Urban Geography and Planning 6

8/13/2019 Urban Geography and Planning 6

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Good news for cities? The economic impacts of an aging population

Peter Kresl, Dept Economics, Bucknell Univ., Lewisburg, PA, USA

The growing age dependency ratio is a powerful factor facing all industrialized economies for the

foreseeable future - especially in Europe and Japan. For national governments this is a "tickingtime bomb" of fiscal consequences of rising retirement and health costs. But I argue that forcities or urban regions there is the potential for a very positive impact. This conclusion is based

onanalysis of the seniors themselves - in the coming years they will be healthier, wealthier, more

mobile and more educated than ever before, as well as their decisions about place of residence -many chose to move into the city center for its amenities and convenience, and about how they

will spend both their time and their money. The 45 and older cohort is disproportionatelycommitted to cultural events and activities and to education - both of which are "urban

functions." In my presentation I will discuss the issue itself and what policies some municipalgovernments are introducing so as to capture this potential for revenues and audiences. I will

discuss cities in both North America and the EU.


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Mobiles all around: Changes in everyday practice of urban youth

Eva Thulin and Bertil Vilhelmson, Dept Human and Economic Geography, School of

Business, Economics and Law, Gteborg Univ.

[email protected], Bertil [email protected]

This paper explores how young peoples everyday patterns of social communication areaffected by the increased use of mobile phones. We discuss three areas in which there are

potential implications: (i) contact patterns and face-to-face interaction; (ii) other forms of

spatial mobility; and (iii) individual planning and use of time. Empirically, we rely on an in-

depth, three-wave panel study of forty young persons living in Gteborg, Sweden,

supplemented by national ICT-use survey data.

Results show that young peoples total interactions with their social environment increase as

the mobile promotes a flexible lifestyle of instant exchange and constant updates. Thresholds regarding space, time, and content for communicative action are reduced. A more

impulsive practice of decision-making evolves and people become more careless about

timekeeping. With the reduction in the constraints of time and space, the instant access of themobile becomes difficult to refuse, and perceived dependency on mobiles increases.

Yet, relationships are not uniform. Among more frequent mobile users the mobile seems to

generate additional out-of-home interaction. Less frequent mobile users stay at home more,

but spend more time socialising on the Internet. Gender differences in mobile use become less

apparent over time.

Office development in Dublin: Out to the edge and back ?

Sunnhild Bertz, Dept Geography, National Univ. Ireland, MaynoothPostal address: 22 Cambridge Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6, Ireland

E-mail: [email protected]

The rapid emergence of large-scale office development at Dublins edge was a defining

feature of the citys growth during the period 1996 2001 (which represents Dublins fourth

office development boom), accounting for around 70 per cent of office space completions

compared to less than 15 per cent during 1960 1995. This geographical shift, with serious

implications for sustainability, occurred within the context of a highly favourable suburban

planning environment, driven by inter-local authority competition for commercial rates

income and, in some cases, tax incentives for developers, investors and occupiers. Thelimitations of a planning-driven approach to office development quickly came to the fore

during the office market downturn after 2001, with the tide of new office development swiftly

retreating from Dublins edge. Dublins office property market is currently experiencing a

fifth major phase of expansion (since 2004). While edge urban locations have so far been

largely by-passed in terms of further new development, the paper considers the potential of

these peripheral sites for being incorporated into the current boom and highlights some of the

key factors impacting on office development outcomes over the next couple of years.


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Reassembling the urban. Creating and destroying

contemporary city landscapes

Session organisers: Mauro Cannone, Royal Holloway Univ. London, and Sara Fregonese,

Newcastle Univ.

ALL THAT IS SOLIDDOES NOTMELT INTO AIR: SOCIAL CAPITAL, POWER,

AND TRUST IN VENICES URBAN DEVELOPMENT.

Mauro Cannone

This paper examines the dynamics of urban regeneration in the specific context ofVenice, a city in which the complex strategies of development has had to face the challenges

of a built environment constrained by the exceptional presence of water and history. The

present analysis focuses on the redevelopment of the Arsenale, a vast semi-abandoned areaformerly hosting industrial and military activities, and now lying at the heart of Venice as a

problematic urban void. In particular, the paper addresses the processes of the creation of a

Maritime Technologies Centre (Thetis) located in the Arsenale. This redevelopment initiative,

besides contributing to the rejuvenation of the area, crucially shows an interesting example of

how to revitalize the socioeconomic life of a city jeopardized by the permanent loss of

residents and functions.

Rather than framing Thetisas the result of a coherent strategy put forward by urban

administrators and business leaders, its constitution is re-narrated here through a closer

description of a more precarious network of actors mobilized around the project. Woven by

both social and material threads, the network is configured by often undistinguishable

relations of friendships, business, acquaintance etc., able to draw on and effectively put intoaction various resources embedded in the local milieu of Venice.

In this account, social capital that is, the mobilization of resources through socialrelations emerges as the key element flowing within a network which crucially takes and

holds its shape according to the modalities in which power and trust are able to assemble

the associations between different actors. In highlighting the role of these two dimensions,

the article aims at enabling new possibilities of addressing the dynamics of socioeconomic

growth, suggesting that local development depends also on howpotential resources rooted

in place are effectively enacted by means of social relations.

Rebuilding a Troubled Past

The political geography of urban redevelopment in Germany.

Dr. Jan Henrik Nilsson

Department of Service Management, Lund University. Box 882, 251 08 Helsingborg,

Sweden.

Town planning has increasingly been forced to take history seriously when city centres are

redeveloped. Preservation, conservation and finding new use for degraded buildings and areashas gained importance, politically and publicly. Some environments that previously have been


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destroyed have even been reconstructed from scratch. This is most common in East-Central

Europe and in Germany, due to war damage and widespread neglect during the communist

period. This particular use of history may be controversial because of the traumatic history in

this part of Europe, the past has serious symbolic value.

During 2006 and 2007, the authorities in Berlin and Potsdam have made the final decisions torebuild the city castles in the neighbouring towns. The two castles, dating back to the

electorate of Prussia-Brandenburg, were seriously, but not totally, damaged during the Second

World War. Instead, the GDR authorities finally raised them in 1950 and 1960 respectively.

The decisions to rebuild them are controversial. One reason for this is the symbolic meaning

inherited in the buildings. They may represent Prussia, German militarism and even Nazism.

On the other hand, the modernist developments that came in their place during the GDRregime may symbolize communist dictatorship. The debate over these buildings, and places,

also concern practical and financial issues along with discussions on the cityscapessurrounding the castles and the place of the castles within the cities. This paper will analyze

this redevelopment process and the political and public debate that has led to the decisions to

rebuild.

Infrastructural violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: the politics of creative

destruction

Omar Jabary Salamanca

The destruction and construction of infrastructural networks has become a particularly salient

aspect of contemporary warfare. Yet the ways in which these networks direct and reflect

patterns of conflict are rarely considered. This project calls attention to a politics of creativedestruction that takes shape around struggles for control of, and access to, the infrastructural

networks that sustain life, movement, and communication in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.While stressing the ways in which infrastructural destruction and construction are integrated

into broader technologies of government and war, the project also highlights how Israeli

efforts at control are constantly contested and subverted, ultimately leading to the articulation

of counter-infrastructures that support life and sustain resistance. Invoking a theoretically

informed single case-study methodology (Gerring 2004; Tsing 2000) grounded in interviews,

the study of planning documents, the mapping of infrastructural projects and patterns of

conflict, critical ethnographic techniques, etc, the paper promises to introduce new

perspectives and points for comparative exploration, both with regard to the specific casestudy, and to the wider literature on contemporary conflicts.


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Urban planning and the banality of morality

Jonas R Bylund, PhD Human Geography, Dept. of Human Geography, Stockholm University

What are suitable tools to investigate contemporary urban planning practice? The discourse-

analysis approach has been widely popular in studies on urban planning practice. However,

one problem with the approach is a conceptual limitation in the focus on words and verbal

interchange. The outcomes of negotiation and discourse are many times quite visible, but the

path towards it obscured by this limitation. By treating planning as a case of materially

manifesting morality, it is possible to recast the old issue of the disciplining and discursive

urban planners in a new light. Even if it is self-evident in human geography that the built-

environment regulates behaviour and flows of humans and nonhumans, it is still not very wellunderstood or explained in planning theory how planners in practice produce these spaces.

Due to the tendency in this field towards crafting normative procedural models, the innovative

character of planning is left in the dark. In human geography, on the other hand, the vexingproblem has been (and still is to some extent) one of how to reconcile social and physicalplanning in theory and investigative practice. The proposition in this paper is that one way to

keep the fruits of a discourse approach but extend the range of investigation is to develop a

generalised discourse analysis and a geography of projects. Central to this endeavour is a

focus upon the delegation of provisional allowances and scripting.


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Urban planning, image construction and toponymic landscaping: the case of

Vuosaari, eastern Helsinki

Jani Vuolteenaho, Department of Geography, University of Helsinki

Abstract:It is nowadays a commonplace to say that cities in Western countries (and

beyond) are experiencing a 'global', 'postindustrial' or 'post-modern' era

a phase of urban development in which worldwide economic processes, cultural

globalization and image construction are remorselessly remoulding and

fragmentizing local landscapes. As a specific manifestation of these

processes, many critics have argued that the power of economic actors ininfluencing the local toponymies has increased. That is, whereas affixing

'official' names to streets, squares, parks, districts et cetera has beenhistorically interwoven with the institutionalization of the rationalistic

practices of urban planning, the distinction between officially authorized

toponyms and commercial names is getting more and more blurred incontemporary cities. This paper, based on over 1000 locally given

institutional and commercial names in 19662004, presents a case study on

the dramatic transformation of onomastic landscape of Vuosaari, a seaside

suburb on the eastern outskirts of Helsinki.


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Processes of place reinvention in regional towns

Session organiser: Karl Benediktsson and Magnfrur Jlusdttir, Dept Geology and

Geography, Univ. Iceland

Modernities and materialities: Place reinvention in East Iceland

Karl BenediktssonDepartment of Geography and Tourism

University of Iceland

Places are repositories of cultural meanings, both for their inhabitants as well as for others

indeed that is part and parcel of the concept of place in human geography. Yet these

meanings are malleable and fluid. They are increasingly put to work, as it were, for local

development, in an economic system that is ever more suffused by cultural concent. This is, in

short, what the concept of place reinvention stands for. Much of this, such as town planning

projects and place branding, is explicit and intentional. In other cases, reinvention is an

unintentional result of particular intersections of capital, culture and diverse actors over time.

In the presentation, I first discuss the concept of place reinvention in more detail and then

make use of it in a description of economic, social and cultural processes in two small towns

in East Iceland. The work stems from a recent comparative research project where selected

regional towns in Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland were compared. Qualitative datawere collected through focus group sessions and interviews with key actors.

Of the East Iceland towns, one Reyarfjrur is undergoing wholesale identity

transformation, from a small fishing place to an industrial locality where a single largealuminium plant dominates. The other town Egilsstair is on the other hand making aconcerted effort to position itself as a major inland service town that is attractive to new

settlers. A new plan for the town centre projects meanings of proper urban space through

various design features.

Wild nature, global art and gendered images in place-marketing

the new reindeerland in East Iceland

Magnfrur JlusdttirDepartment of Geography and Tourism

University of Iceland

In line with the dominant neoliberal discourse towns and regions in Iceland are defining anddeveloping their growth potential in a competitive global marketplace.

These trends are increasingly expressed in place promotions to attract investments, desirabletourist or migrants and new forms of governance, emphasizing public-private partnerships.

The twin processes of emphasising the unique character of a place and its openness to the

outer world, touches up on central questions of difference, power and contestations in choice

of development paths in place reinvention.

The paper focuses on the gendering of these processes in the creation and use of a newimage for a regional service town in an agricultural area in East Iceland, Egilsstair. Wild


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reindeer have recently been discovered as markers of uniqueness in the region and are

increasingly used in marketing the area, especially to tourists and sport-hunters, but also to

potential migrants and an international community of artists.

Through the case of the invention of the reindeer image, the study analyses representations of

gendered images, nature-culture relations and belonging to a place, in interviews with local

actors, promotion material and policy documents.

The audience of place-marketing images: encounters with Trieste a real

multicultural city.

Annalisa Colombino

Geography, Open University, UK

When investigating place-marketing images, geographers and urban scholars have focused on

analysing their manifest and latent meaningsand emphasised how they often misrepresentreal places. By privileging the past as their main analytical concern, they have also

discussed how this temporality is manipulated by marketing for crafting representations that

do not mirror residents views of the history of their place. Common is the claim that place-

marketing images are fictitious representations of places that foster the opposition of local

communities. This paper discusses how residents encounter their places marketed image in

order to explore whether these images are always unfaithful and unwanted representations

of places. It also questions whether people always read the meanings inscribed by

marketers in these representations, and whether it is the past that is the main temporality that

people evoke when articulating their views about the marketed image of their place.Using

Trieste (Italy) as a case study, I discuss how a group of 32 residents perceived the citys

multicultural character that was marketed during the bid for the 2008 World Expo. HenriLefebvres theory of lespaceand discourse analysis provide, respectively, the theoretical

framework and the analytical strategy through which I tackle this issue. I illustrate that despitethe fact that marketers sense of Triestes multiculturalism was not decoded by the

informants, Triestes advertised image was mainly supported by the interviewees. I point to

how evocation of specific temporalities (historical past, present, and timeless temporality)

affected how the informants constructed their views about Trieste. I finally illustrate how and

why Triestes multicultural image can be envisaged as a real representation of the Italian

city.

Constructing a new image for an old town

Liv Mari Nesje and Jens Kristian Fosse

Agder Research

N-4604 Kristiansand S

Norway

Arendal, the largest town in the County of Aust-Agder, was way back an important town in

the southernmost part of Norway. Its position was due to shipbuilding and international trade,


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but in 1886 a collapse in these two businesses resulted in an economic slump causing new

challenges.

Nevertheless, for a long time it seemed that Arendal happened to be stuck in the

representations of the good, old days, with sailing ships and the connections the trading had

given to important ports and cities worldwide. While Arendal still understood itself as an

important town in the two counties of Agder and in the country, the eternal competitorKristiansand experienced large growth, and soon caught up with Arendals earlier position as

the most important town in Agder.

Realising problems of negative images caused by among other things a negative economic

situation and television comedians of the 1990s, the public administration and the politicians

started a turnaround for a new image as response to these challenges. A place-making project

with broad citizen participation, including physical regeneration, economic and socialdevelopment, and a reinvention of internal images, was launched.

Based on an evaluation of the place making project in Arendal, the paper addresses thequestion whether, and eventually how, such projects can contribute to reinvent representations

of an old regional town. The paper discusses the double-edged blade of such participatory

planning processes in urban development.

Image and Identity in Times of Structural Change A Telecom City on a Naval Base

Mareile Walter

Centre of Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy (CIRCLE)

Blekinge Institute of Technology / Lund University

The local identity of cities can be expected to be challenged when the cities go through a

process of comprehensive industrial structural change. The traditional economic base and itscompetences, values and physical structures that make out part of the base for local pride are

loosing in importance. At the same time, the need to attract investments, firms and people forthe development of new industries demands a globally competitive image standing for

innovativeness, openness and distinctiveness, which even more depreciates the industrial past.

These challenges also apply to the case of the Swedish city of Karlskrona, a naval base seeing

a miraculous growth of ICT-industries in the 1990s and since then promoted as Telecom

City.

The paper tries to describe in which way image and identity in Karlskrona relate to each

other by comparing the image of the place as it is communicated in the promotional material

of the ICT-cluster network TelecomCity with expressions of local identity derived from adebate on an inner-city redevelopment project in Karlskrona that finally failed due to local

opposition. The basis for the latter is an analysis of interviews, newspaper articles and

municipal documents. The results can be interpreted so that locally there exist competing

ideas of for which kind of people the city is, partly excluding exactly those the image of

TelecomCity wants to attract. This leads to the conclusion that regional policies promoting

innovation to a larger degree should be directed also to the wider public trying to influence

local culture.


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Local Sustainability

Session organisers: Huei-Min Tsai (Taiwan), Chun-Chieh Chi (Taiwan), Eric Clark (Lund)

As globalization continues to bring places in more interdependent and enmeshed relations

with one another and environmental issues become increasingly acute, agendas for

sustainability at local scales have become crucial for local communities and gain ever more

attention from researchers and policy makers (e.g. Local Agenda 21 and Local Action 21). At

the same time, sustainability discourse remains largely oblivious to strong research traditions

in geography and social sciences that persuasively reveal how socio-ecological systems are

historically and currently ridden with structural problems of power, conflicts of interest,

inequalities, polarization and large scale displacement. Habitat destruction has implicitly been

associated with natural habitats rather than communities. Focusing on local sustainability

may provide one path towards bringing together social theory and what with a certain amount

of authority is called sustainability science. This session brings together papers on a broad

array of topics local knowledge, political ecology, social dimensions, scale and

appropriateness, biocultural coevolution, lessons from local experiments and strategies, the

political economy of sustainability, among others sharing in common the theme of local

sustainability issues. The aim is to submit a collection of papers for publication in a theme

issue of a peer-reviewed journal.

Session organizers:

Huei-Min Tsai (National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan) [email protected]

Chun-Chieh Chi (National Dong-Hwa University, Taiwan) [email protected]

Eric Clark (Lund University, Sweden) [email protected]


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Local sustainability indicators: from global issues to local concerns

Huei-Min Tsai

Graduate Institute of Environmental Education

National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

[email protected]

Based on experiences in developing local sustainability indicators for a few municipalities

and small islands in Taiwan, this paper argues that sustainability indicators for local areas

need to reflect local concerns for sustainable futures and should not be limited to indicators

prescribed by a global sustainability agenda. First the paper gives a brief review of the tasks

involved in Local Agenda 21 planning and various approaches to selecting sustainability

indicators at different scales. Then three sets of local sustainability indicators based on three

different geographical contexts in Taiwan (rural, industrial, and small islands) will be

compared. The study suggests that selection of local sustainability indicators should extend

beyond those employed on the national or global scale, limited as they are to available and

easily measured data. Public involvement of local communities in identifying their own

important issues is crucial to the utility and efficacy of sustainability indicators and to the

long-term success of policies aimed toward sustainable development. The process of

developing local sustainability indicators needs to reflect local concerns and build on the local

knowledge and local norms upon which consensus can build.

Key words: local sustainability indicators, Local Agenda 21, local knowledge, Taiwan


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A future for Baltic Sea islands?

EU maritime policy meets local concerns for sustainable development

Peter Billing, Director, PhD

Centre for Regional & Tourism Research, Bornholm, Denmark

[email protected]

In 2006 the European Commission presented a Green Paper on a future maritime policy for

Europe. The Green Paper embraces an integrated and holistic approach to policy making, and

puts sustainable development at the core of its focus. In addition, the Commission has invited

to a one year long consultation process. During this consultation, public authorities, interest

organisations and business associations have been engaged at local, regional, national as well

as at pan-European level, generating a wave of critical remarks and constructive

contributions. In this way, the Green Paper serves as a political means to bring the global

threats and challenges environmental, economic, and social facing Europes maritime

world into direct interaction with local issues and concerns on islands and coastal regions. A

number of critical questions arise from this: How are the local concerns for sustainable

development translated into the European policy level? What are the local priorities and who

formulates them? Are there any vested interests that contribute to filtering out certain

issues? In order to deal with these questions, this paper examines the intervention in the Green

Paper process made by the B7 Network, a co-operation between seven island regions in the

Baltic Sea Area.

Keywords: policy, maritime regions, islands, sustainable development, B7 Network


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Tourism development as a means toward local sustainability in a globalizing world a

case study of Hualien Coastal Valley, Taiwan

Chun-Chieh Chi, Professor,

Graduate Institute of Ethnic Relations and Culture, National Dong-Hwa University, Taiwan

[email protected]

Located on the sparsely populated east coast of Taiwan, Hualien has long been an

economically peripheral area focusing on primary resource production. It is also famous for

its natural beauty in coastal areas as well as access to a mountain range. However, in

accordance with the national economic plans of the 1980s, Hualien started its decade-long

industrial development process. Having attracted only environmentally harmful cement

production factories, local government gradually redirected its development agenda and

redefined Hualien County as a tourist county that would attract international as well as

domestic tourists. In the mean time, local communities and some nature tourism

organizations, benefited from tourist arrivals in recent years, also eagerly involving

themselves in pursuing community development through tourism-related activities and

establishments. Many issues need to be properly dealt with if tourism development is to be

successful in terms of sustainability and benefit to most local people. These include: the

cultivation of alternative images of local development amongst government officials as well

as the general public; the development of mechanisms to control and manage tourist

development; debates about the proposed superhighway; and coordination of tourism related

projects and policies between central and local government, and among different agencies

within the local government. This research applies the ideas and vales of local sustainability

in studying the above-mentioned issues, and provides policy recommendations for Hualien to

better achieve local sustainability through tourism development.

Keywords: local sustainability, sustainable development, tourism, globalization, Hualien


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e-Local Sustainability Map

Jehng-Jung Kao, Tze-Chin Pan, Yu-Nong Wong, and Kun-Hsing Liu

Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

E-mail:[email protected]: +886-3-5731869 Fax: +886-3-5731759

http://jjkao.ev.nctu.edu.tw/weboffice/eindex.php

This paper describes a long term grassroots project to improve sustainability of the Hsinchu

area in Taiwan through the practice of making electric local sustainability (eLS) maps. eLS

maps are designed to link local natural, cultural, and environmental assets, including green

spaces, cultural sites, eco-resources, etc. The process of making these maps provides an

effective technique for promoting community participation and influencing the general public

to increase consciousness regarding sustainability. The major goal is to attract the attention of

teachers, students, organizations, and the general public to improve the local sustainability of

the areas where they live. Three types of eLS maps are being developed: school-based,

community-based, and enterprise- or organization-based. Currently, various groups, including

school teachers and their students, parents, and residents from local communities are teamed

up to develop Hsinchu eLS maps. The information collected for producing eLS maps will also

be used to establish various spatial and temporal indicators to measure and reflect progress in

improving local sustainability. Besides increasing sustainability consciousness among the

general public, the eLS maps are intended to show and analyze spatial and temporal change of

sustainability aspects and issues. Implementation of the plan for developing various Hsinchu

eLS maps is described and illustrated. The making of eLS maps is expected to markedly

improve the local sustainability of the Hsinchu area in an effective manner.


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Glocalized sustainability in a cultural context: a case of island and urban Taiwan

Chin-Shou Juju Wang, Ph.D

Professor of Environmental Sociology, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

IHDP and DIVERSITAS, Taiwan Committee Member

[email protected]

This paper will first address the East-West "sustainability gaps" in terms of conceptual and

contextual insights, particularly those gaps raised through different cultural luggage and social

grammars. The Taiwan case is appropriate to exemplify this issue of sustainability gaps.

Then, "amplifying factors", such as the island factor and the urban factor, will be identified in

justifying or adjusting sustainable gaps between the East and West. Integrating concepts

mainly from island culture, risk society, cultural luggage and social grammars, this paper aims

to identify spatial and socio-cultural characteristics in amplifying positive or negative

sustainability. For instance, does an Eastern father-son axis or a Western husband-wife axis

make any difference in amplifying sustainability of a society? In addition, vertical zoning in

the east, compared with horizontal zoning in the west, has treated land use as intense as

possible and further created various forms of friction of space. More examples will be

discussed in order to promote east-west dialogue and to conclude this paper with glocalized

perspectives.

Key words: glocalized sustainability, sustainability gap, cultural luggage, social grammars,

island Taiwan


17/19

Island studies of ecosystem social system coevolution for local sustainable development

Eric Clark and Huei-Min Tsai

Dept of Human Geography Graduate Institute of Environmental Education

Lund University, Lund, Sweden National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

[email protected] hmtsai@ ntnu.edu.tw

This paper presents a case for island studies of sustainable development from the perspective

of ecosystem social system coevolution. First the concept of ecosystem social system

coevolution is situated in relation to the broader field of thought on sustainable development.

Then a case is made that characteristics of ecosystem social system coevolution render

island studies especially appropriate in developing a research agenda on and for local

sustainable development. Finally, an island studies research agenda on local sustainable

development is outlined, drawing on previous and ongoing research.


18/19

Model based development planning

Session organisers: Birgit Kopainsky, Dept Geography, Univ. Bergen

Simulation for development planning: how system dynamics models can help make

better strategic decisions for long-term development

Matteo Pedercini1, 2, Birgit Kopainsky21Millennium Institute, Arlington VA, United States

2System Dynamics Group, Department of Geography, University of Bergen, Norway

National development planning is a decisional process at the central government level that

defines the strategic plan for a countrys long-term development. This paper provides an

overview over the existing system dynamics models that support national developmentplanning. Such models can be useful in this process in several ways. First, the participatory

process of model development provides insights into the coherence and consistency of

objectives, hypotheses and data used for policymaking in different sectors in a country.

Second, the base run simulations of the models offer an outlook into the key development

issues a country might face in the future. Third, alternative scenarios provide an

understanding of the potential impact of development policies across a wide range of sectors

and reveal how different strategies interact with one another to achieve planned goals andobjectives. Fourth, the resulting national development plans provide a clear basis for action in

the various sectors, as well as for monitoring and evaluation of performance.In the first part of the paper, we describe how system dynamics models can help making

better decisions in national development planning. In a second part we provide an overview ofthe best-known applications of system dynamics to development planning. Reflecting on the

experiences made with the application we draw a number of conclusions about the

contribution of simulation models for national development planning.

Modeling U.S. Energy with Threshold 21 (T21)

Andrea M. Bassi

Millennium Institute, Arlington, VA, United States

The United States is about to face years of major, interrelated policy issues. Energy transition,peak oil, and the threat of global warming, together with heightened fears of terrorism,

environmental and social issues are largely crowded out of public dialogue. What is needed isan analytical tool that addresses these issues in an integrated and transparent way. The

Threshold 21 (T21) model customized to the USA, is such a tool. The purpose of this study is

to analyze T21-USA, by highlighting its flexibility and transparency. The analysis shows that

T21-USA is a good tool for understanding and analyzing validity, effectiveness and outcomes

of complex energy policies, such as the Advanced Energy Initiative -follow up of the State of

the Union Address. Despite its complexity, T21-USA is transparent and a user-friendly

interface makes it an intuitive instrument that can be used by a broad audience, ranging from

students to policy makers.


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Modelling Public Expenditure and Human Development in Pakistan

Muhammad Azeem Qureshi,System Dynamics Group, Dept Geography, Univ. Bergen,[email protected]

[email protected]

This paper examines the impact of public expenditure on human development in Pakistan. Itdevelops a system dynamics model to estimate population, primary education rate and access

to basic health care given exogenous gross domestic product (GDP) and public spending oneducation and health. It predicts development path of population, primary education and

access to basic health care. The results show that high economic growth may not result into

better human development indicators. On the contrary, high spending on education and health

will improve human development indicators even if the economy grows at a relatively lower

rate. It suggests a threshold of 3% of sustained economic growth rate as a pre-requisite to plan

for human development in Pakistan. With that in place this paper suggests anchoring of public

policy to human development by allocating more public funds for human development.

Key Words: Human Development, Public Policy, Public Expenditure, System Dynamics.

JEL Codes: H51, H52.

Documents

Urban Geography and Planning 6