closing the forum on plannning
Sara Hoeflich
Dear all
The forum on urban strategic planning is closing now and we would like to appreciate your contributions.
Your comments, thoughts, contributions or links are highly appreciated. Additional to the initial 3 contributions reported before, we have received another 19
contributions from Asia, Africa, US, Europe and Latin America. I summarize herewith the findings to the questions:
1. What are the main needs for local authorities to lead a strategic planning process?
2. How do you consider the concept of Urbanism is changing, integrating other spheres than technical and physical planning , and can this be successful?
3. Strategies rely very much on support of stakeholders and being communicated well. What is the role of the local government regarding participation in planning processes?
Ideas and Suggestions:
The importance of leadership that:
- has to overcome traditional (sectoral and physical planning )
- Has to be place based- getting more committed to the territory and stakeholders not only to the internal organization
- Has to identify the potential of stakeholder involvement
- Leadership culture has to reach out especially in small and middle sized cities
Planning has a lot to do with poverty reduction:
- Listen to the real need of urban poor
- Recognize the need for food and for energy, think in forests and trees
- How can people access to what they are not getting- a new enterprise model
- Segregation is crucial discrimination and exclusion are social and spatial terms that affect the sustainability of a society (more attention to children)
Urbanism is changing:
- More integrated management
- Governance is at the heart of any approach to sustainability
- More interdisciplinary approach and method
- Conflicting with “old style” legal frameworks and competences
- Has to go abroad municipal boundaries seeing the city as a part of a region
- Sustainability is important to implement (walk the talk)
- New examples show the usefulness of chaning existing instruments, such as in Colombia with the territorial law
- Polititatians and politics influence urbanism more than before
- Management is key to make changes reality- the gap between urbanism and urban management is to reduce
Long term, informative and transparent communication is crucial for participation :
- interpretation that can represent the multiplicity of interests involved
- stakeholder are the guarantee of reminding long term goals
- merely consultation processes is not enough
- the existing fear of obstacles and slow processes caused by participation is not confirmed
- Not “top down” or “down up” but across in a horizontal way where the people know and own human rights as a way of life and act upon it in a positive, proactive AND CREATIVE way.
Urgent needs
- Local councilors need Capacity to build a holistic view and take part
- Spread knowledge, knowledge and skills can not install privileges
- Build own basic principles and criteria such as human rights
- Concepts must adapt to the new limitations such as energy crises and cannot continue to build only on growth
- Attend especially small and middle sized cities where capacity and transparent proceeding are most crucial
The forum has inspired the city of Mexico to hold a debate with the UCLG committee on urban strategic planning on some of the questions. The roundtable part of a workshop is one day before our world congress and will deal with the topics of strategic planning, urbanism and limit and opportunities for Megacities. Taking place at Hotel Camino Real Polanco , 17 of November in Mexico city at 9.00 .
Of your contributions provided some will be picked up, such as the city of Durban, of Cologne and Jane from Plusnetwork Vancouver that , jointly with a representative of Johannesburg and Rosario, will hold a roundtable on lesson of strategic planning to be applied in Megacities.
Sara Hoeflich de Duque
Project Manager
Local and Regional Leaders World Summit
17-20 November 2010
United Cities and Local Governments/Cités et Gouvernments Locaux Unis/Ciudades y Gobiernos Locales Unidos
Tel: +34 93 342 87 73
www.cities-localgovernments.org