Abstract
Metabolism seems to have some kind of semblance to urban development which also draws inputs from nature, society and the economy to produce buildings and spaces for use, and possibly misuse, adapting some of them but leaving behind, somehow, obsolete parts that cannot change to serve new needs. However, the metabolism metaphor has serious limitations for our understanding of the process of urban development which is rarely a steady adjustment process to gradual events like an organism keeping the system going. Cities are shaped by uncertainties created by economic shocks, policy failures, political rivalry and cleavages, natural disasters, wars and conflicts, all requiring cities to rebalance priorities to respond to new forms and sources of growth and wealth. Urban Planning has a central role in managing uncertainty, reorienting market forces and repositioning the role and capacities of public authorities to deliver new urban development outcomes. For planning to do this itself has to be of ‘good quality’ as a context for intervention for change, for mobilization of resources to pay for change and for better understanding of the longer-term future. Cities only seem to resemble organisms when seen like that by city experts who have that perspective in mind in the first place. Deeper analysis of the importance of cities as engines of prosperity and opportunity reveals the need for planning instruments to prevent, minimize or attend to uncertainty brought in by paradigm shifts threatening prosperity and distributive justice. The urban metabolism model, borrowed from biology, cannot capture the ‘big picture’ in urban development and the potential of public policy making and public-private partnership in bringing lasting outcomes. This presentation will focus on the scope, contributions and limitations of spatial planning as a tool for guiding cities to respond to changes in the forces underlying their growth and find a future in a post-growth economy. Will explain how good planning that introduces interventions for change, new resources to pay for change and a good understanding of the future can perform and produce better results than both lesser-faire private interest-based development and metabolism-inspired planning seeking to give new life to cities with local placemaking responses without a clear understanding of changing growth options in a changing economy. Will illustrate how planning has been applied in Cyprus to guide responses to the division of Nicosia into north and south, how it was able to develop concepts and tools for alternative futures identifying modalities for joint planning actions but also how certain obstacles limited capacity to transcend key aspects of the ‘business as usual’ situation. The lessons that may be learned from this presentation will include: First, that metabolism and possibly similar metaphors borrowed from natural science have limited applicability in guiding cities to adopt the necessary type and quality of intervention tools to reorient urban development to new forms and sources of growth, second the importance of the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ planning and the danger of overestimating the importance of self-regulation in development and the effectiveness of local bottom up approaches to city planning without the big picture of the ramifications of economic change and restructuring of resources for new visioning, policy design and public-private partnerships in urban development, and third, the limitations of planning itself and the conditions which make the limitations more acute. Relevant theoretical and empirical research scholarly publications: -‘The Purpose of Planning: Creating Sustainable Towns and Cities’, Yvonne Rydin, 2011,-‘The Future of Planning: Beyond Growth Dependence’, Yvonne Rydin, 2014, -“Effective Practice in Spatial Planning’, Janice Morphet, 2010, -‘Changing Contexts in Spatial Planning’, Janice Morphet, 2018
