Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
or national governments, ranging from citizen initiatives in the case of Transition
Towns and Slow Cities, from planners and architects promoting Neo-Urban ideas,
to social activists and academics developing Just Cities concepts and practices, and,
in the case of recent Resilient City initiatives, with major contributions from inter-
national organizations from the World Bank to various NGOs, such as Red Cross,
as well as from research from academics studying natural hazards. Hence govern-
ments have been less important in the creation of most of these themes but have
used many of the policies and, of course, need to be involved in later stages if the
ideas are to be implemented and really flourish.
Second, advocates of most of the themes emphasize the need to reduce policy
and management fragmentation . They see the importance of breaking away from
what amounts to the specialized roles of various departments in government or
agencies that traditionally deal with particular urban service provision or problems,
such as dependence only upon the police in ensuring safety, medical professionals
in terms of health care organization, or planners in development decisions. Most
of the policies associated with the various themes emphasize the need for wider
stakeholder engagement and involvement. This goes beyond the often top-down in-
formation-imparting meetings of city officials with individual citizens, community
organizations, businesses and non-profit groups, replacing them by actively work-
ing with these groups in a true communicative fashion. It also involves finding ways
of breaking down the often rigid barriers between various government departments
or agencies to provide more co-operation, scrutiny and greater flexibility in creating
and applying new policies, as well as counteracting the tendency of existing admin-
istrations to stick to their traditional practices. Indeed new agencies that involve all
representatives of levels of government are often needed to ensure progress, since
these control many different functions, from land through specialised services to
finance. As can be seen in the case of the Safe and Knowledge City themes this also
usually means acceptance by decision-makers and the public of the importance of
solving particular problems and the willingness to create a vision, strategies, and
then individual policies to solve the difficulties identified through joint initiatives,
to circumvent the silos of separate practices. However it must be recognized that
there may be trade-offs or compromises required between alternative policies. For
example, increasing the density of urban places does reduce carbon emissions since
it makes it possible to substitute public transit for cars, but this could reduce the
amount of accessible green space which is increasingly recognized as essential for
health.
Third, many of the themes have a much wider scope than previous concepts and
policies designed to improve the condition of urban places, most of which in the
past relate to the provision of various services, or regulations over development. For
example, the whole environmental sustainability movement is not just based on im-
proving the local ecological conditions, important though this may be for general re-
laxation and health. It also recognizes the many negative externalities of cities upon
their regions, and increasingly through greenhouse gas emissions, upon the composi-
tion of the atmosphere. Hence the effects are not simply local or regional; they con-
tribute to a global warming that is projected to have many different effects on urban
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