Understanding of New Urban Development - the Lille Metropole - Case Study Example

Lille - Field Trip Diary The purpose of this diary is to provide a based on a personal understanding of a new urban development, Lille’s connectivity, urban development, Christine Lifooghes lecture and EU policy, and INTERREG NWE. The diary draws references from readings, lectures, and personal experiences at Lille. Connectivity-transportation connectivity and the Lille Metropole Lille, located in northern France, is the principle city of Lille Metropole. The city of Lille is part of the region called Nord-Pas-de-Calais, which is close to the Belgian border. The population of Lille is 1,091,438 people (Folk, 2006, p. 16). From the lecture slide, connectivity is the potential ability of an individual to link and connect with somebody else or another place. The basic character of connectivity is a network, which enhances flow and nodes located at various scales. Case in point, the transport system in Europe, powered by TGV high speed train, connects the continent redefining the concept of time and distant hence linking nations. Lille, in terms of connectivity, is the ‘crossroads of Europe’ due to its tactical location at northwest Europe. In this regard, it is at the centre of a triangle that connects Paris, London, and Brussels. After the Channel Tunnel, built in 1994, the European high-speed rail network, called the Eurostar, connects Lille to other noteworthy cities in northwest Europe. The Lille-Euro station, referred as Gare de Lille-Europe, is one of the modern and brand new stations in the world. The Eurostar makes the distant between Lille to London an hour and twenty minutes journey while Paris is only an hour away with Brussels being 38 minutes. In addition, it links the cities to other French cities such as Marseille, Lyon, and Toulouse (lilletourism, 2007). According to Banister (1994, p. 3), a country can only make this possible by investing in public infrastructure, which has an effect of generating economic growth. In this case, Eurostar brings business opportunities to Lille on top of the chances provided to develop the city. In addition, Lille has another railway station, called Gare de Lille-Flandres, which predominantly caters for lower speed regional trains. Moreover, the city contains waterways and air traffic that enhances the accessibility of the city. According to Banister (2000, p. 108), transport planning in France falls under two distinct phases that mark the rehabilitation of public transport. In this regard, Lille Metropole developed diverse modes of public transport system. Regarded as the most advanced in Europe, it consists of buses, trams, and a driverless metro system with all these operations under the Transpole name (lilletourism, 2007). Conversely, the Lille Metro, which is the world’s first automated metro line, is a light automated system covering a total of 45 kilometres in distance with two lines and sixty stations. On the other hand, the tram system, which has 45 stops, includes two interurban tram lines linking the city centre with Roubaix and Tourcoing. Moreover, there are sixty-eight bus routes that cover the whole region while eight of them can reach Belgium. Based on a personal experience, Lilles metro line is safe and quick. In a similar way to other mature transport systems, the system’s design is in harmony with humanity both inside the metro and the station. In conclusion, Lille’s futuristic transport system benefits the city through opening avenues for development. By connecting European nations to each other, Lille is an attraction to other surrounding areas. Finally, the city requires more resources in future planning. Urban Development While Lille’s urban development is a tremendous success, there are many unavoidable issues surrounding this system. In this case, Lille’s urban development plan is a result of 20 years, which has made it experience a long and challenging period of recovery from an economic crisis from its textile, coal mining, and steel industries (Moulaert, 2001, p. 145). Nevertheless, flagship projects such as Eurostar, Eurolille, and renewing the Vieux Lille area were instrumental in repositioning Lille as Europe’s capital of culture and urban regeneration (Kuklowshy, 2011, p. 10). In effect, this repositioning has helped solve a big part of the challenges resulting from the economic crisis such as unemployment and housing. According to Meade (1994), Eurolille is approximately 70hm2. Designed by Rem Koolhass, the main building and several prominent buildings perform the functions of all services provided in any city such as retailing, housing, business, leisure, and many others. Within the first stage of building the Eurolille, the city created 6,500 new jobs and attracted 15 million tourists to Lille in 2001 (Kuklowsky, 2011, p. 38). In effect, the city identifies itself as the centre of European cultures with large spaces providing an interactive platform for people from different social backgrounds to communicate. On the other hand, the Eurostar and the service industry have made the city an important factor of enhancing economic growth in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. The focus for Lille in urban development is renewing the Vieux Lille area. In doing so, the key elements towards improving the city’s versatility are refurbishment of public buildings, renewing public spaces and restoring the old city. In addition, developing the open spaces and their surroundings is essential in bringing front shops and other art facilities. In effect, this helps enhance the culture of the area while keeping business and transportation facilities right on track. Moreover, another area of development entails blending the ground floor with upper level functions in order to enhance multifunctional utility of the whole area. Indeed, the local council of Lille identifies changing the conditions of housing as a priority for both the public and private sector while providing a series of actions meant to improve public and private housing issues (Kuklowsky, 2011, p. 12). While the urban development system in Lille may seem a success, challenges abound in relation to the structures in place. In this regard, the translation from the modern style of Eurolille to the classic style Vieux Lille area was not successful during the building of the Eurolille. In a discordant manner, the buildings appear stuck high akin to a dramatic way in the skyline of Lille. In effect, Lille’s magnificent landmark, Belfry of the City Hall, looks surrounded by dull concrete boxes. Furthermore, the construction of the city of Lille was to attract international firms with an aim of enhancing economic growth. Nevertheless, the market in Lille appears not fully developed leading to a cautious approach by firms to venture into the market. In addition, the population distribution and slow rate of growth enhances a cautious approach by firms since 35% of Lille’s population is between the age of 20 and 30 years old (Kuklowsky, 2011, p. 14). However, the proportion of people between this ages who move outside Lille is more than those who remain and settle in Lille. In conclusion, the abovementioned indicates progress in Lille in terms of urban development. However, there are areas that require improvement since there are eminent strengths and weakness in the city. In effect, addressing these weaknesses will properly develop the city, which will improve its prospects. Christine Lifooghe’s talk Overview of the Content of the Talk The talk, titled Innovation, Creativity, and Economic Renewal of an Industrial Region: the case of Nord-Pas-de-Calais contains two main parts. The first part is an introduction to regional development followed by policy change in France from the 1950s to the 2000s. In the first part, the talk emphasized on two important aspects with the first one highlighting the conflicting decisions informing urban development at different periods while addressing the roles in the order following the path of national, regional, to the local governments. On the other hand, the second aspect highlights the path from a local level, towards the regional level and finally to the national level. The second part of the talk provides an introduction of the industrial change from the textile industry, mail order industry, and the present creative industry. In addition, the talk gives an important description of the features, limits, problems, and opportunities for each of Lille’s industry. In this regard, the second part of the talk focuses on the relationship of the path from textile industry to creative industry with a focus on fashion as the key element. While addressing the historical development of Lille, it is important to consider the industrial change of Lille and the La Politique de la Ville, which is the French Urban policy. As explained earlier, Lille faced a crisis in the 1970s, in its traditional industries, although the city’s urban policy and industries changed thereafter. Nevertheless, Green (1996, p. 19), noted that inner city problems in France are recent. On the other hand, Lille progressed after the collapse of its principal industries. In this case, the 1960s witnessed building and housing issues as the main problems while the 1970s witnessed unemployment rates increase, social exclusion, poverty, and many other social problems. However, Lille witnessed a real shift in the early 1990s with the nation also shifting its focus in the same period. In this case, the country realised the importance of globalisation and led to the development of competitive regions in the country. In the 1990s, Lille failed in developing some of its national level plans such as the Teleport Local project and the Campus Plan. Consequently, the city became famous for always being a step behind in terms of development. In this case, the city lacked an awareness of ways to utilise its strength in development since it spent most of its time in changing policies following the industrial crisis. In line with this, decline in the textile industry began in the 1950s to the 70s with the city losing over 17,000 jobs between 1945 and 1996 (Fraser, 2003, p. 88). Nevertheless, the city was slow in taking any action and utilise its location advantage to ensure region cooperation with other developed cities. After the 1990s, Lille started to define itself as the capital of European culture and started improving its territorial cooperation, which helped fast-track its development. In effect, the city epitomises the importance of urban development towards enhancing development, at least as the case regarding Lille clearly depicts. Nevertheless, it is evident that many challenges abound since the case of Lille shows that development is a work in progress. EU policy - the INTERREG NWE perspective This section includes an introduction to INTERREG IVB NWE drawing literature from lectures and pre-reading from the handbook. INTERREG is a programme EU member state to end the unequal economic, social, and cultural aspects and promote sustainable development by enhancing cross-border, transnational, and interregional cooperation (Kratke, 2001, p. 108). This basis of this programme is to enhance transnational cooperation involving local and regional authorities with the need to maximise existing resources from various territories, which has been operational in northwest Europe for sometime (NWEurope, 2008, p. 6). The INTERREG IIC programme between 1997 and 1999 provided the ‘North Western Metropolitan Area Programme’ funding for 45 projects dubbed ‘soft projects.’ On the other hand, the INTERREG IIIB project of 2000 to 2006 built spatial vision strategies while continuing with the earlier programmes initiated by the earlier programme. Another programme, running between 2007 and 2013 called the INTERREG IVB NWE, supports investments and actions with additional value to enhance transnational cooperation area. The current programme is the INTERREG IV that helps to implement the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), which is crucial in balancing development and closer integration of the territories in the European Union (Faludi, 2001, p. 395). The INTERREG NWE funding projects aims at solving the challenges posed by unemployment, environment, and transport in UK, Switzerland, Luxermborg, parts of France, Germany, and Netherlands. To support these efforts in northwest Europe, there is about €355M in European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) with approved projects receiving up to 50% of ERDF funding on their total cost (INTERREG Talk). In this regard, the idea of INTERREG is to share the good experiences from different territories and combine them for use by all members. In effect, the priority of the programme is: 1. Capitalising on innovations 2. Managing natural resources and risks 3. Improving connectivity 4. Strengthening communities Nevertheless, the programme restricts its funding to the projects while following its progress throughout the implementation. Fitting the Programme into the Euro Spatial Planning Development As mentioned above, the European spatial planning basis its foundation on ESDP, which is essential in solving the current challenges affecting urban planning in Europe. Some of the most obvious challenges are uneven development and urban sprawl challenges. Uneven development results to the problem of unemployment and competition between EU member states. Conversely, urban sprawl leads to environmental issues, demand for housing, heavy traffic, and underdevelopment. In northwest Europe, there is a relatively mature urban system although it faces challenges such as competition due to globalisation, economic migration, gaining population, climate change, energy prices, and carbon dependency (NWEurope, 2007, p. 41). According to Stephenson (2013, p. 3), the INTERREG IVB NWE (2007-2013) focuses on six important themes in order to solve these problems: 1. Reducing energy use and the human resources 2. Bringing innovation to small and medium-sized businesses 3. Managing waste to protect water and soil 4. Keeping an aging population healthy, active and involved 5. Adapting nature planning to tackle climate change 6. Promoting intelligent solutions for passenger and freight transport Conclusion The city of Lille is a city worth visiting due to its mature transportation system and historical heritage, which is a result of the influence of both domestic urban planning and the EU’s spatial planning. Known as the capital of European culture, Lille is a critical transition point in northwest Europe. In effect, its location and future development towards a metropolitan city will attract more people to settle down in the city since more tourists will visit the city. Read More