Progress in Planning最新文献

This paper presents a critical literature review of spatial development perspectives in small island contexts. Despite the great diversity of island situations that can be found in the world, the main goal is to understand the extent to which the special status enjoyed by small islands with regard to development can be extended to include a more spatially based perspective of development. More specifically, by reviewing the scarce information available in the literature on the patterns and challenges of spatial development in small islands, the paper analyses whether the distinctiveness of islands – a condition that usually appears in the literature under the concept of islandness – translates into distinctive patterns of spatial development. Despite the sociocultural and political resilience of islands, the main theoretical findings of the paper suggest that the distinctive meaning of spatial development in small islands appears to be determined by a number of interrelated vulnerabilities, notably the scarcity of land-based resources, the ecological fragility of the natural environments, the smallness of the domestic market, or the need to surmount a water barrier in order to achieve access to the rest of the world.

This monograph looks at experiences of communities with spatial planning and applies those empirics to an underexplored area of participatory theory. While issues of power and communication have been well examined this work rests on the argument that the associated production of knowledge needs to be better understood. Theories of engagement draw on issues of ‘voice’ and the means to achieving deeper democracy. Similarly, participatory planning theories frame the debate in terms of communicative processes or competing rationalities. Within that body of work, however knowledge is seen as an adjunct of power and there is little focus on the spatial particularity of knowledges. In particular there has not as yet been a thorough study of how understandings of space are produced in a spatial planning context that includes lay participants. This monograph starts to broach that gap, conceptualising a potential ‘socio-spatial learning’ where community engagement is framed as a collaborative learning arena within spatial planning. Through an English case study it unpacks the dynamics between different types of knowledge around spatial planning where there is lay participation. This draws on two years of embedded observation within a joint planning unit and a review of the North Northamptonshire Core Strategy of 2008, which culminated in substantial community engagement work early in 2011. Findings indicate that local knowledge has a distinctive spatiality and that there is a clear role for lay knowledge in the context of spatial strategy-making. It is hoped that this work can help in understanding the production of planning knowledge, help identify non-tokenist engagement of the public, and inform interactions between communities and policy makers.

This paper explores the governance of urban design on Toronto's waterfront. It examines the formation, mandate and powers of the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation (TWRC) – now branded Waterfront Toronto – and critically evaluates the urban design policies, tools and mechanisms that have been put in place to support waterfront redevelopment and pursue a goal of ‘design excellence’ since 1999. The paper traces the key decisions that led to the creation of the TWRC by the federal, provincial and municipal governments and details the ambitious planning and design vision that emerged for the waterfront, but also argues that the TWRC was awarded a limited institutional mandate to fulfil its aims and objectives. The latter sections of the paper describe how a series of design-sensitive tools and mechanisms were introduced alongside the statutory planning framework for the waterfront to counter the governance and financial challenges faced by the Corporation. The paper contends that the Corporation is currently overseeing a broadly positive redevelopment programme that has been able to deliver a high quality public realm on the waterfront and facilitate design-led real estate development. An innovative public engagement strategy has been coupled with neighbourhood ‘precinct’ planning and design peer review to achieve these outcomes. It is argued that these positive shifts have begun to counter the long history of faltering post-industrial development and ‘jurisdictional gridlock’ that has plagued Toronto's waterfront since the 1960s.

This article addresses the question of how planners’ use and non-use of expert knowledge affect the content and goal achievement potential of plans, and discusses how changes in planners’ and researchers’ practices can contribute to improving goal achievement potential. These are questions that have been given surprisingly little attention in planning research. Although interesting discussions have emerged over recent years, few empirical studies have been presented. This article presents theory-based empirical research on these issues based on analyses of strategic land-use and transport planning processes in three Scandinavian cities where an aim is to limit or reduce traffic volumes and greenhouse gas emissions of transport. This is a highly relevant issue when analysing the effects of planners’ use and non-use of expert knowledge. Goal achievement potential refers to whether plans (if implemented) contribute to achieving defined objectives, which in this paper mainly regards curbing or reducing urban traffic volumes. The expert knowledge in question concerns how land-use and transport systems development influence traffic volumes in urban regions.

The article concludes that whether planners use the expert knowledge in question or not, and how they use it, do affect the goal achievement potential of the plans they produce. This knowledge is the main basis for many planners’ knowing and acting. Planners use it to understand, explain and argue for how and why coordination is necessary, and for selecting traffic-reducing measures. All examined plans also include strategies and measures that reduce their goal achievement potential, and non-use of the expert knowledge is an important part of the explanation as to how and why this is the case. When competing objectives seem to call for traffic-increasing measures, planners tend not to take account of expert knowledge in explaining that these measures reduce the goal achievement potential of plans, and they do not turn to it for finding innovative ways of solving their planning problems. Instead, they rely on their embedded professional knowledge, which is sometimes outdated or misleading. In other cases, planners disregard the knowledge because it challenges planning agendas or compelling ideas, or they exercise self-censorship when finding that it conflicts with political agendas.

Considerable effort is required in ensuring higher goal achievement potential in future plans. Planners need to be more critical of their own tacit knowledge, and turn more actively to research-based knowledge. Researchers need to produce the knowledge planners need in ways that are useful and usable for them.

In this paper, we present an experimental trial involving the use of a complex spatial simulation platform to support a planning decision process in the city of Besançon (eastern France). In medium-sized towns across France, households with children are leaving to settle in periurban areas, and Besançon is no exception. Under those circumstances, the political objective of the Besançon City authority is to keep middle- and high-income households with children within the city. The simulation platform MobiSim was used in this context to explore the possible outcomes of spatial planning policies, set by both the Greater Besançon authority (Besançon and the surrounding periurban communities) and the city of Besançon, on residential migrations over a 20 year period. MobiSim integrates several models representing demographic, social, economic, and spatial processes. Modelled entities are individuals and dwellings. Rules determine how individuals form households. Other rules locate dwellings in buildings.

The experimental trial began in October 2012. It involved two researchers in geography and planning from the University of Franche-Comté (Besançon, France) and two planning practitioners working in Besançon city council's planning service: the Department of Planning, Projects and Forward Planning. The first stage of the trial was the collective definition and simulation of a baseline position simply extending existing trends from 2010 to 2030: the ‘Business as usual’ scenario. The second stage was a collective reflection on possible modifications to some of the variables and parameters of this scenario in order to simulate a pro-active policy of housing construction in the medium term.

Under the conditions represented in the model, the ‘Pro-active housing construction’ scenario in Besançon allows an overall reduction of migration flows from Besançon to the surrounding periurban areas. More single parent families choose to reside in Besançon during the whole simulation time. Couples with children, however, choose preferentially to reside in Besançon until 2022 only. At this date, the controlled housing developments become less numerous.

This experimental trial gave the researchers and the planning actors involved in it the occasion to exchange their scientific knowledge and their empirical knowledge. The simulation of the ‘Business as usual’ scenario was, as it were, a means to thoroughly explore one possible future. This then led the group to discuss possible planning actions designed to reduce migration flows of households with children out of Besançon into periurban areas.

The trial also shows some limitations: it highlights that this kind of PSS makes the planning actors heavily dependent on the expertise of the researchers for every stage of the process.