ISoCaRP 44 th International Planning Congress URBAN GROWTH - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

ISoCaRP

44th International Planning Congress URBAN GROWTH WITHOUT SPRAWL: A WAY TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE URBANIZATION Dalian, China, 19-23 September 2008

Urban competitiveness and sprawl as conflicting planning priorities: the Olympic legacy of Athens

Thanos Pagonis

Department of Geography - School of Social Sciences UNIVERSITY OF THE AEGEAN, GREECE Co-authors: Chorianopoulos I, Drymoniti S, Koukoulas S.

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

Aim of study and focus of research

• Investigating the relationship between ‘competitiveness’ and ‘sprawl’ as

potentially conflicting priorities of spatial planning and policy for large metropolitan areas. To what extent may the promotion of competitiveness related policies induce more sprawl?

• Placing the research question in the context of the Mediterranean city:

case study of Athens. How did the recent wave of public infrastructure investments related with the Olympics affect patterns of land development in the urban periphery?

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

Presentation Index

• Exploring the linkages between the debates on ‘competitiveness’

and ‘sprawl’

• filling the gaps between the economic and land use

approach to the framing of problems and formulation of urban policy

• Placing sprawl and competitiveness in the context of the

Mediterranean City: the case of Athens

• Sprawl as a structural element of Athenian urban development
• Competitiveness as a new stake for metropolitan planning
• Empirical research: Evolution of Messoghia plain into a hybrid

landscape

• Mapping land cover change in the period 1987-2003
• Does new growth constitute sprawl?
• Conclusions
• How did the Olympics affect sprawling patterns in Athens?
• What lessons can be drawn from the Athens case?

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

Linking the debates on ‘competitiveness’ and ‘sprawl’

• Urban competitiveness dominated the

agendas of planners and policy makers over last 2 decades (planning goals reorientation)

• It implies a shift from the political articulation of

the nationally determined priorities of domestic full employment and collective consumption (Goodwin and Painter 1996), to the ‘construction of territorial specificities’ aiming at enhancing the growth potential of the locality (Preteceille, 1997).

• Regulatory responses include:

1. supply-side actions, focusing on altering local administrative and economic characteristics 2. demand-oriented actions, striving to respond to the attributes which firms are seeking from a particular location in order to operate 3. image development and image enhancement strategies, aiming to differentiate a place from

• ther investment location choices
• Urban competitiveness strategies have been

adequately analyzed in terms of their social, political and economic implications at both the inter- and intra-city levels

• Building on this work, this paper explores their

impact on patterns of land-use change. It is argued that they generate a spatial restructuring dynamic with distinct implications on the urban form and functions.

• Sprawl is a classic theme of urban planning

theory with most research conducted in the US. Recent EU funded research projects (SCATTER, URBS PANDENS)

• Umbrella term with erratic significance: difficult to

define and surrounded by controversy regarding its features, causes and effects,

• Literature on sprawl is either focused solely on

mapping land use change, or rests heavily on its negative effects, paying less attention to the causes of growth in suburban and ex-urban areas – Need for more sophisticated analysis through in depth case study research

• Land use planning can offer solutions to

sustainable urban development through ‘smart growth’ strategies, consisting of land-use controls sensitive to the issues of housing diversity, traffic congestion and environmental degradation

• However, its capacity to influence urban

expansion presupposes that policy objectives reflect primarily growth-control considerations. The increased weight of competitiveness-related priorities unsettles this prioritization.

• In the case of cities with underdeveloped land-use

planning structures, the re-prioritization of planning goals towards the development target, is risking unordered expansion.

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

The particular context of the ‘Mediterranean city’: Athens

• Spontaneous (piecemeal) urban

development driven by self promoted housing strategies became the main vehicle of socioeconomic integration

• f internal rural migrants
• Urban growth was determined by a

dual housing market operating parallel in the urban core and the urban fringe

• Sprawl thus can be seen as a

structural characteristic in the way the city developed and the role of planning was reduced to a posteriori legitimization of already formed urban realities

• Ongoing debate exploring the distinct development path of Southern European

cities, compared to the industrialized European North

• Relatively less gravity of industrial employment as the driving force of

urbanization, (importance of push rather than pull factors, rural exodus)

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens Link between informal and formal urban development processes

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

• Urban fabric: the city as outcome of aggregate individual housing

strategies (density, mixed use, high degree of home ownership, lack of open spaces)

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

Phases of urban sprawl in Athens

• arrival of large refugee numbers from

Minor Asia (1922), storming areas surrounding the existing urban nuclei,

• post war growth (1950s-1970s), driven

by internal rural migrants settling in the western part of the conurbation. Parallel processes of densification and expansion

• 1980’s-1990’s: suburbanization driven

by intra-urban population escaping a polluted and increasingly congested city (middle class suburbs in north east)

• 2000’s: Continued middle class exodus

combined with filtering of immigrants in centre, expansion of borders of metropolitan area enhanced by new infrastructure developments, emergence of a new commodified housing market

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

Athens and urban competitiveness

• The enhancement of the

importance of Athens as a regional European metropolis emerged as a new stake for metropolitan planning in relation to hosting the 2004 Olympics

• Allocation of significant funds
• Projects classified in 2 categories:

1. Reducing peripheriality (transport and telecom infrastructure) 2. Improving attractiveness of the urban area and capacity to act as a year round venue for tourism (renewal and Olympic venues)

• Significant redirection of official

spatial planning policy for Athens from environmental protection to promotion of economic development (reflected in updating

• f Athens Regulatory Master Plan)

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens Competitiveness related planning projects aiming at image and functional improvements

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

The study area: The Messoghia plain

• Part of AMA regulated by the

Athens Regulatory Master Plan

• Large territorial asset of

strategic importance for the metropolitan area

• It escaped urbanization

because of physical barriers (Hymettus mountain) and retained its agricultural character until early 1980’s

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

Evolution of Messoghia into a hybrid landscape

• Area lacks a major pole of

economic development (scattered small towns and seaside settlements)

• Accessibility patterns entirely

transformed after construction of new international airport and assorted infrastructure

• Construction of two Olympic

venues at the expense of agricultural land

• Airport acts as pole or tertiary

activities which attract permanent residents, tendency of transformation of secondary homes into primary ones

• Building construction activity

attracts immigrant labour

• Presently the most rapidly

growing area in Attica region

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

Mapping land cover change in Messoghia

• Comparison of two Landsat TM 5

satellite images (June 1987 and May 2003)

• Merging of 7 land cover classes

(Corine) into 2 large categories of urban and non urban land uses

• Observed landscape change

from a rural towards an increasingly suburban/urban character

100 322.3 Total 81 261.1 Unchanged non-urban uses 7 22.8 Unchanged urban uses 12 38.4 Non urban uses to urban uses (%) (km2) Type of land use change

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• 3 main patterns of land

use change: 1. Linear development along major road axes

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2. Scattered urban expansion of seashore second home towns

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3. Emergence of new nuclei or urban uses

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

Does new growth in Messoghia constitute sprawl?

• The construction of major

infrastructure projects, which attract tertiary activities and new housing, contradict stated goals of the Athens Master Plan for the area

• These goals were reviewed in the

name of enhancing the competitiveness of the metropolitan area, however this was not followed by corresponding smart growth policies for sustainable urban development

• As a result growth materialized in

undesired urban forms and led to the loss of agricultural land. This unplanned urban expansion constitutes sprawl.

• The belated planning response of a

UDC zone (2003) has to practically adapt to new developments with limited potential to influence them

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

How did the aspect of competitiveness affect the urban development model of the Mediterranean city?

• The role of land use planning remains week with limited ability to affect

urban development patterns.

• Its shortcomings (latent response, difficulty of implementation,

administrative fragmentation) are even more apparent now in the context

• f the larger scale of interactions and the new dynamics of housing

market.

• Competitiveness related policies were formulated from a regional

development perspective, funded through the Structural Funds and implemented by ad hoc agencies, bypassing spatial planning, which was

• riented elsewhere. They were never translated into coherent spatial

policy.

• Their main focus was to accommodate the pressing needs of the Olympic

games rather than ensure long term sustainable spatial development. As a result their spatial restructuring dynamic was not exploited and they ended up pushing more sprawl

• This gap between the emerging articulation of a metropolitan structure and

local sustainable urban growth remains to be bridged in Athens

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Urban Competitiveness and Sprawl: the Olympic legacy of Athens

Reflecting on the relationship between competitiveness and sprawl

Need for more in depth case study research linking economic and spatial perspectives to problems of metropolitan areas:

• Approaching the impact of sprawl cannot be distinguished from the causes
• f urban dispersal and their motivating factors
• The promotion of competitiveness-related spatial policies is an

internationally-oriented and place-focused activity Competitiveness depends on regulatory planning:

• The case of urban sprawl in Messoghia underscores the critical role of

regulatory land-use planning structures in accommodating the pressures deriving from the pursuit of urban competitiveness.

• In the absence of policies geared towards social and environmental goals,

the very success of competitiveness-related actions mortgages future growth prospects.

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