Philosophy of Urban and Regional Planning

Integral to the reproductive processes of the biota of several forest, shrub, and grassland biome-types, wildfire ignites some 3,400,000km2 of Earth’s vegetated surface annually. Though a highly complex phenomena coupled with not one, but several Earth systems, human actions are both directly and indirectly changing wildfire frequencies, intensities, severities, and behaviours, and to the detriment of both environment and society. Nowhere is this felt more so than the wildland urban interface, which home to roughly 1/3 of the nation’s populous and 40% of its housing stock, is the fastest-growing land-use type in the conterminous United States. A place where fire-averse architectures meet increasingly fire-prone lands, loss of lives, properties, and livelihoods to a series of wildfire complexes of proportions unprecedented in living memory have rendered there an urgent need to reconsider the challenge of living with wildfire as a vital landscape process. The product of a transdisciplinary study which converged state-of-the-knowledge from fields as diverse as the fire, ecological, and wider Earth sciences; information, communication, computing, and related technologies, both digital and biological; evolutionary, smart and living materials, architectures, and urban systems; philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and policymaking, this thesis presents a new wildland urban interface paradigm modelled on the biochemistries, behaviours, and systems of fire-adapted flora and the fire regimes they form. Migrating biomimetics from the level of species to systems, relying not on generic notions of nature and its workings, nor assumptions more generally, but on rigorous interrogation of the interplay between biotic and abiotic processes from the molecular to landscape to planetary scale, and across both human and geological timescales, several original theoretical and technical architectural and urban concepts are discussed, together with their possible applications and implications both within and beyond the wildland urban interface. Integrating insights from local and global indigenous and ancient fire cultures, the findings conclude that not merely is a reconciliation of human and non-human systems at the interface of fire-prone wild and urban lands possible, but therein resides potent ecological, social, and technical potentialities that merit further research in the years ahead.

Chapter Overview: Transcending the boundaries of space and time, whereas the 5-part case studies series is exclusively focused on recent western U.S. wildfire complexes and the future WUI insights as can be gleaned therefrom, this triangulated case study extends across continents and centuries to discuss parallels between events that have historically been considered as mutually exclusive, therein studied in silos. Traversing transdisciplinary information as relates to both wildland and urban fires, a system of systems approach is employed by means of illuminating how, at the level of biochemistry, physics, and the wider sciences, fire behaviours as are witnessed in wildlands have become manifest in cities past and present, and why the matter thereof it pertinent to architectural and urban design futures. While informing the new WUI paradigm this thesis puts forth, the purpose of this chapter is that of highlighting the wider applicability of the findings of this research programme, and of critiquing construction, and other built environment concepts as evidence vulnerability to fire.

The rapid growth rate in urban population and flow of technologies has fastened the magnitudes and patterns of urban transportation network. The number of vehicles has increased tremendously in the metropolitan areas of the city. Whereas the traffic control involves the attempts to make the movements as fast, efficient and safe as possible with minimum damage to the local or regional environment. This study will create a relationship among travel patterns (individual behavior), transportation facilities (planning and decision-making processes),sustainable economic growth, social well-being, and environmental context of Lahore that forms the basis of transportation analysis and policy decisions in the governmental agencies.

The real challenge comes from alarming inner city vehicle increases in the country. Recent years have seen an unprecedented growth of traffic in Pakistan. There are multiple reasons for this rapid increase which is greatly evident in big cities like Karachi and Lahore. This has raised a number of concerns and questions for research and modeling of advanced and efficient traffic patterns.This paper is a detail study of multidimensional traffic pattern of Lahore, its issues, flow and intensity; peak congestion hours and periods of extreme pressure at some of the major roads in the city finally ending at a focused case study (Shahrah-e-Quaid-e-Azam). On the basis of systematically collected quantitative data of the sampled main roads, study provides guidelines and policy measures for the government to control this menace. Keeping in view the geographical limitations and socio economic structure of the city, it also suggests remedies to overcome traffic problems. Paper proposes a researched based practicum model to help set an efficient and sustainable traffic pattern. The rationale of the study is to create Vehicle Density History (VDH) for selected chowks at different times of the day. i.e peak, medium and low hours. Once a comprehensive VDH is created, it can help for integrated planning for efficient traffic flow patterns and management.

This paper focuses on the urban graffiti painted with a political message by different
movements of the Italian political radicalism in the cities of Rome, Florence, Massa,
Carrara, Verona and Udine. For the purpose of this article, during the period from June
2011 to June 2012, a total of 165 graffiti have been photographed, of which 83 painted by
neo-fascist groups, 72 by extreme left groups and 10 by anarchist groups. These three
macro communities, made of different subgroups, emerged as the most active in expressing
their antagonism towards the parliamentary parties with their graffiti that combine semantic
(words) and semiotic (images) elements. An analysis of the collected graffiti’s language
form, meaning and context allows for the identification of the variety of styles of
communication adopted by the different political antagonisms and the different contents of
their communication through graffiti as well as the key elements of their political identities.
Key words: political radicalism, graffiti, linguistics

Chapter 5 from The City of Reason vol 1 Cities and Citizenship
by Dr Peter Critchley

The modern world is suffering from a crisis of political socialisation and representation. So many people in so many parts of the developed world are disengaging from politics as now practised and expressing increasing levels of dissatisfaction with the way that politics is currently being conducted. At the same time there is a participatory revolution underway. More and more people are getting involved in issues that, by any definition, can be considered political. With these developments comes an increased interest in what politics is, has been and ought to be. What are the origins of political concepts and how have they come to be what they now are? This book takes a philosophical and historical approach to the origin and evolution of political ideas, attempting to reveal the how and why of politics, continually tracing the unfolding of the ideal within the real, the rational within the actual with a view to its complete fruition in the future.
This book is not another history of ideas on the subject of freedom. Rather, it is an historical socio-philosophy of rational freedom with an explicitly political purpose and goal. The aim is to understand how individuals are capable of becoming citizens through socially constructing freedom as a public value. In the course of this inquiry the extent to which freedom is a contested concept becomes clear. Freedom means different things to different sections of society at different times and in different places. Since the value of freedom has been a staple of philosophy, there is a need to examine the works of political philosophers to see how far they have clarified or obscured the potentials of the value. The question concerns how this freedom, which emerges in the social practices of the people, comes to be reconstructed politically and philosophically in order to provide norms for the state and law. The arguments of philosophers have influenced the valorization, articulation, comprehension, dissemination, and institutionalisation of the value. The question is whether codification and institutionalisation represents the realisation of freedom or its denial.

العمارة هي الفن والعلم المعني باستيعاب النشاط البشري داخل البيئات الداخلية والخارجية ، وتتعلق بتنفيذ الأنشطة التي تشكل رفاه المستوطنات البشرية من الناحية الوظيفية فضلاً عن الجمالية ، وتشمل الهندسة المعمارية جميع أنواع المباني مثل المباني السكنية والتجارية والإدارية والضيافة والترفيه ومراكز التسوق والمطاعم والمسارح والمطارات وغيرها ، وبالعمل بشكل وثيق مع المهندسين ومديري البناء ومخططي المدن ومصممي الديكور الداخلي والمهندسين المعماريين للمناظر الطبيعية، يكون على المهندسين المعماريين تحديد جميع الاحتياجات المادية والفسيولوجية والنفسية والاقتصادية لمجموعات المستخدمين المختلفة الذين يستخدمون المبنى، وإعداد برنامج للمشروع بغرض تلبية هذه الاحتياجات، وإجراء تطوير التصميم، وإعداد المخططات التنفيذية والوثائق التعاقدية، والإشراف على تشييد المباني.

There has been an increase in agglomerative subcentering
over the past two decades in many large metropolitan
areas. What present society describes as urban sprawl or
suburban flight may simply be a natural process of urbanregional
development, consistent with monocentric urban
thought and development extending backwards in time for more
than two millenia. By objective, the theoretical work of
this dissertation emulates major monocentric models developed
over the past three millenia to develop an extended
mathematical model with agglomerative subcenters. Next, the
empirical work tests this extended model against observations
of Major Retail Centers (MRCs) for radially monocentric
SMSAs. Through a two-step econometric technique which
includes a model-specification error test, the results
ascertain the existence and locations of peak subcenter
activity at an average of approximately half the distance
from the Central Business District to the furthest MRC.
This position concurs with Plato's ideal model of Magnesia
and other works of the past three millenia.

This book explores how Victorian cemeteries were the direct result of the socio-cultural, economic and political context of the city, and were part of a unique transformation process that emerged in London at the time. The book shows how the re-ordering of the city’s burial spaces, along with the principles of health and hygiene, were directly associated with liberal capital investments, which had consequences in the spatial arrangement of London. Victorian cemeteries, in particular, were not only a solution for overcrowded graveyards, they also acted as urban generators in the formation London’s suburbs in the nineteenth century. Beginning with an analysis of the conditions that triggered the introduction of the early Victorian cemeteries in London, this book investigates their spatial arrangement, aesthetics and functions. These developments are illustrated through the study of three private Victorian burial sites: Kensal Green Cemetery, Highgate Cemetery and Brookwood Cemetery. The book is aimed at students and researchers of London history, planning and environment, and Victorian and death culture studies.

With the „Smart City Wien Framework Strategy“ the city of Vienna commits itself to a long-term concept of urban development with the holistic claim of addressing all areas of life. This gives rise to questions about the democratic implications and political dimensions of such a comprehensive conception of urban development which have been widely omitted in scientific Smart City research to date.

Urban development is political. It is so due to its subject: the foresighted organisation of human's living environments with the claim of common and social welfare and sustainability. Urban planning deliberately and systematically manipulates the qualities of the living environment of people. Thus it systematically influences people's lives. It doesn't merely influence the environment, the life, the freedom of the people living now, but also of future generations.

Therefore this thesis aims to demonstrate that Smart City as a conceptual tool is political and demands a conception of urban development as a political process. Based on the assumption of wide impacts on society and life in the city, and therefore not accepting a notion of Smart City as a pragmatic tool to non- ideologically develop a city by means of modern technology, questions about political principles – values and interests transmitted within the Smart City-concept – are asked.

Urban dwellers nowadays constitute the majority of society. In this context cities have to be recognised as society's hatchery and urban development strategies with holistic claim have to base upon this notion.

--

Mit der „Smart City Wien Rahmenstrategie“ verschreibt sich die Stadt Wien einem langfristig orientierten Stadtentwicklungskonzept, das den Anspruch erhebt, umfassend zu sein und alle Bereiche des städtischen Lebens anzusprechen. Es eröffnen sich Fragen demokratischer Implikationen und der politischen Dimension eines solch umfassenden Verständnisses von Stadtentwicklung, die in der bisherigen wissenschaftlichen Smart City-Forschung weitgehend außer Acht gelassen wurden.

Raumplanung ist politisch. Sie ist dies aufgrund ihres Gegenstandes: der vorausschauenden Organisation menschlichen Lebensraumes mit dem Anspruch des Gemeinwohls, der Wohlfahrt und der Nachhaltigkeit. Raumplanung beeinflusst gezielt Qualitäten des Lebensumfeldes von Menschen, womit sie planmäßig in das Leben von Menschen eingreift. Sie nimmt damit nicht nur Einfluss auf den Lebensraum, das Leben, die Freiheit der Menschen die jetzt leben, sondern auch zukünftiger Generationen.

Diese Arbeit hat zum Ziel, zu zeigen, dass somit auch Smart City als Konzeptionierungswerkzeug politisch ist. Ausgehend von der Annahme, dass sich Smart City weitreichend auf die Gesellschaft und das Leben in der Stadt auswirkt, wird die verbreitete Auffassung von Smart City als ein pragmatisches Instrument zur unideologischen Entwicklung einer Stadt unter Zuhilfenahme moderner Technologien nicht akzeptiert. Fragen nach der politischen Identität – nach den Werten und Interessen, die das Smart City-Konzept transportiert, werden gestellt.

StadtbewohnerInnen formen heute die Mehrheit der Gesellschaft. In diesem Zusammenhang müssen Städte als Brutstätten der Gesellschaft verstanden werden und Stadtentwicklungsstrategien mit ganzheitlichem Anspruch wie Smart City Wien müssen auf diesem Verständnis basieren.

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of cost escalation in transportation infrastructure projects. Based on a sample of 258 transportation infrastructure projects worth US$90 billion and representing different project types, geographical regions, and historical periods, it is found with overwhelming statistical significance that the cost estimates used to decide whether such projects should be built are highly and systematically misleading. Underestimation cannot be explained by error and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying. The policy implications are clear: legislators, administrators, investors, media representatives, and members of the public who value honest numbers should not trust cost estimates and cost-benefit analyses produced by project promoters and their analysts.

The article focuses on the football Ultras and their involvement in the stadium as a social situation and contextual environment from a linguistic point of view. The focus of the article is on the Fiorentina Ultras - Ultras Viola - as it is a very big community of
football followers with a historical role in the Italian Ultras phenomenon. Among the different means of communication adopted by the Ultras Viola, the article focuses on the
analysis of the banners exposed in the stadiums (114 banners exposed by the Fiorentina Ultras from the season 2004/2005 to 2008/2009). The banners are, together with the
choruses, the foremost mean adopted to communicate and they can be seen as a sort of crystallization of the Ultras’ messages. A sociolinguistic, sociosemiotic and sociosemantic
analysis of the banners allows us to identify the styles of communication and the different ways of expression as well as the constitutional dynamics of the Fiorentina Ultras’ identity.
Key words: Football Ultras, Linguistics, Communication

Les régimes semi-autoritaires ont souvent été décrits sous l'angle de leur organisation, formelle et informelle ; on sait qu'ils autorisent la liberté d'association, le pluralisme politique, que les médias libéralisés y façonnent un espace public et qu'en même temps, des dispositifs non officiels rendent l'alternance pratiquement impossible. La démocratie et ses élections constituent une façade qui confère au régime sa légitimité sans l'exposer au risque de la compétition politique. Ce qu'il importe de documenter plus précisément. aujourd'hui, c'est la manière dont ces transformations institutionnelles (nouveaux pouvoirs locaux, élections, liberté d'association et de la presse...) rendent possibles et façonnent un espace imaginaire et pratique au sein duquel s'élabore une critique du pouvoir établi. La question est donc de savoir comment s'opèrent les oppositions de consciences et de pratiques, les insubordinations et les révoltes vis-à-vis du pouvoir dans un contexte où leur légitimité n'est pas remise en cause mais où elles aboutissent rarement aux résultats espérés. Qu'advient-il des oppositions frustrées ? Comment les transformations institutionnelles, même neutralisées, insufflent-elles un dynamisme politique ? Et quel dynamisme ? L'objectif de cet ouvrage est d'apporter quelques éléments de réponses à ces questions en partant d'études de cas menées au Burkina Faso. Outre une contribution à l'analyse des régimes semi-autoritaires, ce livre propose un aperçu à la fois synthétique et détaillé de la situation politique du pays.

Megaproject Planning and Management: Essential Readings contains the seminal articles from the growing body of research on megaproject planning and management along with an original introduction by the editor, Bent Flyvbjerg. The leading and most cited authority in the field, Flyvbjerg has used crowdsourcing and 25 years of experience to cherry-pick from several hundred articles and books the writings that define the field. This volume will be an indispensable source for those wishing to speak with authority about how megaprojects are prepared, delivered, and fought over. The target audience is students, academics, practitioners, and media pundits alike, as well as communities affected by megaprojects.

The present paper focuses on the concepts of urban and linguistic space. It considers the city as a diamesic melting pot. Graffitism is seen as a communication channel that needs to be examined in order to better understand the urban language and its many forms.
Key words: graffiti, linguistics, diamesia

Back cover text: Megaprojects and Risk provides the first detailed examination of the phenomenon of megaprojects. It is a fascinating account of how the promoters of multi-billion dollar megaprojects systematically and self-servingly misinform parliaments, the public and the media in order to get projects approved and built. It shows, in unusual depth, how the formula for approval is an unhealthy cocktail of underestimated costs, overestimated revenues, undervalued environmental impacts and overvalued economic development effects. This results in projects that are extremely risky, but where the risk is concealed from MPs, taxpayers and investors. The authors not only explore the problems but also suggest practical solutions drawing on theory, experience and hard, scientific evidence from the several hundred projects in twenty nations and five continents that illustrate the book. Accessibly written, it will be the standard reference for students, scholars, planners, economists, auditors, politicians and interested citizens for many years to come.

Urbanization is an essential determinant of social change. For social change to take place, the process of urbanization requires extensive management (through urban governance). This paper outlines the context of Zimbabwe's urban governance system by focusing on the historical and recent trends in urban governance and urbanization. In particular, our emphasis is placed on how pre-and post-colonial governments advanced social change through urban governance. In both pre-and post-independence Zimbabwe, local government is a political reality that ruling regimes manipulates, associates with and advance political interests. Politics continue to shape and destabilize a functioning, independent, and autonomous form of urban governance in Zimbabwe. Urban governance remains under incessant threat from central government. Central-local government contestations are leading to poor service delivery; a development that is affecting social change. The article argues that the politics, governance, and institutional behaviors in urban centers of Zimbabwe deteriorated severely calling for a restructuring of urban governance.

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

Even though theology does provide interesting and important contributions to ethics that laid the foundation of our modern societies, this book looks at exploring how theology has impacted on urban morphology and has led to questionable unsustainable practices which impacts on both climate and societal living standards. This is seen as being accelerated with the impacts of climate change coupled with increasing urbanisation rates that stresses on contemporary notions and foundations, as initially sparked by religion. Through an argumentative style, the author sets forth to explore the ethics of religious dogmas in a rapidly urbanising world that is stressed by increasing consumption from a booming demographic.

As megaprojects have become ubiquitous, their real benefits and costs have come under increased scrutiny. We interviewed Bent Flyvbjerg, who has extensively studied megaproject development. Flyvbjerg has found systematic problems in the development process: by intentionally misrepresenting information and deliberately disregarding risks, proponents instigate projects that result in fewer benefits and higher costs than promised.

Like many other cities around the world, at the end of the twentieth century, Manchester was reimagined as post-industrial space. This research draws on Lefebvre's spatial triad focusing primarily on the struggles that this generated both within official public sector representations of space and between public sector representations and the representations of key amenity societies. The paper presents the findings of a case study analysis that reveals how the 1970s saw differing interests lay claim to the right to determine the spatial meaning and future of city-centre industrial space. The research deconstructs the (re)production of the Grade I listed Liverpool Road Station, the first train station in the world, and its conversion into the successful Museum of Science and Industry. The conclusions show that the 1970s (re)presentation of the station site facilitated its (re)production as a site of revalorised industrial heritage. The consequences were the “rediscovery” of the Castlefield area of the city, and the later reimagining of post-industrial Manchester in the 1990s, which continues in the twenty-first century.
. . . countries in the throes of rapid development blithely destroy historic
spaces—houses, palaces, military and civil structures. If advantage or profit is
to be found in it, then the old is swept away . . . Where the destruction has not
been complete, “renovation” becomes the order of the day . . . In any case what
had been annihilated in the earlier frenzy now becomes an object of adoration.
(Lefebvre, 1991, p. 360).

The Supplementary Green Book Guidance on Optimism Bias (HM Treasury 2003) with reference to the Review of Large Public Procurement in the UK (Mott MacDonald 2002) notes that there is a demonstrated, systematic, tendency for project appraisers to be overly optimistic and that to redress this tendency appraisers should make explicit, empirically based adjustments to the estimates of a project’s costs, benefits, and duration. HM Treasury recommends that these adjustments be based on data from past projects or similar projects elsewhere, and adjusted for the unique characteristics of the project in hand. In the absence of a more specific evidence base, HM Treasury has encouraged departments to collect data to inform future estimates of optimism, and in the meantime use the best available data. In response to this, the Department for Transport (henceforth DfT), has contracted Bent Flyvbjerg in association with COWI to undertake the consultancy assignment "Procedures for dealing with Optimism Bias in Transport Planning". The present Guidance Document is the result of this assignment.

"Over budget, over time, over and over again" appears to be an appropriate slogan for large, complex infrastructure projects. This article explains why cost, benefits, and time forecasts for such projects are systematically over-optimistic in the planning phase. The underlying reasons for forecasting errors are grouped into three categories: delusions or honest mistakes; deceptions or strategic manipulation of information or processes; or bad luck. Delusion and deception have each been addressed in the management literature before, but here they are jointly considered for the first time. They are specifically applied to infrastructure problems in a manner that allows both academics and practitioners to understand and implement the suggested corrective procedures. The article provides a framework for analyzing the relative explanatory power of delusion and deception. It also suggests a simplified framework for analyzing the complex principal-agent relationships that are involved in the approval and construction of large infrastructure projects, which can be used to improve forecasts. Finally, the article illustrates reference class forecasting, an outside view de-biasing technique that has proven successful in overcoming both delusion and deception in private and public investment decisions.

This article presents results from the first statistically significant study of traffic forecasts in transportation infrastructure projects. The sample used is the largest of its kind, covering 210 projects in 14 nations worth U.S.$59 billion. The study shows with very high statistical significance that forecasters generally do a poor job of estimating the demand for transportation infrastructure projects. For 9 out of 10 rail projects, passenger forecasts are overestimated; the average overestimation is 106%. For half of all road projects, the difference between actual and forecasted traffic is more than ±20%. The result is substantial financial risks, which are typically ignored or downplayed by planners and decision makers to the detriment of social and economic welfare. Our data also show that forecasts have not become more accurate over the 30-year period studied, despite claims to the contrary by forecasters. The causes of inaccuracy in forecasts are different for rail and road projects, with political causes playing a larger role for rail than for road. The cure is transparency, accountability, and new forecasting methods. The challenge is to change the governance structures for forecasting and project development. Our article shows how planners may help achieve this.

The paper reports on both methodological and substantive findings. It presents a method for generating simplified representations for regional urban populations, their geographical sub-populations and communities. the method generates greatly simplified high-resolution socio-economic profiles of populated geographical areas from complex large census data sets.

Do different types of megaprojects have different cost overruns? This apparently simple question is at the heart of research at the University of Oxford aimed at understanding the characteristics of megaprojects, particularly in terms of how they are established, run and concluded. In this study, we set out to investigate cost overruns in the Olympic Games. To do so, we examined the costs of the Games over half a century, including both summer and winter Olympics. We looked at the evolution of final reported costs and compared these to the costs established in the Games bids, submitted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) up to seven years before the Games occurred. In so doing we established the largest dataset of its kind, and documented for the first time in a consistent fashion the costs and cost overruns for the Olympic Games, from 1960 to 2012. We discovered that the Games stand out in two distinct ways compared to other megaprojects: (1) The Games overrun with 100 per cent consistency. No other type of megaproject is this consistent regarding cost overrun. Other project types are typically on budget from time to time, but not the Olympics. (2) With an average cost overrun in real terms of 179 per cent – and 324 per cent in nominal terms – overruns in the Games have historically been significantly larger than for other types of megaprojects, including infrastructure, construction, ICT, and dams. The data thus show that for a city and nation to decide to host the Olympic Games is to take on one of the most financially risky type of megaproject that exists, something that many cities and nations have learned to their peril. For the London 2012 Games, we find that: (1) With sports-related real costs currently estimated at USD14.8 billion, London is on track to become the most costly Olympics ever. (2) With a projected cost overrun of 101 per cent in real terms, overrun for London is below the historical average for the Games, but not significantly so. (3) The London cost overrun is, however, significantly higher than overruns for recent Games since 1999. London therefore is reversing a positive trend of falling cost overruns for the Games.

As megaprojects have become ubiquitous, their real benefits and costs have come under increased scrutiny. We interviewed Bent Flyvbjerg, who has extensively studied megaproject development. Flyvbjerg has found systematic problems in the development process: by intentionally misrepresenting information and deliberately disregarding risks, proponents instigate projects that result in fewer benefits and higher costs than promised.

Structured Abstract:
Purpose – the purpose of the paper is to argue that for many urban dwellers in developed societies proximity of the arts in the urban space is not tantamount to their availability.
Design/methodology/purpose – the method applied is based upon the conception of capabilities and the concept of the Human Development Index; an analysis of the available cultural statistics, as well as a study of two revealing case studies, that of Bilbao, Spain, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, US, as distinct and alternative examples of the employment of arts as a stimulus for the urban growth and regeneration. Findings – the findings suggest that the current urban policies are not conducive to an equal access to the arts of the urban dwellers.
Originality/value and practical implications – the author provides an innovative explanation of this phenomenon from his own perspective of the political aesthetics, which includes, inter alia, the concepts of the public agoraphobia, commodification and interpassivity.
Making use of the distinction between the intrinsic and instrumental values, he argues in favour of the participative approach to the arts in the urban social life, and formulates a policy recommendation according to which small and medium-sized cities are possibly better suited to satisfy the need for the enjoyment of the arts in a more egalitarian way.

Back cover text: This book aims to enlarge the understanding of decision-making on mega-projects and suggest recommendations for a more effective, efficient and democratic approach. Authors from different scientific disciplines address various aspects of the decision-making process, such as management characteristics and cost-benefit analysis, planning and innovation and competition and institutions. The subject matter is highly diverse, but certain questions remain at the forefront. For example, how do we deal with protracted preparation processes, how do we tackle risks and uncertainties, and how can we best divide the risks and responsibilities among the private and public players throughout the different phases of the project? - Presenting a state-of-the-art overview, based on experiences and visions of authors from Europe and North America, this unique book will be of interest to practitioners of large-scale project management, politicians, public officials and private organisations involved in mega-project decision-making. It will also appeal to researchers, consultants and students dealing with substantial engineering projects, complex systems, project management and transport infrastructure.

How do city governments create their own regulatory practices despite top-down control? We explore this question by focusing on a major planning quandary that has emerged in Israel over the last two decades: regulating the maintenance of high-rise residential buildings. Despite its social and economic importance, there are no national regulations in this domain. The city of Tel Aviv-Jaffa proactively filled this policy lacuna by gradually devising maintenance regulations, despite disagreements over whether it has the authority to regulate the upkeep of privately owned housing. The analysis herein reveals an ongoing struggle between local and central governments with very distinct worldviews. The case study demonstrates how municipalities push the central government to act, to assess its attitudes, and to review policies, and how they create a degree of autonomy for themselves. The analysis contributes to existing literature by proposing a conceptual framework consisting of two types of municipal autonomy. The first is the ordinary exercise of cities' administrative and planning powers independent of intervention by higher governmental levels. The second type is the extraordinary exercise of cities' political power vis-à-vis governments higher in the vertical hierarchy.

This paper focuses on problems and their causes and cures in policy and planning for large infrastructure projects. First, it identifies as the main problem in major infrastructure development pervasive misinformation about the costs, benefits, and risks involved. A consequence of misinformation is massive cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and waste. Second, the paper explores the causes of misinformation and finds that political-economic explanations best account for the available evidence: planners and promoters deliberately misrepresent costs, benefits, and risks in order to increase the likelihood that it is their projects, and not the competition's, that gain approval and funding. This results in the "survival of the unfittest," where often it is not the best projects that are built, but the most misrepresented ones. Finally, the paper presents measures for reforming policy and planning for large infrastructure projects, with a focus on better planning methods and changed governance structures, the latter being more important.

Risk, including economic risk, is increasingly a concern for public policy and management. The possibility of dealing effectively with risk is hampered, however, by lack of a sound empirical basis for risk assessment and management. This article demonstrates the general point for cost and demand risks in urban rail projects. The article presents empirical evidence that allow valid economic risk assessment and management of urban rail projects, including benchmarking of individual or groups of projects. Benchmarking of the Copenhagen Metro is presented as a case in point. The approach developed is proposed as a model for other types of policies and projects in order to improve economic and financial risk assessment and management in policy and planning.

This article deals with the scientific factors that have contributed to the dominance of motorised transport and the development of theoretical approaches in transport planning. Connections are made to modernism and to the theories within the field of transport planning that have created today’s transport systems. Connections are then made to the field of bicycle planning. It is argued that there is a lack of theoretical research in bicycle planning that built on empirical studies. This has contributed to the bicycle often being marginalised in transport systems. Moreover, it is argued that new theoretical research could have a similar effect on bicycle planning as it has had on motorised transport planning. Although there is theoretical research about bicycling, such as vélomobility research, such research does not tend to theorise about bicycle planning. The idea put forward in this article is that theoretical knowledge from the field of mobility studies could be a first step in that direction. This article draws on the politics of mobility and research in vélomobility and develops a theoretical ground for transport planning that takes bicycling into consideration.

Out-of-control information technology (IT) projects have ended the careers of top managers, such as EADS CEO Noël Forgeard and Levi Strauss’ CIO David Bergen. Moreover, IT projects have brought down whole companies, like Kmart in the US and Auto Windscreen in the UK. Software and other IT is now such an integral part of most business processes and products that CEOs must know their IT risks, which are typically substantial – and overlooked. The analysis of a sample of 1,471 IT projects showed that the average cost overrun was 27% — but that figure masks a far more alarming “fat tail” risk.  Fully one in six of the projects in the sample was a Black Swan, with a cost overrun of 200%, on average, and a schedule overrun of almost 70%. This highlights the true pitfall of IT change initiatives: It’s not that they’re particularly prone to high cost overruns on average – it is that there are a disproportionate number of Black Swans. By focusing on averages instead of the more damaging outliers, most managers and consultants have been missing the real risk in doing IT. In conclusion, the article outlines ideas as to what can be done to avoid Black Swans.

This working paper focuses on the plans to construct a skyscraper in St Petersburg, Russia, known originally as Gazprom-City and recently renamed into Okhta Center, and on the controversy that developed around these plans. The paper uses the skyscraper debates as a lens to discuss a particular “aesthetic politics” of St Petersburg, the meaning of “world cities” and “global architecture” in Russian and international contexts, post-Soviet forms of political and corporate governance, the mobilization of civic opposition to such projects and the ability of such urban protests to translate into a more unified and politically oriented opposition than has been possible in other contexts in Russia.

Este libro aborda el estudio de la ciudad concebida simultaneamente como una comunidad humana, como un espacio para la interaccion social y como un entorno material construido por sus moradores a lo largo de generaciones. Pero las ciudades son tambien receptaculo y portadoras de significados articulados mediante las relaciones sociales. En este ultimo sentido, las ciudades se nos muestran como espacios normativamente mediados, como una concrecion de los valores e intereses que han contribuido a configurar su imagen, real o figurada, en el tiempo. Algunas ciudades fueron asociadas con ideales que han quedado reflejados en su diseno y estructura, convirtiendolas en autenticos archivos de la memoria, lo que nos permite leerlas como un texto. Para leer una ciudad necesitamos conocoer su historia, su organizacion social y economica, su trama urbana y patrimonio arquitectonico, asi como los relatos que narran como la ciudad ha llegado a ser lo que es y como ha sido vista por sus coetaneos...

Il contributo fornisce un approfondimento sul significato, la misura e
l’applicazione dell’accessibilità nell’ambito del governo delle trasformazioni urbane e territoriali. In particolare, affermando la necessità di considerare l’accessibilità come uno degli obiettivi prioritari delle attività di governo del territorio, il capitolo propone (i) una rassegna dei principali indicatori utilizzati per misurare l’accessibilità; (ii) una selezione di strumenti di supporto alle decisioni imperniati sull’utilizzo di indicatori di accessibilità; (iii) alcune
riflessioni conclusive sugli ostacoli tecnici ed istituzionali che limitano
l’applicazione delle misure di accessibilità nella pratica, proponendo strategie e linee di azione per superare queste difficoltà.

This paper focuses on problems and their causes and cures in policy and planning for large-infrastructure projects. First, it identifies as the main problem in major infrastructure developments pervasive misinformation about the costs, benefits, and risks involved. A consequence of misinformation is cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and waste. Second, it explores the causes of misinformation and finds that political-economic explanations best account for the available evidence: planners and promoters deliberately misrepresent costs, benefits, and risks in order to increase the likelihood that it is their projects, and not those of their competition, that gain approval and funding. This results in the ‘survival of the unfittest’, in which often it is not the best projects that are built, but the most misrepresented ones. Finally, it presents measures for reforming policy and planning for large-infrastructure projects with a focus on better planning methods and changed governance structures, the latter being more important.

Democrazia diretta e trasparente è democrazia ignorante, che ignora l'esistenza necessaria della mediazione (fosse anche quella del web): la rappresentanza deve essere però "espansiva" ed "estensiva". Abbiamo gli strumenti concettuali per pensare qualcosa del genere? Possiamo altrimenti costruirli? Ma soprattutto, possiamo praticare concretamente una rappresentanza in cui la mediazione non sia separazione da chi rappresenta ma reciproca fecondazione tra "rappresentante" e "rappresentato"?

«La questione fondamentale che ci troviamo di fronte cerca di rispondere alla domanda in che modo possiamo vivere bene insieme?

Ed è proprio nello spazio che apre questa domanda che può prendere forma l’interrogativo più pressante per la democrazia contemporanea: quale forma di democrazia è “in crisi”, quale modo di convivere democraticamente è messo oggi alle strette?

Spesso si crede che sia la democrazia “rappresentativa”, ma è forse il caso di spostare l’obiettivo e chiedersi se non sia piuttosto il modo di vita democratico nazionale a dover essere ripensato se non “superato”: l’interrogativo deve assumere la forma esplicita e programmatica dell’affermazione della non necessaria coincidenza fra democrazia rappresentativa e democrazia nazionale. Insomma, dobbiamo chiederci non se siamo disposti a “rinunciare” alla prima (o a “trasformarla”) e in che modo, ma se siamo disposti a “rinunciare” alla seconda (o a “trasformarla”) e in che modo, soprattutto se in favore di una (supposta) democrazia “transnazionale” funzionale all’affermazione di interessi economici oligarchici.

Questo – hic et nunc – non è certo solo il compito della filosofia, ma di ogni “cittadino” in quanto tale»