Urban Planning Against Poverty

Urban planning was implemented in Europe and Northern America during the nineteenth century with the objective of bringing order and coherence to cities that were experiencing a whole revolution: new industries, urban sprawl, migratory flows from rural areas to urban settlements. Without entering into too much detail, it is important to underline that urban planning was essentially conceived as a technical instrument and as a spatial methodology to organize space, without paying much attention to social problems. This approach and accompanying specialization of competences were transferred to developing and emerging countries throughout the twentieth century, oblivious of the problems of another kind and another magnitude faced by cities in the South.

On the basis of these presuppositions, this book intends to examine urban planning as it is practiced today in Southern countries, from a double perspective: (1) how conceptual and methodological precepts can be questioned when applied to different societal contexts than those they were originally intended for, (2) how to re-invent urban planning so that this instrumentation be really useful to the cities of the South in their fight against poverty and segregation while fostering a more sustainable and inclusive urban development. This reflection is very important in any urban context, but it is particularly urgent that it be addressed in small and medium sized cities that lack the human and financial resources to tackle these issues.

Today, the majority of the world’s population – roughly 54% – lives in urban areas. Though global, this trend nonetheless varies greatly depending on the country and continent. It appears that in Europe and the Americas (both North America and Latin America) the urban population has reached roughly 80%, versus less than 50% in Asia and Africa. Yet, it is in the two latter regions that 90% of the world’s urban transformation process will take place and have the greatest impact in terms of living spaces, economic activities, culture, lifestyles and mobility.

While considerable differences exist between countries, the same can be said of cities. Though most research focuses on major urban agglomerations (cities of over a million and megacities of over ten million), the fact that nearly 50% of the world’s urban population lives in cities of less than 500,000 inhabitants has been somewhat overlooked. Infinite in number, these small and medium-sized cities are extremely interesting in terms of the role they play as intermediate cities that serve their surrounding regions, providing public and private services and facilities that benefit both rural and urban populations. Yet, research on these cities shows that they are at a disadvantage compared to larger cities in terms of poverty, insufficient financial resources and skilled workers.

By considering the environmental, economic and social dimensions of sustainable development independently, we are able to differentiate South cities and integrate our 30 years of research within the framework of this multi-faceted problem. We argue the fight against poverty and instability are both a common thread and the greatest challenge to creating sustainable, inclusive cities.

To begin, environmental issues must be analyzed bearing in mind that urban life generates waste and pollution of natural resources (water, air and ground). The latter negatively impact individuals’ health when the sources of contamination and their effects are not monitored. In many South cities, where makeshift housing with sub-standard hygiene and sanitation conditions prevail, such monitoring is still in its nascent stage. Thus, many poor are exposed to environmental risks that far surpass those in other neighborhoods.

In South and North countries, cities are drivers of the economy. As home to half of the world’s population, they contribute 80% of the global GDP. In emerging and developing countries this economic dynamic couples with a high proportion of informal employment, a key source of urban insecurity. Far from being a space of transition between the rural and urban economy, the informal economy is an integral part of the globalization of modes of production and marketing that goes together with the modern industry sector.

The picture of the South city would not be complete without an analysis of its social dimensions. Cities continue to grow with waves of rural migrant populations. These new inhabitants account for about 40% of urban growth in developing countries. For these individuals and families, urban integration means development potential not only economically and monetarily but also socially, culturally and healthwise, especially for new generations who were raised and educated in the city.

This positive urban vision should not overshadow the fact that the city is a machine designed to produce poverty and social inequalities. Nearly a billion people are living in slums, more than 90% of which are in poor countries. Economic growth is only partially reflected in the improved living conditions of the most destitute. The number of urban poor is expected to double in the next 30 years, a glaring indication of the need to rethink urban planning based on this mixed reality of wealth creation and growing disparity between social groups.

In this chapter, we will dissect the salient elements of urban planning in terms of theoretical foundations and methodology, in order to demonstrate that in addition to criticism expressed by a certain number of authors regarding its transfer to cities of the South, urban planning does not focus on the key issues faced by local authorities and inhabitants, both in terms of target population groups and the infrastructures and services that should be given priority.

We will highlight the translation of these theories, essentially of western origin, and their application to “other societies”, trying to understand how throughout the course of history, this intellectual configuration of the city has been replicated in contexts subject to other injunctions and constraints. We will then deconstruct urban planning, viewing it not as a science but rather as a method that is applied with field-adapted techniques, based on precepts that often lack clear definition, yet that is guided by instruments that can spatially and materially organize the distribution of individuals, their activities, goods, services, facilities and equipment, within a territory that is identified for geographical and administrative reasons. Urban planning takes into account the potential and the limitations of the natural (spatial and environmental) and human entities in question, including in its analysis the causes and impacts of the dynamics that affect the transformation of the city and its dwellers. The difficulty with urban planning is that it is based more or less explicitly on different disciplines (urbanism, architecture, engineering, economics, sociology, geography, etc.), that function independently with no formal obligation to work together/cross reference, which means that many professional practices are used periodically and repeatedly.

Sustainable development and urban sustainable development represent a conceptual framework allowing us to rethink urban planning. More than a technical tool giving voice to all stakeholders, a participatory approach is the most advanced methodological manner of anchoring planning in a local and regional democratic policy.

As broadcast by the United Nations in 1987, “sustainable development” is defined above all by two essential components. First, the time factor, by emphasizing that development can only be sustainable if it “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Second, the focus on “an equal balance between the necessary ecological, social and economic dimensions of development”.

In addition to these aspects of sustainable development, two complementary dimensions will directly involve urban stakeholders. On the one hand, spatial organization would better regulate the distribution of human settlements and economic activities in the territory. It would also mitigate the excessive concentration of people and activities in saturated and weakened areas in favor of a decentralization that maximizes spatial planning with a lower ecological imprint on available resources. On the other hand, there is a cultural dimension, in that the proposed changes would take into consideration the value systems, the historical development of the human communities involved, the socio-political context as well as the social and cultural organizational structures prevailing in the regions concerned.

These conceptual precepts have to be linked to technological innovations capable of facilitating the creation and processing of urban and regional data, such as geospatial software (free and open source) and crowdsourcing.

The efforts made to plan cities in emerging and developing countries are confronted to multiple issues, especially in small and middle sized cities which can be considered as poor through several criteria: socio-economic level of majority of population; low levels of public investments, weak quality of local administration, and large dependence of external donors. Following several authors, one of the main reasons is that philosophy and methods of urban planning applied to these specific contexts are directly reproduced from a Western tradition which doesn’t correspond to the local and national context in terms of needs, priorities and organization of the financial resources. The case of Koudougou, a medium sized city of about 100.000 inhabitants, third largest city in one of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso, will give the opportunity to understand concretely how these deficiencies are translate in an urban context. And foresee, more globally, alternative models of urban planning better adapted to poor cities, whose number of inhabitants is growing steadily.

In Koudougou, as in many African cities, the urban planning process is exogenous, not really consistent with the requests of the people, nor with the human, material and financial resources of the city, and therefore rarely applied. This is easily explained when we know that urban planning in its design, is initiated as part of a collaborative framework between the central government and foreign donors. The initial diagnosis is made by quality professionals but who are disconnected from local administrative and social realities. In fact it is a census of all needs to be met. Without guidance on how to implement a program of urban improvement when the facilities to be created whose costs are more than ten times that of the annual municipal budget reserves? In fact, plans produced in this context do not serve to guide local authorities in the current and future development of the urban territory. Neither are they an instrument of dialogue between the said authorities and the population. On the contrary, any consultation with the community that does not result in expected and desired deliverables will strengthen the distrust, or even defiance towards public, political, and administrative powers. At best, the plans, losing their principal essence, become promotional tools, pure marketing products, a catalogue of intentions of penniless communities at the mercy of the donors’ desideratum, whether they be State or foreign cooperation agencies.

This distortion of urban planning destroys any coherence in the process, both in establishing priorities in infrastructure and equipment to realize, in the economic and social sectors to be favored, as in the implementation timeframes. Nothing more can be programmed, since all work is done depending on external funders, without continuity, without a guiding principle, and without any possible guarantee that things will be done on time, potentially creating more long term disorganization than anything else.

Based on this experience and in comparison with other researches on urban development in African cities must be entirely reconsidered. The essential point − too often overlooked − is to begin from a participatory diagnosis in which the actual situation of the city is examined in its various dimensions, both demographic and spatial, infrastructural, but also economic, social and environmental, permitting all the stakeholders to position themselves.

According to international statistics, nearly 50% of the world’s urban population now lives in cities of less than 500,000 inhabitants. These small and medium-sized cities act as intermediaries between rural regions, the local economy and more extensive urban networks and have three spheres of influence: regional, national and international. In many of these “intermediate cities”, the main problem is a lack of financial and human resources for them in a comprehensive way in order to tackle the demographic and spatial sprawl of these urban settlements and avoid an increase in social segregation and territorial fragmentation.

The example of Montes Claros in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, illustrates how a city of nearly 400,000 inhabitants at the centre of an economically prosperous region is tackling these issues through its current process of urban planning by striving to take into account its historical, social and spatial context.

Like most Brazilian and Latin American cities, Montes Claros – which serves as a transit hub at the State and national levels – is a rapidly growing intermediary city whose economic growth over the past two decades has been exponential. However, this growth, which is mainly commercial and industrial, has not resulted in a more inclusive distribution of the urban population. When one considers the growth that has resulted from rural migration and new urban residents, the urban area of Montes Claros remains territorially fragmented, with neighbourhoods that are more or less equipped with various public facilities (hospitals, schools, etc.) and served by public transport depending on the socio-economic status of their inhabitants.

The current planning process is raising many issues. Among them, three crucial elements which must be rethought in order to develop an adapted planning approach and appropriate planning tools that can guide decision makers in shaping the city and region’s future. The first is a medium and long-term vision for Montes Claros, its hinterland and northern Minas Gerais; the second is the current (biased) perception of Montes Claros wherein only the dense downtown areas are considered and suburban areas remain disconnected from the rest of the city (and hence poorly integrated); the last is a participatory urban planning process that involves all stakeholders and the entire population, from the diagnostic phase up through the definition of priorities in terms of urban policies, strategies and investments.

With 92% of its population living in urban areas, Argentina is one of the most urbanized countries on the planet. The province of Buenos Aires, which is located on the outskirts of the national capital, is home to 16.65 million people, or 39% of the national population. Like in many South countries, the populations of the small and medium-sized cities, which serve as intermediate centers between the countryside and the urban network, are growing steadily. Such cities offer services and infrastructures to both urban and rural populations, as well as a residential alternative to the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area. However, these cities face specific problems that require appropriate responses.

In this respect, Nueve de Julio is emblematic of the challenges that confront these intermediate cities. One of the hundred cities created in the nineteenth century by the Argentinian government to colonize the country and turn it into a major agro-producer and exporter of cereals and meat, it is purely a product of top-down territorial planning. Today, with its 50,000 inhabitants, Nueve de Julio is a city whose population is increasing and whose territory is expanding. Yet, it that lacks any foresight to anticipate the next 20 or 30 years.

Following J. Robinson’s concept, Nueve de Julio is an “ordinary” city founded on modernity and tradition, and which must be analyzed for what it really is: a mere reproduction of a European city model that is facing serious development problems, whose territory is disparate in terms of facilities and 20% of whose population is living in poverty.

The government seems helpless when it comes to dealing with these issues. Though aware of the issues – social inclusion, improving public services and more efficient land use – it seems unable to act. At a participatory planning training seminar in 1994, participants were already pointing to the many shortcomings in urban management. Twenty five years later, these same problems have only intensified. Unfortunately, political activism prevails over planning and varies from one election to the next depending on the party in power. Means are lacking, both financially and in terms of technical skills. For several decades now, it is the electricity and services Cooperative that has been meeting many of the population’s needs (paving the streets, supplying electricity, developing the mobile phone network, etc.), but without any real dialogue with the local administration.

Establishing an open system of urban planning is imperative. This begins with the collection of technical and social data, which is currently scattered between the local government services and the Cooperative, which must then be processed digitally and geospatially. Based on this, and with the collaboration of these two institutions (as well as citizen participation), a rational diagnosis can be established and priorities set. These goals should include social, economic and spatial integration, efforts to include the city’s poor and more rational, less costly development of the suburban periphery. This will enable Nueve de Julio to better play its role as an intermediate city for the entire urban and regional population with regard to business, administration, education and health services.

The book concludes with a synthesized analysis of urban planning in Southern cities, with a particular focus on medium sized cities that play a role of intermediation between their suburban and rural environments and the whole urban network. Starting from the literature on the topic, as presented mainly in Chaps. 2 and 3, we will compare the conceptual advances, as well as the statistical and global data, with the results of the fieldwork carried out in three cities chosen to tackle this theme in specific local and regional contexts.

This brings us to highlight the similarities and differences between each urban situation, in order to draw the main lessons that emerge from the analysis. We are able to decrypt the constraints that cities – their authorities, their administrations and their populations – face. And whether or not these restrictions hinder the implementation of a coherent urban planning system. It is on this basis that we will be able to identify the key elements that represent the pillars of an alternative version of urban planning to that which exists (when it exists!), in terms of foundations and guiding principles, objectives and methods used to achieve them, content and instructions. Planning can thus become a real instrument to guide and to manage the city and its region. We recall that urban planning, as we envisage it, is not only a technical exercise dealing with the territory, in the spatial and geographical sense of the definition, but truly an approach aimed at integrating societal issues into a planning process. Planning thus clearly contributes to moving towards a city that is not only socially and economically inclusive, but also sustainable, in which social and economic factors are rooted in the preservation of natural resources, within the framework of participatory and democratic public policies.