Urban Planning Cultures in the Developing Countries - Coursework Example

Introduction Planning today both generally and with specific relevance to town planning is an integral part of all societies today. No society can afford to extend urban services to its citizens without through planning keeping in view the urban aesthetics, safety, slums, urban decay, reconstruction and renewal, transport, suburbanization, environmental factors, light and sound factors etc. Life today in modern societies has become immeasurably more complex in technical and social ways than it could have ever been previously imagined (Freidmann, 2005, p.24-44). Though planners may continue to wish for a world like it existed earlier where they did not have such numerous factors to take into account before even beginning to plan any town, but such a probability has been closed on the human civilization forever. What remains now to be done is to ensure that whatever planning is now being done in urban areas all over the world, they are established on sustainable grounds. The only way to find out which patterns of planning towns will prove to be sustainable however, is to study the already evolved planning techniques by the developed world and compare between them what should be the best mode for developing towns when it comes to countries which are presently undergoing urbanization. The issue being addressed in this paper is to critically examine and compare urban planning cultures in developed and developing countries and discuss how such cultures have evolved or been adapted to the different development planning challenges being faced in those countries. Urban Planning in the Developed Countries Britain- the first of the European Union countries to become industrialised, had only around 3% of its labour force concerned with the agricultural activities, while almost 80% of its population had become urban by the year it had joined EU that is the year of 1973. Therefore for countries like Britain and even the United Sates or Japan for that matter almost any kind of town planning is mostly urban town planning. The change in patterns of planning however has occurred with time in countries like Great Britain. For instance, the difference between the local town and country planning introduced by the historic Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 and the system which replaced to under the Town and Country Planning Act of 1968 is that of details (Taylor 1998). It was argued in the 1960s that planning should not be focussed on minute details in fact it should be based on generalised and diagrammatic picture of the spatial distributions at any point of time, only filling in details as they needed to be filled in. With respect to urban town planning in the Great Britain we must also take into account the role of private sector interests in urban decision – making. National political contexts make a difference to the scope of local politics and the type of government agency operating in the urban arena. Indeed in the UK central government has consciously sought to impose new institutional forms at the urban level (Thomas 1996). Networks of relationship within governments need to be understood as do public-private relationships. Market conditions will have an effect on the emergence and role of private interests. We also need to pay attention to the detail of institutional forms and processes which determine the degree of inclusiveness of decision-making and contribute to the stability and success of particular alliances of interests (Rydin 2003). We would find cities continually searching for new institutional arrangements and alliances, striving to draw together the necessary resources to achieve policy objectives (Faludi 2001; Cullingworth and Nadin 2006).  In case of other European countries like France, Germany Italy, Spain or Portugal, even in the 2000s we find that the population is too thin and scattered to support modern services, and the main market towns are working at much less than the scale for which they were intended; and that from the urban agglomerations come similar stories of housing shortages, traffic congestion, and long journeys to work; rising land prices and land shortages; public services that cannot cope (Hall 2002). So the regional map of Europe looks more complex than it did, and the appropriate measures have changed too. The problems cut across Europe and as the European Union increasingly practices Europe-wide assistance and controls the actions of its governments, so do many of the resultant solutions – whether in south-east England or the north-east England, Brittany or Ireland, Spain or the Rhine- Ruhr area of Germany (Booth 1996). To grapple with these problems, each country has developed its own individual set of regional policies. But from the start of the original six-member EEC in 1957, member-countries have been compelled to adjust these policies to overall Community requirements which forbid artificial impediments to competition. To many Europeans, even well-informed ones, planning in the United States is a contradiction in terms. The country is seen as a land where rampant individualism provides the only guide to economic development or physical use of land. Planning, either in the sense of positive programmes for the regeneration of depresses regions, or in the sense of control over land use in the interest of the community, is thought to be virtually non-existent. Thus the United States is seen as the land  where the phenomenally rapid settlement process has been accompanied by unprecedented destruction of irreplaceable natural resources; where extreme affluence marches hand in hand with large-scale pockets of poverty, often close by; where urban areas sprawl unregulated into fie open country, leaving in a trail of ugliness and economic inefficiency. But at the same time the United States in the post-war era possesses a vast and complex system of planning agencies and of planning measures- of both positive and negative kinds. Furthermore, just as in Europe, these operate at two distinct levels: first the level of national/regional economic development planning; and second, the level of regional/local physical development planning. Both systems have had profound effects on the pattern of post-war economic and physical change in the United States; though it can be said at the outset, some of them do not seem to have been very effective in relation to their scale and cost. Also, even though international comparisons are notoriously difficult to make and are possibly misleading, it appears clear that regional disparities in economic development in the United States are somewhat greater than in the typical Western European countries (Thomas 1996). By and large these variations can be attributed to the character of the economy of the United Sates. The high-income areas of the United Sates tend to be urban regions specialising in the newer, more technically sophisticated manufacturing or service industries; they include the major urban areas of the western states with their dependence on the aerospace industrial complex and on computing and control systems (Seattle, Los Angeles, Phoenix); the Silicon Valley area of the northern California; and the Texan cities of Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth with their combination f petrochemicals and newer engineering industries, and advanced services. And these have been the areas in which the population and employment have grown (Moore 2005). Conversely, and more relevantly here, the low-income areas tend to be zones where the employment base is declining, under the influence of either falling demand, or increasing efficiency of production; in some cases, too, the basic industry makes extensive use of rather low skilled, poorly paid labour. Urban Planning Cultures in the Developing Countries The macro-economic neo-liberalism of policy of growth, employment and economic redistribution (GEAR) in South Africa accentuated a shift towards a productive and profiteering motive of a commodifying and flexible accumulation process driven by global capitalism. Within the built environment, planning has served to facilitate this process of market penetration as exemplified by an increasingly marked shift towards consumption in the form of ubiquitous shopping atria and gated communities. As a result, the urban footprint is largely dictated by developers. Since both modern rational planning methods and global capital favour hierarchical and centralised decision- making processes, this does not augur well for sustainability not only because an array of people are excluded in the decision-making processes but also because it makes a mockery of and raises questions about the government’s policy of integrated development planning. Urban planning in South Africa takes place in the context of unprecedented social and political changes. Urban planners are at the forefront of trying to understand these changes and using that understanding to inform theory and practice. The profession is therefore largely in a state of flux. There is therefore a sense in which urban planners are (still) making the road by walking it (Newman and Thornley 2005). Social challenges have to do with high levels of unemployment and poverty, the devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic, and increase in crime and concern for personal and property safety according to the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). Politically the challenges have to do with the struggle to balance the need for a decentralized system of governance from national to municipal and eventually to the local level of neighbourhood/ward, with more centralised and hierarchical decision-making processes. The latter tends to be more favorable to the needs of government and vested interests. The economic challenges have to do with implications for the increased insertion of South Africa into the global economic arena, which marked a change in the macro-economic policy to the neo-liberalism of GEAR. It comes as no surprise therefore that urban planning processes in South Africa metamorphosed from the ‘planned oppression’ that characterised apartheid state urban planning into post-apartheid ‘planned emancipation’ (Sanyal 2005). The developing countries such as Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and Asia, the total employment accounts mainly from the informal sector. In Indonesia the informal sector has a percentage of sixty four (Zetter and White 2002). An important fact with respect to development of towns in any given country, developed or developing is that the way urban spaces are developed and managed in different cities is a product of different forces, traditions, and of particular conservation policies. These variables- the localization mentioned above – have to be taken into account. Thus in Mexico during the twentieth century, a large amount of legislation to protect the cultural heritage was introduced at the three levels of governance: Federal, State and Municipal. Despite this, little motion exists towards a conservation policy which is alert to a sense of the necessity for sustainable economic growth, social importance, sensible environmental planning in historic sites and thinking about the long- term future (Sanyal 2005). Conclusion The world is seeing an increasing movement of large chunks of the populations moving from rural areas or relatively underdeveloped areas into urbanized areas and cities. This has resulted in a considerable shift in the demographics, economics, and social and cultural traits of these urbanized placed. Policy makers need to focus on the fact that most cities, although they are advanced as compared to the rest of the cities, do not have the capacity to hold such a large amount of people (Healey 2006). They also need to realize that there are several constraints that currently plague the system and need to be changed. Policy systems that are currently in place are extremely weak because of lack of knowledge of the longer term or ‘back-end-loading.’ The fact is that because they do not have clear vision, current policies are inadequate. One example can be taken from the industrial countries that worked by creating several housing systems and schemes. The main players at the moment are the housing providers and the residents who in turn focus on the immediate cost that they will incur once when they set out to find a home, not the cost in entirety that they will end up paying throughout their lives. Housing is typically a life long asset and at times can even span out to several generations. If the up front price is increased because of energy or water efficient features then the market itself will work against these and their demand will fall. Everything that happens in today’s world is centered around the environment and factors that may impact it. The governments all over the world are now coming up with policies to deal with issues such as global warming. In order to truly compact the situation however, the issues need to be tackled on three fronts i.e. the community, the industries and then the government. Through piecemeal policies the governments can make a large difference. It is now a clear fact that the changes in climate and several issues that are centered around it will influence public policies regarding town planning throughout the world, in addition to these, the following issues are considered to be the most pressing ones on the minds of the policy makers (Freire and Stren 2001): 1. Energy 2. Water 3. Pollution 4. Population growth and ageing 5. Health 6. Poverty and insecurity 7. Financial markets   The developing countries need to make a thorough analysis of the above factors pertaining in their country, and then improve upon them to enhance better planning cultures in their environment.   References Friedmann, J. (2005) Planning Cultures in Transition, in B. Sanyal (ed.) Comparative Planning Culture, Routledge, London, 29-44 COMPARATIVE SPATIAL PLANNING SYSTEMS, PLANNING THEORY & PRACTICE Comparative Spatial Planning Systems *Sanyal, B. (ed) (2005) Comparative Planning Cultures. London: Routledge Booth, P. 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