Urban Change and Policy - Essay Example

Urban Change and Policy European cities are places where human genius is demonstrated; and they have distinct aesthetics. They are made up of unique culture and ethical values. Scholars refer to European cities as greenhouses of civilisation. They are objects of nature and they are also cultural subjects. Each European city resembles a unique civilisation, and it is not a mere combination of people and spaces. These cities consist of human relationships and conflicts, with convergences and divergences. They are surrounded by myths and produce legends. The futuristic ideal cities demand greater technological advancement and art. Building Utopia is the avowed aim of European architects (Mega, 2001). The focus of the various governmental policies in the UK, subsequent to WWII, was principally restricted to removing the imbalances evident in the development of the country. The problem of urban decay had been overlooked in these initial years after the Second World War (Jonas & Ward, 2002). The Margaret Thatcher Conservative Government brought about a significant change to this situation by implementing policies based on solutions that had been developed at the local level, in order to mitigate the difficulties posed by urban problems. However, local governments were marginalized in this process. For instance, the Local Government, Planning and Land Act of 1980 established Urban Development Corporations, which had wide ranging powers in respect of land acquisition and control powers. These powers were controlled, only by the central government and the local government authorities were effectively ignored (Imrie, Imrie, & Thomas, 1999. P. 11). Such initiatives resulted in a well focused urban policy. The process of regeneration entails time periods that could stretch between ten years to a quarter of a century. It is left to the visioning processes to ensure the development of plans that would make urban development a central component of economic development. It is the task of the Central government to implement plans to bring about urban development, so that economic development takes place in a more balanced fashion. The need of the hour is to develop a national policy that would coordinate development of the rural and urban areas, infrastructure development and efficient transportation. Such a policy would ensure the renaissance of cities (Urban regeneration through partnership: A critical appraisal , 2000). Cities constitute social platforms for interaction and interchange of people. Further, cities are the replicas of civilisation, and they act as schools for abilities and values. They are places for learning life patterns, where people can claim rights and negotiate with each other. Aristotle referred to cities as built politics. According to Vitruvius, cities must be sound, beautiful and useful for people. In the seventh century B.C., Alcaeus claimed that cities are not all about buildings, roofs, stone walls and bridges over canals. His contention was that cities were made from men and that they provide in return opportunities, by which men could make the most of them. Geddes suggested that cities are dramatic action. As such cities make it possible to meet the unknown, provide a variety of choices and meet anonymous people (Mega, 2001). The regional development of Europe is mainly dependent on cities since they act as engines of development. Large cities are the best examples of technological advancement. A small number of large cities can create disparities in social and economic development in a region. As the number of large cities increase, these regional disparities also increase, both socially and economically. Eventually this will end in rifts among and within regions. In addition, regions may be linked with high speed transportation and can be made to come together. However, the impact of such physical links may not decrease the conflicts in these regions. They will exclude other regions and the overall effect would be the reduction of European space. Therefore, cities and regions must act in a concerted manner, in order to obtain effective competitiveness. This will enhance development within regions and environmental viability, and secure social solidarity. It is essential for regions to evolve into places of opportunity (Mega, 2001). At the moment, the clusters of urban systems in Europe seem to be highly balanced. In the future, there will be a greater number of expectations and demands, which these cities will have to meet. However, it is a fact that cities are not fulfilling these expectations and demands; and of late, they have become places of unfulfilled needs and unrealised opportunities. Modern cities are suffering from environmental problems and social turmoil. These problems make cities incapable of growing further, and this is especially true of the large cities (Mega, 2001). European cities are aiming to achieve urban renaissance; and they are investing considerable amount of money for a better environment; and they want to become CIVITAS or places of civilisation. A city is a living organism, and it can renew itself. Urban renaissance is the concept of promoting eternal values for a better future. It is also important to restore harmony in cities. Cities have to gear themselves to face new challenges, such as sustainability, globalisation and social cohesion (Mega, 2001). Several UK cities have become witness to increased political, economic and ideological activities, over the past two decades. The existing concepts regarding what constitutes private and public are being restated by these activities. Moreover, these activities, which are aimed at transforming spaces of cities; have greatly affected power balances between the local power elites, and have thereby, modified what can be termed as the state form. Furthermore, this reconfiguration of state form has provided a clearer understanding of the concept and practice of partnership, in the context of the UK (Coleman, 2004). Most utopian perspectives regarding cities demonstrate the need to obey rules of behaviour by the people. They command them to follow the state’s rules and order. Those scholarly visions mainly concentrate on spatial orders in order to deal with urban problems and problems pertaining to society. As such, these views have a wider application. The existing urban schemes had been established by Charles Edouard Jeanneret, a French architect (Pinder, 2005). These schemes include the demands to keep the city clean, reorder the components of the city and call for a purification of the general environment. There are other schemes which enable this task to be done in a gentler manner as witnessed in the garden city of Ebenezer Howard in the UK. In addition, Waste materials and pollutants must be expelled as they destroy the integrity of new spaces in cities. Moreover, there should not be any contamination or intrusions. These scholarly visions will have universal application and they exemplify the timeless values of geometry, symmetry and visual clarity. They use organic substitutions which are of much help in restoring the health and integrity of the despoiled urban body (Pinder, 2005). The landscape in Paris was subjected to considerable negative criticism. This is because the grand public works had been carried out in the way in which the old boulevards of working class people had been destroyed by Haussmann with explosives. As a part of this public work, the medieval quarters were demolished, in the 1850’s, in order to rearrange Paris. These efforts had made it possible for the smoother circulation of traffic, air, people and capital; and the effective policing of the public. However, while this work had been in progress, there had been considerable opposition, because the streets were closed (Pinder, 2005). People found it very difficult to use these streets, and there was absolutely no human movement in the streets, which rendered veritably the streets of the dead. In this manner, old Paris had been destroyed and there was widespread displacement of people everywhere. People were relocated and allotted new dwellings, and this entire process displayed the authoritarian powers of city planners and builders. However, avoiding such authoritarian powers does not mean eliminating authoritarian ordering procedures. The very opposite of this is established through the creative and destructive powers of capitalism and disinvestment, due to the rebellions of the citizens and the redressal of actions of the city planners. Post modern urbanism had begun in the 1970s, and under this concept, commercial aspects and market oriented interests were adopted instead of the utopian schemes (Pinder, 2005). The city can be referred to as an imagined environment, and it can be seen in several ways that are essential to shape the form, experience and governance of urbanity (Donald, 1999). Historically those concepts had been employed in planning land use. This concept has been further broadened in Europe and other countries, by extending its scope. This modified concept has been termed as spatial planning. The conceptions of form, experience and governance have enjoyed equal importance as policy domains for the current environment of governance in the integrated Europe. The present type of governance requires concerted efforts by the various departments, and this will be achieved through these conceptions (Albrechts, 2004). Conceptualisations are gradually gaining importance because of the predicted increase in policy domain’s significance. These are tools, which provide useful information with regard to the effectiveness of their operability. They inform professionals about how they had permeated governance, and this information can be of much help in conducting institutional duties; however, the value of such information, varies from case to case. The general perception is that there is an absence of an explicit awareness in both urban and regional planning, to explain the correct meaning and definition of the term city. Several processes of change have made it very difficult to define the term city. Generalised definitions have been ignored in debates; and as a consequence, the very concept of the city depends on the principle of cityness, although it is an intentionally or involuntarily invoked fact that can be restructured or reconstructed in any manner. The notion of cityness has been flexible and extremely diffused. Such arguments tend to rely on the interpretive flexibility of the term city. However, the usage of the word becomes very slack and disseminated. Therefore, it cannot provide any realistic definition. Hence, the word city and the notions of cityness have merely remained as a general referent in neoliberal policy debates. Agencies of governance often use the word city as an indicator of importance. Such usage reflects revitalization for some British provincial cities. However, during the 1970s and 1980s, the public used to have negative perceptions about cities and urban life in the UK. It has been established by case studies that no person in the English urban governance framework can correctly describe what the term city connotes (Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, 1999). This is because of the complexity in the institutional framework of governance, which does not promote the development of stringent strategies for cities, and their transformation into absolute territorial entities. Historical evidence reveals that such muddled situations would tend to rely on small areas to arrive at solutions for urban problems. This tendency does not take into account the qualities of cities and the opportunities available in them, to enhance the quality of life and to improve economic conditions (Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, 1999). There are several ways to comprehend and symbolize the contemporary concept of cityness. The ability to imagine the meaning of city in several ways under urban policy and planning is related to the exploration of ways, necessary to describe the notion of cityness under spatial strategies. Ultimately these two avenues try to identify local contingencies and their end results (Healey, 1997). The process of decentralization creates city – region authorities. In the context of this development, it is essential to ensure that the strategic efforts of the coordinative and interpretive objectives of those decentralisation processes have been achieved within the spatial strategies. The latest developments in the perception of urban resurgence in the UK and other countries have focussed on the regeneration policy. This domain of this policy is aimed at civilising urban spaces. It also concentrates on the extension of its control over undesirable factors in the urban polity. This practice would facilitate the development of more competitive cities (Imrie & Raco, 2003). The British urban policy tried to find ways to renovate deprived regions by engendering concerted physical transformations. This effort would make affluent residents to come and live in the deprived regions. This strategy is known as the policy of gentrification, and it is led by the state. The Labour government introduced its urban policy to address social exclusion and poverty in the UK and a wide range of academic responses have emerged, which either support or oppose this policy (Imrie & Raco, 2003). The urban renaissance policy domain is considered to be establishing an institutional framework for the gentrification in UK cities. Furthermore, the new policy would promote a revanchist approach towards the poor people in urban areas and other similar marginalised groups (Smith, 1996). These approaches are of great assistance in analyzing the Housing Market Renewal Programme, which had been launched in selected cities and towns in North and Midlands of the UK. The aim of this programme is to restructure and renovate collapsed housing markets. These realistic regenerative policies were implemented in East Manchester; and this area had been integrated with the Manchester – Salford Housing Market Renewal Programme Pathfinder. There were significant negative outcomes in the theoretical approaches. As such, in the UK the concentration of people is greater around city centres. They have become accustomed to a lifestyle in which their homes and workplaces are situated in close proximity, in single regions or neighbourhoods (Lees, 2003). The Urban Task Force celebrates the renovation and re – use of historic and old buildings. The assumptions of the Urban Task Force such as mobility, foot looseness and leisure time increase are the characteristics of urban form. Work and function are related to the middle class, rather than the poor and marginalised class of people. This clearly establishes the view of the UTF about what a city is meant for. It also indicates its view about how the cities are to be ordered, such as making cities more suitable for middle class people who return to cities. This is a part of social inclusion and social mixing. This policy conforms to the gentrificationist avenue of urban policy (Lees, 2003). Recently, the city of Bristol witnessed such urban renaissance; and the government had invested huge amounts of money and other resources. Bristol is one of the major cities in the UK, and it has also been identified as one of the nine core city regions in the UK. This recognition resulted in a reinforced concentration in the UK’s major economic centres. A new agenda had been introduced for cities, which focused on shared urban privileges over nine other city regions (Focus is on city's future, 9 November 2006). The recent report submitted on the state of the English Cities, established certain avenues that specify the work need requirements to be achieved, in order to enable city regions to fill in the lacunae in wealth and prosperity sharing with London and the South East. Bristol is one of the regions that share their prosperity with London. This report goes on to claim that concentrated growth in large cities is the best possible way to contain environmental problems. It also contends that such concentrated growth would fortify the nation’s economy. Furthermore, this report requires the government to initiate measures that focus on large cities and regions. It also recommends the establishment of strong urban policies (Focus is on city's future, 9 November 2006). It is hard to maintain peace and order in modern cities. Of late, there have been new trends in the perceptions regarding urban life, which has taken new directions and forms. Urban life is rapidly moving out of the domain of the traditional life style and traditional concepts of life (Swyngedouw & Kaïka). Modern urban design policy domains and urban management practices are trying to restrict the hectic pace of urban life and the urban domain is departing rapidly from the limits laid down by city planners. Moreover, the internal order of urban life is slowly dissipating due to the new trends that have developed, consequent to the social, cultural, economic, political and ideological thresholds being lifted by the new urban order. Thus urbanity has acquired a multitude of complex and fragmented spaces and places (Swyngedouw & Kaïka). Cities are distinguished spaces of heterogeneity that express a diversity of activity. They represent excitement and pleasure, and they constitute platforms for achieving unsuppressed activities and desires. Cities have an intensification of systematic power, an increased risk of dangers, prevalence of oppression, and the presence of elements that engender domination and social exclusion. City authorities, like city planners, designers, engineers, architects and other scholars are always trying to mitigate the tensions that prevail between personal freedom and disempowerment of individuals in cities. This practice has been in existence ever since the advent of urbanization (Andrew, 2002). List of References Albrechts, L. (2004). Strategic (spatial) planning re-examined. Environment and Planning , B 31, pp743-758. Andrew, M. (2002). Dialectical Urbanism. New York Monthly Review . Coleman, R. (2004). Reclaiming the Streets: Closed Circuit Television, Neoliberalism and the Mystification of Social Divisions in Liverpool, UK. Retrieved April 29, 2008, from http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/articles2(2)/liverpool.pdf Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions. (1999). Towards an Urban Renaissance. London: Routledge. Donald, J. (1999). Imagining the Modern City. London: Athlone Press. Focus is on city's future. (9 November 2006). Bristol Evening Post , Pg. 28. Healey, P. (1997). Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. London: Macmillan. Imrie, R., & Raco, M. (2003). Urban Renaissance? New Labour, community and urban policy. Bristol: Policy Press. Imrie, R., Imrie, R., & Thomas, H. (1999. P. 11). British Urban Policy: An Evalutaion of the Urban Development. SAGE. ISBN: 0761962263. Jonas, A. E., & Ward, K. (2002). A World of Regionalisms? Towards a US-UK Urban and Regional Policy Framework Comparison. Journal of Urban Affairs , Vol. 24, Iss. 4, Pp. 377 – 401. Lees, L. (2003). Visions of 'urban renaissance': the Urban Task Force report and the Urban White Paper. Bristol: Policy Press. Mega, V. (2001, August 20). THE EUROPEAN CITY, "BUILT POLITICS": CHALLENGES, VISIONS AND ACTIONS. Retrieved April 29, 2008, from http://www.innovation.cc/discussion-papers/urban-renaissance.htm Pinder, D. (2005). Visions of the City: Utopianism, Power and Politics in Twentieth-Century Urbanism. Retrieved April 29, 2008, from http://www.visionsofthecity.com/interview01.htm Smith, N. (1996). The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the revanchist city. New York: Routledge. Swyngedouw, E., & Kaïka, M. (n.d.). The Making of 'Global' Urban Modernities: Exploring the Cracks in the Mirror. Retrieved April 29, 2008, from http://artefact.mi2.hr/_a04/lang_en/theory_swyngedouw_en.htm Urban regeneration through partnership: A critical appraisal . (2000, May). Retrieved April 30, 2008, from Joseph Rowntree Foundation: http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/foundations/560.asp Read More