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Local production and appropriations of globalised urban planning

Production et appropriations locales de l’urbanisme globalisé

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Published on Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Summary

The acceleration of globalisation and the massive urbanisation of the planet over the past forty years have played a powerful role in the transformation of cities. These worldwide dynamics are often presented as sources of a homogenisation of the cities’ organisational principles and the policies guiding their development, as well as urban forms and architectural styles. The result would thus be a ‘globalised urban planning’, in the sense of a uniform vision of the ways of creating the city promoted by the intensified circulation of ideas and models, the mobility of urban planning actors and the concentration of capital on a global scale. ‘Globalised fragments’ (Verdeil, 2006, p. 160) would be the symbol of this process, characterised by an influx of private stakeholders and specific planning schemes where the production of urban images play a key role.

Announcement

Editors

  • María A. Castrillo Romón,
  • Beatriz Fernández Águeda
  • Céline Vaz

Argument

The acceleration of globalisation and the massive urbanisation of the planet over the past forty years have played a powerful role in the transformation of cities. These worldwide dynamics are often presented as sources of a homogenisation of the cities’ organisational principles and the policies guiding their development, as well as urban forms and architectural styles. The result would thus be a ‘globalised urban planning’, in the sense of a uniform vision of the ways of creating the city promoted by the intensified circulation of ideas and models, the mobility of urban planning actors and the concentration of capital on a global scale. ‘Globalised fragments’ (Verdeil, 2006, p. 160) would be the symbol of this process, characterised by an influx of private stakeholders and specific planning schemes where the production of urban images play a key role.

This special issue is aimed at questioning the driving forces of this supposed global standardisation of urban planning practices by focusing on key examples of ‘globalised urban planning’ in their articulation with the local level. This involves examining local processes of producing – but also adapting – ‘models’ (Bourdin and Idt, 2016), considered in all their diversity, including the urban scheme, the neighbourhood and the city; transport networks and infrastructures; decision-making processes; regulations and so on.

Whether we look at the ‘Barcelona model’ and the ‘Bilbao effect’ of the 1990s or the ‘social urbanism’ of the ‘Medellin Miracle’ and the ‘Dubaisation’ presently underway, it might be argued that the models with the most success on a global scale are mainly local experiments that have ‘succeeded’ and become the subject of a communications effort permitting them to be widely shared (González, 2011; Devisme, Dumont and Roy, 2007). Just as we might ask whether the current popularity of ‘tactical urban planning’ is not the result of the same theorising and promotion of local practices.

The objective of this special issue is thus to retrace the local origins of the ‘examples’ that are diffused and promoted worldwide and study the processes and actors at work in designating local achievements as inspiring examples to be copied and repeated. At the same time, the local appropriation of such projects and practices outside their places of origin will also be examined. In this sense, we are proposing an extended development of the questions raised in an earlier special issue on ‘Cities and “Best Practices”’ (Espaces et sociétés, 2007), devoted to the capitalisation and circulation of ‘best practices’ experiments and policy models, as well as the benefits to be derived from them. Fifteen years later, however, this call for contributions seeks to focus more specifically on the local production and consumption of globalised urban planning.

First of all, it is necessary to consider the production of urban planning ‘models’, namely the processes through which a noteworthy practice subsequently leads to the creation and diffusion of an example to be copied and repeated at global level. Which actors –local, national, international– determine that a local urban planning operation or procedure is judged successful, effective or worthy of interest? Which operations permit the passage from the initial experiment, situated in a territorial context and precise socio-historical conditions, to its idealisation/reduction/abstraction? What differences can be observed between the noteworthy local urban-planning experience and its global promotion/representation?

The second dynamic that this special issue would like to explore is the appropriation and adaptation of globalised urban planning models to new local contexts. Analyses in terms of importers and exporters do not signify the absence of local processes of hybridisation and adaptation (Nasr and Volait, 2003). Similarly, historical approaches have called into question perceptions inherited from the colonial past about North/South transfers, and urban planning models in vogue over the past two decades have come to demonstrate the multilateral nature of the influences. How do urban planning cultures receive these models and make do with them? Does their introduction foster local resistance (from elected officials, urban-sector professionals, the public, etc.)? What are the causes of these potential conflicts (the imposition of an exogenous model, an attack on local spatial and cultural identity, opposition to what is seen as a neo-liberal model of the city, etc.)?  Another question concerns the channels, motivations and expected results of benchmarking (Rochette and Houillier-Guibert, 2018) in generating local support for an international model. In a context of growing inter-urban competition, how can attractiveness policies aimed at promoting a city’s singular identity (Ciudades, 1999) be reconciled with the adoption of models from elsewhere?

In sum, this special issue is aimed at probing the way local practices, projects and approaches are institutionalised, generalised and transmitted and how they are reappropriated by other territories. We welcome articles combining local analysis of the production of the model and its subsequent adaptation or reappropriation on another terrain, especially those bearing on local contexts in different areas of the world. Comparative proposals seeking, for example, to identify the profiles of cities that are ‘followers’, innovators’ or ‘resisters’ in relation to globalised urban planning will receive particular attention. Long-term studies of cities that are initially sources of globally diffused urban planning models and then imitators are also of great interest.

This wide spectrum of approaches is thus intended to shed light on the depth and historical evolution of the construction of urban planning models within the context of a ‘global urban history’ (Kefford, 2020). Indeed, the production of models appears to have evolved from individual initiatives that were more or less coordinated towards an increasingly institutionalised, professionalised process with the growing power of territorial ‘marketing’. Critical approaches addressing the ‘globalised urban planning’ phenomenon as a whole and its ties with the spread of neo-liberal urban policies are also quite welcome.

References

Bourdin Alain and Idt Joël (éd.), 2016, L’urbanisme des modèles : références, benchmarking et bonnes pratiques. La Tour d’Aigues : Éditions de l’Aube.

Ciudades, 1999, Ventajas urbanas y competitividad entre ciudades, n0 5, URL : https://revistas.uva.es/index.php/ciudades/issue/view/129, consultée le 9 avril 2021.

Espaces et Sociétés, 2007/4, « Villes et “best practices” », n0 131.

Devisme Laurent, Dumont Marc and Roy Élise, 2007, « Le jeu des “bonnes pratiques” dans les opérations urbaines, entre normes et fabrique locale », Espaces et sociétés, n131, p. 15-31.

González Sara, 2011, « Bilbao and Barcelona “in motion”. How urban regeneration “models” travel and mutate in the global flows of policy tourism ». Urban studies 48 (7), p. 1397-1418.

Kefford Alistair, 2020, « Global Urban History Project and Centre for Urban History Joint Conference: “The pursuit of global urban history”, Leicester, 11-12 July 2019 ». Urban History, Vol. 47, n0 1, p. 170-172.

Nasr Joe and Volait Mercedes (dir.), 2003, Urbanism: Imported or Exported. Foreign Plans and Native Aspirations. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Rochette Corinne et Houllier-Guibert Charles-Edouard, 2018, « Positionnement épistémologique et méthodologique du marketing des territoires comme champ de recherche », Marketing territorial, n°0. URL : http://publis-shs.univ-rouen.fr/rmt/index.php?id=88, consultée le 9 avril 2021.

Verdeil Éric, 2006, « Marchés, lieux d’exercice et profils professionnels de l’urbanisme », in T. Souami et É. Verdeil. (dir.), Concevoir et gérer les villes. Milieux d’urbanistes du sud de la Méditerranée, Paris, Economica Anthropos, p. 149-196.

Issue coordination

Deadline for article submissions

31 August 2021

contacts

Articles should be submitted in digital format only to the following three email addresses :

  • mariacr@arq.uva.es
  • beatriz.fernandez@ehess.fr
  • celine.vaz@uphf.fr

Authors with questions about the relevance of their proposals can contact  the issue coordinators directly

PLEASE NOTE:

The journal considers only completed articles, not proposals.

Articles must not exceed 7,000 words/42,000 characters (with spaces), including texts, notes, bibliographical references and appendices, but not abstracts.

Author guidelines and editorial standards for submissions are available on the journal website:

https://www.editions-eres.com/uploads/documents/conditionsPublication/201906112815eas_normes-editoriales-a-consignes-auteurs_07.11.18_diffusion.pdf


Date(s)

  • Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Keywords

  • urbanisme, globalisation, modèles de villes

Contact(s)

  • Céline Vaz
    courriel : celine [dot] vaz [at] uphf [dot] fr
  • María A. Castrillo Romón
    courriel : mariacr [at] arq [dot] uva [dot] es
  • Beatriz Fernández Águeda
    courriel : beatriz [dot] fernandez [at] ehess [dot] fr

Reference Urls

Information source

  • Nina Koulikoff
    courriel : nina [dot] koulikoff [at] cnrs [dot] fr

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« Local production and appropriations of globalised urban planning », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, April 20, 2021, https://calenda.org/867077

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