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The DNA of a Specific Kind of Urbanization

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The DNA of a Specific Kind of Urbanization Delta Governance: The DNA of a Specific Kind of Urbanization LUUK BOELENS Urbanization is the result of the way leading actors, volatile factors, and historic and dynamic institutional settings interact. However, major differences occur between what we might call Capital and Delta metropolitan areas. This paper compares the governance of two of these Metropolitan Delta Areas: the Euro Delta of the Rhine­ Meuse-Scheldt and the Pearl River Delta of the Xi-Bei-Dong - partly historically but also with respect to recent developments within governments, businesses and civil society. Although they differ greatly in terms of context and historical path dependencies, similarities are also evident. One might even speak of a governance family or DNA of collaboration and assemblies within deltas; that is simultaneous internal cooperation and competition. While these specific features evolve further in present shifts of glocalization and financial, economic and political crises, not only is more research needed into these realms of governance, but also a new approach by politicians and planners in delta areas. Setting the Scene sequently affect leading actors and new insti­ tutions, which in turn etc... That kind of Urbanization is the result of the way in which reciprocal interaction is highly situational, and people, circumstances and organizations could develop as a kind of 'DNA profile of interact, construct specific networks and, in cities' (Boelens, 2009; Boelens and Taverne, this way, determine the dynamics of urban 2012). By this is meant the highly dynamic, but landscapes. It is shaped by the continuous also somewhat situational path-dependent interplay between leading human actors (e.g. way people and space interact, determined by rulers and entrepreneurs), environment and the geographical and institutional preferences history (e.g. the soil, geomorphology, past of politicians, entrepreneurs and citizens over events) and institutional settings. It goes time .., Entrepreneurs or investors must take beyond historical-geographical or situational these interactions into account if they want determinism of which landscape historians to create a sustainable future for themselves and geographers are sometimes guilty. It also in these regions. goes beyond a modernistic actor-oriented That view is more poststructuralist than view, in which mankind is glorified as the structuralist (Murdoch, 2006), complex rather sole or at least main creator of urbanization. than complicated (Bovaird, 2008), co-evolution­ It takes the view that historical events, geo­ ary rather than co-productive (Boelens, 2013), graphical circumstances and leading (£)actors following a broad ontological and strategic co-evolve into a loose or fixed set of assemblages, view of actors and networks (Latour, 2005). which in turn direct the interplay between It refers to Henri Lefebvre' s The Production people, space and their organization, and sub- of Space (1974, translated 1991), where he BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 40 NO 2 169 DELTA-URBANISM: NEW CHALLENGES FOR PLANNING AND DESIGN IN URBANIZED DELTAS distinguished between the lived space (espace most prominent, driving one); it operates vecu) and the perceived and conceived space interactively in an ocean of agents and agency (espace pen:;u, and espace con~u). Beyond, within continuously changing settings. and to some extent even combining, or at However, according to these (co-)evolu­ least not privileging the perceived space tionary paradigms, networks of (self)organi­ of materialized spatial practices and the zed agents and agencies would also behave conceived space of thoughtful representations according to routines and ingrained habits, and imaginations over each other, these in path-dependent ways (Schamp, 2010; lived spaces would be the terrain for the Boschma and Frenken, 2011). Here again generation of 'counterspaces' - the spaces the (co-evolutionary) idea of a kind of geo­ of the inhabitants and the users stretching graphic DNA would come in, although it beyond the pure epistemological and/or has been developed in a completely different socio-political views of spatial developments scientific realm. In our case it would refer (see also Soja, 1996). In fact, and in someway to the unique, place-dependent information or another, that kind of living space that allows living systems to function, grow resembled what complexity theorists would and reproduce. It would allow geographers, call dissipative systems, which operate out urbanists and planners to engage with the of, and often far from equilibrium in an context and conditions of living systems, environment with which they exchange as open systems, out of equilibrium. Para­ energy and matter (Prigogine and Nicolis, doxically, it would also permit us to deal 1977). These 'living systems' would be highly with the unpredictable, while actions would unstable, characterized by the fracture of be framed by embedded path dependencies symmetry breaking the formation of complex, and reciprocal adaptation would not be sometimes chaotic structures, characterized endless, but only stretchable to its situational by exceedingly self-organized correlations, limitations. defined as: a process in which the components of a system Deltas versus Capitals in effect spontaneously communicate with each other and abruptly cooperate in coordinated and The usefulness of these kinds of co-evolu concerted common behaviour. (Stacey, 1993) tionary, open, and situational adaptive ap­ However, as said above, these kinds of self­ proaches, although fit for all circumstances, organization are also conditioned by their sur­ becomes especially apparent in the ongoing roundings, with which they exchange informa­ urbanization of the estuaries of world famous tion, and therefore co-evolve. The context (geo­ rivers (Gerrits and Teisman, 2012; Allaert, morphology, soil, power relations, institutional 2012). More than, for instance, capital cities arrangements etc.) and the real and symbolic or the urban headquarters of regional or spaces are effected by these 'living (non­ national power holders, those kinds of urban equilibrium) systems' and vice versa. There­ developments along changing river branches, fore, twinned with these kinds of spatial unpredictable flooding, highly volatile eco­ idea are the upcoming paradigms of (co) nomic circumstances and the adjoining mer­ evolutionary geography and adaptive plann­ cantile rerouting etc., have been very sensi­ ing (Holling, 1987; Nelson and Winter, 1982; tive and adaptive to those changing circum­ Barkow, 2006; Bertolini, 2007; Durrant and stances from the very start. In fact this dis­ Ward, 2011; Boelens, 2013). The main focus tinction refers back to the preliminary urban here is to regard changes in space, spatial dichotomy of Max Weber (1921) more than contexts and planning itself in multiple, 90 years ago: reciprocal and fundamentally open settings. The city can in principle be justified in two kinds; Planning is only one of many forces (and the namely a) as a fundamental gorgeous, especially 170 BUILT ENVIRONMENT VOL 40 NO 2 DELTA GOVERNANCE: THE DNA OF A SPECIFIC KIND OF URBANIZATION extended place of the sovereign to serve his or hers tried elsewhere to point up a new kind of needs, and b) as a concentrated place to produce post-structural typology of metropolises in or exchange goods for the welfare and wellbeing the interaction of (more local) institutional­ of its citizens. geographical circumstances and (more global The first 'capital' cities would mostly and/or cross border) actor-relational net­ be positioned in the centre of a dominated works and assemblages (Boelens, 2009; Boelens region, and would be central in developing and Taverne, 2010, 2012). major infrastructure from the capital to the Exemplary types of American, European outskirts of the ruler's territory, in order to and Asian metropolises (geographical) were reproduce its hegemonic status. It would not crossed with Capital and Delta metropolitan mean that these cities did not include some settings (actor-relational). More or less in production facilities or economic services, but concordance with Weber, Capital metro­ that these would be mainly determined by politan areas were primarily characterized the ruler (as in Paris or Madrid), his or her as the centres of government, administration government and public servants (as in Peking and their adjoining headquarters, whose or Washington) or even by large landowners most important responsibility was to provide (as in Moscow before the abolition of serf­ services to protect and provide structure dom). In contrast, 'production' or 'commercial' for their subjects. However this would not cities would have evolved mostly at the cross­ alter the fact that these metropolises would roads of major trade routes or junctions of also serve prominent economic and socio­ various transport modes (rivers, land routes, cultural interests too. After all, a Capital and later rail, aviation and telecommuni­ Metropolis such as Seoul National Capital cations), near or accessible to the fertile land Area is much more than a political capital: and raw materials, as the basic elements for with more than 10 million inhabitants, it production and market processes. Although is the financial, cultural, commercial and these cities also housed consumer and manage­ industrial heart of South Korea. Some of these ment services, they would be driven by the Capital metropolitan areas even have major (in)formal laws of production. According to trading and logistic
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