Strategic City Research Articles

Imagineering city futures: The use of prospective through scenarios in urban planning

This article, based on empirical work by the authors over the past decade, argues that city planners and policy-makers lack an effective future-oriented approach enabling them to comprehend current complexity, anticipate impending change and shape a preferred future condition. Reflecting on more than a dozen recent city futures exercises, three overriding themes emerge: changing values systems will be the single biggest driver over the next thirty years; the forging of shared visions is a prerequisite to strategic city planning; and the nature, force and direction of the various vectors of collaborative leadership by constituent stakeholders will determine the future success or otherwise of city stewardship. The article concludes by calling for the formulation of a Unified Theory for Sustainable Cities by reference to Gaia and the application of a futures oriented approach such as Prospective Through Scenarios.

La modelización de la imagen de ciudad desde la perspectiva de los líderes de opinión externos

En la planificacion estrategica de una ciudad un elemento de partida esta constituido por la imagen que diversos publicos tienen de la misma. El concepto de imagen de ciudad es multidimensional y no se limita unicamente a aspectos urbanisticos sino que incluye otras dimensiones. El objetivo de este trabajo es conocer que dimensiones son las que utilizan los lideres de opinion en la formacion de dicha imagen. Para ello, se ha llevado a cabo un trabajo de campo en el que a los lideres de opinion externos seleccionados se les pidio que valoraran un conjunto de cuestiones relativas a una determinada ciudad. Tras validar las escalas de medida, se estima un modelo teorico que ayuda a comprender como se forma la imagen de una ciudad. La interpretacion y las consecuencias que se deducen del modelo complementan el diagnostico y sugieren actuaciones a realizar para mejorar la imagen de la ciudad.

Cities Today: A New Frontier for Major Developments

The article examines several major structural trends contributing to the shift from the Keynesian routinized city to the strategic city that begins to emerge in the 1980s. Among the trends examined is the growth of the firm-to-firm economy, which includes corporate and industrial services as well as “urban manufacturing.” These kinds of services tend to be produced in cities, even when the firms being served are nonurban, such as mines, steel plants, or large factories. A second key, and counterintuitive, trend is the ongoing importance of spatial centrality for our most advanced economic sectors. The more globalized and digitized a sector becomes, the more its firms suffer from incomplete knowledge about their markets. Urban centrality enables the making of what the author calls urban knowledge capital: a collective production that is more than the sum of the knowledge of the professionals and the firms present in a city.

“Population Invasion” versus Urban Exclusion in the Tibetan Areas of Western China

This article examines the confluence of local population transitions (demographic transition and urbanization) with non‐local in‐migration in the Tibetan areas of western China. The objective is to assess the validity of Tibetan perceptions of “population invasion” by Han Chinese and Chinese Muslims. The article argues that migration to Tibet from other regions in China has been concentrated in urban areas and has been counterbalanced by more rapid rates of natural increase in the Tibetan rural areas—among the highest rates in China. Overall, it is not clear whether there is any risk of population invasion in the Tibetan areas. However, given that non‐Tibetan migration to Tibet has been concentrated in urban areas, Tibetans have probably become a minority in many of their strategic cities and towns, and non‐Tibetan migrants definitely dominate urban employment. Therefore, while the Tibetan notion of population invasion may be a misperception, it reflects a legitimate concern that in‐migration may be exacerbating the economic exclusion of Tibetan locals in the context of rapid urban‐centered development.

Linking strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and city development strategy in Vietnam

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) application to city development strategy (CDS) reveals the strategic nature of both instruments and their potential multiplier effect on enhancing synergies for sustainable development. The adequacy of the two strategic tools for a complementary approach to integration towards sustainable development raises an outstanding opportunity to walk the talk in view of enhancing sustainable development. In Vietnam, SEA and CDS are being considered jointly in the context of urban development projects and public administration reform. The main features of the link between SEA and CDS are described in this paper, after introducing the SEA and CDS concepts.

Modeling a city’s image: The case of Granada

In both strategic city planning and city marketing, a fundamental starting point is to evaluate the image of the city itself. Knowing a city’s image is a key element in the diagnosis, which should serve as the basis of city planning. The concept of city image is multidimensional; it is not limited solely to one urbanistic aspect but, rather, includes other dimensions. This study identifies those dimensions that may have implications for the forming of city image. After validating the measurement scales, a causal model applied to the city of Granada is obtained that helps to understand the forming of its image. The interpretation and conclusions drawn from the model complement the diagnosis and suggest actions to be carried out to improve a city’s image.

City benchmarking: A methodological proposal referring specifically to Granada

This paper incorporates the results of applying benchmarking and information systems to strategic city management. The main objective is to put forward a methodological proposal for diagnosis, which, alongside other types of urban research, will provide valuable information or knowledge for city planning. City benchmarking enables us to make a comparative identification of those key elements that will help guide future lines of strategy to be implemented, as well as serving as the basis for evaluating the results. This is possible in the analysis phase by using basic descriptive statistics and readily interpretable graphic representations. The final part of the research presents the most significant results of the comparative evaluation of municipal diagnostic indicators applied to the regional context of Andalusia, using the capital of the province of Granada as a referent city.

The role of the border city Hunchun on Tumen River, China

Since the Tumen River Area Development Project(TRADP) was launched in 1991, Hunchun city located between North Korea and Russia along the river corridor, has become an important and unique border city. Hunchun, formerly a strategic military city, is emerging as an international trade linkage center through Satouz and Quanhe on the North Korea side and through Changlinzi on the Russian side. Furthermore, the establishment and operation of the Hunchun Border Economic Cooperation Zone (HBECZ) in the city is becoming the main source of the growth, providing a new role for the border city. Its underlying economic momentum comes from the combination of the Chinese-Korean labor force and foreign investment and technology transferred from Korea, Japan, and others.

Airmix finish for the Island Pine ‘Phoenix’

Island Pine started manufacturing pine furniture at their Three Gates Industrial Estate, West Cowes, factory on the Isle of Wight in 1981. They manufacture solely for The Village Collection chain of showrooms, currently numbering 15 at strategic town and city centres throughout England, and supplied from their warehouse and distribution centre at Basingstoke.

Harbin: Strategic City on the "Pioneer Fringe"

TARBIN in the Far East, although a young city of remarkable growth, has experienced vicissitudes seldom the lot of older urban centers. Its growth from an insignificant village to a populous industrial center is due to its having been made the headquarters of a new railway, and to its focal position in the northern part of a great, fertile plain only recently settled. The march of events has made it the commercial center of part of a new state. Its geographical position has created it as a frontier town between Soviet Russia and Japan, between communism and capitalism. The world-wide depression has slowed down business activity in the city. Among other agencies of commercial instability are military occupation and an uncertain political status of the new state. Yet, in spite of the evil days which have befallen this metropolis, social life is carried on with a gayety and care-free attitude peculiar to a people inured to centuries of political and economic oppression. Harbin is a Russian city in a Far Eastern setting. Cyrillic characters bedeck the signboards of shops and restaurants, and Russian is spoken on all sides. During the day Slavs in taxis and droskies are hurried to and fro along wide, paved streets. In the evening many of them promenade on the broad sidewalks of Kitaiskaya Street or stroll in leisurely fashion in the public park. Others linger over wines and coffee in cafes and coffee houses, haunt cabarets, or listen to opera or symphony. Outside the city Mongoloid men from Shantung and Hopei toil incessantly in the fields. Pioneers from a country of famine and flood, they have settled in a land of food and shelter. Resting in the evening in mud huts, they are content merely to recover energy from the labor and sweat of another day. Harbin was a small village as late as 1896. The modern city was founded in that year on the Sungari River by Russians in connection with surveys for the Chinese Eastern Railway. The site subsequently became the junction of the main line of the railway with the branch line southward to Port Arthur. Occupying such a strategic position, Harbin became an important Russian military center during the Russo-Japanese war and was the headquarters for a large contingent of General Kuropatkin's army. Old Harbin, the portion of the city then founded, was the center of Russian army supplies.