A City That Plans: Reinventing Urban Planning

PTER CHA A City that Plans versus The Planned City 07 A City that Plans embraces views A City that Plans: Reinventing Residents Employers & Urban Planning employment QUICK FACTS 1 Today, many cities in the world still rely on outdated Elected leaders Investors modes of planning notwithstanding that planning is central to achieving sustainable urban development. A City that Plans integrates 2 Cities across the world are sprawling, and as such, densities are dramatically declining. In developing countries, a one per cent decline in densities per year between 2000 and 2050 would quadruple the urban land area. 3 Planning frameworks in most cities are not gender- sensitive; consequently, women are often left outside of the planning process and decisions. 4 Planning capacity is grossly inadequate in much of the developing world. In the UK, there are 38 planners per 100,000 Infrastructure Land use population, while in Nigeria and India the figure is 1.44 and 0.23 Culture respectively. POLICY POINTS 1 Integrated, multi-sectoral planning approaches have a strong success record and should be used in many more cities and regions. Natural resources Education 2 Local circumstances, needs and requirements must remain pre-eminent in urban planning, so are gender considerations and involvement of— and responsiveness to— the diverse populations. The Planned City 3 Plans should be prepared at various geographic scales and integrated to support sustainable and coordinated road, transit, > reflects only the views of national housing, economic development and land use across geographic leadership and political boundaries. > no local input 4 In developing countries, education and training for professional planners should be increased and capacity for favouritism and nepotism planning education be enhanced, concomitantly. > > distorted priorities Loss of Increase in greenhouse agricultural land gas emissions US$400 BILLION PER YEAR Estimated costs in the US alone from higher infrastructure, public service Urban and transport costs Sprawl 8,600 LATIN AMERICAN CITIES Public service costs increase as density decreases in small Higher commuting Socio-spatial segregation and medium-sized cities time and costs and segmentation Planning capacity varies greatly across the world NEW COMPREHENSIVENESS Newer planning approaches: UK Nigeria India > are more multisectoral > address global concerns e.g 38 1.44 0.23 climate change & gender ACCREDITED ACCREDITED ACCREDITED equality PLANNERS PLANNERS PLANNERS per 100,000 per 100,000 per 100,000 > critically examine new ideas population population population before adoption Neighbourhood level City level Within any given scale, congruency of plans among sectors is vital to successful planning outcomes Metropolitan level National level Supranational level 123 2016 RT O REP ITIES D C RL WO • ities drive economic productivity and prosperity. As urbanization has advanced, so have global economic output, poverty reduction and social LANNING P Cwell-being. Yet, unplanned urbanization has also often led to pollution, congestion, segregation, sprawl and other unintended consequences. In 1996, the Habitat Agenda recognized as much with a set at of goals, principles, com- mitments and actions promoting the positive effects of EINVENTING URBAN EINVENTING URBAN R urbanization while limiting those more negative impacts, LANS: P emphasizing adequate shelter for all and sustainable human settlements.1 CITY THAT THAT CITY Since Habitat II, unprecedented population A growth in many cities keeps challenging governments, Central to this business and civil society for adequate responses. Other CHAPTER 7: reinvention is cities have declined in population, with attendant eco- planning as an ongoing, nomic and environmental challenges. At the turn of the inclusive millennium, UN-Habitat understood that advancing the process Habitat Agenda would require changes in the way urban instead of as a planning is practised around the globe. Working together one-off design of a master with professional planners’ organizations worldwide, UN- vision Habitat has promoted a reinvented urban planning with age-old pattern of planning that reflected only the views aims of ensuring environmental sustainability, promoting of national leadership. A city that plans looks to integrate equal access to the benefits cities offer, building safety, land use, employment, education, infrastructure, culture, health and inclusiveness, engaging public, private and and natural resources. This contrasts with the older plan- third sectors, as well as facilitating good governance. The ning pattern of attending to the physical design of public reinvention of urban planning in the post-Habitat II era buildings, streets, parks etc., while allowing other dimen- has embraced principles2 endorsed in 2006 at the third sions of urban development to be determined solely by session of the World Urban Forum in Vancouver (Box 7.1). market forces. A city that plans not only projects the Central to this reinvention is planning as an future from past trends, it also brings the public, private ongoing, inclusive process instead of as a one-off design and third sectors together with communities to build a of a master vision, what has been described as “a city collectively preferred future. that plans” in contrast to “the planned city.”3 A city that The city that plans is part of a transition over A city that plans embraces the views of residents, employers, inves- the latter half of the 20th century when planning evolved plans not only tors, and elected leaders, in contrast to the ubiquitous, from a modernist process in which planning is viewed as a projects the scientific, universally valid instrument of progress, toward future from past trends, a communicative process, in which planning is viewed as it also brings Box 7.1: The 10 Principles of New politically engaged, inclusive and empowering, strategic the public, Urban Planning and integrated. In modernist planning, progress was often private and 1. Promote sustainable development elusive and the benefits were often concentrated among third sectors together with 2. Achieve integrated planning small groups of elites. Modernism, moreover, expressed communities 3. Integrate plans with budgets belief in a universal march toward development that to build a 4. Plan with partners and stakeholders overlooked regional differences. In communicative plan- collectively preferred 5. Meet the subsidiarity principle ning, objectives reflect the aspirations of the population future 6. Promote market responsiveness as expressed through advocacy and grassroots participa- 7. Ensure access to land tion; greater attention is given to the national and cul- 8. Develop appropriate planning tools tural context; and planning activities are better integrated 9. Be pro-poor and inclusive across spatial and sector-based divisions. Planning has 10. Recognize cultural diversity. become more multi-faceted rather than focused exclusively on physical design of places, more bottom-up than Source: Farmer et al, 2006. top-down, and more responsive to equity and environ- 124 2016 RT O REP ITIES D C RL WO • LANNING P Community planning for reconstruction in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Source: Nugroho Nurdikiawan Sunjoyo / World EINVENTING URBAN EINVENTING URBAN Bank, CC BY 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/ R licenses/by/2.0/legalcode LANS: P CITY THAT THAT CITY A tainable today than they were, but instead to ask whether the results of urban and regional planning over the last CHAPTER 7: two decades have made cities more sustainable today than mental quality than to business concerns. they would have been had planning not advanced as it has. Implementation of the Habitat Agenda has Two cautions are needed. First, recognizing occurred in the context of the Millennium Development that urban planning responds to and affects the full range Goals, which prescribed a sector-based perspective that of dimensions of urban life, complete treatment of the did not readily lend itself to geographically-delineated subject would include discussion of housing and slums, planning. As the world transitions to the Sustainable inclusion, equity, basic services, environment, economy, Development Goals, which directly address urban sus- and governance, the subjects of Chapters 3 through to tainability, it is important to ask what is needed from Chapter 8 of this report. This is impractical, so instead urban and regional planning to better ensure progress readers are cautioned that much of what they have already toward accomplishing these goals. read in these chapters must be kept This chapter examines changes in Planning has become more in mind for a full understanding of urban and regional planning over the multi-faceted rather than focused how urban and regional planning exclusively on physical design 20 years since Habitat II, aiming to of places, more bottom-up than has changed in these years. Most understand how widespread plan- top-down, and more responsive to notably, the Habitat Agenda goal of ning’s reinvention has been and equity and environmental quality adequate shelter for all is the subject whether urban and regional planning of Chapter 3. ...there is need as practiced in communities, regions and nations globally Second, many of those reading this chapter to recognize the built- has been effective in advancing the two goals of adequate prize ideas that can be transferred across borders. There in conflict shelter and sustainable urban settlements. Five lenses are is a quest for

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