Metropolitan Governance

Resum: L’article revisa els ensenyaments que, a parer de l’autor, poden derivar-se del procés d’elaboració i aprovació del Pla Territorial Metropolità de Barcelona, aprovat pel Govern de la Generalitat de Catalunya l’any 2010. El treball es divideix en tres apartat: en el primer, s’ofereix una panoràmica dels reiterats intents fallits de dotar d’un sistema de govern el territori de la regió metropolitana de Barcelona d’ençà de mitjans del segle XX; el segon apartat s’indica com, en aquest context, l’aprovació del PTMB, acordada entre els ens locals de l’àmbit i el Govern de la Generalitat constitueix una notable excepció; finalment, en el tercer apartat es desgranen deu ensenyaments que, pel govern del territori es deriven del procés d’elaboració, tramitació, aprovació i vigència del Pla.

Este capítulo tiene por objetivo analizar el gobierno de la ciudad de México y la gestión que realiza, con el fin de aportar elementos para un estudio comparativo de los distintos sistemas de gobierno metropolitano que existen en la región latinoamericana.
El texto se divide en cuatro secciones. La primera describe el diseño
institucional que tenía el gobierno de la capital mexicana hasta diciembre de 2015; la segunda detalla la forma en que se ha ido conformando ese diseño en el último siglo; la tercera examina los resultados que la gestión de la ciudad ha obtenido en materia de servicios públicos, participación ciudadana y gobernabilidad;
la cuarta y última sección reflexiona sobre la prospectiva de la ciudad de México.

25 years since the conception of the ‘24-hour city’ and the subsequent birth of the ‘night time economy’ in academic literature and policy, this study investigates the impact of the night time economy on a London borough. Through interviews with a cross section of stakeholders about their experiences of the night time economy and its management, the research finds that more needs to be done to effectively balance the needs of different groups. This study suggests that the night time economy is seen as an important asset to many both economically and culturally, but that many practical issues still remain. Changes to regulation and management of the NTE are necessary to fully recognise its potential.

Brasil Metropolitano em foco Desa�ios à implementação do Estatuto da Metrópole Este é o quarto livro publicado pela pesquisa Governança Metropolitana no Brasil, desenvolvida no âmbito da Rede Ipea, por meio de uma articulação institucional que envolve alguns dos mais importantes institutos de pesquisa do país, tais como: Instituto Maranhense de Estudos Socioeconômicos e Cartográ�icos (IMESC), da região metropolitana (RM) da Grande Nas publicações anteriores, a partir de uma avaliação de experiência de quarenta anos de RMs no Brasil, foi empreendido um amplo balanço das estruturas e dos arranjos institucionais voltados para a gestão e a governança metropolitanas no país. Além disso, elaborou-se uma detida avaliação da gestão de funções públicas de interesse comum (FPICs) selecionadas. O balanço crítico da experiência político-institucional, mostrado pela avaliação da gestão das FPICs, foi complementado pelo conjunto de relatos de experiências e casos reunidos no terceiro livro.

Introduzione ad una raccolta di saggi sulla pianificazione delle aree metropolitane in Italia organizzata per le città metropolitane istituite dalla legge Delrio e dalle regioni autonome. Indica alcuni profili del sistema metropolitano del paese.

This study analyzes the organizational, technological and societal changes of Gdansk in the process to become a smart city. The Gdansk's planning to climate change to reconcile social, cultural and environmental pillars. Finally analyzes the challenges of the Polish government to build participatory governance with companies and citizens.

Mentre nel capoluogo si continua a dibattere di città dei 15 minuti e di riapertura della cerchia dei Navigli, nel resto della Città metropolitana i cittadini e le rispettive amministrazioni comunali non sanno più a che santo rivolgersi per resistere alla pressante e incontrollata avanzata degli insediamenti di logistica. Ritorno in queste righe sui problemi territoriali dei comuni di cintura e periferici della Città metropolitana, che incidono anche sulla vita dei cittadini del capoluogo, ma sono da questi ultimi ignorati, così come sono ignorati dal Sindaco e dalle due Amministrazioni di cui è a capo: il Comune e la Città metropolitana di Milano. Nell'ultimo articolo del 16 maggio 2021 avevo illustrato l'iniziativa che la Regione sta portando avanti per la realizzazione di un nuovo tratto di tangenziale esterna tra Melegnano e Binasco e le sue ricadute su un ampio territorio, capoluogo incluso (1).

Markus Appenzeller is an architect, urban designer and thinker on related subjects. With his company MLA+ he is working on projects in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. Markus work focusses on strategic urban design on all scale levels and larger scale urban residential architecture. His particular interest lies in the integration of these different scales. Markus was an associate professor at ITMO St. Petersburg, a consultant to municipalities in China and Africa and a frequent lecturer at universities and in conferences worldwide.

Resumen: La aprobación, en abril de 2010, del Plan Territorial Metropolitano de Barcelona (PTMB) constituye una destacada novedad en el panorama de la planificación y gestión del territorio en España. En efecto, pese a la profundización de las dinámicas metropolitanas, las grandes ciudades españolas no han conocido en los últimos años un avance significativo del planeamiento supramunicipal. En este contexto, el PTMB, que viene a cerrar más de 50 años de polémicas e intentos fallidos, presenta algunos aspectos de especial interés disciplinar y ciudadano. El artículo analiza el documento, haciendo especial hincapié en las cuestiones de carácter metodológico, técnico y de procedimiento administrativo. Así, el trabajo se divide en tres apartados: en el primero se analiza la naturaleza jurídica del plan; en el segundo se expone su proceso de elaboración, tramitación y aprobación; finalmente, el tercer apartado entra a presentar los contenidos del plan en referencia a los espacios abiertos, los asentamientos urbanos y las infraestructuras. Unas breves conclusiones cierran el artículo. Palabras clave: Barcelona, dinámicas metropolitanas, planificación territorial. Coping with Metropolitan Dynamics. The Metropolitan Plan of Barcelona (Abstract) The adoption in April 2010 of the Barcelona Metropolitan Plan (PTMB) is a remarkable novelty in the panorama of spatial planning and urban policies in Spain. Indeed, despite the deepening of the metropolitan dynamics, the large Spanish cities have not known in recent years a significant advance in metropolitan planning. In this context, the PTMB, that comes to close more than 50 years of controversy and failed attempts, presents some aspects of remarkable interest from both academic and policy perspectives. The article analyzes the document, with special emphasis on methodological issues, technical aspects

Since the 1990s, a new metropolitan regionalism has stimulated many reform attempts in the United States to change or introduce new forms of metropolitan governance. The article aims to provide a differentiated view on the goals and governance concepts within the latest wave of metropolitan governance reforms. Three different concepts can be identified: first, a “communitarian governance” approach perceives the socio-spatial segregation as the most pressing problem and tries to gain political majorities through a reconstruction of formal institutions, local interests and mobilizing values. Second, a “civic governance” approach aims at sustainable development and advocates deliberative forums in order to stimulate cross-functional learning and to reach a consensus for joint development plans and regulations. The third approach is called “creative governance” and focuses on economic competitiveness. The advocates within this camp propose the building of synergetic exchange networks between private and public actors in order to create innovative projects and an attractive image for the city-region. The implementation of these three approaches has been very uneven. Whereas the communitarian governance approach failed even under the most favorable conditions, the civic governance approach has been partly implemented in many regions as a result of a strong anti-sprawl movement. In most metropolitan areas, only the creative governance approach, backed by powerful urban regimes, has been able to challenge and complement the dominance of localism and functional differentiation that has traditionally characterized US metropolitan governance and that is legitimized by various strands of the public choice theory.

Discutimos as articulações federativas verticais e horizontais em contextos metropolitanos, partindo da problemática do "lugar" da metrópole frente ao sistema federativo brasileiro. Se, por um lado, municípios que integram regiões metropolitanas se articulam verticalmente com governos estaduais e Federal; por outro lado, estes mesmos municípios se desarticulam horizontalmente. O resultado seria a fragmentação e desintegração da metrópole. Advogamos a necessidade de uma solidariedade institucional a partir das dinâmicas internas à metrópole, ao tempo em que propomos repensar outra configuração federativa para enfrentamento dos problemas metropolitanos.

What visions for the future of the “Greater Maputo”? What territorial images and analytical interpretations we can build on to envision long- term strategies and political decisions to promote integrated and sustainable development?
Moving from these questions, through an innovative methodology and a transdisciplinary approach, the book offers a tool-kit for reading and rethinking the Maputo metropolitan region, from the perspective of a more balanced and comprehensive rural-urban relation. In addition, the volume outlines a combination of key guidelines and spatial scenarios for a possible agenda for the sustainable development of the Province of Maputo, with particular attention to the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus. The book presents a selection of the main results of the research project “Boa_Ma_Nhã, Maputo!” funded by Polisocial Award 2018 – the social engagement and responsibility programme at the Politecnico di Milano – to support PIMI, an ongoing educational and research programme at the Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo.

Metropolises are exploding. Experiencing rapid growth phenomena for the first time in history. We need a discipline of knowledge to manage them. This series of 20 inception lectures attempt to explore the basics of the new discipline we have to build.
Links to Videos, slides and transcriptions.

Este trabajo busca dos cosas, establecer que los modelos de gobernanza metropolitana se caracterizan por ser proyectos de corte tecnocrático que apuestan por una planeación postpolítica, cuyos ejercicios en el marco de la participación ciudadana poseen una decidida aspiración propagandística y no medidas efectivas para integrar en el debate y en la toma de decisiones a las comunidades intervenidas. La segunda parte del trabajo intenta establecer la viabilidad de un acercamiento alternativo a la realidad metropolitana, bajo los planteamientos de lo que algunos autores han denominado la " escuela decolonial " y de los mecanismos conocidos como laboratorios ciudadanos, proponiendo en particular la figura de la Cocina Cívica como propuesta para desarrollar otras formas de gobernanza metropolitana.

Health impacts and a decrease in the quality of life caused by air pollution is a major problem worldwide. Krakow is one of the most affected cities in the EU by air pollution mostly caused by burning solid fuels in households' furnaces. It is considered that the most effective remedies would be adequate spatial planning solutions and application of low-emission sources including renewable energy sources (RES). This article draws from the analysis of the use of RES as a means for reducing harmful emissions in Krakow Functional Area (KrOF). The inventories of renewable energy sources and systems were compiled by the authors as a part of the EU project "Smart Edge-Sustainable Metropolitan Areas and the Role of The Edge City". Using the data from the inventories, a SWOT analysis has been carried out to identify factors that determine the smart management of the RES potential, particularly the decisions of households on the transition towards RES. The results of the analysis have shown that many actions have been taken at the national, regional, and local levels but the greatest influence bear the solutions initiated and implemented at the communal level. The conclusion is that legislative regulations should be combined with locally tailor-made instruments. The proposed method of analysis can be applied in other metropolitan areas as a diagnostic procedure supporting action planning to solve air-quality problems caused by distributed emission sources.

El texto, elaborado para la conferencia inaugural del III Congreso Internacional de Geografía Urbana (III-CIGU) en la Universidad Nacional de Luján (Buenos Aires, 12 de septiembre de 2019), debate los retos a los que las ciudades deben hacer frente hoy desde el punto de vista de su forma, función, metabolismo, cohesión y el gobierno.

En el tiempo especial de la pandemia por el COVID-19, la Asociación Argentina de Estudios de Administración Pública (AAEAP) reunió a 46 de sus asociados  para que elaboraran artículos analizando el rol del Estado, su experiencia y perspectiva en un tiempo disruptivo.
Allí se encontrará un artículo de mi autoría sobre Gobernanza en el AMBA (Área Metropolitana Buenos Aires)

This book represents a powerful analysis of the challenges of metropolitan governance in all its messiness and complexity. It examines Latin American metropolitan governance by focusing on the issue of public service provision and comparatively examining five of the largest and most complex urban agglomerations in the region: Buenos Aires, Bogota, Lima, Mexico City and Santiago.

The volume identifies and discusses the most pressing challenges associated with metropolitan coordination and the coverage, quality and financial sustainability of service delivery. It also reveals a number of spatial inequalities associated with inadequate provision, which may perpetuate poverty and other inequalities.

Metropolitan Governance in Latin America will be valuable reading for advanced students, researchers and policymakers tackling themes of urban planning, spatial inequality, public service provision and Latin American urban development.

Hablar de ciudad inteligente es pensar en  promesas efectivas de respuesta a los retos mundiales de la actualidad. Implica también nuevas formas de gobernar la ciudad. Creatividad, innovación y gobernanza urbana llevan inherentes aspiraciones de mejora, promesas de capacidad renovada para organizar la ciudades, y propiciar su riqueza, desarrollo y calidad de vida. Sin embargo los planes no siempre son realizables plenamente, o incluso no quedan descartados resultados indeseados o imprevistos.
En esta obra se analizan los discursos de los promotores de distritos creativas y los resultados efectivos de dichos proyectos  en ciudades latinoamericanas. La búsqueda de una mejor comprensión de estas formas de gobernanza  pasa necesariamente por discusiones teóricas e incluso filosóficas, cuestiones que no son eludidas en la obra.
El libro reflexiona las orientaciones que están tomando ciudades latinoamericanas en un nuevo entorno global de competencia y exigencia de innovación y creatividad. Se estudian distintos casos de las ciudades de Guadalajara, Buenos Aires y São Paulo.  Los autores se centran en la influencia de nuevas narrativas en la economía global.
El estudio reclama la aplicación de metodologías que entienden la complejidad propia de los fenómenos urbanos actuales, e incorporan formas de observar procesos y redes de gobernanza. Los autores lo buscan enfocando el estudio en el concepto proyecto y reconociendo la importancia de la intervención del gobierno para resolver problemas públicos, pero se enfatiza la necesidad de propiciar el surgimiento de nuevas instituciones basadas principalmente en la acción y la participación de la sociedad.

At the center of a media and political debate, the Grand Paris topic is blurred by the quantity of news and opinions which are continuously spread, made misted in the complex interaction between the stakes of public interest and divergent wills – essentially political – of the numerous actors. This paper proposes studying the construction process of the Grand Paris as an applicative example of the strategic spatial planning methods, decisive in the determining bend taken by the management of the Paris region development. It implies, to well measure the scope of the subject, taking into account the urban area of Paris, as it is the capital-region, has a singular status in the national context. It justifies the interest to integrate this question into a wider reflection, which accounts for the intricacy of the administrative levels involved in the management of territorial planning as well as the confuse distribution of assignments. This institutional complexity, which appears as an important source of conflicts and slowness in terms of public policies, allows explaining the multiplicity of actors, interests and procedures which articulates the construction of the Grand Paris. Planned at the moment of its launch in 2008 by the government, as an attempt of redefining the priority guidelines of the urban area, with the clear objective of replacing the French capital to the rank of world-cities, the metropolitan project carried by the Grand Paris appears as a major change in the planning practices of the Paris region. The analysis of the successive planning procedures which took place reflects indeed the evolution of the various applied theories of planning. If the traditional model inspired the first regional Master Plans which were developed by the State, it is the collaborative model that the Region, which afterward got back the planning assignments at the regional scale, tried to implement within the framework of the SDRIF revision, approved in 2013. It is thus in confrontation with these procedures that the Grand Paris project has been launched. The study of its strategic dimension is based on the analysis of the actors' configuration, the contents and the committed perimeters of action. This approach allows to shed light on the stakes manifested on this occasion between the various administrative levels – sometimes grouped in communities of interest – in the claiming of their legitimacy to govern and to plan the territories of the urban area; and on the consequences of the confrontation – materialized in particular by the conflict between the State and the Region on the transport project – between the different stakeholders. This contextual analysis leads to question the strategic character of the results achieved until now, often concluded at the end of compromise agreements; as well as the evolution of the planning process subjected to the pressures of the politico-institutional system and to its variations. This process has in one hand the merit to reveal the complexity of the actors set and the superimposed territorial realities, and in the other hand, to permit the construction of a debate zone between the diverse stakeholders (experts, politicians and civil society). This one should even so be clarified to create a legitimate arena of discussion which establishes the constructive bases of the strategic project of the Parisian metropolis.

Artigo de Rosa Moura e Thiago A. P. Hoshino publicado no Boletim Observatório das Metrópoles (28/01/2015): http://www.observatoriodasmetropoles.net/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1098%3Aestatuto-da-metr%C3%B3pole-nova-lei-para-a-gest%C3%A3o-metropolitana-do-brasil%3F&Itemid=180

Este ensayo, forma parte del libro "Ensayos sobre los desafíos y potencialidades de la Región Metropolitana de Santa Cruz", impulsada por el Gobierno Autónomo Departamental de Santa Cruz, la Embajada de Suecia en Bolivia e International IDEA.

El ensayo elaborado "Regiones metropolitanas en Bolivia, desafíos jurídicos para su implementación en el caso cruceño" forma parte de esta publicación (págs. 137-145). Es un estudio argumentativo-descriptivo, analiza los desafíos jurídicos para la constitución de Regiones Metropolitanas en Bolivia. El estudio parte de la premisa que la creación de estos espacios de planificación debe ser mediante leyes departamentales. Por otra parte, se analiza su institucionalidad, indicando aspectos a subsanar para dar consecución a proyectos de planificación consensuados con la sociedad, en marco a la gobernanza y gobernabilidad metropolitana. Finalmente, se aborda el estado de la conformación de la Región Metropolitana de Santa Cruz, indicando los desafíos que se tendrá que superar para su creación plena.

Abstract:
This paper situates ‘bazaar’ as a site of multifaceted exploration. It is as much an inquiry into a bazaar (‘Janpath’ in New Delhi) as it is into the modes of knowledge about the bazaar. Challenging the representation of the postcolonial bazaar as a bizarre relic of the past or the pure theoretical market, I make the case for viewing it as a socioeconomic site of modernity. The symbolic geography of this site is contested, populated as it is, with the evocations, expectations, and histories of the various implicated human constituencies.
Bazaars are integral to cultural imaginaries, and I start by presenting some of the ways in which they have functioned to excite fantasy and fear. In spite of this, bazaars are often conceptualised primarily as an economic space to ‘truck, barter and exchange’. I suggest that in this characterisation there is a problematic slippage between the market and the bazaar. The bazaar is not simply another market. Neither is the market itself any much more than a convenient fiction for the purposes of an abstract deductive political economy which obtains its purchase on the ‘economic’ realm by a perpetual erasure of subjectivity and particularity under the signs of objectivity, generality and science. While, even to many anthropologists, the appeal of judging the bazaar against a pervasive ideal of the market continues to be irresistible, I argue that the bazaar offers a valuable site to challenge the culture/economy separation that characterises much thinking about the economic realm. It is to this effect that the paper travels to re-member the coming into being of a specific bazaar – the Janpath. What makes this travel interesting is the forays it makes into issues of governmentality, patriarchy, livelihoods under capitalist globalisation, nationstatism, in other words, the spatial and symbolic contexts of postcolonial modernity in India.
...

Overview:
The bazaar has been an exotic site and its rationality has been the subject of rescue endeavours in much research. In contrast, I have argued that we need to see the bazaar as a fertile ground – a hybrid space for stories, for theories, and for explorations of the nation-state, of capitalism, colonialism, globalisation, and governmentality. In particular, the Janpath Bazaar provides us with a site for exploring diverse postcolonial subjectivities under the influence of a weighty history and the diffuse operation of coercive power. If we see it as a space unrarefied by the disciplinary boundaries of culture, economy, history, theory, literature, activism – it can be the site for exploring several interconnected issues as they are lived, experienced, and observed. This paper has travelled to transgress the story/theory modes of enquiry in the hope of presenting the poetics and politics of bazaars in general and the Janpath bazaar in particular as contested spaces with many layers of meaning that undo the pervasive and problematic separations of culture and economy in modernity.

The 2014 GLM M1 students visited the metropolitan regions of Casablanca and Tangier in Morocco, from January 9th to 15th, 2014.
47 students were accompanied by 3 professors (Tommaso Vitale, Agnès Deboulet and Régine Serra).
This year, the study trip aimed at observing the dynamics of metropolisation in two major port cities of the region, and addressed the issues of economic development, social inclusion and great projects.
This students' study trip report

El artículo aborda el tema de la delimitación de la ciudad contemporánea ante el avance del proceso de urbanización, la integración del territorio  y la generalización de las formas de vida urbana. Después de describir brevemente este proceso, se estudian las diversas metodologías existentes para la delimitación de las áreas urbanas: las técnicas jurídico-administrativas, el análisis morfológico, la cuantifiación de las relaciones funcionales, la identificación de la estructura económica y la jerarquía de los servicios. De la panorámica resultante aparece con claridad que, pese a los méritos que cada una de dichas metodologías pueda contener, la delimitación unívoca de la ciudad es un empeño inalcanzable desde una perspectiva científica. Por ello, se concluye, la delimitación de la ciudad depende hoy ante todo del proyecto que la colectividad quiera desarrollar sobre el territorio.  Es pues, antes que nada una decisión política de la cual depende, en buena medida, la capacidad de gobernar las transformaciones en beneficio de la mayoría de la población.

Cette thèse croise les concepts de planification, de gouvernance et de transit-oriented development (TOD) par une étude de la production, de la mise en débat et de l’adoption du plan métropolitain d’aménagement et de développement (PMAD) de la Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM). Elle expose les résultats de quatre années de recherche qualitative sur les impacts de l’épisode du PMAD et de la stratégie TOD de la CMM sur les pratiques planificatrices et les processus décisionnels du Grand Montréal à l’échelle métropolitaine. Elle révèle que la planification métropolitaine et l’objectif de coordination du transport et de l’aménagement en général ainsi que le PMAD et le concept de TOD en particulier y sont des instruments de gouvernance. Les chapitres 2, 3 et 4 présentent la problématique, le terrain d’enquête et la démarche méthodologique de cette recherche. Le chapitre 5 relate l’épisode du PMAD en analysant son contenu, les procédures par lesquelles la CMM l’a produit, mis en débat et adopté, les réactions des parties prenantes de la région quant à ces aspects et la façon dont elles comptent assurer le suivi de sa mise en œuvre. Le chapitre 6 illustre comment cet épisode a fait du PMAD un instrument de gouvernance pour le Grand Montréal en décortiquant le rôle de la participation publique, des médias, des acteurs des milieux régional et local, des élus, de la CMM et de la société civile de la région au sein de ce processus de changement de registre de la planification et de la gouvernance les déployant sur des bases plus stratégiques et collaboratives. Le chapitre 7 montre que cet épisode a aussi fait du TOD un instrument de gouvernance pour le Grand Montréal en détaillant les tenants et aboutissants du processus d’appropriation, de marchand(is)age et d’instrumentalisation du concept par les élites politiques et techniques à des fins de marketing territorial et de construction de capital politique ouvrant la voie à la stabilisation d’une gouvernance en matière d’aménagement métropolitain. Il se dégage de cette thèse que ces profondes transformations que subissent actuellement la planification et la gouvernance exacerbent le caractère symbiotique de la relation qui les unit. | This dissertation crosses the concepts of planning, governance and transit-oriented development (TOD) through a study of the production, debate and adoption of the Montreal Metropolitan Community (MMC)’s Metropolitan Land Use and Development Plan (MLUDP). It presents the results of four years of qualitative research on the impacts of the MMC’s MLUDP episode and TOD strategy on the Greater Montreal Area’s metropolitan planning practices and decision-making processes. It reveals that metropolitan planning and the transportation-land use coordination objective in general as well as the MLUDP and the TOD concept in particular are governance instruments for the region. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 present the problem, field of investigation and methodology of this research. Chapter 5 describes the MLUDP episode by analysing its content, the procedures by which the MMC produced, debated and adopted it, the area’s stakeholders’ reaction to these issues and how they intend to ensure the monitoring of its implementation. Chapter 6 illustrates how this episode has made the MLUDP a governance instrument for the Greater Montreal Area by scrutinising the role of public participation, the media, stakeholders of the local and regional scales, the elected officials, the MMC and the area’s civil society in this process of registry change for planning and governance deploying them on more strategic and collaborative bases. Chapter 7 shows that this episode also made TOD a governance instrument for the Greater Montreal Area by detailing the ins and outs of the process of appropriation, bargaining/merchandising and instrumentalisation of the concept by the political and technical elites for territorial marketing and political capital construction purposes paving the way for the stabilisation of a governance on metropolitan land use and development. It emerges from this dissertation that the profound transformations currently affecting planning and governance exacerbate the symbiotic nature of the relationship that unites them.

Utopian visions and diagrams have engaged in a multitude of relationships. For example, a utopian narrative can be conceived as a diagram, or with the aid of diagrams, and understood through diagrammatic (re) annotation. This notion is explored through an interpretation of Thomas More’s Utopia and Andrea Branzi’s Agronica. Both schemes address various structural conditions through diagrammatic operations. In More’s scheme the channel that separates Utopia from the mainland, dug by its putative founder King Abraxas, inscribes a circular boundary, reiterated in the city walls and moat; it is resonant with contemporaneous rota and volvelle schemata. Conversely, Andrea Branzi’s “mirror simulator” multiplies Agronica’s centrifugal grid to infinity, negating the “outside,” and is evocative of pervasive virtual networks.

This research, conducted by the author when a Senior Researcher at Newcastle University, UK, was funded by a UK governance organisation to help them assess, integrate and improve their understanding of the governed population.

ABSTRACT: Governance organisations have been urged to develop more holistic evidence-based approaches with partners to better deal with issues affecting the governed population. This presupposes an understanding of the population, yet there has been little research work addressing how governance organisations come to understand their governed population, nor how this understanding can be improved upon within such organisations.

This case study examined in-depth how understanding of a governed population was developed within one UK local governance organisation and it explored how such understanding might be developed and improved through more holistic and evidence-based organisational learning within the organisation and its governance partnerships.

The research methodology involved placement within the governance organisation, participant observations on several projects and innovative initiatives, observations within, across, and outside the organisation, and also interviews with varied key stakeholders.

The study examined:

- stakeholder engagement and networks
- current and varied understandings of the population
- mechanisms actually used for developing understandings
- the influence of context on organisational learning

and analysed these to arrive at a recommendations to improve organisational understanding of the governed population.

In the case studied, significant strengths were found: including innovative past learning trials for development, extensive ongoing networking activities, and many varied and accumulating quantitative datasets available across partnerships.

However, entrenched organisational approaches and practices constrained the development of holistic evidence-based understanding, for instance: the absence of systematic maintained collective learning processes; weak recording and forgetting of understandings; methodological exclusion of stakeholders from the development of understanding; the relative neglect of qualitative data, explanations, investigations, interpretations, and reflexivity; and also implicit organisational acceptance of such limitations and low aspirations.

Nonetheless, untapped opportunities existed to enable change including: latent practitioner knowledge and innovative management champions, the desire for improvement and raised aspirations within learning networks, and the development potential of alterative learning approaches.

It was concluded that more holistic evidence-based understanding was possible, but required new learning approaches beyond those then in use in both local government or academia.   

Recommendations are made to utilise and develop improved organisational learning approaches trialed and reported in the case study.

It is argued that the case study findings, conclusions, and recommendations may be applicable to other similar local governance organisations and partnerships that seek to better understand local populations, services and interventions.

The work was also submitted for, and awarded, an MPhil (at Newcastle University, supervised by Prof. Patsy Healy)

The dilemma of devising a theme that can convincingly and collectively express the cultural identity of a nation usually surfaces at the time of planning for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of devastated sites of significance. Particularly following civil wars, both the planning phase and procedures for rehabilitation often exhibit an extension of the civil conflict over the issues of identity and cultural ideology. The 15-year Lebanese civil war (1975–1991) left Beirut severely damaged. After almost two decades after the end of the war, the city center rehabilitation is in its final stages and presents an explicit paradigm of urban governance and management in a severely damaged urban setting claimed by a community of multilayered culture stratums. The construction and reconstruction effort has aspired to resurrect the prewar cosmopolitan Beirut, and has represented not only the rehabilitation of the infrastructure and devastated structures, but equally, an attempt to reinterpret Lebanon's tumultuous past and to create a new collective memory for the nation. For many, most of this effort was in vain for multiple reasons, but more notably, it fueled an endless cultural conflict in the historical city overlooking the sea. The objective of this article is to develop a better understanding of the specific socio-political dynamics and attributes influencing the rehabilitation process of the historic Beirut city center. The article examines the capacity of the chosen rehabilitation approach which was meant to crystallize the intangible meanings of Lebanese cultural identity. In addition to the site visits and observation which took place upon settling in Beirut for the last 6 years, the conclusion is underpinned by a review of culturally-diverse literature and interviews with multiple stakeholders, in particular urban officials, local professionals, visitors , and affected residents of the city center, and represents the groundwork for similar rehabilitation initiatives.

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.

Bu rapor son yıllarda hem akademik camiada hem de yerel ve ulusal politikacılar ve bürokratlar nezdinde giderek daha fazla tartışılan metropoliten kent yönetişimini konu edinmektedir. Bu çalışmada hem teorik olarak kentsel reform hareketleri ve metropoliten yönetişim modelleri incelenmekte hem de farklı ülkelerden seçilen örnekler ele alınmaktadır. Ayrıca yönetimler arası hizmet bölüşümü ve finansman modelleri, avantaj ve dezavantajlarıyla birlikte etraflıca değerlendirilmektedir. Seçilen metropoliten kent örneklerinin dünyanın farklı coğrafyalarından gelişmiş ve gelişmekte olan ülkeleri kapsamasına ve farklı kentsel yönetişim modellerine örneklik oluşturmasına dikkat edilmiştir.
Bu raporda kullanılan “kentsel yönetişim” veya “metropoliten yönetişim”, tek kademeli, iki kademeli, gönüllü işbirlikleri ve özel amaçlı yönetimler olmak üzere dört model bağlamında ele alınmaktadır. Metropoliten kent yönetiminin organlarının oluşumu ve organlar arası ilişkilerini incelememizi sağlayan “kurumsal yönetişim” bağlamında ise belediye başkanı-meclis modeli, profesyonel yönetici-meclis modeli ve komisyon modeli arasında ayrım yapılmaktadır.

Facing stakes of social development policies, the integrated management of the territory and the location holders of local development is described more and more as an alternative in a regulation approach in which the temptations of vertical neo-liberal course of action are preeminent. This participative approach and integrative is required by the existence of several stakeholders with which the logic of rationalization of land use has to predominate over those of rationing. Greater Tunis constitutes the area in which the density of population is the strongest and is also reputed for the intensity of industrial activities. It represents the zone of reception of the main influxes of immigrants and is therefore subjected to problems of availability of areas are destined to legal settlement. Besides, industrial activities located in Greater Tunis are, following the example of developing countries metropolitan areas, confronted with a high speed changing levels of land use and a diversity of actors and have to face up problems of distribution of resources and of space. In this context, and as for the territorial and urban Governance relating to the location of industries, the central State defines at the same time needs, development policies and programs of industrial development to hire actions which find themselves generally not much relieved because of weak power of autonomy of local structures. Actions recommended by this type of management of the territory make that the State, devoid of actions mechanisms peculiar to an underground middle broken up between urban central area(s) and suburban areas, is often exceeded by the derogatory tendencies of industrial location and restores its legitimacy of command by taking refuge in the neoliberal logic of not planned and punctual plans. Commonly indicated by the term of «urban project «or in the case of industry by term " Technopolis ", is it then about an approach of bypass in relation to planning logic? Between these three forms of the metropolization of Tunis, conceptual foundations as operational ones of this type of action / inaction of the State suffer with the beginning of the absence of solid bases and institutional circuits clearly defined. We will attract across this contribution to highlight three progressions of the location of industries by the implication of the recent changes in modes of action of the State led by political changes and across the heavy tendencies of processes of metropolization and of globalization.

It is a fact that urbanization is a multi-dimensional and inter-dimensional process whose dimensions are its cause and effect. Urbanization is therefore an intrinsic phenomenon to the events of modernity. The economic change, demographic change and migration, climate change and transformations in the built environment, cultural changes, changes in the political structure, are unprecedented events, which undermine the sustainability of urbanization. We assume that urbanization is a process and phenomenon at the same time, and as a process is related to the rationality of actors in its action in the various dimenssões mentioned above, while urbanization as a phenomenon means the movement led by organic forces by identifiable acting. In this thesis we argue that sustainable urbanization more than a bipolarized concept should be seen as a analytical and normative concept-approach composed by juxtaposition. With this argument we show that while urban as a process impregnates many unsustainable issuers, urbanization as a phenomena can be sustainable itself. This assumption leads us to conclude that the spontaneous urbanization what is happening in Africa has a greater potential for sustainability than those urbanization promoted by current public policies. We argue that the challenge of public policies and new research agenda in the current context of urban transition in Africa, should seek to understand the processes and multidimensional interdimensional phenomena occurring in urban areas. Like seeing the city beyond its administrative boundaries, that is, the metropolitan approach, the relationship between global and local forces, should remain the objective of the research and action of public policies. However, we argue that is the deepening and comprhension of urban identities (organic expressions of urbanity) that is the key to achive any african sustainable and progressive metropolis. The thesis seeks its foundation in the case of Maputo as part of its wide area, we call the Greater Maputo Territory that, despite of not being formally set up as, it has the functional and spatial expression of an metropolitan area.

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.

Dumas' work is often misunderstood as a story of portentous revenge of the main character Edmond Dantès. However, the Dumas' book seems to hide a philosophical structure that offers points of political and juridical reflection. Montecristo is able to integrate into a doctrinal context (also of a metaphysical and theological nature), that is typical of the european philosophical heritage, as the most paradigmatic proponent of a certain construction about the classical concept of a justice interpreted in the sense of a symmetry amongst the citizens.

L’opera di Dumas è spesso fraintesa come la storia di una portentosa vendetta del protagonista Edmond Dantès. Tuttavia, il libro di Dumas sembra nascondere una struttura filosofica che offre spunti di riflessione politica e giuridica. Montecristo può essere inserito in un contesto dottrinale (anche di natura metafisica e teologica), che è tipico del patrimonio filosofico europeo, quale più paradigmatico rappresentante di una precisa ricostruzione sul concetto classico di giustizia interpretato nel senso di una simmetria tra i cittadini.

Exploring battles over school desegregation in metropolitan Boston, Detroit, and Philadelphia in the 1960s and 1970s, “The Metropolitan Moment” examines how black and white city dwellers at odds over integration within the city pursued – and sometimes allied over – efforts that crossed municipal lines to incorporate the suburbs in desegregation remedies. Though possessing divergent motivations, such as the white tactical aim of ensuring white majorities in all area schools by enlarging the desegregation area and the black desire for improved educational opportunities, both groups sought access to white suburban schools and at times acted together in court in an attempt to implement metropolitan desegregation. The search for such solutions opened a “metropolitan moment” across the urban North in the late 1960s and early 1970s when proposed regional remedies offered real possibilities of heading off white flight, fostering interracial coalitions, and substantively combatting segregation. Though this moment was foreclosed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1974 decision in Milliken v. Bradley – a case prompted in part by just such a surprising urban black-white alliance in Detroit – its legacies, including suburban anti-busing movements that helped fuel the rise of the New Right and the transformation of the Democratic Party, and the larger retreat from metropolitan solutions to metropolitan dilemmas of race, schooling, services, and inequality, echo down to today. The findings complicate several historiographies pertaining to the long civil rights movement, post-World War II urban and suburban history, the rise of the right, and representations of the “busing” controversy. Throughout, “The Metropolitan Moment” broadens the conception of the municipal reformer to include both ordinary black parents and white reactionaries.