A Language is formed when there are two basic constituents – a Lexicon and a Syntax. While the syntax of architectural design is well established through decades of professional practice in the post-war era, the vocabulary of design suffers from a plethora of choices magnified by the excesses accorded by the digital landscape. Clients and designers are motivated by personal tastes and compulsions which have in most cases engendered an incoherence in the urban landscape. For instance, A charming old pre-war neighborhood might find a neo-modernist structure in its midst that breaks the visual landscape. The appeal of several tourist destinations such as Savannah, Georgia, or Florence, Italy lies in their ability to project a unified visual image of the city. Redevelopment in the 60’s has regrettably rendered many such areas void. While it can be argued that greater choice in design choices supports creative expression and individualism, visual coherence in urban design language is an absolute necessity to prevent “placelessness” and deterioration of ‘neighborhood character”. Design practice focused on equity must also consider the visual environment. Codes and Zoning are evolving to address these issues, but this can come at the cost of an existing character. This essay seeks to explore a new method to understand what may converge and then subsequently diverge to form distinct identities.
Two streets are selected to understand how different neighborhood characters may evolve – 21st Street in Midtown Sacramento, California (Figure.1) and Hirsch Street in Home Park, Midtown, Atlanta, Georgia (Figure.2). Several Buildings in each street are selected by conducting a walking audit and a deconstruction of their visual characteristics undertaken using standard architectural lexicon.
Figure 1: Mid Town Sacramento CA
Figure 2: Mid Town Atlanta GA
These are then used as rules in an architectural design exercise. To understand the potential of such an endeavor, the “Mid Journey” AI is used as an impartial objective judge in determining a conceptual output.
Mid Journey is a proprietary Artificial Intelligence program that creates visual outputs from textual prompts and descriptions and is currently in the open beta phase. As such it provides an excellent use case for considering the translation of visual zoning codes found usually in the form of textual descriptions into unbiased architectural design concepts mirroring the building design process.
The Atlanta buildings present the following selected elements – red brick, extended front porches, and white window trims amongst others. These were selected since they were uniquely different elements as compared to the Sacramento buildings. The Sacramento buildings in the style of classic suburban American homes present colored wood sidings, brown shingled sloped roofs, and white window trims amongst other elements.
Figure 3: Potential New Development in Home Park, Mid Town, Atlanta
Therefore, a Hypothetical New Development in Midtown Sacramento (Figure.5) differs significantly in output from a potential new development in Home Park, Midtown Atlanta (Figure.3) based on the selection of façade elements from existing buildings in the neighborhoods to create a diverging urban character. It is interesting to note that this hypothetical development closely mirrors the design language of the oldest preserved buildings in the adjoining Georgia Institute of Technology campus. The building highlighted below is the 1928 Crum & Forster Building (Figure 4) designed by the Architects who helped establish the Architectural Program at the school. It lends credence to the possibility of the architects of these buildings originally considering the historical Renaissance façade and urban character of the area during the construction of these houses.
Figure 4: 1928 Crum & Forster Building
Figure 5: Hypothetical New Development in Midtown Sacramento
The architectural combination that is subsequently produced is interesting and shows that existing neighborhood characteristics can be used to include “visual guidelines” in zoning and other unified development codes. We find further refinement with every subsequent redevelopment can assist in the creation of neighborhoods with a coherent and unified urban facade landscape and more importantly an identity.
Above Floodwaters, Digital Artwork by Jorge Antonio Losoya, December 2023
In Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures(2020), Sheldrake takes us into the world of fungi where planning scholars can expect refreshing perspectives from non-human organisms. Sheldrake’s storytelling proves to be a captivating lesson on fungal biology, detailing their intimate entanglements with the human world. Through each chapter, the author challenges us to think as fungi do. The book asks planning scholars to unsettle their human-centered concepts and engage with the more-than-human world. Entangled Life offers thoughtful insights through an exploration of fungi’s agency and resilient nature, which planners interested in social-environmental landscapes, placemaking, and interdisciplinary scholarship may find useful.
The author uses anecdotes from his time as a biologist to illustrate the ways fungi affect our thinking, feelings, and behavior. In the first chapter, he uses truffle hunting to frame fungi as active beings who interpret their environments, explaining how smell links the human world to the fungal one. Chapter 4 investigates psilocybin testing and fungi’s influence on the human and non–human mind. Some of the transformative and grassroots movements are explored in Chapter 7 through the author’s experience with radical mycologists. Each story mixes biological explanations with lessons for understanding our world.
Sheldrake’s telling of the dynamics of truffle hunting establishes fungi as agents of the landscape who utilize the lure of smell to influence animal and human behaviors in the hills of Bologna, Italy. In describing the sophisticated behaviors of fungi, Sheldrake asks us to rethink our attitude toward non-human organisms. Here Sheldrake poses an important question to readers that may lead us to broaden who we plan for and with:
Might we be able to expand some of our concepts, such that speaking might not always require a mouth, hearing might not always require ears, and interpreting might not always require a nervous system? (p.42)
With this question in mind, how can planners shift their thinking away from human-centered perspectives of the landscape they shape? What are other ways of participation? If planners are to grapple with fungi as collaborators, what could they learn from fungi? For Sheldrake, the possibilities of collaborating with fungi allow planners to imagine new meaningful ways to engage with the human and non-human world. Entangled Life thus asks planners to stretch their concepts and disciplinary boundaries to visualize a more complete and entangled space that includes both human and non–human participants.
In Chapter 2, Sheldrake introduces mycelium, which he describes as “a map of a fungus’s recent history and is a helpful reminder that all life – forms are in fact processes not things” (p. 53). Mycelium is further explored in chapters 5 and 6 where he describes its role in brokering relationships in ecosystems. For planners, then, mycelium may offer ways to conceptualize communities’ placemaking activities. For example, when considering the possibility of mycelium retaining a sense of memory (p. 47), one may then imagine a community’s mycelium as a hidden network inscribing memory on the landscape. Mycelium thus reminds planners that belonging is rooted deeply in the landscape, memory, and more–than–human relationships. And that community is a process, not a thing.
Sheldrake makes fungi’s persistence incredibly clear in Chapter 3 when he describes the extremophile lives of lichens and in Chapter 5 which details fungi’s long existence on Earth. What then can planners learn about this resiliency and persistence from fungi? They can learn from fungi’s restorative power in ecosystem remediation (p. 185) or from the fungal ability to catalyze radical transformation and partnerships from the ground up (p. 186). Planners may also learn from fungi’s capacity to thrive in disturbed landscapes, like truffles (p. 43) or matsutake (Tsing, 2015). As flexible, and collaborative organisms, fungi challenge planners to foster synergetic relationships across species and disciplines to imagine extravagant futures detached from systems of oppression.
While Sheldrake is not the first to recount our entanglements with fungi (Tsing, 2015; Hathaway, 2022), his book is a well-crafted introduction for planners unfamiliar with these curious organisms. Although imaginative, the author is also cautious in his arguments, reminding readers of the dangers of anthropomorphizing and romanticizing more-than-human relationships (p. 210). Readers should not expect grand solutions to planning challenges from the lives of fungi but instead, be led to sprouting new questions whose solutions lie outside their boundaries.
Entangled Life is a thought-provoking book for planning scholars interested in discussions on knowledge production, queer ecology, and non-human agency. Planners who want to understand the more-than-human relationships in the spaces they engage with or those looking for new metaphors for understanding the world should read Entangled Life. I recommend this reading for planners eager to wander beyond traditional planning limits to spaces that allow them to unmake and recreate new worlds as fungi do.
Book Citation
Sheldrake, M. (2020). Entangled life: how fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures. Random House.
References
Hathaway, M. J. (2022). What a Mushroom Lives For: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make. Princeton University Press.
Tsing, A. L. (2015). The Mushroom at the End of the World. Princeton University Press.
About the Author:
Jorge Antonio Losoya was born and raised in Del Rio, Texas along the Texas – Mexico border. He holds a M.S. in Community and Regional Planning and M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He currently works in state – led disaster recovery planning. His research interests surround disaster recovery, hazard mitigation, emotional landscapes, Latinx geographies, and artistic methodologies.
Keila Z. Pérez, Mathias Poulsen, Katherine A. Pérez-Quiñones
This conversation emerges from desires of more democratic planning. Not in the sense of getting more people to show up and participate in a one-off engagement process but thinking about ways to sustain a culture of engagement with our everyday environment and places we inhabit. Through their playful lens, two design scholars and play facilitators help me explore possibilities to rethink the formats through which people are engaged in order to “have a say” in issues that affect them and the planet. The following are some excerpts from our extended conversation:
Katherine: What are you two working on?
Keila: Right now, I’m in Jordan working on a project with the “Global Goals” initiative establishing an activist football (soccer) league. We have one hundred women playing and the ten teams carry out activist actions in their communities between each game day. After a match, the two teams go to a “play activist field” where I host them and we’re trying all kinds of play methods to exercise their role as activists. We practice partnering up, speaking up, and leading.
Mathias: I am in Canberra, Australia, as part of my PhD project where I’m trying to understand play as a mode of democratic participation. I’m drawing on the Danish tradition of junkyard playgrounds or Skrammellegepladsen, as a space and metaphor for democratic participation. I ask, what if our deliberation is not only rational, sitting around a table making really proper, coherent arguments about things… What if it’s also more experimental inquiries and ways of exploring some matters of mutual concern? If we have a space we want to explore, or an issue in the community that we want to deal with, what if that happens also, by playing and by building things and engaging with materials.
Katherine: You’re both trying to facilitate these experiences as ways to expand democracy, but in different ways. Mathias, maybe you’re experimenting more with the format itself in these playground experiments while Keila is using play to activate other areas of life?
Mathias: Yeah, at first, I wanted to understand a different format of participation. To say, okay, the human expression and being in the world can’t be captured in rational language only, so we also need embodied, playful ways of making inquiries, and of making our statements and arguments. But what I’m starting to also ask is, maybe by doing this I’m also finding a way to critique democracy itself in its current conception, something I’m realizing by being here and having a different context. Democracy is really built on very western Eurocentric values and principles of modernity and Enlightenment, in rational thought and the individual and all those things that we really take for granted in the Global North. And some of the things that I’m interested in the playground have to do with bodies playing a really big role, it’s the irrational, the sensorial. It’s the relations rather than what the individual can do. It’s distributed agency.
Katherine: No doubt there are important critiques to the disembodied way the deliberative model and communicative rationality have been theorized. And taking a cue from Johan Huizinga, one of the great things about play is that it can break from the “real”, it can even embrace the irrational or non-rational that you are naming. So, why should we mix play with messy political considerations?
Mathias: We know as designers, as people, that there are other creative ways of both getting to know the world and to express our opinions, on the world. So, that was it. I just felt like, okay, when we play, we do this as well. We say things about who we are and what we find to be important and how we like to be together with each other. We make a lot of these kinds of statements. I just wanted to bring that into a practice that is otherwise really sort of fairly rigid and formal and very language-based and very “rational”. So that’s sort of one way of countering that, of saying, if we are to go on with this democracy thing, then I think we need a broader repertoire of ways of participating.
Katherine: Keila, you worked with Danish politicians for one of your projects in your Master’s. Now you are working with women in Jordan. Both groups have quite different backgrounds from our own as Puerto Rican women. How do you think of this relationship between play and culture and what are your thoughts on facilitating for a multicultural group or for a group whose culture might be different from yours?
Keila: Yeah. So, one thing working with play is that it definitely has a universal language to it. No matter where I start to explore these topics and facilitate a play experience, there is something universal even if people don’t have the words or use the same language to describe it. We all know what it feels like to be in a state of play or in a state of playfulness.
Now, one of the main differences would be the way that play is valued, and its initial acceptance to it. Of course, being in a country like Denmark, where play holds a really high position, it almost feels like a luxury that you can sit down with a running political candidate in the middle of his campaign and have a playful discussion, sitting with tied coffee mugs, pulling each other’s cups, and playing with cakes while talking about really important political topics.[…] It feels like a privilege that I can do that in Denmark, whereas when you go into some other places, there’s more hesitation to engage in something that seems so frivolous at first sight. But as you go into the process, people start to see that there is something much more serious and much deeper to it. And that somehow you can extract a lot of sense and a lot of meaning from the process of engaging with playful experiences.
Keila, facilitating the “activist play field” for a group of women who led social change campaigns in their communities and helped “close the play gap” in Amman, Jordan.
Mathias: Keila, I love this. But, I love how you hold onto this notion that while it feels like a privilege, while it feels like luxury, it is actually not. It’s something that’s much deeper than that and a part of our human nature probably.
Keila: Yeah. I think that’s where play has its potential. It’s a natural way of being in the world. Even if at some point we’ve kind of lost that and we’ve forgotten that, we’re here to try to insist that it’s actually a way that feels quite natural to explore and to negotiate our ways of being together as a society.
Katherine: Do any of you feel strongly about play having greater potential outside of institutional channels? Should we bring this type of thinking into a planning department, for example?
Keila: I think both are important and both have a different potential and a different role. There’s something for sure that can be valuable in putting play in institutions. You can use it for social innovation and there’s collectives like Play the City, I think from Holland, doing this particularly. But then, it becomes a lot of gamification processes of how you consult the citizen. And for me, it’s more interesting when we’re taking this grassroots approach and when we’re putting play at the hands of people at their everyday life situation.
Mathias: I think, we often tend to equate democracy with the institutions and representative democracy. And it can be so much more than that. How can we shape a society together that’s meaningful for all of us ideally. And the institutions are a part of that, but they think they’re the biggest part of that. And a lot of people think that, but to me, they’re just a part alongside a lot of other components. I think there’s a need to raise the awareness of the capacity of democracy to also live outside of institutions. We should just accept the local enactment of life…it’s what matters. And then of course we need to be able to sort of talk to each other, but at least it puts more emphasis on the living of life rather than the institutionalizing. So maybe some better balance is needed between this general tendency to put everything into the institutions. It feels like we don’t really know how to move on and I think part of that might be because institutions are not that imaginative.
Mathias: However,within the urban planning field, there seems to be on the one hand, a celebration of the temporary and improvisation in public spaces. And on the other, there remains this ideal of making things look nice and feeling orderly and under control. Colleagues here in Melbourne are designing for play in public space and trying to see what happens when you bring play into the streets in different ways. And I’m also keen to explore and think more about how we can create these kinds of frictions between these ideas about improvisation and the institutional needs for control and predictability. What happens when we take play to the streets and we invite people to play and we honestly, sincerely don’t know what will happen? Because we can’t just pretend not to know. We actually, really have to let go of that control and desire to predict things. If we just pretend, then it’s not gonna get very interesting, it’s not gonna become real play that people are actually having a sense of ownership over.
Katherine: I think planning does not feel comfortable with that at all, maybe in part because this idea that we work for the public good has some of us thinking that we figured out what this looks like…
Keila: It’s not all designers that take that approach into finding out what are the actual problems that we wanna find solutions to. Are we asking the right questions or are we just in a cycle of creating the things that we think people need? I think it’s a shared dilemma with planning in some ways. And I think that’s also why play brings an interesting resistance to the material; a resistance to what may be an accepted aesthetic approach, an accepted material approach, or an accepted form. It might be because play can easily exist without us designing for it. But we can of course, also decide to enhance it or to create even better conditions for it to arise.
After our conversation, Mathias sent us this cute picture from Canberra, where he was a visiting scholar at the “Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance”. This is our only evidence.
About Authors:
Keila Zarí Pérez is a social–play designer and educator. Her current design practice is rooted in activism and participation in socio-politics through play and playfulness. She works with speculation and embodied ways of teaching in design education. Her work includes furniture design, playful methods, and process facilitation, as well as research and teaching at the LAB for Play in Designskolen Kolding, Denmark. She is now a Visiting Lecturer at the School of Design and Creative Technologies, UT.
Mathias Poulsen is a play activist and PhD student at Designskolen Kolding, Denmark. Currently working at the Lab for Social Design where he combines research on design, play and democracy to explore how we might design for new forms of democratic participation. His PhD project has emerged from years of working with grassroots communities, especially within play and education. He is also the founder of the international play festival Counter Play and the Danish Play Think Tank, cultivating communities for investigating play.
Katherine A. Pérez-Quiñones is a doctoral student in the Community and Regional Planning Program in UT-Austin. Born and raised in the west coast of Puerto Rico, she is passionate about health and environmental justice and believes in people’s right to stay and achieve wellbeing on their land.
This paper studies the clustering effect of innovation spaces and its social implications in Shanghai. Using two kinds of spatial density analysis methods, the study first identifies the hotspot of innovation spaces, and then uses a statistical model to study the mechanism behind the clustering. The model demonstrates that rental housing units, IT companies, universities, restaurants, bars, and coffee shops have a positive impact, while large housing developments and parks have a negative impact on the clustering. The rapid establishments of innovation spaces also present a shift of urban development models in Chinese cities. Unlike the extensive urban developments that happened in the last decade, people and business value the more fine-grained urban developments that tie the social aspect of urban life back. The existence of innovation spaces not only generates an innovation network that facilitates innovation and entrepreneurship but also social interactions and a collective lifestyle.
1. Introduction
China responded to its economic deceleration, marked by an annual GDP growth rate dipping below 10% since 2011, with a national initiative promoting mass innovation and entrepreneurship. Scholars like Birch, (1981) and Baumol (2008) attribute significant job increases and successful urban growth to regions with the highest rates of innovation. They argue that entrepreneurship stimulates economic growth by applying innovative approaches in a competitive market.
Inspired by these insights, the Prime Minister launched a national initiative promoting “mass innovation and entrepreneurship” at the Summer 2014 Davos Forum. Soon afterward, during a State Council executive meeting in January 2015, the term “Collective Innovation Spaces” (CIS) emerged. CIS refers to physical platforms like coworking spaces, makerspaces, hackerspaces, and innovation centers, designed to support and facilitate innovation and entrepreneurial activities (Deng et al., 2020).
The central government’s policy suggestions in China significantly shape local governments’ decisions and the direction of the capital market. As a result, the number of CIS in China skyrocketed from just 50 before 2015, to 2300 in 2015, and further to 4000 in 2016 (Fig.1). This rapid growth has influenced many urban design projects and master plans, positioning CIS as a cornerstone of their design strategy.
Figure 1: The Growth of Collective Innovation Spaces in China
Previous studies on CIS have mostly approached the topic from a business and management perspective, seldom connecting it to its urban environment. This study offers a fresh perspective by concentrating on the role of urban amenities in CIS development, aiming to inform neighborhood scale planning and design decisions. Through interviews, surveys, and statistical spatial modeling, this research uncovers the significance of a balanced mix of affordable housing, workspaces, and social spaces in CIS clustering in Shanghai.
The study finds that established IT firms are the strongest predictors of CIS clustering. Accessibility to social spaces such as bars, restaurants, and coffee shops takes the second spot. The availability of rental units, which offer a more affordable housing option in China, correlates positively with the clustering of CIS. On the other hand, the presence of parks correlates negatively with CIS clusters.
These statistical findings suggest a shift in urban development models in Chinese cities. Unlike the extensive urban developments of the past decade, current trends show individuals and businesses leaning towards dense and mixed-use urban developments. These developments weave the social aspect of urban life back into the urban environment. CIS does more than create a network facilitating social interactions, innovation, and entrepreneurship—it revives the collective working and living style prevalent before the open reform.
In the subsequent sections, this study will delve into the theoretical background and conceptual framework, the data and methods, and the results and discussion, before offering a conclusion.
2. Literature Review
2.1. Why study CIS clusters?
New theories and ideas are increasingly examining the relationship between the characteristics of urban space and its impact on economic performance. In China, urban planning has frequently served as a tool for economic development. Spatial constructs such as science or high-tech parks, cultural districts, office parks, etc. have been framed as the spatial expression of the knowledge economy (Ali, 2013). CIS, as a rapidly growing market, not only offers physical infrastructure for local entrepreneurs, but also transforms the office landscape in the downtown area(Jamal, 2018).
The concept of the cluster originates from the field of economic geography, where Porter (1998) defined the clusters as “a critical mass” of collocated companies and institutions. In Porter’s theory, he identifies the locational competitive advantages fueling the clustering of industrial activities. Firms are inclined to seek proximity to an established industrial cluster to leverage the existing infrastructure, human capital, knowledge spillover, and input and output. While Porter emphasizes that collocated industries should be from the same category, Jacobs (1969) believes that diversity and the interdisciplinary nature of different sectors stimulate the emergence of new industries, thereby promoting a sustainable economic environment.. Glaeser et al. (1992) examined these theories and argued that a diversity of industries, rather than a monopoly, encourages knowledge spillover, expediting industry growth and employment increase. Although their industrial cluster analysis is at a regional scale, the clustering of CIS aligns with their theory at a smaller scale. CIS clusters can be seen as a mix of diversity and uniqueness. Few CIS has restrictions on the industry of the companies seeking entry, making these spaces a place for interdisciplinary knowledge exchange and collaboration.
On the other hand, there is a general spatial pattern of the industries within a city. For example, in Shanghai, IT companies tend to locate outside the downtown area, where new urban development takes place; design and advertising companies tend to locate inside the downtown area, where there are historical architectures and rich contexts. Thus, from the theoretical perspective, CIS clusters enable industrial clusters with diversity.
Furthermore, the study of CIS clusters, rather than isolated CIS, is motivated by the social network factor. The existence and sense of community is the core of collective innovation spaces, with the value of these communities residing within social networks. Activities such as social events, lectures, and pitches unfold in areas such as the lounge or the common area inside CIS, serving as platform and hubs for social interactions, innovation, and entrepreneurship. These platforms and hubs become connection nodes in the innovation network, making spatial proximity critical for the network’s viability. The more spaces a CIS is proximal to, the larger the network it resides in, enhancing the potential for users in these spaces to excel and innovate. Therefore, we anticipate that CIS clusters will foster economic prosperity.
2.2. Why place matters?
CIS clusters can illuminate the location choices of emerging firms. Audretsch and Feldman (1996) determined that innovative industries have a shorter cluster radius. Many scholars emphasize the importance of face-to-face interactions in productivity, asserting that locations facilitating “close contact and exchanging ideas” generate economic growth and social values more efficiently (Feldman & Choi, 2015; Glaeser et al., 2010). These scholars focus on a more granular scale than traditional industrial cluster literature, centering on quality of life and urban ammenties that attract skilled workers rather than solely on the business interest of firms.
Florida (2008) argues that firms relocate with human capital, underscoring the importance of creating the desired quality of place that attract human capital. This argument inspired many scholars to outline a range of urban amenities that appeal to knowledge workers and the creative class (Chatterji et al., 2014; Florida, 2002).
However, the relationship between firms and individulas is complex. People might choose to move to a particular city primarily due to abundant job opportunities, with urban amenities serving as secondary incentives influencing their preferences for a specific location within the city (Darchen & Tremblay, 2010). Therefore, I designed this study to focus in one particular city, Shanghai, where the neighborhood scale provides a more suitable lens for examining how the quality of space and urban amenities influences the location choice of firms and individuals.
2.3. Theoretical Frameworks of Quality of Place
Extensive existing literature delves into how non-market public goods, such as affordable housing, transportation, healthcare, education, leisure facilities, retail, and natural amenities render certain places more attractive to the creative class and knowledge workers (Florida, 2002, 2008; Glaeser et al., 2001; Insch & Florek, 2008; Kunzmann, 2012; Yigitcanlar et al., 2007).
Although many scholars have emphasized the importance of specific urban amenities to the creative industry and entrepreneurship, few empirical studies have tested these theories in Chinese cities. Simultaneously, an increasing number of cities are adopting the concepts of innovation districts or knowledge-based urban development for urban redevelopment or new town planning projects. Without an accurate understanding of the mechanism underlying the innovation ecosystem, these concepts merely serve as buzzwords to attract the support of the central government and brand projects for mass media consumption. Thus, this paper is one of the first attempts to illuminate the design and planning of knowledge-based urban development in China.
Most literature is grounded in the context of the U.S. and other Western countries and CIS, specifically coworking spaces are argued to have a strong influence on downtown redevelopment (Jamal, 2018). Taking into account the cultural differences between China and Western countries, this paper revisits recent urban development models in China, which are tied closely to the nation’s economic and political agenda. The context provided by these recent three development models aids in constructing this paper’s analytical framework.
2.3.1. Danwei
The “danwei” represented the “basic unit of urban life” during the central planning period in socialist China. As Bray defines it (Bray, 2005), “danwei is a generic term denoting the Chinese socialist workplace and the specific range of practices that it embodies, which marks a common system shared by all urban Chinese workplaces.” A typical danwei model is architecturally designed as a walled or fenced compound with controlled access points (gates). A danwei complex integrates three types of spaces: spaces for living, spaces for working and spaces for social services. While these spaces have distinct functions, they remain physically interconnected or juxtaposed (Fig. 2).
In general, the danwei merges life, work and play within a singular city unit. Through spatial design, it fosters robust cohesion within the commune, seamlessly blending life and work into a unified existence.
Figure 2: A conceptual Diagram of Danwei Model
2.3.2. High-tech Development Zone
Following the open door policy of 1978, China concentrated its efforts on revitalizing and reforming science and technology development. In 1988, the Torch Program was initiated to accelerate this sector’s development. Adhering to the theory of industrial agglomeration and taking inspiration from models like Silicon Valley and Route 128, high-tech development zones (HIDZs) were introduced in urban peripheries where large green land parcels were available. Its design prioritizes car usage, which are featured by large blocks and wide roads. Single-use zoning is employed to facilitate the agglomeration of high-tech research and production. Most of HIDZ were located on farmlands isolated from the urban center. Incubators, as an early form of CIS, were mainly located in HIDZ or industrial parks.
The spatial layout of HIDZ represents a radical departure from traditional Chinese city layouts or the danwei configuration. Streetscapes, once vibrant arenas for daily social interactions, lost their distinctive socializing characteristics. A clear segregation emerged between living spaces, workspaces, and public spaces, becoming the primary flaws of HIDZs. “Big-box” shopping malls were introduced as a substitute for social spaces. However, unlike danweis or traditional urban spaces-where an intimate building scale facilitates encounters and social interactions – the HIDZ’s built environment inhibits everyday social activities due to reduced foot traffic and difficult access to social spaces.
Figure 3: A Conceptual Diagram of HIDZ Model
2.3.3. Knowledge-based Urban Development
Knowledge-based urban development (KBUD), also known as innovation districts, has emerged as a primary economic strategy for numerous city governments. While the Chinese government originally advocated for CIS rather than innovation districts, many recent master plans have emerged the buzzword “innovation and entrepreneurship”. Diverging from previous urban typologies, KBUD places a greater emphasis on characteristics centered around individuals. Two key elements are the quality of urban life, and the availability of social spaces for interaction.
According to Katz and Wagner (Katz & Wagner, 2014), the critical elements of innovation districts include integration with their urban context, disruption of organizational hierarchies, fostering interactions and collaboration between industries and other knowledge communities, encouraging face-to-face interactions and ultimately promoting technological advancement.
As describes, “Knowledge community precincts in a city are not ivory towers in the urban jungle, nor communities gated against visitors and burglars. They are, ideally, catalytic locations for urban life. They are experimental life spaces for the next urban generation and laboratories for testing new forms of work-leisure-home lifestyles.”
From a design perspective, KBUD necessitates a compact spatial layout to increase density; integration with existing urban fabric; connectivity to public transportation; a diversity of programs and functions as well as a diverse population. Further, it needs to promote walkability and bikability, and provide public spaces and social areas for interaction, communication and collaboration (Katz & Wagner, 2014; Kunzmann, 2012; Yigitcanlar, 2010).
The concept of “third places”, coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg, refers to those locations where people spend time apart from home (first place) and work (second place). These areas, including cafes, parks, and communal spaces, provide settings for idea exchange, relationship-building, and broader creative interactions. As such, the advent of CIS developments in Chinese cities could reestablish the proximity between workspaces, living spaces, and these crucial third places featuring what Yigitcanlar (2010) describes as “the new forms of work-leisure-home lifestyles”. Through the network constructed by CIS and other types of third places, spaces for social interactions and the sense of community will also resume in everyday life in Chinese cities.
Figure 4: A conceptual diagram of KBUD
To conclude, as we delve into the analysis of urban development models in China, it’s crucial to acknowledge that while many scholars have pointed out the importance of specific urban amenities to the creative industry and entrepreneurship, very few empirical studies have been conducted in Chinese cities to investigate these theories. This gap in research becomes all the more significant as more cities globally, including those in China, are adopting the concept of innovation districts or knowledge-based urban development for their urban redevelopment or new town planning projects.
However, without a precise understanding of the mechanisms underlying the innovation ecosystem, the popular terminologies associated with it often end up being used merely as titles to garner central government support and to brand projects to the mass media. This reality underscores the need for in-depth research into the subject.
To this end, this paper serves as one of the pioneering efforts to draw conclusions from both existing literature and current practices in CIS to illuminate the design and planning of knowledge-based urban development in China. Through the exploration of urban amenities that are crucial to CIS clusters, I seek to provide a more comprehensive perspective on the phenomenon and practical guidance for future developments.
3. Data and Methodology
The data collection of this study consists of two parts. The first part of the data collection is interviews with CIS users and managers. The result of this part, along with the literature review helps to establish the conceptual framework of the statistical model that examines the relationship between urban amenities and CIS clusters. The second part of the data collection is to construct the statistical model, which relies on multiple online sources to obtain the location of CIS and urban amenities.
3.1. Interview
At the beginning of 2018, the author went for a site visit to several CIS. Interviews were conducted with 18 space users and 15 space managers. Space users claim restaurants and convenient stores are the most visited among CIS users. 72.2% of the users claim to be frequent visitors to convenient stores and restaurants. 50% of the users claim to be frequent visitors to coffee shops. 11 out of 17 users live in rental units, and their primary transportation method is by metro. Here (Figure 4) is a summary of the interview results, which will help construct the conceptual framework in the next chapter.
Figure 5: Summary of Interview Results
3.2. The Statistical Model
3.2.1. Data
Data for the statistical model was primarily sourced from multiple online sources. The primary dataset for CIS was scraped from Ctoutiao in 2018, comprising 716 entries with name and address. However, among these 716 entries, some were missing while some others did not meet the CIS definition utilized in this study. Consequently, the author initiated a four-step verification process to refine the dataset.
Firstly, entries such as high-tech development zones, tech-parks, creative industrial clusters, and office parks were removed because they do not conform to this paper’s definition of CIS. Secondly, the author conducted site visits to confirm that locations listed as CIS on the website operate as CIS according to the central government’s definition. As such, observations that contradicted this were removed.
In the third step, the author noticed missing locations from specific CIS chain brands, like People Square and FT Town, among others. To fill these gaps, the author visited the respective brand websites and scraped all the location data to add to the list. Lastly, the list did not include entries from international coworking brands such as WeWork. These were subsequently added to the dataset. The final list consisted of 361 collective innovation spaces, complete with names, geolocations, and brand names.
The UDparty online data platform, which provides access to rental and POI data in Shanghai, was also utilized. The rental data includes street address, floor area and price. The POI data has address and categories.
3.2.2. Model Specification
In this model, the dependent variable measures the accessibility of a given CIS to other CIS within a walking distance. The higher the accessibility to other CIS within walking distance, the more likely that the CIS is located within a cluster that promotes regular face-to-face interactions crucial for stimulating innovation. Most literature regards 1000m as a standard threshold for walking distance.
The independent variables have been chosen following the theoretical framework of live, work and play. For living spaces, the indicators include accessibility to housing and rental units. The working spaces are gauged by accessibility to anchor companies (as per the POI dataset), IT companies, distance to the nearest university, and accessibility to research institutes. Social spaces are evaluated based on the accessibility to coffee shops, bars, parks, Chinese and exotic restaurants. Control variables include accessibility to restaurants, entertainment facilities, metro stations, retail and distance to the city center[1].
The gravity index is used to measure accessibility.
represents a node i at a radius of r is defined as follow (Sevtsuk & Mekonnen, 2012):
(2)
ℬ is the exponent that controls the effect of distance decay on each shortest path between i and j, d[i,j] is the distance between i and j. In this paper, ℬ is set to be 0.002 following (Sevtsuk, 2017). W[j] is the weight of a specific destination j that is within the defined radius r from i. Due to data limitations, this paper will not consider any weights for the destinations.
From Fig. 6, it’s evident that CIS clusters are primarily located in downtown areas, certain high tech parks, and some recently developed knowledge-base innovation districts. Although the map provides a broad spatial pattern of these places, the statistical model will offer a more in-depth understanding of the mechanisms underlying CIS clustering.
The dependent variable of table 2 is the gravity index of CIS, which indicates its degree of clustering. Table 2 presents four models: live, work, play and live-work-play. The live model only includes parameters associated with living spaces and control variables. The work model only includes parameters associated with workspaces and control variables. The play model only includes parameters associated with social spaces and control variables. The live-work-play model includes all parameters and control variables.
The adjusted r-square value in the first three models reveals that the work model consistently has the highest predictive power on CIS clusters. This result implies that industry influences CIS clusters more significantly than the other two factors. This finding is consistent with the literature (Darchen & Tremblay, 2010; Storper & Scott, 2009) that career choices among knowledge workers/ or the creative class have a greater influence than the quality of space. The adjusted r-square of the live-work-play model is higher than the work model. This indicates although industry foundation plays a vital role in the clustering of CIS, the quality of space also has a positive effect. The following section will examine each parameter in the model in more detail.
4.1. Industry Foundation & Agglomeration Effect – the Work Model
In terms of industry, two factors significantly contribute to the clustering of CIS. When accessibility to IT firms increases by one unit, the gravity index of the CIS increases by 0.162. When the distance to the nearest university decreases by one kilometer, the gravity index of the CIS increases by 0.4. These results indicate that CIS tend to cluster near IT companies and universities. While anchor companies and research institutions are often considered as important institutions for industrial clusters in literature, they do not have a notable impact on the clustering of CIS.
The effect of universities on innovation industries is well documented(Chatterji et al., 2014; Pittaway et al., 2020). A prevalent understanding is the potential for innovation spillover from universities. Being near a university means more cooperation with professors and research labs, expediting the commercialization of innovation. Another potential factor driving CIS clustering around universities comes from the policy side. The mass innovation and entrepreneurship initiative encourage college graduates to start their own companies. College students are potential users for CIS, and many CIS are jointly funded by universities and government, meaning universities are likely to provide space for CIS. Moreover, being near universities means affordability and accessibility to knowledge for CIS users. For instance, one CIS user stated the advantages of being close to universities include access to affordable meals in the university cafeteria the opportunity to attend lectures and talks hosted by the university, which are especially beneficial for early entrepreneurs and high-skilled workers.
Despite the influence of the IT industry being seldom documented in the literature, accessibility to IT companies remained strongly significant in all robutness checks, and had a relatively high coefficient. As in many news articles, The rapid expansion of the IT industry in China in recent years has been a phenomenon recorded (Wang & Loo, 2017). The IT industry’s growth rate surpasses other industries and has generated a large number of startups, such as platforms related to the shared economy, e-commerce, and also new media (The Economics, 2018). Therefore, IT startups are considered as the major users of CIS. CIS tend to cluster in an area where it has a high density of IT companies in order to gain access to a larger pool of potential users.
4.2. Affordable Living Options – the Live Model
Regarding living spaces, accessibility to rental units has a positive effect on the clustering of CIS. This statistical finding aligns with the interview data, which shows 64.7% CIS users are renters. Results from Table 2 suggest that when the gravity index between CIS and rental units increases by one, the gravity index of CIS will increase by 0.041. These empirical results suggest that CIS tend to cluster in places where there are more available rental units.
One explanation for this is that many CIS users are recent college who cannot afford to purchase housing units in Shanghai. Another explanation is that many entrepreneurs consider their time to be extremely valuable. Given the intense market competition, many entrepreneurs do not have regular working hours or weekends off. Consequently, entrepreneurs cannot afford long commuting hours and being able to live nearby is critically important.
It should be noted that there is a limitation in the data due to the lack of inclusion of the subway network in the calculation. As the interviews indicate that 70.6% of CIS users commute by metro, when calculating the gravity index between CIS and housing units, the subway network should ideally be included in the calculation. However, due to limitation in the subway network data, this paper only considers the accessible rental units within the 1000m walking radius.
4.3. Social Spaces
For social spaces, the accessibility to coffee shops, bars, and Chinese restaurants positively influences the clustering of CIS, while parks seem to have a negative effect. While findings for coffee shops and restaurants are in line with existing literature (Green, 2014; Jackson, 2017; van Oort et al., 2003), the impact of parks contradicts one paper by Yigitcanlar (Yigitcanlar et al., 2007). There are three potential explanations for this discrepancy.
First, Yigitcanlar’s study focused on Australian cities, where have a different cultural context. Second, many parks in Shanghai are large, often isolated by major infrastructures, such as highways, resulting in lowperceived accessibility. Lastly, office buildings near parks typically come at a higher cost. Startups or CIS users are less likely to pay a premium for proximity to parks or open spaces, leading to a lack of CIS clustering around these areas.
In China, restaurants often serve as primary locations for meetings and business interactions, making them important social space for entrepreneurs. Unlike parks, restaurants, bars and coffee shops are privately owned public spaces. Among these semi-public spaces, bars have the highest coeffient, suggesting they play a significant role in social interaction. Bars provide a less formal setting than resturants. In Chinese culture, dinning in a restaurant comes with many unspoken rules regarding seating and drinking, whereas bars do not typically have such rulesand are favoured by young people for their vibrant and relaxed atmosphere.
The model highlights the increasing importance of various types of social spaces. They offer the quality of space favoured by knowledge workers and the creative class. Therefore, CIS tend to cluster in places that strike a good balance between social space, work opportunities, and affordable housing.
Figure 7: Reachable social spaces from CIS at Jing’an Temple Cluster
4.4. Discussion
Figure 8: The Evolvement of Urban Development Models
The previous section took a retrospective look at different urban development models across varying time points to understand the Chinese context for constructing the statistical model. Now, I want to revisit these urban development models with a different focus, especially on their planning process and social implications.
Urban development models aren’t merely tools for city growth and economic advancement. They are also social constructs that reflect society’s values, priorities, and aspirations. The planning process, as well as the resulting urban environment, can shape societal structures, cultural values, and quality of life.
The danwei system, as described above, can be seen as an intricate social and physical unit that includes both the residential and work elements. It’s a concept that integrates many facets of life – work, social interactions, and all aspects of living – within one structure. People in this system are colleagues, neighbors, and friends, creating a multifaceted network of relationships.
The structure of a danwei, as characterized by Bjorklund, is essentially multifunctional, where workspaces can morph into social spaces, and household events can spill over into common areas (Bjorklund, 1986). There’s no stark delineation between different types of activities; instead, all aspects of life seamlessly blend and interact with each other. This gives rise to a uniquely intertwined socio-spatial environment where social interactions often occur in transitional spaces such as roads, alleys, or hallways.
The danwei design also fosters a strong sense of community. Its intimate scale and gated complex create a shared identity and communal bond among its residents. However, this shared identity can also work as a double-edged sword, as the physical and administrative barriers of a danwei can isolate its community from the rest of the city, potentially limiting exposure to diverse social and cultural experiences.
Although the planning of HIDZ have guidelines for allotting public spaces such as parks, community centers, recreation centers, the accessibility of these spaces can often be a challenge. Planning regulations might stipulate a certain number of these public facilities per population count; however, this does not necessarily translate to their effective use. .
The issue of accessibility arises when these public spaces are situated on large parcels of land, often bounded by expansive road networks, which effectively means they serve a much larger catchment area. This leads to people residing in HIDZs often needing to drive considerable distances to access these spaces, which should ideally be close to their homes and easily accessible on foot or by public transit. This inaccessibility tends to inhibit regular use of these spaces, consequently stifling opportunities for social interactions and community-building.
In essence, the placement and distribution of public spaces in HIDZs can often result in spatial segregation, reducing the sense of community among residents. It also highlights a common urban planning challenge: how to design and implement public spaces that not only meet quantitative criteria, but are also readily accessible, encourage social interactions, and enhance community cohesion.
Historically, urban planning in China heavily relied on metrics, with the focus primarily on meeting the basic human needs of everyday life. More recent practices, however, have adopted more comprehensive and fine-grained approaches. CIS tend to cluster in areas where there is a comprehensive ecosystem in place. They can succeed in various ways through a sophisticated approach, as opposed to following a simple checklist.
One of the unique aspects of the CIS development model lies not only in its fine-grained scale, allowing for a more organic planning approach, but also in its nested social space that helps foster a sense of community among various groups of people. During my visits to several CIS in Shanghai, I observed that different spaces within the CIS serve different social functions. The lounge areas are generally accessible to the public and often host events such as pitches, demo days, and lunch lectures with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. I noted during my weekday afternoon visits to People Squared and Kr space that the lounge area was bustling with people meeting in various groups. The unique design of the public space in places like Mixspace also attracts visitors. Moreover, many CIS provide not only lounge areas but also more private common areas exclusive to their users, offering a peaceful space for rest and reflection.
Figure 9: Nested Social Spaces
At the neighborhood scale, private domains such as restaurants, coffee shops, and bars complement the CIS, creating nested social spaces with varying levels of privacy and accessibility (See Fig.9). These nested social spaces foster community formation, adding another layer of vibrancy to these urban areas.
5. Conclusion
This study explores the location preferences of CIS in Shanghai, focusing on how these decisions impact social spaces and urban living. The statistical model used in this research offers valuable insights into the decision-making process of CIS developers and their motivations for clustering in certain areas. Based on the theory that CIS developers select locations based on nearby amenities that appeal to their primary users—startups and young entrepreneurs—the model’s results largely corroborate the existing literature, confirming that factors like industrial heritage, social interaction spaces, and proximity to universities positively impact CIS clustering (Audretsch & Feldman, 1996; Florida, 2002; Glaeser et al., 2001).
However, the model also reveals some inconsistencies with existing theories. For instance, the negative correlation between the presence of parks and open spaces and CIS clustering contradicts Yigitcanlar’s argument about the importance of outdoor activities to young entrepreneurs (Yigitcanlar et al., 2007). This discrepancy opens a new avenue for further investigation.
Unique to Shanghai’s context, the model reveals a strong correlation between the presence of IT companies and CIS clustering. Additionally, the model shows that increased access to rental units positively impacts CIS clustering, offering a new insight into the locational preferences of CIS developments in Shanghai. Complementing the statistical model, this paper also incorporates data from interviews, surveys, observations, and mappings to more thoroughly understand the social implications of CIS clusters. The CIS model, integrated with ‘third places’ like coffee shops and restaurants, encourages a renewed sense of community and public engagement. It blends with the urban fabric, dissolves boundaries, fosters networks, and stimulates diversity and conversations among various social groups. This integrated, multidisciplinary approach, combining quantitative modelling with qualitative analysis, allows for a more nuanced understanding of how CIS developments influence social dynamics and urban living in Shanghai.
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About Author
Haijing Liu is a Ph.D. candidate in Community and Regional Planning at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation research employs a mixed-methods approach to unravel the dynamics of the U.S. green job market, focusing on its distribution and growth across metropolitan areas. Liu’s work sheds light on significant disparities within this sector, emphasizing the underrepresentation and wage inequities faced by African Americans, Latinos, and women. Her research, deeply rooted in the ‘three-E’ paradigm—environment, economy, and equity—provides valuable insights into the interplay between institutional capacities and local economic structures. This approach not only highlights disparities but also suggests pathways for more equitable and sustainable development. Beyond her dissertation, she is actively engaged in exploring wider economic development and sustainability issues, with a keen focus on addressing gender disparities in the green job market and examining the broader societal readiness for sustainability transitions.
Rahanat Ara Jafar, Farhana Hoque, Shahriar Sakib Chowdhury
Abstract
In city planning, both infrastructure and landscape are inseparable parts. To make decisions on city planning, accountable authorities and users must participate equally. The lack of harmonious participation in the decision-making processes of both parties can lead to chaos or a state of conflict in urban life, which eventually turns into urban movements of general users to persuade the Government to reclaim their identity. The study introduces citizens’ rights to the City and the pivotal role of public participation in eliminating or slowing down unethical approaches in city planning when nature is interrupted. This research examines how the public, environmentalists, urban planners, and architects responded to the proposed construction of a 100-seat medical college, a nursing school, and a 500-bed hospital on six acres of property in the CRB (Central Railway Building) hill in Chattogram, Bangladesh. The CRB Hospital project will directly destroy the natural habitat for the 197 indigenous plant species in the CRB area, with at least nine endangered trees evolved over a hundred years and animals that are reliant on the resources that trees provide, which are labeled as ecocide and did not get the clearance of Environmental Impact Assessment(Rio-Declaration on Environment and Development). Besides, the residents of Chattogram voiced their displeasure, as CRB is not only a green landscape but also a place of nostalgia for the City’s cultural identity. Finally, the research would try to depict how a logical protest leads to receiving environmental clearance, as it would disrupt natural biodiversity.
Keywords: City Planning, Ecocide, Cultural Heritage, Urban Protest, Legal Rights.
1. Introduction
In recent times, urban citizens have shown interest in the decision-making for city planning. It takes place as a result of a fresh wave of activism that is manifesting itself in cities all over the world(Domaradzka, 2018). When local activists engage in urban politics and influence decision-making by legal means and active participation, urban activism has become an increasingly significant component of urban governance processes. According to Purcell, it has increasingly gained recognition as one of the critical components of sustainable and democratic urban development (Purcell, 2003).
The paper’s aim is to describe the critical role that citizen involvement plays in preventing or reducing the use of unethical city planning techniques. To this aim, it depicts a situation in Chattogram where a proposed construction decision of a hospital in the CRB (Central Railway Building) area reclaims environmental clearance because of a logical protest.
The CRB area is a beautiful natural location in the city. A number of century-old trees may be found throughout the hills, valleys, and hillocks surrounding CRB. The region is known as Chattogram’s oxygen hub and serves as a natural habitat for various wild animals, plants, and birds. In the morning and evening, people in the region go running, and many others visit CRB to get some fresh air. There are other cultural celebrations. Concerned citizens protested against the idea and voiced their disapproval of the development, centering CRB (Star, 2021).
The research focuses on how urban protests for the CRB area change ecocide planning decisions. It also attempts to acknowledge the importance of conserving nature. Overall, the outcome of the study is acknowledging the fact that claiming citizens’ rights logically can influence decision-making while city planning—consequently, a short overview of the fact that citizens’ urban activism varies in different contexts.
2. Methodology
The research uses a literature review from two different perspectives to conduct this study. Firstly, this study has been done with secondary data, which unfolds the history of city planning in terms of public participation or public protest through the urban planning perspective. In the second part of the literature review, we have explored the legal side of public involvement or protest based on our study area. Adopting a multi-methodological approach, we tried to compare some case studies to determine the outcome of raising voices. The input data in this study are facts, laws, and interviews published in newspapers, and views from planners on the importance of public involvement during city planning.Some factors were analyzed here as key elements for research, i.e., City planning, Public participation in decision making, Right to the city ~ Urban protest. Ecocidal planning is also being discussed in the process of research. All the factors justify both the stated part of the literature review. The conceptual framework [Figure:01] is given below.
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework
3. Literature Review
3.1. City Planning
Throughout humankind’s history, the city has been the meeting place for people where humans from many cultures have come together in public spaces. Public space is an essential aspect of a good and well-functioning city. Old cities were constructed as people moved on their way to the limit of their eyesight utilizing the surrounding environment. First comes life, then the space around them, and lastly, the built environment; life, space, and development that’s the ultimate order for growth. In that manner, many great cities give rise to excellent infrastructure. City planning involves a whole interconnected system around humanity and focuses on the quality of life in cities, suburbs, towns, and villages. Many aspects including the environment, economy, culture and transportation, need to be addressed on people’s demands while planning a city. The city’s deficiencies need to be adapted and designed for the future from the perspective of empathy. Otherwise, city planning will become a nightmare for the city’s distant future.
3.2. Public Participation in Decision Making
“A good city is like a good party – people stay longer than really necessary because they are enjoying themselves.” ― Jan Gehl
Across the developing world, cities are expanding in size and number, dramatically raising the demand for affordable, rapid food supply for their increased urban populations. These phenomena act as the catalysts of the construction of roads and other infrastructure, resulting in the slow demise of nature. The projected length of increased paved roads is 25 million kilometersglobally from 2010 to 2050, equal to the global rotation of more than 600 times(Laurance, 2014)..Numerous infrastructure-related decisions need to be reviewed or improved.For instance, the total area of wilderness is rapidly disappearing across the planet, 70% of the world’s forests are found within one kilometer of a forest edge(Haddad, 2015),the rate of tropical forest fragmentation is sharply rising, and only 10% of the original intact habitat exists in half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots(Sloan, 2014). Many animal species are declining as the human population grows, particularly in the tropics, and protected areas are becoming more isolated and at risk of poachers and unlawful encroachment.To establish plural power in the urban planning scene, two diverse parties, including both official and unofficial ones, must be able to communicate with one another.Arguments in support of greater public participation frequently highlight the advantages of the process and the belief that engaged individuals are preferable to idle ones; Some of India’s best-known and most powerful recent movements arise from local grassroots interests, including many movements that are against externally imposed industrialization and forced displacement. These include Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal, the Kalinganagar, anti-Posco and anti-Vedanta movements in Odisha, and the anti-nuclear power station movements in Jaitapur, Kudankulam, and most recently at Mithi Vridhi in Gujarat(Padel, 2012). These and many other movements have in common opposition to takeovers of land and resources by corporations, ruthlessly introduced to local areas as in the national interest, yet locally perceived as undermining the highly evolved livelihood systems of communities rooted on the land(Padel, 2012).
3.3. Urban Protest
“Cities are humans’ shoddy attempts at making ecosystems.”
Urban development brings about enormous social, economic, and environmental shifts. Urban areas are the only places where the emergence of socially destructive processes is more obvious than anywhere else. These negative impacts mostly satisfy a few percentages of privileged communities while suppressing disempowered poor or middle class communities. However, it shouldn’t be surprising that some of the most prominent social disputes today are related to urban concerns and frequently revolve around socio-spatial demands and rights. Cities are increasingly being shaped by a profit-oriented logic, making them less livable and less tailored to the demands of their inhabitants (Domaradzka, 2018).Unofficial parties may hold protests to persuade the government to reconsider its plans in order to fix the absence of public participation in planning and decision-making processes. Some argue that these movements paved the way for the emergence of distinct civil society actors, most notably urban social movements or urban protests, which, according to Castells, serve as catalysts for change in the urban system(Domaradzka, 2018). According to Prujit(Pruijt, 2004) ‘Urban movements are social movements that aspire to give urban dwellers some measure of control over their urban surroundings. The constructed environment, the urban social fabric, and the local political system make up the urban environment’
In order to gain social legitimacy, modern urban movements seek a “Right to the City” and establish democratic, solidarity-based places rooted in local cultures. Mumbai city witnessed a significant civil society protest against the planned metro car-shed project in Aarey, a densely forested city region, in the latter part of 2019(Staff, 2020). The Mumbai metropolitan region development authority (MMRDA) seized a substantial percentage of the aarey forest to construct this shed. The primary source of dispute was the MMRDA’s eradication of up to 2000 trees in a single day(Staff, 2020). In the era of climate change, removal of greenery made environmentally conscious urban citizens anxious but eventually it took the form of an “Urban Protest”. Though the destruction of the metropolis’ green lung has already been done, the project eventually got scrapped on the grounds of controversy. And this event awakens the citizens to appeal for their right to the city.
4. Study Profile Area
The second-largest city in Bangladesh is Chattogram. The city has seen significant physical changes due to urbanization as a result of overpopulation(Robiul Hussain et al., 2016). One of the changes due to overpopulation is the lack of open space for its citizens(Jafrin & Beza, 2018) The study area, Central Railway Building (CRB), is an open public space which is situated in the heart of Chattogram City, which is surrounded by a highly dense civic area.
4.1. Physiographic Study of The Site Area
The study area, locally known as which stands for Central Railway Building (CRB), is located in the coordinate of 22°20’35” N latitude and longitude. It is located under Ward no 15, and according to the Detail area plan, it is under DPZ (Department of Planning and Zoning)-03(CDA, 2009)The zone includes areas constructed under British administration. The Military and Bangladesh Railway are the primary landowners at the location. The majority of the zone is made up of hills. Topographically This zone is divided into hills and valleys [Figure:02]. The total site area is approximately 174 acres(CDA, Detail area Plan, 2009). According to the Detail Area Plan 2009, all of the city’s hills will be subject to special controls and continue to be designated as “strategic open space.” The site is a protected area for culture, heritage, and the environment.
Figure 2: (a) Satellite map of the site, (b) Contour map of CRB area (Right). [Source: Generated from Google Earth Pro and Chittagong GIS Map by Authors]
4.1.1. Land Use Mapping of The Site
The existing land use map shows that the site area is composed of different land use patterns in the figure 03. As per the land use Plan, the whole CRB area infrastructures are divided into two main parts: Government Buildings (residential, office, health and services) and infrastructure for public recreation (restaurants, shops, open plaza, social club, and many others). For instance, Commercial buildings are mostly restaurants. Besides, there are many open spaces for public gatherings, specifically a public plaza known as Shirish Tola [Figure:03(b)].
Figure 3: Land use map of the site. (a) View of Central Railway Building, (b) Perspective view from Shirish Tola. (c) Celebration Image of PahelaBoishakh at Shirish tola. [Source: Generated from Google Earth Pro, Google Images by Authors]
Other Significant amenities are social clubs and community facilities are The Chattogram Club, the Ladies club, and the Institution of Engineers Bangladesh (IEB) [Figure:03(a)]. In contrast, few religious buildings and hospitals serve the community. Also, a Dhaka-Chattogram rail track leads to the railway station on this site. No Industrial development is found in this zone.
This location is significant historically. The Central Railway Building (CRB) is located in Chattogram’s picturesque hilly region. There are staff quarters, lodges, a rest house, and bungalows for railway officials. In addition, the CRB houses a Sonali Bank branch, a police station, a post office, and a public restroom.
The site also has many public gatherings space, namely MA Aziz stadium, the outer stadium, Shishu park, The Zia Smriti museum, Hotel Radisson Blu, and a few commercial buildings. Major playgrounds, Polo ground field where exposure happens every year.
4.1.2. Circulation and Road Networking
The city can easily be reached from the site. The Ispahani circle from the north-west side, the Circuit House circle from the north-east side, the Tigerpass circle from the south-west side, and the Kodomtoli circle from the east side are four different intersections with which it has connected [Figure:04]. On weekdays, there is no traffic congestion on the interior road. On conventionally significant days (Pohela-Boishakh), however, there are restrictions on vehicular accessibility. The site’s internal road network is utilized not just for access to the site but also for passing through other locations.
The internal tertiary road network develops and preserves the topography that is depicted in the current land use plan [Figure:03]. Some portions of government buildings have limited public access because they are restricted areas. However, there is a shortage of adequate street illumination because many of the site’s areas are used as public gathering places.
Figure 4: Study area road network. [Source: Chattogram City Corporation Wards Maps.]
4.1.3. Zoning and Stakeholders Activity
In the study area different activities has occurred in different zone. The zoning boundaries are marked in the Figure 05. People are mostly congregating in the public open zone, public commercial zone, and public recreational zone.Additionally, the Circuit House node is the most often used node point to reach the CRB region and among all accessibility node, CRB node is the most crowded one.
Figure 05: Study area Zoning map and Section A-A’ has showed. [Source: Authors.]
This location is used differently by different age groups[Figure:06]. The activities vary according to the days as well. Weekends saw the most traffic in the CRB zone. Also, residents who live near the railroad and in nearby residential areas, frequent use the area for recreation on a daily basis. On the other hand, the location transforms into a celebratory area during important occasions like Pohelaboishakh, Pohelafalgun, sports programs, and fair days.
4.2. Historical, Cultural and Traditional Value of the CRB
4.2.1. Historical Value
The British constructed several structures during their rule to aid in their administrative duties; one of the few structures still standing that chronicles Chattogram’s 200 years of British colonial control is the Central Railway Building (CRB). The location has the name of the structure. Before India was divided into two countries in 1947, the British seized the administration of Chattogram from Nawab Mir Qasim in 1760. CRB is one of the British-constructed structures to facilitate their administrative tasks during their rule. Recently, it has served as the general manager of Bangladesh Railway’s administrative headquarters. One of the earliest structures in the port city, the building was finished in 1872(CDA, Detail area Plan, 2009)(Star, The Daily Star, 2015).
From to railroad sources, the building was once a two-story construction with 34 rooms on the ground floor and 33 on the first. The southern half was expanded to a three-story building, while the eastern and northern portions were expanded to a four-story building in 1918. The structure is organized into various departments, including administration, engineering, estate, and audit, and it resembles a massive labyrinth with numerous rooms, halls, spiraling stairs, domes, and porticoes(Tribune, Dhaka Tribune, 2020).
During the Liberation War in 1971, the aerial bombing caused damage to a part of the building; nonetheless, it was restored using the original design. In the center of the old building’s south block is a two-story carriage porch with two gorgeous gothic arches. The inside of the building has a foyer with a hemispherical dome on top. Additionally, the previous structure contains a tower in the southwest corner with a spiral stairway and a tiny dome reminiscent of Mughal architecture. The structure displays Chattogram City’s scenic beauty and British colonial architecture(Star, The Daily Star, 2015).
The historian Shamshul Hossain, author of “Eternal Chattogram,” a book about the history of Chattogram, and former Chattogram University Museum curator said about the structure, “The historical building is not in good shape. Rainwater leaks through the roof in some places of the building. We should protect the building for the progeny”.However, the archeology department has not yet designated the historic structure as protected. The government may publish an official gazette designating any antiquity as protected following the Antiquities Act 1968 [amended in 1976] (Tribune, Dhaka Tribune, 2020).
4.2.2. Cultural And Traditional Value
The site has its own traditional and cultural values. Bengali people celebrated their traditional days (Victory Day, Pahela-Falgun; the first day of Spring, Independence Day, Pahela-Baishakh) here. Every year, Chattogram City’s Pahela-Baishakh celebrations take place in the nearby CRB Shirish Tala, which serves as a focus of celebration for festivals. On the event of the first day of the Bangla calendar, hundreds of people congregate here to watch the Bolikhela[wrestling match] (Tribune, Dhaka Tribune, 2020). For all those reasons, this area is the most vibrant in terms of culture.
Every day, especially in the afternoon, a large number of visitors are drawn to the old building due to its incredible architecture and serene atmosphere. The building is set against a beautiful backdrop of surrounding hills covered in various flowering trees(Tribune, Dhaka Tribune, 2020). In addition, on every vacation or religious festival day, the site is used as a recreational space for the public. Furthermore, finding sizeable open space in the middle of the city is hard. So, the space is considered a breathing space for every citizen. On the other hand, there is much green, especially plants that produce wood. The space is the hope for the city to hold heritage, cultural life, traditional value, and green.
5. Protest and Triumph over Ecocidal Planning
A contract between Bangladesh Railway and United Enterprise Ltd for the construction of a five hundred beds multi-specialized hospitals and a Hundred seats medical colleges in Chatoogram’s CRB area, which is a heritage site recognized by the Chattogram Development Authority (CDA), was signed in March 2020 (Tribune, Dhaka Tribune, 2021).. The choice will be harmful to the ecosystem. Citizens of Chattogram, therefore, have a justification for protesting the coming ecocide (Star, The Daily Star, 2021).
The citizens of Chattogram protested against the ecocidal planning and raised their voices against it, eventually succeeding. Several groups, including the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, the Bangladesh PoribeshAndolon and Association for Land Reform and Development, Nijera Kori, and the PoribeshBachaoAndolon, have sent legal notices to the responsible authorities and demand to declare CRB a “special biodiversity conservation area” following the law. Ecocide law is demanded by a Bangladeshi panel to safeguard the environment.The Chattogram divisional coordinator of Bangladesh Railway ShramikKarmachariSangram Parishad, SK Bari said, “We are not against building a hospital, but we are opposing the decision to build it at that location,” (Star, The Daily Star, 2021).
Figure 07: Different ways people protest to save CRB. (a) Solidarity rally, (b) Tree plantation (c) Protest at CRB area (d) Creative and bold placards use at Shahbagh[Source: Google photos.]
To make ecocide a crime under domestic law, the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change suggested establishing a new legal framework. Saber Hossain Chowdhury, the committee chairman, said: “Just as genocide is treated as a crime, the destruction of an ecosystem also warrants the same treatment. This is because, without an ecosystem, none of us can survive”(bdnews24, 2021).
Dr. Mahafujur Rahman, the liberation warrior, and CRB RokkhaMoncha convener, said, “We are continuing the agitation to save CRB which is a heritage declared by Chittagong Development Authority.” (Express, 2021)
Teachers and former and current students of Chittagong University’s Fine Arts Institute protested the building of a hospital at the CRB by painting pictures. “People usually do not live without a functioning lung. CRB is exactly the place known as the lungs of the entire city’s fauna” (Tribune, Dhaka Tribune, 2021).
Chief Engineer Kazi Hassan Bin Shams of the Chittagong Development Authority (CDA) stated: “CRB falls under the protected area category as a Heritage Zone. There are policies that do not allow any commercial establishments in the CRB area” (Tribune, Dhaka Tribune, 2021).
. However, Kumira has been suggested as a replacement by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Railways. Hearing the alternate site suggestion, Prof Anupam Sen, president of CRB Protection Movement and vice-chancellor of Premier University says, “This proposal is the result of a long-running movement”(Tribune, Dhaka Tribune, 2022).
6. Verses of Legislation Vs Ignorance
6.1. Ecocide And Degrading Environmental Factors
Without healthy ecosystems, life on Earth cannot continue.The destruction of trees impacts the food chain necessary for human survival by reducing the biodiversity in the area.Natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and heatwaves are becoming more frequent and severe due to global warming, damaging nearby cities and developing nations and mandating tremendous efforts to construct and sustain functional areas(Readfearn, 2022).
Ecocide is frequently committed to making places for urbanization or new industrial locations far less significant than forests, fertile soil, and clean water sources.Climate change and catastrophic events are already producing environmental emergencies, and ecocide exacerbates the effects of Mother Nature’s neglect. The industrialization and exponential development of the human population are to blame for this disregard.(Safdie, 2022).
6.2. EIA And Other Provisions
Before deciding to move forward, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) evaluates the ecological implications of a plan, policy, program, or project. EIA is typically used to assess ongoing initiatives by people or businesses(Ekhlas Jasim Resen, 2023).
An assessment under EIA aims to ensure that decision-makers consider a project’s potential environmental impacts before deciding whether to move forward with it. Before making significant choices and commitments, the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA)((IAIA), International Association for Impact Assessment, 1999) describes EIA as detecting, anticipating, analyzing, and neutralizing the physical, social, and other relevant effects of development projects.(Viola M. Bruschi, 2018)Environmental impact assessment (EIA) standards for water-based growth initiatives were implemented throughout Bangladesh in 1992. In 1995 and 1997, respectively, the nation created its laws and regulations (Momtaz, 2002).All significant donor organizations with operations in Bangladesh have implemented strict EIA rules. However, supervision needs to be given more attention, and donor agency criteria play a significant role in effectively implementing EIAs. The framework to guarantee adequate EIA is also insufficient, and there needs to be more collaboration among the numerous entities engaged in environmental decision-making processes (Momtaz, Environmental impact assessment in Bangladesh: A critical review, 2002).
For any suggested operations expected to cause significant adverse effects on the natural environment, the national government ought to evaluate the environmental impact, according to the 17th principle of the 1992 Rio Declaration. As a result, EIA is a vital process that must be carried out before beginning any construction activities in ecologically vulnerable places, like Bangladesh’s Chattogram Hill Tracts. Bangladesh must adhere to this rule because it is a signatory to the Rio Declaration (Okwuchukwu, 2019).
According to Mufidul Alam, the director of the Department of the Environment ( DoE ) (Chattogram Division), the project’s environmental impact assessment request still needs to be submitted to the department (Najifa Farhat, 2021).Furthermore, after devoting much effort, they could not submit an EIA for the CRB project or a positive response from the relevant authority authorizing the project’s continuation.
6.3. Domestic Law Perspective
The people of Chattogram have always greeted blossoming endeavours by the State and co-operated wholeheartedly. Here the issue in question is not the undertaking but the area specified for the project enactment, i.e., CRB, which is metaphorically anointed the lung of Chattogram. The People of Chattogram have used their constitutional entitlements, particularly the freedom of assembly guaranteed by Article 37 of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh Constitution(Bangladesh, 1972). Under acceptable limits set by legislation for the betterment of public order or health, this provision permits citizens to congregate and participate in nonviolent public gatherings and processions.Because the CRB hospital project will harm the natural environment, the right of individuals to express their disapproval is fundamental and essential.
Notwithstanding worries about potential damage to the ecology and its very nature, the Bangladesh Railway has firmly endorsed the construction of a healthcare facility and medical institution at CRB, Chattogram(Shilpi, 2021).It additionally criticized the negative press coverage of the hospital’s construction. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that the location has become an official national monument and was previously recognized by the CDA as a heritage or archaeological site. Therefore, any growth plans should not endanger the environment because they would have significantly less of an influence than they would on the ecosystem.
The safeguarding of all national monuments is guaranteed under Article 24 of the Bangladeshi Constitution(Bangladesh P. R., 2012), which also orders the State to take action to avoid their desecration, harm, or destruction. This clause applies to the CRB site in Chattogram, a national landmark and historical location. Hence, it has become the responsibility of the governing body to protect this area and stop the suggested construction project from destroying it.The proposed development has also infringed Articles 18A, 24, and 32 of the Bangladeshi Constitution(Bangladesh P. R., 2012). The residents of Chattogram consider the CRB, thanks to its luxuriant flora, to be a source of life and are opposed to the greed-driven, ecocidal construction proposal. Any plan to proceed with the project while ignoring these legal requirements would be unconstitutional.
6.3.1. The Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act, 2012
The CDA has recognized the Chattogram Railway Building (CRB) Area as a site of heritage or historical significance that necessitates “protection and conservation for historical, architectural, environmental, or ecological point of view” and serves as an important symbol of the colonial era.The State must safeguard and preserve natural assets such as wetland areas, wildlife, forests, and ecological diversity for generations to come, as stated in Article 18A of the Bangladeshi Constitution (Bangladesh P. R., 2012), which relates to the preservation and enhancement of the natural environment and biodiversity. The declaration of a human right to specific ecological circumstances is an environmentalright(Ahmed, Conservation of ECAs, 2017).
The Government of Bangladesh passed the Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act, 2012(Bangladesh P. R., 2012)to safeguard and preserve forests, wildlife, and biodiversity(Islam, 2022). The primary piece of legislation in Bangladesh for preserving nature and biodiversity has emerged as this Act. A Wildlife Advisory Board comprised of specialists in protecting the environment, forests, and wilderness may be created by the governing body under Section 3(1)(Ahmed, Revisiting the Wildlife Preservation and Security Act, 2012, 2018). The Board is tasked with evaluating the status of preserving biodiversity, nature, and forests and offering recommendations under section 3(2). While sections 7, 8, and 9 address the detection of fragile, threatened with extinction, and severely threatened species, the eradication of wild creatures, and the scattering of wild animals, section 6 forbids the acquisition of wild animals and plants.Under the rules in the Wildlife Act of 2012 (Bangladesh P. R., 2012)CRB is categorized as a region including forest, natural features, wildlife, threatened species, and animals.In addition, building a hospital project by destroying serenity violates several provisions of this Act.
6.4. International Law
Though no international legislation codified against ecocide, several nations accepted the initiative and began formulating stringent statutes against it. Vietnam was the only nation to codify a National Ecocide Law in 1990.
Additionally, nations including Georgia, Armenia, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Ecuador, and Tajikistan have made ecocide a crime. Making ecocide a global offense is a difficult but uncomplicated procedure. Any of the 123 member countries may submit a law-making proposal to the Assembly in December 2022 to change the Rome Statute (Hasan, 2022).
In the Republic of Bangladesh, a legislative board headed by Saber Hossain Chowdhury recommended that the government declare ecocide, comparable to genocide which is subject to the law (Hasan, 2022).Bangladesh has already started an anti-ecocide initiative, and development initiatives must now be more lush, inclusive, and resilient to climate change.By highlighting the need to stop the enormous environmental destruction, the crime of ecocide would raise the magnitude of ecological harm. Therefore, no one must ignore this massive act of environmental and climate catastrophe. The Rio Declaration’s Principle 3(Nations, 1992) stipulates that the nation-state shall equally implement the right to development to address the ecological and developmental demands of future generations. The principle suggests that every development initiative should be carried out after considering what will be left for the following generation instead of just the current one.The environment has already suffered from global warming, so we must exercise greater caution and adopt protective measures; otherwise, we would be engraving the graveyard for the future generation and violating another law.
According to the Rio Declaration’s 4th Principle (Nations, 1992), safeguarding the environment must be a crucial component of all developmental activities to achieve sustainable growth and cannot be addressed separately. Therefore, during any development project, the Government must protect the atmosphere or environment of that place from the start to the beginning at all times as a priority and not obliging it will violate this provision.
6.5. Awareness ~ Legal Rights
Socialization sets the stage for environmental protection and management.Along with publicizing environmental regulations, the government must put them into action through supervision and fines to raise industrial parties’ understanding of the need to abide by the law and for the general public to gain their legal rights to healthy environmental standards.The Supreme court should issue orders encouraging environmental education and awareness across the nation. It opens the door to introducing ecological/constitutional education, not just in the classroom but also at colleges(Johnson, 2020).Recently, the state and its citizens have been under the fundamental duty and responsibility of protecting and improving the environment, as we saw in the CRB incident at Chattogram. Everyone, including the Government, should be obligated to safeguard the flora and fauna while having a civic insight towards the climate. Bangladeshi democracy depends on the welfare of its people, and active participation must not lead to submission to monocracy, which will damage the environment and create ecological imbalance. Positive judicial and legal initiatives are required to revitalize the field of environmental law despite its adversarial problems(Johnson, 2020).
7. Cases On Conflicts
Some cases from the past protests and conflicts are listed down on the above Table 1 to give a comparative view on how protests put pressure on imposed proposals which will harm the citizen’s wellbeing. But not all the cases are successful as the cases stated above. Incidents like Chernobyl showed the biggest nightmare in mankind’s history as people weren’t aware at the right moment about their legislative rights as they’re ignorant about the immeasurable effect of nuclear station. Selfish insensitive planning decisions and their aftermaths are evident in human history with the uncountable loss of human, wildlife and many more.Locals battling to safeguard wetlands in coastal Andhra Pradesh or those organized by the Bhoomi Sena in Maharashtra against the projected bullet train may not be driven by concerns about climate change but rather a desire to maintain control over their lands, other resources, and means of subsistence. However, their struggles both directly and indirectly address climate change(Adve, 2019).
8. Discussion and Recommendation
Urban planning revolves around social, economic, political aspects of any city. Whenever any development is processed, it holds a promise too rarely or unequally fulfilled of real change for the better. We seem to accept that power play in developments is main key while it is leveled as corruption in decision making. Three aspects need to be checked while citizen’s demand is addressed by reevaluating any planning project in three steps that is to include Urban, Climate or relevant experts in decision making, then to open the floor for public trial, hence combining all the reports for feasibility of following projects. We need to put more focus on constitutional gadgets that enforce laws and legislations. If we delve deeper into the matter, we can see that there are restrictions on hill cutting, but the penalty fee or amount for violating the hill cutting laws is not justified. Due to the lack of proper scrutiny, beneficial stakeholders tend to find loopholes in the law. According to Bangladesh National Building Code 2008, approval and amendment fee for hill cutting is BDT 30,000/- per bigha. However, there are certain parties who are exploiting this regulation by fraudulently cutting hills and then seeking an amendment, thus allowing them to pay the penalty and repeat their illicit actions. Shockingly, the responsible authorities appear to be oblivious to these despicable acts, and this lack of action is only emboldening more individuals to partake in such nefarious activities. We have seen that protests do not always yield the expected results from the discussed cases. However, they serve as a potent reminder that the public is vigilant and will not tolerate any form of destruction. Moreover, the active involvement of citizens serves as a means to keep officials accountable for their actions, ensuring that they act in the best interests of the people they serve. Protest is always the last step of citizen’s anguish. As a concerned citizen, it is crucial to take action to prioritize the protection of the environment in reclaiming the city’s rights.This can be achieved through educating the public on sustainable practices and encouraging mindful actions. In addition, laws must be put in place to prevent harmful planning practices that damage the environment. Using unsustainable methods and chemicals in construction and development projects must be prohibited with proper scrutiny.Hefty fines and penalties should be imposed on individuals and companies that engage in activities that harm the environment. They should have some guidelines for protest if it’s inevitable, Protestors must have a concise message, maintain a peaceful approach, exercise discretion on social media, assemble a legal team, and demonstrate respect towards law enforcement. They must collaborate to guarantee that their protest is effective and secure.
9. Conclusion
We have laws, legislations, but on most of the instances, we can see the ignorance of general people, as they are least aware about their own rights. Always law cannot save the humankind if it is unknown. Public participation does not justify the illogical demand, but it can always cut the litigation cost and increase probability of sustainable solutions as it creates accountability and belongingness among citizens.A well-known Indian case, MC Mehta v. Union of India 1987, AIR 1086, emphasized the importance of establishing initiatives such as developing human conduct in accordance with legal standards.Our government should take necessary steps to ensure that people understand how vital it is to conform their behavior to legal obligations.The judicial system might also mandate radio stations, websites, newspapers, and television stations to broadcast environmental awareness campaigns. The Supreme Court can also state that every district and the educational board should promote and facilitate environmental education.
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About the Authors
Rahanat Ara Jafar is a highly motivated individual who combines her passion for education, research, and social advocacy to create a harmonious blend of architecture and humanitarianism. Currently serving as an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture at the Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology, she is known for her research on the “Handloom Community of Bangladesh,” which earned her accolades during her B.Arch thesis. Rahanat’s commitment extends beyond academia as she actively engages in social projects and volunteers for slum children’s education. Rahanat is a dedicated member of the Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center and a Campus Ambassador for Campaign Red Works, which significantly impacts various domains. She’s studying for a Master’s in Architecture with a holistic approach at Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology. Rahanat’s publications range from urban protests to innovative homestead designs, demonstrating her commitment to reshaping societal narratives through architectural insights.
Farhana Hoque, an architecture graduate from Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET) is an academician whose fields of study have been linked to sustainable community development and urban design, particularly in the theme of waterscapes. At present, she is employed as a lecturer at Leading University, Sylhet, Bangladesh. However, apart from working as an academician, she is actively involved in social and volunteer work. In 2022, she received a grant from the British Council for her research work. She also participated as a speaker in a panel discussion session on the topic of “Women in Innovation and Technology” at the Women in Leadership Summit 2023. Farhana is an optimistic individual who believes that any function could be resolved by analysis and investigation, as depicted in her work.
Shahriar Sakib Chowdhury, a passionate advocate for positive change, embarked on a transformative journey from a young age. At 16, he collaborated with Better Future Bangladesh, witnessing the profound impact of collective efforts. Inspired by the visionary Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Shahriar joined the Bangladesh Student’s League, honing leadership skills and fostering connections. Active in various university clubs and organizations, including mooting, debating, and cultural clubs, he showcased a commitment to continuous learning. His leadership extends to advocacy for socialization and humanitarian efforts. Shahriar, a distinguished participant representing his country in the International Round and securing the 6th spot among the oralists in the national round of the Philips C Jessup International Moot Court Competition, authored profound Legal Research Papers, notably exploring Predatory Pricing Practices in Bangladesh. In his LLM journey, he weaves the threads of his life’s narrative into a canvas of experiences, continuously striving for excellence.
The foundations of human civilization have grown based on water bodies such as rivers, lakes, and canals. Almost all significant ancient civilizations, such as Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley, Mohenjo-Daro, and Harappa, had originated on river banks. As all living creatures require water and life cannot be sustained without it, modern urban areas are also developed using the same principles, with the source of water or catchment region being nearby. Urban water bodies serve a multi-functional role in the metropolis, alongside being a source of water for agriculture, irrigation, fishing, landscaping, and ecotourism, all of which have a positive social impact. It can also be utilized to prevent water logging and mitigate the heat island effects in order to improve urban microclimates. However, increased human interference and intervention in catchment areas have also accelerated the processes of siltation and sedimentation within these water bodies. Therefore, it is essential to give sufficient weight to the planning and retention processes. Otherwise, without proper management of urban water bodies, it can also affect the urban area. Shamasundori, a 16-kilometer-long artificial canal that runs through the Rangpur metropolis, is a more than 129-year-old traditional canal which is being hampered because of pollution and illegal occupancy. This study analyzes the Shamasundori canal’s impact on Rangpur city. The study aims to address the importance of retention of the canal. The paper evaluated the historical and current developments in the Shamasundori Canal using statistical analysis. Based on the field survey, existing canal information will be collected and with the help of the literature studies, urban water bodies planning strategies and restoration policies will be assembled. Finally, the paper will discuss the need to preserve the canal and a few environmental benefits which could happen through restoring the canal.
Water, as one of the most vital natural resources for life, has always played a significant role in the establishment and formation of settlements in most parts of the world throughout the history of modern civilization. Before urban modernization, as rivers, streams, springs and groundwater were the only source of water, human settlements used to be formed around them (Kurochkina, 2020). Water creates magical and exciting environments that strengthen the settlements of the city’s cohesion and sustainability. Many modern cities are blessed to have inland water sources whereas some lack a comprehensive waterfront. Some cities often have urban waterways like rivers and canals however, others usually cut through their urban fabric to meet the need for water (Rahana.H, 2020). Many inland water sources are used to serve multiple purposes such as drainage, irrigation, water supply, hydroelectric power generation, and navigation. Although, the metabolization of water to serve urban consumption through drinking, agriculture, irrigation, fishing, wastewater, landscaping, ecotourism, and canals to prevent water logging or reduce heat island effects is a necessary but understudied aspect of urbanization in Bangladeshi cities. Owing to the fact that the constant negligence and lack of maintenance of rivers and canals, is now an emerging issue of urbanization in most of cities. Many rivers and canals now must be regulated and maintained to make them fully navigable, allowing vessels to move from one water level to another due to the lay of the topography and particularly changes in water levels. It is essential that we must shift our focus to urban blue spaces in order to maximize and accelerate their potential for urban growth. Water as an asset in urban living can be reintroduced by integrating water systems with urban development. There are multiple tools and methods available for developing innovative integrated water systems (Davies, 2022).
The urban canal is one of the unique structures in the city that can provide ecological resources, economic benefits, and opportunities for socialization and recreation for city dwellers. Canals allowed cities to thrive, establishing well-known epicenters such as Venice, Suzhou, and Amsterdam. Waterways evolved into streets, complete with shops, restaurants, and residences. Canal architecture is inherently concerned with liminal situations. While canals can be built by damming, dredging, or modifying existing river paths, but these methods are typically associated with larger urban development (Baldwin, 2021).
Based on the most recent objective studies from fieldwork in Rangpur metropolitan city, the studied canal, Shamashundori, is basically a channel that connects two points of the Ghaghot river that flows through the city. The canal, Shamashundori, which was once excavated for the improvement of the town, is now in very poor condition, causing misery in the city. The canal flows naturally throughout the city. The canal has served the city for many years but has never been properly upgraded or preserved. Though, according to the Rangpur divisional town master plan 2010-2030, The primary land uses in waterfront regions are for leisure and commercial purposes. However, without understanding the quality of urban space, standards, the morphology of the area and guidelines for waterfront development, and urban design principles and technique, it is very challenging to implement the desired land use based on an outline zoning plan, which is more of a quantitative approach (Karmaker, 2022).
Thus, this study. which are both intimate and expansive in scale, are concluded through lively sections and hierarchical layouts of canal Shamasundori, as well as aims to identify a set of performance measurement indicators that will provide contextual findings for Rangpur and evaluate the existing canal system’s performance, because using indicators appropriate for cities in developed countries may not provide a realistic visualization for the city. The research focuses on the potential solutions that celebrate the dynamics of modern canals and landscapes.
2. Literature Review
2.1. Canal’s Evolution and Classification
The Old French term channel, which means “channel,” is where the word “canal” first appeared (Bhuiyan, n.d.). A manmade open waterway is a canal. It has a natural channel or perceptible depression with water flowing through it consistently or sporadically, or it serves as a connector between other bodies of water (Banglapedia, 2021).
In the past, canals were frequently employed to reduce the distance between two sites (Dutta & Sarkar, 2020). For example, the Rhine-Marne canal was built to connect two rivers. Besides, Canals were presumably initially designed for irrigation, but as technology advanced, they were also made for navigation. Ship travel distances have decreased because of canals, such as the Suez Canal (finished in 1869) and the Panama Canal (1914). The invention of modern technologies and creative design approaches have made it possible to build canals for both international trade and inland water transportation (Dutta & Sarkar, 2020).
Based on construction, there are two categories of canals, conveyance canals, and navigation canals. Conveyance canals are dug to transport water for agriculture, drainage, or power. Conveyance canals are often walled with earth, narrow, and capable of quickly moving large volumes of water. The most crucial factors in canal building are water availability, differences in land and water levels, slope. It is reported that the construction of irrigation canals in Bengal began more than 3,000 years ago. Since that time, building conveyance canals has become a common practice nationwide. Navigation Canal construction is done to aid navigation (Banglapedia, 2021).
The types of canals extend beyond their key functions. Some of the main functions of canals include carrying stormwater in the event of severe rains, safeguarding the nearby area from flooding, directly affecting the microclimate of the area, giving the public much-needed visual comfort, balancing the environment, and preventing pollution levels. Depending on certain criteria, these have been categorized into a variety of types (Dutta & Sarkar, 2020). Table 1 below lists them all.
Table 1. Classification of Canal based on different parameters. [Source: (Bhuiyan, n.d.), (Banglapedia, 2021)]
SL.NO
PARAMETER
CLASSIFICATIONS OF CANAL
1.
Based on Usage
Conveyance
Navigation
2.
Based on Construction
Aqueducts
Waterways
2.
Based on Discharge
Main canal
Branch canal
Major distributary
Minor distributary
Watercourse or field channel
3.
Based on Provider
Unlined canal
Lined canal
4.
Based on Alignment
Contour canal
Watershed canal
Side slope canal
2.2. Canal-oriented Development
The city and the canal coexist peacefully according to multidimensional behavioral patterns that produce benefits for both parties. Both share a mutually beneficial existence that may be observed in terms of their physical and functional traits. Therefore, it is difficult to keep the city and the canal in constant equilibrium as they develop (Soumyadeep & Sanghamitra, 2020).
The goal of canal-oriented development (COD), a placemaking idea, is to build mixed-use communities along canal banks by utilizing the waterfront’s appeal and practicality as a natural magnet for societal and economic activity (Buckman, 2017).
The primary benefit of COD is that it gives developers the freedom to build on a large number of sites along the area it drains. Dependent on the feeling of place created by water sensitivity, there may be separate zones along the route based on activity and size. Neighborhood and public areas are constructed focusing on sustainability and functionally solved infrastructure (Soumyadeep & Sanghamitra, 2020).
COD can use as a redevelopment or design tool. The canals would use to encourage waterfront development, which is enlisted below:
-By promoting pedestrian activity on foot,
-For leisure and recreational purposes, spaces could create in canal surroundings.
-When appropriate, offering the ideal calming backdrop for construction projects.
-Transit-oriented development (TOD) on inland waterways for the transportation of people and goods.
-Support the local economy for the neighborhood’s residents (Buckman, 2017).
-Keep the natural equilibrium intact (Bindu & Mohamed, 2016) .
-Ensure environmental safety of waterbody (Kurochkina, 2020).
2.3. Environmental Benefits of Water body
2.3.1. Mitigate water clogging
Flooding is a typical occurrence in Bangladesh during the monsoon season, although its frequency and severity have grown recently. Despite numerous factors, the area’s inactive and haphazard drainage system is one of the primary causes (Sabnam et al., 2021).
It is discovered from a case in Chennai that every lake there has a natural flood discharge route that drains the spillover. Water bodies mitigate water clogging and reduce flooding. However, building infrastructure over water bodies prevents water from flowing freely (Wan et al., 2020).
2.3.2. Reduce on heat island effect
The urban heat island effect, or the phenomenon in which cities are warmer than their rural environs, occurs in almost every metropolis. Cities retain more heat than open, unpaved areas due to their high building density and paved surfaces. Cities can experience temperature differences of 3 to 7 degrees at night and 1 to 3 degrees during the day, with temperatures rising even more in clear, calm weather. The energy requirements for heating and cooling as well as the local ecosystems can all be significantly impacted by the heat island effect. Understanding how the water cycle operates is crucial for reducing these risks (Climate, 2016).
Water bodies effectively absorb shortwaves via evaporation and have efficient emissivity. On the other hand, the water surface energy can also go through water bodies through conduction, convection, and advection. Investigative investigations revealed that 100-meter-long water bodies on a small scale can lower heat during the day (Kemarau & Eboy, 2020). Urban water basins that are commonly open and surrounded by trees provide cooling on hot days (Jacobs et al., 2020).
2.4. Water Policies of Bangladesh
The water policy was established in 1999, approximately 16 years back (Government of Bangladesh, 1999). Bangladesh’s most recent and significant water policy is the 2013 Water Act. It incorporates information from earlier water rules and supersedes all earlier water-related regulations (WARPO, n.d.). In addition, several other regulations cross over and relate to the canal, such as The Environment Conservation Act of 1995, the National Policy for Safe, Water Supply & Sanitation 1998, and the Integrated Small-Scale Irrigation Policy 2011.
The gap between water policy and practice illustrated the following:
The Water Act of 2013 is generally a solid policy. However, several areas, including water pollution and the provision of drinking water, are not effectively addressed, and there are some inconsistencies with prior water policies and other related policies.
There are conflicts in scope where it is unclear which agency is in charge of carrying out specific operations. In addition, there are scope inconsistencies where it is unclear which agency is in charge of carrying out specific tasks.
The requirements for implementing mechanisms could be improved in some ways, but overall, the mechanisms are adequate (Petrie et al., 2015).
Another critical problem is that most people are not sufficiently aware of the importance of efficient water use, according to field observations (Kabir & Das, 2015).
The integration of natural water bodies or channels into urban planning and design framework is not specified by any building construction regulations, building codes, planning regulations, or wetland acts in Bangladesh (Mowla, 2013).
2.5. Water Retention Measures
Natural water retention measures (NWRMs) serve a variety of purposes. By restoring or sustaining ecosystems as well as the natural features and qualities of water bodies through natural means and processes, it seeks to safeguard water resources and manage water-related concerns. Enhancing the retention capacity of aquifers, soil, and aquatic and water-dependent ecosystems is the principal objective of adopting NWRM to improve their state. The use of NWRM promotes green infrastructure, enhances the quantitative state of water bodies in general, and lessens a region’s susceptibility to floods and droughts (Zeleňáková et al., 2017).
Figure 1: (A) Natural water retention measures and selected policy initiatives & (B) NWRSMs categories [Source:(Zeleňáková et al., 2017), (Cis et al., 2014)]
Selected policy initiatives are shown in Figure 1(A). NWRM can contribute to Water Framework, Green infrastructure, Climate change adaptation strategy, and Flood Directives goals.(Zeleňáková et al., 2017) Aquifer recharge, large-scale floodplain and wetland restoration, small-scale ponds, and soil conservation techniques are a few examples of the diverse strategies that formulate NWRM. They can be categorized into four groups, as shown in Figure 1 (B) (Cis et al., 2014).
3. Methodology
The study uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Different secondary data have been gathered from various sources for the quantitative analysis. On the other hand, primary data have been used in qualitative analysis. Besides, the full investigation was conducted from 1 June 2022 to 15 October 2022. The research framework provides a diagrammatic summary of the procedures followed during the research process and its results. See figure 2 below.
The research work has not made use of any theoretical assessment model. First, a discussion of related terms based on a survey of the literature will aid in understanding some definitions and contexts for this issue. The literature review has helped highlight the value of having water bodies in urban design and the advantages the canal Shamasundori offers for the environment. In order to analyze chronological changes, satellite photos were used to examine present condition of Shamasundori Canal. The analysis uses zoning map to provide information. Information about the existing canals will be gathered based on the field survey and with the assistance of the key interview informants. In addition, both primary and secondary data contribute to our understanding of the canal’s morphology. According to the site survey, a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) is performed here—these aids in the search for potential canal planning schemes and retention policies. In order to investigate various suggestions for urban water body design strategy, some case studies are also examined. After that, some design strategies have applied comparing the existing canal area. Finally, future research possibilities have also discussed.
Figure 2. The research framework. (Source: Authors)
4. Study Area Profile
This study focuses on Rangpur’s canal network and morphological structures. Rangpur, one of Bangladesh’s newest city corporations, is endowed with natural resources such as open spaces, parks, and water bodies in the heart of the city. It is geographically located between 25°56′ North latitudes and 89°25′ East longitudes. RpCC [Rangpur City Corporation] covers an area of 203.63 square kilometers and has a population of 7,96,556 people divided into 33 wards. Rangpur is situated on the banks of the river Ghagat, a tributary of the Teesta. The canal, Shamasundori, is a branch of the Ghaghat river that runs through the city [Figure 3].
Figure 3. The Location of the study area. (Source: Google map modified by Authors)
4.1. Historical Background of Shamasundori
Rangpur, one of the country’s oldest municipalities, was established as a District Seat (Zila Sadar) on December 16, 1769, and as a municipality in 1869. According to folklore, the canal, Shamasundoriwas excavated in 1890 under the supervision of Raja Janaki Ballav Sen as part of the development of the city area in memory of his mother, Queen Shyama Sundari. He was the son of Rangpur zamindar, Chaudhurani Shyam Sundari Devi (Devi Chaudhurani) and Raja Janaki vallabh Sen. He was the Chairman of Rangpur Municipality from 1892 to 1894 and later served as Honorary Magistrate, Chairman of the Local Board, and District Board Member. In 1891, he was crowned as king. According to the legend, Rangpur once had an outbreak of malaria, diarrhoea, cholera, and spring fever due to waterlogging as there was no proper sewage system in this area and many people are said to have died prematurely as a result of that. Throughout that outbreak, the queen bride of Dimla, Chaudhurani Shyama Sundari Devi had also died prematurely of malaria due to the bite of that mosquito which was fostered due to water logging of the city. (Apple, 21.03.2016) Soon afterward, Janaki Ballav Sen, her bereaved son, dug this canal in memory of his mother for eight years, from 1890 to 1898., to prevent the mosquito infestation in Rangpur city.(Huda, Jan 14, 2020) (Jalil, 2014).
4.2. Morphological Analysis of Study Area
Rangpur City Corporation is divided into 33 wards. The core city is divided into wards 12 to 30, with 16-28 wards holding majority of the population and residences (Sabnam et al., 2021). Shamasundori, a 16-kilometer-long artificial canal is a branch of the Ghaghat river in Rangpur, Bangladesh, was excavated for the improvement of the town, in 1890. The canal runs from the Kellaband Ghaghat river in the north-west through all of the city’s neighborhoods, including Pashari Para, Kerani Para, Munsi Para, Engineer Para, Gomsta Para, Sen Para, Mulatol, through Tentultala, Nurpur, Bairagipara to the Mahiganj Satmatha Railgate area, where it meets the KD Canal and rejoins the Khoksa Ghaghat river. Water from the Teesta used to flow into the Ghaghat river and that water flowed through the Shamasundoricanal before rejoining the Ghaghat. This river was once navigable. As a result, many commercial zones like Nawabganj and Mirganj, had been developed in Rangpur throughout that time period. However, the rivers changed its course as a result of the 1787 earthquake and this branch of the Ghaghat river had died at some point. Since the establishment of Rangpur City Corporation and division, the population has grown to over one million people. Large buildings, business establishments, restaurants, and houses have been constructed near the Shamasundori canal, occupying the canal space. According to legend, the canal was initially 40 to 120 feet wide, which has been now narrowed down into 8 to 10 feet width for negligence over the time.
Figure 4. The land use map of the site. (Source: Google map modified by Authors)
Rangpur city corporations has no natural or man-made forests. However, there is ample cropland for farming. The main planted trees here are homestead forest and roadside trees. According to the land use map [Figure 4], planted trees and farm land are declining slowly, owing primarily to urbanization. This is a result of the transformation of farm lands into urban areas, as well as other development activities. According to the land use maps, all of these changes occurred in the city’s north-western suburbs. The majority of farmland is lying on the city’s southern and northern outskirts, with a rising residential zone in between [Figure 4].
4.3. Statistical Analysis of Waterlogging Problem of the Study Area
Rangpur is a major metropolitan city in northern Bangladesh with a population of around 16000000 people. Water logging is one of the major problems in the Rangpur City. Previously, this particular region of Bangladesh was known as a drought prone area due to a lack of rainfall. However, during the monsoon season from June to August, the study area receives medium to heavy rainfall. In recent years, there has been a rise in the intensity of rainfall. In September, 2020, the majority of the city has been submerged because of excessive rainfall in a short period of time during the monsoon season. By breaking a 60-year rainfall record, a 433 mm rainfall in 12 hours flooded the whole city for almost two days. The residents of the city experienced at least 2 foot or 3 foot water congestion throughout this. Figure 5 portrays the amount of average rainfall in millimeters from 2001 to 2020, indicating that rainfall in this area is gradually increasing.
Figure 5. Average Rainfall (mm) (2001-2020). [Source: (Sabnam et al., 2021)]
The number of days with water logging has grown as rainfall has increased as shown in Table 2. This has been more apparent in recent years. Every year during the monsoon, Hanuman Tola, Islambagh, New Jummapara, Munshipara, Keranipara, Robertsonganj, Kotowali Thana region, Mahiganj, Haragachh, Shalban, Ganeshpur, Kamarpara, Mulatol, Masterpara, Bonanipara, and Lalbagh experience the most severe scenario.
Table 2. Number of day’s water logging. [Source: (Sabnam et al., 2021)]
The primary causes of this crisis are the inactivity and deterioration of the Shamasundori canal, which runs through the city. The topographical condition, insufficient and inefficient drainage system, minimal maintenance, and lack of dredging has also worsened the situation. Geographically the central Rangpur City is lower in elevation compared to the surrounding areas, which eventually leads to water logging. Again, due to increased population, the number of open lands and ponds is decreasing, and a poor drainage system prevents rainwater from draining away, intensifying the severity of water logging. Here, Figure 6 depicts the spatial degree and extent of flood vulnerability in the Rangpur district as determined by spatial vulnerability mapping (Sabnam et al., 2021).
The Shamasundori canal connects to the Gaghat river, a branch of the Teesta which runs through the Gaibandha, Rangpur and Nilphamari. When the peak level of the Teesta rises during the monsoon, the peak level of the Ghaghat rises as well. If the flow of the Shamasundori canal remains uninterrupted, the likelihood of flooding in Rangpur district is reduced. Table 3 shows the peak water level of the Ghaghat river during the monsoon season from 1998 to 2007 and 2020, respectively.
Table 3. Comparison of Hydrograph on Ghagot at Gaibandha. [Source: (BWDB, 2020)]
4.4. Circulation & Accessibility of the Canal
The Shamasundori canal, a Ghaghat river brunch, runs from Baktarpur, CO bazar area (25°46’24.6″N 89°13’15.8″E) in the north-west through the city and rejoins the Khoksa Ghaghat river near Sekh para in the south-east (25°41’09.4″N 89°15’21.3″E). The canal traverses through all of the city’s neighborhoods, including residential, commercial and farmland area. Running through passing Pashari Para, Kerani Para, Munsi Para, Engineer Para, Gomsta Para, Sen Para, Mulatol, Tentultala, Nurpur, Bairagipara, Mahiganj Satmatha Railgate area, to Sekh para the canal never lost its connection as well as near Satmatha Rail gate area, it splits into two sections that eventually meet the Chikli lake and Ghaghat river accordingly. The city’s road network was built considering the flow of canal and bridge and box culverts were installed when required [Figure 7].
Figure 7. Road network of the study area. (Source: Google map modified by Authors)
4.5. Existing Condition of the Canal
The Shamasundori canal, which once was an exhilarating source of natural beauty and clear water, has now become a source of misery for the city’s residents due to human activity. There are hardly any water flows through the canal right now, on the other hand, it has lost her beauty as a result of negligence over the years. Because of the canal’s black-colored polluted water and stench of garbage, it is now difficult to even walk along it. According to the locals, the 16-kilometer canal has been narrowed to eight to ten feet in many places, making it an extremely dirty place and a breeding ground for mosquitos and other diseases. Furthermore, it overflows and causes flooding and water-logging in the city whenever it rains. People concerned blamed the canal’s poor condition on widespread encroachment, waste dumping, and a lack of re-excavation. Nonetheless, some residents even had connected their home’s sewerage system to the canal.
Figure 8. The Zoning map of the site. (Source: Google map modified by Authors)
Although the then chairman of Rangpur municipality, AKM Abdur Rauf Manik, took the initiative in February 2012 to renovate the 12 km Shamasundari canal, build and excavate a bridge over the canal, and call for a tender to the local government engineering department within a budget of Tk around 25crore, but the contracting firms disregarded the rules and billed without completing the work. According to a source in Nagar Bhavan, the tender called for boulders to be installed on both sides of the Shyamasundari Canal for 12 kilometers, footpaths to be built on both sides of the canal, and three bridges to be built over the canal. However, no work has been done on the three kilometers between the Sadar Hospital and the Grand Hotel Mor via Gomstapara, apart from the park adjacent to the Keramatiya Mosque in Kerani para road (Figure 8, image D), only place, where the boulders were placed on both sides of some parts of the canal, footpaths were built on both sides of the canal and three bridges were constructed without digging the canal at all (Sajjad Hossain Bappi, 11.02.2019) (Nazrul Islam Razu, 05.02.2022).
Incidentally, an embankment has been constructed at some point along the canal near Baktarpur, as the Cantonment is close by (Figure 8, image A). Other places, however, such as Satmatha (Figure 8, image G), Mahiganj (Figure 8, image H), and Tajhat (Figure 8, image I), have no development like this except for the existing culvert that connects both sides of the canal. The canal, on the other hand, is treated as the back side of the residential zone in some areas, such as Pasari para (Figure 8, image B), Kotki para (Figure 8, image C), Honumantola (Figure 8, image E), and Kotowali thana (Figure 8, image F). Even though it is considered the backside of the house, a walking path exists on both sides of the canal in some areas such as Pasari para (Figure 8, image B) and Kotki para (Figure 8, image C).
The SWOT diagram in the study area has shown in Table 4.
Table 4. The SWOT Diagram of the study.
5. Result and Discussion
To solve the existing problem strategic measure, need to be taken. The most damaged sites should be located first in order to address the water logging and pollution issues. According to their degree of vulnerability, such locations should likewise receive priority. The matter will be resolved by authorities after analysis of the field survey. With the rising population and home size, drainage facilities need to be improved and regulated.
The local population must be taken into account when designing the canal. There is adequate room along the canal in many places to build recreational areas for locals. This will provide canal connectivity to the inhabitants. The design development process can open to community members as well. Like this, they will have a sense of belongings for the canal. However, safety measures must also be properly considered as well.
The study offers several applications at the planning level based on the parameter discussion in the upper portion. The following section contains several conceptual design options for the Keranipara, the Kotki Para, and the Kotowali thana roads.
The Shamasundori runs through a variety of areas in Rangpur, including residential, business, and recreational areas. Both the site and the canal’s surroundings would be modified based on various land uses.
In the initial stage of planning, water recycling, excavation of the canal, and proper waste management will help to improve the living conditions of the surroundings. Then, the minimal intervention of nature will preserve the environment in its harmonious state.
For public spaces like Keranipara Road, the placemaking concept could be applied where a connection could build up between the public and the place [Figure 9]. The design must be eco-friendly and sustainable also. People would stay in the region and create memories if there are more pedestrian walkways, rest areas, and activity areas. Since the area needs more recreational activities, food carts, kid-friendly areas, and cycling zone are suggested to draw more visitors.
The Kotki para road and the Kotowali thana road are residential areas. It is very important to consider the surroundings when designing because the surroundings are necessary element of the design. As neither residential area considered the canal to be its front, the area could be more vibrant with additional public activity. On the Kotki para road, there is less space on both sides of the existing canal. As a result, elevated decks are proposed in figure 10 as a recreational space that welcomes the canal water to flow naturally during the usual tidal flow and rainy season (Hoque & Sadia, 2018). Besides, fishing spots or boating excursions would increase the number of entertainment options for locals.
Figure 9. Conceptual section of Keranipara road.[Source: Generated from (NACTO, 2013), (NACTO, 2012), (UTTIPEC Delhi Development Authority, 2010)-by Authors ]
Figure 10. Proposed section of Kotki para road. [Source: Generated from (NACTO, 2013), (NACTO, 2012), (Hoque & Sadia, 2018), (UTTIPEC Delhi Development Authority, 2010)-by Authors]
According to figure 11, cycling lanes, planter boxes, and pedestrian walkways are recommended designing for Kotowali thana Road. The aesthetic attractiveness of the area may be improved by placing street furniture around the planter box. Additionally, residents could use the walkway to exercise in the morning. Since the canal is narrow, the retaining wall construction technique would follow instead of embankment.
Figure 11. Proposed section of Kotowali thana road. [Source: Generated from (NACTO, 2013), (NACTO, 2012), (UTTIPEC Delhi Development Authority, 2010)-by Authors]
Overall, in order to provide protection, the railing should be used on both sides of the canal when designing around it. The installation of streetlights will also ensure safety. Apart from that, soft pavement would be preferred over hard pavement for walkways because it is pervious to manage stormwater in the walkable area.
6. Conclusion
Waterbodies must be considered in city development since different types of water features play multiple functions for cities. Sometimes, the waterbodies carry include historical tales. Additionally, the presence of waterbodies contributes to the creation of a bond between the surrounding people and the place. So, it is crucial to protect those for both the environment and people.
The study examined that the Shamasundari canal, which was dug to keep the city clean, has now become a source of pollution. The canal functioning contexts are at risk. As a result, the area needs to be preserved for its historical and cultural significance. The study illustrates a few potential water-oriented development strategies and the advantages of conservation for the environment. Finally, the results of the study highlight how crucial it is to preserve the Shamasundari canal. The study has a limited timeline and did not explore pragmatic approach. Hence, there is scope for in depth study in the design and the planning level where community intervention of the design implication could be discussed.
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About the Authors
Wahida Rahman Nipun has recently completed her Bachelor of Architecture degree from Shahjalal University of Science & Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh. She has worked as a research assistant on the subject of “An Architectural Research Addressing Post-COVID-19 Challenges in the Urban Environment of Sylhet and Chattogram, Bangladesh.” As a student of architecture, she aspires to use architecture as a tool for any social issue as well as to induce the community to engage with it. Her commitment intensified as she participated in a workshop on low-cost housing, where she witnessed the remarkable impact of community efforts organized by Habitat for Humanity International in 2016. Therefore, her academic and research interests include community-based architecture focusing on informal urbanism, the cultural significance of urban spaces, sustainability, and resilience.
Farhana Hoque, an architecture graduate from Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET) is an academician whose fields of study have been linked to sustainable community development and urban design, particularly in the theme of waterscapes. At present, she is employed as a lecturer at Leading University, Sylhet, Bangladesh. However, apart from working as an academician, she is actively involved in social and volunteer work. In 2022, she received a grant from the British Council for her research work. She has also participated as a speaker in a panel discussion session on the topic of “Women in Innovation and Technology” at the Women in Leadership Summit 2023. Farhana is an optimistic individual who believes that any function could be resolved by analysis and investigation, as depicted in her work.
Historically, the capital city of a nation has played a pivotal role in shaping its “image, representation, and identity” (Lazar, 2005). Several countries opt to relocate their capital cities for various reasons, such as in response to a revolution, post-independence, or to establish a new political agenda (de Vries WT, 2021). According to Jenkins (2012), capital relocations are undertaken for several reasons such as to achieve neutrality (e.g., Lagos to Abuja in 1991, Melbourne to Canberra in 1927, Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia in 1960), embrace a more ‘Western’ orientation (e.g., Moscow to St Petersburg in 1712), preserve national unity (e.g., Auckland to Wellington in 1865), alleviate urban congestion (e.g., Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya in 1999), ensure self-defense (e.g., Yangon to Naypyidaw in 2005), or as a measure for risk management (e.g., Jakarta to East Kalimantan, Borneo, planned in 2024?).
In certain instances, the relocation of the capital involves establishing a newly constructed site, and visualizations play a significant role in advocating for the transition to these new cities in the current era characterized by heightened visual communication. For this purpose, diverse media, computers, and digital tools are extensively employed to depict the envisioned city. It is noteworthy that contemporary digital tools utilized for visualizing new capital cities tend to accentuate and address only specific segments of the urban landscape, primarily targeting elite populations. This selective emphasis is likely employed to attract investment and portray newly planned cities in a more favorable light (see Hendawy et al., in press).
Sometimes, the visualizations of future cities promoted in public media, private design studios, universities, and public streets may not accurately reflect the everyday experiences or perceptions of the majority of their citizens regarding the future of their cities (Hendawy and Stollmann, 2020 Hendawy and Saeed, 2020; Hendawy, 2021a; Hendawy, 2021b; Hendawy, 2022). Instead, these visualizations often present a singular perspective that may be construed as an objective truth, as it is influenced by groups holding significant epistemological power (D’Ignazio and Klein, 2020). Within this context, it is not always easy to tell whose voices are represented in a visualization because they are not traditionally designed to provide much information about who made them, why they made them, how to use them, or how they came to be. Taking this perspective into account, these visualizations, while appearing to represent the experiences of the public, can contribute to marginalization, disempowerment, and socio-spatial injustices. Consequently, such effects may impede vulnerable groups from accessing essential services and infrastructure (Hendawy, 2021a; Hendawy, 2022).
In this article, I perceive the communicated images of new cities as a form of visualization. I also deal with visualization as a medium of communication used by diverse actors, such as urban planners and city officials, to communicate urban visions and designs.
Drawing on the case of the capital relocation from Jakarta to the new city in East Kalimantan, Borneo, as an illustrative example highlighting the necessity for an alternative approach to urban visualization for comprehensive communication of new planned cities, this article contends that integrating connected latent data into communicated urban visualizations—referred to as urban-visualization annotations—could render invisible information visible. This, in turn, has the potential to serve as an effective counter-strategy against exclusive and top-down urban visions, particularly if these annotations incorporate avenues for marginalized voices to dissent and actively participate in the discourse. The article subsequently provides insights into the Jakarta relocation and proposes the use of annotated urban visualizations for fostering inclusive planning.
The reallocation of Jakarta to East Kalimantan
In 2019, President Joko Widodo of Indonesia announced the relocation of the current Indonesian administrative capital from Jakarta province on Java island to East Kalimantan province on Borneo island (BBC, 2019), with Jakarta remaining as the country’s economic hub (Irfan Gorbiano, 2019). This decision is unsurprising to some, given Java’s vulnerability to the impacts of climate change (Van de Vuurst and Escobar, 2020) and its infrastructural challenges, including issues related to sewage treatment (BBC, 2019).
In line with other large-scale national urban projects, visual communication, and visualization play a significant role in disseminating and endorsing the vision of the new Indonesian administrative capital. Many of the visualizations endorsed for the new capital are produced by commissioned architectural and urban offices, primarily to highlight the government’s vision. Employing various communication channels, 3D rendering computer programs are utilized to portray the proposed image of the new capital. These depictions often convey specific environmental and design narratives, emphasizing the incorporation of extensive greenery and water features yet frequently omitting human subjects. The ensuing images (Figures 1 and 2) showcase some of the promoted visualizations about Jakarta’s rellocation.
The visualizations of the new Indonesian capital are aesthetically appealing and may contribute to attracting investments for the project; however, they lack significant information. Notably, it is not apparent from these images who the designers are, which societal groups participated in conceptualizing the designs, whether they serve as formal plans or represent early-stage concepts, and what the realistic time frame or implementation costs entail. This concealed information is pivotal, as it influences viewers’ comprehension of the plans and their implications for the country’s future. Addressing this knowledge gap, communities can employ a method that can be referred to as ‘urban visualization annotations’, as elucidated in the following section.
Annotated Urban Visualizations
The urban visions disseminated in the public sphere frequently originate from those in positions of power, in many cases obscuring the needs and aspirations of marginalized and vulnerable societal groups (see Hendawy, 2022). This pattern is prevalent worldwide, particularly in contexts marked by centralized decision-making and top-down urban planning. In the field of computer science, Burns et al. (2021) emphasize the importance of rendering the invisible visible through the disclosure of metadata in visualizations. According to Burns et al. (2021), visualization biographies consist of metadata, which comprises information not directly observable in visualization but elucidates the genesis of the visualization or its current functionality. These biographies are crafted to unveil the invisible, offering additional context to enhance the understanding of visualization.
Building on these thoughts, I propose the implementation of ‘urban visualization annotation’ within the urban development field, similar to the idea of data biographies in computer science. Urban visualization annotation can be defined as an added deeper layer of information about publicly communicated city and urban visions. It is an additional, more profound stratum of information on the publicly communicated visions. This supplementary layer aids the general public in comprehending the context of the visualization and facilitates the expression of their diverse perspectives. Crucially, these annotations provide an alternative aesthetic gateway to diverse urban visions.
Similar to meta-information about data and biographies written about people, urban visualization annotations can encompass various information. For instance, some of the information that may be incorporated into an urban visualization annotation includes details about the envisioned project, such as who was or was not consulted in the design process, or information about the publicly communicated visualizations, such as the creators of the visualization, its history, the motivations behind their creation and the timeline of its creation. Additionally, an annotation layer might delve into how specific social groups, such as residents of slum areas, perceive, or do not perceive, themselves reflected in the project design and its visualization. The annotations are about communicating the information that may be clear to members of a specific society group but not others. As such, these annotations may incorporate maps, data, or photographs to present the perspectives of multiple societal groups.
Additionally, an urban visualization annotation could incorporate expert knowledge from within the community regarding features of the design and their potential impact, aspects that might be overlooked or disregarded by those in positions of authority. For instance, in the plans for the Indonesian capital, community members might observe that the plan fails to address the fate of individuals currently residing in the area, aligning with criticisms raised about the existing plan (Asia News Network, 2021). By collecting and disseminating such information, voices initially excluded from the process of envisioning the future gain a platform to identify, question, and “talk back” to those in power. Offering opportunities for dissent against power and data align with feminist theories of visualization (D’Ignazio and Klein, 2016).
Upon revisiting the visual imagery of the proposed Indonesian capital (Figures 1 and 2), various types of information are rendered invisible and lost. However, the potential benefits of making this information available through annotated urban visualizations become evident. Envisioning a scenario where individuals from the community can integrate their thoughts and questions directly into the image is crucial for a more inclusive representation.
In the image below, I abstractly show how a discussion may be ignited through an urban visualization annotation, intending to stimulate readers’ imaginations. The idea is to think about how images could be annotated to highlight information not inherently present in the images. This involves incorporating the perspectives of various societal groups to communicate information that may be evident to one community but not to another.
Figure 3. Copyright: Author, inspired from Hendawy, 2022
It is crucial to emphasize that the example in Figure 3 is not the sole or optimal method to achieve the objective of urban visualization annotations. I suggest considering urban visualizations as a medium of communication representing multiple actor perspectives. In this context, urban visualization annotations may ignite dialogue around urban projects. The objective of this article is to initiate a discussion on the importance of rendering invisible urban information visible by incorporating the often-hidden information about urban projects and the perspectives of various stakeholders in the urban visioning process of new cities. This inclusive approach aims to facilitate more informed decision-making in city development. Future research may use the urban visualization annotation to focus on what information can be communicated via them.
Urban Visualization Annotations for Inclusive Planning
As a counter-strategy against top-down planning and against exclusive urban visualizations that prioritize elite populations, as urban visualization annotations make invisible information visible, they could offer communities a mechanism to gather and disseminate information about visualizations created by elite powers, surpassing the details provided by the creators themselves. By providing a (visual) medium for diverse community groups to express their visions and integrate their thoughts and knowledge into the visualization, annotated urban visualizations could serve as a means for society groups to engage in a dialogue with the visualizations generated by bodies in power and the entities that crafted them. As such, allowing a way to question and “talk back” to positions of authority (i.e. the creators of urban projects and the visualizations (usually governing bodies)).
There exist several unresolved questions on urban visualization annotations that I aim to pose and leave open for discussion, thereby broadening the discourse on the subject. These questions encompass: What information should be incorporated? Who should contribute to the biography? What format should the biography assume? The answers to these questions are inherently context-specific and contingent upon factors such as the characteristics of the community, the context in which the visualization is promoted, and the nature of what is being visualized. For instance, the inquiries addressed by urban visualization annotations for a single building may differ from those for an entire city plan. Moreover, communities with active internet or social media usage may prefer computer-generated or digital annotations, whereas those without digital access may opt for printed or handwritten annotations. At a fundamental level, urban visualization annotations should reflect the community aspirations in ways that top-down designs fail to do. They should actively coproduce and disseminate community-centric knowledge frequently excluded from one-way planning processes.
Burns, A., On, T., Lee, C., Shapiro, R., Xiong, C., & Mahyar, N. (2021). “Making the Invisible Visible: Risks and Benefits of Disclosing Metadata in Visualization.” To appear in the Proceedings of the 2021 Visualization for Social Good Workshop.
D’Ignazio, C. &, F. Klein, L.(2016). “Feminist data visualization”. Workshop on Visualization for the Digital Humanities (VIS4DH), Baltimore. IEEE.
D’Ignazio, C. &, F. Klein, L.(2020). “Data feminism”. MIT Press.
De Vries, WT. (2021). “Urban Greening for New Capital Cities. A Meta Review”. Front.
Hendawy, M., Riad, R., Elgredly, S. H., (in press) Visual politics of a mediatized urban age: Tracing what the press news makes visible about urban planning — Case of the new administrative capital city in Egypt. Nature Cities.
Hendawy, M., 2022, Spatio-Visual Co-constructions: Communication and Digitalization of Urban planning in a mediatized world – Cairo as a glocal Case. Ph.D. Thesis, TU Berlin, defense date: 5 August 2021, Grade Summa Cum Laude.
Hendawy, M. 2021a. “Imaging Power: Planning visualizations and the co-construction of spatio-visual injustice” [presentation].
Hendawy, M. 2021b. [In]visibilities: The Academic City versus Ordinary Cities – Mediatizing Planning Knowledge in Egyptian Universities. ARCHPLAN special issue with Prof. Patsy Healy as Guest Editor.
Hendawy, M. & Stollmann, J., 2020 The Entanglement of Class, Marriage and Real Estate: The Visual Culture of Egypt’s Urbanisation, Urban Planning Journal.
Hendawy, M. and Saeed,A. 2020, Beauty and the Beast: The Ordinary City versus the Media-tized City, Case of Cairo, Urbanisation journal
Lazar, D. (2005). “Capital Cities, Cultural Representation, And National Identities”.Berlin-Washington, 1800-2000: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Van de Vuurst, P. & E. Escobar, L. (2020). “Perspective: Climate Change and the Relocation of Indonesia’s Capital to Borneo.” Frontiers in Earth Science 8 (2020): 5.
Burns, A., On, T., Lee, C., Shapiro, R., Xiong, C., & Mahyar, N. (2021). “Making the Invisible Visible: Risks and Benefits of Disclosing Metadata in Visualization.” To appear in the Proceedings of the 2021 Visualization for Social Good Workshop.
D’Ignazio, C. &, F. Klein, L.(2016). “Feminist data visualization”. Workshop on Visualization for the Digital Humanities (VIS4DH), Baltimore. IEEE.
D’Ignazio, C. &, F. Klein, L.(2020). “Data feminism”. MIT Press.
De Vries, WT. (2021). “Urban Greening for New Capital Cities. A Meta Review”. Front. Sustain. Cities 3:670807. doi:10.3389/frsc.2021.670807
Hendawy, M., Riad, R., Elgredly, S. H., (in press) Visual politics of a mediatized urban age: Tracing what the press news makes visible about urban planning — Case of the new administrative capital city in Egypt. Nature Cities.
Hendawy, M., 2022, Spatio-Visual Co-constructions: Communication and Digitalization of Urban planning in a mediatized world – Cairo as a glocal Case. Ph.D. Thesis, TU Berlin, defense date: 5 August 2021, Grade Summa Cum Laude.
Hendawy, M. 2021a. “Imaging Power: Planning visualizations and the co-construction of spatio-visual injustice” [presentation].
Hendawy, M. 2021b. [In]visibilities: The Academic City versus Ordinary Cities – Mediatizing Planning Knowledge in Egyptian Universities. ARCHPLAN special issue with Prof. Patsy Healy as Guest Editor.
Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Tamara Al Masadeh for her assistance in formatting the article as a part of her internship at Impact Circles e.V. in Berlin.
About the Author
Dr. Mennatullah Hendawy1,2,3 is an interdisciplinary urban planner working on the intersections of cities, media, and technology toward equity and sustainability. She is an assistant professor at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. She is also affiliated with the University of California Santa Cruz in the USA, Impact Circles e.V., and the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) gGmbH in Germany. Hendawy received her Ph.D. in 2021 from the faculty of Planning Building Environment at TU Berlin in Germany, graded: summa cum laude. In her Ph.D., she explored the mediatization of urban development in Cairo as a local yet global case. In 2015, Hendawy completed an MSc. in Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design from Stuttgart University with a focus on urban policies. Hendawy holds a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Engineering from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Department of Urban Planning and Design (class of 2012).
Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
The Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS), UMass Amherst, MA, USA
Governments in Latin America and Mexico have used different types of design and placemaking models to address systemic social inequities impacting urban and rural communities. For example, in 2016, the Government of Medellin, Colombia created the Medellin Model program, which uses modern architecture to create sustainable buildings in low-income communities and improve public transportation (Díaz, 2019). In 2018, the Mexico City government found partners within the architecture field willing to advance their Points of Innovation, Freedom, Art, Education, and Knowledge (PILARES) program to address inner city youth development by constructing buildings that were welcoming to the targeted audience (Zatarain, 2022).
In 2021, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele inaugurated several urban community spaces known as Centros Urbanos de Bienestar y Oportunidades (CUBO), which translates to Urban Wellness and Opportunities Centers. Following the same concept as Medellin and Mexico City, CUBOs were placed in areas known to have an elevated level of inequality through the lack of economic opportunities and education combined with highs level of crime. For the CUBO in San Miguel, El Salvador located inside the neighborhood of Colonia Milagro de La Paz, the building was designed and built using modern architectural features, including solar panels and ecofriendly materials to sustain the building. The building functions as a library, computer lab, kitchen, and a space to learn and practice other trades, which are designed to bring the community together. Images show the design and usage of CUBO San Miguel, El Salvador. All images were taken on February 11, 2022.
1. Welcome sign: CENTRO URBANO DE BIENESTAR Y OPORTUNIDADES (CUBO).
2. Front of the Building
3. Water tower next to a ramp designed for people with disability to access the second floor
4. Two police officers using Wi-fi. There is a police station on site.
5. Doors to the entrance of the building are operated by solar energy.
6. Two patrons using the facility as a meeting place
7. A large teddy bear next to a sign that reads Area De Lectura (Reading Zone)
8. Two workers next to the book shelves and computer station
9. Kid play zone with two large screens and video game consoles.
10. Activity board highlighting past and future events inside CUBO
References
Díaz, L. S. (2019). INFRASTRUCTURAL PROJECTS IN MEDELLIN’S INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS, COLOMBIA: Medellín Model: Infrastructural projects in informal settlements. Retrieved from Critical Perspectives on International Planning: https://sites.utexas.edu/internationalplanning/case-studies/infrastructural-projects-in-informal-settlements-medellin/
Zatarain, A. K. (2022, June 23). The PILARES Program Seeks to Bring Beautiful Design to Mexico City’s Neglected Neighborhoods. Retrieved from ArchDialy: https://www.archdaily.com/984135/the-pilares-program-seeks-to-bring-beautiful-design-to-mexico-citys-neglected-neighborhoods
About the Author
Dr. Juan Antonio Sorto earned his PhD in Urban Planning and Environmental Policy from Texas Southern University. He is currently a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at the Bullard Center for Environmental Justice and Climate Change at Texas Southern University. His research interests are public participation, housing, environmental and climate justice, and policy. He is currently leading ethnographic research in El Salvador through the Bullard Center and Gerardo Barrios University in San Miguel, El Salvador to determine how public participation can lead to the creation of a capacity plan in an undeveloped nation that will allow the community to address environmental and climate issues.
This photo essay is focused on an explorative experience in the Kreuzberg neighborhood from U Kottbuser Tor to Leigendamm, Berlin, Germany where the historical and contemporary elements are realized. According to UNESCO (2021), the term cultural heritage encompasses several categories of heritage such as, tangible and intangible. With this photo essay, we will briefly look through some of the tangible and intangible heritages of this neighborhood which have been playing an essential part in building its urban character. The presence of historic buildings, installations, and monuments represent the past of Berlin before and after the World War II. Most interestingly, the lives and cultures of different migrant communities, such as the Turkish immigrants have played an important part in creating such elements in this area. The arts, buildings, courtyards, and urban spaces have equal participation from the immigrants who have shared their culture in this part of then-West Berlin. Moreover, Internationale Bauausstellung (IBA) architects such as, Hardt-Waltherr Hämer, Heide Moldenhauer and many others – came forward with careful urban renewal strategies during 1984/87, to not disperse the residing migrant community from the neighborhood. Some of their works are still visible there. Lastly, the punk rock culture, the contemporary “multiculti” character of Kreuzberg is prevalent in the vicinity of this neighborhood. Urban renewal, as well as historic buildings and cultural diversity that symbolizes modern Kreuzberg to us, are noticed by the author of this essay, through the method known as “dérive: the exploration of a place or neighborhood by walking on one’s own or in small groups of two to three“ (Debord, 1958). The walking is influenced by the Serial Vision technique by Gordon Cullen (1961) where each image is taken and visualized and noted on the map. The even progression of the walking is noticed with surprising features and changes in the area with multi-cultural dominance. From the first gentrifying divider mixed-use building Neues Kreuzberger Zentrum (NKZ) to the Kunst Quartier Bethanien, the different layers of urban renewal and heritage are observed in this exploration to comprehend the relationship between regeneration and cultural diversity in Berlin.
01 The Figure Ground Map. The position of the walking through the figure ground map is noted by letters „a to t“ to better understand the author’s perspectives. The author has used the color “red” in the captured photos to focus the points of interest. This self-explorative walking with photos on specific points makes us realize the link between the past and the present in Urban Renewal and heritage-making at Kottbuser Tor, Kreuzberg, West Berlin.
»The even progress of travel is illuminated by a series of sudden contrasts and so an impact is made on the eye, bringing the plan to life (like nudging a man who is going to sleep in church)«
Gordon Cullen, The Concise Townscape, 1961
02 The Neues Kreuzberger Zentrum (NKZ). The walking journey starts from point a which is noted on the figure-ground map at Adalbertstrasse, Kottbuser Tor in front of the NKZ that was built as a „noise barrier“. This mixed-use development once was the first symbol of renewal in Kreuzberg with an intention to disperse the working population and welcome gentrification. The building changed from “an utopian beacon into a dystopian nightmare“ (Failed Architecture, 2021) over time. If one goes beyond this building, he/she can experience a different side of Berlin with multiculturalism.
03 Turkish Food Restaurant under NKZ at point a to b. The neighborhood is popular for its Turkish cuisine and grill houses. The present multiculturism at Kreuzberg is the result of the amalgamation of the migrant communities after their entry as labor workers in West Berlin during the 1960s. The way they have shared their cultural elements and created their own transnational identity – shows us that culture and heritage have immense power to establish a sense of belonging to a place. During city renewal, these cultural features play an important role to recognize a place’s urban character.
04 The SO36. The second turn is taken on points b to c at Oranienstrasse. Here the origin of punk rock music SO36 from the 1970s is experienced. The name has been taken from the postcode Südost (SO) 36 of the neighborhood. The presence of rock culture tradition with young population is prominent in this urban space.
05 The “Am Haus”. Moving a bit forward at Oranienstrasse, the mural art of Turkish words on „Am Haus“by the Turkish female artist Ayse Erkmen (1949-) is found. It was installed in 1994 to represent the peculiarity of the language in the young generation of Turkish in Germany, who take German as their main language (amidst interpretation, 2012).
06 Graffiti on a residential building at Naunynstrasse
07 The mural art on 76/78 blocks by Hanefi Yeter at Adalberstrasse
»Yeter’s work is composed of humans made out of colorful three-dimensional tiles shown in everyday life scenes with a twist of unfamiliarity.«
– Esra Akcan, Migration, Citizenship, and the Urban Renewal of Berlin-Kreuzberg by IBA-1984 / 87, pp. 236.
From point c to f, courtyard spaces, typical housings with residents from different communities are observed on the walk. At the start of point h to i at Adalbertstrasse, the 76/78 blocks are observed where some major renovation works were conducted by IBA Altbau team with Hardt-Waltherr Hämer as the planning director in the 1980s. The blocks were renovated with the community‘s participation. Architect Moldenhauer initiated some extraordinary works such as murals, community hof spaces, and Kita, in this area. One such mural work was created by Turkish artist Hanefi Yeter at the request of Moldenhauer (Akcan, 2018). This mural is still prevalent on the renovated block at Adalbertstrasse (Figure 7).
Kreuzberg is famous for its mural art and graffitis, and the introduction to the Turkish mural arts showcase the cultural diversity in the neighborhood. The neighborhood also has graffitis on the punk rock culture on the urban facade. One such example is observed during the walking on point-i at Naunynstrasse (Figure 6).
08 The cinema exhibition behind the Bethanien
09 The Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien (Exhibition space, movie screening, artists’ workspace)
When coming towards the Waldemarstrasse, the cinema exhibition is noticed by the author with a large stage and lighting. Going forward to the Mariannenplatz the Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien is found in point j-k on the map. Bethanien is one of the oldest buildings and hospitals in Kreuzberg built around 1846 (3schwestern, 2021). Now the building and its open spaces are used for cinema, music school, art exhibitions, and restaurants. The most interesting matter about this historic old building is – it has added a different perspective to the Kreuzberg neighborhood with the artistic character to the community people.
10 St. Michael’s Church. After crossing the l-o point on the map, at Legiendamm, the author was surprised by the view of the Engelbecken park and the vista of the St. Michael‘s Church, designed by architect August Soller. The water body within the park space and the view of a modern restaurant with the historic church as the backdrop provide one with an intriguing feeling of old and new. The current gentrification is somehow comprehensible on the scene with the new modern buildings alongside the waterbody.
11 The KinderHaus at Dresdener Strasse:
Coming to the end of the walking, on point q to r, at Dresdener Strasse, a parking garage turned into Kita-KinderHaus, was observed. This is designed during the IBA Altbau‘s careful renewal. This project is considered one of the most successful conversion projects in Berlin and bears the history of urban renewal after the fall of the Berlin wall at West Berlin (internationale-bauausstellungen.de, 2020).
From point r-s-t, the journey brought us back to the Kottbuser Tor again.
12 A photo collage on the heritage and renewal at Kreuzberg, Berlin
This photo essay is a brief attempt to represent the multicultural heritage of this small neighborhood of Kreuzberg district in Berlin and how it has evolved throughout the urban renewal process. At the end of the walking exploration,the strong presence of immigrant communities‘ culture, punk rock heritage, music, art, murals, historic monuments are observed in every part of this neighborhood. However, the present trend of gentrification is hampering these cultural elements. Whereas, urban renewal should always respect the community, and their heritage that creates a sense of belonging to the place. In the case of Kreuzberg – the district also requires such a careful approach to the current urban development process that keeps the heritage making process alive and visible in the neighborhood.
References:
Akcan, E. (2018). Open Architecture Migration, Citizenship and the Urban Renewal of BerlinKreuzberg by IBA 1984/87 (1st ed.). Walter de Gruyter GmbH.
amidst interpretation. (2012). Am Haus. Amidst Interpretation. Retrieved 3 October 2022, from https://amidstinterpretation.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/am-haus/.
Cullen, G. (1961). The Concise TOWNSCAPE (1st ed.). Routledge.
Failed Architecture (2021). FA Workshop: Berlin’s Neues Kreuzberger Zentrum – Failed Architecture. Failed Architecture. Retrieved 6 October 2022, from https://failedarchitecture.com/events/fa-workshop-berlins-neues-kreuzberger-zentrum.
internationale-bauausstellungen.de. (2020). Kindertagesstätte Dresdener Straße // Ein Parkhaus wird zum Kinderhaus | IBA. internationale-bauausstellungen.de. Retrieved 2 October 2022, from https://www.internationalebauausstellungen.de/geschichte/1979-1984-87-iba-berlin-die-innenstadt-alswohnort/kindertagesstaette-dresdener-strasse-ein-parkhaus-wird-zum-kinderhaus.
UNESCO. (2022). Definition of the cultural heritage | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.. UNESCO. Retrieved 8 October 2022, from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/ themes/illicit-trafficking-of-cultural-property/unescodatabase-of-national-cultural-heritage-laws/frequently-asked-questions/definition-of-the-culturalheritage.
Debord, G. (1958). Situationist International Online. Cddc.vt.edu. Retrieved 1 August 2022, from https:// www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/theory.html.
3schwestern. (2022). Bethanien – 3 Schwestern. 3 Schwestern. Retrieved 1 October 2022, from https://www.3schwestern.com/bethanien.
About the Author:
Mahlaqa Fahami, an aspiring architect living in Berlin, holds a Master’s Degree in Heritage Studies from Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus-Senftenberg. She has participated in several international design competitions and recently was awarded the 3. Diesing Preis in Architecture in the 169th annual AIV-Schinkel Competition in Germany. Currently contributing her skills as a full-time architect to a Berlin-based Landscape and Urban Design office, Mahlaqa’s works reflect her passion for public space design. Her academic pursuits have been focused on the intersection of cultural heritage and open-space planning, greatly influencing her recent research works.
This ethnographic research focuses on the trajectory of abandonment of a factory in the Franklin neighborhood of Santiago, Chile. It establishes a chronology of the post-industrial applications of the building, from informal to formal. Buildings can be understood as the object of processes; despite their immobility, their uses and meanings are in constant reconfiguration. This article analyses two dimensions to understand the trajectory of the property; time frames of occupation and recognition of the formality of these periods. This illustrates how the use of buildings, conceptualized here as ‘interim spaces,’ functions as a process of urban renewal.
Gabriel Espinoza Rivera (MSC, BA) is a sociologist and anthropologist currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Geography at West Virginia University. His work has a Cultural Geography emphasis addressing questions about late liberalism, value, and dispossession. His areas of study have been linked to Latinamerican Ruins (FONDECYT 1280352, Chile), and processes of recommodification and design in household economies (Fondart 581577, Chile).
Sanitas Building Façade, May 2019.
Introduction
Franklin is known for being a working-class, commercial neighborhood in Santiago de Chile. I have been visiting this place since I was a child. However, my first interaction with the building occurred back in Spring 2015. I started visiting the Instituto Sánitas (the building’s name) my first interaction with the place on a lovely sunny and windy spring day in Santiago as my friend, an Airsoft enthusiast, invited me to see him play, harboring the hope that I would eventually engage with the game and develop a similar interest to be able to team up with him in upcoming matches. While I didn’t quite develop a passion for Airsoft, we did come back quite often in order to take photos of the place and to hang out with the building’s caretaker.
In 2018, while doing my master’s in Anthropology, I was granted research funds for my dissertation in the subject of Urban Ruins and my first instinct was to study this abandoned factory. Built in the 1940s, in the midst of a modernization process led by the Chilean State under the Radical Governments, the Sanitas Institute had hopes of development by means of industrialization for Chile’s political elite. It was not only a place to produce drugs and medicine, but to enhance and deepen the national pharmaceutical discipline and knowledge. In the late 1990s, the building was left behind by the company and sold to a real estate agency. Today, 70 years later, this architectural body has been detached from its industrial genesis and uses, and left behind as a factory. However, to categorize it as a ruin or abandoned place would be a much too reductive take.
Figure 7.1: Abandonded room with decaying furniture in the Sanitas Building
The Construction of Abandonment
The first impression I had of the building was an overwhelming atmosphere of abandonment. Andersson (2014) proposed that there might be some sort of abandonment ontology, hence a particular epistemology that helps understand the perception of emptiness. Although, the more time I spent in the place, the more my hypothesis of abandonment was challenged. I then completely eradicated the idea that this building was abandoned, and this was particularly because of the following three concepts:
1. The first one is a reading on a relational environmental understanding (Ingold, 2002, 2013, 2018; DeSilvey, 2017). This theoretical proposal identifies abandonment as a mere concept that obliterates other ways of life and actions that shape, in an ongoing process, the surrounding environment. It also acknowledges that the world and the worldly experience are made by different beings and forces that produce, reproduce and allow life to happen. Thus, the environment, as well as the built environment, is understood as a set of agencies constantly becoming and producing place, space, materialities and providing life. This theoretical perspective eventually excludes abandonment as a total phenomenon and enlightens the anthropic biased perspective of such a concept.
2. At the same time, this is not merely a biased approach only because of human action, but also because with categorizing spaces into occupied and abandoned, there is a ruinophobic gaze that imposes what should and should not dwell in the place. As Bennet (2017) puts it, there’s a certain way in which the idea of property defines territories and cities. This sets a particular scope of attributes that a building should have, which include both dwellers and their activities. Some sort of moralization takes place regarding what type of dwellers should use these places based on their moral values. Following Cresswel’sl (1996) and Matless’s (1994) approaches, there are some dwellers, material, materialities and practices allowed to be present at this building and in its public surroundings while others are not.
3. The mere presence of the building implies multiple possibilities of use. A building is as much an idea as a material architectural body. The presence of the building in a particular territory, as Guggenheim (2009) describes, enacts a set of symbolic and practical relationships. Buildings are contested bodies that are never fully closed in their possibilities of use. Harman (2017), opposing Latour and Yaneva’s (2008) discussion, says that there might be moments when a building is an object rather than a process. The open possibilities of the building as something that is constantly mutating, remains. Guggenheim (2009) calls buildings mutable immobile, because their emplacement is constant but what they are, referring to their social production as an object, depends on the uses, material conditions and relationships with the surrounding environment. This includes human direct/indirect actions, as well as economic, material, or other types of emergent or stable relationships.
Hence, my research shifted from abandonment and ruins to building as procedural objects; flexible architectural bodies and spatialities. My main question then became: for whom was the building abandoned or empty? While doing my field work, every single space inside the building was under occupation. These occupations were there, waiting, latent, but out of sync from each other. Every single occupation brought life and produced space by means of their specific activity. All of them worked and took place in different moments in time, but in a shared topographic space and place. While the building’s facade has been occupied for the last 20 years with different stores from barbershops, to restaurants or kitchen appliances stores, the interior was filled with activities that were more heterotopic. With a particular permit, to work inside the building for a limited time, a Ghost tour, an Airsoft-Field and a training spot for Lucha Libre, gave life to the building’s interior. But these activities did not last long.
Figure 7.2: Another look at one of the offices of the Sanitas Industry, 16 years after abandonment, June 2016
Boutiqization
By the end of 2018, I was told by the building’s caretaker that the property would eventually be turned into a Boutique that would host a café, a shoemaker’s shop, a deli counter and others stores producing and offering handcrafts, as well as an Art gallery. The renovation of the building started in early 2019, and all the activities sheltered in the interior of the property were dismissed. This helped to accelerate a process of commercial gentrification, starting in 2012, with the inclusion of gourmet restaurants and stores oriented to middle and upper middle class consumers in the midst of Franklin, a traditional working class neighborhood (Espinoza, forthcoming). Also known as what Hubbard (2017) or Zukin et al. (2009) define as “boutiquization”: changes in the commercial scape of an urban area, that either discourages and shrinks the presence of lower income users to the area, or removes both the users and stores that buy and sell cheaper products than the newcomers. This then produces a symbolic and economic boundary that attracts a particular set of customers while excluding those that cannot afford neither the taste or the money to participate in these places.
Figure 7.3: A glance at the Fiambreria (Deli shop) in the Interior of Sanitas Building, December 2020.
On August 5, 2019, the municipality of Santiago shared the following statement on its social network and website
“The future of the #Franklin neighborhood is in the hands of the productive and industrial soul that forms its history. Rescuing that spirit, the group “Franklin CoFactoring Arts and Crafts” is developing an innovative project in the old building of the Sanitas Institute, which was empty for 20 years. Now it will receive businesses of crafts, delicatessen, shoes, distillates, restaurants, furniture, etc. Mayor Felipe Alessandri visited the space, in Franklin 741. “This is a meeting point for what we are promoting in the municipality: to recover the life of the neighborhoods and their identity, together with the neighbors” (Ilustre Municipalidad de Santiago, 2019)
The idea of abandonment is constructed as a factual public reality through devices of political communication. There was mostly void, an absence of humanity, some sort of Terra Nullius2 in the middle of one of the most crowded cities in South America. Or, at least, that’s how the city council introduced and explained this renewal process. The building, in its procedural nature, is also the tragic present and the bright future that will inherit the neighborhood’s history, framed as a discursive device that will romanticize the past, not necessarily authentically embrace it.
In 2019, the building was “recovered” by the Municipality and private investors who wanted to bring back the old-new life to Franklin. However, the civil unrest in Chile that took place from October 2019 to March 2020 followed by the Covid pandemic, delayed the inauguration of this Boutique-Art center until further notice. The new shops have been using and holding production activities rather than giving services to customers since 2019. In December 2020, the building opened for the first time to the public, but it was just for a couple of days. Then, Covid cases rose in the region and, once again, the building was closed to the public. Since January 2021, this situation has been similarly disruptive. All of the above seems like a bad joke. However, the destiny of the building seems to be in eternal waiting, even if the tale of recuperation from abandonment has already taken place in the property.
Figure 7.4: Inside of the Sanitas Building, Circa August 2016 (Above) compared to December 2020 (Below).Figure 7.2: Inside of the Sanitas Building, Circa August 2016 (Above) compared to December 2020 (Below)
Final Thoughts
My initial approach to the building was led by curiosity and the will of understanding what a building is in anthropological terms, and if abandonment is a universal category, or just something mediated and biased by a series of limited perspectives of things and the environment. In spite of this, my early theoretical concerns allowed me to understand how buildings, and the conceptualization of abandonment, play a key role in the production of city value and the management of the voids. As Colomb (2017) and Andres (2013) explain, the idea of interim spaces has been deployed since the ‘90s – at least in Central Europe – in order to manage abandoned buildings left by processes of deindustrialization and the end of the Socialist Era. To manage the void implies to welcome a particular set of uses and users – desirable ones – that will keep on adding value through freezing urban spaces, and maybe deploying some cultural activities in order to produce value under the gaze of creative cities. The property owners are, therefore, waiting for a real estate project that will turn the abandoned into occupied, while avoiding squatting and undesirable occupations (See Martínez, 2020).
In this case, the management of the abandonment, addressed in the building by the owners of the property and the Local Government, was proven useful in keeping the property un-squatted and allowing to replace with ease, those temporary users and uses for official ones. However, nothing can assure that temporality and abandonment will not come back sooner than expected to the building. Paraphrasing Marx, what once was thought as solid will melt into air. There is no guarantee that this new stability that covers and frames a building will overcome substantial or radical changes, financial issues, or some new urban political definition. There is not a thing in the world that can escape entropy – this includes the social life of a building as well as its material and materialities. Hence, the surest thing regarding the built environment is to wait for changes to come. As DeSilvey points out: “Our minds have a tendency to consolidate these [buildings] things as cultural objects, and it takes an extra effort to see them as provisional gatherings of matter, on their way to becoming something else” (DeSilvey, 2017, p. 19).
Figure 7.5: Franklin neighborhood stores, closed due to Covid Pandemic. May 2021.
Acknowledgments
This research has been funded by “Fondecyt 1180352 Urban Ruins. Replicas of Memory in Latin American Cities. Santiago, Quito and Bogota”
References
Andersson, D. (2014). “No Man’s No Man’s Land: The Ontology of a Space Left Over.” En B. Olsen & Þ. Pétursdóttir (Eds.), In Ruin Memories: Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past (Routledge, pp. 287- 304).
Andres, L. (2013). Differential Spaces, Power Hierarchy and Collaborative Planning: A Critique of the Role of Temporary Uses in Shaping and Making Places. Urban Studies, 50(4), 759-775. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098012455719
Bennett, L. (2017). Forcing the Empties Back to Work? Ruinphobia and the Bluntness of Law and Policy. En J. Henneberry (Ed.), Transience and Permanence in Urban Development (pp. 17-29). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. https://doi. org/10.1002/9781119055662.ch2
Colomb, C. (2017). The Trajectory of Berlin’s ‘Interim Spaces’: Tensions and Conflicts
in the Mobilisation of ‘Temporary Uses’ of Urban Space in Local Economic Development. En J. Henneberry (Ed.), Transience and Permanence in Urban Development (pp. 131-149). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. https://doi. org/10.1002/9781119055662.ch9
Espinoza, G. (Forthcoming). Informally Functional: Interim Spaces and Urban Renewal in Franklin, Santiago. AUS (Arquitectura/Urbanismo/Sustentabilidad), 29.
Guggenheim, M. (2009). Building memory: Architecture, networks and users. Memory Studies, 2(1), 39-53. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698008097394
Harman, G. (2017). Buildings are not Processes: A Disagreement with Latour and Yaneva. ARDETH, 1, 113-122. https://doi.org/10.17454/ARDETH01.09
Hubbard, P. (2017). The battle for the High Street: Retail gentrification, class and disgust. Palgrave Macmillan.
Ilustre Municipalidad de Santiago. (2019, agosto 5). Nuevo Emprendimiento en el Barrio Franklin (New development in Barrio Franklin.) [Institucional]. En terreno. https://www.munistgo.cl/nuevo-emprendimiento-en-el-barrio-franklin/
Ingold, T. (2002). The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (1.a ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203466025
Ingold, T. (2013). Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Routledge.
Ingold, T. (2018). La vida de las líneas (A. Stevenson, Trad.; 1era ed.). Universidad Alberto Hurtado.
Latour, B., & Yaneva, A. (2008). Give me a Gun and I will Make All Buildings Move; An ANT’s View of Architecture. En R. Geiser (Ed.), Explorations in Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research (pp. 80-89). Birkhaüser.
Martínez, M. A. (2020). Squatters in the capitalist city: Housing, justice, and urban politics. Routledge.
Zukin, S., Kasinitz, P., & Chen, X. (Eds.). (2016). Global cities, local streets: Everyday diversity from New York to Shanghai (1 Edition). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Zukin, S., Trujillo, V., Frase, P., Jackson, D., Recuber, T., & Walker, A. (2009). New Retail Capital and Neighborhood Change: Boutiques and Gentrification in New York City. City & Community, 8(1), 47-64. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1540-6040.2009.01269.x
This paper examines twelve UberX rides completed over four hours in Cincinnati with the intent of comparing first-person evidence of ridehail travelers to a growing body of quantitative literature. Traveler data are based on observation and casual conversation between the author (driver) and the passenger. A typical Saturday morning was chosen beginning in Cincinnati’s Central Business District (CBD), and each subsequent trip was based on the location of the previous trip destination without intervention. This work attempts to tell the narrative of where each traveler was going, infer why they chose ridehailing, and explore the social relationship between riders and drivers. More specifically, it places these twelve travelers in the context of published ridehail literature. From the driver’s perspective, $68.32 was grossed after four hours of driving—including one tip, $2 tip on the twelfth ride. This small sample of ridehail passengers, and driver profits, conforms to findings published in the academic literature yet is not intended to be statistically significant. This work has implications for future research by presenting details about trips and passengers not before seen in the literature.
Keywords
Ridehail; Uber; Socioeconomics; Driver Earnings
About the Author
Mickey Edwards, PhD, is a Visiting Researcher at the University of Illinois Springfield where he studies motor vehicle crashes and their effect on pedestrians, cyclists, and communities. Other research interests include transportation and infrastructure equity. He has worked on policy in the U.S. Senate and taught several courses at the University of Cincinnati. Previous careers include several years in photojournalism and a stint as an engineer for a large consumer goods company.
Introduction
Most of what researchers know about who uses ridehailing and why they use it is based on large, aggregated data sets. These data sets are certainly useful in modeling ridehail use and travel behavior, but the nuances of an individual’s options and reasons for transport choices are commonly lost. This paper sets out to explore a qualitative gap in the ridehail literature by presenting first-person, casual, statistically insignificant observations and conversations experienced during twelve UberX rides over 4 hours on a brisk March Saturday morning in Cincinnati, Ohio. The aim here is not to dispute nor support previous ridehail research, but to supplement it with descriptions of human behavior—too messy to quantify or model. Behavioral decisions made by both drivers and passengers are seemingly often influenced by how they perceive it will affect their star rating.
Ridehail companies depend upon user-facing performance ratings not only to monitor the behavior of their drivers, but also to monitor the behavior of their customers. Ratings for drivers and riders alike, though seemingly inconsequential at face value, can negatively affect either party when relatively low. Drivers face the threat of being de-platformed—essentially banned from driving for the company over a low average rating. Riders with a low average rating may face a relatively difficult time catching a ride—since some drivers are reluctant to pick up poorly rated passengers (Campbell, 2015). The social awkwardness that performance ratings sometimes hasten has not been lost on popular culture. Saturday Night Live has produced two sketches titled “Uber for Jen’’ and “Five Stars” (links provided in Reference section) with a combined YouTube audience of 14 million views satirizing the effect of star ratings on social behavior—specifically the social relationship between ridehail drivers and passengers. This research takes aim at that social relationship alongside glimpses into motivational factors for choosing ridehailing and the sociodemographic characteristics of riders.
Related Literature
Though some researchers have driven for Lyft and Uber in an effort to collect data, none have published findings collected in the same manner as presented here. Despite this, related literature is reviewed to provide context for passenger encounters described below.
Commonly Applied Methods and Sources Ridehail researchers have used a variety of methods and data sources to answer a variety of questions. Rayle et al. (2015) intercepted and surveyed users observed exiting a ridehail vehicle at popular San Francisco destinations in their exploratory and oft-cited study. Henao (2017) drove for Lyft and Uber in Denver to overcome a dearth of available data and directly accessed 311 passengers for surveying. Gehrke et al. (2018) recruited 10 ridehail drivers in Boston to implement a passenger survey, paying them $2 for each of the 944 completed responses. Clewlow and Mishra (2017) emailed surveys to 4,094 respondents in 7 major American metropolitan areas to study ridehail adoption and use. Dillahunt et al. (2017) interviewed 12 low-income Detroit residents to study how they interact with ridehailing technology. Lee et al. (2015) interviewed ridehail drivers to better understand how they use the technology. Leistner and Steiner (2017) studied a Gainesville initiative to subsidize 1,445 ridehailing trips over 9 months for low-income seniors. Brown (2018) used data obtained from Lyft to analyze 6.3 million trips made by 828,616 people in Los Angeles. Brown (2018) also recruited passengers in Los Angeles to audit ridehail service equity there. Ge et al. (2016) deployed passengers in Seattle and Boston to make 1,500 trips to audit ridehail service equity in those cities. Wang and Mu (2018) in Atlanta, Hughes and MacKenzie (2016) in Seattle, and Thebault-Spieker et al. (2017) in Chicago accessed Uber API data to examine variations in the spatial distribution of wait times. Deka and Fei (2019) used the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) to draw broad conclusions about the sociodemographics of ridehail adoption. Schaller (2018) also uses NHTS data combined with public utility and other data to study the typical ridehail user in 9 metropolitan areas. Finally, Alemi et al. (2018) used the 2015 California Millennials Dataset to study ridehail adoption and use.
The most statistically robust ridehail research has relied on analyzing large, aggregated, and anonymized data sets typically provided by the TNC under study. The broadest, most generalizable, ridehail research is based on recently released NHTS findings (Deka and Fei, 2019; Schaller, 2018). Though the NHTS lumped ridehailing use in with taxi and limousine use in its survey questions (FHA, 2016), rendering the disaggregation of implications for ridehail use dubious. Many other researchers have sought to survey and interview people about if and why they use ridehailing, compiling sample sizes from a few hundred to several thousand respondents.
Still, no research has presented findings from casually observing a small sample of individual ridehail passengers while comparing them to published literature. Yet similar observational methods have been applied in similar contexts. For example, Brown (2018) obtained ridehail driver age, gender, and race information as well as their working preferences through casual observation and volunteered information from a passenger’s perspective.
Common Ridehail Trip Types Alcohol consumption is frequently cited as a strong motivating factor for ridehail use. Rayle et al. (2015) find 21% of ridehail users want to avoid drinking and driving. Henao (2017) finds that among those who drive, alcohol consumption and parking difficulties are top motivating factors; and among non-drivers, not having a car, poor transit, and time savings are top motivating factors for ridehail use. About a third of online survey respondents report to use ridehailing when avoiding drinking and driving, about the same share of those avoiding parking-related issues (Clewlow and Mishra, 2017). Gehrke et al. (2018) report the top 3 reasons for ridehail use are: because it is faster than transit, there is no car available, and to avoid parking hassles—in that order.
Work commuting is also a popular application of ridehail use. Henao (2017) reports that “most” non-drivers use ridehailing to get to work and school; and “most” drivers use ridehailing for social trips, going to the airport, or traveling while out of town. In their online survey Clewlow and Mishra (2017) found that “bars and parties’’ and “restaurants and cafes” made up 62% of trips. Across 3 studies, between 16% to 30% of respondents have reported using ridehailing for work commuting in the last 3 months (Henao 2017; Rayle et al. 2015; SUMC 2016). In Boston, Gehrke (2018) reports work trips top all other types, and Schaller (2018) finds 18% of trips in the 9 metros studied were for work commuting.
Ridehail Access and Equity As ridehail use proliferates across both geography and socioeconomic status, it fills a transport gap for residents of some communities. In Austin, low-income users are more likely to use ridehailing for “utilitarian” purposes like work or school, and higher-income users are more likely to make social or airport trips (Dias et al., 2018). Low-income Los Angelenos made 25% more ridehail trips than their wealthier regional peers (Brown, 2018). Schaller (2018) found that very low-income households earning under $15,000 made more ridehail trips than middle-income earners. Bostonian ridehail users earning about the regional median income or less account for most weekly ridehail users (Gehrke et al., 2018). And Deka and Fei (2019) conclude that non-Hispanic Whites have a greater adoption rate yet are not likely to use ridehailing very frequently. Clewlow and Mishra (2017) found that White survey respondents had the smallest share of adoption with 21% having tried ridehailing. Black respondents had the greatest share of ridehail adoption with 27% who have tried it, followed by Asians at 23%, and Hispanics at 22%.
Though low-income and minority individuals may use ridehailing more frequently, they may also face barriers to access. Ge et al. (2016) report ridehail users with Black-sounding names have a relatively more difficult time getting a car to show up compared to users with White-sounding names. Brown (2018) also audited ridehail service equity and concluded similar results: Black users faced slightly higher cancellation rates than White users. However, Hughes and MacKenzie (2016) find essentially no relationship between race/ ethnicity and wait times in Seattle. Wang and Mu (2018) also find no association between race, income, and unemployment rate and wait times in Atlanta. Yet, Thebault-Spieker et al. (2017) conclude low-income residents in low density areas are forced to wait longer and pay more for a ridehail trip. Still, drivers have been found to turn off the ridehailing app while driving nearby “bad neighborhoods’’ to avoid receiving trip requests and “bad situations” (Lee et al., 2015). Surge prices are meant to incent more drivers to go online to meet rider demand, yet higher prices may edge out those low-income riders who depend most on ridehailing (Harding et al. 2016).
Getting Ready to Drive
Prior to the observations documented here, I had been driving for two months across both the Lyft and Uber applications. Saturday morning was selected for its relatively low frequency of trips (Brown, 2018), which provided a lower propensity for surge pricing that may have prohibited some would-be passengers. Based on my experience and research cited above, there is also no obvious trip type dominating Saturday morning ridehail travel, which should render passengers and their trip purposes less uniform. For example, sociodemographic and trip purpose uniformity is likely common among ridehailing trips at 1:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning—younger consumers of alcohol as cited above. Observations for this study were made on a sunny yet mild morning in March of 2019, which likely reduced the influence of weather on mode choice. Indeed, on that morning, there were no clear causes for exogenous shocks in ridehail travel demand or behavior.
Similar to how Servon (2017) researched the alternative banking industry by working as a payday-loan teller, I draw on first-hand casual observations and conversations with passengers from an Uber driver perspective. No other method allows for such a detailed study of how people and communities use and interact with ridehailing.
UberX ride requests were accepted beginning at 6:45 a.m. in Cincinnati’s central business district (CBD). Each subsequent trip request, based on the destination of the previous trip, was accepted without interference. For each incoming trip request the image of a generic human bust, as seen in Figure 6.1, was prominently displayed on the screen along with a few prospective trip details to aid the driver in deciding whether to accept or decline: driving time to pickup location, distance to pickup in miles, and average star rating of the requesting passenger. Other information sometimes included with applicable trip requests included: surge rates, pickup premium, and scheduled ride information. Trip details were overlaid onto a map containing the user’s origin and driver’s current location connected by a blue line representing the recommended travel route. The Uber application permitted the driver approximately 5 seconds to view the information and decide whether to accept the ride before the request expired and then presumably moved on to the next closest available driver. Time permitted for driver acceptance was graphically presented as a thin, white, diminishing circle encompassing the would-be passenger’s bust (Figure 6.1).
Figure 6.1: Screenshot example of trip request information presented to the driver* *Passenger pickup location is represented by a blue pin with a white square inside, current driver location is represented by a blue arrow in a white circle. This trip request was 12.4 milesaway – an estimated 19 minute drive, by a passenger with a 5-star rating. Apparently acknowledging the substantial amount of deadheading required, a “pickup premium” is teased as an incentive to accept the request.
The information presented regarding gender, race/ethnicity, and age is based on my observation alone—they may not be correct. Trip purpose, reason for using Uber, and other details are based on observation and information volunteered by the passenger, rather than asking predetermined questions as one would in a survey or interview. Trip time, distance, and earnings were collected from the Uber driver application after the final ride was completed. Where appropriate and useful, I draw on previous experiences of completing more than 200 ridehail trips in Cincinnati as the driver.
Uber Everywhere
The intent here is to make an interesting addition to the ridehail literature by providing a first-hand driver’s account of typical passengers encountered on a typical day. So much of the published research on passengers slices and dices them into social and demographic silos while assuming each is the embodiment of homo economicus—masters of utility maximization. But in reality humans are messy, we make mistakes, we don’t know if it’s more polite to sit up front with the Uber driver or in the back alone. We sometimes miss the bus and have no choice but to Uber to work—and even though the cost of the ride may exceed an hour’s wages, the cost of not showing up is far greater. We are sometimes poor judges of when to talk, and when to be silent. And we are often bad tippers. The following attempts to capture some of that which is not easily sussed out in a survey, or measured in a data set. It is a timeline and narrative of the trips completed on that brisk March morning in Cincinnati, including those messy human details.
6:53 a.m. After eight minutes of waiting for a trip request, the first one is a Black Millennial male waiting on a sidewalk in the CBD. He gets into the passenger side rear seat as most people do. He is in good spirits and explaining how rewarding it feels for him to be awake so early and on the move. It is not obvious whether he is a local—and where he was picked up from offered no clues. Neither does the purpose of his trip: across the CBD to a hotel restaurant to meet a friend for breakfast. He politely says thanks and de-cars. Time: 3 minutes 24 seconds. Distance: 0.62 miles. Driver’s take: $3.01.
7:07 a.m. It took another ten minutes or so of waiting before the next trip request came in. It came from a neighborhood colloquially known as uptown—which is up a hill and dominated by students of the University of Cincinnati. A White Millennial male emerges from a single family home and enters the passenger side front seat. This does not happen often, so when it does, it is a bit surprising. A passenger from the previous day once told me that she sits in the front seat because to do otherwise would be rude. She also hinted that she really likes getting five star ratings and sitting up front may help in that effort. But this particular passenger does not seem concerned about his rating. He smells of alcohol and appears to be dressed in the previous day’s clothing, remarking that a first date the night before went pretty well. Dropped off at fraternity house near the university. Time: 2 minutes 30 seconds. Distance: 0.65 miles. Surge of $2.50, driver’s take: $5.51.
7:25 a.m. There is often a lot of waiting around as a ridehail driver, well in Cincinnati on Saturday mornings there is anyway. Another fifteen minutes go by before another request comes in, this time from a rider in a neighborhood called Walnut Hills. A Black Millennial male emerges from an apartment building and enters the passenger side rear seat. He inquires about available employment because he dislikes his current job at an online shopping fulfillment center. Though right now he is making this trip to pick up a young girl of maybe 3 years old. After a short drive the first stop is another home in the same neighborhood. The passenger is in the home for about ten minutes while retrieving the child—any relation between the man, child, and this location would be speculation. Eventually, they both get in the car through the rear passenger door. He does not have a carseat for the child and neither does the driver, for the remainder of the trip the passengers do not use their seatbelts. On the drive back to where the ride began the young girl is scolded harshly for wetting herself. Both exit the car through the door they entered without comment. Time: 14 minutes 48 seconds. Distance: 2.34 miles. Driver’s take: $4.64.
7:51 a.m. The fourth ride request comes after another ten minutes of waiting, this time it is from a nearby neighborhood named Avondale. A Black female Generation-X’er emerges from a single family home and enters the passenger side rear seat. She is upbeat, in a good mood, and on her way to work at a local nonprofit organization. She reveals through casual conversation that she usually drives her own car to work, but that is no longer possible because of a spell of bad luck. She states that on a recent weekend she had left her car in her employer’s parking lot, upon returning on Monday she found her car to be stripped of parts and left on blocks. She sold what remained to a junkyard and is currently carless. Stories of this sort are somewhat regular, sometimes people slip in and out of car-lessness even when they do everything right. She gets dropped off at the employee entrance—just off of the mostly empty parking lot. Time: 4 minutes 53 seconds. Distance: 1.62 miles. Surge of $3.50, driver’s take: $6.51.
8:05 a.m. After another ten minute wait comes the fifth ride request, which was back in Uptown—the neighborhood generally surrounding the University of Cincinnati. A male international Millennial graduate student waiting on the sidewalk outside of a single family home enters the passenger side rear seat. Pleasantries are exchanged but the conversation remains somewhat superficial due to a language barrier. He states that usually he would walk, but today he awoke late and is in a hurry to get to campus. He gets dropped off at the university, and before exiting he shakes the driver’s hand. Time: 3 minutes 25 seconds. Distance: 1.03 miles. Driver’s take: $3.01.
8:17 a.m. Trip six is also in the general Uptown vicinity, which is nice since no deadheading is required. A female international Millennial college student emerges from an apartment building carved out of a steep hill, she enters the passenger side rear seat. Again, a language barrier prohibited a meaningful discussion, though it was clear she was heading to campus to study. The driver’s homebrewed coffee aroma wafting from an insulated mug must have filled the car. She comments how much she enjoys the coffee smell and asks questions about the brewing process. She is dropped off at the university. Time: 5 minutes 2 seconds. Distance: 1.44 miles. Driver’s take: $3.19.
8:29 a.m. Trip seven’s passenger was a White Millennial male waiting on the sidewalk among single family homes in that same neighborhood near the University of Cincinnati. He enters the car through the passenger side rear seat. He is heading home to the Hyde Park neighborhood on the city’s east side. He is quite friendly and talkative so conversation topics change quickly. Finally, one is settled on—he asks for an opinion on how to stop mass shootings. Takes are offered on what is believed to be at the core of the problem. Disagreement ensues. He is dropped off at an apartment building. Time: 11 minutes 30 seconds. Distance: 4.86 miles. Driver’s take: $8.36
8:59 a.m. Trip seven ended in the moderately affluent and popular Hyde Park neighborhood, and trip eight’s passenger was based there too. A White Millennial male vaping on the sidewalk outside of a long row of beige two story apartment buildings enters my car through the passenger side front seat. He’s friendly and easy to talk to, which might help to explain two things: 1) why he sat in the front, and 2) his occupation as a car salesman. As a car salesman he previously sold the type of car in which he was riding—a Subaru Legacy. He offers to reveal a secret that all Subaru salesmen know, that the Legacy is the classiest of all Subarus. The cars he sells now are not as easy to sell. He was dropped off at a car dealership for work. He never vaped in my car, a gesture for which I was thankful. Time: 10 minutes 0 seconds. Distance: 3.45 miles. Surge of $6.25, driver’s take: $10.76.
9:10 a.m. Trip nine came quickly after dropping off trip eight. A Black Generation-X female emerges from a single family home in a neighborhood near the car dealership, we are out of Hyde Park now. She enters my car through the passenger side rear seat. Conversation is light but friendly. She is on her way to work as a store manager at an indoor shopping mall— among the largest in the region. We talk about how she has a car and occasionally drives herself to work, but she has a “phobia” of driving so Uber is her preferred mode. She states that she tries to only treat herself to Uber when she “deserves it,” like after a long work week. She was dropped off at the mall entrance. Time: 6 minutes 30 seconds. Distance: 2.98 miles. Driver’s take: $3.65.
9:52 a.m. The next request took over 30 minutes to come in. This one was from the Oakley neighborhood—a younger, edgier version of Hyde Park. A White Millennial female walking down a sidewalk in an apartment complex enters the driver side rear seat—an atypical seating arrangement. She is dressed in St. Patrick’s Day garb and heading to a friend’s apartment before heading out to partake in holiday festivities. She expresses concern nobody else will be similarly dressed and that she will be embarrassed. Ultimately, however, she is not too worried due to a pending move out of town to take over her father’s business. She was dropped off at an apartment building. Time: 10 minutes 51 seconds. Distance: 2.87 miles. Surge of $5.25, driver’s take: $9.65.
10:07 a.m. Trip eleven is also on the east side of town, this time near the banks of the Ohio River from a newly built rowhouse designed to withstand rising waters. A White Millennial male emerges from a single family home and enters the passenger side rear seat. He is meeting family at a bar before engaging in St. Patrick Day festivities in Cincinnati’s CBD. He is friendly and jovial, in fact he even told a few “dad jokes.” He was dropped off at a downtown bar. Time: 10 minutes 52 seconds. Distance: 4.21 miles. Driver’s take: $5.11.
10:24 a.m. Trip eleven ended downtown, which is where trip twelve was located. A German Generation-X male waiting on the sidewalk outside of a hotel enters the passenger side rear seat. He is talkative and curious about the city he’s visiting for business purposes. He is especially curious about the nuances of driving on downtown streets. The motivation behind his curiosity is eventually revealed by his trip purpose— to pick up a rental car. He also reveals that he is quite nervous to drive in the States. He remarks that the driver is not like most “cabbies” he’s known. He was dropped off at a car rental office, and left a $2 tip in the app. Time: 7 minutes 18 seconds. Distance: 1.05 miles. In-app tip of $2, driver’s take (including tip): $5.01.
Filling a Transport gap
For some passengers, ridehailing fills a critical gap in transport options, if only temporarily. Clewlow and Mishra (2017) find that 48% of ridehail and transit users do not personally own or lease a car. The example presented above of the woman whose car was stripped of parts is a particularly dramatic case of car-loss. More commonly, car-loss due to failed mechanics or the inability to afford the full cost of ownership (Chapple 2006) drive the carless to use ridehailing. Klein and Smart (2015) show that some residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods slip in and out of car ownership, affecting their ability to attain and maintain employment.
For other passengers ridehailing is a reprieve from driving. At the end of a long week of working overnight shifts, some ridehail passengers prefer not to drive themselves home—a sort of treat or self-reward. A distaste or even fear of driving, as presented above, is a common motivating factor for passengers to take ridehailing, even though a reliable car is available at home. Indeed, published survey results reflect these motivations (Henao, 2017; Clewlow and Mishra, 2017).
The case of a man picking up a child presented above provides an example of ridehail use that has extended beyond work commuting, to include other essential life tasks. Further, this case also presents a risk commonly borne by ridehail drivers: the decision of whether to terminate a trip (and loss of the fare) with either an unaccompanied minor, or accompanied minor without an appropriate car seat or restraints.
The Influence of Alcohol
Three, and likely more, of the Uber passengers presented above reflect findings that suggest alcohol consumption is a common motivating factor for ridehail use, even during hours not traditionally associated with alcohol consumption. The prevalence of alcohol in influencing ridehail use also conforms to nearly all published research, as cited in the literature review. However, the relationship between alcohol consumption and ridehail use is not monolithic. Actually, in this driver’s experience, it can manifest in three distinct trip scenarios made at different hours of the day. 1) This is the scenario commonly associated with alcohol consumption and ridehailing: the passenger who plans ahead to consume alcohol and makes the round trip by ridehailing. 2) The passenger who drove themselves (or arrived by other means) to the location of consumption, who then makes a return ridehail trip home at the conclusion of over-consumption. 3) This scenario is frequently related to the second: the passenger who makes a return ridehail trip to pick up a vehicle, or to place of residence, previously left at the location of over-consumption.
Driver’s Perspective
Demand for rides and the resulting revenue was unpredictable and seemingly random. Only one tip worth $2 on the twelfth and final ride was received, though tips are certainly more common in other service sectors. Additionally, four surge fares were scattered throughout the morning. Surges and the tip combined to make up nearly 30% of the $68.32 grossed over the four hours of driving. Without them less than $50 would have been earned, or a little more than $12 per hour, before deducting taxes and expenses. Many researchers have attempted to calculate the average hourly driver pay after accounting for all applicable costs, including: vehicle maintenance, depreciation, fuel, and insurance. Wildly different findings have been published, and earnings vary by region. Still, two papers studying Seattle driver earnings published just days apart report drivers average $23.52 per hour (Hyman et al. 2020) and $9.73 per hour (Parrott and Reich 2020)—both calculated to be after expenses are paid.
At the time this research was conducted, ridehail drivers in Ohio did not receive additional training and were not required to obtain special license endorsements. Because of this, drivers may unwittingly assume undue risk by not being fully knowledgeable of applicable laws, sometimes between multiple states. The Cincinnati ridehail market covers most of Southwest Ohio, regions of Northern Kentucky, and regions of Southeastern Indiana. It seems reasonable to assume that a significant proportion of ridehail drivers are unfamiliar with the current state of regulatory affairs in each jurisdiction. Indeed, there often seems to be a disconnect between social norms and regulation. For example, many passengers presented failed to fasten their seatbelts for the duration of the trip, whether seated up front or in the back.
Discussion
This work aims to supplement quantitative ridehail research by presenting qualitative findings obtained through observation and casual conversation. The intent is to place examples of ridehail passengers and the transport decisions they make within the context of current academic knowledge. A fine point is added to each ride account by presenting small and sometimes quirky details about the trip. This is done to provide additional insights into the character of ridehail passengers, their reasons for using ridehailing, and the unique social relationship between ridehail drivers and passengers.
Interestingly, the two passengers who sat up front with the driver were White Millennial males. This could be because I, too, am a White Millennial male. For female passengers, sitting within easy reach of the driver may be a safety concern leading them to sit directly behind the driver. It could also be a reflection of the varying role ridehailing plays in the lives of passengers.
This work has implications for researchers and policymakers alike by presenting details about trips and passengers not seen before in the literature. For example, international college students have few options for commuting to school and may depend on ridehailing. For some, ridehailing may provide a preferred work commute experience over transit and driving while adding a layer of transport reliability. For social trips, alcohol consumption manifests in several different types of ridehail trips. For drivers, dependence on the extra revenue from tips and surges is unreliable and unpredictable yet necessary. Also, as the driver is presented trip origin, suggested route, star rating, and sometimes a photo of the passenger before accepting a ride, would-be riders remain vulnerable to biases and discrimination.
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The City of Edmonton’s Missing Middle Infill Design Competition sparked significant local, national, and international interest in the possibilities for the missing middle or medium-density housing design innovation. In their proposals for five parcels of land within a core Edmonton neighborhood, multidisciplinary teams consisting of architects, builders, and developers considered impacts to residents and the surrounding community, the competition’s design objectives, and financial viability. With the incentive for participation being the opportunity to build their winning design, teams prepared pro formas to articulate how they would proceed with their developments. This study seeks to explore the assumptions that applicant teams made when designing their missing middle housing proposals. As cities continue to contemplate the necessity for missing middle in their neighborhoods, lessons gleaned from this analysis may offer potential opportunities to address financial and regulatory challenges to development; in addition to understanding the industry’s perspectives on profit and risk with respect to medium-scale housing forms. Topical policy questions for urban planners and decision-makers might be the various factors hindering development, and the policy and regulatory improvements that may address them.
Keywords
Missing Middle; Infill; Housing; Pro Formas; Design
About the Authors:
Jason Syvixay (MCIP, RPP, MCP, BSc, BA) is an urban planner currently completing his PhD in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Alberta. He has worked as the managing director of the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ, a planner with HTFC Planning & Design, and more recently, has joined the City of Edmonton to support the implementation of its Infill Roadmap. He has a passion for people and places, and engages in city building that listens to the community, builds knowledge and capacity, and works towards equity in urban places.
Sean Bohle is an urban planner at the City of Edmonton. He discovered a love for spreadsheets and financial models while completing graduate school at the University of British Columbia, and through subsequent consulting work on affordable housing development. At the City of Edmonton, Sean has worked on policies to provide affordable housing and community amenities from rezoning, and now leads the implementation of the Infill Roadmap.
Introduction
Cities across Canada are exploring the missing middle as opportunities to welcome more homes and people in their communities. The term missing middle refers to multi-unit housing that falls between single detached homes and tall apartment buildings. It includes row housing, triplexes/fourplexes, courtyard housing, and walk-up apartments. These housing forms are considered “missing” because they have been largely absent from urban streetscapes in Canada. In 2018, the City of Edmonton shifted its focus from low-density infill to medium-density infill, creating an Infill Roadmap to steer regulations, plans, and policies towards these types of developments and investments – even hosting a Missing Middle Infill Design Competition to explore how these housing typologies could be advanced in a well-designed yet financially feasible manner.
The Infill Imperative
Over the last forty years, societal and economic challenges have driven people away from core and mature neighborhoods to settle on suburban fringes. This slow loss of people in central neighborhoods has cost Canadian cities billions in new infrastructure and servicing. However, this shift in population has also inspired many municipalities, including Edmonton, to develop strategies to curb sprawl and nurture a more compact urban form.
In 2013, the City launched a project called Evolving Infill that engaged more than 3,000 Edmontonians. From this engagement, the City created its first Infill Roadmap (2014), comprising 23 actions that comprised the City’s work plan for advancing more infill development within close proximity to quality public transit, amenities and services. This plan undertook significant regulatory and policy changes to help enable and encourage more affordable, diverse, and well-designed housing in Edmonton’s older neighborhoods.
In July 2018, the City adopted Infill Roadmap 2018, which contains a set of 25 more actions to welcome more people and new homes into Edmonton’s older neighborhoods. The Infill Roadmap 2018 takes a more strategic focus on the missing middle, multi-unit, medium-density housing such as row housing, courtyard housing, and low-rise apartments. The actions are envisioned to create new opportunities for medium-density development by managing population growth in a rational and contextual manner, responding to changing economic and cultural housing needs, reducing the city’s ecological footprint, maximizing existing and future infrastructure investments, and maintaining neighborhood vibrancy. Edmonton’s official plan, The City Plan, envisions a growth of an additional one million people, and was recently approved by council in December of 2020. Both the Infill Roadmap and The City Plan demonstrate Edmonton’s interest in increasing housing choices, particularly in the ‘missing middle’ housing range, but whether this development orientation aligns with industry and consumer demand remains a point of contention.
Murtaza Haider and Stephen Moranis (2018) question whether households prefer mid-rise housing, and if builders see these housing typologies as more profitable than single-detached or high-rise residential buildings. If consumer demand does not favour housing within the missing middle range, is it reasonable to expect that builders and developers will build it? Haider and Moranis argue that “land prices are set higher because landowners believe the builders will be able to build at a higher density than what the land is originally zoned for.” If this is true, what density is preferred for a parcel of land, and should the land value differ depending on the final densities of the project? They further argue that the “economies of scale favour high-rise construction over mid-rise construction for a given parcel because in addition to fixed land and some construction costs, some ownership costs are also independent of the number of units.” With that said, then, if cities are to focus their attention on missing middle housing, challenges around land prices and demographics may need to be addressed.
Figure 5.1: Edmonton’s missing middle refers to multi-unit housing that falls Between single detached homes and tall apartment buildings. Example : MIDI
According to Johnson et al. (2018), infill redevelopment is more expensive than greenfield development because of demolition costs, in addition to construction and property acquisition. How might the public sector and municipalities address these imbalances? These questions were top of mind for the City of Edmonton, and were explored as part of the Missing Middle Infill Design Competition.
Finding the Missing Middle
Launched in 2019, Edmonton’s Missing Middle Infill Design Competition encouraged conversations around infill and helped the public and development community envision design possibilities. The competition solicited and reviewed design proposals that considered how the missing middle or medium-density housing might work on a site of five lots owned by the City of Edmonton. The winning team, adjudicated by a national jury of architects, would be given the opportunity to purchase the site and build their design – with the City of Edmonton supporting throughout the development processes.
The competition sought to recognize the following:
Contextual multi-unit, medium-density (‘missing middle’) designs for mature neighbourhoods in Edmonton
Innovation and creativity in design
Financial viability and buildability
Design for livability for a range of users and abilities, including individuals, couples, single families with or without children, extended family groups and seniors
Design for environmental, social and economic sustainability
Climate resilient design
The five lots in Edmonton’s Spruce Avenue neighbourhood were chosen due to its sufficient size, location, proximity to transit and other services/amenities and developability – after reviewing and comparing it to thousands of City of Edmonton properties. It was deemed as surplus land by the City of Edmonton, is well-serviced, and was determined to be immediately sellable as-is by the City of Edmonton’s Real Estate Advisory Committee. While the market prospects, as predicted by the City of Edmonton, are indeed excellent (e.g. residential condo and townhome median assessed values have increased by more than 4% compared to the city-average, -2.8%), it is the existing community-at-large that have actively endorsed the Missing Middle Infill Design Competition, welcoming positive change and growth in their neighbourhood.
Figure 5.2: Open/amenity space was a top priority during design and pro forma deliberations. Example : Bricolage
Nearly 100 renderings and 30 pro formas, representing more than half a million dollars of architectural design work, were received from Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Seattle, in addition to preliminary registrations from London (UK), Regina, Hamilton, Toronto, and Oklahoma City.
Applicants to the Missing Middle Infill Design Competition were required to provide a pro forma. Creating a pro forma requires a lot of assumptions about what materials and labour will cost, how people want to live, and what they will pay for real estate.
Pro formas offer a window into the financial assumptions of developers, including relative costs of project elements (e.g. land vs. building vs. permitting). This can help policy makers understand the financial impact of various policies that change costs and project timelines. Insofar as they are accurate and represent a real commitment to a project, they can also inform policy makers of the risks developers perceive with a given project. However, pro formas are seldom used as a tool to inform or test policies. In part, this is because policy makers typically do not have the required skills to produce test pro formas, and developers typically resist sharing the detailed financial information they contain. The pro formas submitted for this project have a number of limitations, discussed later in this report, but still offer some perspective on the financial reality of infill development.
By reviewing the thirty pro formas submitted to our design competition, we sought to answer three questions as part of an analysis on the financial viability of missing middle housing. What do the pro formas from the Missing Middle Infill Design Competition tell us about the most financially-feasible low and medium infill forms? What do the estimated profit margins tell us about the risks applicants see with building infill? What funding sources and financing structures are typical for infill development and how do these differ from greenfield?
Table 5.1: Building Data
What the Numbers Say
With land value held constant across all projects, the average profit margin for an apartment and row house is identical (11% of revenues). To test the impact of land value reductions, the land value was reduced by 25% for row house and stacked row house projects. Cheaper land makes row housing more profitable than apartments (15% vs 11% profit), and typically land that is zoned for smaller scale development is less expensive. Based on the data available for this study, row housing can be competitive with small apartments. The following graphs shows larger revenues for larger buildings, but a similar range of profit margins across building sizes.
Figure 5.3: Revenue by Building Area Figure 5.4: Profit Margin by Building Area
Nine of the twenty-two projects evaluated proposed rental apartments. Three of these were among the most profitable developments (ranking first, second, and ninth). The remaining six rental projects were the least profitable of all projects. The average profit margin was lower for rental projects than for condominiums (7% vs 13%). However, maximum profit margin for rental projects was comparable to the maximum for condominiums (34% vs 32%). Overall, the financial data suggest that there is not currently a clear advantage for building rental or condominium projects in this market, and that considerations other than pure financial return influence developer’s choice.
Figure 5.5: Gross Profit Margin for All Projects and Target Minimum Profit Margin
Every developer will set a minimum acceptable margin that depends on what investment options they have and the risks involved. The most common margin used by policy makers, however, is 15%. The average profit margin for this site was only 11%, meaning that for most developers, it is hard to put together a successful project.
With profit margins so low, what can we say about project risk? We might assume it means that developers think infill is a slam dunk, and so they are willing to take a small return. However, when you look closely at project inputs like rent per square foot, construction costs, and condo sales timing in a slow Edmonton market, this does not seem reasonable. In fact, we found more evidence of aggressive targets (or wishful thinking) in the pro formas than conservative estimates. For example, capitalization rates were normalized across submissions for this analysis because a number of rental projects assumed unreasonably low rates or high rents. No condominium project accounted for long sales periods that are characteristic in the current market.
over and over, and with little engagement cost or risk. High rise development is large enough to produce its own efficiencies through scale, and attract funds from pension funds. Missing middle infill development never gets the scale, the momentum, or the attention to make it an easy win.
What the Industry Says
To accompany our pro forma analysis, we invited architects, builders, and developers to share their perspectives and assumptions around profit and risk for medium-density housing, and associated financial and regulatory barriers.
Applicants to the design competition perceived their participation as a worthwhile venture and investment because of the opportunity to build their proposal. In fact, the ideas that developer-architect teams explored are, in many cases, being explored for other housing projects. The Missing Middle Infill Design Competition helped to expand our knowledge of what scale of density is preferred and reasonable for the missing middle in Edmonton. Participants noted how the design competition was an opportunity to test new design concepts, and to potentially challenge the City’s current regulations with new innovations.
“But when you’re working with the developer, you can develop a proposal on a site like that is feasible. You can push the limits of what is possible, because the architect and developer can equally push each other to make sure the proposal meets technically, economically, and also achieves the design aesthetic.” (Developer)
Our interviews also revealed that members of the industry perceive land values as a challenge to making pro formas for medium-density housing viable. Municipal government affects land value primarily through the development rights (zoning) granted to each parcel. We typically expect that adding development rights will also increase the value of land. The land in the competition was priced at for low rise apartments, but some projects proposed lower density development, like row housing. These projects could expect to acquire land with less permitted density for lower cost in an open market, as long as upzoning is not expected.
“Construction costs could not be changed. Materials cost the same, no matter what you are building. There is no flexibility, too, with architectural/design fees because of provincial recommendations. The only way to wiggle with the pro forma would have been to adjust the land cost. Infill is a niche market. Very few people can afford $800,000 duplexes.” (Developer)
Builders, architects, and developers cited how servicing requirements need to be made clear so that these costs can be appropriately factored into their pro formas. Some of these participants made assumptions that since the competition was put forward by the City of Edmonton, that there would be leniency on permitting timelines and additional incentives to support the winning team’s advancement through the land development process.
The interviews illuminated how design features like amenity space and public space are potentially at odds with density requirements for developments to be profitable. While developers strive to include public space so that their housing projects can entice their intended user demographics, their pro formas did not perform well with them included.
“We wanted more of a green wall. It just didn’t work economically. We were constantly reviewing the numbers while we were working with the design.” (Architect)
The provision of parking was also seen as a significant expense. The City of Edmonton is exploring the possibility of removing minimum parking requirements, with amendments to the Zoning Bylaw scheduled for public hearing in 2020. If these regulatory changes were factored into the design competition, would the number of parking spaces put forward by architect-developer teams be reduced, and by what measure?
Given the nature of the design competition, all projects expected rezoning fee reductions or waivers, timely permits, and a positive neighbourhood response. While municipal fees were not a major project cost, interviewees indicated that the success of their proposal depended on minimizing delays and project uncertainty. Part of what made the competition desirable was that there was an assembled site, and the City of Edmonton was taking on much of the community engagement work, reducing uncertainty and timelines for proponents.
Sharpening our Pencils
The development of new housing can be complex and costly in the best of circumstances. When it proposes a new form in an old neighbourhood, it can be very difficult to put together a project that can please neighbours, satisfy regulators, attract buyers or renters, and convince banks and investors to put their money in.
So what lessons can we draw from the City of Edmonton’s Missing Middle Infill Design Competition?
We learned that developers and architects are creative and interested in innovating when there is support from regulators, like city planners, to do so. We learned that different infill designs are possible, and even competitive — rental apartments, condominium rowhouses, even modular, stacking, expandable co-op housing can be viable on paper. If cities want row housing, they need to zone land for row housing and use those zones as a commitment to communities and developers to prevent price creep from pricing out desirable projects. Cities can use their zoning tools, along with long range planning and engagement to set community expectations and reduce uncertainty for all involved.
The pro formas tells us that most of the factors affecting real estate development are determined by the markets for labour, investment capital, and housing, which are outside of a municipality’s hands. However, interviews with developers reveal that supportive policies, regulations and proactive engagement can make the difference between a successful infill project, and a failure to launch. Cities seeking missing middle development will need to work with local developers to understand the challenges facing infill in order to find effective solutions. Cities, now more than ever, are eager to sharpen their pencils, and get moving on this type of work. We are excited for the possibilities.
References
City of Edmonton. (2018). “Planning Academy: Residential Infill 2018.”
Johnson, J., Frkonja, J., Todd, M., and Yee, D. (2018). “Additional detail in aggregate integrated land-use models via stimulating developer pro forma thinking.” Journal of Transport and Land Use, 11:1, pp. 405-418.
The Financial Post. (2018). “The ‘missing middle’ in real estate is missing for a reason: No one wants to live in mid-rise housing.” Retrieved from https://business. financialpost.com/real-estate/the-missing-middle-in-real-estate-is- missing-for-a-reason-no-one-wants-to-live-in-mid-rise-housing.
Garcia, D. (2019). “Making It Pencil: The Math Behind Housing Development.” Terner Center for Housing Innovation. Retrieved from: http://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/uploads/Making_It_Pencil_The_ Math_Behind_Housing_Development.pdf.
The City of Edmonton’s Missing Middle Infill Design Competition sparked significant local, national, and international interest in the possibilities for the missing middle or medium-density housing design innovation. In their proposals for five parcels of land within a core Edmonton neighborhood, multidisciplinary teams consisting of architects, builders, and developers considered impacts to residents and the surrounding community, the competition’s design objectives, and financial viability. With the incentive for participation being the opportunity to build their winning design, teams prepared pro formas to articulate how they would proceed with their developments. This study seeks to explore the assumptions that applicant teams made when designing their missing middle housing proposals. As cities continue to contemplate the necessity for missing middle in their neighborhoods, lessons gleaned from this analysis may offer potential opportunities to address financial and regulatory challenges to development; in addition to understanding the industry’s perspectives on profit and risk with respect to medium-scale housing forms. Topical policy questions for urban planners and decision-makers might be the various factors hindering development, and the policy and regulatory improvements that may address them.
Keywords
Missing Middle, Infill; Housing; Pro Formas; Design
Twelfth ride: A Saturday Morning Driving for Uber in Cincinnati
This paper examines twelve UberX rides completed over four hours in Cincinnati with the intent of comparing first-person evidence of ridehail travelers to a growing body of quantitative literature. Traveler data are based on observation and casual conversation between the author (driver) and the passenger. A typical Saturday morning was chosen beginning in Cincinnati’s Central Business District (CBD), and each subsequent trip was based on the location of the previous trip destination without intervention. This work attempts to tell the narrative of where each traveler was going, infer why they chose ridehailing, and explore the social relationship between riders and drivers. More specifically, it places these twelve travelers in the context of published ridehail literature. From the driver’s perspective, $68.32 was grossed after four hours of driving—including one tip, $2 tip on the twelfth ride. This small sample of ridehail passengers, and driver profits, conforms to findings published in the academic literature yet is not intended to be statistically significant. This work has implications for future research by presenting details about trips and passengers not before seen in the literature.
Keywords
Ridehail; Uber; Socioeconomics; Driver Earnings
The Invention of Abandonment and the Rescue of a Neighborhood: A Tiny Glance to Franklin’s Sanitas Building, in Santiago de Chile
This ethnographic research focuses on the trajectory of abandonment of a factory in the Franklin neighborhood of Santiago, Chile. It establishes a chronology of the post-industrial applications of the building, from informal to formal. Buildings can be understood as the object of processes; despite their immobility, their uses and meanings are in constant reconfiguration. This article analyses two dimensions to understand the trajectory of the property; time frames of occupation and recognition of the formality of these periods. This illustrates how the use of buildings, conceptualized here as ‘interim spaces,’ functions as a process of urban renewal.
Rapid urbanization in the Global South, and its accompanying challenges have heightened in African cities. One consequence of Africa’s urbanization that cuts across most of its nations is the high rate of urban unemployment which has led many urban poor residents to resort to seeking solace in informal employment opportunities. Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, has an escalated case of unemployment leading to the proliferation of informal economic activities in its cities, which are also predominantly home-based. The operation of informal economic activities in residential buildings is known as home-based enterprises (HBEs), which are attributed to low start-up capital, work-life balance and land use changes. This study focuses on the objective and empirical investigation of the effects of HBEs in cities of global South, using Enugu, a colonial, medium-sized administrative city in Nigeria as case study. The study projects the reasons why urban planners should acknowledge and maximize the potentials of this urbanization-driven phenomenon to meet some SDGs, while also controlling the negative impacts such as land use alterations to ensure sustainable cities. The objectives of the study are; i). To examine the dynamics of HBEs ii). to identify the Treasure in HBEs iii). to determine the Trauma of HBEs. iv). to recommend effective measures for managing HBEs for Sustainable development. It concludes by advocating that urban planners should consider the integration of HBEs into neighborhood schemes to maximize the potentials and effectively control the negative impacts thereby ensuring sustainable global South cities.
Keywords
Treasure; Trauma; Informal; Home-Based Enterprises; Land use
About the Authors
Nkeiru Hope Ezeadichie is an Urban Planner and a Lecturer at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus. Her research interest includes informal economy, Pro-poor planning and urban/ rural studies. The publication is part of her PhD research work.
Joy U. Ogbazi is a Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus where she has also previously served two terms as head of the department. She holds a PhD from Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Nigeria and MSc from Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. She is the co-editor of three books, author/co-author of over forty five journal articles, conference papers, books and book chapters. Her research focuses on planning theory, urban development, planning and environmental quality. Joy is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners, a Fellow of the Nigerian Environmental Society and a Registered Town Planner in Nigeria.
Introduction
There is substantial consideration of home-based enterprises (HBEs) by researchers in urban planning. This consideration has been attributed to the expansion of HBEs across developing countries generally, and especially in sub-Saharan Africa, ranging from its normal domain in informal settlements to formal high, medium and even low-density residential neighborhoods (Strassmann, 1986; Onyebueke, 2001; Okosun and Ezeadichie, 2006). Consequently, it has become a veritable source of livelihood for a considerable number of residents that urban planning cannot afford to ignore. Second, as an income generating exercise, HBEs come with benefits as well as drawbacks. Political economists argue that HBEs absorb people who would otherwise lack the requisite skills and capacity to gain employment in the formal public and private sector, contribute to gross domestic products and when properly monitored, can contribute to internally generated revenue (Olufemi, 2010). Some traditional urban planners see the growth in the preponderance of HBEs as a distortion of public space with increased waste and criminal activities in neighborhoods (Okeke, 2000).
Many rural-urban migrants in African cities lack the requisite qualification for scarce formal employment and are trapped in the only alternative; informal employment. This has led to the rise in home-based enterprises as the fastest growing economic sub-sector of the informal economy, particularly in Nigeria – the seventh and most populous nation – globally, and in Africa, respectively. The growth of home-based enterprises (HBEs) is also attributed to low start-up capital, work-life balance (opting for and maintaining employment that is compatible with family values and responsibilities), neoliberalism, and a reduction of production cost by casualization of labor force (Walker, Wang and Redmond, 2008). Notwithstanding the positive effects of HBEs in African cities, urban planners still view these activities as land use distortion and are not favorably disposed towards them. According to Tomei (2000:1), “This situation is due to a large extent, to a lack of understanding and to confusion regarding what exactly constitutes homework.” A gap that this study attempts to fill.
Therefore, this study investigates the nature and impacts of home-based enterprises to understand and present this phenomenon more comprehensively. Enugu, a colonial, medium-sized administrative city in Nigeria is used as a case study. The objectives of the study are: i). to examine the dynamics of HBEs ii). to identify the positive impacts of HBEs and iii). to determine the negative impacts of HBEs. The study answers two basic research questions: what are the dynamics of HBEs?; what are the positive and negative impacts of HBEs in the study area? The hypothesis (H0) advanced here is that the positive impacts of HBEs are not more significant than the negative impacts. In this study, the positive impacts are the treasures that are the benefits and advantages, and the negative impacts are the traumas, the adverse effects and disadvantages.
The methodology entails the sampling of four neighborhoods; Obed Camp (informal settlement), Uwani (high density), New Haven (medium density) and Independence layout (low density) selected through stratified random sampling. Data was collected using two sets of structured questionnaires. 10% of the dwelling units; Obed camp 241, Uwani 750, New Haven 1,132 and Independence layout 2,360 are sampled. The residents’ rating of the impacts of HBEs are obtained and analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA) to reduce the components and ascertain the principal factors. Based on Eigenvalues of 36 selected variables identified as impacts from literature, the PCA extracted five major factors. Employment benefit is the major factor contributing 44.8% of the 66.4% total factors while the only negative factor (neighborhood distortion) contributed only 3.8% to the total factors. Implying that the negative impact has less significance to the residents than the positive impacts. The study is significant as it presents an objective rating of the impacts of HBEs by operators and non-operator residents using a high statistical tool (PCA). It concludes by advocating that urban planners integrate HBEs into neighborhood schemes to maximize the treasures and minimize the traumas thereby ensuring sustainable global South cities. The next section entails the review of literature on HBEs.
Literature Review
The shift of urbanization-focused research from global North to South is expedient given the rapid urbanization in the global South, especially African cities (Watson, 2009; Blanco, Alberti…..Watson, 2009). Urban population growth sources are mainly rural-urban migration and natural increases (Lucci, 2014). The growth of the world population has been from 2.6 Billion (1950) to 7.8 Billion (September, 2020). The world urbanization figures have been increasing; 0.75 Billion (1950) to 4.22 Billion (2018) and projected to 5.17 Billion (2030) and 6.68 Billion (2050) (UNDESA, 2018) with wide regional disparity and possible lower figures due to the 2019/2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. Africa remains the least urbanized continent with 43% urban residents (UNDESA, 2018). These population and urbanization figures have far reaching implications for the development of global South cities and even in the North.
The challenges of global South urbanization are intensified in African cities because of their rapid rate and by the unpreparedness of African governments to meet the challenges of this process, exhibited in tackling the informal economy. The broad nature of the informal economic sector as it affects unemployment, demands sector-specific research to appropriately address definite peculiarities (Onyebueke, 2001). Unemployment is a continent-wide consequence of Africa’s urbanization that has resulted in many settling for informal employment. Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, has a high rate of unemployment and consequently an informal economy, which is predominantly home-based. Nigeria’s unemployment rate grew from 23.1% in the third quarter of 2018 to 27.1% in the second quarter of 2020 and then to 33.3% in the fourth quarter of 2020 (National Bureau of Statistics, 2020). The increase in unemployment results in an increase in the number of people in the informal economy. Nigeria’s informal economy is estimated at 80% of the workforce (Robert, 2011) and the main source of employment for rural-urban migrants (Onodugo et al, 2016). The categories of the Nigerian informal economy are the survivalist enterprise dominated by urban poor women and micro enterprises (Rogerson, 1996). Urban planners in Nigeria generally view the informal sector as “a public nuisance and misuse of public space” because of their use of temporary structures (Onodugo, et al, 2016:96; Okeke, 2000). Also, urban planners in Nigeria have been opined to practice with colonially bequeathed exclusionist-orientation (Ogbazi and Ezeadichie, 2014). The neighborhoods are predominantly low-income with recent expansions to medium and even high-income neighborhoods (Ezeadichie, 2012).
Home-based enterprise is a trending global phenomenon; however, its nature of operation differs as seen in USA and UK regions. In the global North, many businesses are HBEs. In a recent study on the assessment of jobs that can be performed completely at home, it was found that 37% of jobs in the USA can be performed at home because of their high level of technological advancement (Dingel and Neiman, 2020) in contrast with the global South. This shows the distinction between HBEs in the two regions. Home-based enterprises in the global South are predominantly informal and survival-based (Lindell, 2010). The details of impacts of HBEs discussed in the next section also portray its characteristics in global South cities.
Economic Impacts The economic value of HBEs has its greatest positive impacts for urban residents. Strassmann in his study of Lima, Peru (1985) and Peru, Sri Lanka and Zambia (1986) noted that HBEs usually provide approximately 40% of household income for operators. He continued that HBEs save time, travel-cost, and production cost. This is because HBEs operate within the homes and neighborhood. Similarly, Gough, et al. (2003) affirmed the convenience for customers in purchase, proximity, extended service duration, opportunity to make purchases of small quantities of goods, and even purchasing goods on credit as more merits of HBEs. The fungibility of money, time and space as treasures of HBEs was emphasized by Kellet and Tipple (2000). The fungibility of money implies that available funds in the household can be used for both HBE (productive) and domestic (reproductive) activities. This interchange of resources is applicable to time and space in HBE-operating homes. This matters, especially to urban poor households, as they can utilize available resources to generate income (however small) which sustains them daily so as not to slip into absolute poverty or destitution. Again, the valid, irreplaceable contribution of HBEs in the textile industry during the industrial revolution despite the technological progress was emphasized by Tomei (2000). Also, HBEs fill the gap created by planning where some necessary amenities like shops are not adequately provided within the neighborhood (Abolade, et al, 2013). The far-reaching range of HBE output was acknowledged by Chen and Sinha (2016) noting that the products transcend domestic purpose to national and global markets especially in Asia. The renting of space for HBEs provides household savings. Although the low income from HBEs is a general characteristic, Tipple (2005) confirmed that it is an important contribution for poverty alleviation while Ezeadichie et al. (2018) corroborate this, stating that the income from HBEs saves many households from despondency.
On the contrary, Strassmann (1986) emphasized that the low HBE income is problematic given the unfavorable work conditions such as inadequate workspace and lack of privacy in the home. In the same vein, the repression of women in HBEs during major decision-making by male partners is a notable trauma (Gondwe and Ayenagbo, 2013). Another area of HBE impact is the social realm, which is discussed in the next section.
Social Impacts The social impacts of HBEs, Strassmann (1985) noted include, the flexibility of work schedule, adequate time for childcare, sociability, dignity, and fulfillment of self-employment, as well as security. HBEs are valued as locations where ‘informal networks and bonds are developed’ (Onyebueke, 1997 c.f Onyebueke, 2001:420). HBEs have become an honorable income source for vulnerable women. (Walker and Webster, 2004; Walker, Wang, and Redmond, 2008; Ezeadichie, et al, 2018). In addition, HBEs are particularly important to women in Africa because it is believed that it is the woman’s responsibility to take care of the children, elderly, and sick members of the family. Hence, for women not to be totally dependent on the husband for income, opt for HBEs that enable them to fulfill both reproductive and productive responsibilities. The role of HBEs in the development of human capital and opportunities for training at much reduced cost was discussed by Omuta (1986). A better work-life balance has been mentioned as another positive impact of HBEs (Reuschke and Mason, 2020).
Contrastingly, Gough et al. (2003) described the sale of alcoholic beverages by HBE operators within neighborhoods as a major cause of noise and social vices. The health hazards caused by HBEs are criticized (Onyebueke, 2001). Marginalization in contractual agreements is another negative impact of HBEs (Tomei, 2000). The challenge for including HBE operators in national statistics as workers is noted by Chen and Sinha (2016). Another negative impact of HBEs is inconsistency in business, since it is dependent on the operators’ convenience (Ezeadichie, et al, 2018). In the global South, and especially African and Asian context, women face many socio-cultural challenges. One common example is the belief that “the place of the woman is in the kitchen”, “women should only be seen and not heard”, etc. These statements about women depict the belief that women are not to be engaged in formal employment. With many formal job opportunities, preference is given to men, even when some women are more qualified than men are. Therefore, many women, rather than continue to search for formal jobs after multiple rejections based on their gender, opt to engage in HBEs. Some HBE operators, particularly those that are engaged in it due to constraints, feel that they are socially isolated and trapped and desire to opt out of it (Unni and Rani, 2004). The environmental/spatial impacts of HBEs is another area worth discussing, as noted below.
Environmental/Spatial Impacts HBEs have been opined to provide necessary income for better living standards and sizes of dwelling units (Strassmann, 1985). Urban poor households that operate HBEs are more likely to improve the standard and size of their unit to ensure improved business and comfort of the members of the home. Residential space alteration by urban poor for HBEs was viewed as a positive process, described as ‘invented spaces’, as they exhibit resourcefulness and creativity (Gondwe and Ayenagbo, 2013).
In terms of the negative impacts, HBEs lead to sub-standard housing and environmental effects as well as reduce the residential quality (Okeke, 2000). However, this situation has been attributed to the government’s inability to provide any physical location for informally trained urban residents (Ezeadichie, 2012). The employment-creation characteristic of the sector has engendered many land use challenges such as incompatible land uses, building alterations, proliferation of temporary structures in planned residential areas, and open space changes (Okeke, 2000). In an assessment of waste-generation by HBE operators, it was discovered that the majority generate higher volumes of household waste while a minority generate hazardous waste (Tipple, 2005a). The indiscriminate use of any accessible space for HBEs has resulted in the defacing of planned residential neighborhoods in African cities (Abolade, Adigun, and Akande, 2013). However, this challenge has persisted because many urban planners in African cities refuse to acknowledge and plan in accordance with current urban realities. The next section examines the relationship between home-based enterprises and urban planning.
Home-Based Enterprises And Urban Planning The role of urban planners in supporting or suppressing HBE operators is an important issue. Many governments in global South nations consult urban planners when policies affecting home-based enterprises need to be made. Unfortunately, as Strassmann (1985), Simon, (1998) and Kamete, (2002) noted the policy makers usually work against urban designs that support HBEs. These oppositions are attributed to dogmatic land use theories that are discordant with current realities in the rapidly urbanizing global South cities. For instance, Strassman (1986) noted that HBE operators experience hostility from urban planners because of their philosophy that there should always be a clear separation of home and workplace. Potts (2007) reiterated the views of Strassman by stating that policies of government portray discouragement for the informal economy, (HBE inclusive). She affirmed that planners rarely approve of anything that concerns the informal economy as they distinctly alter the planned land uses. The non-consideration and inclusion of the working poor in urban planning has been noted to have an adverse effect on the survival of the urban poor in cities of the global South (Watson, 2011). Conclusively, the spread of HBEs from informal settlements to all densities of formal residential neighborhoods (Okosun and Ezeadichie, 2006) should send a critical signal to urban planners in the global South. Similarly, Watson and Agbola (2013) opined that a different approach needs to be adopted by African planners and professionals if rapid urban transformation is to be managed effectively. Therefore, basic, comprehensive knowledge on the dynamics and impacts of this urbanization-led phenomenon is indispensable.
Methodology
The selected area used for this case study is the colonial Enugu city, the capital of Enugu State and the oldest capital city in the Southeast geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The choice of Enugu as the case study is due to the researchers’ knowledge and experience gained from numerous works done in the city during the past three decades. The Enugu State population is 3,267,837; the State and city unemployment rate, 9.6% and 14.5% respectively, and the city unemployment rate was 22.3% (NPC, 2006). These figures account for the proliferation of the informal economy and particularly home-based enterprises in the study area, hence the choice of Enugu city for the study.
The data for the study were accessed through primary and secondary sources. The total number of buildings within the neighborhood constitute the study population. The study employed a descriptive survey method. The boundary coordinate points were input into Google Earth to define the location map of the study extent with a Google Earth satellite image as a backdrop. A Garmin GPSMAP 64 Handheld GPS device was used to pick the coordinates of the sampled buildings located within the neighborhoods during fieldwork, while ArcMap and ArcGIS 10.3 software were used for analysis. The data collection instrument was two sets of questionnaires. The first set was systematically administered among residents consisting of both HBE operators and non-operators in the residential buildings, who rated the positive and negative impacts of HBEs on a five-point Likert scale. The second set of questionnaires was administered among urban planners in planning authorities in charge of the selected neighborhoods. The 32 residential neighborhoods in Enugu were categorized into low, medium, high and informal densities and then one was randomly selected from each category to ensure a comprehensive, representative, and inclusive analysis (Kazimbaya- Senkwe, 2004). The selected neighborhoods based on the stratified random sampling are shown in Table 1. The total number of building footprints (sample frame) in the study neighborhoods was 4,483 from which 10% sample size involved 452 residents’ questionnaire administration in the study. Also, the second set of questionnaires were administered among seven Town Planners since there were not many registered town planners in each planning authority. The 10% sample among the residents was determined by systematic sampling of the 10th building in each street within each neighborhood. The key research question is: what are the positive and negative impacts of HBEs? The hypothesis (H0) states that the positive impacts of HBEs are not more significant than the negative impacts.
Table 4.1: Selected study neighbourhoods in Enugu and Questionnaire administration Source: Researchers’ compilation
Findings And Discussions
The Dynamics of Home-based Enterprises The returned residents’ questionnaire was analyzed using descriptive statistics while the hypothesis was tested using principal component analysis (PCA) to reduce the factors. The set of collated questionnaires completed by the residents disclose that in terms of the dynamics of HBEs, there are more female than male respondents in the four neighborhoods. Also, most HBE operators are between 16 and 45 years, corroborating the facts in existing HBE literature (Onyebueke, 2013). The household size of most HBE operators has the highest frequency for 3-5 and 6-10. In terms of educational qualification of household heads for HBE operators, Senior Secondary School Certificate had the highest frequency in the four sampled neighborhoods (Obed Camp-55%, Uwani-50%, New Haven-31.7%, and Independence Layout-37.6%). This also agrees with existing literature (Onyebueke, 2013), indicating the relevance of HBEs for the educated as well. Data on the presence of HBEs in the study area indicate the following: Obed Camp-45%, Uwani-78.4%, New Haven-75.2%, and Independence Layout- 60.7%. Obed Camp, the informal settlement had the least figure due to the demolition of structures at the time of this survey in August 2018. The other three formal neighborhoods have HBEs of over 60%, reiterating the ‘informalization of formal settlements’ observed by Myers (2011: 73).
Figure 4.1: Categories of HBEs Source: Researchers’ compilation
Another important characteristic of HBEs is the categorization, this study revealed that the three main categories of HBEs; manufacturing, services, and commercial are present in the study area. The data from the study shows that in Enugu, there is 7.1% manufacturing, 30.5% services, and 62.4% commercial HBEs. In the four sampled neighborhoods, manufacturing remained the least significant, while commercial remains the highest frequency as shown in Figure 4.1 and is typical of African cities’ HBEs (Tipple, 2005). One of the dynamics of HBEs which urban planners regard as the major negative impact is the alteration of residential buildings to accommodate HBEs. This is evident in the sampled neighborhoods. The data shows that the front of the buildings was the chosen location with the highest frequency for the three formal neighborhoods. However, the street, right in front of the house was the choice location for Obed Camp (informal settlement) HBEs. The front of the house is usually chosen for easy access to customers and to avoid interference with domestic activities. Other parts of the building used for HBE including the whole room and part of a room were observed in other studies. Figure 4.2 shows the photograph of a typical home-based enterprise in Enugu city.
The data on residents’ rating of the impacts of HBEs was used to test the hypothesis of this study, H0: the positive impacts of HBEs are not more significant than the negative impacts. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to test this hypothesis using the statistical package for social sciences to ensure an unbiased outcome. The choice of PCA is to employ a highly rated statistical tool for reduction of the impact factors to a manageable size and for a reliable result. The PCA was used to determine the cumulative percentage of the analyzed factors and the major components of the impacts of HBEs in the study area. Based on Eigenvalues of 36 selected variables from the literature, the PCA extracted five principal factors that had Eigenvalues of more than one, while the extraction loading cumulative is 66.5%. The five principal factors are employment benefits (44.87%), government revenue (10.58%), social improvement (4.35%), neighborhood distortion (3.84%) and economic improvement (2.81%). Out of the five principal factors from the PCA result, four are positive impacts and one is a negative impact. The positive impacts are employment benefits (44.87%), government revenue (10.58%), social improvement (4.35%) and economic improvement (2.81%), while the negative impact is neighborhood distortion (3.84%). These impacts are discussed under treasures and traumas of HBEs in the next section.
The Treasures of Home-Based Enterprises
The treasures, which are the benefits of HBEs include the following;
Employment Benefits The result of the data analysis reveals that 75% of sampled household heads are informally employed. The analysis further shows that 76.6% of the respondents are owner-operators, 13.5% are employees in HBEs while 9.9% are family members involved in HBEs. Data on the number of workers in HBEs disclose that 35.1% of the businesses had only one employee, 58.55% had two to four employees, 5.3% had five to seven employees and 1.1% had eight to ten employees. The implication of these figures is that these employees would have probably been unemployed without HBEs. The employment benefit of HBEs is the most significant positive impact for the residents in the study area based on the high rating and the high factor loading of 44.87%.
Revenue Benefits The provision of revenue to the government through HBEs implies that its positive impacts are not just for the operators and neighborhood residents but also extends to the government of the cities, yet these governments rarely have any plan or support programs for the operators. In Enugu, 50.7% of HBE operators that were sampled indicated that they pay the state waste management levy, while 49.3% indicated that they pay their local government levy for small businesses. The levies they pay range from a minimum of one hundred naira (N100, $0.27) to a maximum of twenty-five thousand naira (N 25,000, $69.4). In terms of the frequency of payment, 9.5% of the respondents paid monthly while 89.8% indicated that they paid annually.
Social Improvements These are major positive impacts of HBEs in the study area with a factor loading of 4.35%. Social improvements include intangible impacts of HBEs such as increase in self-confidence, improvement of skills, development of work culture and flexible work hours. These intangible impacts are highly rated by respondents in this study and are among the 36 variables found in the literature. The data shows that HBE operators usually get some start-up training. The following are the data on start-up skill acquisition; vocational 4.6%, apprentice 33.7%, formal 8.9%, and self-trained 52.8%. HBEs, apart from the provision of employment opportunities, help to increase self-confidence of the operators who were regarded as unemployed prior to their involvement in such an enterprise. This impact is particularly important to women who could not seek formal employment due to their reproductive responsibilities, did not have any source of income to meet some personal needs, and had to depend on their spouses or other family members. The engagement in HBE empowers women to claim that they are employed, while in their homes, and they can independently cater to personal and household needs at the same time. This increases self-confidence in the home and neighborhood.
Economic Improvements This is the fifth principle factor with a loading of 2.81%. HBEs bring about economic improvement at all levels; for individuals, households, and government agencies. Income generation through HBEs is a measurable way of assessing economic improvement. The data on monthly income from HBEs reveals that 17% of the HBE operators sampled earn less than N9,000 ($25)monthly, 41.5% earn between N9,000 ($25) and N20,000 ($55.5), 14.2% earn between N21,000 ($58.3) and N30,000 ($83.3) (N30,000 {$83.3} is the current minimum wage in Nigeria). Also, 6.7% earn between N31,000 ($86.1) and N40,000 ($111.1) and 20.6% earn above N40,000 ($111.1). These data vary across the four neighborhood densities that were sampled. This implies that 27.3% of HBE operators in the study area earn above the national minimum wage monthly, although more than half of the operators earn below the current minimum wage. The low income from HBEs is a characteristic of the phenomenon, however many factors contribute to this situation including lack of official acknowledgement and support. Data on other sources of income reveals that 59.6% have no other source of income, while only 9.7% had other sources that yielded income above N30,000 ($83.3) monthly. The remaining 30.7% of the respondents had income from other sources that were less than the minimum wage. With these figures, HBEs are real sources of economic improvement for the operators and their households. The payment of levy by the operators ranging between N100 ($0.27) and N25,000($69.4) is a source of economic improvement for the government. The implication of this finding is that HBEs are the sole source of income for almost 60% of the operators, and as such, any action by government agencies against their operations will render these households destitute. This finding is significant particularly for African urban planners who still insist on opposing HBEs. The negative impact of HBEs is discussed in the next section.
The Traumas of Home-Based Enterprises The traumas of HBEs are the adverse effects discussed below:
Neighborhood Distortion One negative impact of the five principal components from the PCA result is neighborhood distortion 3.844%. Neighborhood distortion refers to the use of spaces in neighborhoods for purposes that were not originally planned, and which are not compatible with other existing land uses. Most of the negative impacts of HBEs are spatial/ environmental-related. The prominent ones in the study area are traffic congestion, air pollution, fire hazards, noise pollution, lack of home security, and overcrowding. Traffic congestion is seen in front of some buildings with HBEs due to customers who wrongly park vehicles to make purchases – this is more visible in the formal neighborhoods; Uwani, New Haven, and Independence layout. Air pollution is a negative impact of HBEs caused by those that cook for sale in front of their houses. This is particular to informal settlements and high population density neighborhoods. Fire hazards occur in any neighborhood, it is not a common effect of HBEs but usually occurs due to the carelessness of the operators. Noise pollution is a predominant impact of HBEs particularly in informal and high-density neighborhoods and is also noted in the study area. Lack of home security is an impact of HBEs and more in cases where a room is designated for the business, or the customers must get to the backyard for purchases. The issue of home security is a major reason why most operators (34%-highest frequency) use the front of the buildings for business so that customers will have no reason to gain access into the residential buildings. Overcrowding is another major impact of HBEs, the use of a complete room or part of a room reduces the space available for domestic purposes in the home. In contrast to the residents’ rating of these spatial/environmental impacts, these impacts were very highly rated by urban planners in the second set of questionnaires. This outcome is not surprising as the planners’ actions are based on knowledge of the short-and long-term implications of these processes, notwithstanding the highly applauded economic impacts of HBEs. Other negative impacts include poor upbringing of children as they, in HBE households, are unduly exposed to all manner of people who come as customers. HBE locations are also possible meeting points for people of questionable character in the neighborhood which can promote social vices within the area.
Table 4.2: Summary of PCA results for impact of HBE in Enugu City
Summary of Findings The residential space alteration by urban poor for HBEs was viewed from a positive perspective and described as ‘invented spaces’, with the argument that some pattern of building alteration for HBEs by urban poor exhibit resourcefulness and creativity (Gondwe and Ayenagbo, 2013). This is an attribute that urban planners should acknowledge and enhance for sustainable development rather than the usual outright condemnation and confrontation. The applauded role of HBEs in reducing the level of unemployment has been described as the bane of the sub-sector as long as urban planners are concerned. The use of spaces in front of the house limits the space for children to play and for sit outs in the evenings by family members, however, the rating by residents both HBE operators and their neighbors who are affected and who also patronize them show that this negative effect is not quite significant. Four out of the five principal factors from the PCA result are positive impacts (94%), while one factor has a negative impact (6%). This result implies that the positive impacts of HBEs in the study area are more significant than the negative impacts. Therefore, the hypothesis (H0) advanced here that the positive impacts of HBEs are not more significant than the negative impacts is rejected.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The operation of informal economic activities in residential buildings; home-based enterprises (HBEs) is an important source of income and employment and yet adds to the urbanization challenges faced by urban planners in global South cities. The findings on the impacts of HBEs reveal that 52.8% of HBE operators are self-trained and shows the need for government support in this respect. The government can support operators by organizing formal training for them to further improve their skills and this will lead to harnessing the potential to achieve sustainable local economic development. The trending global recognition and relevance of HBEs (especially because of COVID-19) necessitates context-specific and empirical studies that can be applicable to similar contexts and provide knowledge-based data for informed decisions and management of HBEs. The study is significant in two ways; first the study provides a novel and digital method for determining the sample population for HBEs which has been a long-term challenge for researchers in this sub-sector especially those from global South cities (Sudarshan and Sinha, 2011:15). Second, the use of principal component analysis (PCA) for data reduction and to ascertain the major impacts is rare in HBE studies. These two unique approaches are the work’s contribution to both literature and methodology and are relevant for urban planners in terms of research and practice.
HBEs are a veritable means of employment\livelihood. The traumas\ negative impacts are highlighted for amelioration through various means such as individuals, planners, and governments. A major challenge for HBE operators is the constant conflict with urban planners because of alteration of planned residential buildings for HBEs, this can be resolved by, first, a change of approach by planners from confrontation to collaboration. An example of the confrontational attitude of planners in Enugu is captured in Ezeadichie, et al (2018:85) “Available anecdotal evidence suggests that the non-inclusion of the HBEs in formal urban planning resulted in their operations being largely seen as illegal, and as such, various government actors subject them to multiple levies, outright extortion, occasional harassment, and the pulling down of their structures while denying them government support and security”.
Second, participatory and inclusive planning approaches should be adopted by urban planners in order to accommodate HBE operators rather than the current top-down approach. Third, guided adjustment of buildings will ameliorate the negative impacts of alteration. The regulation of all HBE activities that contribute to neighborhood distortion is expedient to ensure reduced negative impacts and promote sustainable local economic development.
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Performance evaluation of public transportation systems is an important prerequisite to making a rapidly growing city livable. Despite the presence of public transportation since the 1960s, few studies talk about the efficiency of transportation systems in cities. The objective of this research is to assess the performance of an existing system. Based on a set of performance measurements identified from the literature, we captured five categories: passengers’ and operators’ perspectives – service efficiency, system efficiency, cost efficiency, utilization efficiency, and network efficiency to evaluate public transit efficiency. The results indicated that the existing service quality in Dhaka is less satisfactory compared to other cities with system, network, and cost efficiency being below average. But utilization efficiency is better, which could result from the overuse of vehicles and workers being involved in operating them. Also, the most concerning issue with the existing transportation system is congestion. In terms of the strengths and weaknesses, we find that the implementation of metro rails, bus route restructuring, and a separate policy for the city’s public transportation system cast some hope in addressing some immediate problems in the rapidly growing city of Dhaka.
Keywords
Public Transportation; Performance Evaluation; System Efficiency; Service Efficiency; Quality of Service; Dhaka; Bangladesh
About the Authors:
Rakibul Ahasan (MCRP, MSc) is an Urban Planner currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Geography at Texas A&M University, College Station. Before joining here, he worked as a GIS Analyst at Iowa State University GIS Facility. He was involved with the Comprehensive Plan update project for the city of Huxley, Iowa. His research interests encompass urban growth modeling, land-use land cover change analysis, urban growth, transportation interaction, and the impact of transportation infrastructure on urban land change.
Dr. Ahsanul Kabir is an urban planner by training. He has been teaching and researching physical planning, sustainable transport, public transport, and Geo-informatics for the last 25 years at Khulna University, Bangladesh. His research interests include exploring sustainable and effective spatial planning and policy formulation pathways that ensure sustainable interaction between activities. While working in the field of transport and urban planning, he often draws focus on governance, institutional issues, and coordination for development.
Introduction
Urban areas consist of a series of interconnected subsystems, and transportation is an integrated component of such areas, and a driver of urban growth (Berling-Wolff & Wu, 2004). An efficient transportation system is essential to accommodate a growing urban population that ensures mobility for users. Dhaka, one of the most densely populated and fastest-growing megacities, is no exception and requires a public transportation system to efficiently run the city functions and serve its inhabitants (Ahasan, 2018; DTCA & JICA, 2015). Previously, the city was designated as the “traffic capital of the world” for its congested streets (Hoque et al., 2009; Morshed, 2015). The city established its first transportation authority back in the 1960s and currently has a public transit system that is more than two decades old (DTCA & ALG, 2015). The current system cannot meet the ever-increasing demand efficiently (Ahasan et al., 2020; Hasnine, 2011), and is not suitable to accommodate standard bus services or adequately serve all areas (DTCA & JICA, 2015). Additionally, due to a shortage of budget, there weren’t enough efforts to evaluate the system’s performance or find an effective way to address the increased demand with satisfactory service quality (Ahasan et al., 2020).
There were several structural improvement projects that aimed to resolve the transportation situation, but weren’t enough (e.g., Dhaka Urban Transport Network Development Study 2010; Dhaka Bus Network and Regulatory Reform Implementation Study 2015, etc.). Most of the earlier studies focused on capacity gaps and introduced new schemes to reduce congestion on the street on a short-term basis. However, there were no attempts to institutionalize the existing transportation system’s performance evaluation practice and improve it based on the results of the evaluation.
To improve the system, it is first necessary to identify the current system’s deficiencies, which can be achieved through performance evaluation, which can explain how well the system is running and how well it supports the urban structure. The evaluation process includes measurement of performance in-network level, which eventually provides an idea of the continuity and coverage of existing routes, and how accessible those are from the major residential, commercial, and other activity hubs. It also identifies the areas by which the system is lagging from both passenger and operator points of view. Past studies reported that performance measurement techniques vary based on context, scale, and other socioeconomic factors. In general, the motivation behind these techniques is to evaluate the system’s efficiency and performance per the standards practiced (Abreha, 2007; Berhan et al., 2013; Cruz et al., 2012; Eboli & Mazzulla, 2012; Georgiadis et al., 2014; Niyonsenga, 2012; Ryus, 2010). However, most of them apply to developed countries’ cities, which differ in many ways from Dhaka. Even with the city’s rapidly growing nature, Dhaka differs from other megacities in spatial arrangements, economic structure, and socio-economic conditions.
Thus, this study aims to find a set of performance measurement indicators that will provide contextual findings for Dhaka and evaluate the existing transportation system’s performance, because only using the indicators suitable to developed countries’ cities may not give a realistic visualization for the city.
Literature Review
Studies have examined the importance of public transit, especially in the context of densely populated cities. These studies have focused on providing options to users while ensuring better mobility and accessibility. With rapid urban population growth, the demand for transportation services is also proliferating, and public transit can help meet this increased demand (Schmöcker et al., 2004; Berg & Ihlström, 2019). Public transportation options are also helpful in reducing congestion on streets by eliminating the need for single-occupancy vehicles (Hensher, 2018; Migliore & Ciccarelli, 2020). Therefore, it is instrumental in low-income countries with limited financial resources. Previous transportation-related studies and analysis also reported the importance of public transportation in the context of Dhaka, Bangladesh. One of the earliest initiatives was in the early 1990s – the Dhaka Urban Transportation Plan (DUTP) which proposed that the city required an efficient public transit system, and recommended the establishment of a coordination authority. The authority, the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA), has prepared policy documents over the years emphasizing the importance of mass transit in the city, and they are currently implementing six Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Metro Rail projects.
Previous studies defined performance measurement as evaluating how well an organization utilizes resources by comparing the input and output (Eboli & Mazzulla, 2012). It is in the form of capital or logistics supply, i.e., vehicles and infrastructures. The measurement comprises collecting, evaluating, and reporting data related to how well the organization performs its functions and meets its goals and objectives. Performance measurement of the public transportation system helps achieve aims from different viewpoints: evaluating the public transportation system’s overall performance, evaluating management performance, and diagnosing problems. The problems can be inconsistency in expenditure regarding the maintenance of transit vehicles, resource allocation among competing institutions, providing a management control system for monitoring and improving transit services, and other legal and regulatory works (Eboli & Mazzulla, 2011). It also paves the way for techniques that translate into a constant effort to improve services to match standards (Dhingra, 2011).
It is worth noting the variations in definition of transit performance measures (Bordagaray et al., 2014; Das & Pandit, 2013; Deb & Ahmed, 2018; Friman et al., 2020; Güner, 2018; Ojo, 2019; Park et al., 2020; Quddus et al., 2019). These perspectives guided evaluations on the passenger’s perception of the service, how transit agencies view the system from a business perspective, and the community’s view on the transit’s role in serving broader societal objectives. Several researchers stated three general dimensions of performance measurement of public transportation systems – resource efficiency, resource effectiveness, and service effectiveness (Cruz et al., 2012). However, there is evidence of opposing views among several other researchers regarding these aspects . For example, Cook & Lawrie, 2004; Castillo & Benitez, 2012 in Cruz et al., 2012, added that the measurement and indicators of service quality of the system is also relevant. This has also been agreed upon in other works (Bellizzi et al., 2020; Bordagaray et al., 2014; Cascetta & Cartenì, 2014; Das & Pandit, 2013; Deb & Ahmed, 2018; Friman et al., 2020; Güner, 2018; Ojo, 2019; Quddus et al., 2019).
Notably, the work of performance evaluation usually varies based on the considered point of view (whose view to consider – user’s or agency’s). A group of researchers performed their work based on the operator’s point of view, while others counted the passengers or communities, while several others considered both (Eboli & Mazzulla, 2012). Performance evaluation can, therefore, provide information on the level of service of the system, the service quality (from the passenger’s point of view) along with the cost-efficiency of the system, and system efficiency and utilization efficiency (agency’s point of view) at the same time. However, it was evident in past works that transit service performance depends significantly upon perspective. From one perspective, some indicators could be considered a performance measure that may not reflect all the system’s stakeholders. Hence, it is important to consider the viewpoints of all the involved actors and past studies used this frequently (Eboli & Mazzulla, 2012; Ojo, 2019; Friman et al., 2020). Researchers consider the customer’s view as the most relevant for evaluating transit performance (Cruz et al., 2012; Friman et al., 2020).
On the other hand, to evaluate the operator’s perspective, past studies reported the use of productivity measures. These measures focus on evaluating the effectiveness of the system using a set of efficiency indicators. It usually considers cost-effectiveness and cost-efficiency. Studies differentiated among efficiency and effectiveness measures based on the input, for example, studies defined cost efficiency – the measure of service output compared to the unit of input; cost-effectiveness – the measure of outcome compared to the unit of input in terms of cost, and service effectiveness – a measure of outcome compared to a unit of input in terms of service. Indicators can help achieve involvement of all stakeholders. The importance of considering the infrastructure (i.e.road network) and vehicle modes (i.e. cost efficiency) was also prevalent in the literature. However, we also found that overlaps between different indicators and individual indicators could represent multiple perspectives. This overlap, and the importance of considering all perspectives in the evaluation process are visible in the framework that we developed based on our findings (Figure 3.1). We incorporated the final set of indicators and the related description in the following section.
Figure 3.1: Major public transportation performance measurement indicator categories identified from the literature
Methodology
We followed a two-step approach for this research, including a review part and a data collection part. We reviewed past studies to identify a set of performance measurement indicators. After the review, we finalized the indicators in consultation with professionals and experts working with the city’s transportation system. Following the indicator selection, we conducted a field survey to collect data from operators and users. We also collected transportation route and network-related data from DTCA. Both the field survey data and secondary data from the institutions were then analyzed using the selected indicators.
Performance Measurement Indicator Identification Based on the literature review, we selected indicators to evaluate the transportation service’s performance in Dhaka city considering their contextualization to the location. We also considered both passengers’ and operators’ perspectives. Hence, there are five categories: analyzing system efficiency, service efficiency, network efficiency, cost efficiency, and utilization efficiency of the existing transit system (Table 1).
Table 3.1: p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; line-height: 9.1px; font: 9.0px Helvetica; color: #221e1f} Indicators used to evaluate the public transport performance in Dhaka city
Data Collection In this study, we collected data through a questionnaire survey and institutional survey between June 2015 and July 2017. We designed the user survey questionnaire to capture the quality of service, average travel time, accessibility, comfort, and other service and system-related issues. On the other hand, we collected operating costs, revenue, and resource utilization data from the operators. The institutional survey provided network data, bus stop locations, and other relevant data on public transport operations.
Data Analysis To evaluate the performance of the system, we applied calculations using the collected data. The following section reports the equations and techniques we employed in performing the analysis.
System Efficiency For this research, we calculated system efficiency by appraising the travel time, walking distance and time, waiting time to board on the bus, and travel cost. We also calculated the transportation affordability index to measure system efficiency. In this study, we defined transportation affordability as the percentage of income spent for travel purposes (equation 1).
Here, X = Number of trips per month; P= Expense per trip; y= Monthly Income
Service Efficiency We used service efficiency indicators to capture the users’ perspective and measure the performance of the system. Past studies reported the use of weighted delay index and schedule reliability index for this purpose (Camus et al., 2005). In this study, we defined the weighted delay index based on the comparison between transit-trip delay and the number of late trips due to transit service failure (equation 2). We used a scheduled headway to measure transit trip delay. In contrast, we calculated schedule reliability based on the user’s waiting times before boarding on the transit (equation 3).
Here, H is the scheduled headway, k is the universal delay value in minutes (0 ≤ k ≤H), and p (k) is the observed probability of delay k. R is expected to take a value between 0 and 1, with a higher value indicating lower reliability.
Utilization Efficiency We used average vehicle utilization, passenger per vehicle per day (PPVPD), passenger-kilometer, and vehicle availability to measure how the system is utilizing available resources for measuring utilization efficiency. We calculated vehicle utilization efficiency using the ratio of average working hours to total working hours (equation 4).
Vehicle availability indicates the percentage of the operational vehicles in revenue-generating works (equation 5). It reflects the effectiveness of the system’s maintenance arrangements.
Passenger per vehicle per day (PPVPD) is the number of passengers carried by a vehicle divided by the total number of vehicles and the number of operating days (Iles, 2005) (equation 6). It is influenced by the vehicle capacity, average occupancy, route length, no. of trips, average distance traveled by the passenger, headways, and average travel time.
Network Efficiency We used the distance between bus stoppages and average network speed to measure the existing system’s netwWe used the distance between bus stops and average network speed to measure the existing system’s network efficiency (equation 7).
Cost Efficiency We found that one of the most frequently used cost-efficiency measuring techniques is to calculate the profitability index (equation 8). This helps to examine the operating cost and how well the system is returning the investment.
Results
Existing Public Transportation Condition In public transit, bus services are the second most used mode (4.2% share) for vehicular transportation in Dhaka city after non-mechanized rickshaws (21.8% share) (DTCA, 2015). Private bus operators provide local bus service within the city and in the vicinity alongside the state-owned Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC). A total of 304 Buses and 1,194 Minibuses were in operation on 8 Bus Routes and 19 Minibus routes, respectively, in Dhaka in 1992 (DTCA, 2015). In 1994, bus and minibus routes were merged, and the bus routes were restructured, which reduced the ceiling height of the vehicle allowed to operate on specific routes. Since the Dhaka Bus Route Regulatory Reform Implementation Study by DTCA in 2011, there have been no new route permits for minibus and human haulers. Only existing permit-holders for minibus and human haulers can renew.
As per the Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1983, all motor vehicles need to be registered with the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA). Additionally, vehicles to be used as public transportation need a permit issued for a fixed route with an origin and destination, and a fixed area or zone. Until 2000, there were 1,155 buses and 3,654 minibusses, which increased to 15,552 and 9,341 in 2009, respectively (Table 2). In recent years, the number of operating buses and minibusses has been increasing steadily. At present, the total number of buses operating on Dhaka’s roads is around 22,550, and the number of minibusses is 9,983 (BRTA, 2015). The number of buses under BRTC is not incorporated in the BRTA database as BRTC does not require route permits to conduct its operations. At present, BRTC has a fleet of 974 buses, out of which 125 are double-deckers, and these buses run through 11 routes in and around Dhaka city (BRTC, 2015).
Table 3.2: Number of registered buses and Minibuses in Dhaka (Yearly)
There is currently a minimum fare (for a distance less than 1 kilometers) of 7 Bangladeshi Taka (BDT) (~0.09 USD). An additional expense added per km is 0.36 BDT with this minimum fare. By offering a higher quality service, some operators charge higher fares in practice. Most bus companies follow the off-board ticketing process, which later transformed into onboard ticketing to prevent revenue loss and reduce the number of intermediaries. DMRTC, with representatives from bus operators, is responsible for determining the fares of the buses in Dhaka. Capital investments, salvage value, operation, maintenance cost, and profits are considered to fix fare. Additionally, some streets are suitable for smooth operation. According to the latest study by the transportation authority, 12.5% of the entire road network in the Dhaka Metropolitan Area (DMP) area is suitable for bus services (DTCA & JICA, 2015).
Performance Evaluation of the Existing Public Transportation System
System Efficiency It is difficult to identify uniform measures to evaluate a public transportation system’s service quality due to the variation of perception from person to person. However, past studies found that service quality depends on average travel time, average waiting time, distances to the bus stops, travel speed, waiting time, and reliability. The majority of the respondents (56%) selected “moderate” as their opinion on the quality of the service (Figure 3.2a). In Dhaka, people do not prefer to walk when the walking distance is more than one kilometer or if the time taken exceeds 10-15 minutes. The average walking time to reach the bus stops is between 5 to10 minutes, and in most cases, walking distance is below 500 meters (around 70% of the responses). Still, one-third of the people have to make an ingress trip to use public transportation. Usually, the time taken during an ingress trip is between 10 to 30 minutes, with an average fare of BDT 10 to 15 (~0.14-0.20 USD). Almost two-thirds of the passengers (75%) have to wait at the bus stops before boarding the bus (Figure 3.2b). Waiting time varies between 2 to 10 minutes, with an average of 7-8 minutes. It may cross over 20 minutes during peak hours and under certain weather conditions. For Dhaka, the affordability index (equation 1) value has been found to be at 4.3% (assuming the average number of trips per month per person is 40 and the average fare per trip is BDT 22 (~0.23 USD). This value is within the standard accepted range and also within the affordable limit in comparison to other similar cities (e.g., South Africa 10%, India 10.2%, Pakistan 12%, Brazil 7%, Nigeria 15-20%, Cameroon 18%) (Carruthers et al., 2005). However, there are other modes like auto-rickshaws and taxi cabs in Dhaka. These modes cost more than buses (e.g., for a CNG trip, one has to pay BDT 40 for the first 2 kilometers and BDT 10 for subsequent kilometers). Nevertheless, that expense and cost are beyond the scope of this study. That is why the value found is probably not a representation of the real world.
Service Efficiency For a trip with a 6 km length, it should usually take less than 30 minutes (Armstrong-Wright & Thiriez, 1987). However, most trips exceed an hour of travel time in Dhaka. Almost half of the trips (43.75%) take more than an hour for a 6 km distance, and around one-third (31.25%) take 50 to 60 minutes (Figure 3.2c). For this research, the average speed of the vehicle and volume-capacity ratio were considered to measure reliability parameters. In the weighted delay index (equation 2), only one out of twenty-three operators showed a perfect score, whereas eight others scored less than 0.2, indicating seamless operation and maintenance. In the case of schedule reliability (equation 3), only four operators have a 50% reliability, whereas most operators have no reliability in maintaining the schedule. This indicates how disorderly the operation and maintenance of the public transport system is. Accidents and casualties caused by buses and minibuses have been lower compared to the total number. These modes accounted for only 72 out of 1,279 casualties and 432 out of 1,401 accidents between 2014 and 2017. In contrast, private vehicles, i.e., motorcycles, private cars/jeep, etc., are responsible for 150 casualties and 345 accidents, referring to the fact that public transport modes are comparatively less accident-prone and safer (Accident Research Institute, 2015). The average travel speed of buses fluctuates with the change in route, route length, the number of trips per day, and also the number of operators operating on that route. Dhaka’s average travel speed has been found to be around 10 Kmph, with a minimum value of 5 Kmph to a maximum of 22 Kmph (Figure 3.2d). The average speed varies based on the origin and destination of the routes. It is found to be higher during long routes which connect areas outside the city. Inside the city, traffic congestion is high, which reduces the vehicles’ speed on the routes that originate and end inside the city.
Utilization Efficiency Vehicle-kilometer depends on traffic congestion on the streets, operating speeds, hours of operations per day, and hours while the bus is in operation but not on the streets. For well-operated bus services, the average should be between 210 km to 270 km (Niyonsenga, 2012), although, in reality, the range lies between 150 km to 300 km (Abreha, 2007). In Dhaka city, the value is smaller for routes having both the origin and destination within the city, and high for the routes connecting areas outside the city. The maximum value has been found to be 195 kilometers per day, and the lowest is 53 kilometers resulting in an average of 79 kilometers. Using equation 4, the average utilization rate was found at 88.8%. On the other hand, vehicle availability is the ratio of the number of operational vehicles to the total vehicles, which for Dhaka was 84.85% (equation 5). A higher vehicle availability rate does not actually mean that all of the vehicles are operational. It can be higher due to the improper and overuse of available vehicles and falsified information provided to the regulatory authority. The problem with calculating vehicle availability and utilization in Dhaka is that the number of vehicles operating on the streets is much higher than listed on paper. Operators usually do not want their vehicles to be out of the streets for maintenance or stay idle, no matter whether they are fit for operations or not. There are also questions regarding the actual fleet size.
Assuming 85% of the fleet are in operation (availability), the range for a bus with a capacity of 80-100 passengers on city services is between 1,000 and 2,000 PPVPD (equation 6). In Dhaka, the average capacity of vehicles is around 60, and PPVPD varies from route to route, with a minimum of 240 to a maximum of 775. Some of these values are close to the standards, but mostly the scenario is of underutilized extremes. Passenger kilometer in the case of Dhaka has been found to be 109,703 per day, the average trip length was found 10.1 km from the field survey, and the average total passenger volume was used for this calculation, which is 2155 passengers per day.
Network Efficiency In practice, buses stop everywhere they see passengers, though some defined bus stops are on every route. Average bus stops spacing should not cross 300-400 meters (Niyonsenga, 2012) for an efficient service operation. In the case of Dhaka,the stop spacing is around 1,200 meters (based on the stops recorded in the DMRTC database). On the other hand, the average network speed should be approximately 14-15 Kmph for an efficient operating transportation system, which is below 10 kilometers for Dhaka (equation 7). Both of these parameters indicate a low network quality on the available routes in the city.
Cost Efficiency Operating Cost per Vehicle-Km and Revenue per Vehicle-Km were used to calculate profitability, which refers to cost-efficiency. Though both the revenue and profitability data were found too small and inadequate in amount, it should be mentioned here that the data from the operators regarding cost and revenue is not reliable in the transportation business. Using equation 8, the profitability was found to be around 17%. However, transportation business associates stated that there is always a more substantial profit in transportation services. Otherwise, the owner does not run their buses on the streets.
In this study, Dhaka’s public transportation system’s overall performance was measured, including network, service, system, utilization, and network efficiency. In service efficiency, apart from vehicle availability and vehicle utilization rate, the rest of the parameters show that the performance is a poor one. Reliability, average bus stop spacing, and profitability also fall within the poor performance zone (Figure 3.2e). In system efficiency, the scenario is slightly better in Dhaka city with excellent performance regarding affordability and safety. However, what is essential to note here is the poor performance in travel time as it influences the overall performance of the system and other aspects of the measurement to a significant level as well. Low scores of vehicle-km and travel time represent the underutilization of a system’s capacity. Moreover, this causes the overall system efficiency to collapse from moderate to below moderate level.
Figure 3.2 a displays the distribution of each category of quality of service od the transportation system from the field survey; b response of the passengers regarding whether they have to wait to get into a public bus; c distribution of average travel time (on-board time for each group); d average operating speed of the surveyed buses, the mean is somewhere around 9 kmph; e overall distribution of performance evaluation indicators in comparison to each other. Figure e showing both the performance for Dhaka city and what is standard in the radar graph.
Discussion and Conclusion
This paper aims to evaluate the efficiency of the public transportation system of Dhaka city. Overall, the performance is lagging in components considered in this study. System efficiency showed a below-average score. Only utilization efficiency represents a good performance score. There are three indicators that fall well between the poor performance zone and the moderate performance zone (Figure 3.2e). Thus, a conclusion can be drawn that the existing system is not operating efficiently with bottlenecks in all components. The system is operating with severe problems in management (system and cost efficiency), operations (service and cost efficiency), and network-level (network efficiency). That is why an educated initiative can be taken for the planned development of Dhaka city’s public transportation. The initiative can vary from the implementation of different forms of mass transit modes, i.e., Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) suggested in the STP and RSTP, or it can be at the management level by introducing a separate policy for public transportation operations (Ahasan et al., 2020; Ahasan et al., 2020).
Problems with the existing system can be categorized as infrastructure and management-related in general. Infrastructure-related issues include routes not being well distributed and connected. The absence of passenger shade, improper signaling also reinforces the problem. In the case of management factors, the legal and regulatory institutions are not aware of what is happening in practice. The operators reduce and modify the route lengths to suit their operations and for-profit maximization. For example, in the case of Route A-114, which on paper connects Mirpur Zoo to Sayedabaad, it does not operate beyond Motijheel. The operators do not cover the rest of the 3 km distance to avoid competition and congestion in that segment or serve passengers from the Motijheel commercial area (Figure 3.3).
Figure 3.3: Example of issues in the public transportation management (Route A-114 (Mirpur-Sayedabad)
The empirical data analysis based on the identified criteria brings forward deficiencies within the existing system. Inadequate vehicles and infrastructure quality, as well as disintegrated enforcement authorities, are a few of the major issues. These are some of the most prominent deficient areas in the transportation sector of Bangladesh. All the problems with service efficiency were somehow related to traffic congestion on the streets. If this can be addressed, then the whole system’s efficiency might increase to a different level. The number of public transportation routes is high, but it is not well distributed; instead, the density is high in the central areas. The present scenario of Dhaka city’s transportation situation is not remarkable compared to other similar cities, Delhi (India), for example. Factors like vehicle utilization (84% in Delhi compared to Dhaka’s 88%), passenger trips, lower number of accidents indicated a better state in the case of Dhaka. However, what makes them different is the use of public transportation as the primary mode of transportation (80% in Kolkata, 60% in Mumbai, and around 40% in Delhi compared to 23% in Dhaka). Initiatives like the introduction of Metro rail and BRT, and the average fleet age (4.5 years in Delhi compared to around 15 years in Dhaka) also contributed to the differences in public transportation performance in these cities (Pucher et al. 2004, Dave, 2014).
The assessment of the efficiency of the public transportation system of Dhaka city gives some unique information regarding how well the system is operating and the hindrances of the existing system. The current system is operating somewhat below the moderate service quality. Only a few indicators were found to be moderate, but the rest of the indicators appeared to be underperforming. To improve the existing performance, initiatives need to be enforced in these underperforming sectors specifically. Past studies reported that congestion does not have a significant relationship with economic growth. Instead, it has a positive correlation with per capita income (Marshall & Dumbaugh, 2020). However, these studies are yet to be replicated and tested in the context of the global south. Mobility is highly dependent on public transport in Dhaka, and single-occupancy vehicles are still less than five percent of total trips. That is why it requires further studies and evaluations, which will lead to a sustainable solution for congestion issues and other underperforming areas of the existing system. This can help the public transportation system of Dhaka to become an efficient one which would be worth using and sustainable in meeting the demand of the city’s present and future residents (Ahasan et al., 2020). The data used in this research is around two years old. However, the network and other institutional information did not change in the past years. At the same time, additional information is still representative of the city’s situation, given that no significant changes and initiatives were undertaken in this period. Future studies could also incorporate other modes of transportation to compare public transit and how different modes of transportation complement this system. Also, the operator’s and users’ survey was selective and limited due to the public’s time constraints and availability to respond to an extensive questionnaire and sensitive topic. Future studies could be better addressed by narrowing down the routes and using more strategic approaches with the survey.
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Situated in the western hillsides of Medellín, the central stairway in Las Independencias (I) historically served as the primary neighborhood circulation route, but also acted as an invisible border delimiting conflicting spatial claims by disparate armed factions vying for territorial control. Decades of intense urban violence culminated in the early 2000s with a series of state-sponsored military interventions that left the community reeling. The emergent model of social urbanism in the mid-2000s sought to redress historic inequities in the city’s peripheries. Under this directive, the state executed a physical intervention in the community to de-territorialize the underlying geographies of violence by replacing the central stairway with a new public escalator system. While projects executed under social urbanism frequently attribute success to the project’s design merit and broad social impact, this mixed-methods design study completed along the public escalators shows that the primary driver of individual and neighborhood advancement in Las Independencias (I) has been the re-territorialization of these spaces through insurgent spatial practices by residents rather than the state’s physical intervention. Intimate insights into daily life along the public escalators reveal how women, in particular, emerge as critical actors in the re-territorialization of the escalators, despite persistent gender imbalances in public space and shifting geographies of violence encroaching into the domestic realm. Focusing on people rather than the state underscores how centering the narratives and perspectives of women allows these community ambassadors to plan for, create, and steward emancipatory spaces where individual and community autonomy reside.
Keywords
Re-territorialization; Women in Planning; Insurgent Planning; Social Urbanism; Invisible Borders; Public Space Appropriation
Introduction
Once one of the most violent places in the world, the district of San Javier in Medellín, Colombia, has emerged as a global model for urban transformation through equitable planning and urban design practice. Nowhere is this change more evident than in the neighborhood of Las Independencias (I), where an informally constructed stairway became the historic borderline between various armed groups fighting for territorial control throughout the late 1980s until the early 2000s. Following a series of violent military raids on the community, the mayoral administration of Sergio Fajardo in the mid-2000s instituted the Integrated Urban Project (PUI) in San Javier as part of a state planning strategy known as social urbanism. The plan sought to disrupt the existing geographies of violence, referred to by local residents as invisible borders (fronteras invisibles), while simultaneously creating new mobility infrastructures and public spaces to promote a culture of coexistence (convivencia) and civic culture (cultura ciudadana). In Las Independencias (I), this strategy materialized through the installation of a public escalator system along the former stairway in the heart of the community. While architects and planners have since critiqued social urbanism projects for their design merit and broad equity impacts, this article focuses on the public escalators and asks: What are the unintended day-to-day consequences of having constructed the public escalators and how have residents, particularly women, responded to the physical changes to their neighborhood?
Scholars of Colombian planning and urban design practice often wholly attribute the observed advances in social and economic security under social urbanism to the emblematic public space and mobility megaprojects designed to de-territorialize existing geographies of violence, expand access to resources, and increase state visibility in historically marginalized communities. I argue in this article, however, that the primary driver of individual and neighborhood advancement is the re-territorialization of these spaces through insurgent spatial practices by residents rather than the state’s physical interventions (Souza, 2015). Employing Souza’s definition of territorialization as the act of embedding social meaning and power onto space, this article documents how these spatial practices manifest along the public escalators in the neighborhood of Las Independencias (I). Highlighting the insurgent nature of such spatial practices underscores the political intentionality and power struggles occurring in and associated with urban space.
As a key scholar of public space in Colombia, Rachel Berney’s investigations on new public spaces in Bogotá expose the underlying contradictions between how spaces like “equalizing networks,” (2010) or linear circulation routes designed to enhance mobility and access, are intended to advance social equity while simultaneously enforcing desirable social behavior through surveillance and policing (2011, 2017). Though Berney’s work highlights how public spaces shape social behavior and further deepen certain socio-economic inequities, this study expands on how residents, in turn, shape public spaces and respond to inequities imposed by the state, particularly those related to gender. Similarly, Luisa Sotomayor (2017) investigates the policy strategies and physical interventions employed by the state in San Javier and their role in historically embedding and perpetuating socio-economic inequities in the district under constantly shifting spatial relationships. In so doing, Sotomayor centers her critique on the deterritorialization of San Javier on behalf of the state, whereas this article instead shifts the focus to the re-territorialization of the community by residents as evidenced through symbolic and deliberate acts along the public escalators. Orlando Alves dos Santos, Jr. (2014) reflects on the scholarship surrounding these persistent social and spatial tensions within urban common spaces, noting that through the careful study of the material and personal dimensions of these spaces, researchers are able to develop more heightened awareness towards acts of physical appropriation or re-territorialization.
My field research along the public escalators of Las Independencias (I) documents some of these practices, demonstrating how residents use graffiti, performance art, and the physical appropriation of space through activities such as street vending and neighborhood tourism to generate local economic activity, collective healing, and to build community. At the same time, my study reveals that the installation of the public escalators did not eradicate networks of crime and violence, but instead dispersed these activities into different, less visible geographies in adjacent neighborhoods, side alleyways, private businesses, and the domestic sphere. Ultimately, my findings underscore the vital role of women in re-territorializing the public escalators, who, despite prevailing gender imbalances in public spaces and increased vulnerability to the shifting spatial networks of crime and violence, leverage their individual entrepreneurship and collective pride and sense of community to improve their economic and social welfare.
Research Methodology
This article presents findings from a year-long study including a three-month field research effort in the summer of 2017 at the public escalators of Las Independencias (I) in the district of San Javier, Medellín. My research design draws inspiration from the critical design ethnography model defined by Barab et al. (2004) as a participatory design research method focusing on the empowerment of participants to create their own shared vision and knowledge through collective design thinking and action with the researcher. However, due to my limited prior exposure to the community of focus and relatively brief duration of field work, the study instead was classified as a mixed-methods research design leveraging quantitative and qualitative methods. These methods included site documentation and measurement, mapping, and spatial analysis, as well as ethnographic approaches including observations, field notes, informal and semi-formal interviews, and digital recordings of physical artifacts generated during or resulting from the research effort. In combination, these methods sought to mitigate the influence of the colonial, patriarchal, and positivist research paradigms traditionally associated with Western planning.
As a foreign researcher embedded within a historically marginalized community, I continuously reflected upon and refined my research methods to prioritize situated knowledges, or the lived experiences, histories, and stories of local residents, over that of technical experts (i.e. architects, planners) to assemble a more deep-rooted context of the community (Haraway, 1988). As such, informal conversations, observations, and interactions with community members and leaders did not take place in spaces within the formal planning apparatus such as the town hall or community center, but rather in the invented spaces (Miraftab, 2004) of civic engagement and participation in the neighborhood, including the escalators, platforms, and back alleyways. Three continuous months of engagement within the modest communal spaces of the neighborhood between four to six days per week allowed me to compose a thick description (Geertz, 1973) of the community and to develop close relationships with the residents.
Due to the lack of available digital geographic data for this informally settled sector of the city, my field research began with several weeks of preliminary site visits and documentation. Documentation consisted of physically measuring individual escalator segments, platforms, and connecting alleyways and taking photos and hand sketches of individual spaces and construction details. This data built the foundation on which to layer additional spatial information, observations, and notes onto maps of the public escalator system. Simultaneously, informal interviews based on casual, organic conversations with local residents on-site began occurring and continued throughout later phases of research including public space observations. Semi-structured interviews were scheduled and digitally recorded with government and private sector planners, architects, and urban designers early in the project, and as resident informants emerged from personal referrals and the site documentation and observation processes, additional interviews were conducted with neighborhood leaders, activists, and business owners. In total, 25 key informants contributed to the project through interviews.
Additionally, local narratives and histories were documented through other artistic media reflecting the unique cultural practices and traditions of the residents of Las Independencias (I). These media included street art and graffiti murals, hip-hop dance performances, rap and song writing, as well as a cognitive map of the neighborhood provided by a local artist. These cultural artifacts complement the more formally-sourced documentation methods of this study, providing rich social and spatial commentary. Finally, I conducted public space observations over roughly two weeks towards the end of my fieldwork. Using a self-developed coding system comprised of letters, numbers, and symbols, I collected rapid spatial and demographic information reflecting the perceived gender, age range, ethnicity, and directional movement of individual users of a set of discrete public spaces. Between two to three times a day, I rotated sequentially between seven escalator platforms and two points along the adjacent viaduct over 15-minute time intervals, resulting in over 6,000 unique data entries upon completion of my observations. While this subjective coding system certainly introduced a degree of variance in the data, the large sample size and general alignment of findings with broader citywide demographics suggests the method demonstrates satisfactory reliability. Collectively, these methods produced a robust primary dataset which informed my assessment and research findings discussed later in the article. In the future, longitudinal research efforts would benefit this study to document the neighborhood’s evolution and to better inform planning in other neighborhoods in Medellín that are undergoing similar transitions.
Colombian Cultural Paradigms
It is vital to first understand the cultural paradigms which shape historic and evolving planning values, beliefs, and practices in Colombia before critiquing social urbanism or emblematic projects like the public escalators.
Convivencia and Cultura Ciudadana As a society marked by historic violence, convivencia, or coexistence, underpins the aspirations of contemporary Colombian urban life. Convivencia can be conceptualized as “the practice of [social] encounter” and the sense of safety that arises through community-building in urban common spaces (Graffiti Artist, personal communication, July 9, 2017). Complementary to this idea is cultura ciudadana, or civic culture. The concept emerged from the new Political Constitution of 1991 and the city plan of Bogotá, entitled Formar Ciudad, defined as “the set of shared customs, actions and minimum shared rules that generates a sense of belonging, facilitates urban coexistence, and leads to respect for common heritage and the recognition of citizens’ rights and duties” (Escobar, 2010). In Bogotá, mayors Antanas Mockus and Enrique Peñalosa first used public space as a key tool to promote cultura ciudadana. While Peñalosa focused on the physical construction and reclamation of public spaces (Peñalosa, 2005), Mockus viewed public space as “a privileged space to construct citizen culture… [and] to learn to self-regulate and mutually regulate one another” (2005) and, as such, developed a didactic system of signage and art within public spaces to re-socialize citizens under a shared moral code based on mutual respect, coexistence, and citizenship. Conversely, in Medellín, the prevailing cultural attitudes reflected a strong sense of self-determination, entrepreneurial spirit, and modernity that was best represented through the Cultura Metro, or Metro Culture, associated with the city’s rail line which opened in 1996 (Stienen, 2009). While the installation of the Metro line helped revive many of the city’s existing central public spaces, investment in new public spaces concentrated largely within self-built communities at the city’s peripheries to create and elevate civic culture and co-existence in areas classified as zones of violence (Echeverri & Orsini, 2011).
Invasiones and Fronteras Invisibles The terms used to describe the settlement of informal hillside communities in Colombia vary by geographic region as well as the means of settlement, but often use language evoking notions of illeg-ality or violent action such as invasiones (invasions) or urbanizaciones piratas (pirate urbanizations). While the state’s historic absence and limited physical intervention in these gray spaces (Yiftachel, 2009) engendered and deepened socio-political marginalization, their topographic complexity and geographic isolation from the urban center eventually resulted in the co-optation of these communities by disparate armed factions who delineated fronteras invisibles, or invisible borders within the landscape to exert their territorial claims (Aricapa, 2005; López-López et al., 2014). These liminal spaces became sites of frequent encroachment, confrontation, and conflict leading residents to refer to these invisible borders as “the trenches” (Local Artist, personal communication, July 9, 2017; Samper, 2014). Under the auspices of social urbanism, public space recovery efforts in Medellín intentionally sought to disrupt fronteras invisibles and reclaim spatial control from armed groups, thereby enhancing the state’s ability to govern these remote regions (Duque Franco, 2014). This increasingly integral role of public space in Colombian planning policies, tools, and practices sets the stage for a critical assessment of the public escalators in subsequent sections. Next, this article explores the interrelationships and conflicts between historic views towards these ‘invasive’ settlements and fronteras invisibles and their perceived threats to popular notions of cultura ciudadana and convivencia.
Evolution of Colombian Planning Practice The number and scale of self-built communities in Medellín surged during the rapid urbanization of the city beginning in the 1950s as accelerated rural-to-urban migration occurred due to the combined effects of land and economic reforms, territorial conflict, and political violence stemming from the country’s decade-long civil war, La Violencia (Giraldo and Martínez, 1997). In the 1970s, economic instability brought on by the global recession exacerbated the rate of rural displacement and heightened levels of violence between paramilitary and narcotrafficking operations vying for territorial control (Bellalta, 2020). Between the mid-1980s and the early 2000s, the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES) estimated that over 2.9 million persons were displaced across Colombia (Escobar, 2010). In Medellín, this “massive expansion of urban precarity, informality, and poverty” ran virtually unchecked during this period, with “very limited and weak local institutions and democratic control” to address the growing socio-economic challenges facing vast proportions of the city’s growing population (Private Architect, personal communication, July 31, 2017).
In response to this national crisis, a new Political Constitution was ratified in 1991 and equipped the state with new tools to address the mounting challenges unfolding. The document fundamentally redefined Colombia’s geographical and institutional governance structures including territorial decentralization, substantial fiscal restructuring, increased municipal autonomy, and the adoption of local and participatory planning practice (Castillo and Ferro, 2001; Private Architect, personal communication, July 31, 2017). At the same time, the President’s Advisory Council for Medellín was specially appointed to convene new public forums, elevate public participation, and collectively develop strategies specifically aimed at addressing the high levels of urban violence and poverty in the city’s peripheries (Moncada, 2016). In 1993, the group conceived of the Program for the Integral Improvement of Subnormal Neighborhoods (PRIMED) which posited that violence and social decline in informal settlements could be reversed through new neighborhood infrastructure and strong state presence; however, the technical decision-making and implementation of these projects lacked the social investment of neighborhood residents necessary to sustain community progress (Velásquez-Castañeda, 2013).
In 1997, the Law of Territorial Organization (Law 388) formalized democratic participation in the planning process, identified public space as an effective spatial framework for planning, and introduced the Territorial Organization Plan (POT) as a systems-based planning approach designed to establish a more rational and equitable built environment (Castillo and Ferro, 2001). The adoption of the first POT in Medellín in 1999 also formulated the Urban Regularization and Legalization Plan (PRLU), a mechanism aimed specifically at planning in self-built communities. Following a similar logic to the POT, plans were organized around natural or built systems; however, the planning focus on the legalization of land tenure failed to gain political traction and left most PRLUs in the diagnostics phase with limited implementation (Velásquez-Castañeda, 2013). As recent history demonstrates, shifting attitudes towards informal or self-built communities manifested in distinct planning policy approaches, but all of the strategies fell short of improving the quality of life for the city’s most marginalized residents.
In 2004, the incoming mayoral administration of Sergio Fajardo acknowledged the state’s historic disinvestment in these communities and renewed a commitment to reconciling this deficit by working collaboratively with the Empresa de Desarrollo Urbano (EDU) to formulate the Integrated Urban Project (PUI) as a tool to directly impact marginalized communities through targeted physical planning interventions (Echeverri and Orsini, 2011). Each PUI is structured around three components: a physical intervention in the built (or natural) environment such as new mobility infrastructure or high-quality public spaces, a socially engaged process to promote community cohesion, and the establishment of an institutional (state) presence (Sotomayor, 2015). Once the PUI’s framing organizational feature has been identified, a series of community workshops first highlight existing neighborhood challenges and then allow residents to envision potential solutions while building cultura ciudadana and a sense of shared ownership of the project and its implementation. Analyzing the input gathered from community engagement efforts, technical planners then translate findings into a final recommended intervention. To date, the PUI has achieved more success than its planning predecessors due to the dedicated economic funds available for implementation as well as the continuity of project management under the direction of the EDU rather than a particular mayoral administration (EDU Planner, personal communication, July 4, 2017).
Critics of social urbanism and the PUI process often cite the inadequate attention to environmental factors in the analysis and implementation of new projects, the limited provision of new and secure housing in projects, the tension between the global marketability of high-profile design interventions and the ability of said projects to meet basic socioeconomic needs, and the lack of sustained investment in social programming and maintenance and operations as the most troublesome procedural shortfalls. Furthermore, the structural co-optation of the PUI model forced residents to concede the re-territorialization of their communities through physical displacement and embedded institutional presence in perpetuity to purportedly reconcile the state’s historic disinvestment (Souza, 2006). Equal and oppositely, desirable social outcomes are almost exclusively attributed to the PUI process and its built projects, with little to no consideration of the residents’ own response to these interventions. Some planners seek to elevate the role of residents by arguing that the participatory planning process is as important or greater than the built project because it builds the social cohesion necessary to sustain future neighborhood improvement; however, the PUI planning process still relies on the planner as a technical expert to make final recommendations and implement built projects (Private Architect, personal communication, July 31, 2017). This arrangement limits the potential to establish shared power structures or to shift decision-making control to neighborhood residents to assert community autonomy. In response, this article examines PUI San Javier, specifically the implementation of public escalators in Las Independencias (I) as a case study that documents resident responses to the project by highlighting some of the key spatial practices and community organizing efforts employed to generate improved socioeconomic outcomes.
De-territorialization by the State in San Javier
Historic Growth Trajectory The district of San Javier, situated along the western foothills of the Aburrá Valley, epitomizes Medellín’s urban transformation as a region that overcame its reputation as one of the most violent districts of the city to arrive as a vibrant social and cultural hub today. However, the state’s planning strategies in San Javier have shifted significantly leading up to the present day. Sotomayor identifies three distinct periods of official state policy in San Javier: state absence from the 1970s to early 2000s, strong-arm intervention and (para) militarization in the early 2000s, and beginning in the late 2000s, a renewed focus on community participation, local governance, and physical infrastructure and public space as embodied through social urbanism (2017).
Occupied for over a century by working class families in mining and farming, the rapid urbanization of San Javier began in the 1970s in geographic isolation across a complex and insular topography resulting in decades of growth marked by limited state visibility and planning intervention. Initial petitions by the local women’s group to the Medellín Public Enterprise (EPM) in the 1980s to extend public services to Las Independencias (I) and other hillside neighborhoods in San Javier were dismissed because the state did not yet formally recognize their legitimacy and legality (Aricapa, 2005). The first documented state investment in this area was the introduction of public infrastructure systems during Phase 1 PRIMED implementation between 1993 – 1997 (Velásquez-Castañeda, 2013). Soon thereafter, a PRLU was formulated for San Javier, but the plan was never actualized. As evidenced, the state’s minimal and sporadic investment in San Javier resulted in high socio-economic precarity that partially contributed to the proliferation of armed, non-state groups who leveraged the desperate urban conditions to assert territorial control.
By the early 2000s, the rate of violence ran unchecked in San Javier and the state determined that strong-arm military intervention was the only means of reclaiming territorial control over the region. A series of smaller, targeted military interventions culminated in October 2002 with a large-scale, state-sponsored raid known as Operación Orión that detained over 350 individuals, injured 38 and killed 10 civilians, and left four others missing (Amnesty International, 2005). While the violent intervention disrupted paramilitary and narcotrafficking operations, invisible borders and underlying networks of territorial control persisted. Residents claim that state armed forces remained in place to enforce strict systems of surveillance, such as daily curfews, which continued to expose residents to a heightened incidence of violence throughout the early 2000s. Residents recall navigating public spaces during this period by avoiding the “war trenches,” particular streets or alleys frequently occupied by paramilitary or other armed groups to maintain their personal safety (Graffiti Artist, personal communication, July 9, 2017). Deteriorating social conditions elevated the formulation of the PUI San Javier as a priority in the 2004 – 2007 Medellin Development Plan, codifying a planning process that began in 2006 and culminated in a series of projects executed between 2008 and 2011 (Bellalta, 2020).
Conceptual Planning Framework for PUI San Javier Projects The PUI San Javier, similar to other completed PUIs, articulated a series of projects each consisting of a physical, social, and institutional component; however, the historic context and distinct geography of each region informed how these components would ultimately manifest. Given that San Javier was most notorious for the high incidence of violence present, the primary goal of the PUI San Javier was to formulate projects that collectively help the state to reclaim territorial control in the region and to cease violence between urban gangs and the military police (EDU Planner, personal communication, July 4, 2017). At a regional level, the organizational framework for the proposed projects under the PUI San Javier was to introduce new “centralities,” or neighborhood activity nodes, dispersed throughout the district to deliver diverse public services including legal counsel, economic development offices, a police substation, a library-park, and other recreation facilities. New “equalizing networks” of public spaces including parks, greenways, and streets, created and strengthened linear connections between these nodes and worked to disrupt fronteras invisibles by re-integrating disparate communities once in-conflict, providing more “dignified and appropriate conditions” for residents, and connecting households to major transit stations (Berney, 2010; EDU Planner, personal communication, July 4, 2017). Additionally, public spaces along these corridors became vital community gathering places, providing the state an opportunity to further promote cultura ciudadana, superimpose more formal spatial organization, and exert territorial control (Private Urban Designer, personal communication, August 4, 2017; Velásquez-Castañeda, 2013).
PUI Engagement Process in Las Independencias (I) The state’s historic neighborhood delegitimization and disinvestment and recent military intervention in Las Independencias (I) had collectively bred a great distrust of the state by residents. This palpable tension led construction crews to request military police escorts to accompany them in the community while executing the PUI in 2010 (EDU Planner, personal communication, July 4, 2017). The planning process for the project was viewed not only as an opportunity to identify a built intervention and strategy to embed state presence, but also a means of “changing the ways of inhabiting these territories” (EDU Planner, personal communication, July 4, 2017). As such, the EDU began by distributing t-shirts and memorabilia to neighborhood youth who were appointed as “local EDU representatives” to help planners gain access to the community, socialize the planning goals, and promote the visioning workshops used to inform the final recommended project (EDU Planner, personal communication, July 4, 2017). The re-socialization of youth representatives by the state subsequently facilitated the re-education of neighborhood participants during the engagement process, but still did not give residents greater decision-making or implementation authority. For example, engagement highlighted many social inequities, but planners settled on addressing mobility and safety as the guiding directive for the PUI. As the only way in and out of Las Independencias (I), the central stairway functioned as a frontera invisible where conflicts frequently erupted between armed factions vying for territorial control (Neighborhood Resident, personal communication, July 13, 2017). In addition, fragmented sets of lateral alleyways and staircases prohibited open movement and, as such, had been “heavily appropriated by delinquent gangs” characterized by “criminal activities borrowing those hidden spaces” and allowing them to “direct these territories to their liking” (EDU Planner, personal communication, July 4, 2017). The delimitation of violence within the physical confines of these dense urban spaces restricted the ability of stairways and alleys to foster convivencia and intensified the social precarity of the residents (Graffiti Artist, personal communication, July 9, 2017).
PUI Planning Strategy for Public Escalators in Las Independencias (I) Using these findings, technical planners generated the idea for public escalators: a strategic, linear mobility project to simultaneously disrupt invisible borders and recover space to introduce new, quality public spaces for residents to co-exist. A planner describes the role of the escalators and the intended connections to other projects conceived under the PUI San Javier:
That is what we wanted for this project, to break down these invisible borders… We did two projects, more than just concentrating them in a node or park, we did linear projects like the public escalators, and we broke down those borders between those above and below. And in the upper half, we did the viaduct to break down Independencias (I) and Independencias (II) (EDU Planner, personal communication, July 4, 2017).
The public escalators of Las Independencias (I) replaced a steep, narrow stairway of over 300 steps rising from the more traditionally developed neighborhood of 20 de Julio (Departamento Administrativo de Planeación, 2015). Through the de-territorialization of the historic central stairway, modest landings between escalator segments became new public spaces that were conceived not only as “platforms of encounter” between residents, but also as a foundational link between residents and the state (Private Urban Designer, personal communication, August 4, 2017). Additionally, the prominent and imposing design of the physical intervention asserts symbolic state presence and power, flanking the escalators uphill with a state-operated community center and a local education center sited at the base below (Kapferer, 2007).
Figure 2.1 Map of the urban context (informal settlements and plans)
The violent history of Las Independencias (I), as evidenced most recently through Operación Orión, biased the state’s objectives for the PUI San Javier in Las Independencias (I) by prioritizing security and territorial control over other social support and resources through a lens of dispositional spatial rationality (Huxley, 2006) whereby the perceived social disorder and unruliness of the population was intrinsically tied to the lack of physical neighborhood organization and structure. It follows that the public escalators sought to de-territorialize the central stairway by inserting new public spaces and embedding institutional presence within the community while simultaneously failing to address other critical social needs articulated in the engagement process such as lack of employment opportunities and access to adequate housing. Furthermore, the physical disruption wrought by the state actually increased violence initially as fragmented groups sought to re-territorialize the new spaces, ultimately failing to eradicate the criminality and violence present along the central stairway. In fact, turf battles and drug operations have now shifted to less visible spaces like back alleyways, behind seemingly formal shop fronts, as well as the domestic sphere (Local Shopkeeper, personal communication, July 18, 2017). Sotomayor’s (2017) work further substantiates this claim, noting how local business owners and residents continue to experience regular threats of extortion by organized criminal actors. In short, by pushing violence into hidden geographies such as the domestic sphere and other private spaces traditionally occupied by women, the state disproportionately impacted women and their livelihoods and further deepened the social injustices it allegedly sought to redress through their interventions (Buckingham and Kulcur, 2009). The following section will expand on these findings by focusing on the day-to-day experiences of residents living within Las Independencias (I) and how the individual and community responses to the escalators have maximized socioeconomic benefits rather than as a result of the state’s intervention.
Re-territorialization of the Public Escalators Through Insurgent Spatial Practices
Symbolic Occupation and Materiality The historic settlement and growth patterns observed in Las Independencias (I) and the other hillside communities of San Javier present similar formal and material characteristics and degrees of socio-economic marginality as other informal settlements across Latin America (Davids, 2016). However, the persistent threat of deadly violence throughout much the history of Las Independencias (I) led spaces like the central stairway to function as critical mobility infrastructure devoid of the social, recreational, and commercial activities typically observed within these dynamic spatial voids in dense informal settlements (Brillembourg and Klumpner, 2010). Following the replacement of the stairway with the public escalators, residents were slow to embrace the new public spaces given the painful neighborhood memories and lack of established public space culture resulting from the legacy of invisible borders within the community. As such, individual households began to re-territorialize these spaces by casually placing household artifacts such as patio chairs, children’s toys, or clothes lines in public spaces that gently began to blur the domestic and public spheres. This quiet encroachment (Bayat, 2000) of the domestic became more commonplace as women started permanently placing their gardens and plantings along the stairs and alleyways. As one woman explains: because many residents originate from the countryside, they bring traditions closely tied to the earth and planting and, as such, gardens still hold vital importance to their histories and identity (Women’s Organization Leader, personal communication, July 20, 2017). Though less tangible than the physical artifacts described above, the blurring of the domestic and public realms continued to evolve as residents began redefining their relationships to these spaces and to one another.
Figure 2.2 A resident artist draws a mental map of the historic central stairway
When discussing community public spaces, one neighborhood resident reflected on what he considered was the historic heart of Las Independencias (I). He recalled a small home goods store operating in the living room of a neighbor’s home at the intersection of the central stairway and the main alley, a safe space to socialize with others in the neighborhood while simultaneously preventing the added burden of risk to go down the hill to access the more formal markets and stores to purchase basic goods (Neighborhood Resident, personal communication, July 13, 2017). The design of the public escalators today hosts a modest platform (platform 3) at this intersection, but integrates a larger plaza (platform 4) with permanent street furniture one segment above. While the public escalators sought to de-territorialize invisible borders along the stairway and reintroduce new public spaces for residents, they unintentionally dissolved one of the only community spaces in the neighborhood in the process and effectively shifted the neighborhood’s center of gravity uphill even farther from the goods and services below. However, social connections to place appear to transcend material space, as observations revealed that nearly 90% of users who paused on the third platform were residents, compared to less than half of those occupying the fourth platform. Furthermore, platform 3 also was one of the most gender-balanced spaces recorded during observations, with many women re-territorializing the platform as a meeting point or space for informal conversation in passing at this historic community intersection.
Expressing Culture, Identity, and Community Healing through Street and Performance Art Simultaneously, youth have been building community in Las Independencias (I) through artistic expression. While residents historically rooted artistic practice in graffiti and street art, influences from Afro-Colombian migrants predominantly from the Atlantic Coast have accelerated the cultural renaissance underway, with performances ranging from hip-hop to breakdancing to rap and song (Women’s Organization Leader, personal communication, July 20, 2017). The state’s perceived threat of loud music and ‘messy’ graffiti undermining convivencia within public spaces led the state to require artists to seek formal approval prior to commissioning a ‘legitimate’ work. This City-mandated permitting and approval process for messaging, designs, and performances essentially controls the expression of public culture (Kapferer, 2007). However, young artists re-territorialized the state-approved messaging by re-signifying their work using coded symbols that help to explore their own cultural identities, promote community healing by reflecting on historic neighborhood memories and traumas, and imagine new futures for themselves and their community (Graffiti Artist, personal communication, July 9, 2017). Today, graffiti covers almost every wall framing the escalator system, with daily performances typically occurring on platform 7 or along the mid-hill viaduct adjacent to the escalators due to the space’s ability to host a large number of spectators. In this sense, residents of Las Independencias (I) were able to re-territorialize the public escalators through the novel re-envisioning of mobility infrastructure to better reflect their own identities, culture, and neighborhood histories. This resignification of place (Souza, 2015) forms the foundation on which residents were able to generate local economic opportunities like tourism and street vending.
Table 2.1 Observations on the social character and identity of the escalator platforms
Figure 2.3 Breakdancers rehearse on Platform 4 before the tour groups arrive
Direct Occupation: Spatial Restructuring, Repurposing, and Generating Alternative Economies As the arts matured in the community and began to generate alternative economic potential, the re-territorialization of the public escalators became more deliberate and assertive on behalf of the residents. This potential translates into upwards of 400 – 500 tourists visiting the escalators each day during peak tourism season in late spring, with observations revealing that the total volume of tourists occupying several platforms exceeded half of the total recorded users (Tour Guide, personal communication, July 16, 2017). Members of a local hip-hop and graffiti troupe were among the first to organize and facilitate these tours as a means of extending their message of healing and community transformation to a broader audience, with several additional tour companies led by local young adults materializing in recent years (Graffiti Artist, personal communication, July 9, 2017). Today, tourism does not solely function as a local economic engine that re-affirms community pride and history, but it has also fostered a global network of artists sharing their message of solidarity in the struggle to inspire other communities across Latin America and the world to exercise individual and community autonomy to become their own agents of change (Graffiti Artist, personal communication, July 9, 2017).
Residents re-territorialized the public escalators by repurposing them as a marketplace as well as a space for social encounter and recreation, diluting the state’s original intent for the project. However, the explosion in national and international tourism in the neighborhood accompanied rapid growth in the number of vendors situated along the escalators. Women increasingly began pursuing their own entrepreneurial goals outside the domestic realm by starting to sell handmade artisanal goods and other traditional foods catering predominantly towards this large influx of tourists (Women’s Organization Leader, personal communication, July 20, 2017). The state initially responded by prohibiting all vending in the name of preserving public health, free mobility, and proper public space etiquette, mirroring many of the arguments often presented to justify street vendor clearing efforts in Colombia (Donovan, 2008). The vendors, led by representatives from the local women’s group, the Red de Apoyo para Las Mujeres, swiftly organized and asserted: (1) private landowners with storefronts along the escalators would unfairly enjoy disproportional economic benefits from the system and, therefore, (2) all residents should have the right to occupy and sell goods within these common spaces (Women’s Organization Leader, personal communication, July 20, 2017).
While vendors can be found throughout the escalator platforms, the majority of women vendors typically concentrate their sales to platform 7 and the adjacent viaduct given the amount of space and the high levels of local and tourist foot traffic present. Therefore, it is not surprising that observation findings confirm more gender parity in these spaces compared to others in the neighborhood. Here and throughout the neighborhood, vendors have adapted material space along the escalators to best fit their needs by introducing self-built kiosks featuring seating, storage, and shading structures to display and sell their goods. The flexible designs employed by vendors resist the rigidity of the material spaces imposed by the state, allowing for temporary physical occupation without major restructuring of public spaces and preserving modularity to allow for incremental improvement and expansion as operations scale up or down. While all from the neighborhood are welcome to sell, an informal, community-based code of ethics stipulates that vendors may only sell non-competitive goods on the same platform, though no rules govern whether vendors must cater to tourists or residents with their business (Escalator Vendor, personal communication, July 13, 2017). These kinds of occupations in public spaces exemplify the notion of coexistence and contestation (Low, 1996), whereby these women are advancing community autonomy through alternative economic channels while simultaneously contesting the state for their right to occupy and sell in these spaces.
Enduring Occupation and Resistance From the historically empty streets whereby violence forced the exchange of basic goods to occur in private spaces within the home through a covert neighborhood network, the physical occupation of public spaces by vendors in Las Independencias (I) today originates from a strong tradition of resistance and perseverance by the community residents (Tour Guide, personal communication, July 16, 2017). As the commodification of the neighborhood has intensified, new private businesses catering to tourists such as restaurants, coffee shops, and hostels have established themselves in the neighborhood and, as a result, the level of neighborhood regulation and scrutiny by the state has increased. Along the public escalators, this manifests not only through the presence of state-owned facilities, but also through Escalator Ambassadors who, in an effort to promote convivencia, monitor what they deem as undesirable behaviors such as walking on the escalators or running in public spaces. Whereas perhaps six of these Ambassadors were traditionally in charge of monitoring these spaces, over one dozen can be found patrolling the system today (Tour Guide, personal communication, July 16, 2017). Berney’s (2011) work highlights how this trend of increased security, policing, and enforcement in new, equitable public spaces in Colombia disproportionately impacts marginalized and lower-class populations. For a local woman contracted with the City to serve as an Ambassador, these tensions embody feelings of joy for the opportunity to work close to her family and pride for helping to keep the neighborhood safe, but also dismay that crime persists in the neighborhood, explaining how a nearby household along an adjacent alleyway had recently been confronted for holding a utility lineman for ransom (personal communication, July 27, 2017). These findings highlight that the re-territorialization of Las Independencias (I) not only concerns itself with the neighborhood scale as it relates to criminality and invisible borders and the blurring of domestic and public spheres, but also at the scale of the body, with residents simultaneously exercising individual autonomy while acting as a security agent of the state.
Summary of the Findings
Documenting the Unintended Consequences of De- Territorialization Despite the prevalence of other pressing social challenges in the district, the main objective of the PUI San Javier was to de-territorialize existing geographies of violence by introducing new public spaces and permanent state occupation through institutional fixtures and mobility infrastructure. In the case of the public escalators in Las Independencias (I), the disruption of invisible borders along the central stairway did not eradicate criminality and violence, but, rather, shifted it into less visible and hidden geographies like the domestic sphere where women are disproportionately affected. Furthermore, this de-territorialization also eroded what minimal community networks existed by restructuring the public realm and relationships between private households and the new escalator platforms as well as to the larger markets and shops at the base of the hillside by assuming a sense of public space culture in the neighborhood which was not historically present due to violence.
Figure 2.4 Vendors re-appropriate spaces conceived for recreation into spaces for commerce and artistic expression
Documenting Residents’ Spatial acts of Re-Territorialization Residents of Las Independencias (I) initially, and perhaps unintentionally, approached the re-territorialization of the public escalators through subtle physical encroachments from the domestic realm. As residents continued to interpret the new public spaces, they re-attributed their histories and memory to the platforms first through casual socialization and later through the tradition of rich, visual storytelling through graffiti, street art, as well as dance, rap, and musical performances to promote a sense of pride, community identity, and collective healing which, in turn, generated opportunities for creating alternative local economic streams. This led to the rise of tourism and street vending along the escalators, effectively repurposing spaces originally intended exclusively for socialization and recreation into spaces of commerce and artistic expression as well. Street vendors, graffiti artists, and other performers restructured spatial relationships within these new public spaces through temporary and flexible physical artifacts including shade structures, storage and display carts, and other moveable furniture to facilitate commerce. Finally, the role of women throughout this process of re-territorialization cannot be understated. The legacy of advocacy and ingenuity by local women continues in spite of marginalization across dimensions of class, ethnicity, gender, and geography. These virtues manifest through entrepreneurial endeavors such as street vending and tour operations as well as the extension of subtle symbols of the domestic sphere into new public spaces such as plantings and seating to demonstrate implicit sense of pride, ownership, history, and memory of place. Ultimately, it was through the re-territorialization of the public escalators by residents rather than the state’s physical intervention that has driven community change and improvement, and while social issues and criminality persist, the collective and individual autonomy demonstrated through this process will be essential to maintaining the positive trajectory of Las Independencias (I) moving forward.
Research Conclusions This study centers around the stories, actions, and day-to-day lived experiences of residents, particularly women, in Las Independencias (I) in response to the creation of new common spaces along the public escalators. In particular, it demonstrates that residents’ acts of subtle physical occupation, graffiti, street and performance art, and street vending and tourism subverted state intentions for the public escalators and facilitated the community’s re-territorialization of these spaces to best meet their needs. Through personal narratives like that of the Escalator Ambassador, this research extends a gendered dimension to the paradoxical relationship articulated by Berney (2011) regarding new, equitable public spaces and the enforcement of desirable societal principles within these spaces. Additionally, by employing a ‘quasi’ design ethnography, my findings complement Sotomayor’s (2017) insights on the spatial conflicts and inequities perpetuated by the state in San Javier while redirecting the focus of this conflict to the re-territorialization of these spaces through insurgent spatial practices by the residents of Las Independencias (I). Future studies of interest could re-visit these practices as part of a broader longitudinal study, or could be contrasted with a similar study in the adjacent community of Las Independencias (II) which lacks the same degree of physical intervention and significantly higher Afro- Colombian population than their neighbors in Las Independencias (I).
By shifting the focus of this research inquiry to the people rather than the state, new understandings begin to emerge regarding how and where planning occurs and who is ultimately responsible for leading planning efforts and upholding commitments to the community. Despite the participatory nature of the PUI engagement process, this ‘progressive’ model still presents procedural deficiencies that risk structural co-optation (Souza, 2006) of local community organizations and neighborhood leaders by gathering their input and ideas without providing decision-making authority or financial resources to implement or steward physical interventions in the neighborhood. Though disproportionately impacted by planning matters and under-represented in existing power and decision-making structures, the planning contributions of women in Las Independencias (I) span decades of persistent occupation and resistance. To reconcile these historic transgressions, planning practice must radically re-envision its process, beginning by intentionally centering the narratives and perspectives of women to understand their needs and aspirations, elevating their leadership and decision-making power, and continuing to allow these community ambassadors to create and steward emancipatory spaces where individual and community autonomy reside.
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Gideon Abagna Azunre | Richard Azerigyik | Pearl Puwurayire
Abstract
For years informal urbanization by the urban poor and its spatial outcomes—i.e., slums—have become ubiquitous in Global South cities, particularly Africa. Consequently, authorities are engineering strategies that could arrest and slow down its proliferation in the quest for resilient and sustainable cities. Within the complex discourse of informal urbanization, one very crucial piece of evidence that appears to be unclear pertains to its driving factors. Using Ghana—particularly rapidly urbanizing southern Ghanaian cities—as an empirical case, this paper untangles the complex and multidimensional drivers of slum growth beyond the traditional population-heavy approaches. Using the push-pull theory as a conceptual and analytical prism, analyses reveal that poorly designed housing policies, the informal economy, weak urban planning, political interferences and political clientelism accelerates slum growth. The article argues that coping with unplanned urbanization by the urban poor may be extremely tenuous if these complex factors are not well-understood and seriously considered in policy circles. The findings of the article also lend credence to arguments that call for a shift from population-heavy readings of urban challenges in Africa to more institutional, political, and historical perspectives. The paper concludes by recommending that states and city authorities ought to recognize and address their institutional culpabilities in contributing to slum growth. A critical starting point could be the re-examination of draconian policies and the adoption of inclusive, pro-poor, and proactive urban strategies.
Keywords
Informal urbanization; Slums; Push-Pull theory; Sustainable City Development; Ghana
About Authors
Gideon Abagna Azunre recently completed a Master of Science degree in Urban Planning and Policy Design at the School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering, Politecnico di Milano. He also holds a Master of Philosophy degree in Planning and a Bachelor of Science degree in Development Planning from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST, Ghana). His academic and research interests are transdisciplinary in nature and sits at the intersections of informal urbanism, sustainability, and resilience.
Richard Azerigyik holds an MPhil degree in planning from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST, Ghana). He is currently a PhD student in the same department, and his research interests lie in urban poverty reduction, urban housing, and water resource management. He is currently working on a project titled “Land Use Planning as a Tool for Managing Transhumance-Associated Conflicts in Ghana”. The project seeks to navigate the complex relationship between competing land users and sustainable conflict management.
Pearl Puwurayire (MPhil, BSc) is an Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Planning and Sustainability at the University of Energy and Natural Resources in Ghana. She is a development planning practitioner who has worked with the Development Planning Unit of the Local Government. She is currently a co-founder of a Non-Governmental Organization which is focused on Girl-Child Education. Pearl’s research interest is in urbanization and urban development, urban informal economy, urban environmental health and management and urban disaster and risk reduction.
Introduction
Urbanization is traditionally presumed to be a catalyst of productivity, industrialization, and socioeconomic transition (Cobbinah et al., 2015b). Despite a recent study (Vollset et al., 2020) pointing out fluctuations in the world’s projected population, the consensus remains that the global urban population will continue increasing. As of 2015, 54% of the world’s population lives in urban areas and is projected to reach 70% by 2050 (UNDESA/PD, 2012). The majority of this growth will occur in Africa, with nearly a quarter (1.3 billion) of the world’s urban population by 2050. While some developing countries like China reap the benefits of urbanization (Cohen, 2006), it seems to rather disrupt urban functionality and stall socio-economic development in most African countries (Cobbinah et al., 2015a). This underlies the long-held pathological-indeed Malthusian-view that overurbanization is the prime cause of urban development problems in African cities (Boateng, 2020a). One of these critical urban challenges is unplanned urbanization—also called informal urbanization. For the purposes of this paper, our central focus is on the spatial by-product of informal urbanization by the urban poor— that is, slums.
According to recent estimates, there has been a reduction in the proportion of urban slum dwellers from 28% in 2000 to 20% in 2014. However, the absolute number of slum dwellers has increased from 792 million in 2000 to 880 million in 2014 (UN-Habitat, 2016a). Recent statistics have painted a dire picture, suggesting that about 1 billion people currently live in slum settlements. Households living in such settlements constantly face harsh conditions such as inadequate access to clean water, sanitation, and durable housing. This informal urbanization trajectory is a valid paradigm of several countries in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Ghana (Amoako & Boamah, 2017; Amoako & Inkoom, 2018; Poku-Boansi et al., 2020). Available statistics show that Ghana’s cities are rapidly urbanizing and unauthorized development is gradually becoming a norm. It is, therefore, no surprise that two out of five Ghanaian urban dwellers (37.9%) live in settlements that can be classified as slum (UN, 2017).
Given its current scale and future contours, informal urbanization by the poor has garnered enormous international attention. One principal medium through which this global interest has been crystallized is with international goals and accords. The overarching aim of these commitments is to improve slum livelihoods and bring decent living conditions to such neighborhoods. For instance, the ‘cities without slums’ agenda advanced in the year 2000 echoed the international ambitions to reduce the proliferation of slums in cities. Similarly, the current Sustainable Development Goals (Goal No. 11, Target 11.1) anticipate that by 2030 all slums will be upgraded, and all urban residents will have adequate, safe, and affordable housing. In the quest to achieve these goals, city authorities strategically implement promising urban policies and programs such as participatory slum upgrading and large-scale affordable housing schemes. Remarkably, these efforts have slowed the pace of informal urbanization and have enhanced the living conditions of slum dwellers.
The global aspiration to arrest informal urbanization or slum growth has also fueled numerous academic studies, prominent among those are the works of scholars such as Hernando de Soto and Ananya Roy. All these serve as fodder for the intellectual mill aimed at addressing informal urbanization among the urban poor. However, a critical question that still lingers is: what are the complex drivers of this seemingly untenable phenomenon? Answers to this seem to be cursory in the informal urbanization discourse. In fact, available studies have done little to move beyond the population-heavy diagnosis of informal urbanization which implicitly suggests that slum settlers are solely to blame for the situation. Also, little to no studies untangle how the complex factors act in ‘push’ and ‘pull’ scenarios. Therefore, the aims of this study are twofold: 1) to determine the multi-dimensional drivers of informal urbanization beyond population-heavy factors, and 2) to assess the interconnected nature of the factors using the prism of the ‘push and pull theory’. Our study adds to the already rich and extensive body of literature from a sub-Saharan African context, Ghana.
In what follows, we review relevant literature on informal urbanization (‘Section 2: Informal urbanization: a literature outlook’). Section 3 captures the methodology adopted to perform the analysis while Section 4 thematically presents the results. Section 5 covers the discussion of key findings and lessons learned. The final remarks of the study are presented in Section 6.
Informal Urbanization: A Literature Outlook
Conceptualizing Informal Urbanization and its Spatial Outcome Informal urbanization is defined as a systematic “dwelling process” through which settlements and housing are ‘‘constructed individually and incrementally, using locally available materials” in an informal manner that reflects the socio-economic status of owners (McFarlane, 2011b, p. 664, 2011a, p. 216). This complex urban phenomenon involves very different classes of households who utilize urban lands by generally violating land-use and spatial regulations. The outcome of these incremental informal processes could be viewed from a two-pronged perspective: economic and spatial (Rigon et al., 2020). The spatial outcomes and by-products of informal urbanization have been a contentious subject in the conventional literature. On one hand, it is argued that informal urbanization produces informal settlements while on the other it is argued that it generates slums. Some commentators even go further to use both terminologies synonymously. Before going on, these need to be clarified.
In our view, the terms ‘slums’ and ‘informal settlements’ can be designated to a settlement depending on the types of households involved, the legal status, and the services or infrastructure present. According to UN-Habitat (2016a), slums are contiguous settlements that lack one or more of the following: 1) access to clean and potable water; 2) access to improved sanitation; 3) sufficient living area that is not overcrowded; 4) durable housing; 5) security of tenure. On the other hand, settlements are defined as informal when they reflect the primary criteria of informality: that is, tenure insecurity and violation of planning regulations (e.g., land use plans, zoning guidelines). Premised on the foregone definitions, some informal settlements can be defined as slums if they further lack essential services such as water and sanitation. Contrarily, some informal settlements or developments are not slums: for example, those produced by middle- and high-class households. This process is gaining ground in the literature, with several scholars (Banks et al., 2020; Roy, 2011) elevating the term ‘elite informalities’ to refer to informalities transcending the urban poor (see Section 3.1 for examples in Ghana). According to Roy (2011), elite informalities are mostly valorized due to the economic and political power such actors wield while subaltern informalities (those by the poor) are criminalized.
Additionally, some slums cannot be strictly defined as informal settlements if they are legitimized or recognized by authorities. For instance, in India, some slums are notified under the Slum Areas Act of 1956 which makes them legal in the eyes of local and national authorities. However, because they are produced by poor households, they still lack crucial social services. In short, it is maintained that slums and informal settlements are not completely synonymous. This study, thus, elects to use slums as the by-product of informal urbanization since the focus is on the urban poor. We are aware of the growing critiques on the nomenclature of the terms “slum” and “slum dwellers” because it is implicitly derogatory and stereotypical, and it downgrades the value and agency of such settlements (see: Butola, 2019; Mayne, 2017; Roy, 2011). However, we deem it appropriate in the present study for two main reasons.
First, international commitments such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have adopted the term “slums” in setting global targets. For instance, target 11.1 under SDG 11 aims to reduce the proportion of “slum dwellers” by 2030. This study is thus consistent with the global trend. Secondly, as would be made more explicit shortly, statistical estimates and research on the drivers of informal urbanization have generally been reported on slums. Focusing our analysis on slums is therefore a good way to obtain reliable information to clearly understand informal urbanization beyond population factors. The present study, strongly supported elsewhere (Azunre et al., 2021), is also rooted in the idea that there is enormous value in some of the activities of households in such settlements. Therefore, it is important to understand the drivers of such a dynamic and complex urban phenomenon for the purpose of both policy and planning.
From Population-Heavy to Historical-Institutional Drivers of Slum Growth The literature is replete with variegated factors that drive informal urbanization and slum growth in the Global South. Rapid urbanization and population growth seem to be the most consistent underlying factors across the literature—so-called population-heavy diagnosis. According to these arguments, the continued rural-urban gap has caused several rural dwellers to seek economic success, livelihood opportunities, and access to social services and infrastructure in urban areas (Tacoli et al., 2014). This migration pattern fuels the rapid urbanization trend in most parts of the Global South today. The world’s population is expected to reach about 9.8 billion in 2050 with about 66.4 percent (two-thirds) of those living in urban areas (UN-DESA, 2014). The surge in urban population has coincided with several sustainable development challenges. Premised on the foregoing, population-heavy theorists conclude that urbanization in the Global South, and Africa in particular, is ‘parasitic’ because it negatively correlates with socio-economic development.
However, some urban scholars (Boateng, 2020b, 2020a; Njoh, 2003) have criticized population-heavy readings of urban problems in Africa and raised arguments to incorporate the interplay of several other local and external factors—particularly historical-institutional. This appears to be a valid point of view for understanding informal urbanization by the poor. City authorities in many parts of the Global South lack the capacity (i.e., financial resources, logistics, and human resources) to plan and provide affordable housing and social infrastructure for the urban poor. This phenomenon is evident in Asia and Africa—touted as the fastest urbanizing regions. With limited budgets, city authorities are unable to finance new housing production to alleviate the housing deficit (Ooi & Phua, 2007; United Nations, 2014). The demand for land for new development in urban areas has aggravated the situation. Since the supply of land is fixed, competition has been increasing from various interest groups. The increasing demand for land among competing land users has made land, irrespective of its quality, relevant in the urban space (Zhang, 2016). This ongoing land crisis has priced out the urban poor thus making them encroachers and creators of substandard housing and unsanitary settlements and neighborhoods. Also, high poverty levels, the informal sector, poor urban governance, weak institutions to ensure compliance, and outmoded land laws and regulations, have contributed immensely to the growth of slums in city centers (see: Azerigyik et al., 2018; Lau & Chiu, 2013; Mishra, 2011; Ooi & Phua, 2007).
Furthermore, slums continue to swell up due to the inherent socio-political and economic opportunities they present to the urban poor. Many slums across the globe are close-knit and near Central Business Districts (CBD) because of the available economic and employment opportunities. According to Lau & Chiu (2013), slum dwellers live and explore livelihood opportunities in close-knit ways to reduce or avoid the cost of transportation. Also, due to the high social network and family ties exhibited by slum dwellers, slums have become attractive for migrants. The population, social network, and high sense of solidarity exhibited by slums have made them influential in policies, political discourses, and elections (Jha et al., 2011).
To sum up, the preceding underscores how pervasive unplanned urbanization is and its attendant driving factors. Most population-heavy assessments seem to relate slum growth directly to the influx of people in urban areas with little to no recognition of the economic, institutional, political, and cultural factors which shape the phenomenon. These studies also implicitly suggest that settlers are the sole protagonists of the informal urbanization situation. However, the central argument of this article is that this is not necessarily the case. A complex assemblage of factors such as the failures of the government or state to respond to the basic needs of the growing urban poor class, distributional and investment inequalities, political factors, among others drives slum growth. This study looks to unpack these other factors using Ghana as a case study.
Materials and Methods
Case Study in Perspective The Republic of Ghana (simply known as Ghana) is a West African country located on the Atlantic Ocean and shares borders with Togo, Côte d’Ivoire, and Burkina Faso (see Figure 1.1). Ghana is one of several Anglophone countries in the sub-Saharan region because of its colonial affiliation to Great Britain (Lassou et al., 2019). Similar to the state of Texas in the United States of America, Ghana has a population of about 30 million (Ghana Statistical Service, 2019; United States Census Bureau, 2019). This population is unevenly distributed across the country, with regions in the southern part being the most populous in comparison to those in the northern part. Currently, the country is administratively divided into 16 regions after a recent constitutional instrument created six new regions. Ghana’s international recognition arises from its prominent role in the mass exportation of raw materials such as gold, cocoa, and timber.
Figure 1.1: Ghana in the context of Africa Source: Charles Sturt University Spatial Analysis Unit (2015) cited in (Cobbinah & Erdiaw-Kwasie, 2016, p. 89)
Ghana is an interesting case in point to untangle the determinants of informal urbanization because the country has been rapidly urbanizing since 2010 when for the first time over half of the population lived in urban areas (Ghana Statistical Service, 2014b). The national capital, Accra, currently boasts of being the most urbanized followed closely by Kumasi (Cobbinah, 2021, p. 3). Other cities in the northern part of Ghana such as Bolgatanga and Wa have gradually urbanized at a pace closer to that of the southern cities. The urbanization trajectory of several Ghanaian cities has brought informal urbanization to the forefront of policy and academic discourses. The population-heavy assessments are also visibly seen across the literature in Ghana, with urban population growth touted as the main cause of informal urbanization.
However, it is worth highlighting that informal urbanization in Ghana touches various classes or groups from low-income to high-income. Informal urbanization by middle to high-income households has been extensively reported by several scholars (Asante & Sasu, 2018; Boateng, 2020b, 2020a) among property developers. In fact, Boamah, Gyimah, & Bediako Nelson (2012) found that 10% of households in a high-class residential area in the Wa Municipality did not apply for building permits. Some of these housing developers try to circumvent building regulations or permitting processes which have caused several buildings to collapse across major cities in Ghana. Some examples are a six-story Melcom shopping complex in Achimota Accra which collapsed on November 7, 2012, and an uncompleted five-story hotel building in Tarkwa which collapsed in 2010 (see Asante & Sasu, 2018; Boateng, 2020b for in-depth discussions and examples of these).
Despite these, informal urbanization in Ghana is much more prevalent among low-income households. This is evident, first and foremost, from the class distribution of new urban migrants who are mostly from rural communities (see Table 1.1). Rural communities in Ghana are characterized by high poverty levels. Thus, in an attempt to escape poverty, a significant proportion of rural dwellers migrate into cities in search of greener pastures (Ghana Statistical Service, 2014b). Due to the generally low income or economic standings, these rural-urban migrants encroach unoccupied urban lands, squat, or live in slums that offer affordable housing. For example, several studies (Adamtey et al., 2021; Adusei et al., 2017; Azerigyik et al., 2018) reveal that most slum communities in Ghana (such as Old Tulaku, Old Fadama, Agbogbloshie, Dagomba Line, Avenor) are predominant recipients of migrants from rural areas and/or poor communities in Northern Ghana.
Table 1.1: Population and structure of migrant population in Ghana
Another evidence of informal urbanization’s rapidity and strong correlation to the poor is the growth of slums across most major Ghanaian cities. Estimates suggest that two out of five urban dwellers in Ghana (37.9%) live in slum settlements (UN, 2017). Accra and Kumasi are the two cities in which slums are rife (see Figure 1.2). From the maps, it can be observed that slums in Accra and Kumasi, and by extension Ghana, have strong centrality in relation to the Central Business District (CBD) where jobs and economic opportunities are available for the urban poor. The foregoing justifies the focus of the present article on informal urbanization by the poor, and more particularly on their spatial outcomes which are slum settlements.
Before going on, it is crucial to first underscore the types of “slums” in Ghana. Ghanaian slums are sometimes difficult to distinctly classify, but a study by Paller (2015) introduced a comprehensive categorization with which we adopt for the current study. First, extra-legal slums in Ghana are settlements viewed as illegitimate and not officially recognized by local and national authorities, which are mostly labeled as squatter settlements. Secondly, indigenous slums are those settlements that have a traditional connotation and gradually become slum settlements due to poor planning and neglect by authorities. Finally, purchased slums are legal in nature, in that all formal land purchasing and customary processes have been followed by owners; however, they have become slums because they lack essential services such as water and sanitation. Among these three slum typologies, extra-legal slums are the most politically vulnerable and they constantly face threats of evictions. A well-documented example in the Ghanaian literature is in Old Fadama, Accra—the largest slum in the country (Afenah, 2012; Farouk & Owusu, 2012; Housing the Masses, 2010).
Figure 1.2: Location of slums in two major Ghanaian cities; A= Accra, B=Kumasi Source: (Takyi et al., 2020, p. 9)
Empirical Methodology The current study is based on a systematic review of the literature. The review was applied under the case study research design. The case study design provides the opportunity to gain concrete, contextual, in-depth knowledge about the intricate web of factors that engender slum growth (Bryman, 2012; Yin, 2013). Specifically, the study focused on Ghana to help systematically synthesize secondary data. Secondary data is used in this study to refer to data collected by some researchers but manipulated by others to achieve research objectives different from the original collector (Hox & Boeije, 2005; Vartanian, 2011). Secondary data mainly comprised peer-reviewed journal articles, institutional documents (e.g., census records from Ghana Statistical Service [GSS]), and gray literature (e.g., online news posts).
To search for literature, a thematic approach was adopted. Four themes were developed: 1) Ineffectual housing policies, 2) Informal economy, 3) Politics and distributional/investment inequalities, and 4) Weak urban planning and land tenure issues. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) approach (Moher et al., 2009) was employed to extract literature under each of the four themes. Additionally, the Boolean search method was adopted to develop search strings by pairing keywords (e.g., “slums”, “slum growth”, “housing policies in Ghana”, “politics”, “urban planning in Ghana”, etc.) and their synonyms with Boolean operators (e.g., “AND”, “OR”). A combination of these keywords generated phrases that were run in search engines such as Google, Google Scholar, and Mendeley literature search. This facilitated the swift access of scholarly works from online repositories such as JSTOR, Elsevier, SAGE, and Taylor and Francis.
Furthermore, content and thematic analytical tools were employed to analyze the literature obtained. The aim of the analysis was to build an argumentative narrative on the driving factors of informal urbanization and slum growth beyond population-heavy diagnosis. Also, the analysis was guided by a specific theoretical framework (i.e., the push-pull theory) to help unpack how the driving factors attract or force households into slum settlements. The theoretical framework of the study is discussed in Section 3.2.1 below. It is worth noting that the researchers have a fair understanding of the research context and case study. Therefore, this tacit knowledge was fused with the secondary data to enrich the analysis and discussion. At the end of the search and analysis, 70 articles/reports/websites were used (see Table 1.2).
Table 1.2: Literature Search Method
Theoretical Framework: Push-Pull Theory Theories of migration have rapidly evolved since the notable works of Ernst Ravenstein on the “Laws of Migration” in the mid to late twentieth century. Ravenstein was the first to theoretically frame the phenomenon of migration and how it emerges. Following this, other works mushroomed to disentangle the phenomenon of migration and the drivers of international or national mobility. For the purposes of this study, Lee’s (1966) theory of migration is considered comprehensive enough to unpack the diverse factors of spatial mobility at both a macro and micro scale. Lee identified four main categories of factors in the act of migration: (i) factors associated with the place of origin, (ii) factors associated with the place of destination, (iii) intervening obstacles, and (iv) personal factors. As presented in Figure 1.3, each origin and destination point have a set of positive and negative factors that attract or repel people. Consequently, the push factors are those situations that give one reason to be dissatisfied with one’s present locale (Dorigo & Tobler, 1983). People are then forced to leave the origin to the destination, not because of the attractive nature of the destination but because migrating is the best available option. By contrast, pull factors are the attractive elements in the destination that appeals to individuals
The push-pull theory grounds this paper and allows for a more structured exploration of the factors that lead to informal urbanization by the poor. The destination points in this regard are slums and the origin points are other neighborhoods in the city, peri-urban areas, or rural areas. It is worth mentioning that we do not intend to exhaustively apply the model to the informal urbanization phenomenon. It is beyond the capacity of any brief article because informal urbanization involves complex individual decisions (i.e., personal factors) that would require rigorous primary data to disentangle clearly. Nevertheless, the model presents a remarkable opportunity to systematically explain the more general factors and trends that engenders informal urbanization and how households (particularly the poor) are pushed or pulled to live in slums. The push-pull theory also allows for an in-depth exploration of the historical-institutional factors which condition the actions of low-income households towards slums.
Furthermore, the literature overview in Section 2.2 shows that a plethora of studies have investigated informal urbanization and conceptualized some of its causal factors. However, none of the studies reflected on the factors from a push-pull scenario nor did they clearly discuss how these factors interrelate in a rapidly urbanizing sub-Saharan African city like Ghana. These are but a few gaps the current study will help plug.
Figure 1.3: Origin and destination factors in migration
Results: Drivers of Informal Urbanization by the Poor in Ghana
The drivers of informal urbanization in Ghana are analyzed under four (4) themes. The analysis under each theme will tease out the “push or pull” dynamics of the causal factors.
Ineffectual housing policies,
Informal economy,
Politics and distributional/investment inequalities, and
Weak urban planning and land tenure issues.
Ineffectual Housing Policies in Delivering Low-Income Housing
Public policies are the most important instruments used by city authorities to redress the ills facing various sectors of the economy, including the housing sector. In the Global South, it has been extensively documented that housing policies are generally poorly developed, inefficiently implemented, and fail to benefit the worst off (Monkkonen, 2018; Rojas, 2019; Scheba & Turok, 2020). This has been the case in Ghana for the past few decades. The problems facing housing policies and their attendant effects on informal urbanization can best be disentangled from a path-dependency perspective. The path-dependency theory, which emerged from economics, posits the situation where historical events have the possibility of creating “lock-in” structures that define pathways of development (Arthur, 1988; David, 1985, 1988). Consequently, some scholars (e.g., Kay, 2005; Poku-Boansi, 2020) assert that path dependency is an essential mechanism for understanding public policy development. As such, the problems that Ghana’s housing sector and policies are facing today with respect to low-income housing are a consequence of previous historical happenings.
Generally, Ghana’s housing policies have been deeply politicized with policy ambitions and aims changing with every successive government (Boamah, 2014). During the colonial era, housing was mainly directed at expatriate and senior indigenous staff members holding positions in the colonial public service (Hornsby-Odoi & Glover-Akpey, 1988). The most important low-income housing scheme during the colonial era came in 1924 after an outbreak of cholera in Kumasi and other parts of Ghana. This health crisis required the mass clearance of slums and the construction of housing projects to re-house the displaced (Agyapong, 1990; Songsore, 2003; Songsore et al., 2004). However, during this period, housing access by low-income groups was hampered by some restrictive rules such as the town and country planning laws (Konadu-Agyeman, 2001).
From 1951, housing policies began to explicitly focus on low- and middle-income groups. Two mid-term development plans from 1951-1964 were rooted in a socialist philosophy and primarily aimed at providing adequate and subsidized housing for low-income households (Ansah & Ametepey, 2013). The highlight of the plans was the formation of housing-related institutions such as: i) First Ghana Building Society, ii) Tema Development Corporation (TDC), and iii) Ghana Housing Corporation (now known as the State Housing Company) (Bank of Ghana, 2007; Konadu-Agyeman, 2001). Specifically, TDC helped develop eight new housing Communities in Tema by constructing about 2,255 units (Ansah & Ametepey, 2013). Also, the Roof and Wall Loan Scheme which was started in 1955 advanced the aided self-help housing idea (Addo, 2014). The government provided materials, loans, and serviced sites at moderate rents to low-income households.
Nevertheless, governmental changes in 1966 to the National Liberation Council (NLC), in 1969 to the Progress Party (PP), in 1972 to the military leadership of the National Redemption Council, and in 1979 to the military rule of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) led to housing policy agendas slipping and sliding from direct housing construction for the urban poor to complete neglect.
A watershed in Ghana’s housing policy landscape occurred in the 1980s when the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) and Economic Recovery Program (ERP) were developed under the conditionalities of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Neo-liberal and ‘enabling environment’ approaches were advanced; this facilitated housing provision by the private sector and avoided interventionist provision of public housing by the state (Harris, 2003; UN-Habitat, 2005). The government significantly retreated from direct housing production and lost grips of the housing market. According to several scholars (e.g., Addo, 2014; Songsore et al., 2004), this period kickstarted the substantial housing deficits faced in the country (see Table 1.3).
Table 1.3: Housing deficit of Ghana
To alleviate the housing deficit, the government developed a comprehensive National Housing Policy in 2015 that “…envisions a country in which everyone is able to access safe, secure, decent and affordable housing either owned or rented.” (Ministry of Water Resources Works and Housing, 2015). Consequently, investments have been placed in large-scale affordable housing projects such as OAS affordable housing program in Saglemi, Borteyman affordable housing, Asokore Mampong affordable housing project, among others. However, these projects are failing for two main reasons: firstly, they are highly politicized and causing implementational delays and/or abandonment; and secondly, the prices quoted for completed units are only affordable for middle- and high-income households.
To sum up, the slow rate in producing houses in Ghana, particularly for the poor, is strongly attributable to how ineffective previous housing policies have been. The formal housing sector (i.e., formal public and formal private sector) seems to be targeting middle- and high-income households at the expense of low-income groups. Urban poor households are having to contend with higher rents and land prices which affects their ability to participate in the formal market. They are thus “pushed” and “pulled” to slums where affordable housing is provided (Addo, 2014; Takyi et al., 2020). As Grant (2006, p. 13) writes:
“[Slum dwellers’] position exposes the G[overnment] o[f] G[hana]’s failure to address the housing situation of the poor… [P]eople squat because there are no alternatives…”.
From the foregoing, it is right to argue that Ghana’s unproductive housing policies profoundly influence informal urbanization by poor households.
Informal Economy
The first scholar to thematize economic informality was Keith Hart with his research that focused on Accra, Ghana. Hart (1973, p. 68) introduced the term ‘informal sector (IS)’ and described it as a “world of economic activities outside the organized labor force.” Similarly, Feige (1989) defined the IS as all unregistered economic activities that contribute to the officially calculated gross national product. However, debates following the earlier conceptualization of the informal sector prompted the introduction of a new concept: ‘informal economy (IE)’. The International Labor Organization defines the IE as “[…] all economic activities by workers and economic units that are – in law or in practice – not covered or insufficiently covered by formal arrangements” (ILO, 2002, p. 5). Precisely, the informal economy is much broader and can be split into two: 1) informal sector, which comprises production and employment in unincorporated or unregistered enterprises (ILO, 1993); and 2) informal employment which is work without labor-based protection in informal enterprises, formal firms, and households (Basu & Chau, 2015; Chen, 2007, 2012).
Given that the “informal sector” was originally thematicized based on a study of Ghana, there is no surprise as to how conspicuous it is in Ghana’s urban landscape and its implications on informal urbanization by the poor. Data shows that the private informal economy engages about two out of every five (41.9%) of the currently employed persons 15 years and older: 47.8% of females and 35.5% of males (Ghana Statistical Service, 2014c). Also, three-fifths (61.5%) of the employed urban population are engaged informally whereas less than one-quarter (23.3%) of their rural counterparts are informally employed. Irrespective of the locality of residence, more females than males are usually engaged in the informal economy. Some examples of urban informal activities in Ghana are hawking, food vending, scrap metal collection, hair-dressing, shopkeeping, security services, and door-to-door waste collection (Agyei et al., 2016; Asibey et al., 2019).
Generally, slums are hubs for most of the aforementioned activities which low-income households primarily depend on. For instance, e-waste activities in slums such as Agbogbloshie, Accra—the world’s largest e-waste dumpsite—and Aboabo, Kumasi creates income-generating prospects for several households (Asibey et al., 2020; Oteng-Ababio, 2012). The implication, therefore, is that slums turn to attract the urban poor acting as a “pull” factor towards informal urbanization. The Todaro paradox, developed by Todaro (1976), similarly captures the attractive and magnetic power of slums for poor households, especially rural migrants in search of greener pastures. In another vein, because of the centrality of slums within Ghanaian cities, they have become attractive locations to live and pursue informal economic opportunities in other parts of the city. Azerigyik et al. (2018) assert that this helps to reduce the cost of commuting to the CBD. As indicated in Section 4.1, the affordable housing provided in slums also makes it economically logical for households to live and work in the city.
In short, the quest for employment opportunities by the urban poor and rural migrants, which is mainly offered through the informal economy, serves as a critical driver of informal urbanization in Ghana.
Politics and Distributional/Investment Inequalities Informal urbanization in Ghana has always been politically shaped. The existence of slums can be partly attributed to the politics played by traditional leaders, community leaders, city authorities, and government. The case of Old Fadama which is the largest extra-legal slum in Ghana is especially emblematic. Old Fadama occupies 31 hectares of government-owned land beside the Odaw River and near the Korle Lagoon (Farouk & Owusu, 2012). As shown in Figure 1.4, it is situated across one of Accra’s most important markets, the Agbogbloshie market, on land that was largely a lagoon. Much of this land has been reclaimed from the lagoon and river and has slowly been filled up by residents using temporary materials, including sawdust from the timber market across the road. According to Yeboah and Obeng-Odoom (2010, p. 88) and Afenah (2012, p. 537), this settlement has persisted because it assumed a political tussle between both local and central political actors which crippled any action on that settlement. Several evictions since 2002 failed because residents have been able to collaborate with several organizations such as Shack Dwellers International, a global network of community-based organizations of urban poor. Also, the creation of the NGO ‘People’s Dialogue on Human Settlement’ in 2003 and the Ghana Federation of the Urban Poor (GHAFUP) all curtailed eviction attempts.
Within the first three years of inception, People’s Dialogue and GHAFUP realized a number of political achievements for those living in Old Fadama (Afenah, 2012). Also, because of the vast population living in Old Fadama (about 100,000), politicians have identified it as a strategic source of electoral votes. Therefore, they make promises to residents which may run counter to sustainable urban plans that aim at slowing down informal urbanization. All these decisions have resulted in the abandonment of some much-needed long-term slum treatments in favor of more short-term politically friendly initiatives. This phenomenon is widely known across the literature as political clientelism. A “patron-client” relationship exists in slum communities which has created a scenario where political patrons have a huge stake in these communities and are better served if they remain as they are and are not formalized or fully developed. A vicious cycle is generated where due to continued dependence and vulnerabilities, slum communities rely on political patrons for their survival and are willing to pay for the patrons’ help with political allegiance. Several scholars (Paller, 2015; Schildkrout, 1970, 1978) have reported this scenario in Ghanaian Zongos—strangers’ quarters, where migrants to African cities settle. Formal public services to these informal neighborhoods are generally mediated by political entrepreneurs or brokers with high levels of power. The political status of brokers allow them to lobby for services; however, they do not seek universal provision so as not to lose their power.
It is worth noting that the political tussles described above cut across several slum communities in Ghana. This has propelled informal urbanization and has guaranteed its presence in cities. Also, several political twists have affected the integration of some settlements into socio-economic and infrastructural plans. Sadly, officialdom tends to limit investment in communities that are viewed as illegal: that is, extra-legal slums (Paller, 2015). According to city authorities, investing in these communities is a validation of their legitimacy. Some authors (e.g., Amoako, 2016; Amoako et al., 2019) have extensively documented this complex phenomenon with regard to flood management regimes in urban Ghana. In short, the political position of slum communities restricts and constructs responses to informal urbanization serving as an important determinant of its continued proliferation in Ghana.
Figure 1.4: Geographic location of Old Fadama (largest Ghanaian slum)
Weak Urban planning and a Complex Land Tenure System
There is a general notion that urban governance and spatial planning in Ghana are quite weak and ineffective. Urban planning in Ghana dates back to European colonization which largely focused on health and sanitation emergencies such as the outbreak of diseases (Gocking, 2005; Quarcoopome, 1993). Nationwide planning became much consolidated after the passing of the Town and Country Planning Ordinance of 1945 (Cap 84) which established the Town and Country Planning Department (TCPD), now the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority (LUSPA) (Cobbinah & Niminga- Beka, 2017; Fuseini & Kemp, 2015; Poku-boansi, 2021). Following the adoption of a decentralized system of planning in 1988, several normative and legislative frameworks such as the Local Government Act of 1993 (Act 462) – now Local Governance Act of 2016 (Act 936), National Development Planning Systems Act of 1994 (Act 480), and the Land Use and Spatial Planning Act 2016 (Act 925), was introduced to condition urban planning and governance.
Despite this rich normative environment, several scholars (Boadi et al., 2005; Yeboah & Obeng-Odoom, 2010b) note that urban and land use planning in Ghana has been exclusionary and has failed to address the sustainability challenges from urbanization. As discussed in Section 4.3, this is partly attributable to political interferences that shape urban planning’s operations. Some scholars (Boamah et al., 2012; Yeboah & Obeng-Odoom, 2010b) also associate poor planning with authorities’ limited capacities to enforce rules and guarantee compliance. On the contrary, others (Ayambire et al., 2019; Cobbinah, 2021; Cobbinah et al., 2020; Poku-boansi, 2021; Siiba et al., 2018; Yeboah & Shaw, 2013) strongly relate weak urban planning to the counter-productive institutional roles played by traditional authorities.
The complex land tenure system in Ghana demands explicit emphasis given its enormous role in rendering urban land use and spatial plans ineffective. In Ghana, customary land holding institutions control about 80% of the lands. These lands are communally owned, typically by kingdoms, tribes, clans, or families who hold the lands in the trust of the people (Yeboah & Shaw, 2013). Aside from the ownership of lands, these traditional institutions play administrative roles which sometimes go contrary to zoning and land use plans (Cobbinah et al., 2020). The land-use decisions are mostly made through contracted surveyors who have very little knowledge of formal planning procedures. This process has been largely welcomed by locals because of the bureaucracies and corruption of formal planning institutions. Due to this weak urban planning system, urban poor households sometimes find it easy to squat on lands that are idle or not policed thereby exerting their squatters’ rights and rights to the city. Also, poor households are sometimes given the de facto right to settle by traditional authorities through the informal sale or lease of lands.
To sum up, it is logical to argue that weak urban planning has made uncontrolled urbanization and squatting desirable to several urbanites, especially the urban poor acting as a “pull” effect. However, it should be noted that this attractiveness must not be isolated from the numerous “push” factors such as inadequate access to the formal housing and land market that frames their need to obtain housing informally. Also, it is worth noting that customary land ownership is not the sole contributor to informal urbanization by the poor. Some studies (e.g., Ubink, 2007) have shown significant haphazard development even on state-owned lands that are administered directly by formal agencies.
Discussion and Lessons Learned
The results of the current study reveal that informal urbanization by the poor is driven by a complex interplay of factors which has been given less attention in the conventional literature. More generally, studies tend to emphasize population dynamics as the main driver of this phenomenon. This implicitly suggests that those living in such communities are solely to blame for informal urbanization, diverting away from the other crucial actors and institutions that may have conditioned the actions of the poor. To fill the existing knowledge gap, the present study focused on Ghana as a case study. Findings show that the informal economy, politics, ineffectual policies, and weak urban planning and governance systems are critical in generating slum growth. With respect to housing policies, it is observed that historical policies have engendered the present-day housing deficits faced in Ghanaian cities. Consequently, low-income households are being excluded from formal housing provisions. As a result, slums offer low-income individuals the best option for affordable housing within cities. These slums are also acting as economic hubs and are attracting poor households. Literature reveals that the urban poor, in their quest to obtain employment in cities (particularly within the informal economy), have to rely on slums for housing. The slum modernization theory (Frankenhoff, 1967; Turner, 1969) validates this finding and demonstrates the pull effect of slums.
Furthermore, political interferences and weak urban planning have framed and constructed the way and manner in which strategies are deployed to slow down informal urbanization. Instead of adopting pragmatic and scientifically feasible policies, authorities have to relegate strategies to the political arena. Some politicians, under the guise of settlements being illegal, are limiting investments in slums, making it difficult for them to improve. The emergence of political clientelism and patrons who have ulterior motives (e.g., continued neighborhood degradation) has further hindered the development of slum communities (Deuskar, 2019). Also, poor urban planning has quietly exacerbated informal urbanization in its inability to enforce the rich and fertile planning rules that exist. The customary land tenure system in Ghana has further compounded the challenges faced by urban planning in dealing with uncontrolled urbanization. Boateng (2020b, p. 6) notes that for a long time, “most post-colonial developing societies’ so-called ‘modern’ planning and building systems/regulations, to all intents and purposes, are postcolonial – i.e. they are still structurally embedded in colonial standards and requirements.” This postcolonial attribute of Ghana’s urban planning is highlighted in this article as a crucial driver of informal urbanization by the poor. Renewed efforts to transform planning through a National Urban Policy Framework (NUPF) and a Land Use and Spatial Planning Bill (LUSPB) are very laudable approaches to move away from the obsolete 1945 colonial planning ordinance that underlain Ghana’s planning system (Fuseini & Kemp, 2015; Poku-boansi, 2021). These policies would help in Ghana’s quest for sustainable development and also address some of the systemic challenges that have driven informal urbanization among the urban poor for decades.
Overall, the results point to several “push” and “pull” scenarios that drive informal urbanization and the “unavoidable” movement of poor households to slum communities. The study findings also support criticisms raised against the population-heavy diagnosis of urban problems in Africa and the need to adopt more historical-institutional perspectives (see e.g., Boateng, 2020a, 2020b). A few lessons can be drawn from the above systematic review.
First, slum growth in the Global South is likely to continue increasing given the challenges faced by governments and city authorities to address the needs of its ever-growing population. If this persists as projected, the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of cities could be under serious threat. This partly underpins the global commitments such as Sustainable Development Goal 11 (Target No. 11.1) and national plans aimed at dealing with informal urbanization. However, it is imperative to constructively design current and future policies by taking cognizance of the multidimensional drivers of informal urbanization. The results in this study clearly depict various ways that the invasion and succession of lands by the urban poor are involuntary and sometimes conditioned on external push drivers. Sadly, some current urban management policies fail to embrace these intricacies and would therefore need to be critically re-examined. For instance, draconian policies that solely focus on slum eviction and clearance without resettlement or resettlement to fringe locations must be abandoned as some poor households are caught up in “do or die” situations leading to their habitation in slums. On the contrary, inclusive, pro-poor, and proactive policies should be favored by city authorities. Policies should also exclusively target the “push” drivers such as the housing inequalities generated by inadequate low-income housing supply. There is great promise in the sites and services approach which was swiftly deserted in the late 1990s. A recent evaluation (see: Owens et al., 2018) shows this could be an incredible opportunity to adopt John Turner’s “freedom to build” and “aided self-help” philosophy to tackle informal urbanization and provide decent housing to the urban poor.
Discussion and Lessons Learned
Informal urbanization by the urban poor has become the lived reality for several cities in Africa, especially Ghana. In this article, we deciphered the complex web of informal urbanization drivers among Ghana’s urban poor by discussing how the factors act as “push” and “pull” agents. The underlying logic behind this review was that, without disentangling these intricacies, it may be next to impossible to address informal urbanization. Four broad drivers were examined: housing policies, informal economy, politics, and weak urban planning. Our findings argumentatively support critiques against population-heavy pathological readings of urban problems in Africa (Boateng, 2020a).
Overall, the paper offers important entry points to manage and slow down unplanned urbanization in Ghana and guarantee cities are sustainable and resilient. This study, though geographically limited to Ghana, presents valuable lessons for countries and cities in Africa and the Global South that are facing informal urbanization and are determined to manage their cities sustainably. This paper has not been exhaustive of all the drivers of informal urbanization among the poor; however, it should feed directly into future studies aiming to examine its nature, processes, effects, and impacts. Particularly, it is recommended that further studies employ rigorous empirical data to try and unpack the drivers of informal urbanization in a more in-depth fashion. The “push and pull” scenarios must not be lost in future studies as it has profound implications on understanding more generally what frames the actions of the poor and more specifically the kind of policies and strategies that may be proffered to deal with the root causes of informal urbanization.
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For years informal urbanization by the urban poor and its spatial outcomes—i.e., slums—have become ubiquitous in Global South cities, particularly Africa. Consequently, authorities are engineering strategies that could arrest and slow down its proliferation in the quest for resilient and sustainable cities. Within the complex discourse of informal urbanization, one very crucial piece of evidence that appears to be unclear pertains to its driving factors. Using Ghana—particularly rapidly urbanizing southern Ghanaian cities—as an empirical case, this paper untangles the complex and multidimensional drivers of slum growth beyond the traditional population-heavy approaches. Using the push-pull theory as a conceptual and analytical prism, analyses reveal that poorly designed housing policies, the informal economy, weak urban planning, political interferences and political clientelism accelerates slum growth. The article argues that coping with unplanned urbanization by the urban poor may be extremely tenuous if these complex factors are not well-understood and seriously considered in policy circles. The findings of the article also lend credence to arguments that call for a shift from population-heavy readings of urban challenges in Africa to more institutional, political, and historical perspectives. The paper concludes by recommending that states and city authorities ought to recognize and address their institutional culpabilities in contributing to slum growth. A critical starting point could be the re-examination of draconian policies and the adoption of inclusive, pro-poor, and proactive urban strategies.
Keywords:
Informal urbanization; Slums; Push-Pull theory; Sustainable City Development; Ghana
‘Planning Ambassadors’ as Insurgent Spatial Actors: Women and the Re-Territorialization of the Public Escalators in Medellín, Colombia
Situated in the western hillsides of Medellín, the central stairway in Las Independencias (I) historically served as the primary neighborhood circulation route, but also acted as an invisible border delimiting conflicting spatial claims by disparate armed factions vying for territorial control. Decades of intense urban violence culminated in the early 2000s with a series of state-sponsored military interventions that left the community reeling. The emergent model of social urbanism in the mid-2000s sought to redress historic inequities in the city’s peripheries. Under this directive, the state executed a physical intervention in the community to de-territorialize the underlying geographies of violence by replacing the central stairway with a new public escalator system. While projects executed under social urbanism frequently attribute success to the project’s design merit and broad social impact, this mixed-methods design study completed along the public escalators shows that the primary driver of individual and neighborhood advancement in Las Independencias (I) has been the re-territorialization of these spaces through insurgent spatial practices by residents rather than the state’s physical intervention. Intimate insights into daily life along the public escalators reveal how women, in particular, emerge as critical actors in the re-territorialization of the escalators, despite persistent gender imbalances in public space and shifting geographies of violence encroaching into the domestic realm. Focusing on people rather than the state underscores how centering the narratives and perspectives of women allows these community ambassadors to plan for, create, and steward emancipatory spaces where individual and community autonomy reside.
Keywords
Re-territorialization; Women in Planning; Insurgent Planning; Social Urbanism; Invisible Borders; Public Space Appropriation
Performance Evaluation of A Public Transportation System: Analyzing the Case of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Performance evaluation of public transportation systems is an important prerequisite to making a rapidly growing city livable. Despite the presence of public transportation since the 1960s, few studies talk about the efficiency of transportation systems in cities. The objective of this research is to assess the performance of an existing system. Based on a set of performance measurements identified from the literature, we captured five categories: passengers’ and operators’ perspectives – service efficiency, system efficiency, cost efficiency, utilization efficiency, and network efficiency to evaluate public transit efficiency. The results indicated that the existing service quality in Dhaka is less satisfactory compared to other cities with system, network, and cost efficiency being below average. But utilization efficiency is better, which could result from the overuse of vehicles and workers being involved in operating them. Also, the most concerning issue with the existing transportation system is congestion. In terms of the strengths and weaknesses, we find that the implementation of metro rails, bus route restructuring, and a separate policy for the city’s public transportation system cast some hope in addressing some immediate problems in the rapidly growing city of Dhaka.
Keywords
Public Transportation; Performance Evaluation; System Efficiency; Service Efficiency; Quality of Service; Dhaka; Bangladesh
Starring The Treasures and Trauma in Home-Based Enterprises: Towards A Rethink by Urban Planners
Rapid urbanization in the Global South, and its accompanying challenges have heightened in African cities. One consequence of Africa’s urbanization that cuts across most of its nations is the high rate of urban unemployment which has led many urban poor residents to resort to seeking solace in informal employment opportunities. Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, has an escalated case of unemployment leading to the proliferation of informal economic activities in its cities, which are also predominantly home-based. The operation of informal economic activities in residential buildings is known as home-based enterprises (HBEs), which are attributed to low start-up capital, work-life balance and land use changes. This study focuses on the objective and empirical investigation of the effects of HBEs in cities of global South, using Enugu, a colonial, medium-sized administrative city in Nigeria as case study. The study projects the reasons why urban planners should acknowledge and maximize the potentials of this urbanization-driven phenomenon to meet some SDGs, while also controlling the negative impacts such as land use alterations to ensure sustainable cities. The objectives of the study are; i). To examine the dynamics of HBEs ii). to identify the Treasure in HBEs iii). to determine the Trauma of HBEs. iv). to recommend effective measures for managing HBEs for Sustainable development. It concludes by advocating that urban planners should consider the integration of HBEs into neighborhood schemes to maximize the potentials and effectively control the negative impacts thereby ensuring sustainable global South cities.
Keywords
Treasure; Trauma; Informal; Home-Based Enterprises; Land use
Using the lens of political economy, this textual analysis of Austin’s comprehensive plan reveals it to be a deeply postmodern document, focusing on diversity and inclusivity of points of view to the detriment of normative vision. The plan consists primarily of discussions related to identity, culture, and other non-material attributes of the city, paying scant attention to material concerns such as conditions of life and labor, distribution and accumulation of capital, and labor as the source of economic value. The marginalization of such political-economic concerns prevents the plan from addressing its professed ambitions for community progress and justice.
Keywords: Planning; political economy; postmodernism; Austin; comprehensive plan
On June 15, 2012, the Austin City Council adopted the city’s first new comprehensive plan in over 30 years. The preceding plan, Austin Tomorrow, was first adopted in 1977. To say that Austin in 1977 was very different than the Austin of today is understatement in the extreme. In the intervening decades, Austin grew from a sleepy regional city of 322,000 whose economy depended largely on the university and state government into a global city of 824,000 (City of Austin, TX, 2014) with a reputation for fantastic growth and a strong technology-based economy, and as a progressive and vibrant raft in a sea of conservative Texas. The city had long outgrown its comprehensive plan; the last effort at an updated one ran aground of divisive and changing politics in the mid-eighties and after several years of work it failed to be passed by City Council (Gregor, 2010). And now that the excitement has somewhat abated—almost three years after the ImagineAustin comprehensive plan’s adoption—it seems the time to return to the document with a critical eye. What has the modern, much-admired city of Austin written in its new plan?
A little comprehensive plan exegesis is not merely a literary frivolous pursuit. A plan conceals within it not only what its authors—and, by extension, city’s residents—think about their city but how they think about cities more generally. A plan contains buried modes of urban thought, inchoate urban theories. Throgmorton (1996, 2003) has argued for a conception of planning as future-oriented storytelling and plans themselves as persuasive stories. If ImagineAustin is a persuasive story, what are its arguments? What does a close reading of the plan reveal about how its authors think about Austin and its future? About cities and urban processes? If a plan is a story then such questions can be answered through a textual analysis of the plan itself, which is the aim of this paper.
This paper will argue that ImagineAustin is a predominantly postmodern plan written for a postmodern era both in planning and in society more broadly. The bedrock of postmodern theory is the rejection of universal metanarratives in favor of a proliferation of fragmented discourses. Such fragmentation leads to a persistent focus on the value of diversity and an allergy to normative judgment. Instead, the postmodern plan favors multiple discourses, narratives, and points of view, all equally valid. These multiple discourses tend to be divided along cultural lines following the construction of meaning derived from cultural understandings of diversity. Groups and individuals in the plan are considered primarily in cultural terms rather than in economic or class terms. Difference and diversity as ideals are celebrated, always highlighting identity and values. In the postmodern plan, identity and spirit stand before consideration of the metanarrative of structural economic drivers, crowding out consideration of material conditions in the city.
Such postmodern preoccupations of identity, cultural difference, and the concern for a multiplicity of points of view are not unimportant, but they are also not the whole story. As Harvey (1992) points out, “If we accept that fragmented discourses are the only authentic discourses and that no unified discourse is possible, then there is no way to challenge the overall qualities of a system” (p. 594). Likewise, if the ImagineAustin plan is to make positive progressive change in its community it must do more than celebrate diversity and multiplicity.
A Marxist political economic framework can illuminate both the shortcomings in ImagineAustin and suggest how it might have done better. In constructing such a framework I identify three crucial Marxian lessons against which I read the plan: (1) sites of production and material conditions of life and labor are crucial determinants of the shape and functioning of society; (2) close attention must be paid to the distribution and accumulation of capital in communities; and (3) labor is the source of value. Crucially, all three points deal explicitly with material conditions in the city, a mode of inquiry that stands in stark contrast to the postmodern organization of ImagineAustin. Using this political economic framework will reveal the plan’s avoidance of material considerations, as well as its failure to take strong normative positions which would further the progressive goals it espouses. Reading ImagineAustin through the lens of political economy reveals the weaknesses and contradictions in the plan while at the same time suggesting an outline for a better plan, one that considers the material conditions of Austinites, speaks with a strong normative voice, and one that, ultimately, might bend the arc of planning in Austin more steeply towards progress and justice.
The Postmodern Plan
ImagineAustin is aptly named: it spends a great deal of its time day-dreaming, describing the city in non-material terms. It often seems that the plan is more about the Platonic ideal of Austin rather than the actual concrete, steel and limestone city. This is, of course, one of the important functions of any plan. They are aspirational documents, after all, but they must also be material documents which deal in material causes, means, and ends. The question here is to what extent the plan concerns itself with the immaterial world of values and identity to the exclusion of material questions of political economy.
Reading through the plan immediately reveals the pronounced importance of values and identity, while a Marxist critique will reveal the insufficiency of many of the plan’s material concerns. But first, what precisely is wrong with a postmodern concern with values and identity? The problem is two-fold. First, such concerns do not get at the structural drivers of material conditions and inequality in the city. It is not merely values and beliefs which shape the city; material conditions of production must be taken into account. Second, the postmodern rejection of metanarratives leads to a persistent focus on the value of diversity. There develops a certain equalization of different points of view and narratives, which begins to preclude the making of strong normative claims. Diversity, however, is not an end in itself, just as merely hearing points of view different from one’s own is not an end in itself. It is, rather, the beginning of discussion, debate and adjudication which may lead, ultimately, to positive change.
As a first effort to tease out the mix of the postmodern and the material in ImagineAustin we can begin, as the plan does, with the vision statement: As it approaches its 200th anniversary, Austin is a beacon of sustainability, social equity, and economic opportunity; where diversity and creativity are celebrated; where community needs and values are recognized; where leadership comes from its citizens and where the necessities of life are affordable and accessible to all. Austin’s greatest asset is its people: passionate about our city, committed to its improvement, and determined to see this vision become a reality (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 2).
It appears to be a promising start. The statement leads with sustainability, equity and economic opportunity—all potentially within the material political economic camp—before moving into the postmodern with diversity, creativity, and community values. The pendulum swings back with affordability and comes to rest on a somewhat curious note about the city as its people, though with the people not as workers, homeowners or renters, but as a repository of passion and commitment, a theme that continues throughout the plan. This short version of the vision statement is, then, a mix of economy and values. Thus, the plan begins on strong footing, though as it progresses the stress on values will continue while the economic factors listed above, when viewed through a critical political economic lens, prove to be significantly less material and progressive than they seem.
In an early indication of what is to come, the plan expounds on its purpose: “Only a comprehensive plan fully considers how the whole community’s values, needs, people, and places are interrelated and interdependent” (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 4). It is no coincidence that values is listed first in this list of comprehensive plan considerations. And though needs, people, and places can certainly be viewed through a materialist, political economic lens, the plan will often view them in terms of values. Such talk of the city’s values is foregrounded, particularly in the early pages of the plan, where it is mentioned explicitly six times in the first 12 pages. “By being unified in vision” through the plan, we Austinites can “carry forward our values” (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 6) or, a few pages later, the plan will positively shape Austin by being “grounded in community values” (p. 12). And if not values, then it is identity which precedes material or economic planning concerns: “Considering Austin as a whole means seeing all of its different pieces and identities and how they all fit together” (p. 13). Austin as a whole is given a fuller explanation further down the page:
This comprehensive plan is holistic in its consideration of big themes like livability, sustainability, and complete communities. In addition to planning for land use, trans- portation, and other physical issues, it considers the pro- vision of services, economic development, cultural needs, public health, resource efficiency, and equity. It provides a framework for how the physical, economic, and social pieces of the city and the region interconnect (p. 13).
Though perhaps didactic and certainly passé, it remains useful to point out that an orthodox Marxist interpretation would view this explanation of holistic planning as almost wholly tinkering with the superstructure while the base of economic production remains unmentioned. This is not to argue for a strict Marxist base-superstructure framework where relations of production determine all other social and political relations; rigid economic deterministic interpretations of Marx are long out of fashion. But the basic idea that economic conditions have enormous influence on society, creating divisions along economic and social lines, remains an insight too powerful to be discarded. In short: class still matters, and though class may not be structured quite as Marx described in the industrializing world of early capitalism, it remains a pervasive social fact— one which, moreover, remains shaped largely by conditions of economic production. This is all to say that it is not completely anachronistic to point out that the ImagineAustin’s vision of holistic planning deals almost exclusively with superstructural aspects of society, because such a fact leads us to question the lack of consideration of material conditions of labor. The above references to economic development and equity might in theory deal with such conditions, but they are not made explicit.
That said, the plan does express its ambition to speak of its residents, declaring “Austin is its people” (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 87). And what are Austinites? They are “engaged, compassionate, creative, and independent thinking people, where diversity is a source of strength, and where we have the opportunity to fully participate and fulfill our potential” (p. 87). In other words, Austinites are defined primarily through their character and identity, not by what they do in any sort of economic sense. And if Austin is its people, then Austin appears to be driven primarily by a sense of character and identity.
Language of this sort is found all throughout the plan, including the “We are a Unique Community” section: “Our progressive spirit, environmental ideals, and innovative character distinguish us from other metropolitan areas in Texas” (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 19). The plan could not be clearer: What sets Austin apart is its spirit, ideals and character, all decidedly abstract and immaterial qualities. A sidebar on that same page expounds on “The Austin Spirit” which “animates Austin’s people and special places” and concludes, somewhat disturbingly, that “while no City program is ever going to be responsible for this spirit, nurturing it in whatever forms it takes in the future is as important to Austin’s success as anything else in this plan” (p. 19). A political economic view must rebut: nurturing the spirit of Austin is not a particularly worthy goal of a planning exercise, let alone one as important as anything else a plan might attempt. Political economy maintains, rather, that a plan should focus on material economic conditions which, in turn, powerfully structure society. But the plan makes completely clear here that this is not its prime concern. I would argue further that by claiming the goal of nurturing the spirit of Austin to be equal in importance to any other planning concerns, ImagineAustin strikes a rather defeatist tone, absolving itself of both the responsibility and hope for effecting broader structural change for its city.
Besides the focus on values and spirit, the other prime weakness of this postmodern plan is its near constant blandishment of diversity, the obsessive inclusion of all points of view. Throughout the plan, all groups, all opinions and points of view, all forms of the good are equally valid, equally valuable, and given seemingly equal weight in the plan. No single group is singled out for particular privation or unjust abundance.
This equalization of narratives, needs, and goals leads to a lack of normative direction, dulling the progressive agenda the plan claims for itself. Paradigmatic of this approach is the plan’s selection of sustainability as its central policy direction and organizing principle. Probably the most familiar definition of sustainability to the planner comes from Campbell’s (1996) sustainability triangle, where the three competing goals of economy, environment, and equity must be continually balanced against one another. ImagineAustin transforms this coherent idea of sustainability into a conceptual grab-bag by arbitrarily expanding the category of equity. Thus, for the plan, “sustainability means finding a balance among three sets of goals: (1) prosperity and jobs, (2) conservation and the environment, and (3) community health, equity, and cultural vitality” (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 7). So equity becomes, rather than one of three cogent points in the triangle, a confused mix with health and cultural vitality. There is no explanation for this move and no hint at what these concepts have to do with one another, if anything.
It is no surprise, then, that the concept of equity not only fails to organize the plan, but fails also to have a strong rhetorical or normative thrust. The goal is always to benefit all Austinites, as if all Austinites require the special beneficence of the city. This begins with the vision statement—“where the necessities of life are affordable and accessible to all” (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 2)—and continues throughout the plan. Such relentless focus on diversity and the benefit of all serves to deflect the deep inequalities that exist in the real Austin. It obscures the systematic accumulation by the few that proceeds on the backs of the many. In the end, the goal of providing benefit for all acts as a powerful distraction from what would be a normatively stronger focus on the pervasive unequal distribution of social goods and capital in society. Perhaps this argument is naïve, however. A plan is, after all, a politically contingent document, one which must serve many masters and offend none. But a plan that speaks of such lofty ideals in a city where the “progressive spirit” permeates the populace ought to do better.
The Political Economy Plan
How, then, might ImagineAustin have done better? One way would have been to organize the plan around the concerns of political economy, which makes three primary arguments. The first is that we must pay attention to sites of production and the material conditions of life and labor. If economic production is the engine driving society then conditions of production must be made central to the plan. And if the reproduction of the worker is crucial to economic production, as it most certainly is, then the material conditions of the worker are key. Second, Marxist political economy is concerned with the accumulation of capital to the capitalist and away from the worker. Though class today is not a simple laborcapitalist binary, the relative distribution of social goods and its structural causes remain crucial to any political economy. Third, political economy beginning with Adam Smith (1776/2003), and progressing through Ricardo (1817/2004), Marx (1867/1990), and onward holds as its central tenet that labor is the source of value. If we take this claim as truth, we must consider its implications in a reading of ImagineAustin as well as in planning more broadly.
Sites of production and material conditions of life and labor
The plan starts off strong on material conditions of life and labor with an early focus on affordability in the vision statement. Just two pages later the issue is highlighted as a central challenge for the city with the plan remarking that housing in central Austin “is increasingly unaffordable for low-wage jobs that lag behind Austin’s cost of living” (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 4). The problem is given deeper treatment later on when the increasing gap between median income and median housing price is noted (p. 28) along with the displacement by affluent newcomers of long-time residents in eastern and southern neighborhoods (p. 30). In the “Housing and Neighborhoods” section one of the key goals is unambiguously stated as “encouraging the preservation of affordable housing in neighborhoods across the city and in activity centers and corridors” (p. 136). The plan even specifically notes the need to preserve existing affordable housing “for very low-income persons” (p. 137), a victory from a progressive standpoint.
The lack of specific and measurable goals and policy recommendations dampens optimism regarding affordable housing, however. The need for “new and innovative funding mechanisms, such as public/private partnerships” (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 137) is both uninspiring and vague. Community land trusts are noted in a sidebar as a best practice (p. 137), but it is unclear whether this is an official recommendation or how, when, or by whom a land trust might be accomplished. The recommendations also continue the theme of promoting a variety of diverse housing for Austin’s diverse population—notwithstanding the one recommendation already noted which targets low-income persons—as if the city need be concerned with providing more high end housing. Again, a focus on access for all is chosen over a focus on housing access for low- and middle-income residents. And just in case the lack of specificity on recommended housing market interventions left any doubt as to the appropriate responsible parties, the plan states: demand for market-rate housing can and should be met by the private sector. The City of Austin can work with private developers, non-profits, the state and federal governments, Travis County, and other local governments to help those individuals and families not able to afford market-rate housing, including seniors on a fixed income, people with disabilities, and low-wage workers (p. 201).
What is left out here is the answer to what happens when the market-rate housing leaves increasing numbers of residents on the outside of the housing market looking in. As the market fails an increasing portion of the populace, the problem becomes much larger than seniors, disabled people, and low-wage workers. Will the Austin housing market serve low- and middle-income residents? And, if it does not, who will address such market failure?
Finally, even here in housing affordability—that most economic of issues—strange mentions of character crop up in the plan. The plan calls for “Maintaining the unique and diverse character of Austin’s neighborhoods while meeting the market demands for close-in housing” and “maintaining the essential character” of low-income neighborhoods undergoing redevelopment (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 126). The reader is left to guess at what is meant here by essential character. Perhaps it is a coded reference to existing single-family density? Architectural character maybe? The plan makes this reference clear with the following policy recommendation: “Protect neighborhood character by providing opportunities for existing residents who are struggling with rising housing costs to continue living in their existing neighborhoods” (p. 138). Essential character, then, refers to low-income residents. Thus we see the postmodern identity-obsessed plan transform a straightforward economc-justice issue into a mash-up of economy and identity. In reality, however, people are not neighborhood character; they are residents with essential needs, including affordable housing.
The replacement of economics or sites of production by a concern with character and identity continues in the plan’s land use and transportation recommendations, most of which focus on urban design aesthetics, compactness for quality of life improvements, and creating people-friendly places. This latter section imagines the city primarily as a site of consumption: whether it is sidewalk cafes or the city experience being consumed, the goal is to create people-friendly places that are “active, inviting places with unique Austin flavor and character—fun to visit and welcoming for all” (p. 133). The essential point is that discussions of compact, people-friendly places—which become “more desirable, with enhanced value” (p. 133)—have largely replaced discussions of the city as a site of production. Labor, laborers, and the city as a site of economic production are given scant attention in the land use and transportation section.
What about the plan’s sections on the economy? This ought to be where we find the most discussion of sites of production and material conditions of labor and this turns out to be the case. But these same sections also follow the pattern of the rest of the plan, returning repeatedly to issues of municipal spirit and identity. The section begins, typically, in mixed fashion: “We have a thriving economy, resilient due to its diversity and entrepreneurial spirit; however, we need to prepare our workforce to adapt to emerging employment sectors and technological changes” (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 45). The concrete need for workforce development here shares the sentence with an underspecified reference to diversity (industry mix? social?) and a claim of entrepreneurial spirit rather than any more concrete explanation for the actual process of entrepreneurship. The section continues to see-saw in like fashion, with the important recognition of a correlation between low education attainment and unemployment followed by praise for Austin’s creative sector as a “driver of innovation and a significant consumer of urban amenities” (p. 45) rather than as a site of production and economic activity in and of itself. Just as low-income residents are not neighborhood character, artists are not urban amenities. They are, rather, laborers engaged in relations of economic production.
The plan does note the limited access to professional and skilled service jobs for those with low educational attainment and many minorities (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 48). Such consideration of what sorts of jobs are being created and for whom ought to be one of the pillars of the plan’s economy section, and, perhaps of the plan more broadly. In what may be the biggest victory from a political economic standpoint, the plan notes that most regional job growth is in lower-wage positions resulting directly from population growth, such as service industry and hospitality services jobs (p. 75). It is curious, however, that these remarks are found in the “Developing a Regional Perspective” section rather than in the above discussion on the economy.
As for economic history, the plan does a good job of recounting the birth and growth of the high-tech industry cluster in Austin and its important early links to higher education (City of Austin, TX, 2012, pp. 20-21). Such economic histories help to describe both how industrial development drives urban development and how existing material assets—such as a well-supported research university and an educated workforce— can attract and support industry. As elsewhere, however, this economic history is followed immediately by the claim that it is not such material resources and sites of production that propel the city forward. Rather, it is that “the spirit of creativity and acceptance has created a place where people want to be and has set the stage for our current and future economic success” (p. 22). Again, it is Austin’s spirit, personality, and identity that matter and that cause material success and growth. In the expanded vision statement the plan uses even stronger language, claiming: “Creativity is the engine of Austin’s prosperity” (p. 85). Here, as elsewhere, the plan compulsively cites creativity as the explanation for Austin’s strong economy, ignoring sites and conditions of production while at the same time failing to give any substantive explanation for what, precisely, is meant by creativity, how it functions, or how it supports economic prosperity.
The plan’s economic recommendations, however, are a marked improvement. Several of the key challenges listed deal with concrete issues of production and labor, including calls for expanded job training in areas linked to local industry and community needs, the creation of well-paid jobs in the burgeoning green energy and building sectors and increasing well-paying jobs more generally, encouraging and sustaining homegrown businesses, and expanding the economic base through the development of a medical center (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 141).
A close look at the related section of the Action Matrix reveals a more mixed picture, however. A Priority Action to help support the creative industries calls for a series of programs including incubators, business accelerators, financial assistance, and technical assistance, though nothing is said about what transpires in such creative industries and what sorts of jobs they provide (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 241). This recommendation, however, stands out among others in the Action Matrix by listing specific programs and who will be responsible. Another promising recommendation calls for promoting the formation of worker- and community-owned businesses (p. 243), making a clear statement about worker conditions, though offering no specifics on how and by whom this will be accomplished. Similarly, recommendations for workforce training make no mention of who will be responsible, nor of targeting specific jobs, employers, or industries for desirable labor conditions. Equally bereft of detail is the recommendation to promote the employment of historically underemployed populations. Drifting away from the realm of material labor conditions now, the Action Matrix recommends strategic incentives and investments for particular industries and business districts while omitting any mention of targeting for desirable employment characteristics (p. 240) and elsewhere calls for an increase in marketing for and investment in Austin as a tourist destination (p. 241)—contributing to the vision of the city as a site of consumption rather than production. By and large, the economic planning recommendations are vague on who does what, when, and how. They are not focused on what transpires at sites of production or conditions of labor in Austin. Much like the section on housing noted above, the plan leaves such issues in the hands of the market.
Over all, then, ImagineAustin’s treatment of sites of production and the material conditions of life and labor is inconsistent at best. The plan does a reasonable job of recognizing the challenges facing the city, including serious threats to affordability for increasing numbers of residents and disparate access to work which pays decent wages. But the plan, after recognizing these problems, fails to substantively deal with them. Potential solutions are obscured by talk of values and identity on the one hand and, on the other, are given in such broad terms that they fail to be solutions in any specific sense.
Distribution of social goods and structural causes
To the extent that the ImagineAustin plan speaks about the distribution of social goods, it tends to call for benefits for everybody. From the beginning of the Economy section: “Austin must harness its strong economy to expand opportunity and social equity to all residents” (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 141). Language like this pervades the plan, leaving the Marxist reader feeling uneasy as the cumulative effect of the many calls for (insert your preferred social good here) for all Austinites serves to obscure the needs of those who are left out of Austin’s strong economy. It is, in fact, the very opposite of focusing on the distribution of social goods, one of the most important Marxist imperatives. This is because a focus on distribution leads to the recognition of structural inequality and, ultimately, to such inequality’s social drivers, whereas calls for improvement for all do the opposite, diverting attention from inequality and even, implicitly, endorsing a sort of trickle-down model of economic growth: improvement for all makes all better. Such a belief dismisses that other crucial Marxist point that the accumulation of social goods occurs all too often at the expense of others, and these very same losers in the game of capital tend to lose repeatedly. Real equity and justice demands that we answer to those people, not to all people.
Avoidance of issues of distribution continues throughout the plan, in discussions of city parks and facilities, schools, healthcare and elsewhere. For instance, while the plan notes the large number of parks and the high proportion of park acreage per 1,000 residents in comparison to peer cities (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 57), there is no discussion of where parks are and where they are not. Though the plan does acknowledge in rather anodyne fashion that “many areas of the city are not adequately served by the park system” (p. 61), it fails to question where these facilities are, who lives in places that have relatively greater or lesser access, or whether these are linked to historical conditions of deprivation for particular groups or areas of the city. Moreover, no remedy to unequal park access is offered.
Rather than question such issues of distribution, the plan chooses to speak about accessibility, though almost always in a general sense. Hence, from the extended vision statement: “Austin is accessible” regarding transportation (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 86); “Equitable opportunities are accessible to all” (p. 87); “We enjoy an accessible, well-maintained network of parks” (p. 85), and so on. Such language elides questions of access for whom and why particular groups or areas continue to have less access than others. At the outset ImagineAustin argues that this comprehensive plan challenges us “to remember and protect those who lack a voice, money, and power” (p. 13). Again, the plan aims high in aspirational, value-laden language, though it falls short in its specific choice of focus and language.
The exception is in the “Society” section where a number of the key challenges focus on those most in need. The plan recognizes that “there are populations and parts of the city that lag behind in education” and that educational opportunities, including job training, must be provided to them (City of Austin, TX, 2012, p. 170). On that same page the plan argues for the need to provide health care “for all residents, including the economically disadvantaged, uninsured, and underinsured” (p. 170). Such specific targeting of the neediest Austinites is a welcome change from the otherwise relentless calls for improved accessibility and benefits for all. Several recommendations in the “Society” section follow suit, including one to “Improve educational opportunities for marginalized populations and provide better services for at-risk segments of our community” (p. 172). However, as elsewhere, the plan remains vague on the specifics of these recommendations, who will be responsible, and how they will be accomplished.
Overall, then, the plan largely avoids discussing issues of distribution, preferring instead a vocabulary of inclusiveness an accessibility. Where the plan does deal with distribution, it fails to provide detail and specific solutions, particularly in economic terms, to deal with the problem.
If labor is the source of value, then…
The final lesson from political economy is that labor is the source of value. What does it mean to consider this insight with regard to planning? How do we evaluate ImagineAustin on the basis of such a claim? The plan obviously does not discuss economic theory or give its opinion on the somewhat arcane question of the source of economic value. It does,
however, imply agreement with the neoclassical argument that economic value derives from the process of exchange. As such, value is immaterial and mutable; it is merely what one will pay for something at a point in time. ImagineAustin sees the value of the city as deriving from the immaterial as well—from its values, its identity, its creativity. In either case value seems to precipitate out of the ether through processes of exchange, either in a market sense or through the exchange ideas, spirit, or words and creativity.
A labor theory of value, on the other hand, reminds us that value comes from material sources, from toil by human beings. Going back to the very beginning of the plan, ImagineAustin claims that the city’s greatest asset is its people, but what kind of people are these and what are they doing? Are Austinites valued and creating value through their character, spirit, and creativity or through their labor? By now the answer to this question ought to be obvious. Moreover, this is not an esoteric distinction. Rather, these two ways of viewing value creation have different planning and policy implications. What would a plan look like that took as its guiding principle the labor theory of value?
It would have to begin with the basic tenet that because labor creates value, labor must reap value. This is both just and reasonable. In practice, it would mean that good housing be available to all, particularly those who work at the bottom of the wage scale. The value workers bring into being through their labor must be returned to them in material form, enabling them to, at a bare minimum, reproduce their own labor and support a family in good health and comfort. In order to accomplish this, jobs which provide a good wage must be available to all workers, allowing labor to remain in the same community for which it produces value.
If we keep in mind, as a rhetorical device, the axiom that labor is the source of value then we will be mindful of targeting social goods to those who labor but do not benefit from the social values subsequently produced. And for those who remain outside of the workforce and without access to good jobs, the labor theory of value instructs us to do whatever is necessary to bring them into the workforce in a meaningful fashion. Finally, the labor theory of value reminds us constantly to focus on the concrete and material conditions of life and labor. It reminds us that value—all sorts of value, beyond the mere economic—are created through what people do. When a laborer tightens a bolt on an assembly line, they create economic value. When a musician plays a set in a club on Red River, they create social and aesthetic value. Such value does not come into being merely through our character, spirit or identity, but through our actions, through our labor. And if we recognize this, we also recognize the necessity of supporting the material conditions that make such labor possible in our city.
Conclusion
The ImagineAustin plan is an aspirational document. It envisions a better Austin—one which is affordable, more just, and retains much of what makes the city special to its residents. If we consider ImagineAustin in Throgmorton’s terms as a persuasive story, this is the future Austin for which the plan argues. However, the plan argues that the way to get there is through a celebration of and focus on the city’s identity, culture, and diversity. It reveals a mode of urban thinking that sees the drivers of the city as largely immaterial. Its deeply postmodern character—revealed through its recurrent considerations of diversity and inclusivity, character and identity—diverts attention from the material considerations of political economy. This postmodern story will not realize ImagineAustin’s vision for the city’s future.
On planning as storytelling, Throgmorton (2003) wrote, “I believe that contemporary planning stories must be inspired by a normative vision” (p. 136). This is precisely what is left out of the story that ImagineAustin weaves. The postmodern imperative to diversity and inclusion rather than normative claims dilutes its progressive aims, diverting attention from the acute material needs of Austinites who are left out of its remarkable growth and progress. Taking a political economic viewpoint, in this and other plans, might help retain our focus on such material needs and outcomes, setting us on the path to real progress and equity in the city.
References
Campbell, S. (1996). Green cities, growing cities, just cities?: Urban planning and the contradictions of sustainable development. Journal of the American Planning Association, 296-312.
City of Austin, TX. (2014). City of Austin Population History 1840-2014.
Retrieved March 26, 2015, from City of Austin: http://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Planning/Demographics/population_histo- ry_pub.pdf
City of Austin, TX. (2012). ImagineAustinComprehensive Plan. City of Austin.
Gregor, K. (2010). Austin Comp Planning: A Brief History. Retrieved January 18, 2015 from The Austin Chronicle: http://www. austinchronicle.com/ news/2010-02-05/953471
Harvey, D. (1992). Social justice, postmodernism and the city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 588-601.
Marx, K. (1990). Capital, Volume 1. London: Penguin.
Ricardo, D. (2004). The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Mineoloa, NY: Dover Publications.
Smith, A. (2003). The Wealth of Nations. New York: Bantam Dell.
Throgmorton, J. (2003). Planning as persuasive storytelling in a global-scale web of relations. Planning Theory, 2 (2), 125-151.
Throgmorton, J. (1996). Planning as Persuasive Storytelling: The Rhetorical Construction of Chicago’s Electric Future. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
In her book Road, River, and Ol’ Boy Politics, Linda Scarbrough explores the controversies and political maneuvering that accompanied two federal engineering experiments that transformed Williamson County, Texas, from an agricultural empire with a diverse and democratic population into one of the fastest-growing conservative counties in the nation. Scarbrough tells the story of Austin’s northern neighbor by dividing its history into two parts, The River and The Road. In the first section, she tracks the controversies and political maneuvering that accompanied a fifty-year dispute resulting in the construction of two dams along the San Gabriel River. The region was drastically reconfirmed gured by a new agenda of flood control set in 1921, in the wake of mass destruction caused by one of the greatest of all continental U.S. rainstorms. Although federally funded dams and highway projects were typically geared toward the support of agrarian economies, the recipients of these projects often shifted toward massive suburban development; Williamson County was no exception. Although water wasn’t everything, it was pivotal in the early 1970s, when Round Rock began a trend of recruiting blue chip companies. The population grew 500 percent during that decade in response to the city’s pursuit of postindustrial technology.
Scarbrough suggests that only a handful of people suspected the real impact that U.S. Interstate Highway 35 would have when combined with a new source of surface water. The second part of the book follows the implementation of Interstate 35 through Round Rock from its first proposed route in 1917. The fifteen-mile difference between where the highway was built and the original proposed route that ran east near Taylor had the consequence of overturning the economic and political power structure in the county. Scarbrough reveals the underlying influence of local forces that impacted federal policy and ultimately redefined national agendas to more suitably fi t their needs. She believes that academics often misinterpret infrastructure projects happening to a powerless public in the sole name of state interest. She uses the term “gilded democratic action” to describe the pressure politics led by unusually forceful, politically talented individuals who challenged established powers. The characters that shaped Williamson County by altering road and river projects were each motivated by their own personal and public vision. Scarbrough credits these rural leaders with “anticipat[ing] the future far more accurately, and with more panache, than did the professional planners.”
Scarbrough regrets that despite efforts that will provide minimal preservation, much of Williamson County has lost its sense of place. The interstate highway culture that defines America’s growth has led to a homogenization of form that subsumes local and regional contexts. Scarbrough’s account serves as a testament to the need for consideration of how large-scale public work projects will affect both the physical and cultural environment on a local level. By thoroughly detailing the social, environmental, economic, and political circumstances surrounding the construction of these federally funded infrastructural works, Scarbrough unravels the complexities and unintended consequences of a pattern of fast-track development being replicated across America’s Dry Sun Belt.
SARA PIERCE is pursuing her master’s degree in Landscape Architecture at the University of Texas. She recently completed a MA in anthropology and holds a BA in geography with an emphasis on landscape ecology. Her educational background and professional experience working in planning and design at the City of Austin Parks Department inspired her to research the relationship between water, urban infrastructure, and Austin’s rapid growth.
A “large park” as defined in Large Parks as 500 acres or greater, sited in an urban environment. The assonant title has no subheading, but rather flings open debate for the seven essays within to converse among themselves. Each essay included by editors Julia Czerniak and George Hargreaves in Large Parks elaborates ideas first voiced at a Harvard Graduate School of Design conference in 2003. To read through the book is an engrossing dissection of large-scale landscape architecture’s current theories.
A defining assumption among the authors is that the designed landscape as park is not static, but a complex dynamic process. As Elizabeth K. Meyer writes in her essay, “there has been a shift from spatial to temporal preoccupation in landscape architecture theory and practice since the late 1980s.” In his foreword, James Corner of Field Operations and the University of Pennsylvania writes that “the designer of large parks can only ever set out a highly specified physical base from which more open-ended processes and formations take root; . . . the trick is to design a large park framework that is sufficiently robust to lend structure and identity while also having sufficient pliancy and give to adapt to changing demands and ecologies over time.” Corner conceptualizes parks as frameworks and systems, with emphasis on the practice of more extensive site analysis than existed in the past to develop landscape designs. He writes that a site is best inscribed with design when it is considered as a vast swirling flow of epoch processes acting on one another with ingrained flexibility for future change. He challenges designers to design with this construct in mind while not allowing the built to be dehumanized out of people scale—or even worse, diluted by politics, programming, and cost when large parks are planned. Using the theme of parks as systems, Nina-Marie Lister discusses new ties of ecology and landscape, Anita Berrizbeitia writes on strategies of creating park design, George Hargreaves titles his essay “A Designer’s Perspective,” Linda Pollak discusses the matrix as tool for park analysis, and John Beardsley writes of large-scale park management and funding practices. The distinct ideas layer and overlap with each other in interesting ways, spurring the reader to think of new threads and connections.
The dialogue among essays also is a wonderful study of aging urban infrastructures and the choices made when cleaning them up. Large parks in the twenty-first century will be formed increasingly from “disturbed” sites within cities—industrial landfills, brownfields, old airports, and decommissioned military bases—and the authors believe that new large parks will continue to be created because every U.S. city has a piece of disturbed land in its limits that can be redeveloped. Three parks on reclaimed sites—Downsview Park in Toronto, Ontario; Fresh Kills in New York City; and Landschaftspark in Duisburg, Germany—are mentioned repeatedly throughout the essays as examples of recent international design competitions that encouraged interdisciplinary teams and exemplify process flexibility in their winning designs. Graphics from the finalist team entries to these competitions are included and are extraordinary examples of design representation. Students will gain many ideas from Corner’s Field Operations’ winning entry renderings for Fresh Kills.
Large Parks encompasses old, new, far, and near urban parks that are “large.” The editors based this parameter on Andrew Jackson Downing’s suggestion in nineteenth-century New York that “five hundred acres is the smallest area that should be reserved for the future wants of a city.” With this land acreage as its starting point (as defended in Julia Czerniak’s “Speculating on Size” essay), the book provides access to the recent reflections of famous design critics, historians, and fi eld practitioners. It would be helpful if an index were included for research, since the authors reference the same parks scattered throughout while making different points. Also, it would be thought-provoking if there were one essay in Large
Parks applying the tenants expressed for these grand-scale parks to small parks. How do the concepts of flexibility and process apply to the small park? Are they exclusive to the needs of large swaths of land? As a theory manual, Large Parks gives nuanced thoughts of how large parks are conceptualized, designed, built, and then managed. Any architect, planner, geographer, or landscape architect will benefit from thinking about the reuse of aged land for parkland and the rhetoric of “process = park” embodied theatrically in a large park.
ERIKA HUDDLESTON is completing her master’s degree in Landscape Architecture. She received a BA in Art History from Vanderbilt University and a Certificate in Interior Design from Parsons School of Design. She has worked in textile design in New York and for the Trinity River Waterfront Project in Dallas with Wallace, Roberts, and Todd Landscape Architects. She is interested in grottos and rocaille in landscape and the history of landscape architecture education.
In his recent book, Planet of Slums, Mike Davis takes the reader into a place where no human should ever have to venture, but one that is home to many: the slums of the world. Unfortunately, slum life is the daily reality for millions around the world, and the numbers are growing.
Davis, a professor of history at UC-Irvine and an editor of NewLeft Review, introduces the reader to the prevalence and growth of slums in the first two chapters. Taking the reader on what sometimes seems like a worldwide tour from hell to places like Ajegunle, Dadaad, and Campos Eliseos, Davis stuns the reader with a roll call of growth and demographic facts. He seeks to establish the fact that slums are widespread, growing rapidly, and expected to grow more.
In the following chapters the author seeks to delve deeper into the issue by debunking widely held myths about slum proliferation. His third chapter, “Treason of the State,” focuses on his contention that the rally cry of capitalism around the globe to ease restrictions and create an environment acutely attuned to business growth has served to undermine state structures that formerly mitigated the worst causes and effects of slums. For instance, the housing crisis in inner cities fueled by migration or population growth was formerly absorbed by public housing, but today public housing is the exception rather than the rule in most countries.
Davis later outlines the fact that squatters’ settlements originally occupied lands at no financial cost, but that this is not the case in slums today. Today, slum housing is a very highly controlled sector and is usually a profi t-making venture for many upper-class citizens who own the land, gangs who control it, or corrupt officials who illegally rent out public land. Instead of romanticized “built from the ground up” or “community building” ideas of slum construction, traditional landlord/lessee relationships are the norm. Far from freeloading off the land, slum dwellers pay a relatively high price for their housing, in addition to high transportation costs because of the peripheral location of many slums. Davis punctuates these disgraceful facts by describing the horrible conditions in which the residents must live.
Chapter 6, “Slum Ecology,” describes how slum dwellers face floods, gas explosions, raw sewage, and air pollution in addition to poor housing conditions. Davis explores transportation issues much more deeply in this chapter. The vicious cycle of less government funding for public transportation, poorer transportation service, and increased congestion caused by more private cars does not only mean a longer commute and higher prices for slum dwellers; for many, it is a deadly situation. Because these settlements are not “developed areas” in a legal sense, they are frequently the first to experience public transit service cuts and are seen by many in power as ideal sites to build new superhighways to whisk the car owners from the suburbs into the city center. This creates a dangerous situation where pedestrians seeking to board transit or walk to their destination must cross multilane superhighways and other infrastructure which, while benefiting the wealthier classes, is a lethal obstacle course for those who will never benefit from them. The author cites high-profile incidents to underscore his point like a gas explosion in Mexico City that killed over two thousand people and the infamous Union Carbide poisoning an estimated twenty-five thousand people in Bhopal.
In the following chapter, smartly called “SAPing the Third World,” Davis returns to myth-busting mode and studies the role that international organizations and the Washington Consensus play in slum growth. SAP is the International Monetary Fund’s acronym for its Structural Adjustment Programs. Using debt and political pressure from Washington and its allies, the IMF and World Bank have used SAPs to restructure the economies of debtowing countries. This restructuring usually comes in the form of deregulation, selling off of valuable state assets, and an unweaving of the social safety net in the name of government efficiency. While SAPs may benefit wealthier countries that wish to collect debt, they spell doom for debtor countries and especially slum dwellers, who rely on the social safety net and state help that are undermined by “structural adjustment.” Davis points out that those areas where slum growth is fastest are also where SAPs have had the most devastating effects. He writes that urban Africa and Latin America have been hit with artifi cial depression, characterized by falling wages, increased unemployment, regressive taxation, and collapsing public health structures caused by SAPs. Furthermore, many autocrats supported by the West, like General Pinochet of Chile, not only commit egregious human rights abuses against their political enemies, but also promote neoliberal policies favored by Washington that leave millions of citizens resorting to slum living.
Davis’s last chapter, which asks the question, “A Surplus of Humanity?,” does not leave the reader with a rosy picture of a happily ending story. He uses these pages to denounce the rise of the informal work sector, which provides grim jobs for slum dwellers. This work—which includes rag picking, petty labor, and scavenging—never creates opportunities for the “up-by-the-bootstrap promotion” embraced by neoliberal theorists. Davis also explores the sociocultural effects of slum life as he enumerates mental and spiritual survival tactics such as sorcery, witchcraft, and evangelism that have spread throughout slum areas, sometimes with negative consequences.
As he does throughout the book, Davis ends the chapter with a blunt truth-and-consequences commentary aimed squarely at the neoliberal capitalism that has defined world politics and urban policies for the past fi fty years. His epilogue, “Down Vietnam Street,” quotes Western sources such as the CIA and RAND Corporation as proof that even Western institutions are aware of the pending crisis caused by the broken promises to the slum dwellers and lower classes of the world. He points out that the “homeland versus evildoers” paradigm is ill-equipped to handle the demographic and ecological realities that must be faced in the decades to come as millions who have been handed a raw deal by neoliberal capitalism may overwhelm those who choose to defend the Orwellian status quo.
Overall, Planet of Slums is an embracing, if at times dispiriting, and truthful exposé of the urban world today and emerging trends for the future. The author does not seek to paint an optimistic view of the future, but he surely presents a wicked challenge and some paths to solutions for those who seek to create a more promising future for all humans, especially those millions who are crowded together and living in terrible conditions.
MARTIN THOMEN is a recent CRP graduate (May 2008). He earned a master’s degree in CRP with a transportation planning specialization and also has a BA and BS from UT Austin. He currently works as a transportation planner.
Urban sprawl is a ubiquitous form of our built environment in metropolitan America, which planners as well as the public have recognized as being a product of household choices vis-à-vis land use and transportation. Local zoning regimes have been perceived as the guardians of such “market outcomes,” translating preferences for suburban living into their corresponding realities. In light of this perception, advocates for compact developments cast their arguments for planning transit- and pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods in terms of the negative consequences of sprawl versus travel behavior benefits of the proposed alternative developments (e.g., reduced automobile use). In Zoned Out, Levine takes a critical stance toward such a framework, pointing out that it is groundless and inadequate. The author claims that the negative consequences of sprawl are not an outcome of market failure, but rather of planning failure, pronounced in exclusive zoning that prohibits high-density and mixed-use developments. Levine states, “Despite its pervasiveness and academic pedigree, the reinterpretation of municipal land-use regulation as a kind of market force is unwarranted.” The tendency to equate zoning with market preferences dates back to the 1920s. Since the Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty case established the constitutionality of zoning, Levine argues, the legal community has granted zoning a special exemption from judicial scrutiny with regard to its public purposes. Although zoning was based on police power state regulation of land use, judges have accepted the notion that zoning is a collective property right inherent to municipalities. This reasoning, prevalent in the judicial community, has resulted in the favorable treatment of zoning and in municipal governments being granted prerogative on local land use matters. “Viewing land-use regulation as a property right held by the municipality serves to legitimate parochial ends as long as these are the preferences of the locals.”
When zoning is interpreted in this way, urban sprawl is seen as a natural outcome of unrestrained household choices driven by real estate markets, and the promotion of compact developments becomes equivalent to a planning intervention that acts as a restraint on the market process. In such a case, establishing the transportation benefits of compact developments is assumed to be a necessary condition to legitimize governmental intervention (e.g., the subsidizing of compact developments). Zoned Out offers an alternative perspective: Levine argues that sprawl is not a market outcome, but rather a consequence of municipal zoning favorable to low-density built environments. Planning for dense urban forms, therefore, is not an intervention; instead, it rather diversifies choice sets in the housing market by allowing such development options. Thus, Levine argues, there is no burden of proof necessary to justify such a widening of the market horizon; “the first order of business is the elimination of regulatory obstacles to compact development, a search for the travel behavior benefits that would justify governmental intervention is poorly matched with the policy task at hand.”
In Zoned Out, Levine supports this idea with empirical evidence drawn from his research in Atlanta and Boston. His study indicates that Atlanta households with preferences for transit- and pedestrian-oriented developments are less likely to be able to satisfy their desires than Boston households. On the other hand, given the diverse sorts of neighborhoods found in Boston, Bostonian households have greater opportunities to act on their transportation and land use preferences. That is, the supply of alternative developments is not meeting the demand in Atlanta’s sprawled metropolitan area. In essence, the study contends that zoning is not an instrument for ensuring market efficiency, but rather is a form of regulation that distorts market forces, since it prevents households from matching their preferences to actual choices. Then, Levine’s argument to “eliminate regulatory obstacles” is justified.
These findings shed new light on the problem of selection bias in transportation research. For more than two decades, in transportation research circles, isolating the pure effects of urban forms on travel from self-selection has been a difficult issue for researchers. For instance, to determine whether a transit-oriented neighborhood elicits greater transit ridership, researchers seek to separate the impact on travel behavior of average individuals from individuals who moved to the area because of their preference for taking public transit. Levine suggests that “the view that self-selection is inherently a source of bias to be measured and eliminated presupposes that these market preferences for transit- and pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods have already been satisfied.” As Levine finds in the study on Atlanta and Boston, this is not the case. He claims that the bias is, in fact, an evidence of the travel benefits of dense and mixed-use urban forms, since that bias (households moving into transit-oriented neighborhoods to satisfy their travel preferences) represents a fulfillment of the previously unmet demands of residential choices. To land use and transportation research communities, this discussion provides new provoking arguments and insights.
Overall, Levine offers a critical understanding of the nature of zoning, in particular the ways in which it prevents alternative developments, and presents a new perspective for future research. Yet, the book raises some questions. Implicitly, Levine makes the fundamental assumption that expanding market choices for individuals does not require proving travel behavior benefits. Nonetheless, proving such benefits still matters when encouraging scarce development forms whose societal impact is still not clearly identified. What if an unconstrained creation of high-density and mixed land use developments generates negative by-products? In the last chapter of his book, Levine describes the state planning mandate in Oregon as an exemplary solution for fostering alternative developments. However, Oregon’s statewide growth management scheme drove up Portland’s housing prices as well as population density within its urban growth boundary. Though research on this issue is inconclusive, it would appear that due to the lack of affordable housing in the central city, low-income households have been displaced to more peripheral areas with lower land prices. This may have resulted in longer commutes to the city center, while causing heavier traffic congestion within the inner city. At this juncture, when the impact of high-density and mixed-use developments is uncertain, research efforts to establish the travel behavior benefits of alternative developments are indeed meaningful.
Notwithstanding this criticism, Zoned Out, taken as a whole, successfully challenges the commonly accepted belief regarding the role of zoning in shaping metropolitan America. The implications for future research are substantial. By reading Levine’s work, transportation planners and researchers will be exposed to a new and intelligent perspective with which to form strong arguments for justifying smart growth
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s New Source Review (NSR) program is ripe for change. Since the late 1970s, when the United States began regulating air quality, NSR has been one of the EPA’s key tools to enforce emission standards. It requires new or significantly upgraded stationary sources, a fixed-site producer of pollution, such as a factory, to adhere to stricter emission standards than existing stationary sources. At the inception of the program, policy makers argued that NSR was the most cost-effective method of imposing air quality regulations; significant long-term air quality improvements would come due to the “inevitable” retirement of old polluters (Edison Electric Institute, 2001).
These policy makers did not account for the fact that NSR increases economic incentives to delay upgrading technology and to extend the use of old stationary polluters beyond their expected life span. These new economic incentives are implicated in other problems with NSR: vague defi nitions of which upgrades trigger stricter emissions standards, delayed application processing times, and inconsistent permitting practices. In nonattainment areas, geographic regions defined by the EPA that do not comply with national ambient air quality standards (Callan and Thomas, 2007), NSR enforces lower technology standards (Edison Electric Institute, 2001). During the Bush administration, new rules created even more loopholes allowing polluters to avoid NSR, sparking a legal battle between multiple states and the EPA (Chemical Week, 2009).
Although many critics of NSR would like to see a move toward a national cap and trade market–based system, such as the Acid Rain Program, some powerful states and regions are pushing for individual trading programs for a variety of reasons. Some state regulators are not convinced the federal government will go far enough in restricting emissions; others insist that the revenue from pollution permits go straight into the states’ coffers. For a variety of reasons, we cannot expect widespread support for a national trading program in the near future. What is critical is that the EPA embrace immediate changes to NSR that will serve to dramatically improve the quality of life for the more than 150 million Americans currently living in nonattainment areas (U.S. EPA, 2008).
To make an immediate improvement to NSR, the EPA can provide local and state officials a larger role in determining community-based approaches to mitigating the environmental impacts of stationary polluters, especially in nonattainment areas. By incorporating best practices from the “Smart Growth” program into an emissions review process, states and local governments could come up with environmental improvement plans; NSR would become part of a holistic program that does not include simply technology, but other mitigation techniques such as creating “green” jobs, providing employees with free passes for public transportation, and dedicating open space. Cities and states could sign off on a fi rm’s mitigation plan before NSR even begins.
If the package of technology, mitigation techniques, and emission standards for NSR were more fl exible, this would encourage fi rms to fi le for NSR more readily (if fi rms also have faith in the consistency and timeliness of the permitting process). This policy would help states and cities that are struggling to reach air quality attainment standards to work with fi rms and find mutually beneficial solutions that are less costly than higher technology standards. Firms would be motivated to participate in the creation of these mitigation plans not only for permitting, but also to reap the public relations benefits at a relatively low cost. Moreover, states are less likely to begin lawsuits over NSR if the states themselves have signed off on the emission mitigation plan.
How good ideas became bad policy
As part of the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments, Congress first established the federal NSR program as an administrative mechanism to regulate emission of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide. The premise of the program is that it is more cost-effective to phase in stricter emission standards by starting with new or significantly upgraded stationary sources rather than existing stationary sources. To implement the higher standards, EPA reviews proposals for construction and approves plans that employ certain technology. Technological thresholds are not constant for all permits; a proposal for a new or modified source located in an attainment area must meet the highest standards (Best Available Control Technology) to get a Prevention of Serious Deterioration permit, while in a nonattainment area, a new or modified source must use technology that results in lowest achievable emission rate, as defined by the State Implementation Plan (SIP) to get a nonattainment NSR permit (U.S. EPA, 2007; Callan and Thomas, 2007).
The reason NSR has survived now more than thirty years is not that the program has proven to be a clear success. The logic of NSR efficiency reducing pollution is intuitively appealing—and some proponents claim that it is a market-based approach—but the program only holds up if one makes the following assumptions: 1) existing polluters will have the same economic life span that they have had in the absence of NSR; 2) the permitting process does not create inordinate barriers to entry or disincentives to upgrade existing technology; and 3) there is an objective, straightforward process for determining what modifi cations require NSR. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the slew of legal challenges to NSR, these assumptions do not hold true. The permitting process is inconsistent, time-consuming, and costly. It has created substantial barriers to entry and disincentives to upgrade currently in-use technology, while at the same time creating substantial incentives to extend the useful lives of existing polluters (Stavins, 2004).
The true advantage of NSR is its political viability. By enforcing more lenient standards on existing polluters, federal legislators avoid upsetting potential campaign supporters. Another important aspect of the program is the degree of control left to the states. If the EPA decided to implement a nationwide cap and trade program for emissions, individual states would have little say in how the program was enforced. But with NSR, states have been some of the key litigants in cases against companies that have violated NSR, such as in the recent American Electric Power settlement that resulted in the utility paying a $15 million penalty and spending $4.6 billion upgrading pollution controls in its plants (Cusick, 2007). In February 2009, New Jersey sued the EPA because of a perceived lack of oversight in its new federal reporting monitoring requirements (Boyle, 2008). States are clearly determined to maintain their power in emission regulatory enforcement.
Why planners should get involved with NSR
Since NSR has not been an effective or efficiency cient method of emission regulation, despite numerous legal cases and revisions to the rules, it is time to rehaul the system. The lessons learned from NSR are that: 1) vintage-differentiated regulations—regulations that consider age as a primary criterion for eligibility—distort the “regulatory market”; 2) legislation needs to create specific guidelines for administrative decisions, such as precise criteria, timetables, and methods for administrative adjudication to avoid costly lawsuits; and 3) states need to have a degree of regulatory control. Although we now have a major shift in Washington’s political climate that can create momentum for the massive restructuring that needs to occur, the following discussion focuses on short-term solutions that broadly fit within the existing NSR structure and offers some reforms that boost local and state control in enforcement strategies.
First, there needs to be a reversal of the more lenient regulatory policies in nonattainment areas. The logic of applying less-burdensome standards to nonattainment areas is that it would be more costly for those areas to live up to the same standards as areas of attainment—similar to the logic of vintage differentiation. What makes the nonattainment distinction more worrisome is that there are no grounds for assuming that more high rates of emissions will naturally fall out of use. According to the EPA’s Web site, there are 150,861,931 people currently living in nonattainment areas throughout the United States. In 1997, that number was approximately 113 million, even though the number of nonattainment areas has actually decreased nationwide (U.S. EPA, 2008). More analysis of demographic trends in nonattainment areas is needed, but from these numbers one could assume that even as less space is designated nonattainment, the population density within these areas is increasing. Planners should work with policy makers to formulate a more aggressive approach to emissions regulation in nonattainment areas to protect these at-risk populations.
Stationary sources are not necessarily the most significant contributors to emissions in all nonattainment areas, but providing stationary sources in these areas with incentives for mitigating the impacts of their emissions will create greater short- and long-term benefits. This is also an opportunity to strengthen the role of state and local governments in setting and enforcing pollution regulations. Currently, if the EPA designates an area as nonattainment, the state must do an inventory of the excessive pollutant(s) in the area and integrate the findings into transportation plans, maintenance plans, and NSR regulations. The state must also submit reports to the EPA to demonstrate plans for reaching attainment. The penalties for prolonged periods of nonattainment can include denying the state its highway funding and higher standards for NSR; the federal government, in effect, punishes state and local governments, with little to no direct impact on the polluters themselves (U.S. EPA, 2007).
What is missing from the current model is the ability for state and local governments to incentivize environmental controls rather than simply suing the firms that do not meet nationally set emission standards, which is a reaction to the EPA’s determination of an area’s nonattainment. There are a few examples of local governments setting environmental criteria for granting tax breaks in economic development projects, which may help pass NSR, but this is not standard practice nationwide and does not provide comprehensive regulation.
If the EPA incorporates some of the best practices from its “Smart Growth” program into a more flexible review process involving state and local governments, the federal government could make NSR part of a more holistic program that targets the pollution sources directly. For example, new and existing stationary sources located within a nonattainment area could be required to submit mitigation plans to local or state authorities before submitting construction plans for NSR. Firms would determine the content of the mitigation plans based upon a locally determined set of preferred offsets detailed in an environmental improvement plan. These offsets would improve environmental standards for surrounding communities without significantly adding to the firm’s implementations costs. Offsets could be installing green roofs on facilities, providing transit passes for all of its employees, investing in stormwater retention pools, funding community gardens in low-income neighborhoods, locating new facilities in a vacant industrial complex, training inner-city residents for “green-collar” jobs, reducing chemical waste, et cetera.
It is naive to suggest that increasing requirements for cooperation between polluting firms, planners, and the EPA is a comprehensive or long-term solution to improving air quality, but it is crucial that planners assume a more proactive role in national policy-making; planning is not only a defensive or coping mechanism for local and state authorities, but an integrative tool that allows communities to improve overall quality of life. This must be done in cooperation with the lowest and highest levels of government.
OLIVIA STARR is completing her Master’s degrees in Community and Regional Planning and Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. She has a B.A. in European History from Northwestern University. Her research interests include property rights and security.
Works Cited
Boyle, Katherine.N.J. Sues EPA Over Reporting Rule for Factories, Coal Plants. Greenwire. 20 February 2008. <http://www.eenews. net/Greenwire/nsr/2008/02/20/3> (26 March 2008).
Callan, Scott J., and Janet M. Thomas. Environmental Economics & Management. 4th ed.Mason, Ohio: Thomson South-Western, 2007.
Cusick, Daniel.AEP Settlement Ends Long Battle Over Power Plant Upgrades. Greenwire. 9 October 2007. <http://www. eenews.net/Greenwire/nsr/2007/10/09/1> (26 March 2008).
New Source Review: A History. Edison Electric Institute. July 2001. <www.eei.org> (26 March 2008).
EPA Changes New Source Review Rules. Chemical Week. 19 Jan 2009.<http://www.chemweek.com/envirotech/regulatory/16489.html> (26 March 2009).
Stavins, Robert N. Experience with Market-Based Environmental Policy Instruments. Vol. I, in Handbook of Environmental Economics, by Karl-Göran Mäler and Jeffrey Vincent, edited by Karl-Göran Mäler and Jeffrey Vincent, 355-435. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 2003.
Stavins, Robert N.Vintage-Differentiated Environmental Regulation. Resources. Nov 2005. <www.rff.org> (26 March 2008).
New Source Review: Basic Information. U.S. EPA. 11 May 2007. <http://www.epa.gov/NSR/info.html> (26 March 2008).
Number of People Living in Areas Designated ‘Nonattainment’ by State. U.S. EPA. 12 March 2008.<http://www.epa.gov/airprogm/ oar/oaqps/greenbk/stpop.html> (26 March 2008).
In public administration or in the public policy realm, crisis management is given little attention either in the academic or in the professional worlds (Schneider, 1995). Traditional public administration focuses only on planned and programmed activities, meaning those passed through long public policy making phases and procedures. This process creates the general perception of public administration as a science in which organizational and bureaucratic routines become the main concern. However, the most challenging role of government is not to control these routines, but rather to perform well when tested by crisis (Farazmand, 2007). There are many stories that relate government’s failures to cope with crises. At the same time, victims rely heavily on government actions during crisis, because they always think that government is the most responsible institution to handle a crisis (Boin, 2005). However, the literature on crisis management in the public sector is very limited.
This essay explores some strategic topics of crisis management that are relevant to the development of public administration science. Those topics are: (1) the basic understanding of crisis management in public affairs; (2) the role of government in a crisis situation at both national and local levels; (3) the role of international organizations; and (4) the media and civil society involvement in crisis management. Comparative case studies (Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. and the Lapindo Mud Explosion in Indonesia) will be provided in order to give real-world perspective to these four aspects.
Understanding a crisis situation
As commonly understood in much of the literature on the topic, including the U.N. standard, there are two contexts of crises: natural and man-made (Samal, 2005; Schneider, 1995; Nudell, 1988). However, some crisis management scholars are not satisfied with this categorization. Ali Farazmand (2001) argues that there are four contexts of crisis: political, economic, leadership, and environmental. This categorization is very descriptive and provides more details about man-made crises (political, economic, and leadership). The environmental context is still ambiguous because environmental crises could be man-made (such as the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Alaska in 1989) or natural (the Asian Tsunami in 2004 or Hurricane Katrina the year after).
FIGURE 1. Typology of crises Source: ‘t Hart and Boin in Drennan, 2007.
On the other hand, Schoff (2004) differentiates crises into three contexts: natural, incidents, and accidents. Through this categorization, he explains the dimensions of man-made crisis, which he defines as accidents (unintentional man-made crises, such as the Three Mile Island case in Pennsylvania in 1979, and Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986) and incident (intentional man-made crises, such as terrorist attacks or war). These different contexts of crisis are crucial in shaping and evaluating government response.
A further important distinction is the differentiation of incidents when a true crisis situation is present or incidents in which events are in the normal parameters of public sector activity. First of all, a crisis situation relates to a particular situation when government capacity is inadequate to handle a situation using its own resources (Ozerdem, 2006). For example, if a bus accident happens and kills seven people, it is not a crisis, because the police and hospital can handle it with their own resources. But if the bus contains a bomb and explodes right in the middle of downtown, it injures thousands of people, the police aren’t able to handle the panic, and the hospitals don’t have enough space for victims, then that is a crisis. Other characteristics of a crisis are: severe threat (Farazmand, 2001; Rosenthal, 2001); threat to the basic structure (physical and nonphysical) and values (such as security, welfare, or health) of society (Boin, 2004; Farazmand, 2007); the inconceivability and unexpected nature of an event (Dror in Rosenthal, 2001); and an event that generates extreme psychological stress (Schneider, 1995). With this complex explanation of the term “crisis,” the best way to understand it is not to perceive it as the particular calamity moments themselves, but how the event relates to an organization’s capacity to respond to the situation (Smith, 2006). There are many types of crisis situations. In general, we can differentiate crisis into two types: sudden crisis (such as tsunami, terrorist attack, or nuclear reactor explosion) and creeping crisis (such as
spreading of a virus or the global warming threat) (Farazmand, 2001). More details of this typology of crisis can be seen in fi gure 1.
Obviously, the hardest crisis to cope with is a fast-developing one, because the degree of preparedness of the government to handle it is very low. On the other hand, in a slow-developing crisis, such as a cathartic or creeping crisis, if the awareness of the government to the crisis is low, it could create long-term and possibly irreversible damages.
Along with the negative face of a crisis, some crisis events may yield positive outcomes. A crisis could become a triggering opportunity for improvement of the system (Farazmand, 2001; Nudell, 1988; Rosenthal, 2001). A postcrisis reconstruction process could yield outcomes that are better than the precrisis situation, and the government also is afforded the opportunity to learn about its own weaknesses and thus improve upon its substantial ability to respond to future crisis events.
Good crisis management
There are at least three domains in which crisis management is systematically analyzed by scholars: business, international politics, and public affairs. Business is a discipline in which crisis management is a prominent subject of discussion. In this area, crisis management relates to how to make the corporation survive after a crisis, meaning how to “avoid suffering financial losses after the crisis” (Laye, 2002). The study of crisis management is also commonly found in international relation studies, most commonly related to potential war between countries. The main goal of crisis management is ensuring that the tensions between countries do not turn into war, and that good diplomacy will be the main strategy of crisis management in this sense (Winham, 1988, Schoff, 2004). The last discipline that is concerned with crisis management, though not as much as the previous two, is in public affairs/administration. In this domain, crisis management relates to how government can prevent, react to, and rehabilitate after a crisis. This essay will only focus on the discussion of crisis and response from the perspective of public sector intervention and management of domestic crises. Public sector crisis management in general can be defined as the implementation of management principles (such as planning, organizing, decision making, coordinating, and controlling) in a crisis or emergency situation (Samal, 2005; Nudel, 1988; Rosenthal, 2001).
However, crisis management is not merely applying basic management principles into a crisis context. Uriel Rosenthal (2001), for instance, explained that the crucial phases of crisis management are prevention, planning, response, and aftermath actions. The last phase (aftermath action) is not a part of the traditional public management discussion. Indeed, there are some specific phases in crisis management that are not part of traditional management principles.
There are three specific phases of public sector crisis management. The first is the preventive aspect; some scholars describe this aspect using different terms, such as planning, preparedness, and/or mitigation. The second is the rehabilitation aspect; some scholars call this aspect relief, recovery, response, or aftermath actions. This aspect is also the key aspect of crisis management (Ozerdem, 2006; Drennan, 2007; Samal 2005). The third one is coordination; this aspect is not specific to a crisis management context, but “coordination” between institutions in a rapidly changing situation has been emphasized by many scholars. Since an “in-crisis” government may not seek to limit incoming resources (Farazmand, 2007), many organizations may intervene to provide help or goods. Therefore, during or after a calamity, there are often many organizations, institutions, and elements coming into the crisis location. Coordinating those organizations so that the distribution of goods and the activities of each institution will not confl ict or overlap is a major challenge for government (Nudel, 1988).
The next step in analyzing public sector crisis management is evaluating the effectiveness of crisis management in practice. Boin (2008) raises three important requirements for good crisis management, which are: sense making, how to understand the situation quickly; meaning making, how to create solid information for media and the public; and learning, how government can learn from the crisis to improve its capacity. Additionally, Ali Farazmand (2007) emphasizes “creative and agile leadership” as the most important requirement for good crisis management.
There are also some specific crisis management requirements that apply to urban areas. First, local governments need to have their own strong crisis management systems, which will allow them not to rely heavily on central government when the crisis occurs (Rosenthal, 2001). The cases of the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City in 2001, 11/3 in Madrid in 2004, and the Mexico City earthquake in 1985 showed how important it is for cities to have their own crisis management system. Cities should have their own crisis management system because of the density of inhabitants and because they are the centers of business and government networks. Yet, Kartez and Lindell (in Sylves, 1990) said that while “80 percent of the U.S. local governments have a formal disaster plan and system, their leaders continue to be surprised when the crisis occurs.” Therefore, the existence of a strong system is no longer the issue, but rather how to familiarize relevant agencies and responsible leaders with the system in order for them to use it with efficiency.
The second important requirement for urban area crisis management is multiethnic awareness. Obviously, urban areas have had urbanization and immigration for a long time. Urban areas are the melting pot of many cultures and ethnicities. Every ethnic group has its own standard norms and values; therefore, if the crisis leaders are not sensitive to this aspect, misunderstandings between government and the people could interrupt the process of crisis responses and relief (Rosenthal, 2001). Both ethnic differences of the urban social aspect could disrupt the rehabilitation process and economic gaps. Poor communities (which in some senses are also related to certain ethnic groups) are the most vulnerable groups during a crisis: In New Orleans [during the Katrina crisis], local
government did not provide transportation for the citizens without their own vehicles to evacuate. As it turns out, most of them were in predominately black neighborhoods. Racial and economic demographics in disaster-prone zone has bee shown to be common adjoining hazardous material sties. . . . In July 2005, monsoon rains flooded the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) and eight million of India’s poorest were the victims. (Pinkowski 2008, 12)
Good crisis management also strongly depends on decision-making strategies. Figure 2 emphasizes how decision making can achieve maximum accuracy when the decision maker working in a crisis situation makes good decisions rapidly, despite risk and time pressures. The first and the most important step in this method is situation assessment, which involves attending to a selection of the available cues, assembling them into a pattern, and searching long-term memory to recognize the problem (Flin, Youngson, and Yule, 2006).
Figure 2: A relationship between situation assessment and decision-making strategy adapted from Crichton and Flin in Drennan, (2007, 168).
The second step is choosing decision-making strategies based on the types of crisis (fi gure 1). If the type of crisis is “fast burning,” crisis leaders might choose recognition-primed/intuitive because this method is good for quick action to prevent a rapid cascade to a catastrophic adverse outcome. If the type of crisis is “cathartic crisis,” the leader should use rule-based strategy because he/she has enough time to consult with the procedures manual/checklist to find the given responses. If the type of crisis is “long shadow,” the leader may use analytical strategy because he/she has more time to recall a number of possible courses of action and compares them simultaneously to determine which one best fits the needs of the situation. Lastly, if the type of crisis is “slow burning,” a crisis leader could use creative strategy because there is plenty of time for him/her to try any innovative solutions to solve the problem. However, one still has to keep in mind that evacuating and aiding victims is the first priority regardless of which strategy is chosen.
Ultimately, the fundamental concept of good crisis management is determined by the “gap between bureaucratic norm and emergent norm” (Schneider, 1995). The more government can shrink the gap, the better the crisis management will be. Bureaucratic norms always value regularities, procedures, and blueprints. Public officers are required to follow the procedures and blueprints tightly in order to precede their jobs. However, in emergent norms, the situation is the opposite. Crisis situations change very fast and most of the time are unpredictable. Therefore, instead of following the bureaucratic procedures, emergent norms requires crisis officers to be adaptive to the situation. As there are no regularities in crisis situations, emergent norms require public officers to instead come up with strategies to handle the problem rather than simply use blueprints and regulations. The bureaucratic procedures and the emergent norms contradict each other, posing a big challenge for public management of crises.
In a crisis situation, government needs to be more adaptive (emergent norm). On the other hand, it also has to ensure the legal accountability (bureaucratic norm) of each decision it takes. Dealing with these two norms, of course, is not an easy task. In so doing, governments need to adjust their bureaucratic norms to the realities and needs that exist on the ground during the crisis situation. This is crucially important for public sector leaders when they are facing a crisis situation. Of course, in “long shadow” and “slow burning” types of crisis, government could impose its bureaucratic norm, but not in a “fast burning” crisis.
In sum, there are four main criteria to measure the performance of public sector crisis management. First, the question is whether or not the government has a crisis management system within its organization. The tasks of the system are preventive, rehabilitation, and coordination measures. Second is the question of the sensitivity of government to multi-identities (including ethnic, class, age, and gender) while rescuing the victims. The third criteria is related to decision-making strategy in a crisis situation. And the fourth is the question of how successfully the government can adjust its bureaucratic norms with emergent norms in the crisis situation.
Role of government
Most governments do not pay too much attention to crisis management because they think that a crisis is an unusual and unpredictable situation, so well-planned and organizational actions from government are not needed. Yet, governments have to be the most prepared institutions, because people (especially victims) always expect that governments will play central roles during crises (Drennan, 2007; Boin, 2008). Moreover, the failure of a government to cope with a crisis is not tolerated politically; failure to effectively respond to a crisis situation could destroy the political legitimacy of a regime (Boin, 2005). Crisis, hence, must be seen as a test for government (Farazmand, 2007).
Arjen Boin described four aspects of government that are impacted by crisis. Among them are “effects on key political officeholders, strength of leadership, political institutions and policy changes” (Boin, 2008, 292). Moreover, government is sometimes held responsible in a crisis, especially if it fails to take adequate preventive efforts. For example, when government fails to educate people or to implement important standards about building safer housing for earthquakes (like the tsunami) more people may be killed because of this lack of action (Samal, 2005; Ozerdem, 2006). Indeed, the main idea of crisis management is not to stop the occurrence of calamities, especially from natural crises, but the most critical objective in any crisis is “to contain damages as much as possible and prevent the loss of life and property” (Kalantari in Farazmand, 2004, 619). This is basic criteria to evaluate governments’ core role in the overall crisis management system.
Why do some governments succeed while others fail in handling a crisis? Saundra K. Schneider (1995) reminds us to be careful when judging a government’s success or failure in terms of crisis management, because judgments are usually based on public opinion (media) rather than based on objective evaluation. Of course public opinion is important, but it is not the only instrument of judgment that should be taken into consideration. The other complication of judging the failures of government is to decide if government actions are too slow or if public demand is unrealistic. Therefore, Schneider ended up measuring the gap between the bureaucratic norm and the emergent norm as the main tool to evaluate the quality of a government’s crisis management.
In terms of quality of crisis management, there is an interesting and important argument that claims that the weatlth of a country does not affect the quality of crisis management. A study conducted by Ozerdem (2006) in Japan, Turkey, and India serves as an example for this argument. Japan, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, has a lack of volunteerism (which is extremely important during a crisis), due to its modern individualized society. In India, on the other hand, there was no lack of volunteerism, but the country does have problems in infrastructure because of economic reasons.
This argument is important because no countries’ leaders should be overconfirmed dent or underestimate themselves regarding crisis preparedness. All countries have the same chance of being successful or failing. The capacity of government to cope with crisis depends on how seriously the government thinks about this particular issue.
Quality crisis management is not only related to fewer numbers of victims, but also to how much government can learn, and then make progressive changes from the crisis. In the case of Japan, there were policy and administrative changes; in Turkey they had bureaucratic paradigmatic shifts after the Marmara earthquake; but in India there were not so many changes after the crises (Ozerdem, 2006; Boin, 2008). Therefore, the point of crisis as an opportunity does not always happen. Sometimes a crisis does not affect anything or even makes the status quo stronger.
The concrete actions that governments can take in crisis management fall into three categories. First are preventive actions. In the cases of slow-developing crises, governments can implement long-term measures, while in cases of fast-developing crises governments can have a high-level preparedness system to minimize victims when a crisis occurs (Samal, 2005). This sort of action calls for rigorous contingency planning, which consists of defining roles of responsibilities and the line of command guidance in a crisis event (Drennan, 2007). Second, during the crisis governments have to create a clear, organized command structure, which can coordinate and control the situation (Kalatari in Farazmand, 2004). Third, after a crisis, management is related to how governments can encourage people to overcome their own problems with government assistance (Samal, 2005).
Some countries already have a good government crisis response system. The U.S., for instance, has a crisis response system that puts community and local government at the forefront. The system also includes coordination at state and federal levels, and it decides when to send FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) to the location after presidential declaration. However, there are some problems, such as overlap of responsibilities within government institutions, public officials who are unable to coordinate all elements, due to the budget constraint, that make the system not work perfectly (Schneider, 1995). In London, responsibilities among local departments for handling crisis situations is stated clearly, and specific job distribution includes what police, hospitals, fi refi ghters, and others should do when a crisis occurs (Drennan, 2007, 131). We can find a good example of a government crisis management system in Iran through a council (NETF/National Emergency Task Force) that has the three main duties of “prevention, relief and reconstruction which are constitutionally stated in article number 5-2” (Kalatari in Farazmand, 2004, 621). From these examples, we can see that in regard to a good crisis management model, the content of intergovernment relations shape the response system.
The relationship between local and central governments is the central issue in the discussion of the government’s role in crisis management. First of all, the capacity of local government has to be clarifi ed. In terms of crisis management, the meaning of capacity is linked with fi nances (how much money should be allocated to maintain the system), authority (how much discretion it has in making decisions), skill (how many experts it has), and administration capacity (how good is the credibility of organization and infrastructure). Some scholars, such as Settle, Cigler, and Vittes, argue that besides these internal aspects (local government capacity) coordination problems between local and central governments have also led to failures of crisis coping elsewhere (Sylves, 1990).
Local governments need to have their own crisis management institutions, especially for big cities (Pinkowski, 2008, 158; Rosenthal, 1994). Therefore, decentralization is important in crisis management. Decentralization in this sense is not only meant to empower local governments so that they have discretion in their decision making, but also provides more money and other resources. In the case of a large-scale crisis, the central government needs to do coordination of interstate borders and aid victims without sacrifi cing local autonomy by government impact (Pinkowski, 2008).
Lastly, governments ought to treat crises and disasters like they treat any other policy sectors such as transportation, education, health, or agriculture. The treatment of crisis implies not only creating specific institutions and organizations to handle them, but also creating a good planning strategy, implementation strategy, and evaluation system regarding crisis management (Schneider, 1995).
The role of media
The role of the media is emphasized in the literature on crisis management. This fact shows the significant part that media plays in the whole context of crisis management study. There are three aspects to present in this section: the basic understanding of the media, the position of media in a crisis situation, and how government should handle media in crisis management.
The media is a news business and they live from selling news. News is always related to unique and unusual events (Nudell, 1988, Rosenthal, 2001); there is massive violence, destruction, and acute human or company culpability in particular accidents (Nudell, 1988, 64; Boin, 2005, 72). Normal and regular events are not considered news in the media’s perspective. Thousands of airplanes landing safely every day is not news, but one failed landing is news. Therefore, disaster and crisis situations always become news, the commodity that media always wants to sell. Network news organizations, along with print journalists, want to report items that will appeal to the widest possible audience. Stories about unmanageable disaster conditions, bureaucratic indifference to human suffering, and the sheer human chaos produced by natural catastrophes are attractive scenarios from a journalistic perspective. (Schneider, 1995, 164–165)
However, the media have been playing a very significant role, especially in providing information to the public. The media does not only provide information about the situation during and after a crisis, but also information regarding preparedness for the crisis. In addition, the media should ensure that they tell a good story and make government look good. The media are crucial for alerts, warnings, and accurate and useful evacuation information.
In general, there are two kinds of media, print (newspaper and magazine) and electronic media (television and radio). These two categories are fundamentally different: electronic media focus on time (the faster the better), while printed media pay more attention to the completeness of the story. On the other hand, there are some similarities between them. First, they always want to get a clear explanation of the events. This nature makes the media always want to find more sources of information, especially when the official sources do not satisfy them. Second, the media has a certain duration for publishing one particular topic, and after several stories they will change the topic. No matter whether the crisis is already resolved or not, the media tend to find another issue if their audience is getting bored with the topic (Nudell, 1988).
In a crisis situation, the media could determine the outcome of government efforts, create the postevent perception, disseminate ideas of what actually happened, assess the authority performance, and promote or squash rumors (Rosenthal, 2001). Therefore, government needs to provide very good and proper information to the media. Yet, the media are usually more interested in getting the information from victims or their families or friends as sources rather than government officials (Nudell, 1988). Indeed, victims and people around them are naturally absorbed with their problem, sadness, and suffering. Then, they usually demand more from the government than it offers. This sort of phenomenon is usually picked up by journalists. On some level, when journalists write this story, they will make the officers work under pressure (Rosenthal, 2001). This is the biggest challenge for government in managing crisis. If government mismanages the media in crisis, the gap between bureaucratic and emergence norms could become larger (Schneider, 1995) or even worse. This also could speed the transformation from crisis to chaos (Farazmand, 2007).
The power of media and yet the media’s tendency to show the negative effects of events are the reasons why, sometimes, government regards the media as an enemy. This is not a good attitude because the media is central to delivering important information to the public, to warning people about the possible dangers, to squashing rumors, and to telling people about how to access government assistance. Government still needs media. It is important for government to find the balance between the negative and positive aspects of media in a crisis situation. Hence the emerging views of the role of media during disasters and crises is a more paradoxical one: yes, they can cause a lot of trouble and consume a lot of attention; but yes, they can also be tremendously helpful to communicate with the public.(Rosenthal, 2001, 127–128)
This point leads us to the question of how the government should handle the media. The most important thing for a government to do is not to avoid the media. If the government fears the media, journalists will think that the government is hiding something, and then they will go to find other sources that government cannot control (Nudell, 1988; Rosenthal, 2001, 103). Therefore, providing systematic, coordinated, and controlled information to the media is extremely important.
In order to provide systematic and controlled information to the media, highly skilled and experienced spokespersons are needed. The main requirement of the spokesperson is a very good understanding of both the outside (rumors and public opinions) and inside (what’s going on in the government response system) situations. Ideally, there is only one spokesperson to avoid inconsistent information (Nudell, 1988). However, in some places this duty is handled by multiple parties. In the Netherlands, for instance, in the 1992 Biljmer disaster, the spokesmen were known as the “triumvirate,” which included the mayor, head of the police department and head of the fi re department (Rosenthal, 1994). The other important thing regarding the control of information to the public is the content of the statement that the spokesperson makes. The statement has to be well prepared, easily understood (does not cause multiple interpretations), comprehensive, and responsible, and the most important thing is the message has to be honest. As Nudell points out:
Honesty is really the best policy in crisis management, if only because of the dangers of being found out. You don’t have to tell the media everything you know, but what do you say should be accurate. This applies not only to the literal accuracy of the facts, but to overall impression you give as well. Don’t try to mislead reporters; tell them what you can and don’t talk about what you can’t. It won’t always be easy, but it will do the most good and the least damage in the long run. (Nudell, 1988, 78).
A press conference should be held every day, at least twice a day, morning and evening (Rosenthal, 2001). By doing so, it will satisfy the journalists’ deadlines and the response of the newest progress of government works will also be announced earlier. By using all of these strategies, the government places the media as an integral part of the crisis management.
Role of civil society
Civil society in this essay means institutionalized and organized private and nonprofit institutions. This could mean the difference between grassroots organizations (GROs) or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) (Uphoff, 1994), or the more detailed categorization from Kaldor (2003) of social movement, NGOs, social organizations (similar to GROs), and nationalist/religious groups. Therefore, the focus of the role of civil society in crisis management is on the role of these formal organizations, commonly called civil society organizations (CSOs).
There are two main reasons why the involvement of CSOs in governmental crisis management is important. First, CSOs, especially at local and community levels, can think and react more rationally and contextually during the crisis than government because they feel the disaster directly (Boin, 2004, 75). In the case of the supercyclone at Orissa, India, in 1999, CSOs came to the location earlier than government did (Samal, 2005). Moreover, CSOs also can provide experts, basic necessities, and volunteer forces more quickly and with less bureaucratic involvement than government does (Ozerdem, 2006). In some case studies we can see that CSOs played a very important role during Katrina.
The second reason is political and organizational. Public and/ or civil society is the most important stakeholder of public sector organizations (PSOs); therefore, PSOs have a responsibility to public or civil society. This point leads us to the conclusion that governmental response systems have to have public accountability (Schneider, 1995), and also social responsibility. This implies not only answering the public’s questions, but also giving them input and advice, and allowing them to evaluate the whole process of crisis management (Drennan, 2007).
To understand the real action that CSOs could take in a crisis situation is important. As already stated at the beginning of the paper, the key concept of crisis is an unusual and extraordinary situation that attacks the basic structure and values of a society (Boin, 2008). Therefore, the process of reconstruction not only comprises the physical aspect, but also psychological and social aspects. This is the basic argument of “community redevelopment concept” in which citizen participation is emphasized in order “to bring the community back to exactly where it was before disaster” (Sears in Pinkowski, 2008). In order to do so, there are many real actions that CSOs could perform, such as rebuilding the social networks, providing leadership, and recovering people’s psychology. For physical rehabilitation, the real actions could be mobilizing volunteers, providing public goods (foods, shelter, health services, etc.), and providing experts (Samal, 2005; Ozerdem, 2006).
A new model of CSO’s involvement in crisis management has been developed and is gaining support. Alka Dhameja (in Pinkowski, 2008) came up with the community-based disaster management (CBDM) concept, which is a community-based approach. This model emphasizes the involvement of CSOs in crisis management to enable civil society to become directly involved in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of crisis public policy. Through putting the focus on local community CSOs, Samal (2005) argued that local communities have to be the most prepared element because they are the first element that is directly touched by a crisis and its effects. This is the basic argument of community contingency planning (CCP) that is developed at a village and community level. In India, these small organizations have an umbrella organization at the state level called ODMM. This organization guarantees the ongoing involvement of civil society in an overall government crisis management system (Samal, 2005). This kind of organization is also helpful for government in that it makes coordination easier.
Role of international institutions
Globalization has been widely discussed in the public administration realm. International actors and elements that were not taken into account in governance studies now have become the important elements (Farazmand, 2004). Also in crisis management, the role of these international institutions has become increasingly important. However, there are still some issues regarding their role across countries.
Large-scale calamities inevitably attract world attention. The disaster at Sichuan, China, that caused 69,000 people to be killed is one example, as are the billions of U.S. dollars spent in the Asian tsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the South Asia earthquake in 2005 (Coppola, 2006, 530). Many international institutions were present to give help. However, that is not always the case. No matter how big the disaster is, if there is no permission from the country, it is hard for international institutions to enter the country. The disaster cyclone at Nargis Burma in early May 2008, for instance, also attracted world attention, but no international donors intervened because the domestic political aspect in Burma did not allow it.
International aid for disaster across countries began to increase in the 1970s. That trend was specifically caused by some big disasters happening at the time. The drought in Ethiopia in 1975 and the Tangshan earthquake in China in 1976 that killed over 290,000 people expanded the role of international donors in crisis situations. International institutions were also present to help with man-made crises. For example, aid for Cambodian refugees because of cruelty of the Khmer Rouge regime, or, in the same year and in a similar case, Afghanistan’s refugees because of war in 1979. These disasters are events that promoted the emergence of the “international disaster management” idea (Rosenthal, 2001).
Much like the CSOs, the role of international donors has also been criticized about its narrow relief-oriented approach. Instead of just giving aid for the postdisaster situation, such as food, water, shelter, or health care, now international institutions have started to have a more strategic approach to crisis management: The emphasis given to preparedness measures in operational considerations, the expansion of disaster management into prevention and mitigation issues, as well as the recognition of inherent linkages between disaster and development issues were further reflected in a number of disaster management manual issued during mid-1980s. UNICEF, UNHCR, The World Food Program, as well as larger global NGOs such as CARE, OXFAM, and Save the Children published emergency management manual. Organizations such as The International Committee of the Red Cross, and some bilateral emergency assistance organizations did the likewise during the same period. (Rosenthal, 2001,318)
Since the 1980s, the importance of international disaster management has evolved. In 1980, International City Management Association (ICMA) conducted a survey about cities’ preparedness for disaster around the world. This survey motivated cities surveyed to improve the quality of their crisis management system (Kartez in Sylves, 1990). The more concrete and significant action was taken when The International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) institution was founded in 1989, and then became a formal part of the U.N. (Ozerdem, 2006). Besides coordinating many international disaster donors, IDNDR also has important duties including “reduc[ing] risk of calamities, promotion to apply scientific, technical and other professional abilities to disaster prevention efforts” (Coppola, 2006; Rosenthal, 2001). These international institutions have played a very significant role. The supercyclone at Orissa, India, in 1999 was an accurate example (Samal, 2005).
However, there are still some problems with the role of international donors in crisis, especially for developing countries. First, there is the relationship between international donors and the government where the disaster happened. Sometimes there are “confl icts of interest between government and international institutions” (Coppola; 2006, 531; Rosenthal 2001). The Nargis Cyclone of 2008 case is an example: because of the political tension between Burma’s government and the international community, the government refused aid. This kind of problem needs a high level of political reconciliation. The bottom line is good cooperation and relationships between international institutions and domestic government, which is extremely important. The second problem is related to the dependency of the people who receive aid from these international donors. To avoid this problem, international institutions need to use the more sustainable approaches rather than a charity approach when providing aid (Samal, 2005). By using an empowerment approach, international institutions eventually increase the capacity of community and local institutions, which, at the end of the day, will reduce the dependency of local elements.
Case studies
This section will describe how the four elements (government, media, civil society, and international institutions) play their roles in the real world. The first case study is Hurricane Katrina in 2005 in the United States, and the second is the Lapindo hot mud spurt from 2006 to the present in Indonesia. The reason I have chosen Hurricane Katrina is that there are so many studies about this crisis event, so the validity of the findings is stronger. The Lapindo mud is the opposite: qualifi ed reports and publications on this disaster have been hard to find. Hopefully, this article could attract wider attention from international communities and researchers to the crisis. The other reason I have chosen this disaster is not only because of the uniqueness of the disaster, but also the process of mitigation and response is still going on, so this paper could inspire the actors in the fi eld for better actions. Therefore, this case study is not an attempt to compare those two events, but rather to see how the role of four elements actually works in those two places.
Hurricane Katrina This calamity happened on August 29, 2005, in the Gulf Coast area. It struck three states, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. This disaster killed around fifteen hundred people and caused 1.2 million residents to migrate to another places. Fifteen to twenty feet of floodwater covered 80 percent of New Orleans and caused total economic losses of more than one hundred billion dollars, not to mention the amount of infrastructure, houses, and buildings that were destroyed (Johnson, 2006; Gerber in Pinkowski, 2008).
One of the crucial questions is whether the crisis gave opportunity to a better situation after reconstruction. A group of scientists raised an important argument a couple months after Katrina, which emphasized that the trajectory of reconstruction should turn New Orleans into a safer and better city. In order to make the city safer, the reconstruction program should rebuild the new levees, a make limited effort to make buildings flood and wind resistant, and prepare a new evacuation plan. In order to make the city better, reconstruction trajectory should provide new and better schools, parks, houses, ports, infrastructure, tourism, economy, and investments (Kates et al, 2006).
However, three years after the disaster the accomplishments of the program still fell far short of the ideal plan. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation released its survey about the evaluation three years after reconstruction. This survey found that 40 percent of the respondents said their lives were still disrupted, and more than 70 percent said there had been little or no progress in making housing affordable or in controlling crime, which they view as the city’s top problem. The survey also showed majorities saw little or no progress in making medical services available, strengthening public schools, attracting jobs, or rebuilding neighborhoods. The results of this survey are largely consistent with an index of progress compiled by the Brookings Institution and the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. Their third-year report found that the greater New Orleans area has recovered, but that recovery trends slowed during 2008. Tens of thousands of blighted properties, a lack of affordable housing, and thin public services continue to plague the city. Rents are 46 percent higher than before the storm (New York Times, 2008).
The performance of the government’s role in Katrina was generally bad, especially during the crisis. Government did have the crisis management system (FEMA), but the system did not work as it should have. One of the failures of the system was related to preparedness. The federal government did not build proper levees for a level 5 hurricane, while many people had warned about the possibility of that level of hurricane happening in the area (Farazmand, 2007; Sylvester, 2007). The failure of the system can also be found in the inconsistency of the response system and poor planning.
According to national standards, the scale of this hurricane was categorized as an incident of national significance (INS) that should have automatically gotten a federal-level response. In fact, victims had to wait five days to get a federal government response (Farazmand, 2007; Gerber in Pinkowski, 2008). In this case, government failed to balance its bureaucratic norm with emergent norm. The situation required government to react quickly, as the victims could not wait for a long and bureaucratic federal government’s decision-making process. In this situation, federal government should have used a recognition-primed strategy both in making the decision of sending aid to New Orleans and in reacting to the actual problem on the ground. In so doing, sending leaders who have a strong exposure to such a situation is more important than just sending those who have a good political relationship to the central power.
In general, the breakdown of the decision-making system at all levels was because FEMA was politicized. FEMA had been politicized by the federal government and by President Bush by “putting his close colleague as the leader without thoroughly considering the capacity” (Greber in Pinkowski, 2008, 71). The impact of this decision was that the capability of leadership of this institution became very poor. Following this weakness, FEMA also proved to have failed to manage the balance between the bureaucratic norm and emergent norm. The fact that federal assistance came five days after the disaster was proof that there was a sense of a lack of urgency. The White House took too much time to decide whether or not a federal government intervention was needed. The impact was the government’s failure to speed relief to thousands of victims at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, or to rescue residents (Washington Post, 2005).
The role of international donors, however, had a better result in this disaster. It’s true that there was poor coordination among them, but that was more likely due to government nonintervention. Total aid from international donors was around U.S. one billion dollars, not to mention in-kind help (Richard in Ferris, 2008; Coppola, 2006).
The role of CSOs was quite interesting because there were some contradictions. The CSOs, such as NGOs or church groups, performed well because they addressed basic needs. The government relied on these CSOs, especially in immediate service delivery to the victims (Richard in Ferris, 2008). However, in the areas that have stronger local CSOs, the process of rehabilitation went more slowly than in areas that have weaker ones. Providing shelter was the most important thing in rehabilitation; the research found that it was easier to put shelters in the areas in which local communities were weaker. On the other hand, it was more difficult to put shelters in the stronger local community areas.
“You can’t rebuild a community if you are taking sacred parts of that community and destroying it” (quoted in Varney and Carr, 2005). New Orleans Councilman Jay Batt put up campaign posters with an image of a temporary FEMA trailer crossed out by a red circle with a line through it next to the heading, “He protected the integrity of neighbourhoods in district A by not allowing trailers to be placed in parks and playgrounds where our children play” (Batt in Aldrich, 2006, 380).
Media had a very important role during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. ABC’s Good Morning America on September 1, 2005, for instance, aired a statement from President Bush that said that nobody anticipated the breach of the levees. After that statement, the program showed the old news from the Times-Picayune Special Report on June 23, 2002, which said that the levees in New Orleans were not strong enough to handle category 4 or category 5 hurricanes. The other big media, NBC, also had concerns about the levees long before the calamity happened (Sylvester, 2007; Gerber in Pinkowski, 2008). The interesting part of the role of media was the different perspectives between the local and national levels of media. Local media, since they were also victims, tell the story about the suffering and survival of the people, while national media, such as the New York Times or Dallas Morning, “publish a regional and national perspective and were instrumental in keeping the country interested in displaced people from the Gulf Coast” (Sylvester, 2007).
Lapindo mud Since May 29, 2006, hot mud has been spurting at up to 150,000 cubic meters per day at Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia (Normile, 2007). The hot mud has covered four villages, killed thirteen people, and displaced fi fty thousand inhabitants in the villages (Daily News, 2008). The location of the mud explosion is right in the center of the main transportation route of the East Java province. This disaster has disrupted the connection of the southern part and the eastern part of the province to the northern part. Therefore, the victims of the disaster are not only people who live in the location of disaster, but also people who live in the south and east part of the province. For example, from Surabaya (the capital of the province) to Malang (the second-largest city in the province), before the disaster it only took 1.5 hours driving, but now it could take more than four hours. “The disaster has been happening for two years, but the transportation problem is still the same, the hot mud still spurting, more sadly, thousands of people still live in tents” (Normile, 2008).
For the Lapindo mud explosion in East Java, Indonesia, there are two things that made this disaster unique. The first is this kind of disaster is very rare—volcanic mud spurting from the ground without any clear explanation. Second, regarding the unclear explanation of the cause, since the beginning there has been no agreement whether it is a natural or man-made disaster. Therefore, the policy actions and crisis management have been controversial.
Geologists all around the world have not yet clearly figured out the cause of this disaster. Richard Davies from Durham University said that a gas well from Lapindo Brantas Inc. is the cause. Some Indonesian scientists argued that it was caused by a magnitude 6.3 earthquake at Yogyakarta (280 km from the location) two days before the spurting started. This theory is refuted by Michael Manga, a geologist from Berkeley University, who said that the earthquake was too far and too small to cause this sort of phenomenon. On the other hand, Adriano Mazzini, a geologist from Oslo University, criticizes the scientists (Davies and Manga) who have never gone to the location. Mazzini said that either the earthquake (natural) or Lapindo Inc.’s mistakes (man-made) are still possibilities. Finally, James Mori, a seismologist from Tokyo University, says researchers cannot determine whether the volcano would have formed without drilling (Normile, 2008). However, an Indonesian court has ruled that this disaster is a natural disaster not caused by Lapindo Inc.’s mining activity. This decision has raised controversy since the majority shareholder of the company is Aburizal Bakrie, who is also the minister of welfare of Indonesia and a very influential elite of the Golkar Party, which is one of the largest political parties in the country.
The answer to the question of whether or not the crisis could become a triggering opportunity for improvement of the system is obviously no. The neighborhood has already been buried with mud, and there is no way to bring back the people to their houses and rebuild the area. It is already hard for government to control the stream of the mud flood, not to mention to drain the five meters of frozen mud from the villages. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, three years after the disaster started, thousands of victims still live in tents.
The role of government in this case is actually quite problematic. It is unclear whether or not to declare that the disaster is Lapindo Inc.’s responsibility or declare it a national natural disaster (so the government is held accountable). This position became more complicated when many people tried to connect this problem with political issues. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) in the early part of 2007 had ordered Lapindo Inc. to pay $420 million. From that order, it seemed that President SBY was quite sure that the cause of the disaster was the gas well of Lapindo Inc. But then the Indonesian court ruled that it is a natural disaster. All aspects of the disaster came under the government’s responsibility with this move.
The central government formed a national body called “Badan Penanggulangan Lumpur Sidoarjo” (BPLS) on September 8, 2007, whose main duty is to handle all impacts of this volcanic mud spurt (Petroleum Watch, 2008). Along this line, the provincial-level government made a plan to actually deal with crisis. There are three actions that the provincial government will focus on, which are stemming the fl ow, minimizing social impact, and reducing environmental destruction. All of the details of these main goals were also well explained in the action plan document (UNDAC, 2006).
It is difficult to categorize this disaster into crises’ typology, for there are no such typologies that it can be fi t into because the beginning of the volcanic mud spurting was fast, but the explosion is still going on more than two years later (150,000 cubic meters per day). However, regardless of the many aspects that make this disaster unique, it seems that “slow burning” is the closest type to the crisis. Therefore, government actually have had quite enough time to rule based on analytical decision-making strategy in terms of coping with this crisis. Though, it does not mean that government has to spend three years only to give compensation to the victims. By April 2009, government still could not find the agreement of compensation between BPLS, Lapindo Inc., and the victims (Kompas, 2009). As a result, thousands of people will still live in tents for quite a while without clear certainty of the future.
The role of CSOs in this crisis can be categorized in several ways. An Indonesian NGO that engages in environmental issues, WALHI, fi led a suit against Lapindo Inc., demanding that the company take responsibility (Normile, 2008). Mass organizations and people around the area help the victims by providing food and nonfood necessities (UNDAC, 2006). Local communities and the victims, with some help from outsider activists, organize themselves, especially to push government and the company to give them compensation. This showed how significant a role the civil society played, although there are not yet positive results of this effort.
The media also did not help much in this crisis management. In fact, the biggest local media, Jawa Pos, and the largest national-level media, Kompas, do not publish articles about this disaster intensively anymore. The public seems to have forgotten about the disaster already. Apparently, there are still thousands of people who suffer every single day, and have been for more than two years. The media acts only based on market demand, so after a while their audience gets bored and they have to find another issue to write about. The absence of this media consistency does not help for crisis recovery, especially for the victims who are asking for justice.
The role of international donors has only been by experts, those who have done research about the cause of the disaster, and technical assistance from the U.N. On June 20, 2008, the Indonesian Ministry of Environment made a request for technical assistance to the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and then OCHA deployed a United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team from June 25 to July 6, 2006. The governments of Switzerland and the Netherlands provided the experts for this follow-up mission. Besides those institutions, there are no international institutions at all that help victims and provide basic needs. “No international organizations have been involved in the response activities of this disaster” (UNDAC, 2006).
Conclusion
These two cases (Katrina and Lapindo mud) prove that it is true that crises challenge basic structures and values of society. Hurricane Katrina displaced 1.2 million people, while Lapindo mud caused fi fty thousand people to lose their land and properties. Both cases have taken a long time to move toward the precrisis situations and recover. This poor management of crisis occurred in the first case in a very wealthy country, and in the second in a developing country. Therefore, practitioners need to improve their skills to cope with crises, especially in public administration. The need to study crisis management more deeply is clear.
In the sense of typology of crisis, Hurricane Katrina fell into “long shadow” disaster typology because the speed of crisis development was fast and the speed of crisis termination has been slow. It is difficult to categorize the Lapindo mud case into any crisis type, but “slow-burning” seems to be the closest one. By this categorization, it seems that government has had plenty of time to react, because none of them fall into “fast-burning” crisis. However, it does not mean that the crises were easier to cope with. The cases studies provide very good examples of failures of crisis management even though the nature of the crisis did not give both governments severe time pressure.
Government has played an important role in both cases. In the Katrina case, FEMA had been politicized, and it affected the bad performance of the institution during the crisis. In the Lapindo mud case, political nuance appeared because Aburizal Bakrie, as majority shareholder of the company, is one of the most influential political leaders in the country. Another aspect of crisis politicization results from the fact that the crisis is very politically attractive, as it gets a great deal of attention from the public. Politicization of the crises only resulted from the bad learning process of the two governments, as shown by the slow rehabilitation process, which after more than two years has not allowed recovery to precrisis condition. Therefore, in the future government has to avoid politicization of a crisis, no matter how attractive the crisis is for lifting up the political popularity of certain parties.
The role of media is quite different in both cases. In the Lapindo mud case, the media only perceives the disaster like regular news—after the audience got bored with the issue, the media stopped publishing this news even though the problem is not solved yet. In the Katrina case, the media gave good contributions, not only motivating a better recovery process, but also the media were actively giving warning long before the crisis happened. In this context, the Katrina case is the best practice that media should follow.
The role of CSOs in the Katrina case was interesting because there was a variation of contributions among some kinds of CSOs. NGOs and religious groups contributed very well in providing basic needs to the victims, while local communities, the stronger ones, tended to be resistant to certain crisis response programs. Nevertheless, in both cases, there was no good community-based disaster management (CBDM) implemented. In the future, the involvement of CSOs in crisis management should enable local communities to become directly involved in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of crisis public policy.
As reported by UNDAC (2006), there has been no aid at all from international institutions in the Lapindo mud case, which is very different from the Hurricane Katrina case, where there was much aid from international institutions (more than one billion dollars) even though government (FEMA) failed in coordinating them. It might be true that in man-made crises (such as in the Lapindo mud case) the parties who cause the crises should be held accountable, so international institutions do not need to take part. However, completely ignoring the case is not the right decision to make. The very limited attention of international institutions in crisis, such as what has been happening in the Lapindo mud case, should not happen in the future.
FADILLAH PUTRA earned his second master’s degree in Local Government and Economic Development at LBJ School of Public Affairs The University of Texas at Austin, in August 2009. In January 2001, he earned a Master’s of Public Administration degree at the Post Graduate School of Brawijaya University in Indonesia and also received a Bachelor of Public Administration degree at the same university in September 1998. He has written six books on the topics of public administration, public policy, and local government in Indonesia. Since 2000, he has been actively engaged in NGO activities related to local government capacity building, poverty reduction, and democratization. He was awarded a grant from International Fellowship Program (IFP) of the Ford Foundation in August 2006.
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“It is now widely recognized,” began a 2000 book, “that transport in Europe is unsustainable, and that the trend-based path of continuous and continuing growth is unacceptable” (Banister et al., 2000). From an American perspective, European transport growth seems considerably less unsustainable and unacceptable than similar growth in the United States. In 2004, the European Union’s (hereafter EU) current and prospective members had a population of 451 million, to the United States’s 286 million, but just 212 million cars to 205 million cars in the United States (Schade et al., 2006). Cities such as London, Paris, Madrid, and Prague are known for their extensive public transit systems, while other cities, most notably Amsterdam, are famous for their hospitality to bicyclists. Europe’s rail network is far more extensive than Amtrak, the American counterpart. Although air travel in Europe has increased considerably in the last decade, the majority of journeys of six hours or less, and business journeys of four hours or less, within Europe are made by rail (The Economist, 2007b). Not surprisingly, American planners sometimes look to European urban areas as potential role models for encouraging nonautomotive modes of transport.
Nevertheless, the harmful environmental impacts of transport remain a concern in Europe. As of December 2007, only eleven of the twenty-seven current members of the EU were expected to meet emission ceilings for four pollutants by 2010 (European Environment Agency, 2007a). In 1998, an estimated 28 percent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from Europe were transport based; four-fi fths of those emissions came from road transport (European Commission, 2001). The environmental costs of transport are estimated at 1.1 percent of the combined GDP of all EU members (CEC, 2006). Sixty-seven million Europeans are believed to be exposed to harmful noise levels related to transport (EEA, 2009). Between 1990 and 2006, greenhouse gas emissions from thirty-two European countries actually declined in most sectors, including industry, but grew by 26 percent from domestic transport (European Environment Agency, 2009).
Even more worrisome, from a purely environmental standpoint, is the growth in road transport, both passenger and freight, in the twelve countries that have joined the EU since 2004 (the EU-12 1). With Soviet-era rail networks decaying and standards of living rising, the residents of the EU-12, primarily in eastern Europe, are increasingly buying, and relying on, cars.2 Thus, as in the United States, there is concern in Europe about the environmental costs of growing use of transport.
Responses to such concerns, however, are complicated by the way transport planning is handled in Europe. Although the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which founded what is now known as the EU, called for a common transport policy, transport planning has largely been handled on a national level. The largest change in European transport planning since the early 1990s has been the EU taking on the job of preparing and recommending a common transport policy, which it has done in the form of the Trans-European Transport Networks (TENs-T). One of the primary goals of the TENs-T has been to allow for growth in transport use while reducing the potential harms to the natural environment. More recently, the EU has introduced the Marco Polo program, which also aims to reduce environmental harms by encouraging shifts to less harmful transport modes.
This paper will examine how the European Union has incorporated concern over harmful environmental impacts into region-wide transport planning. It will examine the TENs-T projects and the Marco Polo program in light of how they help to advance EU environmental goals of reducing environmental harms caused by transport. It will then examine public critiques, focusing on environmental impacts, of EU transport planning efforts. Finally, it will examine what lessons there may be for regional transport planning in the United States.
Environmental impacts of European transport
Literature on the environmental impacts of European transport, including official reports from the European Union, have been relatively wide-ranging in their scope, concerned not only with GHG emissions or air pollution but with a broader number of potential threats to quality of life. In the 2001 report “A Sustainable Europe for a Better World” (CEC, 2001), the European Commission identified the main threats to sustainable development as GHG emissions from human activity, poverty, the aging of the population, antibioticresistant strains of diseases, threats to food safety, the loss of biodiversity, and transport congestion. The 2006 Renewed EU Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) grouped climate change; threats to public health, poverty, and social exclusion; demographic pressure and aging; the disappearance of natural resources and biodiversity; and changes in land use and transport as threats to future sustainable development (CEU, 2006). The 2006 midterm report on sustainable mobility (CEC, 2006) named CO2 emissions, air quality, noise pollution, and land use as primary environmental concerns. Air pollution, in the form of particulate matter, is blamed for an estimated 350,000 annual premature deaths in Europe (CEC, 2006).
In European transport literature, the primary environmental concern is CO2 emissions. With road freight transport expected to grow by an estimated annual 20.5 billion t-km (tons per kilometer) in the EU-25 between 2007 and 2013 (Millán de la Lastra, 2007), increasing CO2 emissions will likely continue to be the most-discussed environmental impact of European transport movements. The 2006 SDS names reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from transport as an operational objective, to be fulfilled by holding new car fl eets to higher emissions standards, shifting transport from road to more environmentally friendly modes, and developing an EU fuel strategy (CEU, 2006).
The EU and its member states are signers to the Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC, 2007). The target for the EU-15 is an 8 percent reduction in CO2 emissions, compared to 1990 levels, by 2008-2012 (CEU, 2006). In March 2007 the EU announced plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions even further, to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. We can reasonably expect, then, that reducing CO2 emissions will remain an EU-level policy goal over the next decade.
But meeting such targets will be difficult. Many member states are expected to meet those targets by buying credits in emission-reductions programs in developing countries (The Economist, 2007a). Furthermore, some European leaders have pointed to potential tension between economic development strategies and environmental protection regulations, particularly in the context of a Europe-wide recession. In January 2008 Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, argued in a letter to José Manuel
Barroso, president of the European Commission, that industry would shift to countries with less stringent environmental standards, costing France jobs (Hollinger et al., 2008). In February 2009, Günter Verheugen, a German politician serving as the EU’s Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry, stated publicly, “We should do everything possible now to stimulate the economy . . . anything else has to wait,” and criticized recent EU environmental legislation: “We have made the European car much more expensive” (Der Spiegel, 2009). Transport will be affected if the EU is to meet its greenhouse gas emission-reduction goals. Hickman and Banister (2007) conducted a series of “backcasting” scenarios to determine what policy measures Britain would need to meet its 2030 CO2 emission-reduction goals. Their analysis predicted that technological innovation on its own would not be enough to offset increased emissions from additional population and travel growth; travel behavior would also have to change. At an EU level, Rodenburg, Ubbels, and Nijkamp (2002) tested three hypothetical EU transport policy scenarios, one aimed at enhancing mobility, one at minimizing environmental damage, and one at improving social and economic quality of life. Not surprisingly, the package of policies aimed at minimizing environmental damage produced a decrease in CO2 emissions, while the mobility package saw the largest increase. The quality-of-life package also lessened emissions, although not as much as the environmental package. They concluded cautiously that, while reducing emissions yet allowing for economic growth presented “formidable policy challenges,” making changes in policy and transport systems “might offer possibilities to make a step forward in a more sustainable direction.”
Despite concerns voiced at the national level, the EU seems to have embraced the idea that it must create policy to influence travel and transport decision making. The TENs-T initiative is one of the largest initiatives; the Marco Polo program, while less ambitious, is also significant for its emphasis on freight transport.
EU transport policy initiatives: the TENs-T and MARCO POLO
Transport planning at the EU level is not a new concept. The 1957 Treaty of Rome called for the establishment of “trans-European networks” in transport, telecommunications, and energy. It made the interoperability of national networks and called for what was then called the European Economic Community to “. . . take account in particular of the need to link island, landlocked and peripheral regions with the central regions of the Community” (EEC, 1957). Yet for years the EEC, which would become the European Community and later the EU, was unwilling to move toward a common transport policy (European Commission, 2001). The member states have traditionally handled transport policy as a national concern. Given that transport policy is by definition more spatially grounded than, say, monetary policy (the power over which many members, Britain and Denmark among them, still refuse to grant the EU), it is not surprising that transport planning has by and large been determined within national borders.
Beginning in the early 1990s, however, the EU began to assert the need for a common transport policy. This was in part due to the growing awareness of the disproportionate environmental harms of certain transport modes. When the 2001 white paper was written, road transport accounted for 44 percent of the EU’s goods transport market and 79 percent of its passenger transport market (European Commission, 2001). By 2007, after enlargement, the latter fi gure had risen to 81 percent (EUROPA, 2007). The commission now looks to add environmental awareness into all its policies (Faludi and Waterhout, 2002), including transport planning. The 2001 white paper on European transport policy describes sustainable development as a “lever” toward a common transport policy (European Commission, 2001).
The EU regards transport policy, economic growth, and sustainability as interlinked: more growth will mean more demands on transport infrastructure, which could in turn mean more environmental harm if the environment is not taken into consideration well in advance of growth. Thus, concerns about environmental impacts have led the EU toward regionwide transport planning.
TENs-T So far the most ambitious EU initiative toward a common transport policy has been the Trans-European Transport Networks (TENs-T). The TENs-T are a series of transport infrastructure projects, mostly multinational, proposed by the EU to facilitate the movement of people and goods within the entire EU. The TENs-T are considered a crucial factor in enhancing the growth and economic competitiveness within Europe (European Commission, 2005). Moreover, the TENs-T are expected to help “ensure sustainable transport” (European Commission, 2005) by increasing options within the transport network, decreasing congestion, and shifting both passenger and freight traffic from road to other environmentally friendly modes. More than half of the proposed projects are solely, or primarily, structured around new or upgraded light rail systems.
The TENs-T proposals currently consist of thirty projects (in Figure 1), of which two have been completed. The total cost of completing all thirty projects was estimated in 2008 to be Ð397 billion (European Commission, 2008).
Ross (1998) described the TENs-T initiative as “groundbreaking,” not only in terms of its scope, but in terms of the EU’s ambitions, in funding transport initiatives directly and in doing transport planning across borders. Both aspects have made it difficult for the EU to move forward on the TENs-T. The EU, which is financed by tax collections from member states, can use a portion of its funds to finance TENs-T projects in less wealthy member states; a total of Ð6.7 billion was committed thus in 2004–06 (European Commission, 2005). But the EU cannot bear the total cost: Ð224 billion roughly equals its entire budget for two years.
FIGURE 2: Predicted CO2 emissions changes with implementation of TENs-T projects (NEA Transport Research and Training BV, 2003).
In presenting the TENs-T in 2005, Jacques Barrot, then–vice president of the European Commission with responsibility for transport, complained that member states had decreased their transport infrastructure spending, in many cases to less than 1 percent of national GDP (European Commission, 2005).
Similarly, van Exel et al. (2002) describe an “investment inertia” that occurs when the benefits of the TENs-T occur at a European-wide level; national transportation departments find these benefits hard to quantify, and thus the TENs-T become less of a funding priority at the national level. In short, the EU may have difficulty building the TENsT, given the discrepancy between the funding sources and the recipients of potential benefits. A 2008 report pushed back the potential completion dates of nine of the thirty projects to 2020 and one, a railway axis from Lyon, France, to the Ukrainian border, to 2025 (European Commission, 2008).
The EU positions the TENs-T as creating less environmentally harmful connections for both passenger and freight travel on a European scale. However, the evidence that the TENs-T will reduce CO2 emissions and other negative environmental impacts is not unambiguous. The 2003 TEN-STAC scenario findings (NEA Transport Research and Training BV, 2003) suggest that emissions will be cut in some of the larger Western European countries, but continue to rise in several of the fast-growing EU-12 states (see Figure 2). Meanwhile, Banister et al. (2000) point out two difficulties with high-speed rail, which is the primary mode in more than half of the planned TENs-T projects. One is that, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from road transport, light rail must draw would-be drivers from the road. If rail passenger transport grows while road passenger transport stays constant, the EU will have cut some of the future CO2 emission growth, but the rail built by TENs-T projects will not have been as effective in curbing emissions as if there were a decrease in road passenger traffic. The other difficulty is that in encouraging travel by long distances (the completion of the Rail Baltica project, for example, would allow passenger travel along high-speed rail from London to Tailinn), the TENs-T rail projects may, in the long run, stimulate demand for air travel.
TABLE 1: Differences between MARCO POLO and TENs-T (Millán de la Lastra, 2006).
Marco Polo A newer EU-level program is Marco Polo, which was first proposed in 2002 and adopted in 2003. The primary goal of the Marco Polo program is to shift freight transport from roads to modes considered more environmentally friendly—short sea shipping, inland waterways, and rail—while improving intermodal freight operations (Horn and Nemoto, 2005). During the 2007–13 budgetary period, Marco Polo3 has roughly €450 million ($588 million) to provide for eligible projects (DG TREN, 2006). Table 1, below, shows the differences in focus between the larger TENs-T program and the Marco Polo program.
The chief difference between the two programs is that Marco Polo focuses exclusively on freight transport. The EU has singled out freight movements for two reasons: because freight growth has shown steady increases and because so much of freight transport is moved by roads, considered the most environmentally harmful mode of transport (in terms of air pollution and GHG emissions). The total volume of freight transported in the EU, measured by ton-kilometers, increased by 35 percent between 1996 and 2006 (European Environment Agency, 2009). In the EU-15, road freight transport grew by 35 percent, while short sea shipping grew by 31 percent, inland waterway freight activity by 9 percent, and rail freight transport by 6 percent (Millán de la Lastra, 2006). By 2020, 45 percent of freight within the EU-25 (the EU save Romania and
Bulgaria) is expected to be carried by road (Millán de la Lastra, 2006). Thus EU policy makers believe that achieving modal shift on freight transport will lead directly to benefits in the form of lower CO2 emissions. Projects, or “actions,” financed by Marco Polo fall into five categories. One, “modal shift” actions, have been described as “robust, but not innovative” (Millán de la Lastra, 2007). They are projects drawing on prior knowledge and research to shift freight transport away from roads. “Catalyst” actions are expected to be more technologically innovative, while “common learning” actions are to help member states share best practices as to intermodal freight movement. In 2005, Marco Polo also began fi nancing initiatives related to the “motorways of the sea” project, to promote inland shipping, and “traffic avoidance” actions, meant to, among other goals, reduce the number of empty runs by freight vehicles. Table 2 shows the differences in funding allowances for the three types of actions.
TABLE 2: Actions by Marco Polo (Millán de la Lastra, 2007; Millán de la Lastra, 2006).
Public Critiques of EU Transport Policy
With nearly 400 million people affected by EU policy decisions, it would be naive to expect that such large-scale projects as the TENs-T would go uncriticized. What may be of interest to American transport and environmental planners is that, even as they have been framed in the context of greater environmental concern and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on the EU’s part, the TENs-T and other infrastructure projects have been criticized not only on economic or transport planning grounds, but on environmental grounds.
One example of heavy debate between the EU and environmental groups is the arguments over the Betuwe Line, TEN-T Priority Axis #5 (see Figure 3). Consisting largely of upgrades of existing track, the project was primarily intended to create a 160-km (99.4-mi) rail link between the port of Rotterdam and the German-Dutch border. Doing so, argued the EU, would enhance Rotterdam’s status as a European transport and distribution hub, and provide a nonroad option for transport into and out of the port (European Commission, 2005). The 2005 TEN-T report predicts that “the shift from road to rail will be particularly significant along the route of the A15 line” (European Commission, 2005), which runs from Rotterdam to Nijmegen, a city near the border. Thus the EU could argue, and has argued, that the conception and construction of the Betuwe line is an example of a top-down strategy of promoting modal shifts to reduce harmful environmental impacts.
However, the Betuwe line, which opened in June 2007, has been strongly criticized by environmental nongovernmental organizations and activist groups since plans were first announced in 1991 (van der Heijden, 2006). Early criticisms were led by VLOB4, an association formed by twenty-one different residents’ organizations in neighborhoods scheduled to be affected by the line’s creation. The environmental activist group SNM5, a branch of the larger nongovernmental organization European Federation for Transport and the Environment (T&E), initially cautiously welcomed the switch from road to rail transport, but later turned against the project, arguing that the Dutch and European governments were not doing enough to make rail freight transport competitive and abate noise pollution (van der Heijden, 2006).
In June 2007 T&E published an editorial by Willem-Jan von Grondelle, a representative on SNM, summarizing the group’s arguments against the Betuwe line: The government had always made it sound so good: a freight rail link as a means of relieving the environmental impact of growing road transport. But by the early 1990s a variety of studies had demonstrated that in reality things would pan out rather differently. By providing a new track back to the German hinterland, what the Betuwe line would achieve most was improved competitiveness for the Port of Rotterdam. . . . Apart from anything else, a green transport option from Rotterdam to the hinterland already existed: river barges along the Rhine. . . . Although it now has a number of tunnels and other measures to reduce noise and ecological and landscape impacts (to some extent), there has been no effort to provide the sustainability-oriented freight transport policy the Netherlands so badly needs. . . . It is not what one would call a showcase environmental project. (European Federation for Transport and Environment,2007b)
These criticisms of the Betuwe line have taken place within the context of broader critiques of the TENs-T and of European transport policy in general. As van der Heijden (2006) writes, “By linking TENs to climate politics, habitat conservation, the preferred kind of economic growth and the very grounds for mobility, these groups [such as T&E] have opened up the discussion on the desirability of individual TENs.”
Such clashes can also be seen over the expansion of European ports and the development of the “motorways of the sea” included in the TENs-T. The EU, through the TENs-T and MARCO POLO, has promoted shifting cargo from road to sea as a way of decreasing environmental damage. But Psaraftis (2005) points out that it will be difficult to expand and maintain European ports in the face of high environmental and security standards. The creation of a potential container terminal in Dibden Bay, United Kingdom, was dropped in 2004 on environmental grounds, following a yearlong public inquiry (Psaraftis, 2005). A shipping-consulting fi rm has estimated that the average European port expansion delay because of environmental concerns is four years (Miller, 2007). In Belgium, an expansion of the Port of Antwerp had been delayed by three years, as of 2007, because of a group of activists fi ghting the destruction of Doel, a seventeenth-century village (Miller, 2007).
The arguments over ports, like the arguments over the Betuwe line, show how the EU and its critics frame the environmental impacts of transport projects differently. The EU, trying to combine environmental concerns with economic expansion, argues for the creation of more transport infrastructure, albeit less environmentally harmful infrastructure. European environmental activists, however, decry the need for both the infrastructure and the economic growth. A Dutch representative of Friends of the Earth, an environmental activism group, stated in regard to ports that “Europe just needs to buy less from Asia” (Miller, 2007). If environmental stewardship in the EU becomes seen as not simply redirecting growth but halting or reversing it, then the EU will find it difficult to convince its citizens that it incorporates environmental concerns into its transport policies.
Another line of criticism is not directed specifically at any one project, but at the goals of EU transport policy in general: namely, that it attempts to accomplish three mutually exclusive goals, in promoting economic growth, slowing or reducing harmful environmental impacts, and promoting “cohesion,” which is to say decreasing economic disparities within Europe. The last has been promoted as a goal ever since Spain and Portugal, then considerably poorer than the average EU member, joined the EU in 1986, and has increased since the admission of ten new countries in 2004 and two more in 2007. But reducing economic disparities, while maybe having social and economic benefits for Europeans, will not necessarily lead to reduced environmental impacts. Walz, Schade, and Doll summarize the confl ict neatly:
Cohesion policies are imperative to combat regional disparities. If successful, these policies result in a greater dispersion of economic activities within Europe, and counteract the centralization of activities. This gives rise to additional transportation needs, and transportation policies must accommodate these additional needs—resulting in additional CO2 emissions. (Walz,Schade, and Doll, 2007, 92)
They conclude that if the EU is to reconcile its economic and environmental goals, it should focus less on infrastructure building and more on promoting “green” transport innovations (Walz, Schade, and Doll, 2007).
The existence of the cohesion goal means that in the EU, growth in transport demand is linked not only to economic growth in the EU as a whole, but in areas lagging economically. Table 3 lists the thirty TENs-T projects, the countries in which they are set, and the funding awarded by the EU in November 2007. Those countries with an annual GDP of less than 90 percent of the EU average, and thus receiving EU funds meant to promote economic cohesion—the EU-12, plus Greece and Portugal6—are highlighted in bold.
Table 3 shows that, while nearly half of the funding went to projects involving cohesion countries, so much of the TEN-T activity is concentrated in southwest Europe that the percentage drops to under 30 percent if Portugal is removed. Indeed, a T&E press release on the 2007 funding pointed specifically to the lack of money awarded to two motorway projects largely in cohesion countries, Projects #7 and #25 (European Federation for Transport and Environment, 2007a). As we have noted, one of the largest environmental concerns at the EU level is the growth in road transport in the EU-12. It would not be surprising if the fi nancing trends of 2007 continue in the near future, with rail projects given higher priority over road projects. The question would be, then, whether such prioritizing would lead to less investment going to the less wealthy new members, undermining the EU’s “cohesion” goal.
Meanwhile, only four of the EU-12 countries—Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, and Romania—were involved in the fi fteen projects selected for funding under the 2006 round of Marco Polo selections (Millán de la Lastra, 2006). In the near future, Marco Polo funding will likely continue to be skewed toward the original fi fteen EU members, since there is greater freight activity in the wealthier member states. Again, however, the EU may find it politically difficult to balance its goals of enhancing the economic growth of its less-developed member states and of reducing the environmental harms caused by transport.
Finally, the 2006 ECORYS report, which looked at transport investment priorities and funds to promote economic and social cohesion, suggests that the twin goals of environmental sustainability and decreasing regional disparities may not be as compatible as EU policy makers would like. Comparing two different scenarios, one with maximum investment in road projects identified in the EU-12 plus Spain, Portugal, and Greece, and one with maximum investment in rail projects, some of the EU-12 would see greater increases in GDP per capita from the former. The results are summarized in Table 4.
The ECORYS analysis also suggests that the EU-12 will need sufficient funding to maintain their road networks (ECORYS, 2006). Such efforts would, again, run contrary to the EU’s efforts to promote modal shift. Improving the road network in the EU-12, even if it helps with economic growth in the short term, runs the risk of further entrenching the car as a mode of transport in those countries— and the resulting emissions. And yet refusing to fund road projects, if it is not combined with careful management of rail investment, risks stunting economic growth in the poorest part of the EU.
Conclusions
With federal transportation funding up for reauthorization in 2011, the United States will again see a debate as to optimal funding of transportation projects. This debate will likely be conducted in a context of concern about climate change and the harmful effects of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Given the European Union’s having been more willing than the United States to factor climate change concerns into planning and policy making, some American policy makers and commentators will look to the EU as a potential model. This paper has examined the ways in which the EU has incorporated concerns about environmental impacts, specifically CO2 emissions, into transport policy, specifically with the TENs-T and Marco Polo projects. It has also discussed how these policy projects have been received in the EU, and why environmental activists have not necessarily applauded the EU for its stated commitment to decrease the growth of CO2 emissions.
As we have seen, the EU has, much more explicitly than the United States, addressed goals of reducing CO2 emissions in its transport planning and policy. However, it is not clear that the EU can use the TENs-T to promote its three main goals—reducing environmental harms of transport, encouraging economic growth, and promoting socioeconomic cohesion—simultaneously. Banister et al. (2000) and the white paper (2001) both called for the “decoupling” of transport growth and economic growth, but so far the EU has not been able to make much progress in this area, and the “decoupling” goal was largely dropped from the 2006 Mid-term Review (European Environment Agency, 2007b). Moreover, a critique often voiced in European environmental discussions sees environmental preservation and economic growth as directly opposed to each other. Future infrastructure projects, even if the EU presents them as the least harmful of several alternatives, may be rejected by a polity worried that any contributions to growth can only result in further environmental damage. The TENs-T, although formulated at the EU level, are funded at the national level, and thus may be defeated by member states concerned that the EU, for all its leadership, does not place a high enough priority on the environment as opposed to economic growth. Is there a way out of this dilemma? New technologies, such as zero-emission vehicles or cleaner light rail locomotives, may help. Horn and Nemoto (2005) express a cautious optimism that the Marco Polo program, aimed at the private sector, may be able to promote and fund technological advances in intermodal freight transport. Meanwhile, Walz, Schade, and Doll (2007) suggest that the EU can establish a global competitive advantage in the development of green technological innovations. But Marco Polo has been controversial within the European Parliament (Psaraftis, 2005) and is a fairly small amount of funding to bear the burden of stimulating technological development. A suggestion more frequently heard (e.g., Banister et al., 2000) is to externalize the costs of road transport in the form of road pricing. Road pricing was originally meant as the source of funding for many of the TENs-T projects (Ross, 1998), but to date has not been implemented at the EU level or at the national level in any EU member state. The 2006 Mid-term Review called for the European Commission to create a model for calculating external costs for future infrastructure pricing projects by mid-June 2008 (CEC, 2006).
TABLE 4: Differences in GDP per capita growth between certain transport infrastructure investment scenarios (ECORYS, 2006).
The final question is what lessons American transportation and environmental planners can learn from the EU’s example. One apparent obstacle faced by the EU but not by the United States is the former’s historical lack of a designated federal role in transportation planning. Unlike the EU, whose members are still national governments asserting national priorities, the United States Department of Transportation still controls federal transportation spending, which it can use to promote or discourage certain transportation policies at the state level. As with the European countries, so the American states will find it difficult to coordinate on projects where benefits within state borders are not immediately apparent, but there is precedent for a coordinated, federally led transport policy initiative—the creation of the interstate highway system in the 1950s. The EU’s difficulty in coordinating its own environmental regulations with the differing goals of its members suggests that the United States, if it were to adopt a similar approach, would need to assert and enforce such a policy at the federal level, with federal dollars.
The antigrowth critique is currently less politically powerful in the United States than in the EU, particularly in the face of an economic downturn. However, American transport planners and infrastructure designers can learn from the EU’s need to balance competing goals. It will be difficult, even for American planners, to justify new infrastructure projects on environmental grounds, as new projects (as Banister et al. predicted with new European rail networks) may induce greater transport demand; recall that Hickman and Banister (2007) forecast transport demand as overwhelming any emissions savings from technological innovation in the United Kingdom. In creating new infrastructure projects with potential environmental harms in mind, planning for modal shift may not be enough to meet desired goals, especially if the goals are reduction in greenhouse gases. Both American and European transport planners will have to expand their arsenal of potential strategies if they are to continue to supply adequate transport infrastructure while working to minimize short- and long-term environmental damage.
JESSICA L. H. DOYLE is a doctoral student in City and Regional Planning at the Georgia Institute of Technology and will be awarded a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning in August 2009. She works as a research assistant at the Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development, focusing on the relationship between infrastructure investment and regional economic growth. Before entering graduate school Ms. Doyle worked as an editor for Economist. com, the online edition of The Economist magazine. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Notes
Hereafter this paper will refer to the ten countries that have joined since May 2004 (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) as the EU-12. The EU members who joined prior to 2004 will be referred to as the EU-15.
The relationship between increasing economic prosperity and increased car buying can be illustrated by the significant decline in car sales in multiple European countries, including the EU-12, in early 2009. The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association reported that in February 2009, 18.3 percent fewer new cars were registered in Europe compared to February 2008. The drop was 30.3 percent in the EU-12 (excluding Cyprus and Malta), including a 76.2 percent decline in Latvia, a 66.5 percent decline in Romania, and a 21.8 percent decline in Slovenia, generally considered one of the most stable and prosperous of the new member states (ACEA, 2009).
Officially the Marco Polo program can be divided into Marco Polo I, which ran between 2003 and 2006, and MARCO POLO II, which received formal funding from the EU’s 2007–13 budget. There is no substantive difference between the two in terms of aims, and so I will refer to both as Marco Polo.
Vereniging Landelijk Overleg Betuwelijn, or Association for National Deliberation of the Betuwe Line (van der Heijden, 2006).
Stichting Natuur en Milieu, or Foundation for Nature and the Environment (van der Heijden, 2006).
The original four “cohesion” countries, when the Cohesion Funds assistance program began in 1993, were Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal. Countries are ruled ineligible for such EU assistance after their annual GDP per capita increases to 100 percent of the EU average. Ireland became ineligible for cohesion funds in 2004; Spain is currently being phased out. All of the EU-12 became eligible for cohesion funds upon joining the EU.
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The Environment: Winds of Change.The Economist. 9 March 2007. <http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory. cfm?story_id=8835705> (13 January 2008).
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Santiago de Chile serves as a model for other large Latin American cities as a result of Chile’s consistent macroeconomic policies and strong economic growth. The city’s metropolitan region accounts for more than 39 percent of Chile’s gross domestic product (GDP). The country’s economic development has linked Santiago to the world economy in terms of its new economic sectors. It has become a headquarters for the main service activities of the finance sector and global innovations and products as well as a popular destination for travel and living (de Mattos, 1996). People from all over the world choose to live in Santiago as a result of its modernity, convenient transportation system, and stable, ever-strengthening economy. The city also appeals to Chilean residents, with a high concentration of capital and income and a reputation of a high quality of life. As a result, approximately 35.6 percent of the country’s population lives in Greater Santiago, at a density of 7683.1 persons per square kilometer (Schiappacasse, 1998).
This upsurge in popularity and economic success has resulted in an increasing amount of research on Chile’s development policies and their implications. A number of projects have found that the Chilean housing and urban development process in Santiago has generated social and environmental conditions that result in unequal access to urban amenities for different groups of its population. While this research identifi es the existence of inequality, little actually delves into the relation of residential segregation and transportation issues for vulnerable populations. The research that does explore this relation lacks a gendered focus of the various elements that play a role in the transportation situation of low-income women who live in the urban periphery. Such research on the most vulnerable population with the most need for reliable, affordable, and safe transportation is necessary in providing a gendered perspective to the widely implemented Chilean/Santiago model.
The research project, titled “The Transportation Barriers of the Women of Pudahuel, Santiago,” was implemented in 2006 to identify the current transportation barriers faced by female residents in lowincome social housing districts located in Santiago’s urban periphery. This article first presents a historical account of urban expansion and transportation in such low-income, peripheral locations of Santiago, providing a contextual basis for the project. It then discusses the research project and its findings, suggesting further areas of research and policy improvements.
Social and Residential Segregation in Santiago, Chile
At the end of the 1960s, a number of people settled on Santiago’s urban periphery in the form of squatter settlements. These were the campamentos, a term used to describe self-provided housing established through land invasions. During the 1970s, more than four hundred thousand people settled in campamentos on Santiago’s periphery (Fadda and Ducci, 1993).
This process ended abruptly when the public housing market was privatized in order to reduce the housing defi cit by the 1973–1989 coup-established military government. As a result, the housing construction rate increased by approximately one hundred thousand units per year, which continued through the late 1990s (Fadda, 2000). To further limit precarious settlements, land regularization and slum eradication programs were initiated in the 1979 Urban Development Policy. These programs were developed to
“promote the harmonious growth of the city and peripheral housing development” (Fada, 2000). They were directed at encouraging families to move from illegal settlements to multifamily, low-income housing districts. Between 1980 and 1987, 53,322 public housing units were constructed and designed to relocate approximately 150,000 families away from the wealthier northeast sector of the city toward the peripheral neighborhoods.
Due to the strengthening economy and social housing policies, Santiago’s urban area expanded from 35,000 to 65,000 hectares between 1979 and 1995. During this period, the population also increased by 20 percent from approximately 4 million to 4.8 million inhabitants (Fada, 2000). After the military-established government relinquished power, talks began about coordinating housing policies with the planning system, but little was actually done. While the new democratic governments increased the social housing construction rate to one hundred thousand units per year, all developments were located on the urban periphery, furthering the social and residential segregation of lower classes from the rest of the population. Currently, there are few initiatives to reduce the process of urban expansion, though resulting social and infrastructure costs are increasing at a rapid rate. For example, social housing developments on the urban periphery have caused problems for the local authority, especially in terms of extra amenities, infrastructure, and facilities. They have also added a significant burden to the residents looking to access amenities, such as work and health care, that typically exist in the central area of Santiago. This process also worsened the sociospatial segregation of the city by increasing the distance between rich and poor neighborhoods (Jiron, 1995).
Transportation Barriers for Women in Low-Income Social Housing Districts
In 1990, Chilean authorities introduced new urban transportation policies that would prioritize and modernize the existing transportation systems. Its main goals were to avoid the economic and technical collapse of the transportation system, to eventually expand routes and maintain stability in the future, and to enact licitación de recorridos. The concept of licitación de recorridos is a technical and legal tool that permits administrative authority the power to determine what types of vehicles or public transport services and their routes can be on the road during high pollution times, natural disasters, and city emergencies. Through this tool, the authority can regulate the city’s public transport when it is necessary for “public good.” It also allows the city to correct the distortions of the free market in public transport, avoid the intervention of the state when it is not needed, and still take advantage of private incentives. Through this process, Santiago has reduced the use of vehicular parking, increased the quality of service of the public transportation system, reduced pollution rates, and formalized the bus operators’ jobs (Cruz Lorenz, 2001).
These improvements to the public transportation system are evident throughout central downtown Santiago. The city’s Metro system is one of the most efficiency cient subway systems in the world. The Metro runs every minute during peak times and every minute and a half during off-peak times. The routes are efficiency planned, and connections are simple and easy to understand. Yet the Metro is more expensive than the bus system and does not extend into the majority of social housing districts located in the urban periphery. Therefore, in order to access the Metro from these distant locations, residents are forced to take a bus closer into the city center, doubling the cost of transportation each way. For the majority of women who live in these areas, this multimodal method of transportation is not an option due to increased costs. As a result, they are forced to use the much slower and less secure bus system, or if possible, walk.
“The Transportation Barriers of the Women of Pudahuel, Santiago”
This research project was initiated in 2006 to identify the transportation barriers of female residents of Pudahuel, a social housing district on Santiago’s urban periphery, while accessing work and health care. Given the influx of women in the Chilean workforce, coupled with existing gender expectations of females to continue to rear the children, female residents are in need of an efficiency cient, affordable, and safe transportation system.
Methodology The project consisted of 130 surveys distributed to female residents of Pudahuel at local bus stops and community health centers throughout the area. Two focus groups were also implemented, as well as two individual interviews. All methodology was utilized to assess existing safety and affordability barriers of the Santiago transportation system. It also aimed to identify individual variables that heightened these barriers, including income level, number of children, distance from home to work and to health care facilities, and mode of transportation.
Pudahuel, the research focus area, is the third-poorest district of Santiago and 17th out of 134 districts for drug use and crime. Between 1989 and 1994, 17,000 new public housing units were built; today, 32.1 percent of residents live below the poverty line (Zegras, 2005). The following segment of the article presents research findings and addresses four critical needs of the females surveyed.
Findings
50.5 percent of participants were married, 33.1 percent were single, and 11.4 percent were separated.
33.8 percent worked a formal job for income, 15.4 percent were currently looking for a job, 34.5 percent identified themselves as “stay-at-home moms,” 5.4 percent were students, and 10.9 percent worked informal jobs or were living off of a pension.
60.3 percent worked the normal day shift, 4.1 percent worked the night shift, 15.1 percent worked only during the morning, 6.8 percent worked only during the afternoon, and 13.7 percent worked a combination of shifts.
Child-friendly transportation services While the range of ages of women surveyed was broad, the majority of women fell between the ages of thirty and forty-five. Many of those surveyed and interviewed in this age group identified a need for more child-friendly public transportation systems. Among the needs listed were increased stroller accessibility, modes of transportation, and policies that accommodate and give preferential seating room to mothers with young children, and safety issues. The majority of women living in Pudahuel use the bus more than the child-friendly Metro to access work and medical centers. Seventy-four percent of the women surveyed use the bus to access work, while 38 percent use the bus to access health care. Buses present certain difficulties for females accompanied by young passengers, especially during peak hours, when the bus is overcrowded and the majority of passengers are forced to stand. The limits of carrying and watching children on the bus are exacerbated when there is more than one child. Eighty-five percent of the women who were surveyed had more than one child, and 18 percent had more than four.
While “unofficial” bus policy is for people to give up their seats to women with young children, this usually does not occur. Therefore, many women are forced to carry their children and groceries, be aware of others and “pickpocketing,” and steady their balance while traveling for long periods of time. Some form of official policy must exist that designates “child-friendly” seating, especially during peak hours, which would make the journey much more comfortable and safe for women traveling with young children.
Reduced fares for low-income families Seventy-eight percent of the women surveyed had between three and six people living in the same household, all supported by the same income. The majority of women, 53 percent, had a monthly familial income under 39,678 pesos ($79.00), while 26.5 percent had a monthly familial income between 39.678 and 67.658 pesos (between $79.00 and $135.00). These findings indicate a demand for transportation policy that allows discounts for those who can identify need based on a monthly income. As stated above, findings indicate that the majority of women would prefer to use a multimodal transportation system but are unable due to increased costs of the Metro. They are forced to take the much slower, less safe, and less reliable bus system. For example, 65 percent of the women surveyed used the bus to travel to work, 9 percent walked, 3 percent biked, and no women reported using the Metro. To access medical centers, 53.1 percent walked, 37.7 percent took the bus, 4.6 percent drove, and no women reported using the Metro. During the focus groups, the women stated that even the bus becomes very expensive without any form of discount for low-income families. In one case, almost 30 percent of a participant’s income went to travel-related expenses to and from work every week. With these situations, women surveyed were unable to save extra money and, in many cases, provide for their families. Research findings indicate a dire need for reduced fares for low-income families in order to access work and health care.
Extension of the METRO to Pudahuel and economic development
Of the women surveyed, 22.1 percent spent one hour traveling to work, 33.8 percent spent one to two hours, and 25 percent spent more than two hours. In terms of accessing medical centers, 49 percent of the women spent less than 20 minutes, 36 percent spent 20 to 40 minutes, 11.5 percent spent 40 to 60 minutes, and 4 percent spent over an hour. (It must be noted that the women were surveyed in medical centers around Pudahuel, which is probably why the majority of women spent less time accessing medical centers than accessing work.)
The amount of time women from Pudahuel spend commuting to work each day.
The extension of the Trans Santiago Metro into Pudahuel would decrease the majority of women’s time spent traveling to work. As stated above, due to the inaccessibility of the Metro, the majority of women are forced to use the bus system, which poses longer trip times due to the number of informal stops and reduced speed capability. While the Metro was extended into other urban peripheral comunas, such as Florida to the south and Las Condes to the north, these comunas generate higher familial incomes and are undergoing more economic changes than Pudahuel. Malls, restaurants, and business offices abound in these locations, while they are still relatively absent from Pudahuel. As a result, the projected majority of users of the Metro in Pudahuel are its residents. Because a large number of residents would not be able to afford a ticket without reduced fares, the private transportation system would not generate enough revenue. This scenario reduces any likelihood that the Metro will be extended until a variety of land uses and increased economic appear in and around Pudahuel.
Women’s perceptions of the risk associated with being involved in an accident during commute to work.
Improved safety features The main emphasis of this research project was to determine the perceived level of safety of female residents of Pudahuel when accessing work and medical centers. “Safety” was categorized into two areas, one in regard to delinquency (described as robbery and assault), the other in regard to traffic accidents (described as drivers’ capability and attention to the road). In terms of delinquency, 47.1 percent of women felt very unsafe when they traveled to work, 35.7 percent felt unsafe, 12.9 percent felt safe, and 4.3 percent felt very safe. When accessing medical centers, 38 percent felt very unsafe, 37 percent felt unsafe, 23.1 percent felt safe, and 2 percent felt very safe.
Women’s perception of risk associated with delinquency during their commute to work.
This data shows low levels of perceived safety by women when using the transportation systems. Many of the women who were interviewed in the focus groups and personal interviews had encountered some sort of violent experience while using the bus system or walking to and from the bus stop, or knew someone who had experienced violence. Such experiences were described as harassment, assault, and rape. Improved lighting around the stops, increased patrol watch, and more formal and centralized stops would provide for a safer environment while the women waited for the bus.
In terms of traffic accidents, 45.7 percent felt unsafe while traveling to work, 37.1 percent felt very unsafe, 10 percent felt safe, and 7.1 percent felt very safe. While accessing medical centers, 42.3 percent felt unsafe, 28 percent felt very unsafe, 27 percent felt safe, and 2 percent felt very safe. Many of the women interviewed expressed concern with the operators collecting money while they drove, swerving around cars, not paying attention to the road, and driving at higher speeds than the posted limit. Policy must be aimed at improving operators’ abilities to concentrate while driving and at enforcing bus compliance with speed limits. Strict fi nes should be imposed on bus operators who exceed the legal speed limit and who disobey traffic laws. In order to improve concentration, money collection systems should be set up in order for the operator to have the sole responsibility of paying attention to the road.
Conclusion
The transportation system throughout Santiago is undergoing significant changes as a result of an increasing population and economic development improvements. Residents who live in and around the city in wealthier comunas, such as Las Condes, have the opportunity to utilize the newly improved bus and efficiency cient Metro subway systems. As a result, they can enjoy shorter rides and waiting times, safer and cleaner environments while traveling, and increased accessibility throughout the city. As the city and private market strive to improve the bus systems to encourage multimodal transportation, Santiago’s transportation system is serving as a model for other international developing cities. Yet what is neither depicted nor explored are the transportation and day-to-day experiences of residents who cannot afford to live near the Metro lines and whose bus systems have not been improved as a result of their distance from the city center. The paradox with this relationship is that these are the residents who need affordable, safe, and efficiency cient transportation the most. They are the ones traveling the farthest distances in the poorest areas. Furthermore, little research has been conducted regarding these inefficiency ciencies of the peripheral transportation system. The majority of existing research concentrates on the transportation problems and improvements related to the downtown center and Metro lines.
In order to improve the transportation systems in areas that exist along the urban periphery, more interdisciplinary research must occur regarding the residents who live in these areas, the land use and development that is occurring in these areas, and the creation of transportation/land use models that will benefit both the residents and economy. Only then will the improvement process begin for decreasing transportation costs and trip times, and increasing safety and accessibility measures for the women who live in these areas, such as Pudahuel.
MARISA FERRARI BALLAS entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 2001 and completed her degrees in English and Spanish literature. During her undergraduate education, Marisa was employed at a brownfield redevelopment consulting firm in Detroit, Michigan. In 2005, Marisa entered the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her M.S. in Community and Regional Planning in the spring of 2007. During her graduate career, she traveled to Santiago, Chile, to perform research on transportation and environmental design to examine safety issues for low-income residents of peripheral communities.
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Zegras, Christopher Pericles.Sustainable Urban Mobility:Exploring the Role of the Built Environment. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005.
In spring semester 2008, students in CRP 386: Applied Geographic Information Systems (GIS) conducted a participatory study of risk and vulnerability associated with flooding in an informal housing settlement in Santo Domingo Norte, Dominican Republic. The course was part of a new research and service learning relationship between the city of Santo Domingo Norte, the School of Architecture, and the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo that was initiated in summer 2007 by Dr. Kent Butler. There was also collaboration between University of Texas at Austin faculty in the School of Public Policy, Geography, Anthropology, and Latin American Studies. The intent of the ongoing partnership is to provide technical assistance to planning institutions in Santo Domingo and to create opportunities for fi eld research to students concerned with development planning in Latin America.
Following a series of meetings with the Dominican National Council on Urban Issues (CONAU), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the Dominican Republic, and community leaders in Los Platanitos, Dr. Bjorn Sletto developed a pilot project to document risk and vulnerability of people living in the community of Los Platanitos, an informal housing settlement located on a low-lying former landfill in the municipality of Santo Domingo Norte. The project focused on the social and health implications of the defining geographical feature of Los Platanitos, a large drainage ditch, also known as a cañada, which runs through the community. The cañada was at one time a natural creek, but in recent years it has been lined with concrete and, in places, covered with a cement cap. Because of inadequate sewage and solid waste management, the former creek is now severely contaminated with garbage and blackwater. When it rains, water laced with sewage and chemicals floods the houses that line the cañada, leading to high levels of gastrointestinal disorders and respiratory diseases.
The ten students enrolled in CRP 386 began their study of Los Platanitos in the winter of 2007 in classrooms at UT. They then traveled to the community to conduct field work in early 2008 and returned to UT for more class-based analysis. They later returned to Santo Domingo to present their preliminary work and get feedback from the residents of Los Platanitos and government planning officials. This entire interactive process was of key importance to the project and allowed the students to engage in an ongoing dialogue with community members and planning officials in Santo Domingo.
The research team used a mixed-methods approach that incorporated both quantitative and qualitative analyses. Mixed-method research transcends the traditional “qualitative-quantitative” divide and also combines multiscalar analyses and perspectives. A mixed-method approach is the hallmark of the Rapid Rural Assessment (RRA) design of this project. RRA is a commonly used approach for conducting quick assessments of the social and environmental issues facing marginalized communities. Rapid risk assessment, which draws on the principles of RRA, attempts to identify the nature and level of environmental risks (such as flooding) in a given area and to determine what individuals or groups are more vulnerable to these risks. Time constraints require that RRA practitioners efficiency and effectively identify major risk factors within a very limited period of time, and rapidly develop methods to study the impacts of these risks on different social groups and individuals. In this way, this approach is quite radical in that it goes against the rigid divisions of knowledge production found in academic institutions. Additionally, because RRA practitioners often have limited knowledge about local conditions, a mixed-method approach allows researchers on the RRA team to share information and data and critically evaluate each others’ work. A theoretical framework based on the precepts of social justice, critical development, and the application of mixed methods offers a more comprehensive and integral approach to the study of development and poverty. As such, this type of research moves beyond simply a technical evaluation of the physical conditions of a community. Instead, a mixed-methods approach helped the researchers better understand the various environmental, historical, social, economic, and political factors that may be contributing—in different ways—to the everyday realities of informal settlements in Santo Domingo by integrating the community’s local knowledge and experience.
The project drew on the theoretical framework of political ecology and developed a blend of research methods, including participatory mapping, architectural surveys, and ethnography, to document the flooding problem in Los Platanitos. In order to maximize time in the fi eld, the students were organized into three teams—physical survey, geographic information systems (GIS) and mapping, and social documentation—each working at a different scale and with different types of data in order to develop a comprehensive analysis of the challenges confronting the community. This article will explore the ways in which GIS was used to represent the local knowledge gathered in the fi eld and to meet the theoretical and practical goals of the research team.
GIS and Mapping
Mapping and GIS are essential tools in RRA, helping facilitate participatory fi eld research and comprehensive analysis and dissemination of spatial data. GIS can be used to conduct preliminary analysis of the study area, and also to document local knowledge of neighborhood boundaries, locations of hazards and economic activity, and distribution of social characteristics at different scales. Information on buildings and infrastructure can be incorporated in GIS and analyzed to assess structural quality and spatial relationships. This allows local communities and governments to make better-informed policy decisions. The goal of utilizing GIS technology in this study was to document the local knowledge of the community of Los Platanitos and utilize it when creating maps, documents, and analyses of geographic and social characteristics. This information could then be taken to local governing and planning bodies to help inform the decision-making process on projects that may alleviate some of the risk and vulnerability faced by the community of Los Platanitos.
Like all parts of this project, the GIS-based analysis started before any of the students had visited Los Platanitos. The first step of the GIS analysis was a data-gathering process that involved the compilation of spatial data from various sources in Santo Domingo, in particular GIS shapefiles produced by CONAU. These fi les gave the research team an initial understanding of the geographical and demographic makeup of Santo Domingo, but they were of limited use due to the variances in scale between city data and the local community. To produce larger-scale spatial data on Los Platanitos, the team captured aerial images from Google Earth before traveling to Santo Domingo. These aerial images were added to the GIS program ESRI ArcGIS 9.2 and georeferenced to match (overlay) the data fi les provided by CONAU. After this, a grid was superimposed on top of the medium-scale image, which allowed the team to disassemble the larger image into grid sections and reproduce these in a map book. The primary reasons for creating the map book were to help student researchers orient themselves in the fi eld and to correctly mark locations of important points, which would later be digitized and used to create the final maps.
Once the small-scale map books were created, a series of large maps (forty inches by sixty inches) were printed from the georeferenced images. They were printed at various scales: a larger, regional map, a medium-scale map encompassing the Los Platanitos neighborhood and the surrounding area, and a more detailed map of the neighborhood itself. A variety of map types were created so that the different research teams, working at different scales in the analysis, would have a choice in which maps to use. The GIS team would use the book to record hydrographic data, footprints of buildings, public spaces, important locations, and other data. The map books would also allow each team member to record significant locations and locations where photos were taken. Worksheets were designed to facilitate data management and correspondence between locations on the maps and the data.
The GIS mapping team worked on the largest (regional) scale of all the teams to better understand the context of the flooding and solid waste problem as well as other conditions of the community. Before leaving for Santo Domingo the GIS team had georeferenced aerial photography of the area into the GIS program. The team also formulated a list of features in the community that they wished to identify with community members once they were in the fi eld. These included locations that are important for everyday life in the community, such as businesses, residences, and public places, and also features relevant to the flooding problem, such as the locations of storm drains or the various branches and other features of the cañada.
Field Work
Once in Los Platanitos, GIS team members utilized the various maps for different aspects of their fi eld work. The first step was a participatory mapping exercise where community members drew boundaries of the Los Platanitos neighborhood to help define the study area. Community members distinguished the community of Los Platanitos from the surrounding neighborhoods. These boundaries were also essential for the social documentation team, which performed a community survey based on a random sampling of households in the study area. After this, students developed, with community participants, methods and techniques that would assist in identifying important community resources by way of these images. This participatory action method was essential in building the framework of the GIS mapping project and built teamwork between students and the community. The goal was to have the local residents “own” the maps and actively participate in compiling data that were relevant to the community’s needs.
The next task was working with community members to trace the roads and the footprints of buildings, and to mark important nonresidential locations, which we categorized as either commercial or public spaces. The methodology in the fi eld was straightforward. The student GIS team members walked around Los Platanitos with community members who helped identify the important locations and features of the neighborhood. Most streets and alleys of the neighborhood were marked on the aerial photos, as were stores, churches, and public areas. Each entry’s information, such as ownership, purpose, and condition of the structure, was recorded on the worksheets. The data recorded on the worksheets helped build the GIS shapefile attribute tables once the students returned to UT.
Important hydrological features in the watershed upstream and downstream from the cañada, along with areas of impermeable surfaces around the community, were documented. Specifically, lagoons, rivers, areas of water accumulation, and points where water entered the cañada were recorded. Additionally, community members were consulted in the recording of the highest flood level they remembered, specifically in the aftermath of Hurricane George in 1998. These data helped determine the floodplain in the area. Dates of flooding were recorded to distinguish between catastrophic floods and common, annual floods that occur during the rainy season. Community participants also helped the research team understand the flows and accumulations of water that lead to heavy flooding, and at which areas the cañada is inundated with trash that impedes the fl ow of water.
Back at UT
After returning from the fi eld, the GIS team compiled data from what they had gathered, as well as data from the other two research teams, and transferred them to GIS using various methods. While the GIS team was mapping important community features and the floodplain, the environmental survey team was working in a smaller scale by documenting, measuring, and drawing the cañada and its immediate surroundings as well as assessing the quality of the structures of the houses. The physical survey team focused on the material and cultural landscape of the one-kilometer-long cañada itself. The social documentation team performed a community survey questionnaire based in part on the official census of the Dominican Republic throughout Los Platanitos. Their goal was to collect data on the social reality of community members, in particular focusing on the impact of the flooding on the living conditions of the people they surveyed. All three of the teams’ data were incorporated into the GIS platform once the teams had returned to UT.
Boundaries and roads drawn by community members and the qualitative research team were digitized over the georeferenced images. Meticulously documented features of the physical environment, including measuring the channel depth and width and all the buildings lining the channel and photographed taken by the physical survey team were georeferenced. Excel spreadsheets with data from the household survey were joined with the shapefile of survey boundaries, and also with shapefiles of the upper and lower regions of Los Platanitos. This allowed the team to produce maps showing spatial distributions of social characteristics. Building footprints were digitized and information was added to that shapefile’s attribute table to distinguish between different land uses and displayed the names of buildings and their structural quality. The worksheets filled out for each recorded feature contained the pertinent information that was included in the attribute tables. Initial maps of the road network, maximum flood levels, the regional hydrography, and points of water entry and fl ow from the area were produced to bring back to the community for their feedback.
Back to Los Platanitos
All of the maps and representations of the data gathered during the fieldwork were compiled for the community when the research team returned to Los Platanitos in the spring of 2008. The entire research team was well aware of the profound effects that mapping and representations of place can have on the relationships between people and their lands. The points, lines, and areas on maps can suggest a finality and a legitimacy to land tenure issues that may, in fact, be in considerable flux and contention. The symbols and text can imply, in the selection of shapes and language, the importance of one culture over another. The fact that these maps were the first maps ever produced of Los Platanitos made the return trip an important and crucial step in the development process of this research.
With preliminary findings in hand, the students returned to Santo Domingo to present maps, posters, and an initial report to the residents of Los Platanitos, representatives of the municipality, scholars from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD), and NGOs engaged in the project. Additional fieldwork was conducted to fi ne-tune and further develop initial research. A roundtable discussion was held with the various actors to foster an open dialogue about the problems facing the cañada.
The physical survey team drawings that had been transferred into maps and diagrams using AutoCAD, ArcGIS, and PhotoShop were used in participatory workshops where community members identified areas of solid waste buildup and flooding, places where children play, and unsafe locations. Maps created with data gathered during the fieldwork were essential during the second field trip, when students walked with a hydraulic engineer and community members to gather further regional and water flow data. The students also worked with community members to field check all the maps, including the building footprints and important nonresidential locations, and to confirmed rm the quality of the roads and alleyways in detail.
More importantly, the students and community members held a roundtable discussion and presentation of the research findings with city officials and NGO representatives at the CONAU. This dialogue was a vital step in integrating the research findings, community concerns, and perspectives of the municipality and NGOs into a cohesive framework that could be applied to conduct further risk and vulnerability assessments in Los Platanitos and other cañadas. The GIS-based maps were used in a powerful way to convey local knowledge about the causes and effects of the flooding and sanitary and solid waste issues present in the community of Los Platanitos. The open, unprecedented dialogue between residents of Los Platanitos, city officials, and NGO representatives was one of most important achievements of the class project. The roundtable discussion during this follow-up trip provided a crucial opportunity for community members, students, municipal and university officials, and nonprofit representatives to discuss the future of the project in Los Platanitos as a whole. In conjunction with the roundtable discussion, students facilitated a community visioning workshop to develop a community-based plan for social and environmental improvements in Los Platanitos.
The visioning process was chosen as a way of widening the lens with which both the researchers and the residents were approaching the problems facing the cañada. The deliberations were informed by an important question posed by a community leader during the roundtable discussion: “So, now what?” Whereas the other facets of our mixed-methods approach had been used primarily to collect data on existing conditions within the community, the visioning process was aimed at uncovering the future possibilities imagined by the residents and placing them before the collective.
The model was comprised of three core components, which were conducted in sequence:
developing the community’s vision of the ideal neighborhood environment;
identifying the existing resources within the community that were available at different scales; and
creating an action plan that combines the components of the vision identified in step one with the resources identified in step two.
All activities were facilitated over the course of two days within a local church in order to accommodate seating for the participants. Residents who took part in the activity were notified through word of mouth by the researchers and the project community partners, and were generally representative of the demographic makeup identified through the household survey. Several of the participants had not taken part in any of the previous project-related activities, and therefore provided perspectives that were potentially less biased by project parameters. Since residents had responded favorably to the use of images to represent ideas in the initial January focus groups, one of the students in the qualitative research team drew graphic representations of community responses.
The visioning process was an open-ended activity where residents were asked to disregard any perceived financial, political, or logistical constraints and instead imagine what their ideal community would be like. The task was initiated with a minute of silence, when participants closed their eyes to envision the community they would like to live in. After completing the moment of silence and opening their eyes, participants were asked to look at a blank sheet of white poster paper on the wall in front of them and share their visions with the group so that they could be added to the poster.
Ideas began to pour forward, and each one was noted in words and graphics as it was presented to the group. Community members did not hesitate to propose specific components of an ideal community, and clearly justified the significance of each factor. As each proposal was presented, the group was given time to consider the relationships between the different factors and to discuss their roles and significance in the overall vision. This method proved useful for facilitating the discussion of local needs on a larger scale, both in spatial and social senses.
After residents were satisfied with the vision components, they were asked to consider the resources (both capital and social) that existed within the community. Key goals of this activity were to consider and identify resources in order to create the action plan in the third step of the process, and to widen the scope of the community’s area of reference when developing their planning strategy. Residents were asked to list local resources first, then municipal, national, and international resources, respectively. The final phase of the visioning process consisted of the drafting of a planning framework. Participants were guided to consider who would be in charge of leading the actions for each objective, what the specific action would be, and when they would achieve it. A comprehensive strategic plan was not attempted; however, residents worked through several goal-specific plans with an emphasis on becoming familiar with the model in order to replicate it for a variety of community development needs.
Further GIS Work
The mixed methods and public participation used by the research team allowed the community participants’ local knowledge and desires for their community be represented in a powerful way to local officials and representatives of various groups. The second trip to Los Platanitos was essential for fi ne-tuning the data collected and analyzed by the team during the first trip. It also allowed the students and community members to connect the local knowledge with policy makers. Upon return to UT, parts of the GIS shapesfi les and spatial analysis were adjusted based on community feedback received during the second trip. Finally, the GIS team attempted to construct a 3-D representation of the community using ArcScene. Physical attribute and structural information collected by the physical survey team about each building was joined to the shapefile containing the buildings in the community. ArcScene was used to interpolate a digital elevation model of Santo Domingo provided by CONAU, which allowed the team to “drape” all of the shapefiles over the resulting 3-D surface. The building heights were then “extruded” from the building footprint layer and the physical survey drawings for 3-D display. 3-D modeling allowed the team to better visualize the elevation differences between the upper and lower regions of the neighborhood, and to more effectively represent water flows and areas at greater risk of flooding. This representation, combined with the other data collected, informed the research team’s final report. The report provided detailed steps that could be taken by policy makers to asses and lessen the risk and vulnerability posed by flooding and other issues to the community of Los Platanitos and others in the region. GIS allowed the team to locate and analyze Los Platanitos in several layers of analysis, including within the larger watershed and floodplain, in a social context, and with details about the built environment of the community. The final class products included 2-D and 3-D GIS maps, architectural drawings of the cañada and the built environment, posters, photography, and life stories, which combined to paint a profound picture of the social and environmental conditions in Los Platanitos.
The students also created a model for rapid assessment of cañadas that is being implemented throughout Santo Domingo. The city of Santo Domingo Norte is developing infrastructure projects to address the serious conditions in Los Platanitos. However, the project was more than a technical exercise: it was also an opportunity to demonstrate the enthusiasm and talent of the CRP program in a real-world setting while also illuminating ways in which GIS-based analysis can assist in risk and vulnerability assessments in informal settlements. Students were also able to participate in efforts to resolve a complicated planning issue and witness the very real ramifi cations of environmental risk. Developing and implementing multidisciplinary research methods in a limited time frame was an invaluable learning experience for the students. It also proved a beneficial experience to be able to incorporate the local knowledge of the Los Platanitos community in the search for effective solutions to decrease the risk and vulnerability of the people living there.
This project was made possible through a Mebane Grant provided by the School of Architecture, with additional funding from the Department of Geography, the LBJ School of Public Policy, and the Institute for Latin American Studies. The students included David Baumann, master’s student in public affairs; Monica Bosquez, master’s student in Community and Regional Planning, and Latin American studies; Meredith Bossin, master’s student in Community and Regional Planning, and Latin American studies; Erin
E. Daley, master’s student in public affairs and Latin American studies; Rosa E. Donoso, master’s student in Community and Regional Planning; Maritza Kelley, master’s student in public affairs and Latin American studies; Solange Muñoz, doctoral student in geography; Dana Stovall, master’s student in Community and Regional Planning and Latin American studies; Shawn M. Strange, master’s student in Community and Regional Planning; and Martin Thomen, master’s student in Community and Regional Planning. The project was led by Professor Dr. Bjørn Sletto of the graduate program of Community and Regional Planning at the University of Texas at Austin.
MARTIN THOMEN is a recent Community and Regional Planning graduate (May 2008). He earned a masters in CRP with a transportation planning specialization and also has a BA and BS from UT Austin. He currently works as a transportation planner.
SHAWN M. STRANGE is studying for a Master of Science degree in Community and Regional Planning at The University of Texas at Austin’s School of Architecture. He is engaged in economic development research at both the national and international level. His interests are sustainable development in transitioning economies and the integration of informal economies into rapidly urbanizing regions. He is also focused on social equity by way of transportation accessibility. Prior to graduate study, he worked as a Corporate Relations Associate for the Council of the Americas and as a Program Specialist for the 2005 Texas Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Strike Force. He earned a BBA in International Business/ Spanish and is the Co-Founder and Career Development Chair of the Society for International Planning and Public Policy (SIPPP) at UT Austin.