Planning Theory and Networks
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Recent papers in Planning Theory and Networks
In this deliberately provocative paper, I argue that it is rather unfortunate that planning theorists have, with a few notable exceptions, tended to ignore the potential contributions that Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad ideas regarding... more
In this deliberately provocative paper, I argue that it is rather unfortunate that planning theorists have, with a few notable exceptions, tended to ignore the potential contributions that Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad ideas regarding the production of space can make to planning theory. In particular, I argue that Lefebvre’s concept of differential space could provide a powerful focus for planners’ conceptual approaches to the creation and enhancement of public space. Rather than simply complaining about the privatisation, loss or corruption of ‘public’ space, we should appreciate the potentialities inherent in the production of differential space through the contestations that can occur in the creation of a more fair and just society in asserting ‘the right to the city’.
What might be called ‘strong’ differential space: the spaces of politicised appropriation and the assertion of rights to the city, insinuates itself to a constant dialectical struggle hrough elements of the spatial triad. This paper provides a snapshot of ongoing research based mainly on archival sources, interviews, visual data and observation.
What might be called ‘strong’ differential space: the spaces of politicised appropriation and the assertion of rights to the city, insinuates itself to a constant dialectical struggle hrough elements of the spatial triad. This paper provides a snapshot of ongoing research based mainly on archival sources, interviews, visual data and observation.
This paper examines the extent to which leadership factors contribute to the success of collaborative planning processes. By examining the best practice in urban management in decentralizing Indonesia, we found that leadership encouraged... more
This paper examines the extent to which leadership factors contribute to the success of collaborative planning processes. By examining the best practice in urban management in decentralizing Indonesia, we found that leadership encouraged a trustworthy and effective consensus building between the local government and the communities. The local leaders grasped socio-cultural contexts of the city to formulate communication strategies in a way that encourages an open and informal atmosphere flourished. More importantly, this leadership framework effectively restructured the institutional arrangement and created divisible tasks for subordinates and communities who were involved in the collaborative process.
In this paper I argue that it is rather unfortunate planning theorists have, with a few notable exceptions, tended to ignore the potential contributions that all Henri Lefebvre’s ideas regarding the production of space can make to... more
In this paper I argue that it is rather unfortunate planning theorists have, with a few notable exceptions, tended to ignore the potential contributions that all Henri Lefebvre’s ideas regarding the production of space can make to planning theory. In particular, I argue that Lefebvre’s concept of differential space could provide a powerful focus for planners’ conceptual approaches to the creation and enhancement of public space. Rather than simply complaining about the privatisation, loss or corruption of ‘public’ space, we should appreciate the potentialities inherent in the production of differential space through the contestations that can occur in the creation of a more fair and just society in asserting ‘the right to the city’. What might be called ‘strong’ differential space: the spaces of politicised appropriation and the assertion of rights to the city, insinuates itself to a constant dialectical struggle through elements of the spatial triad. This paper provides a snapshot of ongoing research based mainly on archival sources, interviews, visual data and observation.
Paper presented at and published in proceedings of the 3rd annual Unspoken Borders Conference at PennDesign: Ecologies of Inequality (2009). Africa is conspicuously absent from the discourse of architecture. Now, thanks to Rem Koolhaas'... more
Paper presented at and published in proceedings of the 3rd annual Unspoken Borders Conference at PennDesign: Ecologies of Inequality (2009).
Africa is conspicuously absent from the discourse of architecture. Now, thanks to Rem Koolhaas' Lagos, there is mention of Africa's new urban phenomena, an alternate global culture of congestion, emergent entrepreneurship and the informal. This latest attempt to conquer the enduring mystery of the Dark Continent replaces the focus on traditional techniques and materials of construction of previous decades (mud mosques or village housing) and aligns ultimately with the "design can save the world" philosophy of Architecture for
Humanity and NGO-driven social entrepreneurship models.
The problem with this current approach is that glosses over the profound history of modern architecture and planning intervention in Africa. Yes, under contemporary conditions of globalization, Africa
has one of the most phenomenal rates of urbanization in all human history. But architecture is not only now arriving on the scene. African architects trained in the US, the UK, the USSR and later, the new African post-colonies have together with a displaced design community of Western expatriates in Africa already created a large-scale infrastructural network that dictates much of the new urban growth.
Tema, Ghana offers a unique opportunity to measure the social and economic performance of modern architecture and planning in this context, because it is a new city built from scratch over the last fifty years. Other modernist 'New Town' projects, such as Chandigarh in India, Brasilia in Brazil, and Abuja in Nigeria, were designed as new administrative capitals for government. Tema was instead designed to be a modern city of industry, conceived as part of the mid-20th-century Volta River Project (VRP). The VRP was a highly successful and ambitious project to link hydroelectricity from the Akosombo Dam on the Volta River to large-scale industry and an artificial harbor at Tema. Doxiadis Associates designed the original master plan of Tema for a projected population of 250,000 people. That target has now been achieved. Tema has jumpstarted industrialization in Ghana and is now a major industrial and transportation hub for West Africa.
Perhaps the critique of planning most relevant to the Tema case is Hashim Sarkis' essay "The Persistence of Planning," in which he discusses Doxiadis' scalar ekistics in Lebanon. Sarkis notes that while this form of "comprehensive planning" sought to scientifically "accelerate" modernization of the nation-state, partial implementation and a failure to accommodate change limited its success. However, he argues that Doxiadis introduced in Lebanon a descriptive framework (the ekistics philosophy) that championed technocratic government-sponsored development and prioritized datacollection and physical planning. Sarkis calls not for the end of planning, but for an updated approach that interrogates multiplicity to collectively map an inclusive and collective public future that follows Amartya Sen's logic of "reasoned social action." (Sarkis 2003: 205-207).
This reading of Doxiadis' work in Lebanon moves beyond Doxiadis the geopolitical power broker [1] to address the underlying tension of planning in a post-Doxiadis environment. Tema was also designed as part of a national development agenda (and ekistics study). [2] Even more than in the case of Lebanon, foreign actors were involved from inception through implementation: business owners and investors, political advisors and technical experts. Consequently, it is inaccurate to present Tema as a purely national project, especially given the relative weakness of the Ghanaian nation-state compared to partners like Kaiser Aluminum and the U.S. State Department.
Although neocolonialism remains a valid critique of Tema's construction and initial phases of operation, the term is conceptually tied to re-introduction of the European colonialist project through new forms of capitalist imperialism. Such models of global power dynamics are increasingly inadequate in accounting for contemporary globalization, in which new transnational actors and systems of coordination exert indirect control over the nation-state, sub-national and transnational bodies. In order to understand how
design processes in Tema modify both local and global power differentials, the author applies current research in social and network theory to address the agency of architecture and planning.
[1] For discussion of Doxiadis' political prowess see Michelle Provoost, "New Towns on the Cold War Frontier: How modern urban planning was exported as an instrument in the battle for the developing world." URL: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-06-28-provoost-en.html. Also, Markus Daechsel, "Misplaced Ekistics: Constantinos A. Doxiadis and urban plannning in Pakistan." Unpublished paper from Doxiadis
Foundation international workshop (Dec. 2006).
[2] Documentation of Doxiadis Associates' Tema design appear in Ekistics 13: 17, 159-171. For ekistics study of Ghana see "Accra-Tema-Akosombo" in Ekistics 11: 65, 235-276.
Africa is conspicuously absent from the discourse of architecture. Now, thanks to Rem Koolhaas' Lagos, there is mention of Africa's new urban phenomena, an alternate global culture of congestion, emergent entrepreneurship and the informal. This latest attempt to conquer the enduring mystery of the Dark Continent replaces the focus on traditional techniques and materials of construction of previous decades (mud mosques or village housing) and aligns ultimately with the "design can save the world" philosophy of Architecture for
Humanity and NGO-driven social entrepreneurship models.
The problem with this current approach is that glosses over the profound history of modern architecture and planning intervention in Africa. Yes, under contemporary conditions of globalization, Africa
has one of the most phenomenal rates of urbanization in all human history. But architecture is not only now arriving on the scene. African architects trained in the US, the UK, the USSR and later, the new African post-colonies have together with a displaced design community of Western expatriates in Africa already created a large-scale infrastructural network that dictates much of the new urban growth.
Tema, Ghana offers a unique opportunity to measure the social and economic performance of modern architecture and planning in this context, because it is a new city built from scratch over the last fifty years. Other modernist 'New Town' projects, such as Chandigarh in India, Brasilia in Brazil, and Abuja in Nigeria, were designed as new administrative capitals for government. Tema was instead designed to be a modern city of industry, conceived as part of the mid-20th-century Volta River Project (VRP). The VRP was a highly successful and ambitious project to link hydroelectricity from the Akosombo Dam on the Volta River to large-scale industry and an artificial harbor at Tema. Doxiadis Associates designed the original master plan of Tema for a projected population of 250,000 people. That target has now been achieved. Tema has jumpstarted industrialization in Ghana and is now a major industrial and transportation hub for West Africa.
Perhaps the critique of planning most relevant to the Tema case is Hashim Sarkis' essay "The Persistence of Planning," in which he discusses Doxiadis' scalar ekistics in Lebanon. Sarkis notes that while this form of "comprehensive planning" sought to scientifically "accelerate" modernization of the nation-state, partial implementation and a failure to accommodate change limited its success. However, he argues that Doxiadis introduced in Lebanon a descriptive framework (the ekistics philosophy) that championed technocratic government-sponsored development and prioritized datacollection and physical planning. Sarkis calls not for the end of planning, but for an updated approach that interrogates multiplicity to collectively map an inclusive and collective public future that follows Amartya Sen's logic of "reasoned social action." (Sarkis 2003: 205-207).
This reading of Doxiadis' work in Lebanon moves beyond Doxiadis the geopolitical power broker [1] to address the underlying tension of planning in a post-Doxiadis environment. Tema was also designed as part of a national development agenda (and ekistics study). [2] Even more than in the case of Lebanon, foreign actors were involved from inception through implementation: business owners and investors, political advisors and technical experts. Consequently, it is inaccurate to present Tema as a purely national project, especially given the relative weakness of the Ghanaian nation-state compared to partners like Kaiser Aluminum and the U.S. State Department.
Although neocolonialism remains a valid critique of Tema's construction and initial phases of operation, the term is conceptually tied to re-introduction of the European colonialist project through new forms of capitalist imperialism. Such models of global power dynamics are increasingly inadequate in accounting for contemporary globalization, in which new transnational actors and systems of coordination exert indirect control over the nation-state, sub-national and transnational bodies. In order to understand how
design processes in Tema modify both local and global power differentials, the author applies current research in social and network theory to address the agency of architecture and planning.
[1] For discussion of Doxiadis' political prowess see Michelle Provoost, "New Towns on the Cold War Frontier: How modern urban planning was exported as an instrument in the battle for the developing world." URL: http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-06-28-provoost-en.html. Also, Markus Daechsel, "Misplaced Ekistics: Constantinos A. Doxiadis and urban plannning in Pakistan." Unpublished paper from Doxiadis
Foundation international workshop (Dec. 2006).
[2] Documentation of Doxiadis Associates' Tema design appear in Ekistics 13: 17, 159-171. For ekistics study of Ghana see "Accra-Tema-Akosombo" in Ekistics 11: 65, 235-276.
This article examines the extent to which leadership factors contribute to the success of collaborative planning processes. By examining the best practice in urban management in decentralizing Indonesia, we found that leadership... more
This article examines the extent to which leadership factors contribute to the success of collaborative planning processes. By examining the best practice in urban management in decentralizing Indonesia, we found that leadership encouraged a trustworthy and effective consensus building between the local government and the communities. The local leaders grasped socio-cultural contexts of the city to formulate communication strategies in a way that encourages an open and informal atmosphere flourished. More importantly, this leadership framework effectively restructured the institutional arrangement and created divisible tasks for subordinates and communities who were involved in the collaborative process.
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