Open Days - 9 th European Week of Regions and Cities Smart Growth as a Reformation of Urban and Regional Policy (Evidence from the US) James W. Scott University.

Open Days - 9th European Week of Regions and Cities

Smart Growth as a Reformation of Urban and Regional Policy (Evidence from the US)

James W. ScottUniversity of Eastern [email protected]

Objectives

•Understand how social agendas and sustainable urban development are being supported under complex political and economic conditions

•“De-code” urban reform in terms of a politics of space (political cultures, value systems, political-economic formations and planning traditions).

•Develop alternatives/complements to pre-defined “grand theory”

Smart Growth as Incrementalist Urban Regeneration..•Piecing together of a more equitable agenda of sustainable development by working within and influencing market logics

•Developing a greater democratic self-consciousness in regard to urban life and the appropriation of urban spaces

•SG aims to change rules that define urban development logics and markets

•Aims to develop a forum for local social policies

Practices: Smart Growth,“Rule Changing” and Coalitions (US case)•Regional visioning processes•Transit Oriented Development (TOD)•Collaborative policy development•Regionalism through fund-sharing and federal-local partnerships

•State government as policy advocate •Public-private-partnerships, intense private sector involvement

•Civil Society Involvement

Portland and Smart Growth

•New concept of centrality

•Higher density activity zones in suburban areas

•Public-transit oriented growth

•Preservation of open space

•A mix of uses and living options in urban regions

Affordable Neighbourhoods in Seattle

Mixed Housing Options through ‘Value Capture’

SG is Contested, Controversial

•On the right: “Public-choice” conservatives, libertarians and others see SG as an assault on basic American values and democracy (creeping socialism)

•On the left: SG is elitist and discriminatory movement that can be exposed as false reform: it raises housing prices for low-income groups, gentrifies core areas and excludes the underprivileged

More Positively:

•A learning process is taking place; rules are changing with regard to zoning, regional planning, need for co-operation

•Changes in values also evident that are bringing social issues in to urban regeneration

•BUT a national urban agenda is needed that supports Smart Growth regionally

•Social equity requires intergovernmental solutions