Future Cities Think Tank

Judith Ryser summarises the proceedings of the event organised by the Urban Design Group in association with the Institution of Civil Engineers

The third UDAL Think Tank on the future of cities in the 21st century focused on European cities and scenarios with different time horizons. It was chaired by Chris McCarthy for the ICE. The think tank was intentionally interactive between panel members and the audience. The panellists were: Herbert Girardet on global sustainable urban development; John Worthington on integration of cultural, social and economic factors at city level; Manuel da Costa-Lobo on community determined development; Madelina Vuilleumier on cultural diversity in urban development; Natasa Milanovic-Pichler on longer term transformations of central European cities; Georgia Butina-Watson on urban design answers for future cities; Arnold Klotz on a central European city network: Sebastian Loew on spatial solutions of urban regeneration.

McCarthy introduced the think tank by pointing out structural changes in the construction world. 30% of the £60 billion turnover per annum industry is taken up by legal advice and insurance in the UK. Similar issues occur throughout Europe, due to a public more aware of its human rights and continuously informed by the mass media. Would Europe be more or less sustainable without the EU and its regulations? Cities are subjected to market forces, regardless, but some level playing field rules ensuring fair competition or seamless infrastructure may be advantageous for all. What should be left to the discretion of individual cities and cultures and what could be harmonised at a wider scale? Is Ken Yeang's ecological database for his tower buildings relevant to all tower buildings anywhere? Or is it acceptable that such structures emerge without generally accepted principles such as in Docklands, Kuala Lumpur or China? Should other criteria such as 50% energy efficiency be compulsory for building design and is it possible to name and shame those who do not comply with intergovernmental agreements, for instance those reached at the Earth Summit?

Sustainable solutions

John Worthington offered a new definition of urban design: elegant allocation of resources with meaningful long term implications. This goes beyond the politically correct interpretation of sustainability which is made up of economic, environmental, institutional and community sustainability. It should generate self-directing organisation, instead of outdated steep top down hierarchies of overpaid managers and underpaid labour. Environmental perceptions have changed since the American flower power days. Sustainability ideas are pluralistic. They need to stand the test and mode of implementation. Environmental Impact Analysis should accompany every planning application. A worst case scenario approach would also help. The EIA toolkit needs to go beyond physical structures, encompass process, long term impacts and post hoc verification instead of physical product solutions only. If broader environmental impacts are included at the outset of the development process it may show that certain planned buildings are not necessary at all.

Problems of waste accumulation.

Arnold Klotz queried the usefulness of purpose designed EIAs and advocated a new concept with a wider remit which was applied to decide the regional road system around Vienna by looking at national objectives and resource allocation, as well as individual projects. Girardet considered that a lot can be steered by fiscal measures, such as grants for innovative renewable energy generation (e.g. the Germans are giving 50% subsidies to photovoltaic roofs), or landfill tax. They amount to an enabling framework which will change behaviour in the longer term. There are many double standards at present in Europe as well as in individual member states. EIAs have other weaknesses such as lack of base data and over-ambitious numbers of criteria. Also different appraisal techniques may have to apply to urban and rural environments. Manuel da Costa-Lobo questioned sectoral analysis in planning. The successful cities thirty years hence will be those, which are showing respect for nature and rely on human solidarity. Professionals should be far more aware of events on the ground which take place regardless of planning. For that reason, Lisbon has established an ombudsman.

Human rights have become an integral part of citizens' consciousness. Therefore short term planning can no longer be undertaken without close cooperation with the people concerned. Sustainability in its broadest terms, including economic and social dimensions, has to form part of very long term planning. Cities of different dimensions (e.g. 16,000, 60,000, 600,000 population) cannot use the same criteria and methods of intervention. The urbanisation process continues relentlessly and a new model of thinking for a metropolitan region could be a chessboard of green and built up areas throughout a vast territory. Such a mixture between built environment and nature may eliminate to-day's fear of living in cities. City fear has pushed people to move into individual spaces in areas excluded from the public realm. As these ghettos are meant to guarantee privacy they prevent people from getting together across ethnic groups and moving freely between urban areas. Planning has to recapture the initiative as mediator between black and white positions as urban living can only survive as a compromise, as a third, grey way. 'Illegal' settlements are widespread, even in Portugal and require adjustments in cooperation with their natural leaders. Similar cooperation is required to safeguard consolidated areas. Trust is becoming the key criterion for successful planning and implementation, together with consensus on project timing.

Some solutions using hydrogen cells in vehicles and solar energy and photo voltaic panels on buildings.

Herbert Girardet stressed that cities are taking resources from their surroundings as their unacceptable ecological footprints demonstrate. They should manage their resources much more strictly, by recycling, reuse of materials, reduced energy consumption and more compact urban fabrics. Scattered settlements with urban lifestyles are the biggest squanders of resources. Design should make cities compatible with processes occurring in nature and be more concerned with flows going through cities. The only way to include future generations is to design for long term investment. In Florence, new users benefit from ancient good design which may succumb to its own success as it attracts more people than its capacity can carry. In the 21st century, all developments should be subjected to an examination of impacts on the global environment and constrained accordingly. Agenda 21 has managed to make some small scale inroads over the last ten years, especially in changing thought patterns.

Some solutions using hydrogen cells in vehicles and solar energy and photo voltaic panels on buildings.

Recycling, harnessing renewable energy, reducing waste at source, greening cities for better air quality have entered behavioural patterns and political targets. Nevertheless, the impact of urban lifestyles on the environment in the long term are not known. Thus the knowledge based city should include ecological concerns. Vienna has started eco-feedback and other cities have taken simple measures like placing electricity meters visibly near points of consumption. Long term planning is necessary to prevent short term waste such as pulling recent buildings down for political and financial gain.

Participation & Immigration

Madelina Vuilleumier focused on participation and immigration. Participation in city development is desirable but difficult in large urban areas. As cities grow into metropolises and city regions, the whole question of participation has to be reconsidered. It may be more successful if it is done in a networking mode within and across soft boundaries. A second element of change is immigration in Europe. It will change the character of European cities in the longer term. The integration of immigrants into city life should form part of urban sustainability criteria. Immigrants will claim rights to urban territory. Thus leaders, such as city mayors will have to incorporate their rights in their property development strategies.

Discussion concentrated on the notion of immigration and its relevance to urban sustainability. Immigrants to cities should not only be understood as ethnic minority groups or refugees. Especially large cities are made up of a continuously changing population with in-migrants from provincial cities and the hinterland as well as from abroad and from different ethnic origins. In Vienna, for example, the immigrant population has grown from 7% to 17% since the demise of communism in Eastern Europe. If integration is not consciously addressed, right wing political reactions could have adverse effects on the future of such cities. Immigration per se is not a problem. However, cosmopolitanism and proximity require tolerance. If tolerance and trust are not built up within cosmopolitan cities there will be conflicts between different interest groups, such as in Jerusalem, Northern Ireland or Cyprus. London manages to project a positive image of inter racial cohabitation to the outside world. However, internally there are many problems in specific areas. Immigrant labour can present intercultural limitations due to language problems and lack of knowledge of local customs. Nevertheless, as long as immigrants are abused as cheap labour, segregation and potential conflict will persist. Despite its social conflicts, London seems to be less divided than Prague, the new de facto capital of central Europe after its conversion to the market economy. In Prague, privatisation of housing without alternative housing management procedures has created rich ghettos and a lot of homelessness. The upwardly mobile acquire cars and second homes and head for suburbia leaving the city administration without a viable tax base and with an increasing transportation problem.

Urban regeneration can exacerbate such a situation when poor people are being displaced from run down areas which are taken over by gentrification. Property prices are rising, people have to move out, further away from potential jobs. They incur high travel costs and have less housing, jobs or other service opportunities. City development entails costs also for those who are stepping up the ladder. Conversely, people move with, or for their jobs and can create local initiatives elsewhere. Increasingly share holder priorities and objectives of the few and powerful determine the shape of cities. Corporate ownership, privatised insurances and other non state owned institutions may well broaden the share holder base. The fact is that many executive decision makers are not living in the cities in which they invest and thus divest accountability.

Ghettos do not have to be unhappy places because their inhabitants can develop their own environment and lifestyles while being able to find diversity elsewhere in the city. Thus ghettos may be one solution of integrated urban development at city scale because their members belong to a number of both spatial and a-spatial communities, preventing them from being isolated or discriminated against. Moreover, people on the fringe of ghettos may act as mediators between culturally different areas.

Systems thinking is no longer appropriate for longer term urban development which requires more guidance from chaos theory. The 'undefinable' is the locus of diversity, creativity and innovation in the city. But even if local authorities still have a say in urban development, and command professional expertise in house, they need to initiate structural adjustments, especially concerning information flows. Everybody should have access to relevant information, ranging from political leaders to the general public. Information should also flow in all directions. This would give the politicians the opportunity to realise, for example, that citizens do not share their vision of a car free city. A whole new methodology of engagement needs to be devised to prevent mistrust and passive resistance. The Urban Design Group should reflect on its role in this process.

The education system should also rethink the future role of the design professions. Planners may have to assume increasingly an intermediary role between the politicians and the project makers. Lay leaders may have more influence and may want to introduce their own ideas from the outset.

City Networks

Arnold Klotz referred to the city network which has been put into place in central Europe to exchange experiences and coordinate regional actions. Vienna had a positive experience with its latest planning round as it prepared the population actively for urban decision making. This included a debate on the definition of sustainability. A new strategic vision was compounded from both expectations and needs of various community players. The outcome took into account employment and requirements of the business community. It included a concern for the quality of the urban and natural environment, and was set in an overall framework aimed to increase quality of life for all. Such an ambitious perspective requires more than existing planning techniques and has to draw on the expertise of all stakeholders. The ambition of Austria to play an active role in the EU has determined its strategy for regional cooperation. It led to a city action plan in 1995 which fits into the EU spatial development strategy adopted in Potsdam in 1999.

Cities and regions are of great importance for EU cohesion. Physical as well as mental communication and other networks are the basis of 'intelligent mobility', a concept presented at the URBAN 21 conference in Berlin in 2000. This concept tried to reconcile mobility by private car in Western Europe and public transport mobility, which constitutes still some 80% in Central European cities. While it is unrealistic to expect that solutions could transfer directly, the city network, which includes Bratislava, Budapest, Vienna and Zagreb can learn from each others' mistakes. Overall, these cities have a new vision of economic development dynamics in central Europe, away from the recognised 'banana' which ranges from London to Frankfurt and Milan. In future, their city network will range from Helsinki via the Baltic states to Zagreb and hopefully beyond, down to Greece.

Sebastian Loew distinguished between two professional approaches, the one which creates a vision, the other which leaves implementation to a variety of people outside the planning and development control system. Traditional land use planning in the UK deals mainly with procedures. It does not address the conflict between short term perspectives of politicians, professionals and others and a long term vision. The role of urban design is to mediate between these two extreme positions.

Urban Design for when?

During the discussion the issue was 'urban design for whom?' Should it redress the balance between public and private interests? Should it guarantee inclusiveness of regeneration projects? What does designing for people mean? Where does the culture and agenda of the designers themselves lie? How can they speak on behalf of the community? Is there such a thing as a single community in regeneration areas? Even conservation policies may improve the physical fabric but disadvantage the local population. Is participation a fiction of urban design or can it accommodate freedom of action of those affected by it? Assuming that participation is seen as a starting point of an urban design project, its effects may be lost in the process of negotiation with developers, local authorities and other top down interests. The means of communication may also have an influence on the effectiveness of public participation. TV, radio and other media should be continuously involved in regeneration processes and disseminate the message about the value of good urban design. Perhaps the Urban Design Group has not exploited these avenues sufficiently.

Community representation through political services is not akin to running a business. A democratic process with planning advisers to local communities should replace the remoteness of bureaucratic procedures. Changes are not always palatable to people, especially when they are planned for future generations in countries where 50% of the population is going to be over fifty. Also, visions are not easy to establish as urban design lacks appropriate tools to measure the existing complexity of urban issues. Predictable information may carry its own problems, for example fear of redundancy. Also, use of IT is not practical without data which is often expensive and difficult to collect. Finally, if design was entirely based on predictable continuity, it might put designers out of existence. As London is the largest city in the EU and urbanisation is continuing, could it become the model of future European cities when increasing numbers of people flock to cities and will require high density urban living? Is high density living a viable solution or is it conditional on tolerance, mutual respect and acceptable economic conditions. Does high density living depend on the success of individuals to network and to give in order to get? Is it only applicable outside conflictual environments? Recent events in the Balkans show how frail close cohabitation can become even in areas with cosmopolitan traditions once physical, economic and social nationalism has taken over. It may require one or more new generations to prepare the structural changes necessary for better urban living. Urban design and the provision of a new public realm can only be a part of such a daunting undertaking. #

Judith Ryser