interINTER- 1 nationalNATIONAL newNEW TOWtown N instituteINSTITUTE June 30, 2016 INTERNATIONAL NEW TOWN DAY 2016 Schedules of the conference, the excursion days and additional events Introduction by Franc Weerwind, Mayor of Almere The first International New Town Day will take place right here Content in Almere. This conference is an asset, not only for this city, but for New Towns around the globe. This initiative provides z Introduction by Franc Weerwind, Mayor of Almere 2 a stepping stone for development of New Towns and sets the z Foreword by Michelle Provoost 3 foundation for a constructive cooperation between these cities z The New Urban Agenda – the Perspective of New 4 on a large scale. Towns z The programme day by day 10 New Towns come in various sizes and they are located in z Cities & Speakers’ profiles 16 various countries, even on different continents. Despite of the z Statement Makers 40 variations in environment, there is a lot of resemblance in their z Other speakers 46 characteristics and face relatively similar challenges. This is z Side event 47 because they all are relatively young, and they are created by z About INTI 48 mankind in order to fulfill a certain purpose. z Practical Info 49 z INTImi 51 The challenges that New Towns are facing require innovative solutions because they are unknown territory. That is why cooperation between New Towns is extremely valuable in finding solutions and innovations for New Town issues. By Foreword by Michelle Provoost sharing our findings and experiences amongst each other, effectivity and efficiency of New Towns are optimized. I am happy to welcome you to this very first International New Town Day, bringing together an astonishing range of New This is something I have personally experienced recently Towns from all over the world. Some are older and in the when I traveled to Shenzhen, to sign an upgraded MoU. midst of transforming and reinventing themselves, others are Shenzhen and Almere are both New Towns and our cities have presently on the drawing boards. cooperated for several years alongside with INTI, exchanging The goal of the International New Town Day is to connect knowledge and expertise. I have seen that challenges that New representatives of new cities worldwide and create awareness Towns are facing can be addressed in a more effective and of their shared challenges. Since planned communities efficient manor when working together. have many things in common, it is only logical that they can learn from each other. Through the exchange of innovative The International New Town Day is a platform for research, knowledge and experiences, we will determine a shared education and knowledge exchange for New Towns. I am agenda for the improvement of existing New Towns and the excited to see New Towns cooperating on such a large scale design of future cities. in this INTI initiative today. This collaboration of public, private and academic partners coming from New Towns worldwide to This conference will also serve as a preparatory session work together in order to come up with innovative solutions, for the INTI side-event of the UN Habitat III conference in that is something I believe to be of great value for all New Quito, Ecuador, in October 2016. In Almere, we will focus Towns. on formulating the New Towns perspective for the New Urban Agenda. In Quito, we aim to take the next step and to With the New Town Urban Agenda, governments will have a create partnerships to implement the ambitions of the Agenda tool to deploy new models of urban development in order to through concrete projects. to achieve equity, welfare and shared prosperity. I wish you a fruitful and inspiring conference and hope this Sincerely, International New Town Day will be the first of many to come. Franc Weerwind Mayor Michelle Provoost City of Almere Director INTI 2 3 THE NEW URBAN AGENDA Postwar Generation This is especially true for the existing New Towns built –THE PERSPECTIVE OF in Western Europe after World War II. Europe was reconstructing itself and the economic boom of that period NEW TOWNS caused a huge migration from the countryside to the urbanized areas. In order to limit the size of the European metropolises, New Towns were constructed for the ‘overflow’ of population. Introduction Usually they were dormitory towns with little economy of The global urbanization, which is presently taking place, is their own. By now, they are perceived as outdated, and many predicted to lead to 70% of the global population living in cities of the modernist planning principles with which they have been by 2050. This makes clear that cities will define the social, constructed have proven to be disadvantageous in the long economic, cultural and ecological quality of human life in the term. They are trying to reposition themselves in relation to 21th Century. It stresses the importance to redefine what our their mother city, the metropolis they are ‘connected’ to. cities should be and the necessity to involve all the parties that are engaged with planning, developing, governing and managing They were based on large scale, top down planning using cities. inflexible blueprints that make it hard to adjust to changing In recognition of the urgency of improving cities, the “New conditions; they were designed with a purely car based Urban Agenda” will be ratified at the Habitat III conference infrastructure and have often abolished the traditional mixed in Quito, Ecuador in 17-21 October 2016. Recently, the Zero use street with safe sidewalks for pedestrians and bicycles Draft of the New Urban Agenda was published by the United lanes. Because of that, the streets lack liveliness and safety Nations. and the city is not easy to move around in without a car; they experience a lack of diversity in program, housing typology The New Urban Agenda is a highly ambitious document, and architecture, which makes them unattractive for all but which aims to be “the first step for operationalizing sustainable one group of customers (usually families); their organization, development in an integrated and coordinated way at global, planning and financing was in the hands of the government only, regional, sub-national and local levels”. It is guided by three which made them vulnerable for changes in finance and policy; main guiding principles: that cities should become socially finally, they were based on the predominant idea of the city as inclusive, achieve a fair and equitable economy and become one collective, without taking the individualism and diversity ecologically sustainable. of its inhabitants into account. So the question is: How can we The contents of the New Urban Agenda point the way forward reinvent and update the post war New Towns? to better, more inclusive, livable and sustainable cities. But how can these ambitions be put in practice? Numerous challenges New New Towns exist, most of them political and/or financial. What should be Next to these older New Towns, there is a new generation the priorities and how can they be implemented? on the drawing boards. The exasperating figures of economic and urban growth in Asia have become familiar to us for the Our aim on the International New Town Day is to highlight the last decades, especially since 2007 when the world population priorities for New Towns within the New Urban Agenda and reached the magic 50% urban dwellers. Now it is also South to start with the implementation of it by creating partnerships America and Africa where economic growth is starting to between cities and private companies. attract global attention and therefore also plans for new smart cities, economic cities or high tech cities are being planned. Huge investments are going into these New Towns and large What New Towns share ambitions are attached to them. While economic factors New Towns are a special category of cities, with their own are prevailing, we think an infusion of New Town planning characteristics and specificities. They share the same DNA: with other factors like integral planning, social sustainability, they are built according to a master plan, from scratch on a resilience, inclusion, local culture and residents’ participation location where previously there was no city, and they have a are very necessary. high degree of political autonomy. Usually the New Towns in Africa and South America are New Towns have existed ever since humanity started examples of privatized urban planning and become enclaves organizing itself in settlements. Planned communities have next to sprawling metropolises. Their formal urban design always been the ultimate challenge for politicians and designers: distinguishes them from the largely informal character of the what is the ideal city? What is the city of tomorrow? Planned existing cities. cities are a perfect reflection of the ideas and ambitions of their time, as cities like Canberra, Stevenage or Dodoma Given INTI’s global experience with New Town planning, we demonstrate. But after some decades, these showcase cities see possible problems of segregation and social exclusion, become outdated and need to be adjusted to changed social, which are exacerbated by the building of New Towns; we see economic and demographic conditions. What once was a proliferation of outdated modernist planning with growing designed as the ‘city of tomorrow’ needs to be updated and informal developments as a reaction, lacking recent insights re-conceptualized. on integral or sustainable planning; we also notice a lack of attention to residents’ participation,