URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES & MANAGEMENT | city planning This section highlights innovative programmes and processes to support integrated infrastructure investment, strategic, participative and responsive urban planning and development schemes, mixed use and compact development incorporating employment and housing, meeting the needs of the urban poor, and forms of consultative and empowering ‘peoples planning’ practice. .

quick links local level city level   international level websites

local level

Mattingly, Michael & Haryo Winarso (1999) - Integrated Action Planning In Nepal: Spatial and Investment Planning in Urban Areas - DPU [pdf] Nepal - Integrated action planning (IAP) has been defined as a simple form of urban planning which is distinguished by the fact that it: • involves through participatory events the views of the people who are affected, in order to achieve a greater feeling of ownership of the policies that will lead to more effective implementation; • considers the financial resources available to the local government - the main actor - necessary to carry out a rolling investment plan for the next five years of projects (i.e. actions) that follow a physical plan. .

Patel, Sheela; Celine d'Cruz a Sundar Burra (2002) - "Beyond evictions in a global city; people-managed resettlement in Mumbai" - Environment & Urbanization, Vol. 14 No. 1 - IIED [pdf] India -This paper describes a resettlement programme in which 60,000 people moved without coercion to make way for improvements in Mumbai's railway system. It also describes the resettlement sites and the attention given to minimizing the costs for those who were relocated. This resettlement programme was underpinned by strong levels of community organization among the population that was to be relocated; their involvement in the whole process included preparing the baseline survey of households to be moved, designing the accommodation into which they moved and managing the relocation process, including the allocation of units. The paper also outlines the difficulties that the relocation process created and the measures taken to address these. It suggests the factors that must be in place to protect low-income groups from the impoverishment that usually accompanies population displacements caused by infrastructure investments and central city redevelopment. .

Plummer, Janelle & Sean de Cleene (1999) - Kerala People's Planning Campaign - GHK [pdf] India - The People’s Planning Campaign is a mechanism for decentralised planning and budgeting established with the aim of developing the 9th Five Year Plan in Kerala. Through a hierarchical compilation of plans from ward to state level, the Campaign aims to identify local needs and establish local development options through a process of consultation and participation with local people. In all, it addresses 12 sectors ranging from education, water and health to housing and social welfare and identifies key issues, problems and solution, and prioritises needs.

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city level

Azcueta, Michel (1998) - Municipal Administration and Performance in Villa El Salvador, Peru - World Bank [pdf] Peru - Villa El Salvador is one of the most recent municipalities of the Metropolitan Area of Lima, the capital of Peru. Although Villa El Salvador was founded in May 1971, 25 years ago, as a result of the rapid growth of its population and the properties and characteristics of the zone, in 1983 it was converted into an independent district with its own municipality. Villa El Salvador has continued growing and currently has a population of 350,000, being one of the zones of Lima which has been developing most rapidly in different levels, seeking to ensure relatively homogeneous development for all of its population. .

Clerc, Valérie (2001) - Légitimités et registres de raisonnement des acteurs institutionnels dans un projet d'aménagement urbain qui fait face aux quartiers illégaux à Beyrouth - May 2001 ESF/N-AERUS workshop [pdf] Liban - Face aux quartiers qui sont dans l'illégalité et l'informalité, devant les problèmes posés par la ville qui se fait en marge de l'urbanisme, des lois et des règlements, les acteurs institutionnels qui participent à la conception et à la réalisation des projets d'aménagement sur les zones irrégulières ont des représentations diverses de la situation et des moyens à mettre en ¦uvre pour y faire face. Que cela soit des acteurs politiques ou des acteurs techniques (dans leur rôle de conseil aux décideurs ou dans la réalisation des documents techniques), ils font appel à plusieurs registres de raisonnements dont la combinaison a des répercussions directes sur la façon dont les projets de régularisation de quartiers sont produits. .

Cordiviola, Alberto & Carla Zollinger (1999) - Politics, Space And Transportation: History of Space Structure Logic in a Dependent City - Interurban and Intraurban Nets in Salvador - March 1999 ESF/N-AERUS workshop [pdf] Brazil -The Brazilian city is still a confusing and disperse field of study. While social sciences developed, in the seventies, a comprehensive study of the Brazilian urbanization and the characteristics that are a result of the situation of dependence of the continent, the analysis of the urban structure as an outcome of this dependence remained as a reference to the classical studies of "central" origin: either European or American. Only recently, on account of the studies that were developed to the peak of the city history and of urbanism as a subject with academic prestige, the specific studies of cities and its relations with the continental dependence started to arouse interest. Even so, the way of seeing these studies is based on the influence of the central theories in urban actions, by means of the influences that come from studies and biographies of the authors of these authors. .

UN-Habitat (2002) - Best Practice - Cato Manor Development Project, Durban - [pdf] South Africa - The purpose of the Cato Manor Development Project (CMDP) has been to reverse a legacy of apartheid-era planning 'worst practice', and subsequent unplanned settlement, poverty, internecine community conflict, and poor urban environmental quality. Cato Manor is strategically located near to the centre of South Africa's second largest metropolitan area, and it will soon house over 100 000 poorer people under neighbourhood conditions which external adjudicators now regard as exemplary in international context. Yet, prior to the intervention of the Cato Manor Development Association (CMDA), the area was nationally infamous for a history of forced racial removals (150 000 displaced) and, more recently, for land and home invasions, internecine political conflict and violence amongst poor communities, and an absence of urban services. .

UN-Habitat (2002) - Best Practice - Landless Citizens Scheme, Berakas , Darussalam [pdf] Brunei - The original settlement area in Brunei Darussalam was along the Brunei River banks; people lived in traditional semi-aquatic form of houses, called Kampong Ayer (Water Village). The city was built entirely on water and the houses were constructed of timber and built up from the ground on stilts. The city was relocated to the mainland in 1906 but the people remained in their traditional dwellings despite being encouraged to move to land. A second attempt to resettle the population was made in the 1950s to stem the growth of the Water Village as well as to promote agriculture. Only 359 families opted for the chance to move to the land up to the late 1960s. .

UN-Habitat (2002) - Best Practice - Disaster mitigation in landslide and flood prone areas of Bogota [pdf] Colombia - The District Capital, through the Fondo de Prevencion y Atencion de Emergencias has been working on the development of a project in special treatment zone risk reduction of landsliding and flooding, in order to, reduce risks associated to landsliding and flooding phenomena to which some inhabitants of the city of Bogotá are exposed. This initiative includes the Mitigation Works Building, as a strucrtural measure for threat reductuion, the non mitigatable high risk family resettling, as a structural measure for the reduction in vulnerability, and the adaptation of the premises evacuated in the process of relocation , as a preventive measure, as and when faced with new occupations. 87 mitigation works have been carried out between 1998 and 2001. 1341 families have been resettled and, the premises evacuated by relocated families have been adapted. .

UN-Habitat (2002) - Best Practice - Conception of Syzran town development for the year of 2020 [pdf] Russia - The basic document, determinative the Soviet town regional planning, had been always differing in its excessive correctness, that resulted in over-regulation of the town-planning process in the Soviet Union. The volte-face execution, economy reorganization, management democratization and other changes in public life demanded to reconsider principal positions of the general town planning scheme, starting from the basic conception and finishing with the concrete design documentation. Together with the loss of the economy control levers, the Urban Planning Base was transformed answering the world tendency, which is inherent to the industrial urbanization completion phase. The priority attention for this initiative was given to the Conception methodological base, including a new land development ideology demanding to reconsider the stage-by-stage urban planning system. The Conception has for an object the urban development, satisfaction of territorial interests of all users. .

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international level

Bertaud, Alain (2002) - The Spatial Organization of Cities: Deliberate Outcome or Unforeseen Consequence? - World Bank [pdf] Urban spatial structures are shaped by market forces interacting with regula tions, primary infrastructure investments and taxes. They are usually the unforeseen consequence of sectoral policies that were designed without any particular spatial concerns. However, different urban spatial organizations have different performances and affect policy outcome, and often significantly reduce the range of future urban policy options. For instance, some urban shapes are unfavorable to the development of public transport, others might tend to increase the efficiency of public transport while inducing low residential floor consumption. .

Bolay, Jean-Claude (1999) - Habitat urbain et partenariat social-Vers une redéfinition des rôles et des pratiques dans les pays du Sud - March 1999 ESF/N-AERUS workshop [pdf] L'habitat urbain apparaît aujourd'hui dans la grande majorité des pays en développement tel un paysage dissonant, éclaté, disparate, fragmenté. Là où devraient théoriquement prévaloir l'anticipation et la coordination s'imposent des stratégies diversifiées, antinomiques, conflictuelles entre acteurs urbains qui, s'ils se connaissent pour se côtoyer, ne se reconnaissent pas les uns et les autres comme auteurs, producteurs, aménageurs de la ville contemporaine. A confirmer cette impression première, analyses et statistiques urbaines à l'appui, nous ne pouvons, en tant que spécialistes des questions urbaines, qu'admettre ce partage d'un échec constaté, celui du modèle d'une planification visionnaire, organisatrice par anticipation, du territoire et des activités des hommes et des femmes qui font, défont et refont ce monde urbain auquel nous appartenons de fait. Ainsi donc doit-on réapprendre à fonctionner non seulement dans nos rôles spécifiques, mais également et surtout dans nos interactions avec les autres agents du changement, sans extériorité face à la problématique qui nous préoccupe, sans complaisance non plus à l'égard de nos actions. .

Mattingly, Michael (1999) - Setting Up and Urban Management Approach - What is It All About ? - March 1999 ESF-NAERUS Workshop [pdf] To illustrate the role of practitioners and researchers in setting up a concerted urban management approach, the case study which follows was constructed from actual events in several places, adding to them and distorting them to achieve a set of circumstances which can be profitably explored. Although the result is a fiction, it borrows so heavily from true conditions that it is thought a fair representation of reality. .

Payne, Geoffrey (2000) - Best Practices for Spatial Planning and Development Control in Developing Countries - International Conference on Land Policy, Jakarta, July 2000 [pdf] The increasing international trend in favour of market based economic development strategies has significantly affected the options available to central and local governments to influence the ways in which land is transformed from rural to urban use and developed for residential and other functions. Under these conditions, it is vital that government agencies increase their understanding of the behaviour of land and property markets and the different options available to influence growth and development in ways which are consistent with macro economic and social policy objectives and the public interest. .

Povey, Mark & Tony Lloyd-Jones (2000) - Mixed value urban development: Mechanisms for sustaining the livelihoods and social capital of the urban poor in core urban areas - May 2000 ESF/N-AERUS workshop [pdf] There is a need for a more integrated and flexible approach to core area urban redevelopment at a time when pressures to maximise economic returns from inner city land threaten to disrupt the livelihoods and established social networks of many urban poor communities. This paper draws upon the experiences of established planning and partnership redevelopment strategies (i.e. land sharing, land redistribution/pooling, transferable development rights and incentive bonus schemes) and assesses the extent to which they enable poor communities to continue living close to inner city areas and the source of their livelihoods. .

Satterthwaite, David (2001) - The Ten and a Half Myths That May Distort Urban Policies Among Governments and International Agencies - IIED [pdf] This paper identifies twelve myths about urban areas - or to be more precise, ten and a half myths, since three of them are partially true statements in need of qualification to make them useful. These myths underpin and perpetuate ineffective and often inappropriate policies by governments and international agencies. These myths will be presented under five headings: 1. the links between economic change and urban change, especially the contribution of urban areas to national economies and the relationship between rural and urban areas (are cities 'parasitic'?) 2. the scale of urban change (including the role of mega-cities), the speed of change (are city populations 'exploding' and cities 'mushrooming'?) and the extent to which the world is or will be predominantly urban ("will all regions of the world will be predominantly urban by 2025"?) 3. rural versus urban areas (is most poverty in rural areas? is urban development opposed to rural development?) 4. the links between poverty and environmental degradation (is poverty a major cause of environmental degradation and do large and rapidly growing cities have the worst environmental problems?) 5. what should be done (do we need "national strategies" and "best-practices" from which to learn?) .

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