URBANFUTURES.Multiplevisions,pathsandconstructions?

14th N‐AERUS / GISDECO Conference. Enschede 12th to 14th September 2013 

BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

 

  

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Contents A1............................................................................................................................................................. 4 

Will urban agriculture survive the growth of African cities? A case‐study in Kampala (Uganda) ....... 4 

The role of spatial information in planning future urban green space: a study of Kuala Lumpur ...... 4 

Modelling urbanization and flooding in Kampala, Uganda ................................................................. 4 

B1 ............................................................................................................................................................. 5 

Facing the socio‐economic crises after 2011 revolution: The Egyptian informal sector between 

housing policies, state partners and reality ........................................................................................ 5 

Stop the evictions! The diffusion of networked social movements and the emergence of a new 

hybrid public space .............................................................................................................................. 5 

Impoverishment Assessment of Slum Dwellers after In Situ and Off‐Site Relocations: A Case Of 

Indore .................................................................................................................................................. 5 

C1 ............................................................................................................................................................. 6 

Bivariate Moran’s I and LISA to explore the Accidents Risky Locations in Urban Areas ..................... 6 

Exploring the utility of a spatially‐constrained accessibility measure in integrating urban cycling and 

land‐use in Pune, India ........................................................................................................................ 6 

New (Dis)connection: A Local Interpretation of Transformed Road Infrastructure ........................... 6 

A2............................................................................................................................................................. 7 

Analysing Sub‐Standard Areas Using High Resolution Remote (Vhr) Sensing Imagery ...................... 7 

Modelling the Impacts of Urban Upgrading onto Population Dynamics in Informal Settlements ..... 7 

Urban Context Modelling for Human Sensor Web ............................................................................. 7 

B2 ............................................................................................................................................................. 8 

Water urbanism in Bogotá. Exploring the Interplay Between Settlement Patterns and Water 

Management ....................................................................................................................................... 8 

Accessing Water Services in Dar Es Salaam: Stories From Formal and Informal Actors ..................... 8 

How Corruption Stifles Problem Framing and Responsive Governance. The Case of Water and 

Health Services in Tanzania ................................................................................................................. 8 

Knowledge Building in Adaptation Management: Concertacion processes in transforming Lima 

water and climate change governance ............................................................................................... 8 

C2 ............................................................................................................................................................. 9 

The Presence Of Local Specific Culture In Future‐Globalized Cities – The Case Of Jakarta ................ 9 

Inclusive and clean cities with participatory sustainable solid waste management .......................... 9 

Governance processes over the provision of local facilities for sustainable residential 

neighbourhoods – challenges and potentials: case studies in Aleppo, Syria ...................................... 9 

A3........................................................................................................................................................... 10 

Spatial Metrics and Image Texture for Slum Detection .................................................................... 10 

 

  

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Geographical Information System an Approach for the Development of Slums and Deteriorating 

areas in Cairo, Egypt. ......................................................................................................................... 10 

B3 ........................................................................................................................................................... 10 

Health‐related inequalities in the global north and south – A framework for spatially explicit 

environmental justice indicators ....................................................................................................... 10 

Spatialising risk in a Mexican urban fringe: towards understanding how different risk/ hazards 

reinforce inequalities and poverty, working through Local Volunteered Geographical Information 

(VGI) ................................................................................................................................................... 11 

Urban Growth and Assessment of Its Natural and Socio‐economic Risks in High Mountain 

Ecosystems: A Geospatial Framework for Institutionalizing Urban Risk Management in Himalaya' 11 

D1 .......................................................................................................................................................... 12 

GIS, Social Media and Simulation in integrated ICT solutions for Urban Futures ............................. 12 

Introducing the Conductor: Approaching VGI from the Perspective of Geographic Context ........... 12 

Urban Visions of the Excluded. Experiences of globalisation in Lusaka, Zambia .............................. 12 

A4........................................................................................................................................................... 12 

My House, My Life: Decision‐making processes, participation, and local citizen spatial knowledge in 

housing project Minha Casa, Minha Vida in Salvador da Bahia ........................................................ 12 

Digital tools for planning Chennai metropolitan region: The (mis)Matching Virtual GIS Generated 

City and Ground Realities .................................................................................................................. 13 

Ordering Informality: does slum mapping with GIS in India’s RAY programme contribute to 

legitimacy, accountability and spatial justice? .................................................................................. 13 

C3 ........................................................................................................................................................... 13 

Mapping spatial discourses in urban water governance in Durban  – South Africa ......................... 13 

When visions for better urban futures development are turned into practice. The case of the 

Acahualinca Development Programme in Managua, Nicaragua ...................................................... 14 

Dramatic deviation and public accountability in the developing city ............................................... 14 

D2 .......................................................................................................................................................... 14 

Instrumentos de análisis para la evaluación participativa de procesos de transformación físico‐

social. El caso de Pikine Irregular Sur, Dakar ..................................................................................... 14 

Conflictos, incertidumbres y futuro de la regulación urbana en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires ............ 15 

A5........................................................................................................................................................... 15 

Spatial knowledge management in urban local government: Emerging issues in ICT‐GIS‐based 

systems in India, Brazil, South Africa, and Peru ................................................................................ 15 

The challenge of housing the poor:  stakeholders, politics and knowledge use in the decision‐

making process of the N2 Gateway housing project in Cape Town. ................................................. 15 

Embedding trans‐disciplinary approaches to strategic urban expansion planning through combined 

methods in a context of weak institutional capacity: experience of Huambo, Angola. ................... 16 

C4 ........................................................................................................................................................... 16 

 

  

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Living Incrementally: the possible futures of self‐help compound housing in Greater Accra .......... 16 

Participation as Political Strategy: Experiences in Mumbai’s Un‐recognized Communities ............. 17 

Openness may not mean Democratization – e‐grievance systems in their consequences .............. 17 

D3 .......................................................................................................................................................... 18 

Condiciones de la expansión y configuración del área metropolitana de Bogotá:Perspectiva 

socioeconómica y ambiental. ............................................................................................................ 18 

Movilidad y territorio. Revisando el sesgo “materialista” en la gestión de políticas urbanas .......... 18 

Una Propuesta de Política y Construcción del Sistema Local de Desarrollo Urbano. El caso de la 

Municipalidad de Marília – Brasil. ..................................................................................................... 18 

 

 

  

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A1

Will urban agriculture survive the growth of African cities? A case-study in Kampala (Uganda) Karolien Vermeiren

Urban farming is a widespread and important survival strategy in many African cities. However, while urban farming is currently under strong pressure due to extensive urban growth, there is not yet a clearly defined view on how to deal with these activities in urban planning and management. By making use of GIS we can develop urban growth scenarios that offer useful information to evaluate the effect of future urban growth on the future liveability of urban farming in these cities.

For our case study Kampala we developed three scenarios based on the to main city growth mechanisms: infill and sprawl, whereby the one or the other overrules or both are in balance. Urban farming in Kampala comprises different types: subsistence, garden and commercial urban farming. Each of these has its own spatial organisation logic and specific interaction with urban expansion. The evaluation of the spatial impact of the different urban growth scenarios on these different urban farming practices showed that a continued urban sprawl of the city fragments large open spaces and thereby interferes with the typical farming locations of subsistence farming while urban infilling, on the other hand, decreases the opportunities for small to medium scale garden and commercial farming. The results of the analyses are useful for urban planners as they give insight in the potential future effects of proposed planning strategies on urban farming.

The role of spatial information in planning future urban green space: a study of Kuala Lumpur Neil Stuart

It is widely accepted that the future provision of adequate amounts of urban green space may be as important to the long term sustainability and livability of cities as the provision of more basic types of infrastructure. However, the pace of city growth in many parts of Asia and South America has meant that planning for green space is often overlooked or considered a lesser priority.

We argue that this need not be the case given the wide availability of higher resolution remotely sensed data and other digital spatial data now available for many cities of the global South. In this study, we surveyed Malaysian planning professionals to understand which types of green infrastructure they thought it valuable to recognise in Kuala Lumpur and then explored how this information could be supplied from existing cadastral databases and from high resolution satellite data. The study demonstrated the feasibility of mapping many environmental functions of the green infrastructure from these sources and indicated the need for ground surveys or street level imagery for recording other social or amenity functions. The spatial information produced showed how the picture of the available green space was very dependent on which types of land use were considered as ‘green’, revealed inequalities in the supply of green space within different areas of the city and, at a deeper level, sometimes exposed actions on the ground that were contradictory to the official planning policies aimed at recognising and safeguarding urban green space for the future.

Modelling urbanization and flooding in Kampala, Uganda Richard Sliuzas

Like many of cities in sub-Saharan Africa, Kampala is undergoing rapid urbanization that is expected to continue for several decades. Recent projections are that the population of the greater Kampala region will grow from about 3.5 million to as much as 8-10 million by 2040. Such growth places substantial pressure on the local governments in terms of city planning and development, particularly given the degree of urban poverty and the amounts of informal development that are already found in the city. Developing tools to be able to model the likely form of this hybrid planned-unplanned city could contribute to better urban management practices. Climate change is also expected to aggravate Kampala’s flooding problems and here too, modelling tools can provide insights into the severity of flooding in the city, and its impacts on vulnerable groups. This paper describes on-going work as part of UN-HABITAT’s Cities and Climate Change Initiative to increase Kampala’s resilience to flooding. The project has adopted a modelling approach that uses a spatial logistic regression tool to model the drivers of urban development and the likely spatial outcomes of growth, and a cell based, open-source dynamic model (LISEM) to model flooding impacts. The degree of surface sealing due to construction and infrastructure is a major determinant of surface water runoff and therefore of flooding. The results clearly show that flooding problems can only be effectively tackled in conjunction with improved control over the location and form of urban development, which is also a more immediate concern. Modelling tools help decision making by revealing the interdependencies between these two related issues but they also reveal the uncertainties associated with modelling in data poor environments.

 

  

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B1

Facing the socio-economic crises after 2011 revolution: The Egyptian informal sector between housing policies, state partners and reality Doaa A S Abouelmagd, Yasser H Sakr

In 2011, Egypt among other Arab countries has experienced an uprising against the former political system, known now as Arab Spring Countries. Although Egyptians aimed at better living conditions, freedom and social justice, the country is passing through a period of economic depression, lack of security and unprecedented growth of informal housing. Egyptians are facing economic and social crises. As a result, the informal housing sector is growing very fast, thus producing a remarkable change in the Egyptian urban environment and fabric as well as the way it is shaped.

While there is no documentation for the numbers of the informal housing production after the January 2011 revolution, this paper attempts to show how this sector is growing very fast in the absence of local and State governments’ control and their inability to institutionalize crisis planning and crisis management.

This paper aims at reflecting on the outcomes of the current crisis that has created a gap in the Egyptian strategic urban planning between opportunities and threats that aims at creating a managed and sustainable urban development. Also, it focuses on the role and policies of two main State Agencies/Organizations in dealing with the informal sector before and after 2011. The two partners are the informal Settlements Development Facilities (ISDF) and the General Organization of Physical Planning (GOPP). It shows how these organizations deal with the informal sector and how they are coping with the current socio-economic changes facing the Egyptian society. The paper will conclude with final findings and recommendations.

Stop the evictions! The diffusion of networked social movements and the emergence of a new hybrid public space Eva Álvarez de Andrés, Patrik Zapata, María José Zapata Campos

More than 350,000 families have been evicted from their homes since Spain's property market crashed in 2008. The response of the Spanish civil society has been the emergence of a large social-network movement - the Spanish Mortgage Victims Group social movement - to stop the evictions, and to change the legislation.

This paper examines how urban social movements cope with socio-economic crisis, based on the case of Spanish Mortgage Victims Group. It focuses on the genesis, dissemination and stabilization of the social movement: how the idea, the organizational structure, procedures and practices to protest against evictions originally born in Barcelona have been successfully disseminated to other cities.

The analysis is informed by texts, photos and films produced by the national and international media, social networks, and the SMVG’s website. Complementary interviews are also conducted with representatives of the SMVG.

The paper adopts a new institutional theories perspective within organization studies. Firstly, by using the travel metaphor to understand how the idea, structure, practices and tactics of the movement travelled to other cities. Secondly, by exploring new institutional theories applied to the understanding of how social movements are not only born as a result of institutional arrangements, but can occasionally intervene in their reform and lead to significant social changes.

Impoverishment Assessment of Slum Dwellers after In Situ and Off-Site Relocations: A Case Of Indore Sejal Patel, Ritika Mandhyan

This paper attempts to assess the positives and negatives of a relocation and resettlement program in Indore, by comparing the life of slum dwellers before and after the implementation of the program based on the indicators of impoverishment risks due to Displacement and Resettlement formulated by Cernea. Eight forms of impoverishments are proposed by Cernea (2000b) in his Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction (IRR) model.

The research, while corroborating the research of the lead author in a different empirical setting in Ahmedabad (Patel, Sliuzas, Mathur, & Miscione, 2013), shows a significant loss in household assets of displacees and issues of joblessness, accessibility to common services, health risks, marginalization and social disarticulation that has increased their vulnerability of falling into deeper poverty.

 

  

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C1

Bivariate Moran’s I and LISA to explore the Accidents Risky Locations in Urban Areas Ali Akbar Matkan, Matin Shahri, Mojgan Mirzaie

Reducing the number and severity of urban crashes has always been a primary concern of urban plannersand safety specialist. Identifying the critical locations is an essential step in urban management since the safety improvements are prioritized to hazardous regions. The spatial essence of crash data, particularly the presence of spatial autocorrelation reveals that crash occurrences are not only inclined to cluster in the same locations but within particular time intervals. This study aims to detect spatial-temporal dependencies among crash occurrences using bivariate Moran’s I and LISA (Local Indicator of Spatial Association). Employing the yearly number of crashes aggregated in 253 TAZs (Traffic Analysis Zone) in Mashhad, Iran over four successive years (2006 – 2009), indicated that both bivariate Moran’s I and LISA yielding significant patterns of spatial-temporal autocorrelation of crashes. The results of this analysis help the safety officials and urban planners to sufficiently allocate the limited resources such as budget and time by prioritizing the riskiest locations.

Exploring the utility of a spatially-constrained accessibility measure in integrating urban cycling and land-use in Pune, India Walter Alando, Mark Brussel

Urban cycling in many developing cities is greatly hindered by the physical barriers occasioned by the dichotomous approach to urban land-use and transport planning. This divided approach to planning engenders urban forms that are incompatible with the cycling needs, thus making cycling unsafe and unattractive. While this is so, literature suggests that the concept of accessibility offers a useful framework for integrating transport and land-use. However previous studies have not explicitly investigated the impact of physical barriers to accessibility. This article develops a spatially-constrained accessibility measure and explores its utility in integrating urban cycling and land-use. Revealed and stated preference data is analysed to find out the cycling behaviour and patterns as well as the physical factors that inhibit cycling in Pune. The results of this analysis enable the study to calibrate an accessibility measure that takes cognizance of the physical barriers that stifle cycling. A key finding of the study is that the spatially-constrained accessibility measure can enable different levels of accessibility in different parts of a city to be estimated under different land-use scenarios. Accessibility indices derived from this kind of modelling can also offer a common basis for land-use planners and transport planners to prepare plans that are sensitive to both cycling and land-use needs. The article identifies the need for empirical studies that deliberately single out the exact sections of the city roads that constitute barriers to cycling in order to make the measure more useful.

New (Dis)connection: A Local Interpretation of Transformed Road Infrastructure Noel Japheth Omollo Okello

This paper presents an on-going study of newly transformed road infrastructure in the city of Nairobi, Kenya, to identify local reactions and adaptations to the resultant opportunities and constraints. It illustrates ways in which conventional tools, organization(s) and processes of planning design and implementation of infrastructure expansion projects, in particular, are based on questionable assumptions. Such assumptions often overlook dynamic urban elements of the existing informal city while emphasizing the grand illusions of political expediency. The observed ingenuity and aberrations of informal actions at the local scale is a criticism of the assumptions of planners based on the inaccuracies of information obtained by conventional tools and planning strategies as well as ham-fisted implementation. The paper argues that new categories of informalities, different from currently recognized informalities, are created by the subsequent transformation of infrastructure. These emergent categories demand shifts from emphasis on permanence to emphasis on transience, from situatedness to kinaesthesia, and from static space to negotiated space.

 

  

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A2

Analysing Sub-Standard Areas Using High Resolution Remote (Vhr) Sensing Imagery Monika Kuffer, Karin Pfeffer, Isa Baud, Richard Sliuzas

Urban planners and managers in developing countries often lack information on sub-standard areas. Base data mostly refer to relatively large and heterogeneous areas such as census or administrative wards, which are not necessarily a relevant geographical unit for representing and analysing deprivations. Moreover sub-standard areas are diverse, ranging from unrecognized slum areas (often in the proximity of hazardous areas) to regularized areas with poor basic services, and information on this diversity is difficult to capture. Sub- standard areas in Indian cities are typical examples of that diversity. In Mumbai, sub-standard areas range from unrecognized slum pockets to large regularized sub-standard areas.

This paper explores the usage of the latest generation of very high (spatial and spectral) resolution satellite images using 8-Band images of WorldView-2 to analyse spatial characteristics of sub-standard areas. The research illustrates how VHR imagery helps in rapidly extracting spatial information on sub-standard areas as well as provides a better understanding of their morphological characteristics (e.g. built-up density, greenness and shape). For this study an East-West cross-section of Mumbai (India) was selected, which is strongly dominated by a variety of sub-standard areas. The research employed image segmentation to extract building footprints and used texture and spatial metrics to analyse physical characteristics of sub-standard areas, combined with purposely-collected ground-truth information. The results show the capacity of this methodology for characterizing the diversity of sub-standard areas in Mumbai, providing strategic information for urban management.

Modelling the Impacts of Urban Upgrading onto Population Dynamics in Informal Settlements Nina Schwarz, Johannes Flacke

Nowadays the biggest part of urbanization is taking place in cities of the global south, where urban development often occurs as informal settlements. Thus, it is crucial to envision possible urban futures for these highly dynamic urban areas. Urban upgrading is discussed and already implemented in order to improve livelihood conditions in these areas. However, urban upgrading might lead to unexpected effects such as increased segregation. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the effects of improved infrastructure provision onto residential mobility and resulting spatial patterns of population distribution. For a better understanding of the on-going urbanization processes and for informing local policy makers, suitable modelling tools that make use of up to date spatial information are needed. In the paper, a spatially explicit agent-based model (ABM) for simulating the development of informal settlements will be presented. The ABM is being developed for the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, which shows both the highest annual urban growth rate and the highest slum growth rate in the world (UN Habitat 2006). It will be used to derive policy scenarios for urban upgrading in informal settlements.

Urban Context Modelling for Human Sensor Web Habtom Tsega, Rob Lemmens, Juma Lungo, Menno Kraak

Nowadays, widespread use of mobile devices became an opportunity for advocates of Participatory GIS (PGIS). People carrying affordable mobile phones can be utilized as moving sensory servers who can generate a lot of useful observation about the usage and prevailing situation of public services (such as water, health, sewerage, sanitation etc.) in their immediate vicinity. Theoretically, challenges of urban public services can be observed and reported by human sensors on a real-time basis. Thus, the concerned governing body can immediately act upon the reported problems. This is the governing principle behind the Human Sensor Web (HSW) System. HSW is an innovative notion of participatory sensing by ordinary citizens (also known as ‘human sensors’) with the overall target of improving the provision and sustainability of public services. Better yet, the utility and reliability of the content generated by citizen can be improved if the context of use of the system is carefully studied and modelled. The aim of proper handling and processing of context is to augment the ability of the HSW system to sense and act upon information about its immediate personal, social and physical environment. Given its wider applicability and possibility for sharing among systems, studies show that ontology-based modelling is the most suitable approach to represent context of use of an application. In this case, context is an input for use in conjunction with citizen generated content in attempt to create a context adapted geo-information suitable for decision makers and planners regarding their dealings with provision and management of public services. Accordingly, creation and maintenance of ontologies has become an engineering process that needs to be handled via guided approach. A central theme of this paper is to deliberate the practical ontology development process for the purpose of modeling the context of HSW. Ontology development process is an approach that dictates the construction of concepts and relationships meant to capture realities regarding the domain of interest at hand. Such an approach is rarely combined with methods recommended for context modelling. In our case, we attempted to adapt the Unified Process for ONtology development (UPOn) method in conjunction with an ontology based context modelling method called PIVON. We applied and tested the approach to build and maintain contextual knowledge base needed to populate our ontology model.

 

  

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B2

Water urbanism in Bogotá. Exploring the Interplay Between Settlement Patterns and Water Management Claudia Lucia Rojas

A paradigm shift in water management is perceived as a necessary and fundamental step for adaptation to climate change and crucial for furthering sustainability. In contexts of rapid urbanization, this paradigm shift is particularly challenged; at the heart of this are social issues and specific forms of city production, the latter of which are partially shaped by processes that previously denied the landscape structure. The Bogotá Savanna is an unevenly urbanized area with a population of 8,661,534. Its scale and complexity emphasise the need for an approach, which is both flexible and strategic; the future of the ̔urban̕ depends on the ability to reformulate traditional disciplines and methods.

The unsustainable over-extension of urbanization on the Bogotá Savanna, its current vulnerability to flooding, large-scale pollution and the serious shortcomings of water management have made it crucial to not only reconsider the water system but to drastically transform it, augmenting its resilience. Additionally, one of the biggest challenges facing the city is the provision of 300,000 low-income housing units and the upgrading of living conditions in informal settlements. Environmental and liveability issues have stronger impacts on the periphery, where informal settlements are located, than in the rest of the city. This condition reinforces the strong and polarized geography of centrality and marginality.

The question is what would happen if urbanization trends would be reversed into a constructive interplay with water? This article investigates the evolution of water management and its relationship to urbanization in El Tintal watershed, a sub-watershed of the Bogotá River. This watershed is occupied by informal settlements as well as recent large social housing projects. Through the analysis of this landscape, mapping and historical research, this article provides a basis for future design explorations of the spatial potential of the water system and for context-responsive solutions to this wet and fertile plateau.

Accessing Water Services in Dar Es Salaam: Stories From Formal and Informal Actors Kapongola Nganyanyuka, Yola Georgiadou, Juma Lungo, Javier Martinez, Jeroen Verplanke, Anna Wesselink

A significant proportion of urban residents in developing countries has no access to potable water provided by public water authorities. Often urban residents rely on unofficial sources. They buy water from small scale water vendors or collect it from unimproved water sources. This paper draws on qualitative research to document citizens' strategies for accessing water services in the city of Dar es Salaam. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with public officials, private water providers and citizens in planned and unplanned areas of the city. It was found that the capacity of public authorities to provide good quality water is only partially available. Informal and small scale private water providers fill the gap. As a consequence, micro and/or face-to-face interactions between citizens and a variety of providers are evident in abundance. This creates a complex mix of contrasting aspects in quality and type of water services between planned and unplanned settings. Moreover, the study reveals that the incentives for corruption in the water sector are significant given that people are cognizant about the failures of public service delivery.

How Corruption Stifles Problem Framing and Responsive Governance. The Case of Water and Health Services in Tanzania Jesper Katomero, Rob Hoppe, B. Benson, Anna Wesselink and Kapongola Nganyanyuka

The urgency to cuddle responsive governance in urban sub-Saharan Africa is requisite than ever. After nearly 20 decades of creating better conditions for responsive governance through public service reforms, service delivery particularly water and health seems to hardly improve. Yet, as the millennium deadline expires by 2015, there is clear evidence that the set targets (clean and safe water, better health services) may not be achieved. Having systematically registered problem framings of non-authorities and authorities in the water and health sectors in Tanzania using thematic coding, framing theory and What is the Problem Represented (WPR) to be? approach, it became apparent that corruption is perceived as ‘master problem frame ‘among other problems. This article argues that authorities in the water and health sectors in Tanzania profit from corruption (hence no desire for exit) and they find a discourse (public voice) which allows them to acknowledge corruption as a problem and institutional reform as a solution. Consequently corruption stifles problem framing in particular and responsive governance in general.

Knowledge Building in Adaptation Management: Concertacion processes in transforming Lima water and climate change governance Liliana Miranda Sara, Isa Baud

Peru is one of the ten most vulnerable countries to climate change. As the country is highly centralized, the metropolitan city of Lima (capital) and Callao contain 32% of the country’s population and 45% of the country’s GDP, will experience many of the consequences. Water scarcity and risk of flooding are issues of great concern, as climate change scenarios for Lima show high levels of uncertainty, which might mean either prolonged droughts, more variable and intense rainfall, or a combination of both by 2025. In recent years three processes have run parallel analyzing the consequences of plausible climate change scenarios for urban water governance. The first was led by a German-financed research program whose objective was to develop climate

 

  

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change scenarios and water simulation models. The Municipality of Lima Metropolitana initiated the second to develop city development strategies and a climate change adaptation strategy. The Chance2Sustain program while supporting the first two processes, has opened up a discussion on more spatial perspectives in city development and water governance, specializing those scenarios by introducing mapping methods to visualize inequities, and indicating areas of water-related vulnerabilities.

Though all these processes used concertacion and social construction of knowledge, the actors and kinds of knowledge included and exchanged, differed considerably. They present interesting examples for comparing ideas on adaptive management and the role of knowledge building.

The paper examines what contributions processes of socially constructing knowledge make to metropolitan water governance and climate change adaptation strategies; focusing specifically on the extent to which concertacion processes allow inclusion of a wider range of actors, discourses and knowledge in metropolitan governance and adaptation strategies, and how these influence priority-setting in decision-making. Concertacion offer possibilities of mutual understanding and consensus building by including a wider range of actors and various types of knowledge.

C2

The Presence Of Local Specific Culture In Future-Globalized Cities – The Case Of Jakarta Jo Santoso

The study has the point of departure to elaborate the discussion on the possibilty for a globalized city of the future to integrate its local-specific characteristics into a greater urban structure. Based on a study of exisiting local-specific cultural elements in the Jakarta kampongs, this paper tries to identify the potential of these traditional elements for a greater socio-cultural and economic urban transformation. Based on historical studies, this paper concludes that there are at least three local-specific urban elements which are most likely to have significant influence on the character of Jakarta in the future: the function of the kampong as mixed-use area for living and working, the traditional life on the streets as the “connecting” and the “communicative” network of the urban system, and the various local-economy markets which are spread throughout the city.

Based on in-depth studies about several old urban kampongs in Jakarta, the paper demonstrates how these “traditional” kampongs as urban elements from the past are surviving and thriving as mixed-use living and working environments. These kampongs are able not only to strengthen their economic roles citywide i.e. as provider of job opportunities for unskilled migrants, but also to provide those same migrants with affordable shelter. In general, we can conclude that such urban kampongs are playing a role in supporting the socialization process of the new migrants. Without a doubt, this on-going adaptation process would be able to deliver superior results if the ruling elites and the municipal government were conscious of the important roles these kampongs play. To make this possible, the ruling elites of the city must make some modifications in their concept of governance and formally recognize the kampong’s role in improving the quality of city life and in contributing to a sustainable city-future with strong local-specific characteristics.

Inclusive and clean cities with participatory sustainable solid waste management Jutta Gutberlet

With over half of the world's population living in cities and with buying and discarding habits on the rise, the generation of solid waste has become a ubiquitous and serious problem in urban agglomerations. City administrations are facing social, cultural, environmental and economic challenges when planning solid waste solutions. The paper discusses selective waste collection and recycling as form of inclusive solid waste management in the context of the global south, and particularly Brazil. Here countless informal and organized solid waste collectors are engaged in resource recovery from discarded waste, classification and redirection towards the recycling sector. Their work is mostly unrecognized and the service is not remunerated. Governmental support to include recycling cooperatives in selective waste collection varies significantly in scope and quality. In theory, the Brazilian solid waste management legislation supports recycling cooperatives and promotes avoidance, reuse and recycling as primary solution tackling waste. In praxis however, many challenges towards inclusive resource recovery and awareness building about waste avoidance and diversion are yet to overcome. Action-oriented, participatory research conducted with recycling cooperatives, over the past six years, in the metropolitan region of São Paulo has revealed some of the environmental and social contributions, as well as challenges involved in planning, policy design and implementation of waste management. The research applies a feminist epistemology. This work with recycling cooperatives and local governments demonstrates a wealth of knowledge co-generation on waste management. The participatory method underlines important social aspects to consider in planning and policy design for inclusive waste management. The paper proposes that selective household waste collection with recycling cooperatives creates unique opportunities, building more inclusive and cleaner cities.

Governance processes over the provision of local facilities for sustainable residential neighbourhoods – challenges and potentials: case studies in Aleppo, Syria Iman Hajjar, Harry Smith

 

  

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Local facilities are of great importance to planning sustainable neighbourhoods, while governance processe is a key factor for achieving this planning objective. The research this paper is based on showed that provision of local facilities in residential neighbourhoods in Syria is inadequate to contribute to sustainability at the neighbourhood level. This paper analyses governance processes over planning and implementing local facilities in three case study neighbourhoods in Syria. It focuses on six aspects: actors responsible for the provision; roles they play; relationships among them; rules controling the process; resources flowing to implement the facilities; and rationalities defining actors’ practices. The analysis of these aspects is completed with an understanding of the wider political economy within which the process is taking place. Findings revealed that governance processes over providing local facilities in Syria are hampered by many challenges. Socialist relations were the basis for the country’s political economy, where the state continually attempted to control the provision process of local facilities but failed to deliver adequately. The most important challenges include: poor coordination among the different actors; lack of clear definitions of responsibilities; rigid and unclear laws and regulations; lack of funding; and mixed and confused perceptions and attitudes among the main actors. The research suggests appropriate participation of the different actors in a more widely inclusive mode of governance as a solution in order to improve the provision of local facilities.

A3

Spatial Metrics and Image Texture for Slum Detection Divyani Kohli

Slums are home to a large number of urban residents in developing countries. Reliable spatial information about slums is vital for policies aimed at improvement of such areas. The availability of very high resolution (VHR) satellite imageries has opened avenues for detailed urban mapping. But slum mapping is not a straight-forward task due to the variability in slum types/definitions across different contexts. This research aims at developing method for slum detection based on the morphology of the built environment using VHR images. The study explores the potential of using object-oriented image analysis (OOA) in combination with spatial metrics and texture to extract morphologically homogeneous segments. Furthermore, slum and non-slum settlements are characterized based on physical composition of the homogeneous areas.

Geographical Information System an Approach for the Development of Slums and Deteriorating areas in Cairo, Egypt. Shaimaa Ahmed Shehata ABOUELMAGD

This Paper focuses on the slums as a main challenge facing Egypt and the effect of Geographical Information System (GIS) in the development process of slums and decision making.

It discusses the strategies and different approaches used by the agencies involved in the development process, when using GIS and where it fits. Two case studies are presented as examples of slums and deteriorating areas in Cairo. They are presented and analyzed upon the GIS implementation to develop these areas. It illustrates how effective the use of GIS in the decision support, for the phases of the development (modeling, archiving, etc.). Also, how it affected the development of the areas. The first case study “The sustainable development of Eldarb El-Ahmar” used GIS to create a sustainable development system of the area to overcome the challenges and make use of the capabilities of the area. Three modules were used to develop and integrate attached projects and Touristic Neighborhoods with the studied area. The second case study of “Mansheiet Nasser” used GIS to build trust between the community and the other participators. It helped in the development process and presented a new way of development to the local authorities.

By illustrating the success and shortcoming of the two case studies, this paper argues that GIS can become a tool to develop and improve the slums’ conditions, increase the quality of life and overcome the shortage of decision support and evaluation systems.

B3

Health-related inequalities in the global north and south – A framework for spatially explicit environmental justice indicators Heike Köckler, Johannes Flacke

The concept of environmental justice is aiming to provide good environmental conditions and fair treatment for all people so that all have equal opportunities to live their life. As such it is a vision for the future development of cities that addresses socio-economic and environmental crisis in an integrated manner. But to follow visions in a strategic way, it is important to operationalise them.

 

  

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Here indicators play a crucial role, as the discourse on sustainability indicators has shown. For the application of the vision of environmental justice on the local level an indicator framework has been developed based on the DPSEEA (Driver, Pressure, State, Exposure, Effect, Answer) model (Morris et al 2006). This approach, widely used in public-health, is an enhancement of the well-known DPSIR-Framework. Learning from first generation environmental justice analyses (Walker 2009) we enhance the framework by including different spatial scales and GIS-based spatial analyses depending on the impact area of the various indicators considered (e.g. noise in residential areas matter at small scale only and the risk of dangerous factories might have consequences for a whole city). For the implementation the spatially explicit environmental justice indicator framework has to be contextualized on different scales, due to local situations as well as data availability . For testing the frameworks validity and to show different faces of environmental justice in the global north and south we apply the framework in the cities of Dortmund, Germany, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Haldia, India.

Spatialising risk in a Mexican urban fringe: towards understanding how different risk/ hazards reinforce inequalities and poverty, working through Local Volunteered Geographical Information (VGI) Frida Güiza

We explore relationships between social risk, and natural hazards in understanding vulnerability. The differential application of, and susceptibility to, risk is product of vulnerability. The emphasis is on `place-based vulnerability'. Understanding vulnerability, coping and adaptation strategies differentiated in peri-urban space. We are exploring the effectiveness and acceptability of local people's knowledge in community-based vulnerability management. We explore the potential for VGI (volunteered geographical information) as an approach for policy improvement linking the local knowledge of poor communities with effective agencies. VGI needs to be framed in a participatory fashion, through working with the local `suppliers' of their grounded knowledge, and with potential `users' of the information, including the community, whose voluntary involvement is a pre-condition. Policy on social and natural hazards does not recognize a strong correlation with people's vulnerability. Different policies are designed for each hazard, rather than supporting participatory decision-making in a transversal and horizontal fashion, whereby NGOs, affected communities and governmental institutions can establish dialogues honouring local knowledges. Morelia is a mid-sized Provincial capital in Mexico, with a fast-growing in-migration of rural mainly poor since the 1980s. Morelia experiences floods and landslides in peri-urban neighborhoods, from urban rivers and flood plains, and these areas also suffer from more violence, in part related to the social and political discontinuities since 2006. Vulnerable urban people are required to adapt to multiple complex conditions under great uncertainty.

Urban Growth and Assessment of Its Natural and Socio-economic Risks in High Mountain Ecosystems: A Geospatial Framework for Institutionalizing Urban Risk Management in Himalaya' Prakash C. Tiwari

Urbanization has emerged as one of the important drivers of global change transforming mountain ecosystems in developing countries where the process of urban growth has been fast and mostly unplanned. Himalaya which is tectonically alive, densely populated and economically underdeveloped has experienced rapid urban growth during recent years. More recently, comparatively less accessible areas have also come under the process of rapid urbanisation mainly owing to extension of road network, growth of tourism and economic globalization. These changes are making urban ecosystems as well as their peri-urban zones highly vulnerable to a variety of environmental and socio-economic risks, particularly, slope failures, landslides, flash floods, urban-fires and food, livelihood and health insecurity affecting mainly poor and marginalized sections of community. Moreover, climate change has stressed urban ecosystems by increasing the frequency, severity and intensity of natural as well as socio-economic crises. It is therefore highly imperative to evolve an urban risk management action plan using geo-information technology and ensure its application through its institutionalization at micro levels. Paper aims at developing a comprehensive risk management support system using GIS with a view to help both communities and local government agencies in near real-time risk assessment and institutionalizing crisis management at local level with a case illustration of Lake Region in Kumaon Himalaya, India.

Methodology included detailed geological and geo-morphological analysis; monitoring urban land use dynamics using high resolution satellite data; assessment of socio-economic disparities and vulnerabilities; appraisal of infrastructure facilities; preparation of natural and socio-economic risk vulnerability maps; and development of geo-spatial crisis planning framework and institutionalization action plan, and their demonstration at community and local administrative levels. The crisis vulnerability maps and their integration with various socio-economic parameters indicated that frequency and intensity of the incidences of slope failures, landslides and fires have enhanced with intensification of urban land use as well as with increase in rainfall variability. The areas characterized with poor infrastructure and inhabited by socio-economically marginalized groups have been found highly susceptible to such risks. In view of this, exclusively tailored training programmes have also been organized for capacity building of local government departments and communities for the assessment of crisis and making use of geo-spatial risk management support system at local levels. The system also included a framework for institutionalizing urban risk governance involving multiple stakeholders from public, government agencies, civil society organizations, NOGs and private sectors. It is expected that this will create opportunities for sustainable urban development in Himalaya as well as in other mountains regions in developing world.

 

  

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D1

GIS, Social Media and Simulation in integrated ICT solutions for Urban Futures Peter Sonntagbauer, Nikolaus Rumm, Hakan Kagitcioglu, Kawa Nazemi , Dirk Burkhardt

ICT tools and their methods to support the policy lifecycle in urban planning have drastically changed with the emergence of social media, advanced simulation techniques, open government data, big data, opinion mining, advanced text analytics and visualization. All those components should be combined with GIS.

Current ICT solutions supporting e-participation and collaborative urban planning are focused on solving a specific problem. They are not integrated neither on the conceptual nor on the technical level. The conceptual level referring to the policy lifecycle, the technical level to data integration and user interface.

This paper describes a new integrated approach to policy design and implementation. It consists of an advanced policy lifecycle and an IT-solution with features supporting all phases of the proposed lifecycle. The concept as well as the technical architecture as implemented in the Future Policy Modelling Project (FUPOL) to achieve such a complete integration with separate applications is outlined.

Introducing the Conductor: Approaching VGI from the Perspective of Geographic Context Jeroen Verplanke

The missing object in the conceptualization of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is location, which is strange as a dominant frame of thought in the GI-Science community is that “location is everything”. VGI is most commonly categorized and conceptualized on the basis of its purpose or provenance, emphasizing the “V”. Possibly because of the ubiquitous or pervasive presence of 'locational thought' in the GI-Science community, geographic content in online volunteered information is however not categorised on the basis of its geographic content or context. It is classified mainly depending on source, purpose and process. Considering the relatively limited amount of social media content containing (reliable) geographic coordinates the actual geographic context of the reported information should receive more attention. Without proper context or geographic references a location description could confuse service providers and emergency responders. This paper is proposing a conceptual approach to analyse VGI on the basis of its geographic content. It introduces three dimensions to categorize VGI and brings forward the concept of the VGI conductor. The conductor is proposed as the actor or actant that allows for the effective analysis and distribution of VGI within the Geoweb.

Urban Visions of the Excluded. Experiences of globalisation in Lusaka, Zambia

Emma Wragg, Regina Lim

Economic growth in African cities has seen the rise of a new middle class with aspirations for services and housing which many African cities struggle to deliver. Their emergence has not gone unnoticed on the world stage, and as demand has waned in the shrinking economies of the Global North, international property developers and architecture firms have stepped in offering new visions for African cities, which would not look out of place in Dubai or Shanghai. The incongruity of these plans for cities where 70% or more of urban residents live on the margins in unplanned settlements - raises questions about the processes shaping the future of African cities.

Urban theories, in particular neoliberal ideologies of urban entrepreneurialism, offer compelling explanations for how these visions have come to be. What is less well understood is the local dynamics at play in the structuring of African cities and ways in which African cities are responding to processes of globalization and market liberalisation. This is all the more significant for cities where the State has little or no role in the development of the city - these are places which have been largely constructed and assembled by a diverse amalgam of formal and informal actors. Yet the visions, culture, values and needs of these different groups appear to have had little influence on these new grand master plans. This paper presents the findings from a pilot study which draws on assemblage theory to explore the experiences of globalisation of local actors in Lusaka in the context of these globally constructed visions. The findings highlight the extent to which these new visions are at odds with lives and concerns of actors from across the social spectrum.

A4

My House, My Life: Decision-making processes, participation, and local citizen spatial knowledge in housing project Minha Casa, Minha Vida in Salvador da Bahia Kyra Somers, Isa Baud

 

  

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The involvement of various types of knowledge into governmental activities directs urban governance towards more inclusive and sustainable development. Citizen participation and the inclusion of local knowledge influence the outcomes of government decision-making. However, Government actors tend to give priority to expert sources of knowledge above local citizens and practice-based knowledge. From this observation this article provides an analysis of the implementation of the housing project Minha Casa, Minha Vida in Salvador da Bahia in order to get insight into the significance of the inclusion of local and spatial knowledge in decision-making process for the quality of urban governance in this specific situation. The main question is how the local community based knowledge is included and excluded in the decision-making processes of the implementation of the project Minha Casa, Minha Vida in Salvador da Bahia?

The case study of this housing project in Salvador shows considerable shortcomings in citizen-participation in urban governance. It can be concluded that the structures for participatory decision-making are officially installed, but the utilization of the local types of knowledge is not sufficiently implemented.

Digital tools for planning Chennai metropolitan region: The (mis)Matching Virtual GIS Generated City and Ground Realities Raman Bhuvaneswari, Eric Denis

This paper explores the intervention to digitize spatial information and the ground realities. The rhetoric of intervention for production of digital records is linked to the myth of creating perfect records and visible records that will catalyze a change in institutional practices and relationship with the citizens. Specifically, it will promote coordination, sharing of information, catalyze citizen’s participation. We show in this paper how these claims remain as paper promises. Perhaps, a more substantive issue is the politics that it is likely to engender. As we show in the section on motivation, such projects have served the purpose of surveillance – internal or external. There is little effort to share among themselves or with other organizations. Further, the easy availability of funding for such projects has resulted in an ever spiraling production of maps and databases, often supported by independent funding streams, the use to which it is put to remains clouded

Ordering Informality: does slum mapping with GIS in India’s RAY programme contribute to legitimacy, accountability and spatial justice? Isa Baud, Karin Pfeffer, Christine Richter

Growing urban inequalities and existing informalities are receiving increased attention among academics, and practitioners have ‘slum-free cities’ high on their agenda. In India, several large-scale programmes deal with urban poverty (JNNURM, BSUP, RAY). The most recent anti-poverty programme is Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY), which includes mapping initiatives to identify slums situations and target the urban poor. Its guidelines state that the city has to make a “Slum-free Plan” using GIS and socio-economic data, pre-supposing ordering processes in contexts of informality and widespread avoidance of formalizing processes. Although such mapping initiatives should be ‘community-based’ and empower local communities, current implementation in Indian cities shows local governments teaming up with private-sector consultants in implementing RAY. This can introduce ordering principles in spatial mapping that run counter to empowerment, and produce control over populations and greater inequalities.

The main question is whether mapping slum settlements contributes to an ordering which is more inclusive and spatially just. To examine this question we analyze slum mapping processes within RAY in Chennai, India, in terms of legitimacy and accountability of knowledge produced; coalitions of actors involved in negotiating such knowledge, and the implications for spatial justice in informal settlements. The methodology combines document analysis, in-depth interviews with key-persons involved, and participation in the consultation processes. The results show a dominance of ordering by local government-private sector alliances, and limited accountability to residents of these slum areas, or the NGOs, which help represent them. Lack of transparency among private consultants reduces possibilities for empowering local communities.

C3

Mapping spatial discourses in urban water governance in Durban – South Africa Michaela Hordijk

Mapping spatial discourses in urban water governance in Durban – South Africa Durban has been called a ‘technocratic’ city, given the important role consultants and their (spatial) models play in urban governance. The municipality has been exemplar in many aspects of its policy making, has the vision of becoming the most liveable city in Africa by 2020, and has a municipal spatial information system in place to support policy development in this direction. Both Durban’s policy makers and the consultants they hire emphasize how decisions are nowadays depoliticized since they can be based on technical criteria. However: setting standards is in itself a political process, and depolitization through rendering something technical thereafter

 

  

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determines what can be and what can be no longer the subject of political debate. This paper uses a (spatial) discourse analysis of urban water governance in

Durban to illustrate how a certain set of standards has gained legitimacy, and a certain valuation of water became dominant at the expense of other valuations of water. “Maps” have played and still play an important role in framing water provision policies in the city. Some actors mirror the mapping and costing techniques of the dominant discourse to build up a counter discourse that also found its way into policy documents. This paper discussing the resulting multifaceted discourse that represents various valuations of water (as a human right, a social ecological good and an economic good) as a discourse typical for transitionary resilience (best suited for sub theme C if design is also taken as policydesign, otherwise theme A).

When visions for better urban futures development are turned into practice. The case of the Acahualinca Development Programme in Managua, Nicaragua Patrik Zapata, María José Zapata Campos

The ‘knowing-doing’ gaps between policy goals and their outcome when implemented is of increasing concern both in practice and in research. This paper explores how the visions of a sustainable development and the corresponding planning are translated into practice; what aspects of visions and plans are translated, what is lost in and what is added in the translation. The paper is based on the case-study of La Chureca, the rubbish dump and slum of Managua, Nicaragua, and its regeneration program that ran from 2009 to 2013 and included the construction of a new landfill, a recycling station where part of the waste-pickers now are formally employed, and new housing for the informal settlement’s residents. The analysis is based on interviews, observations, workshop participations and document analysis; gathered from 2009 until 2012. It combines action net theory with the sociology of translation as theoretical framework. Despite the initial compliance to the program (funded and initially led by international aid organizations), local actors enacted a myriad of small acts of defiance and resistance that, without abruptly contesting the project, shaped it to better fit local needs; a) first by municipal politicians and officers, and b) later by beneficiaries that felt that they were not fairly benefited by the program (women, eldery). We conclude that the implementation of visions cannot be seen as scripted translations of plans into reality, but as uncontrollable and uncertain processes in which myriads of translations twist policies and plans from below. The question is therefore not whether plans work (or succeed) but how they work.

Dramatic deviation and public accountability in the developing city Yola Georgiadou

Political apps on the geoweb 2.0 (e.g. Ushahidi, Human Sensor Web) are hailed for their potential to render the city administration more accountable to citizens. We argue that the hype is due to the popular belief that political apps are similar to killer apps in collaborative production of spatial data (e.g. Tandale in Dar es Salaam / OpenStreetMap). Accountability theory and our empirical work in Dar es Salaam show that they are not similar. Political apps have a crucial characteristic that sets them apart from apps for collaborative production of spatial data. To qualify as high-quality, spatial data volunteered by citizens in OpenStreetMap needs to have a low standard deviation. The same rule applies to spatial data for political apps, i.e. data on the quality of water at public water points, on the shortage of drugs in clinics, or the children’ literacy in schools. The difference is this. High-quality spatial data for political apps is not accountability-relevant by itself. It needs to be combined with data on officially earmarked financial resources and actual expenditures per water point, clinic or school. When the deviation between funds that actually reached the water points, clinics or schools and the officially earmarked funds is dramatic, then the combined data is accountability-relevant and may trigger corrective action from city government.

D2

Instrumentos de análisis para la evaluación participativa de procesos de transformación físico-social. El caso de Pikine Irregular Sur, Dakar Eva Álvarez de Andrés y José Miguel Fernández Güell

La complejidad de los procesos de transformación urbana requiere un abordaje multidimensional que permita analizar de manera integral los modos de actuar que impiden la mejora de la calidad de vida y del entorno para todos, así como visibilizar modos alternativos. En este artículo se presentan dos instrumentos de análisis de realidades complejas para la evaluación de políticas y prácticas de desarrollo urbano. Para validar estas herramientas, se han evaluado tres casos de estudio relativos a la transformación físico-social del mayor asentamiento auto-producido de la periferia urbana de Dakar. La recogida y análisis de la información se ha llevado a cabo mediante un proceso participativo, a través de grupos focales y entrevistas semi-estructuradas. Los instrumentos de análisis desarrollados han contribuido a mostrar la dinámica subyacente a la oferta y las consecuencias que los diferentes modos de actuar tienen sobre la demanda y el entorno. En dos de los tres casos, los programas y acciones no se orientan a la satisfacción integral de las necesidades de los ciudadanos y no implican a los afectados por los mismos como un eje central de la actuación; se ha demostrado que en estos casos se termina por responder a los intereses de quienes promueven y gestionan las acciones y por empeorar las condiciones de vida de los directamente

 

  

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afectados y las de su entorno. Así mismo, con el tercer caso se han mostrado alternativas que pasan por ceder poder e implicar a los afectados en los procesos de toma de decisiones.

Conflictos, incertidumbres y futuro de la regulación urbana en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires Cecilia Cabrera, Mariano Scheinsohn

Durante los últimos años en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, han emergido una serie de conflictos sociales en torno a los procesos de regulación urbana que involucran al hábitat informal (villas miseria) así como también a sectores urbanos de clase media. Tal situación se vincula fundamentalmente con el aumento de la construcción y la especulación inmobiliaria que tuvo lugar en la última década y la falta de políticas públicas sistemáticas en relación con el mercado de la vivienda, tanto para los sectores más vulnerables como para los sectores medios.

Dichos conflictos ponen de manifiesto las disparidades de poder entre los diversos actores sociales frente a las definiciones y aplicaciones de los instrumentos de regulación urbana, con respecto a sus capacidades técnicas, políticas, sociales, administrativas y simbólicas. La evolución de estos conflictos en el actual escenario de incertidumbre, interpela necesariamente el modo en que la regulación urbana se ha llevado a cabo, y plantea la necesidad de reflexionar acerca de su futura evolución.

En tal sentido y considerando la Teoría del Actor-Red de Bruno Latour, proponemos realizar una interpretación de los procesos sociales de construcción de los instrumentos de regulación urbana en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, partiendo del concepto de Reensamblaje de las negociaciones e interacciones entre los actores (y sus posiciones), más allá de su escala y poder (local/micro-global/macro).

A5

Spatial knowledge management in urban local government: Emerging issues in ICT-GIS-based systems in India, Brazil, South Africa, and Peru Isa Baud, Dianne Scott, Karin Pfeffer, John Sydenstricker-Neto, Eric Denis

The main question concerns the ways in which knowledge management (KM) within local governance is becoming transformed through digitization (ICT), spatialization (GIS), and participatory processes, and its potential for more inclusive forms of local governance. The question fits into broader discussions on knowledge construction and circulation as socio-political and relational processes (e.g. McFarlane 2011). Potential outcomes include grater respect for rights and entitlements, competences in local government, equity, legitimacy and accountability (cf. McCall and Dunn 2012”). Similar potentials are suggested when community-based knowledge is included through participatory processes. We examine the extent to which such potentials are realized in local governance networks, focusing on four medium-sized cities in BICS countries ins a comparative analysis (India, South Africa, Brazil, Peru).

KM systems raise various questions: 1) what discourses around digitized KM are produced in local urban development, and types of information/knowledge are acknowledged/denied in those processes; 2) what networks of actors produce socio-spatial knowledge; 3) how is KM embedded in decision-making processes (power struggles, exclusion); and 4) how do patterns of KM influence work practices and outcomes of organisations? We examine these questions in the cities concerned, based on extensive fieldwork by an international research network (C2S).

The argumentation shows that 1) KM discourses concerned four issues: strategic urban planning and integrated land use planning; changing and establishing geographic boundaries in urban development discourses; streamlining work processes of local governments, and mapping poverty and needs assessments; 2) initiatives mainly linked government with the private sector at various scale levels, focusing on strategic planning, tax collection and locating facilities; 3) codified and technical knowledge remain dominant in discussions on urban development; and 4) transparency and accountability to citizens remain very limited.

The challenge of housing the poor: stakeholders, politics and knowledge use in the decision-making process of the N2 Gateway housing project in Cape Town. Floortje Jacobs, Isa Baud

A recent debate on urban governance has suggested that there is a shift away from governments as the dominant locus of power in the contemporary neoliberal society, to one in which various actors participate in hybrid governance arrangements. At the same time, increasing attention is paid to the potential contribution of involving different types of knowledge in governance processes, assumed to lead to more inclusive decision-making. This raises questions on what types of knowledge are recognized by various actors, and whose knowledge is prioritized in processes of urban governance. This paper examines how several types of knowledge are negotiated to provide strategic inputs in decision-making processes in the mega housing project

 

  

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N2 Gateway in Cape Town. It analyses the implementation of this mega-project in order to gain insight in the significance of including a variety of knowledge types to improve the quality of decisions taken. In the case of the N2 Gateway Project, political pressure has limited the use of technical, economic and community based knowledge in the planning phase of the project. This lack of knowledge inclusion had significant effects in the implementation of integrated settlements, a lack of matching housing supply and demand, the financial viability of the project and representation struggles in local project management.

Embedding trans-disciplinary approaches to strategic urban expansion planning through combined methods in a context of weak institutional capacity: experience of Huambo, Angola.

Harry Smith, Paul Jenkins

Increasingly online public access to satellite imagery and the development of qualitative GIS have, in principle, the potential to provide action- and strategic planning approaches with more economical spatial information to monitor and plan physical urban transformation. This is of particular use in rapidly urbanising contexts in the global South, where lack of resources prompted the development of rapid and participatory urban appraisal techniques since the 1990s. However, in such contexts weak institutional capacity, unclear responsibilities and poor integration among key actors may still be major barriers to effective decision-making and implementation of strategic plans. In addition, as most urban expansion is driven by popular demand, understanding the nature of this demand has to be the basis for effective supply of urban land etc. This means exploring change in key core social and cultural values, as well as participatory engagement with key stakeholders on immediate and mid-term strategic objectives.

This paper reflects on the experience of an Urban Development Priority Action Strategy being developed for the city of Huambo, Angola, by the city administration in partnership with a local NGO Development Workshop (Angola), with support from a European academic institution (Centre for Environment & Human Settlements). This initiative seeks to embed trans-disciplinarity in a meaningful manner at the local level to permit a realistic set of priority actions. The paper will report on the type of information and understanding that is generated through this approach, as well as on the de facto constraints and boundaries that are created by the relationships between the key partners, their capacities and interests.

C4

Living Incrementally: the possible futures of self-help compound housing in Greater Accra Viviana d’Auria

The accommodation of uncertainty and social change in housing and neighborhood design has for many decades found refuge in the paradigm of (self-help) incremental development. However, scholarship has recently emphasized the increasing spatial and social challenges presented by multi-habitation and multi-generational living in the rapidly densifying low-income neighborhoods and consolidated ‘slums’ of the global South.This contribution aims to investigate such phenomena in the metropolitan area of Accra which features a legacy of experimentation in incremental dwelling culture and related policy-making. Greater Accra, and Ghana more generally, host indeed emblematic cases of self-help communities planned to preserve ‘traditional’ lifestyles. Findings from the field emphasize the obsolescence of low-rise models and the vagaries of seemingly culture-specific typologies with a collectivist dimension. Based on qualitative data and insight from recent censuses, this contribution gauges the limitations and opportunities of incremental growth in conditions of land shortageand contrasting generational needs. Architects’ original design ideas are confronted with the past, present and futures of dwelling culture and practice.

More specifically the paper confronts house biographies and family life trajectories in key case study areas, proposing to also comment on the possible futures of ‘planned’ and ‘unplanned’ incremental development. The research ultimately hopes to contribute to the debate on how local design processes and practices may continue to accommodate uncertainty and generate improved concepts for local development at a moment where a substantial paradigmatic shift appears to be underway (sub-theme C).

 

  

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Participation as Political Strategy: Experiences in Mumbai’s Un-recognized Communities Enrico Michelutti

Mumbai’s un-recognized communities face the lack of public authorities’ recognition and the presence of interest-driven activities by political parties, leading to the explosion of ‘anti-political’ tendencies, which destabilize conventional political processes and create social tensions at the city scale. In these ‘non-notified’ settlements, community institutions develop alternative forms for the involvement of slum dwellers in spatial-planning decisions. Mechanisms of participation, based on different mental models and developed through diverse social organizations, are addressed to build a dialogue with public authorities, which remain a key coping strategy for slum dwellers. Community institutions use participatory activities as political strategy, seeking slum dwellers’ involvement at different scale, including webs with other communities. With the formal shape of an exercise of democracy, participation becomes here mainly an exercise of power. Exploring the relations between slum dwellers and actors dealing with spatial-planning issues and focusing the participatory processes in three un-recognized slums, the paper shows how empowering participatory processes improves the efficiency of community institutions in the management of the territory and allows slum dwellers to re-write power relations in action, improving their living conditions.

Openness may not mean Democratization – e-grievance systems in their consequences Gianluca Miscione, Karin Pfeffer, Javier Martinez, Rahul De’

E-government initiatives tend to come charged with expectations of improving the performance of public administrations by reducing inequalities in public service provision. The studies presented here elaborate on implications and consequences of systems to handle citizen complaints and public feedback related to the services provided to and managed for the population of different cities. Two cases from India and one from Europe have been chosen to explore what kind of consequences such systems can have in different settings. All cases are researched with a mix of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Although such systems come wrapped within the rhetoric of universalism and more equitable access, empirical data show that, by facilitating ‘participation of the fittest’, they get exploited more effectively by those who are better off, already. Therefore bureaucracy tends to become more dependent on the social environment.

 

 

  

18

D3

Condiciones de la expansión y configuración del área metropolitana de Bogotá:Perspectiva socioeconómica y ambiental. Nubia Yaneth Ruiz Ruiz

Bogotá junto con 17 municipios que se ubican geográficamente próximos a la gran capital, constituyen la región de mayor importancia económica para el país, enclavada en la región centro de Colombia, sobre una meseta de la cordillera central de los Andes, cuenta con una superficie de 3555 Km2. Tanto la configuración histórica del territorio, como los procesos económicos recientes, desde hace aproximadamente 30 años, determinan esta zona de país como una de las de mayor dinámica tanto en la interacción a su interior, como hacia el conjunto nacional. La presente investigación, aborda el problema de la configuración de una área metropolitana, que a pesar de no estar reconocida formalmente; su dinámica social, económica, territorial y ambiental, la definen como tal; el estudio aborda el análisis de los determinantes que definen esta región como un área metropolitana, las principales problemáticas y la perspectiva de conflictividad socioeconómica y territorial a que se aboca la región en el corto y mediano plazo. El método utilizado en el estudio tiene que ver con el análisis histórico de la configuración del territorio, desde la percepción de conurbación geográfica y social y la integración sistémica de diversas variables como: crecimiento poblacional, dinámica de movilidad cotidiana, intercambios económicos e impactos ambientales; el análisis de dichas variables arrojan como resultado la visibilización en el futuro inmediato de algunas de las características mas relevantes del área metropolitana central en Colombia.

Movilidad y territorio. Revisando el sesgo “materialista” en la gestión de políticas urbanas Andrea Gutiérrez

El paradigma actual en movilidad urbana enfatiza en las personas más que en los medios de transporte, y destaca que la movilidad y el transporte son tributos de la satisfacción de sus necesidades y deseos y que requieren un enfoque integrado de políticas urbanas. Pero hay una brecha entre las ideas y su aterrizaje metodológico. El nexo fundamental entre los modelos urbanos y de movilidad es la distribución de las actividades y personas en el territorio, así como de los transportes y demás funciones urbanas. El estudio de la movilidad a partir de la configuración material del territorio, esto es, a partir del uso u ocupación del suelo, conduce a interpretar la satisfacción de las necesidades o deseos que motivan el desplazamiento territorial de las personas según la llegada a los lugares donde se localizan las actividades o servicios. Buscando supercar este “sesgo materialista” el trabajo estudia la movilidad a partir de la realización de actividades o servicios concretos, no de la llegada a lugares. La evidencia y hallazgos utilizados provienen de un estudio de caso sobre la movilidad a la salud materna en el Partido de Pilar, periurbano de la metrópolis argentina de Buenos Aires. Los resultados muestran que concretar un servicio de salud involucra una red de viajes funcionalmente unidos pero operativamente fragmentados entre diferentes días y lugares, así como desconexiones intersectoriales en la gestión de salud y transporte que interfieren en el acceso a políticas públicas universales, gratuitas y basadas en la descentralización territorial de servicios.

Una Propuesta de Política y Construcción del Sistema Local de Desarrollo Urbano. El caso de la Municipalidad de Marília – Brasil. Carmen Silvia Bueno de Freitas Carvalho, Edimir de Carvalho

Brasil segui después de la implementación del proceso democrático hacia 1988, tratando de construir nuevas bases de una democracia moderna y se basa principalmente en sus ciudades. El gobierno elaboró un aparato legal, con el objetivo de legitimar la participación popular en los procesos de deliberación acerca de las alternativas para el desarrollo urbano. Entre estos procesos la Conferencia de la Ciudad es un poderoso instrumento de democratización y participación popular. El Ministerio das Ciudades la conceptualiza: "La Conferencia de Ciudades poner en la agenda pública y política urbana, que siempre se llena de gente o solo trata a nivel local (riesgo de ocupación, el saneamiento ambiental, la tenencia de tierras, conflictos por la tierra, mejoramiento de barrios, acceso a la vivienda para una población de hasta tres salarios mínimos y la movilidad urbana, entre otros). Promueven la formación de las redes de difusión de información sobre la función social de la ciudad y de la propiedad y fortalecer el Consejo de las Ciudades". Así proponemos analizar la reciente experiencia del Plan Directores Urbanos (PDU) y los otros instrumentos participación ciudadana. La hipótesis central reside en la paradoja de la institucionalización de la segregación socioespacial: los nuevos instrumentos de participación ciudadana y de medición de la ciudad viabilizan políticas públicas democráticas y legitiman la crisis urbana. Como resultado, los índices miden ciudades excluyentes, irregulares e ilegales.

 

  

19

Plenary Session I: 

The role of evidence based modelling and planning support systems in support of urban and regional policy development in South Africa.

Maria J. Coetzee

Cities, and especially metropolitan regions, have featured prominently in South Africa’s troubled political past and are increasingly ‘home’ to the many millions who have chosen, and are still planning to call it such in years to come. South Africa’s recently adopted National Development Plan outlines a trajectory in which the 59.3% of South Africans who lived in urban areas in 2005 will swell to 71.3% in 2030.

In 2009, South Africa’s nine largest cities housed 39.5% of South Africa’s population, generated 62.4% of the GDP on only 2.4% of the land. Gauteng - South Africa’s largest urban conurbation - saw in increase of 2, 9 million to 12.3 million people in 2011, which translated into a dramatic increase in urban poverty as well as housing and service backlogs. Moreover the poor alignment of housing, transport, land-use, economic and environmental policies has complicated efforts to address inherited spatial inequalities and to promote more integrated and vibrant settlements.

There is as yet, there is little consolidated knowledge or understanding of how South Africa functions as a space, and how spatial and temporal dynamics are shaping our spaces over time. In recognition of these challenges, the CSIR in concert with other role-players have developed a range of modelling and planning support systems to inform urban and regional policy and planning processes. This paper will seek to explore the opportunities, strength and weaknesses of these approaches in an environment undergoing rapid and poorly understood transitions.

Maria Coetzee is an urban geographer with more than 25 years of experience in spatial planning, inter-governmental planning, R&D, policy analysis and development, project management, training and facilitation. In her capacity as leader of the Regional and Urban Planning Research Group in the Built Environment Unit of the CSIR, she leads a range of inter-disciplinary projects with national impact in the fields of spatial analysis, governance, municipal planning, intergovernmental planning and sustainable development. She has received various awards for her contribution to integrated development planning in South Africa and has contributed to several national policy processes. She regularly serves on several national committees (such as the National IDP Steering Committee, The National IDP Task Team, The National IGR Reference Group, The LG SETA Reference Group on Qualification Standards for IDP, the Enerkey Long Term Perspective Working Group, The Gauteng Planning Forum, The Spatial Reference Group for the NDP, the Rural Innovation Assessment Reference Group and Project Steering Committee of the National Municipal Demarcation Board.) Maria facilitates strategic planning sessions for various donor agencies, professional institutions, national departments, provinces, metros and districts and leads public sector training and capacity building initiatives. She has a keen interest in urban planning and growth management, sustainability science and planning support systems. She currently leads the Integrated Development Planning and Modelling (IPDM) Project and StepSA (Spatial and Temporal Evidence for Planning in South Africa) Initiative for the National Department of Science and Technology.

 

  

20

Plenary Session II: 

Planning Like A State: Urban Governance by (Dis) Empowerment

Navdeep Mathur

The hegemonic narrative intersecting the practice of urban government with technical expertise is what is understood as Urban Governance. Within a liberal-democratic nation-state context, the major problem for those engaged in governing urban spaces is technical efficiency on one hand, and participation of multiple stakeholders on the other. The latter stands as a discursive representation of differential effectiveness, i.e. variegation in the outcomes of urban planned schemes that serve multiple target populations, where each stakeholder set is conceptually different. The obvious reference to James Scott’s “Seeing Like A State”in the title, marks a critical question of agency in the literature on urban governance. Are instruments of urban spatial analysis and planning distinct from technologies of state-craft and state-making? And are the multiple professional groups involved in aiding efficient management of urban questions, distinct from state actors? In what way do the development of visual technologies and exercises that have become dominating discourses in the governance of the urban, refer to hegemonic and overarching projects of legibility and state control? This paper reflects on the dialectic engagement between the needs of 21st century ‘scientific planners’ and their aerial picturization of the world that needs transformation for goals of States that re-assert their role in making the urban, and the knowledge of the world as experienced in urban life by the subjects of governance, in constantly struggling to make and contest spaces and modes of urban governance. With the notion of democracy a marginal yet often appropriated reference in urban governance, I examine how sophistication and expansion in the scope of technologies of spatial representation are deeply connected to normative visions of a good society, linked to authoritarian tendencies of control re-emerging in nation-states that are ostensibly have liberal democratic foundations.

Navdeep Mathur is a tenured member of the faculty at the Public Systems Group, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. His research is in the area of urban governance, critical policy and planning studies with a focus on participation, social justice and rights, politics of development, development-induced displacement and Interpretive Research Methodologies. He has published in academic and policy journals and is the co-editor of the Forum, Critical Policy Studies (a Routledge journal). He received his Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration, from Rutgers University, that was supervised by Frank Fischer. Prior to joining the IIM, Navdeep spent 5 years as a Research Fellow at the School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham, UK where he published with Chris Skelcher and Mike Smith on network governance, partnerships and citizen involvement in institutional design for collaborative policymaking. He has recently completed a research project with collaborators across India on the relationship of the globalizing state with local urban governance in India, supported by the Ford Foundation. His current and emerging research agenda includes understanding the role of technical expertise, scientific discourses and the politics of resistance in the context of modernist state-organised neoliberal strategies of governing.