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Does Planning Keep its Promises? Latin American Spatial Governance and Planning as an Ex-Post Regularisation Activity
Abstract
Spatial governance and planning systems empower the public authority to steer and control spatial development. Whereas most comparative studies on how this occurs focus on the European continent, less knowledge is available on the global South incre-mental urbanisation. The cases of three Latin American countries-Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru-are here discussed, highlighting the role played by the logic of necessity (and the resulting necessity-market) as the main driver of plot-by-plot urbanisation. The analysis shows that, in the three countries, spatial governance and planning systems are scarcely capable to address societal needs ex-ante and limit their activity to ex-post regularisation actions.
... In practical terms, any measurement of these dynamics have to come to terms with the fact that each country in the world is characterised by its own spatial governance and planning systems [6,35,36,42,49,[68][69][70], that is pivoted on its administrative system and culture [43], and that has developed and consolidated through time as a consequence of the specific histories and geographies that characterise a particular place [31]. As a consequence, the way decisions are taken, the distribution of competences, the relational mechanisms among planning levels (national, regional, local etc.) are all important aspects to be assessed, as they all together influence the outcome of territorial developmentwhich in turn can favour a more sustainable urbanisation [57], 2021) and increase the quality of life of citizens [24]. ...
The pivotal role that urbanisation plays in global development trajectories is clearly acknowledged by the United Nations 2030 Agenda that, among its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, explicitly argues in favour of cities and human settlements to be more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable (SDG11). Whereas SDG11 targets are paired with one or more indicators to monitor their achievement, in some cases this process is not straightforward. In particular, when it comes to Target 11.a Support positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas by strengthening national and regional development planning, the identified indicator does not seem able to grasp the complexity of national and regional governance, policy and planning. With the aim to contribute to this concern, the paper conceptually discusses the contents and implications of the SDG11 target 11.a. On this basis, it develops a multi-dimensional set of indicators to assess the quality of spatial governance and planning in a given context, and divides them into three main categories: (i) procedural indicators, (ii) instrumental indicators and (iii) financial indicators. The result of this work is a toolbox that may support decision-makers and policy-makers in assessing the quality of the efforts they put in place to make their cities and territories more sustainable as well as to reflect on what measures and initiatives to put in place to make this action more effective.
This article examines how planners move from reflection to action in pursuit of institutional change. Building on the literature on reflective practice and historical institutionalism, and using Medellín as a case study, I build a framework for analyzing how planners go from reflecting on a problem and identifying its institutional origins to devising solutions based on experience, knowledge, or innovation. Those solutions are then mobilized through “simple junctures,” which are opportunities distinct from everyday processes. The findings, based on interviews, documents, and observations, show the importance of training planners to reflect on institutional factors and of leveraging simple junctures.
En Bolivia, el apoyo mutuo a través de redes barriales ha sido una estrategia exitosa aunque poco visibilizada de respuesta a la pandemia de Covid-19. Esta experiencia ha movilizado a miles de personas alrededor del mundo y ha logrado salvar una serie de vicisitudes generadas por el virus y por la forma de respuesta de los gobiernos. Este artículo, resultado de un estudio desarrollado en el área metropolitana de Cochabamba durante la primera etapa de la pandemia, presta atención y expone formas notables de gestión de la pandemia y estrategias solidarias desarrolladas por barrios caracterizados por el trabajo mancomunado.
In Bolivia, mutual support through neighborhood networks has been a successful-albeit little publicized-strategy in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This experience has mobilized thousands of people around the world and has managed to overcome a series of vicissitudes generated by the virus and by the response of governments. This article, the result of a study conducted in the metropolitan area of Cochabamba during the first stage of the pandemic, focuses on the remarkable forms of pandemic management and solidarity strategies developed in neighborhoods where joint work is common.
Motivation: The global urban development frameworks defined by the United Nations are circulating worldwide and a race towards their domestic adoption has risen since the approval of the New Urban Agenda and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Their institutionalization at the domestic level is favoured by the rather aseptic "urban paradigm shift" that these documents bring forward. However, the process according to which this happens is subject to path-dependent logics and varies from one context to another.
Purpose: Stemming from the policy mobilities literature, the article explores the role that "pasteurized" urban narratives play in the domestic institutionalization of the global urban development frameworks. At the same time, it analyses how domestic institutional configurations have influenced their differential implementation in two Latin American countries.
Methodes and approaches
mixed methodology that includes participant observation, consultancy activities, desk-research and semi-structured interviews.
Findings: The analysis findings show that, on the one hand, the "comfortable landscape" offered by the "pasteurized concepts" that comprise the global urban development frameworks served as "coalition magnet" favouring the building of consensus among stakeholders with rather different positions. On the other hand, however, this may result in a "fast-track institutionalization" that prevents the concrete engagement of local governments in the process, in turn undermining the relevance of the results achieved.
Policy implications: Whereas further comparative research on the institutionalization of global urban development frameworks in Latin America and beyond is certainly needed, to further understand the hidden pitfalls of their domestic adoption, the evidence presented may contribute to inform the action of policy-makers and practitioners dealing with their implementation at all levels.
Al interior de los procesos de urbanización latinoamericana y su mercado informal de suelo, uno de los aspectos más relevantes, pero poco o nada estudiado, son las formas de financiación de los procesos de auto urbanización y sus componentes. La bibliografía revisada dice muy poco o nada de estas maneras, dejando un hueco importante respecto a esta dimensión que no sólo forma parte del proceso urbano, sino materializa esa realidad que observamos cada día, pero poco conocemos.
Este documento, centrado en estudiar una pequeña parte de la realidad del mercado informal de suelo boliviano, dejará ver cómo tres prácticas y dos casos situados en la zona metropolitana de Cochabamba, cuyo objeto es la consolidación urbana y la regularización a través de la práctica de instrumentos locales de gestión de suelo, han logrado la financiación de gran parte de sus espacios urbanos, servicios e infraestructuras, mediante intervenciones a la propiedad o posesión de suelo, la aplicación de cargas y el trabajo colectivo, sin participación directa de los gobiernos, pero sí con la contribución fundamental de su población organizada y sus agentes.
In Bolivia, urbanisation increasingly takes place in peri-urban settings situated outside the boundaries of cities. Unlike previous research that considers peri-urban developments such as rural-to-urban land use transitions to be characterised by state absence and little regulation and planning, this article demonstrates that such developments occur precisely because of the presence of particular multi-scalar governance configurations. Drawing on case study material from peri-urban La Paz, the article demonstrates how legislative reforms by Bolivia's national government on decen-tralisation and municipal delineation, which failed to establish clear jurisdictional boundaries, create a situation of hyperregulation whereby multiple local authorities claim political control over the same territory by deploying distinct and at times conflicting, legal and planning frameworks. While hyperregulation enables a loose coalition of elite actors, including government authorities, resident leaders of peri-urban settlements and private sector representatives, to advance specific political and socioeconomic interests, it puts ordinary residents in a situation of permanent uncertainty. The article contributes to and further nuances conceptual debates on calculated informality which uncover how states deliberately create legally ambiguous systems to facilitate speculative urban developments. Unlike previous studies which highlight that this is mainly achieved through state engineering, and particularly by suspending or violating the law, this article demonstrates that legal ambiguity and irregularity can also be generated through multi-scalar gov-ernance configurations that (1) involve a number of elite actors, including state authorities but also private sector and civil society representatives and (2) create a situation in which different regulatory systems co-exist without coordination.
Con la llegada del siglo XXI, estudiosos de lo urbano celebraron el Estatuto de la Ciudad y el Ministerio de las Ciudades como importantes marcos normativo e institucional de la política urbana en Brasil. Poco tiempo después, las convicciones eran colocadas en jaque ante los impasses que aquellas propuestas enfrentaban. Aún en la primera década del Estatuto y del Ministerio, el campo político e intelectual que orbita en torno de la reforma urbana vivió una etapa de evaluación del proceso. En el momento de su institucionalización, un ciclo más de la reforma urbana se cierra. Pero, cabe cuestionar ¿qué se acordó llamar reforma urbana? Se argumenta que la respuesta a esa pregunta se podría formular a partir de la explicitación de elementos que definirían una semántica que aquella expresión engloba. Son esos aspectos los que este texto busca presentar y discutir, señalando límites y contradicciones de la reforma urbana como horizonte posible y/o imaginado.
Despite the lack of competence on the matter, through time the European Union (EU) developed a number of spatially relevant concepts, initiatives and sectoral directives. An EU territorial governance framework progressively consolidated and the Member States gradually adapted in order to reflect its growing complexity. Building on the results of the ESPON COMPASS project, the article sheds light on this process, often referred to as Europeanization of territorial governance. To do so, it presents and compares the perceived impact that a number of sectoral directives, spatial policies and guidance documents developed at the EU level plays in shaping territorial governance and spatial planning in the 32 countries that participate to the ESPON programme.
Until recently, comparative spatial planning researchhad mostly focused on the European continent. Since the end of the 1980s, a growing number of studies contributed to the proliferation of theoretical and methodological approaches, as well as to a further definition of the object of study. Comparisons focusing on other parts of the World are much less frequent, if one excludes the rather ‘dry’ reports produced by international organizations. Aiming at investigating the reasons behind this empirical gap, the paper inquires the theoretical implications and challenges that emerge when applying to the global South conceptual and analytical frameworks developed in the Northern hemisphere. In so doing, it first raises awareness on the role played by the colonial legacy to then argue for the need to ‘go beyond technical efficiency’ and to consider dominant power relations hidden by the apparent neutrality of spatial governance and planning systems, particularly in relation to contexts where spatial inequalities are more pronounced. In this light, it suggests to consider informal practices alongside formal ones, as a way forward to better understand the drivers structuring spatial governance and planning systems in the Global South. Overall, to test comparative spatial governance and planning studies to the Latin American context could provide an added value for the development of the region,by setting up a regional agenda for more integrated and cooperative spatial planning in Latin America.
This article examines how spatial planning systems have changed in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece in times of economic recession and austerity politics, in amid pressures of external actors, and local conditions and traditions. We analyse the round of reforms of spatial planning and territorial governance implemented by national governments under pressures by European institutions, as well as local responses to them. On the one hand, we highlight how European institutions have used the conditionalities attached to bailout packages and other instrument of pressure to frame what can be considered an implicit Southern European spatial planning policy developed by the European Union. On the other, we suggest that Southern European planning amid crisis and austerity should be understood, together, as field that problematizes the idea of Europeanization of planning; a space used as 'prototype' for new rounds of neoliberalization; and a political space that continuously develops through top-down/bottom-up dialectic conflicts.
Este artículo sintetiza las principales líneas de trabajo impulsadas, en los últimos años, por la Cátedra UNESCO de Ciudades Intermedias de la Universitat de Lleida, con el objetivo de evidenciar la trascendencia de la ciudad intermedia como mayoritaria en la geografía urbana mundial. Además de su papel clave en las relaciones entre lo urbano y el medio rural. Aspectos como intermediación y cohesión territorial, escala humana y gobernanza, y su topología de cortas distancias y de proximidad, refuerzan la idea de la ciudad intermedia como un nuevo paradigma en el proceso de urbanización mundial, y como elemento clave en la implementación a escala local de la Agenda 2030.
This paper reviews the social and professional embeddedness of planning, describes its legal framework, and reviews territorial governance and everyday planning transactions. The findings suggest that the social embeddedness of planning is constrained by Peru’s persistent inequality challenges. Its planning approach has hardly evolved from modernist models centred in zoning and building codes. Its fragmented and profuse legal framework constitutes a black box for planners and citizens, while territorial governance is subject to the state’s low interest and capacity to plan, manage and steer spatial development. These results demand a fundamental revision of the planning system, its approach and governance.
Since 2010, Ecuador's legal system has obliged provincial, cantonal and parochial decentralized autonomous govern-ments to develop two planning processes, one in 2011 of formulation and the other in 2015 of respective updating of development plans and territorial planning (PDOT). This planning process has been of little benefit, due to the quality of its contents and the vagueness of the legislation regarding the procedure for articulating the different plans with each other and with the National Development Plan. According to this approach, it is necessary to reflect on the planning experience so far, analyzing the different phases of the PDOT: diagnosis, proposal and management model; and the impact of the Organic Law of Territorial Ordinance, Use and Management of Land and other laws in the different instruments of territorial ordering and urban planning, in order to extract inputs for future planning processes.
The objective of the COMPASS project was to provide an authoritative comparative report on changes in territorial governance and spatial planning systems in Europe from 2000 to 2016. This Final Report presents the main findings, conclusions and policy recommendations.
The first comprehensive comparative analysis of spatial planning in Europe, the EU Compendium of Spatial Planning Systems and Policies, was published by the European Commission in 1997. It covered the then EU15 and became a standard reference. Much has changed since 1997, with the enlargement of the EU, the increasing influence of EU sectoral policies, and substantial reforms of spatial planning and territorial governance across Europe.
There is value in updating knowledge of spatial planning systems and territorial governance and widening the analysis to more countries because of the potential synergy with EU sectoral policies in a place-based approach. Planning at national, sub-national and local levels offers a means to strengthen the combined impact of EU policies. This requires a broader ‘spatial planning approach’ that goes beyond the regulation of land use and urban form to the coordination of the territorial impacts of sector policies, as has been advocated since the 1990s. There is limited knowledge of advances in spatial planning since then and certainly not a comprehensive international comparison such as this. ESPON COMPASS provides a starting point for understanding the capacity of spatial planning systems and territorial governance to enhance the implementation of EU policies.
The COMPASS project compares territorial governance and spatial planning in 32 European countries (the 28 EU member states plus four ESPON partner countries). COMPASS differs from previous studies in that the accent is not on a snapshot comparison of national systems, but on identifying trends in reforms from 2000 to 2016. It also seeks to give reasons for these changes with particular reference to EU directives and policies, and to identify good practices for the cross-fertilisation of spatial development policies with EU Cohesion Policy.
The research is based on expert knowledge with reference wherever possible to authoritative sources. Experts with in-depth experience of each national system were appointed to contribute to the study. The research design involved primarily collection of data from the 32 countries through questionnaires and five in-depth case studies of the interaction of EU Cohesion Policy and other sectoral policies with spatial planning and territorial governance. All the data collection and analysis has been subject to extensive quality control to ensure as far possible consistency and coherence of data. Initial investigations have also been made of the feasibility of adding further countries to the study.
The legal system shaped by the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador (2008)
establishes a new system for sharing the responsibilities of the Ecuadorian State, with the
redistribution currently taking place between the different administrative political entities
forming it. Within these responsibilities, Territorial Legislation and Town Planning have been the object of recent legislation that has defined their aim and extent more precisely. The article sets out the essential characteristics of the regional organisation of the State and of the distribution of responsibilities, and analyses the content and extent of Territorial Legislation and Town Planning; as well as the way in which they are connected with sectoral policies affecting territories and the problems which, in the authors’ opinion, the imprecision of the established model of coordination between institutions presents.
The Brazilian urban reform movement expanded citizen participation in decision-making processes through a policy environment motivated by a right to the city (RTC), a collective development strategy for political transformation. Yet recent events evidence that social exclusion and spatial segregation remain dominant features of the Brazilian city. These contradictions have led planning scholars and practitioners to grapple with misalignment between the reform movement’s paradigmatic goals and its paradoxical failures. We build upon this genre of thinking to assess critical areas of paradigm and paradox in Brazilian planning – insurgent urbanism, informality and knowledge – each of which is rooted in the lesser-understood concept of autogestão for improving the equity of land division through urban planning.¹ Although not all inclusive of the issues faced by Brazilian cities, these three categories were selected for best representing how Brazil’s participatory turn established a range of paradigmatic and paradoxical conditions that can help us to understand cities in Brazil and beyond and might better leverage autogestão in the future.
The conclusion to this special issue on the state of planning in Latin America provides a series of critical reflections based on the cross-comparative analysis of its seven contributions. Rather than summarising the results embedded in the survey, we allude to the thematic questions posed in the introduction by responding with thought-provoking, argument-based counter-questions as revealed by each of the section headings comprising this conclusion. To make a contribution towards positioning planning in Latin America as an emerging “field” within the Southern turn in planning, the following sections suggest a series of research trajectories whose underlying rationales build on the exposed perceptions around significant planning problems across the region.
This special issue takes a point of departure on the “Southern turn in planning” with an emphasis on Latin America and seeks to contribute to the current wave of debates around international comparative planning. Its objective is to target the “state of the art” of planning interventions as well as contemporary forms of planning knowledge and academic scholarship across the region. In doing so, a number of key themes are identified through rationales ranging from the emergence of planning policies, practices and discourses to gaps between theory and practice, and then moving on to the state of planning education and the exchange of planning knowledge across different countries within the region. Based on these themes, the substance of the issue embraces inputs by academics with planning knowledge and expertise from Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Brazil and Peru. The conclusion to the issue presents a cross-comparative analysis and synthesises a series of research axes aimed at designing a research agenda concerning planning in Latin America.
Urban planning in Chile includes regional, inter-municipal and municipal planning instruments. These apply the “principle of territorial subsidiarity”, according to which higher levels of administration are not responsible for any given issue if the lower levels of administration are capable of resolving it. This principle is connected to processes of decentralization in Chile. Although urban planning experienced significant stagnation and setbacks during the military dictatorship (1973–1990), starting in the 2000s, the state has made efforts to update ex- isting plans, create new ones and establish more stringent standards for urban development.
RESUMEN Con la transición de gobiernos progresistas en la región mientras en Ecuador se mantiene el progresismo, vale recordar algunos hitos del contexto ecuatoriano y la disputa por la acumulación del capital reflejada en el modelo de desarrollo. Este ensayo analiza el Buen Vivir/Sumak Kawsay como alternativa civilizatoria y aborda los planes nacionales de desarrollo. A pesar de que en un inicio se planteó otro modo civilizatorio, con el paso de los años poco se logró concretar de cambio y transformación; una mirada a la década anterior nos deja de saldo un Estado Ecuatoriano moderno, capitalismo con rostro humano. A pesar del vaciamiento del concepto, vale la pena seguir disputando esa dimensión.
This paper examines the introduction of land-use planning requirements into the regularization process of informal settlements in areas designated as “conservation land” in Mexico City. Since 1997, the government has increasingly deployed digital technologies to map and track informal settlement in conservation land in order to select those eligible for reclassification as “residential land use”: a prerequisite for other stages in the regularization process, including property titling, access to urban services and subsidised loans for home improvements. We argue that the incorporation of land use planning into the discursive and material enactments of regularization continues to reproduce the social class divisions behind the otherwise rather tenuous distinction between formal and informal urban development. Although presented as a technical concern by planners, regularization remains embedded in political processes and outcomes, a characteristic long recognised in the abundant literature on the subject. What is new is the geo-referencing of informality as part of land use planning, as this
alters the dynamics of regularization processes, now involving the everyday planning practices of local government. This experience thus suggests the need for re-conceptualising informality as a form of selective spatial regulation and governance integral to the planning and urban development process.
Planning theory has shifted over time in response to changes in broader social and philosophical theory as well as changes in the material world. Postmodernism and poststructuralism dislodged modernist, rational and technical approaches to planning. Consensualist decision-making theories of the 1980s took forms of communicative and collaborative planning, drawing on Habermasian concepts of power and society. These positions, along with refinements and critiques within the field, have been hegemonic in planning theory ever since. They are, in most cases, presented at a high level of abstraction, make little reference to the political and social contexts in which they are based, and hold an unspoken assumption that they are of universal value, i.e. valid everywhere. Not only does this suggest important research methodology errors but it also renders these theories of little use in those parts of the world which are contextually very different from theory origin—in most cases, the global North. A more recent ‘southern turn’ across a range of social science disciplines, and in planning theory, suggests the possibility of a foundational shift toward theories which acknowledge their situatedness in time and place, and which recognize that extensive global difference in cities and regions renders universalized theorising and narrow conceptual models (especially in planning theory, given its relevance for practice) as invalid. New southern theorising in planning is drawing on a range of ideas on societal conflict, informality, identity and ethnicity. Postcolonialism and coloniality have provided a useful frame for situating places historically and geographically in relation to the rest of the world. However, the newness of these explorations still warrants the labelling of this shift as a ‘southern theorizing project’ in planning rather than a suggestion that southern planning theory has emerged.
La tercera conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre vivienda y desarrollo urbano sostenible (Hábitat III) se celebra en Quito en octubre de 2016. Para la comunidad académica es un momento clave que permite centrarse en los principales avances de la investigación y el panorama de la formación sobre la cuestión urbana en América Latina, y en la región andina en particular. Con este propósito, un colectivo de investigadores andinos y franceses ha juntado sus esfuerzos para presentar un balance original de los estudios urbanos y los grandes desafíos planteados por la ciudad en los últimos 25 años en Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador y Perú.
Many cities around the world have been largely constructed by their residents, who build not only their own houses, but also frequently their neighborhoods. In this article, I use the notion of peripheral urbanization to analyze this way of producing cities that is quite pervasive in the global south. I argue that peripheral urbanization refers to modes of the production of space that (a) operate with a specific temporality and agency, (b) engage transversally with official logics, (c) generate new modes of politics, and (d) create highly unequal and heterogeneous cities. I also argue that peripheral urbanization not only produces heterogeneity within the city as it unfolds over time, but also varies considerably from one city to another. I build my arguments by juxtaposing dissimilar cases from a few cities in the global south. To focus on peripheral urbanization means simultaneously to de-center urban theory and to offer a bold characterization of modes of the production of space that are different from those that generated the cities of the North Atlantic.
Como resultado de un conjunto de políticas públicas y emergencia de varios movimientos sociales desde 1952, y con más énfasis desde los años 1994 y 2006; Bolivia vive uno de los más importantes procesos de ordenamiento de su territorio así como la reorganización de todas sus estructuras de Estado. Este artículo aborda de manera concreta las principales características de las trasformaciones del país en un periodo de más de 50 años que da pie a lo que hoy es llamado el "Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia". Esta labor se realiza a través de la referencia y análisis de los más importantes efectos de algunas políticas públicas implementadas entre 1950 y 2010.
This paper outlines an historical institutionalist (HI) research agenda for planning history. HI approaches to the understanding of institutions, path dependence, positive feedback effects in public policy, and patterned processes of institutional change offer a robust theoretical framework and a valuable set of conceptual and analytic tools for the analysis of continuity and change in public policy. Yet, to date, there has been no systematic effort to incorporate historical institutionalism into planning history research. The body of the paper proposes planning history relevant definitions of institutions, path dependence, critical junctures, and incremental change processes, outlines recent HI literature applying and extending these concepts, and frames a number of research questions for planning history that these approaches suggest. A concluding section explores the potential application and leverage of HI approaches to the study of planning history and international comparative planning studies and outlines a research agenda.
Con la crisis del fordismo urbano, el mercado inmobiliario ha resurgido como una fuerza determinante del proceso de coordinación social del uso del suelo y la producción de estructura intraurbana. Es el retorno de la "mano invisible" del mercado. En este artículo se analiza la relación entre la producción de estructura urbana y el funcionamiento del mercado inmobiliario en América Latina, tanto en su versión formal como en la informal. La hipótesis de trabajo es que las ciudades latinoamericanas, comparadas con los dos modelos tradicionales (la urbe compacta mediterránea, y la difusa anglosajona), muestran una estructura urbana particular. En ellas, el funcionamiento de los mercados del suelo produce simultáneamente una estructura urbana compacta y difusa. Es a esta estructura, característica de las grandes urbes latinoamericanas, que llamamos ciudad "com-fusa".With the crisis of urban Fordism, the real estate market has reemerged as a determining force in the social coordination process of land use and in the production of intra-urban structure. It has been the return of the "invisible hand" of the market. This paper presents an analysis of the relationship between the production of urban structure and the functioning modes of formal and informal land markets in Latin America. It proposes the hypothesis that, compared to the two traditional models (compact Mediterranean cities and the Anglo-Saxon diffused cities), Latin American cities exhibit a particular urban structure. In these cities, the functioning of land markets produces simultaneously a compact and a diffused urban structure. This urban structure, characteristic of large Latin American cities, we designate as the "Com-Fused" City.
An underlying aim of European territorial cooperation initiatives, such as INTERREG, is that they will lead to mutual understanding and learning across national boundaries. However, the effect of mutual learning on national systems and policies of planning is uncertain. After all, spatial planning systems are deeply embedded in their socio-economic, political and cultural context, which can potentially constrain the scope for mutual learning. Moreover, planning systems may have a certain degree of path-dependency, such as the persistence of institutions and cultures. In this paper, we explore the relationship between planning systems and their context and assess the extent to which cooperation and learning might contribute to convergence in styles of planning in Europe, as well as why and how this might be taking place.
This paper explores pressures on planning systems and practices in Europe for change in response to the economic development and environmental policy concerns arising as a result of European integration processes. It explores the tendencies within contemporary systems and practices, both in relation to policy ideas and in the way the instruments of systems are used. One objective is to identify whether there are any dominant directions in the evolutionary processes underway which might lead to a convergence among European planning systems. The review focuses on EC countries, but includes reference to the wider Europe. -from Authors
Spatial planning systems have become the subject of much comparative research in recent years. This has resulted in very general classifications, while a definition of the subject of comparison remains vague. Any attempt at comparative evaluation has proved therefore to be difficult and controversial, impeding further theoretical and institutional progress. Against this backdrop, the present contribution is aimed as an effort towards conceptualization. The notion of ‘institutional technology’ is adopted in order to understand planning systems as specific social constructs, thus encompassing also the shaping of respective planning cultures. Implications for analysis and comparison are discussed.
Two planning system models currently cohabit in Europe: a more traditional and widespread one, aspiring to 'conform' single projects to a collective strategy; and a different and less institutionalised one, promoting those projects capable of 'performing' a collective strategy. Historical and cultural reasons may explain the major diffusion and persistence of the former, but current needs of territorial governance lead to consider the latter as preferable. This is especially so in the light of the EU integration process, such cohabitation is no longer bearable and conforming ambitions should be definitively abandoned.
This paper concerns the distinction between 'good' and 'bad' planning. Three views of the planning process are distinguished, with their associated criteria of the quality of plans: planning as control of the future, implying that plans not implemented indicate failure; planning as a process of decisionmaking under conditions of uncertainty, where implementation ceases to be a criterion of success, but where it becomes difficult, therefore, to give stringent criteria of the quality of a plan; and a view holding the middle ground, where implementation is still important but where, as long as outcomes are beneficial, departures from plans are viewed with equanimity. Similar distinctions are drawn in the implementation literature and in the literature on programme evaluation. The authors seek to develop a rigorous approach to evaluation under conditions of uncertainty. For this purpose, the authors draw on the policy-plan/programme-implementation-process (PPIP) model developed by Alexander and give five criteria for comprehensive evaluation: conformity, rational process, optimality ex ante, optimality ex post, and utilisation. The procedure is outlined in considerable detail, by means of tables and flowcharts. The framework confronts the dilemma that, although policy and planning must face uncertainty, we must at the same time be able to judge policies, plans, and their effects.
The paper engages with the policy mobilities debate by examining the 2016 Ecuadorian spatial planning law. It explores the existing tensions between the constitutional framework and the spatial planning tools outlined by the law which were the result of a process of adaptation of external planning models influenced by international organizations. It shows how the long-term consequences of property rights and a rural understanding of indigeneity shaped spatial planning tools, therefore suggesting the implication of path dependence in the outcome of policy mobilities. The contribution is based on participant observation, desk-research and semi-structured interviews.
The European Union Cohesion Policy supports the development of European regions since the end of the 1980s, despite the lack of supranational spatial planning competences. As reported through time by numerous studies, this has triggered important changes in the Member States’ territorial administration, regional and urban policies, spatial planning praxis. Drawing on the comprehensive dataset collected in the context of the ESPON COMPASS research project, this chapter shed light on the role of EU cohesion policy as a driver of Europeanisation, by systematically analysing its impact on all Member States’ territorial governance and spatial planning systems in the period from 2000 to 2016, and in relation to the various administrative levels. In doing so, the authors bring new evidence to confirm how the actual impact of Cohesion Policy depends on domestic differential institutional and administrative settings, spatial planning traditions, as well as on the magnitude of the allocated funding.
This book offers a multifaceted overview of the evolution of spatial development, governance and planning in the Western Balkans from an institutionalist perspective. Written by experts in the field, it features various regional and national studies covering topics such as regional and spatial planning, territorial development and governance, and regional and cross-border cooperation in the Western Balkans. Offering a wealth of national, regional and local insights on territorial cooperation, development and planning, this book will appeal to scholars in regional and spatial sciences and related fields alike.
The last three decades have seen the Western Balkan Region facing several institutional, economic, social, and territorial transformation. Since the early 1990s, the region has undergone radical changes that have paved the way for a diversity of territorial development models. This chapter identifies and details the main territorial challenges and drivers of change that characterise the region and could affect its future development. To do so, it proposes an historical analysis of the region’s spatial development trajectories, focussing on the role of territorial governance and spatial planning in addressing them and identifying the main challenges that hamper this activity. Finally, particular attention is dedicated to the role that international actors have played and are still playing in shaping territorial development and governance in the region.
With this paper, we analyse an ordinary urban process, which has received little attention so far and propose a new concept to take account of it: plotting urbanism. It is usually subsumed under terms like “urban informality” or “incremental urbanism” and not studied as a distinct process. In comparing Lagos, Istanbul and Shenzhen we captured four defining features of plotting urbanism: first, it unfolds in a piecemeal fashion with limited comprehensive planning. Second, it emerges from conflicts between multiple overlapping modes of territorial regulation, land tenure and property rights, which result in specific territorial compromises. Third, plotting is based on commodification of housing and land, which might accentuate socio-economic differentiations between property-owners, who often live in the same area, and their tenants. The term “plotting” highlights the key role of the plot in the process. It also alludes to strategic acts of collaboration for individual and collaborative benefit.
Although the functions of spatial governance and planning systems are generalizable, 30 years of comparative studies, especially in Europe, have shown the heterogeneity characterising these ‘institutional technologies’. This contribution builds on the materials of the recently concluded ESPON COMPASS research project to propose a European typology on the capacity of public authorities to control spatial development, a crucial aspect for the life of entire cities, regions and countries. Based on the opinions expressed by respective national experts, the systems of 39 countries (28 EU and 11 non-EU) are compared in relation to the mechanisms to allocate land use and spatial development rights as well as to the prevalence of the state vs. the market in guiding the development decisions. As a result, the European systems are placed on an X-Y diagram, which makes it possible to cluster them in consistent types that raise new comparative observations and general findings. In summary, the capacity for public control of spatial development looks variegated in Europe, although limited overall. Even if the power relations between state and market established in each institutional context are certainly influential, the models adopted for allocating spatial development rights also play a role in determining the observed trends.
Inadequate regulation of spatial development is at the origin of the current global crisis and increases, in years of crisis, the unequal distribution of wealth. The importance of the related risks for democracy draws attention to the systems of spatial governance and planning, through which States regulate spatial development. In Europe, the countries most affected by the unequal effects of the crisis have spatial planning systems that are traditionally based on the preventive assignation of rights for land use and development through a plan. The systems of other countries had established beforehand that new rights for land use and for spatial development are rather assigned only after the public control of development projects and their distributional effects. Despite the evidence that some models can operate better than others in ensuring public government of spatial development, the improvement of spatial planning systems is, however, limited by their complex nature of ‘institutional technologies’. Especially in a context of crisis, planners are responsible for the increase in public awareness concerning the role of spatial governance in economic and social life.
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/8RNZytRWsGwaYgBeRBek/full
In 1990, the political elite in Peru were deeply split along two contradictory ideological lines regarding the implementation of a free market economy. One the one hand, the traditional ruling political-economic elite and most of civil society were against free market reforms. Specifically, this coalition, which supported an economic protectionist model in which the state played a central role, was comprised of entrepreneurial associations, trade unions, political parties of the left, centre and even factions of the right, as well as social movement groups (student organizations and peasant or neighborhood associations). On the other hand, an emerging political elite linked to international financial institutions (IFIs) and transnational corporations (TNCs), were stark proponents of a free market-oriented liberalization of the economy.
A raíz de la vigencia de la última Constitución en el Ecuador, desde 2008, se
desarrolla el primer sistema nacional de planificación. Este, de manera pionera en el país, incorpora el ordenamiento territorial como política de Estado a aplicarse de manera coordenada en todas las unidades de administración territorial. El artículo expone los fundamentos políticos que han servido para introducir al ordenamiento territorial en la planificación del desarrollo: el Buen Vivir, la transformación de la matriz productiva y la descentralización.
This special issue seeks to return the urban to the heart of planning theory. In doing so, it has three objectives. Firstly, it highlights particular urbanisms: how they are produced, lived and negotiated, from New York to Bogota. The articles thus draw attention to the multiplicity of urbanisms that constitute the contemporary world system, thereby disrupting the rather restricted analytics of global cities and world cities. Secondly, the articles pay careful attention to the forms of worlding at work in such urbanisms, demonstrating how the production of the urban takes place in the crucible of modernizing projects of development, regimes of immigration and governance and experiments with neoliberalism and market rule.Thirdly, this special issue seeks to explore the implications of such research and analysis for the field of ideas currently constituted as planning theory. How does the study of urbanisms allow a rigorous understanding of planning as the organization and transformation of space? How can planning theory make sense of seemingly unplanned spaces that lie outside the grid of visible order? In what ways is planning itself a worlding practice, such that models, best practices, expertise and capital circulate in transnational fashion, creating new worlds of planning common sense?
Examines the role that institutions, defined as the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, play in economic performance and how those institutions change and how a model of dynamic institutions explains the differential performance of economies through time. Institutions are separate from organizations, which are assemblages of people directed to strategically operating within institutional constraints. Institutions affect the economy by influencing, together with technology, transaction and production costs. They do this by reducing uncertainty in human interaction, albeit not always efficiently. Entrepreneurs accomplish incremental changes in institutions by perceiving opportunities to do better through altering the institutional framework of political and economic organizations. Importantly, the ability to perceive these opportunities depends on both the completeness of information and the mental constructs used to process that information. Thus, institutions and entrepreneurs stand in a symbiotic relationship where each gives feedback to the other. Neoclassical economics suggests that inefficient institutions ought to be rapidly replaced. This symbiotic relationship helps explain why this theoretical consequence is often not observed: while this relationship allows growth, it also allows inefficient institutions to persist. The author identifies changes in relative prices and prevailing ideas as the source of institutional alterations. Transaction costs, however, may keep relative price changes from being fully exploited. Transaction costs are influenced by institutions and institutional development is accordingly path-dependent. (CAR)
Evaluation and implementation studies have a well-established tradition For evaluation in general, this tradition seems to offer a clear-cut research design. This is not true for evaluation of strategic plans. First, most evaluation and implementation research deals with specific and well-defined operational policy and not with broad and sometimes vague indicative strategic planning. Second, the means - ends scheme underlying mainstream evaluation, in which conformance between a plan and final outcomes is the ultimate test of effectiveness, does not apply. In trying to establish conformance, we not only ask the wrong question but also use the wrong unit of analysis. Building on ideas from the planning and evaluation literature, we develop an alternative approach based on the notion that strategic plans serve the function of signposts for those involved in subsequent decisions. Our approach entails a test of the effectiveness of strategic plans which reflects their character; we suggest testing their performance. Empirical research on the role and purpose of strategic plans shows that 'performance' offers a promising way of understanding how strategic plans relate to intervention and of judging their usefulness.
The first choice group of psychotropic agents in schizophrenia is neuroleptics. However, this treatment is not effective in all patients and with every symptom. We summarize papers published on the role of antiepileptic drugs in treatment-resistant schizophrenia. We have searched the computer database system MEDLINE for relevant articles including reviews, reports of drug studies and case histories. Antiepileptic drugs can change symptoms of schizophrenia by their action on GABA-ergic neurotransmission or via anti-glutamatergic mechanisms. High doses of adjunctive benzodiazepines reduce positive symptoms, anxiety, and agitation. Carbamazepine is effective in affective symptoms of schizophrenia and influences violent behavior in psychotic patients. Its anti-kindling action may represent a promising treatment strategy for some patients with chronic course of schizophrenia. Valproate treatment leads to a decrease in positive symptoms as well as hostility. Lamotrigine is expected to influence the positive, negative, affective, and cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia. New antiepileptics (e.g., gabapentin, oxcarbazepine, topiramate, vigabatrin) present a promise as potential adjuncts to neuroleptic treatment in resistant symptoms of schizophrenia.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1994 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association and at a Conference on ‘What is Institutionalism Now?’ at the University of Maryland, October 1994. We would like to acknowledge the hospitality and stimulation that W. Richard Scott, the Stanford Center for Organizations Research, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences provided while the preliminary work for this paper was being done, and we are grateful to Paul Pierson for many helpful discussions about these issues. For written comments on this earlier draft, we are grateful to Robert Bates, Paul DiMaggio, Frank Dobbin, James Ennis, Barbara Geddes, Peter Gourevitch, Ian Lustick, Cathie Jo Martin, Lisa Martin, Paul Pierson, Mark Pollack, Bo Rothstein, Kenneth Shepsle, Rogers Smith, Marc Smyrl, Barry Weingast, and Deborah Yashar.
Ley nº 247 de Regularización de Derecho propietario Urbano
Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional. (2012) Ley nº 247 de Regularización de Derecho propietario
Urbano, (La Paz: Gaceta oficial del Estado)