Toward experiential socio-spatial justice: Rethinking redistributive, procedural, and epistemic approaches through Bogotá’s Fenicia Triangle

Open space has various implications in urban development planning and has been integrated in recent urban planning approaches and practices in Nepal. The open spaces are not only important for (re)shaping the urban form but are also important for enhancing urban social life and disaster risk management, particularly for dense cities. As most of the cities in Nepal have been growing haphazardly, the cities lack sufficient open space. However, the value of open space in dense cities like Kathmandu has been recognized more after the Gorkha Earthquake 2015 as the open spaces were extensively used for risk relief, treatment, recovery, and rehabilitation during and after the earthquake. With this background, this paper presents the major planning initiatives in Nepal and discusses how recent urban plans have provisioned and initiated open spaces development by reviewing concurrent urban planning practices, particularly reviewing Periodic Plans, Integrated Urban Development Plan, Smart City Plan, and Land Development Plan. The development of open areas has not been given much attention in the earlier urban planning practice but recent urban development planning has emphasized with a special focus which is very important for sustainable and safer city development and is expected to address the current bulging urban issues of spatiality and sociability. Therefore, it is very important for integrating open space implications in city planning and such open space should be conceptualized according to the city’s geography, landscape as well as socio-cultural contexts.

Translation of urban planning models: Planning principles, procedural elements and institutional settings

The debate on sustainable development emphasizes the importance of integrating environmental policy into other policy sectors. It is increasingly recognized that such integration is needed at the national, regional and local levels of governance. Hence the Environmental Policy Integration (EPI) principle has been proposed, which is defined as “the incorporation of the environmental objectives into all stages of policy making in non-environmental policy sectors, with the recognition of this goal as the guiding principle for the planning and execution of policy”. Currently EPI is agreed upon in a number of EU commitments and is receiving the attention of urban planning scholars. The achievability of EPI, however, has not yet been well studied, particularly in the urban planning context, while its implementation often seems to be hindered by organizational fragmentation. This thesis assesses the potential role of EPI as an operational principle for achieving sustainable urban development in Europe. It addresses the scientific premises of EPI and the current knowledge gaps in applying it in the urban planning domain. The research combines theoretical and empirical dimensions. The theoretical dimension includes evidence of the current knowledge gap regarding the integration of environmental aspects into urban planning and the emergence of EPI as a promising perspective in urban sustainability research and planning practice. This includes reflections on EPI’s definitions, interpretations and its different approaches. The empirical dimension of the thesis explores evidence regarding the EPI process in actual planning practices, with an assessment of the relevance of different EPI approaches. Based on the exploration of case studies within different planning contexts, the empirical research provides insights into the key challenges and barriers to achieving EPI in urban planning and identifies key success factors for local governments addressing specific environmental issues in urban land-use plans. The key objective of the thesis is, therefore, to explore the responses of planning systems to the current EPI challenges, with the twin goals of gaining insight into the role of EPI in integrating environmental concerns in urban land-use planning processes and of identifying the most promising approaches for achieving EPI. The thesis provides an answer about the potential benefits of, among other approaches, a communicative approach to achieve EPI in urban planning practice.

European planning ideology in Tanzania

Economic reforms in China have significantly changed both the processes of urban development and the practice of urban spatial planning. Changes in these aspects of urbanization, however, have not occurred in concert. The reassertion of planning as a profession has resulted in a reintroduction of a form of master planning, while the state's virtual monopoly over urban investment and decision making has steadily eroded. In Chinese cities, the practice of urban planning may have passed from irrelevance under the command economy of the past to gross ineffectiveness in the socialist market economy of today. In this paper I review major urban trends arising from Chinese economic reforms and discuss the problems and prospects of a planning response to these trends.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Sustainable Development and Environmental Justice in African Cities

The impact of urban environmental exposures on health: An assessment of the attributable mortality burden in Sao Paulo city, Brazil

PurposeThe purpose of the research is to propose reforms that would help to bridge the gap between theory and practice and produce more effective urban planners. The research on urban planning curricula in the global South is a valuable contribution to the field of urban planning education. It provides a new perspective on the challenges facing urban planning education in these countries and offers a roadmap for improvement.Design/methodology/approachThe research explores and evaluates the urban planning curricula in the global South, with a particular interest in Egypt. The research employs the use of questionnaires with 56 university instructors, analysed thematically, to evaluate the current content of curricula. The results are compared and correlated with a pilot study exploring research interest, government policies and practices of urban planning in Egypt.FindingsThrough comparing the results of the evaluation with the current research interest in urban planning in Egypt, the paper investigates the possibility of improving current educational curricula using comparative network analysis which would establish stronger interdisciplinary connections.Originality/valueThe seeming disconnects between urbanism concepts taught in educational curricula and their relevance in practice and reality is a vital issue in urban studies and planning. Interdisciplinary connections with topics like politics, economies, gender, and others can assist curricula in becoming more relevant to real-world situations. This disconnect is even more apparent in the global South where most educational content is highly derivative from Northern contexts. Though such interdisciplinary aspects are under discussed in educational curricula, they are frequently discussed in academic research.

The transformation of the urban planning system in China from a centrally-planned to transitional economy

The world’s urbanization continues to grow rapidly occurring in developing regions. The rapid pace of urbanization without equivalent economic growth causes uneven spatial dispersion, land speculation, urban sprawl, ecological damage, and socio-cultural chaos. Urban planning is a key tool in managing such urbanization and particularly urban expansion challenges through several strategies. The objective of this study is to evaluate the practice of urban planning in managing urban expansion by applying both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. The first-hand data was collected by a structured questionnaire survey, interview, and physical observation, whereas secondary data was analyzed from spatial and non-spatial data of the study towns, national urban policy and strategy documents, and the national urban development spatial plan. Descriptive analysis, principal factor analysis, spatial trend analysis, and content analysis techniques were applied with the help of the SPSS and GIS analysis tools to reach the findings. The practices of urban planning in managing the urban expansion of the study town were evaluated on the basis of factors including urban spatial growth management, community engagement, economic change, and peri-urban communities’ understanding of urban planning. The major findings indicated that these variables are poorly practical, and their failure has been collectively posing significant obstacles to the effectiveness of urban planning. This implies that the urban planning practice in managing urban expansion was insignificant in the study towns. Therefore, it is best to use the alternative expansion area planning strategy, that promotes planned spatial growth, community inclusivity, mixed economic activity, environmental sustainability, and the community’s awareness of expansion areas.

شهر رشت، به عنوان نمونه یک شهر ایرانی، از افراد متنوع و گوناگون با سنین، جنسیت­ها، توانایی‌های جسمی و پیشینه‌های قومی مختلف تشکیل‌شده‌است. بسیاری از سازوکارهای برنامه‌ریزی شهری جهان با پذیرش تنوع و گوناگونی ساکنان شهری به سوی به‌کارگیری رویکردهای تنوع‌گرا و گنجاندن تنوع‌ها و تفاوت‌ها در فرایندهای برنامه‌ریزی شهری تغییرمسیر‌داده‌اند، اما سازوکار برنامه‌ریزی شهری کشور ایران و به تبع آن ‌شهر رشت در سایۀ تفکرات مدرنیسم همچنان با شهروندان به صورت نوعی واحد برخوردمی‌کنند و تفاوت‌های سنی، جنسیتی، قومی ‌‌نژادی، مذهبی، تفاوت در توانایی جسمی و در نتیجه تفاوت در نیازهای شهروندان در شهر را درنظرنمی‌گیرند. نظریه و عمل برنامه‌­ریزی به تازگی از ضرورت خدمات‌رسانی به طیف متنوعی از نیازها و ترجیحات آگاه‌تر ‌شده‌ و برنامه‌ریزی برای تنوع و تفاوت، تفسیری اجتماعی از برنامه‌ریزی برای شهرها و رویکردی است که نیازهای گروه‌های اجتماعی مختلف را درنظرمی‌گیرد. در کشورمان با خلأ مطالعات دانشگاهی در زمینۀ معرفی رویکرد برنامه­­ریزی برای تنوع و تفاوت و شناسایی عوامل مؤثر بر به کارگیری و تحقق آن روبه روهستیم. از این رو هدف از این مطالعه معرفی اجمالی این رویکرد و شناسایی عوامل مؤثر بر تحقق آن در شهر رشت بر مبنای دیدگاه­­های صاحب نظران برنامه­ریزی این شهر است. با توجه به نوع مسئله و جامعۀ آماری تحقیق از روش نظریۀ زمینه‌ای نظام­مند استفاده شده‌است. برای گردآوری داده­ها ابتدا پرسشنامۀ نیمه­ساختاریافته­ای طراحی و سپس با استفاده از روش نمونه­گیری هدفمند از نوع گلوله­برفی با 10 نفر از صاحب نظران برنامه­ریزی این شهر مصاحبه­های عمیق انجام‌­شد. داده­های متنی حاصل از مصاحبه­‌ها با استفاده از فرایند کدگذاری و روش تحلیل سطر به سطر در نرم افزار مکس کیو دی اِی تحلیل شدند. درنهایت عوامل مؤثر بر تحقق الگوی برنامه­ریزی شهری تنوع­گرا در قالب 17 مقولۀ اصلی و 59 مقولۀ فرعی و روابط میان آنها شناسایی شدند و مدل پارادایمی الگوی برنامه­ریزی شهری تنوع­گرا با تأکید بر شرایط علّی، زمینه­ای، مداخله­گر، پیامدی و راهبردهای تحقق این الگو ارائه ­شد. نتایج نشان‌می­دهد طیف گسترده­ای از زیرساخت های اندیشه­ای، سیاستی، ابزاری، سازمانی، قانونی، مالی، آموزشی و فرهنگی ­اجتماعی در تحقق این رویکرد مؤثرند که شناسایی و تبیین آنها می­تواند راهنمای تصمیم‌گیری‌ها و اقدامات آیندۀ مراجع برنامه‌ریزی شهری کشورمان باشد.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the conditions for the formation of the new concepts of urban planning and the process of searching for new types of habitation in pre-revolutionary Russia. The author investigates the prerevolutionary theoretical and practical experience in the urban planning and housing policy of the first years of Soviet power. The article examines aspects of urbanization in Russia and analyzes the complex of problems that arose in the field of urban development and housing planning by the beginning of the XX century. In the context of the problem, the specificity of the living conditions of the urban population in the capital and provincial cities of the Russian Empire, types of housing and projects for solving the housing problem are investigated. The article touches upon the problems of the hierarchy of urban space and the revolutionary redistribution of housing in the first years of Soviet power. The article considers the key concepts that influenced the development of domestic urban planning ideas: the idea of a garden city, housing cooperatives, low-rise types of habitation, and communal houses. Based on specific examples from the history of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yaroslavl, the experience of the development and implementation of these concepts in pre-revolutionary Russia, as well as the experience of their transformation and adaptation in the soviet urban planning policy of the first years of Soviet power, is investigated. The experience of the domestic theory and practice of urban planning is studied in the aspect of socio-economic and socio-political factors that determine the trends and tasks of developing new forms of settlement, types of housing and methods for solving the housing problem in pre-revolutionary and Soviet Russia in the first quarter of the XX century. The factors of the emergence of the phenomenon of a communal apartment as a type of housing specific for Soviet Russia and its relationship with sociocultural practices of the previous period are investigated.

Public participation has been growing in both theory and practice of urban planning, including heritage planning. The reasoning is to facilitate the involvement of a broader group of stakeholders, beyond experts. More specifically, for heritage planning, participation could enable consensus-building on defining the significance of heritage, namely attributes (the resources that should be listed as heritage), and values (the reasons that attributes are important). However, there is not yet a holistic understanding of the influencing factors behind consensus-building in the participatory planning processes for cultural heritage. To evaluate existing research from this angle, a systematic literature review was conducted on peer-reviewed articles using the Scopus database. As most of the studies focuse on urban planning, this research examines the factors influencing consensus-building in the participatory planning process applied to urban and heritage planning and reflects on the applicability of these factors in heritage planning. The main factors were identified inductively and grouped into two categories: 1) public participation: actors, methods, and levels of public participation, and 2) consensus: approaches, and conflicts. The relations between these factors and their frequencies are investigated using statistical analysis methods, namely frequency analysis, independent-samples t-test, and Spearman correlation. The literature confirms that urban planning has applied more diverse methods and tools for public participation compared to studies in the field of heritage planning, and could inspire heritage planning. Conflict is recognized as an intertwined concept with consensus which is considered either as a challenge or as a necessity for an inclusive decision-making. By proposing a framework integrating these factors and sub-factors and illustrating their relationships, this research could also be useful for decision-makers and practitioners to better tailor the public participation process and means to implement it, considering the relevant factors involved.

Contemporary urban planning is characterised by the following: (a) a large amount of specific research gives a large quantity of facts, but like stones of the mosaic do hot make an entire picture; (b) in the basis of these researches no one finds entire creative conceptions; (c) the theories lose touch with practical design matter; (d) in contradiction to the classical architectural epoch, urban planning loses touch with the construction of buildings; (e) the practice of urban planning and the construction of buildings lose touch with historical traditions. The corollary of these academic and unnatural specialisations is a break not only from “the tie of times” but also from the ties inside the profession. This situation has an effect on the practice of urban planning and architecture; society returns to destructive criticism. It is impossible to get away from this fact. The author makes an attempt to change this situation for the better — at least in some measures. On the basis of many years stu...

Adapting cities for climate change through urban green infrastructure planning