School of Architecture and Planning

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Browsing School of Architecture and Planning by Author "Appelbaum, Alexandra"

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    SPATIAL FUTURES: ASPIRATIONS AND ACTIONS REGARDING FORM AND SPATIAL CHANGE IN JOHANNESBURG
    (2016-06) Todes, Alison; Charlton, Sarah; Rubin, Margot; Appelbaum, Alexandra; Harrison, Philip
    Addressing the racially divided, sprawling and socially inequitable spatial form of South African cities has been key to strategic spatial planning and urban spatial frameworks in South African cities, including in Johannesburg. These ideas were included in the Johannesburg 2006 Growth and Development Strategy (GDS), and in the 2011 GDS, which focused more strongly on resilience, but making strong links to spatial form. They have also been a consistent element of various rounds of Johannesburg Spatial Development Frameworks (SDFs). However, despite several of these concerns being embodied in national urban and city policies, objectives to restructure cities spatially have proven to be very difficult to achieve, and there is a growing frustration and questioning of whether some of these objectives are still appropriate. At the same time, the urban restructuring agenda, and the areas that spatial policy addresses have been constrained in practice, and there are several gaps and silences in the issues that are addressed. This paper provides a discussion of the choices, tensions, and trade-offs facing spatial policy in Johannesburg. It considers whether the policy objectives expressed in existing spatial policies (including the Johannesburg GDS and SDF) are still relevant, and address key spatial dynamics and issues. It does this by exploring several key areas of debate around the spatial form of cities and spatial policy internationally, examining how they manifest in Johannesburg, and highlighting these choices, tensions and trade-offs. It recognises, as a starting point, that while urban spatial policies have some power to shape spatial change, spatial trends and dynamics occur in a complex environment, where there are many drivers and shapers of spatial change. As emphasised in the position paper on ‘Strategic Planning in a Turbulent and Uncertain Context’, spatial policies that hope to influence spatial change need to understand the (shifting) key trends and drivers that affect space, including demographic, economic and social patterns that influence the demand for space. There are many examples of spatial plans which missed key trends, vastly over- or under- estimated population growth, and consequently planned for spatial forms which proved to be inappropriate. The spatial form of cities is also shaped by markets of various forms. Planning may attempt to engage with and regulate or direct these markets in the interests of its social and spatial goals and objectives, but it does not have completely free reign. Further, there are frequently disjunctures between strategic spatial planning and implementation, reflecting limits in terms of capacity, political will, institutional cooperation/integration and other factors. Finally, city spatial policies do not occur in isolation, nor do spatial policies necessarily have the power desired by planners. Spatial change and spatial form is critically affected by infrastructural investments, particularly in relation to transport (roads, transit systems), which are frequently follow a different planning process and logic (UN-Habitat, 2009). Likewise, differences between spheres of government and sectoral departments with power to invest in the built environment are also key to the disjunctures between spatial plans and outcomes. The emphasis on housing delivery on scale, along with cheaper land on the periphery, has undermined spatial policies towards urban compaction both internationally (Buckley et al., 2016) and in South Africa (Charlton, 2014). The recent international emphasis on ‘mega- projects’ is often driven by the private sector (such as major gated estates), but also by parts of the public sector (for example eThekwini’s airport). It is also influencing spatial change, bypassing spatial plans or forcing their adaptation (Shatkin, 2008; Robbins et al, 2015; Todes, 2014). This paper explores several key points of focus and debate affecting the spatial futures of cities, particularly in relation to Johannesburg. It draws out the key choices, tensions and trade-offs in these areas, and their implications for future spatial planning in Johannesburg. These include: • The debate over the creation of a more compact urban form, versus expanding and sprawling cities, including the discussion of new cities and satellite cities. Sustainability and resilience as key discourses and their implications for urban spatial form, and the role of transport and mobility will be considered in this context. Understandings of densification, how it is encouraged and managed will also be discussed. • Trends towards social exclusion versus arguments for spatial justice and the right to the city. This discussion considers trends towards privatised and splintered urbanism, gated communities, gentrification, and safety and security as a driver. It also discusses other dimensions of exclusion/inclusion—race, gender and the question of migrant spaces, and policies on socio-spatial integration. • Processes of spatial change in poor neighbourhoods, and initiatives to improve conditions there, including upgrading informal settlements, the growth of informal trade, addressing backyard housing. • Relationships between space and economic development, including the dynamics of growth and decline across the city, debates over promoting development on the periphery versus existing areas of agglomeration, and initiatives to promote economic development in townships. • City-region and multi-scalar governance, including the extent to which metropolitan governance addresses competing tensions and interests across the city, cross-border issues, and disjunctures and tensions between spheres of government.
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    Strategic Planning in a Turbulent and Uncertain Context`
    (2016-08) Harrison, Philip; Appelbaum, Alexandra; Charlton, Sarah; Rubin, Margot; Todes, Alison
    Uncertainty and turbulence is a perennial feature of the context within which cities must plan but there are time periods in which a sense of uncertainty is heightened. This has been the case in the period since the Global Financial Crisis of 2007/08 where the experience of uncertainty has reached levels not known since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Financial Crisis was an ‘uncertainty shock’ but it has left tremors in its aftermath. As one commentator put it, the recovery from the crisis has been “anaemic, brittle and fraught with uncertainty” (Tyson 2015). The combination of economic uncertainty in the contemporary period with political turbulence, global terrorism, and anxieties over climate change has created a ‘perfect storm’ of uncertainty. Wiltbank et al. (2006) write that “unknowability (true unpredictability) can be a disquieting and disruptive phenomenon.” This is especially so for the activity we call ‘planning’ which, almost by definition, requires some degree of confidence in our expectations for the future. The legitimacy of planning depends on the extent to which is can handle radical uncertainty. While the more traditional forms of planning may be helpless in the face of this uncertainty, there are, fortunately, approaches to planning within contexts of uncertainty that have evolved in both corporate and public sector planning practice since at least the late 1960s. In this paper we begin by outlining some of the dimensions of uncertainty, both globally and for the context of Johannesburg, focussing on aspects relating to demography, environmental threats, economy, society and politics, acknowledging, of course, that these are all profoundly interrelated. We then explore the multifaceted literature on planning for uncertainty, using the framework provided by Wiltbank et al. (2006) which distinguishes between approaches which are concerned with the better positioning of an institution within an uncertain environment, and those which actively attempt to shape environments. We apply the useful elements of the varying approaches to a brief analysis of Johannesburg’s current Growth and Development Strategy (GDS) exploring the extent to which the GDS has successfully accommodated uncertainty. We conclude with recommendations on how a new or revised GDS may better respond to uncertainty. Our approach to this study is broadly informed by a key insight offered by Peter Drucker in his seminal piece, ‘Planning for Uncertainty’ published in The Wall Street Journal in 1992. Drucker asked the question “What must we do––in fact, what must we become––if we are to successfully navigate the treacherous waters of unpredictability?” He argues, with reference to corporate planning but with relevance to public sector planning, that traditional approaches to dealing with uncertainty are not helpful: Uncertainty––in the economy, society, politics––has become so great as to render futile, if not counterproductive, the kind of planning most companies still practice: forecasting based on probabilities. (Drucker 1992) Drucker suggests an alternative approach to thinking about the future. Instead of asking “what is most likely to happen?" planning for uncertainty asks, instead, “what has already happened that will create the future?” This is the approach we take below in outlining dimensions of uncertainty. Our analysis is not futuristic and speculative but rather asks what the existing or emergent trends, and identified risks, are and what this may mean for the future. The reality, of course, is that the future is thoroughly unpredictable and we can only present these dimensions as illustrative of the scope of uncertainty and not as the basis of any form of projection. More important, appreciating these sorts of uncertainties, is how we can proceed with non-predictive forms of planning. A critical question that will address further in the text is whether our planning should focus only on adapting to uncertainty, or whether it should actively seek to shape the nature of the uncertainty. We do not assume that uncertainty is necessarily negative. In the corporate literature, at least, there is a strong recognition that uncertainty brings opportunity. This is arguably also the case in planning for the future of large and complex cities. Kaplan (2008) writes that, with uncertainty “often the basic meaning of a situation is up for grabs”. With uncertainty comes the opportunity to rewrite scripts in more desirable ways. However, there are massive risks if trends are misread or ignored.