PLAN 502: Last Day!

Housekeeping Items• Today we will do a mix of things for our last day:

Debrief from the field trip and try to relate what we saw to some of the themes of the course;

Hear from Maria Inês on environmental and natural resource policy in Brazil;

Hear mini-summaries (5 minutes maximum! preferably less) on your final projects (which are due today), and

Have a cursory discussion of the last four readings in the book on the spread of planning ideas throughout the world (which Maria Inês’ talk will be very relevant to).

The Diffusion of Planning Ideas• The author, Stephen Ward, in his article “Re-examining

the International Diffusion of Planning,” notes that in Europe by the mid-19th century there was already beginning to take shape a sharing of ideas on city-building/ planning and that, by 1914, there were four distinct strands: German, French, British, and American.

• It should be said that many parts of the world had already been shaped – in terms of urban morphology – by their colonial past.

Typical Plan for Colonial Town Centre in Latin America

Diffusion of Planning• Despite World Wars, globalization proceeded apace in the

20th century, influenced by the rise of the U.S. as a dominant power, and with some influence deriving from the Soviet Union as well, especially in its satellite states.

• Germany’s influence waned with the rise and fall of Nazism, and Scandinavia filled the vacuum to some degree.

• Moreover, within the European Union, there has been a tendency to seek common standards in the last few decades.

• While formal colonialism tended to collapse after 1945, neo-colonialism has tended to reinforce the one-way flow of planning ideas and trends to former colonies.

Diffusion of Planning• Ward divides diffusion into two broad streams: “borrowing” –

where the country selectively takes what it wants from the source country – and “imposition”, where a model is imposed wholesale on a subject country, having either a colonial status or one shaped by neo-colonial economic influences. See Table 24.1 for a more nuanced treatment of this on p. 483.

• In contrast, amongst Western powers the relationship was more equal and reciprocal. Ward gives the example of how Howard’s underdeveloped idea of a population ward of 5000 was developed into a neighbourhood unit by Clarence Perry in the U.S., and then further adapted by Wright and Stein for the automobile era and embodied in the layout of Radburn, New Jersey in the late 1920s.

Plan for Radburn, N.J.

Diffusion of Planning• The rest of Ward’s chapter provides a further elaboration

of these basic themes in greater and more nuanced detail.• What’s interesting is that – as we saw in the video from

CBC’s National a few weeks ago, featuring Charles Montgomery and Brent Toderian – the winds of influence are starting to blow in the opposite direction. Planners from Europe and North America are trooping to Latin America – to Curitiba, Bogotá, and Medellin – to learn from their innovative practices.

• Bogotá’s former mayor, Enrique Peňalosa, took a typical neo-colonial proposal by a Japanese aid agency to build six elevated expressways for cars and turned transportation (and social) priorities on their heads.

Strategies for More Livable Cities• Peter Evans reviews several cases from around the world

of urban and near-urban dwellers fighting against environmental degradation or neglect, the latter often often aided and abetted by the state. Their ability to be successful is often dependent on the existence of community cohesion, assisted sometimes by non-government organizations (NGOs). In cases – such as Hungary and Vietnam, where civil society has been deliberately kept weak – they are not as successful, or it takes longer to achieve their objectives.

• However, regardless of how much social capital they have to begin with, the struggle for a livable environment enhances existing social capital.

Strategies for More Livable Cities• On example that Maria Inês will be familiar with is the Los

Belvederes who occupied the land around São Paulo’s Guarapiranga Dam.

Is History Repeating Itself?• This essay, by Yan Zhang and Ke Fang, compares urban

renewal in China and the U.S.• While they occurring under very different circumstances

and stages of development, the authors see some commonalities.

• Both involve a “growth machine” coalition between private and state actors (in China, the line between the two is rather more fuzzy) to promote massive redevelopment of urban areas.

• Another difference is that in North America, the so-called ‘renewal’ eventually provoked a strong social movement that changed political structures, at least in the short term.

Is History Repeating Itself?

• The lack of democracy in China makes this more difficult, but it’s beginning to occur. As a number of authors have noted, people tend not to be consulted about the massive changes occurring in their cities.

• As Anne-Marie Broudehoux notes, “Rapid urban transformation and large-scale urban redevelopment have triggered the emergence of population groups rallied under the common goal of saving their homes and neighborhoods from the juggernaut of modernization….” (p. 212).

Urban Protest in China

Re-engaging Planning Theory?• The final essay, by Oren Yiftachel, basically argues that – as

per our wanting to learn Latin America – we need to change the relationship between planners in the northern and western world to those in the southern and eastern world, where present and future urban innovations are already arising. The locus of change and innovation is shifting.

• He also argues that we need to go outside a narrow focus on planning professionals to look at all the groups that are shaping cities for better or worse.

• Finally, he mentions that ‘homeland’ and ‘ethnicity’ will need to be a focus of future planning theory as these are key issues in many parts of the south and east and even Europe (e.g. Estonia), where they are influencing city-building.