbanisation and economic globalisation, the traditional pattern of ”centre” and ”periphery” dissolves, turning into a widespread and multi-centred agglomeration – an agglomeration that is characterised by a patchwork of differentiated and fragmented, formal as well as informal cells and units. It remains an open question, whether these new projects destabilise the city by ”creaming off” essential resources from the centre, or whether they even contribute to the survival of the former city centre by shielding it off from new and potentially destructive forces by infusing new life at other points of the urban fabric. As for social segregation, we witness a double-faced process: while the ”external” global boundaries seem to dissolve, there is a simultaneous emergence of borders at the regional and local level, caused by an increased physical, functional, and social polarisation and segregation within the city regions themselves. New and paradoxical situations arise as the ties among globally connected new towns at different places of our planet seem to be much closer than those with their local neighbours at the other side of the fence.
18 Cp. the target groups in Alphaville, Nordelta, Kota Wisata and others 19 See Graham, Marvin, 2001 - 6 - New Settlements in the South
Special Economic Zones The physical and economic development model of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), and the innovations embedded within this model, are of central importance for the majority of the contemporary new town developments. First of all, it is remarkable that this ”outstanding” model has been developed outside the setting of the ”old” industrialised nations. Like new settlements, SEZs can be found at peripheral locations of mega-cities. They are embedded in a highly modern and mostly private infrastructural framework as well as in an array of the above-mentioned regulative, legal and fiscal instruments, in particular simplified trade regulations and the extra-territorial status they enjoy. While many of the SEZs were initially conceived as pure production sites, today we witness their transformation into fully-fledged urban developments. The Vietnamese projects (Saigon South, Hanoi New Town), the Chinese examples (Shenzen, Pudong, Anting...), and the Indian SEZ-based ”new” Navi Mumbai are noteworthy in this context.
Challenges and Questions Formal vs. Informal City The new settlements belong to the formal domain of the city. They are products of a (global) institutional planning apparatus, upheld by technocratic organisations and rational planning methods. A structural handicap of such organisational forms is the danger of alienation from the needs of real life and their instrumentation for the sake of a privileged minority.20 On the other side, there is the informal city: organic, incremental, uncoordinated, and constantly growing from below. These two models seem to be the irreconcilable antagonists in a highly polarised urban domain, especially in the cities of the South. Will it be possible to combine both systems in order to combine their benefits and minimise their disadvantages? Can we conceive new settlements that come into being through participatory approaches and develop organically, without renouncing a rational and systematic way of organisation?
The City as an Economic Product By projecting economic values on all aspects of physical form and space, the city itself becomes a commodity, based on an exchange value. In this way, planning turns into a mere problem of demand and supply. The neo-liberal urban model is determined by a tendency towards largeness, profit accumulation, commoditisation of the public sphere, fractionation and specialisation of its components, and standardisation of its physical forms. Can cities in the future be more than a sheer result of economic interests? Can they still be a social space, determined by the requirements of everyday life? And can planning remain not just a free market activity, but also a cultural performance, committed to public interest?
Social Polarisation The city of the free market economy is a city of contrasts, of social segregation and physical separation. Its planning is carried out in an exclusive way, and its contribution to the solution of the ”other” problems of expanding cities – like urban poverty, housing shortage, unemployment, ecological crisis, disintegration of public space etc. – is dubious and questionable.21 Moreover, the respective regions face the risk that the new settlements will absorb the most efficient organisations, commercial and cultural institutions and job opportunities along with the higher income population and hence leave the ”older ” parts of the city isolated with its crucial problems.
20 Max Weber (1930) has already formulated the contradictions inherent to abstract bureaucratic organisations. 21 See UNCHS, 2001 - 7 - New Settlements in the South
Closed communities, excluding the unwanted with modern security standards, are a likely and in many places already existing scenario. Almost none of the countries concerned dispose of the indispensable resources, the political will and the necessary planning tools for coping with the implied processes of polarisation and decay. How can a city be conceived and planned as a whole, with respect to the specific cultural and social needs of the totality of its inhabitants?
Ecology Besides the social questions, the problems of efficient energy use and limited natural resources must be included in the major points of criticism for the neo-liberal urban models. Some people argue that these new projects will lead to economic growth and thereby to a wider spread of wealth among the population as a whole.22 However, it remains highly questionable whether, from the viewpoint of ecological sustainability, the ”urban models of the North”, which are based on massive consumption of fossil energy resources, can really work as urban models for South.
Can we instead develop new and alternative conceptions that link modern know-how to traditional, time-tested solutions? Can we hence counter the permanently deplored loss of local values and traditions?
The Neo-Liberal City New settlements in the South are the expression of neo-liberal planning concepts. They are central elements of more and more complex and economically interwoven city regions. They act as instruments and gravity centres of economic development and new ways of urban organisation, planning methods and marketing strategies. Although they contribute – from a statistical point of view – to the economic development of the respective regions, as exclusive enclaves, in most cases they promote the further increase of an already fragmented and polarised urban structure. It remains an open question whether these projects will be capable of contributing to the solution of today’s pressing problems of urbanisation – like population growth, poverty, segregation, and ecological crisis – or whether they will instead even aggravate the already existing tensions and negative trends.
22 See Jagdish Bhagwatti, ”Trading the Development: The Poor’s Best Hope”, in: Economist, June 22 nd , 2002 - 8 - New Settlements in the South
References
Beeck, Sonja, 2002: Parallele Welten. Theming: Analyse einer Methode aus dem Bereich der visuellen Kommunikation zur semantischen Programmierung, bezogen auf den Kontext von Architektur und Städtebau im 21. Jahrhundert, PhD Thesis presented at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe Bell, Daniel, 1985: Die nachindustrielle Gesellschaft, Frankfurt Bhagwatti, Jagdish, 2002: ”Trading for Development: The Poor’s Best Hope”, in: Economist, June 22nd Droege, Peter, 2000: ”Postglobalization: Cities in the Age of Climate Change and Fossil Fuel Depletion”, in: www.world-council-for-renewable-energy.org/publications/ Fishman, Robert, 1977: Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century. Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, New York Frampton, Kenneth, 1983: ”Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architectural Resistance,” The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, Seatle: Bay Press, pp.16-31. Eliminato: ”Towards a critical regionalism”, in: Galantay, Erwin, 1975: New Towns. Antiquity to Present, New York Graham, Stephen and Simon Marvin, 2001: Splintering Urbanism. Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition, London Hall, Peter and Ulrich Pfeiffer, 2000: Urban Future 21. A Global Agenda for the 21st Century, London / New York Lefébvre, Henri, 1990: Die Revolution der Städte, Frankfurt Massey, Dorothy, 1984: Spatial Divisions of Labor, Social Structure and the Geography of Production; London Paterniti, Michael, 1997: "The Laptop Colonialists", in: The New York Times Magazine, January 12th; see also: “Die Amerikaner sind wieder da”, in: Stadtbauwelt 151, Berlin, S.50ff. Ribbeck, Eckhart, 2002: Die informelle Moderne. Spontanes Bauen in Mexiko-Stadt, Heidelberg Rimmer, David und H.W. Dick, 1998: ”Beyond the Third World City: The New Urban Geography”, in: Urban Studies Vol. 35, No. 12 (December) Sassen, Saskia, 1991: The Global City: New York. London. Tokyo, New York TRIALOG. Journal for Planning and Building in the Third World, no. 75, 2002: ”New Settlements” United Nations Centre für Human Settlements (UNCHS), 2001: Cities in a Globalized World. Global Report on Human Settlements, London Weber, Max, 1930: Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, Berlin
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