Urbanism: How does political governance create urban change?

Urbanism: How does political governance create urban change?  is the thirteenth article assessing the dialectic of architecture and urban design in the urbanism field. I will go through this relationship from the top scale of urbanism in the city to the smallest scale of urbanism components of urban space.

In this article, I will discuss and analyze different political governance orientations and their tendency for urban change. Urbanism is one side of the coin, and the other is the human and his interaction with his surroundings physical and non-physical affected by the political governance and orientations of the city officials where he lives.

Political governance and urban change are interrelated activities in any political structure of a city. Political governance is generated within any political body structure regardless of the political orientation whether it is labor, democratic, green, capitalist, communist, and others. Urban change is any transformation related to society in a city that affects their way of life and concerns the related political body in the city.

Now, what does political governance do?

Political governance is the criteria and rule that gauge and determine the appropriate action related to a critical matter in the society. What political governance does is regulate, guide, resolve, implement, and change any movement within the city and country that concerns the political body and government.

Political governance regulates people’s movement. This movement is related to tourism, work, immigration, and education. Tourism is one of the major country sources of income, political governance regulates the type of tourism visa, duration of stay, and type of conversion to other types of visas. Work is also a source of attracting talented manpower for many developed countries in the world. Work visas for foreigners are regulated into several types, and duration of stay and pay scale are specified sometimes. People move to other locations of the world seeking a better quality of living than in immigration. Every country issue governance related to immigration type like for writers, scientists, teachers, and others. Students plan to pursue higher education and think of studying undergraduate abroad. Countries like the USA have a system of governance related to education in their country.

Money movement is a major concern of any government in the world. Political governance is issued to define the type of tax to be paid to the government for different activities in a country. Families plan to take loans to start a business, build a home, arrange for their son’s marriage, and so on and that is regulated by the country when it is coming from public funds. Funds are regulated by political governance when it is targeted for development or large-scale business-like banks and finance companies. When people are unemployed, they receive financial support from the social network of the government. Capital can move from other countries when there is a good and healthy ground for investment through international investment programs. Political governance regulates this type of money movement in France to invest for obtaining the nationality you need to invest more than 6 million euros.

An international agreement was signed between European countries to regulate trade between these countries. Political governance regulates trade movement between countries, what types of goods are allowed to enter, and what types of goods are allowed to be exported. Businesses operating in the country whether they are local or regional are not exempt from fines. For example, people employed in a business should follow residency rules otherwise if they are broken the business gets fined. Governance covers many types of fines for all types of businesses operating in the countries. Business moves from place to place following either the cycle of investment or potential growth in any country in the world. Here the governance covers various aspects of opening a regional office and its related requirements for operations like staff, money, location, and others.

Developing countries’ political systems are always concerned with the development movement. Related to that tool of development urban regeneration, gentrification, intensification, and direct development. Political governance determines the location of development where deprived, or new development is to start. Adding to that the size and amount of development are specified by political governance as temporary or permanent due to its direct connection to market conditions and availability of stocks and protecting stock prices from decline. Defining the specific time for development is also related to political governance and in conjunction with private sector studies about the market and the proper time to start development in the general case. Here I have shown the many ways that political governance affects and creates urban change not necessarily physical but economic or social.

Political governance guide on how the management of organizations in the private sector. It provides a way for collective actions to be conducted regarding many societal problems that need collective choices. Political governance sets out the accountability of actors when building governance and setting goals and implementations. It defines the collective actions related to for example paying pensions, development of infrastructure, and providing healthcare for certain sectors of society and more. Political governance distinguishes the need for proper decision-making about the related governance issued. This guidance controls how to create urban change.

Creating a political governance include the involvement of many actors, from the public sector and private sector. The political organizational structure is involved in the creation of political governance. The government procedure of issuing governance is to collect feedback and coordinate its creation before it is distributed for action. Before the distribution, the public is involved in providing their feedback. A green paper is reserved for that purpose. After its publication for action feedback is collected through coordination to stand on its efficiency in achieving its goals. Political governance is issued to resolve problems like the retirement age. In France, the retirement age was discussed within the public, and private sectors to be raised to 65 years rather than 60 years. The problem of an insufficient workforce in many sectors like education led to this movement. To implement political governance many factors are considered within its application. The level of involvement and the type of actors and their expertise and knowledge affect its realization. What is the process and procedure to evaluate the implementation? And what actors are included to participate in the exploration of its application and collecting feedback?  In many cases, problems arise within the application and implementation of the political governance for defining the actorsand the way negotiating is to be applied is a major concern. Within the structure and hierarchy of the political organization involved in the creation of the political governance implementation face the problem of authority and who holds the power to decide when required. To create urban change actors within the implementation of political governance they hold the responsibility of proper negotiation, evaluation, exploration, and practicing power for the government and society interest.

Political governance is issued within a certain procedure. In developed countries, the process includes collecting feedback from inside the constitution and outside. The public at all levels regardless educated or not are involved directly or indirectly through representatives in the process of creating the governance. In the Western world, it is called the consultation and it’s the green paper that is issued to cover this matter. The governance after this consultation is subject to change and alteration to serve its purpose. Adding to that the political governance issued to target specific change. For example, the way a development plan is built, at which level in the political structure a plan is to be built and to be presented for approval like the unitary plan. Developed countries witnessed various changes in who builds the development plan and at which level for the previous century. Like in the UK, development plans in the previous century did not achieve their expected goals, and outcomes. Therefore, the structure of building the plans changed several times since the First World War. Changing the way and the structure of developing a unitary or local plan will create urban change.

What do researchers, academics, and practitioners say about urbanism:  political governance, and the creation of urban change?

Bollens¹  said political governance affects a wide range of city change and transformation in terms of social, economic, and physical form that is through the response to certain groups of society within the political change to deliver acceptable change. The new political orientation and the need to develop the city aligned with the new political governance include economic development and human rights.

Blanco²  said the counterattack on austerity urbanism after the crisis of 2008 created a social tendency towards taking over the government by social movements, changing the political leadership of neoliberalism and their defects in urban change, and rescaling the political strategy of change.

McCann³  It is impossible to discuss policy mobility, policymaking, governance, or the character of urbanism without positioning considerations of power and the political at the heart of the analysis.

Chorianopoulos⁴ said within his research, political governance is targeted to solve social problems in the examination focuses on key social policy programs launched recently by the City in an attempt to ameliorate extreme poverty and social despair.

Harvey⁵ his research focuses on entrepreneurial urbanism and in which manner it led to the restructure of the social, and economic governance. He points to the interrelationship between the urbanization process and capitalist social relations and accumulation based on three claims: First, public–private partnership working alongside local government was to boost local economies. Second, the private sector took the lead in the partnership, and they were innovative in design and delivery. Third, entrepreneurial urbanism changed focus from territory to place focusing on civil projects.

Sýkora⁶ discusses the failures of the neoliberalism political approach in building governance and how it created massive market failures and crises. whereas neoliberal ideology implies that self–regulating markets will generate an optimal allocation of investments and resources (what neoliberal was intended to do but the results were negative.

Magnusson⁷ in his book shows various important factors in the relation between political governance and urbanism. He shows that politics is centered on everyday life, not state. Politics creates many problems including poverty, injustice, waste, and violence. He found that changing the venue of political governance from state to everyday life has not created any difference. Since the state is sovereign what counts as political is under the state power such as governments and elections, power and authority, ideologies and social movements, interests, and identities. In creating political governance what happens in the political environment is determined by: economic interests, cultural or national loyalties, religious commitments, and the usual array of human concerns that are beneath the level of statesmanship. The effect of political governance in a city makes things happen in various patterns. And that changes continuously and cannot be predicted by global change or local change. Patterns of change can be traced, and signs of change can be monitored. To sum up regardless of the connection between political governance and urbanism and the venue of everyday day life politics is still practiced in the same way and under the same factors of change in the economy, environment, social interest, ideologies, and so on.

Returning to my article concern about the intervention of architecture and urban design. political governance does create urban change. Architects are concerned and should participate directly in any venue, summit, and symposium that discusses the city, town, and our physical environment problems and how they should be changed through the initiation of a new political governance or changing the existing one. Architects to focus on what are the obstacles to realizing their architectural design of buildings within the city, what should be changed, how can public actors and the private sector participate in facilitating building realization approvals, what restrictions should be removed as rules in practice or enhanced, and how can private and public sector bring equity in distributing projects to all architectural business in operation in the city.

Urban designers are concerned about the process of building the local plans by the urban planners and related disciplines like geographers, economists, engineers, transport planners, historians, and others. What are the major concerns of urban designers in the political governance that dictate the creation of the local plan and what should be changed and enhanced? What are the unseen parts of the city that need direct attention like the urban space decline, the destruction of green space and nature, the distorted character of a place and cultural context, the effect of the building forms on the urban fabric and its daily use and comfort, how is the city transport network performing and if any enhancement is required, and how can we bring life to the city by proper distribution of economic activities that fit the context of the city and gives it the continuity and prevent decline.

Political governance has created one of the most innovative urban developments in the world SILICON VALLEY in the USA. The development was the cause of many innovations that were affecting human life and still to date like the personal computer, the GPS, smartphones, online search engines, and others see Figure 2.

An exact copy has been planned, designed, and built in the Middle East region blindly that did not contribute to anything. This Urban development was based on chaos, unnatural and unplanned urban growth, a misconception of the idea of Silicon Valley, and the absence of proper political governance or urban policy. Political governance can create urban change that fits the city’s urban growth and responds to the society’s needs.   

References:

1. Bollens, S.A. (2008) ‘Urbanism, political uncertainty and democratization’, Urban Studies, 45(5–6), pp. 1255–1289. doi:10.1177/0042098008089868.
2. Blanco, I., Salazar, Y. and Bianchi, I. (2019) ‘Urban governance and political change under a radical left government: The case of Barcelona’, Journal of Urban Affairs, 42(1), pp. 18–38. doi:10.1080/07352166.2018.1559648.
3. McCann, E. (2017) ‘Mobilities, politics, and the future: Critical geographies of green urbanism’, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 49(8), pp. 1816–1823. doi:10.1177/0308518×17708876.
4. Chorianopoulos, I. and Tselepi, N. (2017) ‘Austerity urbanism: Rescaling and collaborative governance policies in Athens’, European Urban and Regional Studies, 26(1), pp. 80–96. doi:10.1177/0969776417733309.
5. Harvey, D. (1989). From Managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The Transformation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism. Geografiska Annaler Series B, Human Geography, 71(1), 3–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/04353684.1989.11879583
6. Sýkora, L. (2009). Post-Socialist cities. In Elsevier eBooks (pp. 387–395). https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-008044910-4.01072-5
7. Magnusson, W. (2011). Politics of Urbanism: Seeing like a city. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BB07107717