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Learning to think big about sustainable urban planning and development

Ulrich Graute • Oct 12, 2022

Contribution to a discussion not even launched

On my rail trips back from the highly inspiring World Urban Forum WUF11 in Katowice in June 2022 and now from the as interesting ISOCARP World Planning Congress in Brussels I was full unrest. On the one hand, I recalled with joy several days of immersion of high quality and thought-provoking lectures, discussions, site visits and plenty of occasions for socializing and even dancing. On the other hand, I had the feeling that something important may be missing in the world of research, planning and advocacy for sustainable urban development.

 

Being in my office again, I reflected on my unrest again and formulated the following thesis:

Over the last thirty years sustainable urban planning, related academic research and advocacy got stuck or even trapped in a world of small-scale projects while in the same period the challenges for sustainable development and climate resilience gained increasingly speed and force. Now it seems that there is a widening gap between global and interrelated crises and the established pattern of the sustainable and integrated planning community.


Based on the above, the guiding question of this post is:

Are the planning and local governance community, related research and advocacy doing too little too late? I also ask how the friends of sustainability in the planning community can grow up to the challenge and learn how to think big in a way that planning remains inclusive, integrated and leaves no one behind while it responds at the same time fast enough and forceful enough so that cities can contribute their due part to remove humanity from the verge of a planetary socio-ecological collapse. Yes, this may sound like squaring the circle but that could be exactly what our present time is requiring.


The author attending the 58th ISOCARP World Planning Congress

An unhealthy pattern in the current dialogue on urban policy and planning

Looking back at the recent WUF11, national conferences and the ISOCARP Congress it appeared to me that most sessions I attended followed a certain pattern. One part of the pattern consists of references to global development goals and to current multiple crises including the Covid19 pandemic, climate change, wars in Ukraine, Tigray and elsewhere in the world, increasing economic, social inequality and the triggering of new environmental disasters which brought humanity to the verge of a planetary socio-ecological collapse. Dramatic as these references to systemic challenge are they were usually followed in the second part of the pattern by a swift zooming-in on selected subjects and projects at the local or even at the level of a neighborhood or a single public place. Sometimes they were further broken down by a focus on a sector of planning, a stakeholder group and planning methodology. Identifying solutions for sustainable, inclusive future at this level is valuable but at the end only the specified project is discussed without zooming back to the crises. Thus, the link to the big challenges which was so important to be mentioned at the beginning as reference got lost.

 

A narrative which begins with systemic challenge, zooms down to case studies but doesn’t return to their relevance for the systemic challenge is incomplete. Since I recognized this pattern at several events I started wondering if there is a more general and possibly unhealthy pattern in sustainable urban policy and planning in front of a background of fast and forcefully developing crises.



Thinking big and small about urban policy and development

‘Thinking big’ in urban and regional planning has a long tradition in Europe and beyond. The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century generated a huge demand for land, resources and workers for fast-growing industries. And fast-growing industries, railway systems and cities called for adequate urban, regional and national spatial planning. Consequently, thinking big and at larger scales was necessary and common in planning to grow up to the dynamic challenges of the times, but the thinking big also had its downsides.

 

For instance: The famous Charter of Athens, adopted in 1933 by leading architects and planners recommended that ‘Full use should be made of modern building techniques in constructing highrise apartments. Highrise apartments placed at wide distances apart liberate ground for large open spaces.’ Or ‘Transportation routes should be classified according to their nature, and be designed to meet the requirements and speeds of specific types of vehicles.’ Giving preference to high-rise apartments with large open spaces around them and following the requirements and speed of vehicles (not of people!) revolutionized urban planning but the focus was on function, not on people. It’s obvious that the Charter was produced in response to the fast and often badly planned growth of cities during Industrial Revolution. The Charter helped to modernize cities but it also generated negative side effects for neighborhoods, local communities and indirectly for entire societies. Planners like Robert Moses, large scale social housing projects in the USA, the car-friendly cities e.g. in Germany or the Unités d’Habitation of Le Corbusier are just a few examples of the excesses of modernist architecture and town planning.

 

Because of the above it’s for good reason that urban planners became increasingly sceptical towards large scale planning and turned towards more integrated, people-centred and inclusive planning approaches.



Complementary between local and global development policies

It further seems that the new orientation in urban planning was complementary to a development at the international level: the emergence of international environmental and urban policies in the 1990s. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 3-14 June 1992. On the website of the UN it still says that the Earth Summit generated ‘A new blueprint for international action on the environment’ [1]. Certainly, that was not a blueprint like a Master Plan or a ready to implement strategy indicating specific objectives, resources, actions, timelines, responsibilities and accountabilities. Instead, the 'new blueprint' was a new pattern consisting of agreed general goals which are then left to the member states for voluntary implementation. Innovative was the pattern in 1992 by introducing e.g. the Local Agenda 21 (LA21) as a voluntary process of local community consultation with the aim to create local policies and programs that work towards achieving sustainable development. More than 5000 LA21 initiatives have been launched around the world. Only a few exist until today. Others were transformed into other activities and many just run dry after a few years.


At the time, it was a big achievement to agree on a common universal policy for sustainable development and to focus on voluntarism and national and local action to implement it. Everybody was a winner:

  • Local stakeholders were encouraged to take initiative and engage in sustainable development.
  • National Governments preserved their sovereignty and kept control on what happens within national jurisdiction.
  • The UN was obstetricians of a new future-oriented policy for sustainable development and gained the mandate to monitor implementation and (on demand by member states) to actively support the implementation within countries.
  • Nature was also a winner in the sense that humanity seemed to understand its responsibility to conserve creation.

 

Unfortunately, due to the voluntarism on the side of all stakeholders the goals agreed in Rio were never linked to a clear implementation strategy including an accountability mechanism. Instead, there seemed to be the hope or even confidence that the many small and decentralized actions would somehow sum up to the big transformation needed. As if there would be an ‘invisible hand of sustainability’ that could substitute clear responsibilities and an accountability mechanism. Later this pattern was basically reconfirmed at the UN Conference Rio+20 in 2012, the UN Summit adopting the Agenda 2030 in 2016 and UN Conferences Habitat II and III in 1996 and 2016.

 

Now thirty years after the first Rio Conference the pattern still provides the guidance and at the same time plenty of freedom to local and national governments, the EU, G7, UN and professional organizations like ISOCARP. Apart from moral obligations, every stakeholder is free to set own priorities for implementation while using the global challenges as reference frame justifying selected actions.

 

That went well for a while but now in 2022 the pattern is unhealthy. Why? Climate change and other crises gained a lot speed and force while the stakeholders still follow their own priorities and interests:

 

  • The UN clearly points to the delays in the achievement of Agenda 2030/SDG and climate goals of the Paris Agreement but because of the own limited mandate the UN bewares of telling member states in detail what they need to do.
  • G7 is holding in 2022 its first ever ministerial meeting on urban planning in 2022. That’s good but 30 years after Rio to not agree on much more than having in 2022 a first meeting and then a follow-up meeting in 2023 is not very impressive.
  • The EU has many programmes and initiatives aiming at sustainability and urban development but they depend not so much on goals but on the budget provided. For example, 100 cities are participating now in ‘EU Missions’, a new instrument of the European Commission aiming at 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030. The budget is limited to 360 Mio. EUR. That sounds a lot but it allows mostly smaller-scale projects to be implemented and …. yes, it also ignores that there are far more than 100 cities in Europe which need to achieve the same goal. [2]
  • National governments have their own plans but they compete with demand due to the crises. E.g. just this month the German government set up a multi billion Euros programme for the energy sector, but the money is allocated to limit the increase of gas prices and to prevent negative ripple effect for the economy. Certainly, the money will be missing when it comes to needed energy transition. And that urban planning didn't contribute earlier to energy transition through planning doesn't make the current situation easier.
  • There are a few champion cities like Paris but most cities are still reluctant to take major actions. Thirty years after Rio not a single one of the large cities is carbon free or sustainable. Cities like Brussels and regions like Flanders want to be climate neutral by 2050 but from looking at the small-scale local projects presented at the ISOCARP Congress you cannot tell what climate neutrality means in practice for a region with an economy driven by an international port like Antwerp and an international Airport like the one of Brussels. It could re-shore part of the industrial production which was lost years ago but they still would need the raw materials from abroad. So, it's still a black box what a circular economy in a region like Flandres can look like. [3] 


[1] https://www.un.org/en/conferences/environment/rio1992

[2] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_2591

[3] https://vlaanderen-circulair.be/en



What should be done?

Learning to think big about sustainable urban policy, planning and development

Some institutional representatives may get nervous if I add critical remarks to the above list of activities but to be clear: I really appreciate that all related stakeholders do what they do. It is important. My only concern is that it is too little and too late to achieve the agreed goals in an environment where crises gain speed and force on a daily base. The unhealthy pattern needs and, I think, it can be repaired by not only deriving the relevance of own activities from the global crises environment but also by specifying how the own activities contribute to overcoming problems and, if that shouldn’t be possible, to state clearly what is necessary by whom and when to achieve common goals. In the following I point to some possible actions which should be further discussed.

 

In times of interrelated crises, fake news and populism it is increasingly difficult for the general public and for experts to get well informed and to build and maintain trust. Therefore, truthfulness is indispensable for public dialogue and cooperation. If we are at the verge of a planetary socio-ecological collapse this needs to be admitted and own actions should be described in relation to challenges ahead. Cities, researchers and planners can be proud on small steps and small projects as much as on big initiatives but it doesn’t help to pretend that the small steps taken will solve the big problems.

 

There are several ways to learn thinking big while leaving no one behind and they include these steps:

 

1.    Visioning: big challenges need a positive narrative and we still don't have that narrative for sustainable development. Such a narrative may include a blood sweat and tears appeal but it must include a positive vision of a sustainable future to inspire support and acceptance of efforts needed.

 

2.    Transferring and upscaling available knowledge and pilot projects: To benefit from the many studies and pilot projects on zero carbon and sustainable urban development it will be most important to add new guiding questions to studies and projects, including these:

a.    Assessment: Realistically, what is the direct and indirect contribution of a case study or pilot project to the achievement of citywide, regional, national and international goals?

b.    Transferability: Can and, if yes, how can the findings, results and impacts of a study or project be repeated elsewhere?

c.    Upscaling: What is needed at the local and other levels and what are indicators for measuring progress to replicate a local solution often enough to achieve citywide, regional, national and international impacts on goal achievement?

 

3.    Visualizing: Apart from some nice drawings in studies and project reports there is only a limited understanding on how a sustainable and zero carbon metropolitan city would really look like, it’s housing, businesses, transport infrastructure etc. What would change in the physical footprint of let’s say Berlin, Nairobi or Hongkong when they are transformed to sustainability and climate resilience cities. Are there any model 'Master Plans' for entire cities?  

 

4.    Strategising:  Many so-called strategies are just policies. Instead, a real strategy is not merely a policy but also a clear cut outline on how to achieve goals. It includes a plan and log frame covering objectives, necessary means, timelines, responsibilities and accountability to achieve long-term goals. Of course, it should include a review process to update a strategy but key is that not only policy goals but also the enabling environment and means of implementation become part of the strategy. Therefore, cities which want to achieve zero carbon by 2030 should be able to make now a strategic plan for actions in each of the remaining years.

 

5.    Capacity building: One of the most inspiring conclusions by Charles Landry at the ISOCARP Congress was that ‘The Soft is the Hard’. He said that we know many technical solutions for current problems (the 'hard') but we are lagging the right culture, attitude and mindset to launch the necessary transformation (the 'soft'). Therefore, participation, education and capacity building are a precondition to think big about sustainable urban development.

 

6.    Staying focused and supporting planning with an eye on the prize: It is important that the UN and other development organizations continue pointing to deficits and advocate goal achievement. It would help if these organizations not only would uphold the ultimate goals and provide collections of good practices, manuals and tool boxes. In addition, they should support strategising by providing guidance e.g. on how to use each year until 2030 to assure goal achievement.

 

7.    Politicizing planning: Citizens ask for participation but even more they may expect service delivery by public institutions including planning departments. The time left for goal achievement needs to be used carefully and planners who prefer waiting until they are called may waste precious time. At the ISOCARP Congress it was suggested (see annex below) that all urban planners, urban designers, architects, place-leaders and other urban and regional experts should creatively engage with communities and their local contexts searching for ways to co-create and collectively organize new modes of living and working. This may include politicizing planning in the sense that it asks planners to not only keep an eye on the prize but also to stand up for what is needed and possible to achieve goals.


Climate resilient and sustainable cities won't happen by chance through some invisible hand. They have to be build and it will need integrated, inclusive and participatory planning. Looking at the learning process city builders went through over the last two centuries of Industrial Revolution I am confident that urban planning can grow up also to current challenges without repeating the mistakes of the past.



Note: Please read also the attached ISOCARP Congress Declaration.


Annex: ISOCARP Congress Declarations



Aditional Info: Download File of the ISOCARP Congress Declaration

Policies and Governance for Resilient and Sustainable Cities and Regions

The Future of the United Nations and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

by Ulrich Graute • 08 May, 2024
The United Nations is preparing for its Summit of the Future and hopes for a Pact for the Future bring the SDG implementation and multilateralism back on Track as main outcome of the Summit scheduled for September of this year in New York. Can that become a success and bring multilateral cooperation and SDG goal achievement back on track? The UN describes 'Halfway through the 2030 Agenda, the world is not on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. It is not too late to change course, if we all rethink, refocus, and recharge. “UN 2.0” encapsulates the Secretary-General's vision of a modern UN family, rejuvenated by a forward-thinking culture and empowered by cutting-edge skills for the twenty-first century – to turbocharge our support to people and planet.'[1] The UN certainly will try but at the end progress will depend on the political will of member states and there is not much visible until now. On May 7, 2024 Parag Khanna, Founder & CEO of AlphaGeo, Strategic Advisor and Bestselling Author, published in Noema his paper The Coming Entropy Of Our World Order. He writes in his analysis: ‘Indeed, the most accurate description of today’s world is high entropy, in which energy is dissipating rapidly and even chaotically through the global system. In physics, entropy is embodied in the Second Law of Thermodynamics (pithily summed up in a Woody Allen film as: “Sooner or later, everything turns to shit”). Entropy denotes disorder and a lack of coherence.’ But for Khanna entropy is not anarchy. Instead, entropy ‘is a systemic property that manifests itself as a growing number of states and other actors seize the tools of power, whether military, financial or technological, and exercise agency within the system. There is still no consensus as to what to name the post-Cold War era, but its defining characteristic is clear: radical entropy at every level and in every domain of global life. How do we reconcile an increasingly fractured order with an increasingly planetary reality?’ It's worth reading the full paper where he welcomes the reader to the Global Middle Ages as a very complex geopolitical marketplace. He expects that what will matter much more than sovereignty, then, is capacity as measured by coherence, agency and resilience. States will no longer hold monopoly over the tools of physical violence. The future he envisages far more resembles the pre-Westphalian patterns of Hanseatic Leagues than ‘today’s Potemkin sovereign assemblies such as the United Nations’. According to him it is hard to find anybody who really cares for multilateralism. More visible is that every state fights for herself. Khanna also asks: 'If institutionalized orders such as the late 20th-century multilateral system tended to be established only after major wars, would an entropic drift into regional spheres of influence be preferable to a World War III among dueling hegemons? In this scenario, conflicts may flare from Ukraine to Taiwan, but they would be ring-fenced within their respective regions rather than becoming tripwires for global conflict. Regions that strive for greater self-sufficiency, such as North America and Europe today, could reduce the carbon intensity of their economies and trade, but potentially at the cost of undermining their interdependence with and leverage over other regions. Such is the double-edged nature of an entropic world. With no major power able to impose itself on the global system or able to reign in those transnational actors domiciled abroad or in the cloud, the future looks less like a collective of sovereign nations than a scattered tableau of regional fortresses, city-states and an archipelago of islands of stability connected through networks of mobile capital, technology and talent. To argue that there is some bedrock Western-led order underpinning the global system rather than crumbling inertia is tantamount to infinite regress'. Who considers Khanna a negativist should read also the end of his paper: 'Global entropy doesn’t solely imply fragmentation. To the contrary, the system exhibits characteristics of self-organization, even aggregation, into new patterns and formations. Highways, railways, electricity grids and airlines link cities in ways that form neo-Hanseatic networks and alliances, and the internet transcends borders to link self-governing social communities. The universal reach and penetration of connectivity enables authorities of all kinds to forge bonds effectively more real than the many states that exist more on maps than in their peoples’ reality. The world comes together — even as it falls apart.' I would like to read more on how the self-organization into new patterns and formations will work successfully and prevent the world from falling apart. For that we may have to wait for his next book. In the meantime, we should ask ourselves what we can do to get ready for the future. The Summit of the Future and UN 2.0 are unlikely to proof more than that the UN is not dead. Entangled in its old procedures and the current multi challenge environment it would be unrealistic to expect more. What could help as a starter is to develop and test new forms of Model UN, i.e. the simulation of how international cooperation can work in a world described by Parag Khanna. I would be interested. Back to the post on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/posts/graute_the-future-of-the-united-nations-and-the-activity-7194007832390750208-Brqe?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop Footnotes [1] https://www.un.org/two-zero/en [2] Link to Parag Khanna's full paper https://www.noemamag.com/the-coming-entropy-of-our-world-order/

Artificial Intelligence II - AI as co-pilot in urban and regional planning and international cooperation

by Ulrich Graute • 25 Apr, 2024
The KPMG Future Summit event on AI which I attended on 23 April 2023 [1] did not address directly urban and territorial planning or international cooperation in the field. I was listening to the online event while ironing my shirts (unfortunately, that’s not done by AI yet). What caught my attention was among others the statement by Miriam Kugel, Director of People Science Advisory for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Microsoft. She said that AI will be in future like our co-pilot. While many admin tasks will be taken over by AI more managerial oversight by managers will be needed. Just imagine all the rules and regulations that have to be consider in planning a city can be considered and factored in by AI. It still will need the planners to identify the best proposals and recommend them to politicians for decision-making. Chris Chiancone, Chief Information Officer at the City of Carralton suggests regarding the use of AI in planning to ‘Picture a tool that can absorb data about a city's current layout, population density, infrastructure, and other factors, and then generate a model of how the city could be restructured to optimize certain objectives.’ Chris Chiancone writes in his paper of 20 June 2023 ‘Revolutionizing Urban Planning with Generative AI: A new Era of Smart Cities’ [2] : “At its heart, Generative AI is a type of machine learning that crafts new data instances reflecting its training set. Picture a master artist who, rather than simply duplicating a scene, employs their creativity to produce unique, lifelike outputs from a given input. That's the magic of Generative AI, but in the realm of data. It's the digital world's virtuoso, wielding algorithms and computational power instead of brushes and pigments”. For Chiancone Generative AI brings a unique fusion of creativity and efficiency to urban planning. It's akin to having a supercharged assistant that can process numbers, analyze data, generate models, and make predictions at a pace and scale that humans simply can't compete with. All of this is done with the aim of creating more efficient, habitable, and sustainable cities. According to Chiancone Generative AI is a tool that's not just revolutionizing urban planning, but also holds the potential to significantly enhance the quality of life in our urban habitats. And that ‘supercharged assistant’ corresponds to Miriam Kugels ‘co-pilot’. In spite of all creativity, Chiancone and Kugel understand AI as supportive tools (assistant or co-pilot) and that it needs data strategies, AI governance and capacity building to keep the pilot on track to intended goals. Scenario planning could be one of the big beneficiaries of AI. The planner as pilot of the planning process can modify the scenario setting and ask AI to develop the best scenario accordingly. This way, planners and decision-makers can better test out different options before taking a decision. Now let’s think ahead a bit further. If AI can support scenario planning AI can also support the inter-sectoral and multi-level coordination of planning process which are often loaded with conflicting interests. AI could extend the scenario planning and apply a Large Language Model to include also all policies, laws and regulations of other relevant policy fields, policy levels plus the rights of citizens and property owners affected by a plan. By combining and comparing all these data AI could either identify win-win situations or generate proposals to bridge conflicting positions. It still will need the planning process and the decision-making but AI could support this process significantly by assuring that all relevant policies, rules and regulations are taken into account. And if new challenges and opportunities emerge, they can be included to proposed scenarios without much delay. And planners assisted by their ‘co-pilot’ might become even more reliable and appreciated authorities in the planning process. [1] https://kpmg.com/de/de/home/events/uebersicht/kpmg-zukunftsgipfel.html [2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/revolutionizing-urban-planning-generative-ai-new-era-smart-chiancone/ AI and the interrelated web of sustainable development goals Since 2012 I am working on the post 2015 development agenda of the United Nations which is since 2015 called 2030 Agenda and it includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 targets. The Agenda is currently off-track but what puzzles me since its launch is how to we can keep track of the fact that goals and targets are an interrelated web. Progress on one goal or target may imply regression on others. How can a zero-sum game or an overall regression be prevented? Here too, AI offers opportunities. The Human Settlements Programme of the United Nations (UN-Habitat) launched in 2022 its report “AI and Cities” [3] . This first more comprehensive review of the relation between AI, cities and urban planning includes among others the recommendation to align AI strategies with SDGs and National and Local Goals (UN-Habitat 2022 AI and Cities, page 100). [3] https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2022/10/artificial_intelligence_and_cities_risks_applications_and_governance.pdf

Artificial Intelligence I - Travelling with a rocket still under construction - AI as a promising but also scary change-maker

by Ulrich Graute • 25 Apr, 2024
AI is to be understood as a combination of hardware, software and (this is new!) learning. If you have a virus software on your computer a virus scanner may identify and remove the virus. Now imagine, your virus would be AI enhanced and able to learn and modify itself. Virus scanners may not be able to identify self-modifying viruses and the virus could keep learning, remain undetected and increase damage without limits. That’s scary and that’s why data strategies and AI governance by governments, providers and users is necessary. Would a world without AI be a better place? As an expert in international cooperation, urban and regional development I am sceptic. We’re living in times of multiple and often interrelated and interdependent crises. There is an international system of multi-level and multilateral rule-based cooperation and this system generates complex programmes like the UN 2030 Agenda with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 168 targets. In spite of such programmes and centuries of experience in diplomacy the human system is not able (yet) to prevent war, mitigate climate change, remove high inequality and assure a sustainable development which leave no one behind. Our governments, societies and we as individuals are experienced in solving single issue problems but the current complexity is growing, already now overwhelming and our capacities are slow in growing up to the many challenges. In this situation (a well governed and strategised) artificial intelligence which helps us to understand complexity and to identify solutions for our challenges could be the change-maker we need.

UN Classics: IGUTP - International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning by UN-Habitat

by Ulrich Graute • 28 Mar, 2024
The need for planning cannot be over-emphasized. Urbanization is progressing rapidly and by 2050, seven out of ten people will be living in cities. Inappropriate policies, plans, and designs have led to the inadequate spatial distribution of people and activities, resulting in the proliferation of slums, congestion, poor access to basic services, environmental degradation, and social inequity and segregation. The International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning (launched by the Governing Council of UN-Habitat in 2015) serve both as a source of inspiration and a compass for decision makers and urban professionals when reviewing urban and territorial planning systems. The Guidelines provide national governments, local authorities, civil society organizations and planning professionals with a global reference framework that promotes more compact, socially inclusive, better integrated and connected cities and territories that foster sustainable urban development and are resilient to climate change. They have been downloaded from the website of UN-Habitat more than 100.000 times during the first years after its publication. You can find it following this link in eleven different languages: https://unhabitat.org/international-guidelines-on-urban-and-territorial-planning The following picture shows the 12 key Principles which should drive Planning and refers to 114 recommendations made in the Guidelines.

2024 Conference Centrality in the Age of Dispersion

by Ulrich Graute • 21 Feb, 2024
Having a highly positive experience with the first edition of the International Conference Centrality in the Age of Dispersion in 2023, we are pleased to announce the second edition of this event! The conference will be held in Wroclaw on 25-27 September 2024. Human settlement have always developed around centres. Whether it is the ancient Greek polis or the 20th century neighbourhood, each has concentrated different human activities and formed a specific node in geographical space. Today, the natural mechanisms of concentration are being undermined by various dispersal processes of a multiscalar and temporal nature. The networked society, demographic transitions, the global economy, instant communication, teleworking, online services - among others - are challenging urban planning paradigms around the world. What is special about centrality and dispersion today? What is the current balance between centrality and dispersion in urban development? How does public governance respond to these complex phenomena? These are the main questions of the International Conference Centrality in the Age of Dispersion, organised by the Chair of Urban Planning and Spatial Management, Faculty of Architecture, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Wroclaw, Poland, 25-27 September 2024. The conference will address the demand for a new approach to territorial governance and will bring together experts from different scientific disciplines to present their research on urban centres and discuss dispersion phenomena. The attached flyer provides some basic information about the conference. You are invited to submit a paper for the conference, which may be considered for publication in 'Planning Practice and Research', 'Bulletin of Geography. Socio-Economic Series' and 'Architectus' journals. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 15.04.2024 23:59 CET. More information is available on the conference website: https://lnkd.in/eE67ibEB Please share this invitation with your colleagues and partners in both academia and policy-making. If you have any issues or questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at centrality-dispersion@pwr.edu.pl. We look forward to your contribution to our conference and hope to meet you in person in Wroclaw. Lukasz Damurski, associate professor Head of the Scientific Committee of the International Conference ‘Centrality in the Age of Dispersion’ Faculty of Architecture Wrocław University of Science and Technology Dr Ulrich Graute, Member of the Scientific Committee of the Conference and Chair of the Scientific Committee of ISOCARP - International Society of City and Regional Planners

Ulrich's CV in Pictures since the late 1970s

by Ulrich Graute • 26 Jan, 2024
Ulrich on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/feed/ and Ulrich's CV in pictures: https://www.ugraute.de/ulrich-s-cv-in-pictures-since-the-late-1970s

Engaged since a European Forum in 1979, turned Professional in 1989 and since 2014 Independent Consultant in support of International Cooperation and Peace

by Ulrich Graute • 25 Jan, 2024
WORK EXPERIENCE SINCE THE 1980s AND THEREOFF NOW 10 YEARS AS INTERNATIONAL CONSULTANT - AND EACH YEAR BRINGS NEW CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES On 3 January 2024 I found an automated message from LinkedIn congratulating me for being now ten years member of the network. On 31 December 2013 my employment contract as senior advisor at the UN Secretariat in New York run out after more than five years. Joining LinkedIn on 3 January 2024 was indeed my very first step into the world and life of an independent consultant. 10 Years as consultant means ten years of ups and downs on the market of consultancy contracts, moving from UNDESA in New York to work from Berlin e.g. for the mayor of Berlin, GIZ and Cities Alliance before moving to Nairobi to work for UN-Habitat and back to Berlin. The list of employers was already remarkable in 2014 but private clients with smaller or bigger assignments keep joining the list of clients and partners (see pictures): https://www.ugraute.de/https-www-ugraute-de-ulrich-cv-in-pictures-since-the-late-1970s 10 years as consultant means 10 years of constant learning, testing new approaches, tools and searching for new opportunities. I survived the difficult first five years (when most start-ups go out of business) because in January 2014 I had already 25 years of experience as professional. Please see my picture gallery for a visual impression: Clients usually don’t pay for my learning but, of course, before getting a new contract I always have to convince new clients that I am the best for the job and have all necessary qualifications. And imagine doing that in times of multiple crises and high dynamics like these days. I managed it so far and keep finding new clients because I learned right at the beginning of my career to be value drven while flexible and curious enough to face new challenges and embrace dynamics. My career was derailed right at the beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. I had finished university in Hamburg just months earlier and soon was sent from the West to Eastern Germany to help building up public administration and a learning center in the new Free State of Saxony after the peaceful revolution. There were no plans, manuals and tool boxes for the transformation of a political system and society with a collapsing economy. So, I was thrown into the water and supported the development of a new form of governance in a changing society at local and regional level. All this happened more or less in parallel to the preparation of the United Nations 'Earth Summit' in 1992. I didn’t attend it but it became clear to me that the development of governance and society need to be aligned with a sustainable development. Again, at the time there were no manuals and tool boxes but I already knew how to swim in unchartered waters. Working at the Leibniz Institute of Sustainable Urban and Regional Development in Dresden (Saxony, Germany, 1993-2002) I added a PhD to my path which otherwise remained driven by curiosity for cross disciplinary, cross-border and multilevel cooperation in a changing world. Working at the UN the UN core values of professionalism, integrity and respect of diversity became my own core values and remeined ever since. In addition, I always keep thinking that there have to be better solutions. My employers, partners, and friends since 1989 and my clients since 2014 appreciate this attitude and the related flexibility very much. There were difficult times like the Corona pandemic but to my own surprise demand for my work is growing ever since. But so are the challenges in times of crises. Inspite of challenges, ups and downs I like to be consultant carrying now professional experience along with me which I gained since the late 1970s. As consultant I may be team leader or member but I'm usually not the boss. That makes it easier to cooperate with others as colleagues, to share my knowledge and experience with changing teams in different countries. Each new contract and team provides me a treasure of new insights and experience. And my LinkedIn network? It reached 102 followers within the first year 2014. Now it gains 100+ new followers within a month and is inching towards 5000 followers. That’s nice but I still value even higher face-to-face meetings. At the beginning of my 11th year as independent consultant and about to embark on new tasks and even more diversified assignments I would like to say thank you to all colleagues, friends and clients who supported me in the course of the least ten years and who’ll continue to do so in future. Consultants may often work alone or as part of global online teams from their home office but we are nothing without the people who support us and who use our advice, knowledge and recommendations. Therefore, let me thank all of you very much for your trust and let’s keep (co-)working to make this world a better place.In spite of my many years there is still a lot left to be done. Ulrich on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/feed/ and Ulrich's CV in pictures (1985-2024):https://www.ugraute.de/ulrich-s-cv-in-pictures-since-the-later-1970s

Jordan: Municipal services to assist refugees and to strengthen climate and social resilience in the Kingdom

by Ulrich Graute • 14 Nov, 2023
Despite being challenged by millions of refugees Jordan is turning to strengthen climate resilience Jordan is a politically and economically stable country but with its direct neighbours Iraq, Syria, Israel and Palestine (the latter having since 2012 a non-member observer state in the United Nations) the Kingdom is challenged by many conflicts in its vicinity. Jordan has hosted more than 1.3 million Syrians since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011, including 660,000 registered Syrian refugees with the UNHCR. In addition, 66,801 Iraqi refugees and more than 2 million registered Palestine refugees live in Jordan. This refugee population makes up for more than 18 percent of the overall population of Jordan of 11,32 million. A burden which would be too much to handle in other countries doesn't keeop Jordan from turning to the other huge challenge: Climate Challenge. Since 2014 the World Bank already supports Jordanian municipalities affected by the influxes of Syrian refugees in delivering services and employment opportunities for Jordanians and Syrians in context of the Municipal Services and Social Resilience Project (MSSRP). Now a tiny part of that support is used to explore opportunities to support municipalities in their efforts to fight climate change. Already in 2022 the World Bank published a Jordan Country Climate and Development Report identifying two pathways towards adaptation, resilience, and low-carbon growth: The water, energy, and food security nexus The urban-transport-energy nexus

Keeping climate policy and sustainability policy separate – was it a mistake? Yes, it was!

by Ulrich Graute • 08 Oct, 2023
At ISOCARP’s 59th World Planning Congress and the 5th Uraben Economic Forum this week in Toronto, Canada planners, urban economists and climate experts will meet and talk about Climate Action and Urban Finance. You may want to intervene and say that climate change and sustainable development are often discussed in context and not separately. Yes, however, at the institutional level climate change and sustainability are delt with in separate arenas and that since thirty years. I assume, but it should be further analyzed, that this separation generated a path dependency which prevented integrated solutions. Background: In May 1992 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat dangerous human interference with the climate system. It was signed by 154 states at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992. At the very same conference, the Agenda 21 as the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the Statement of principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests were adopted by more than 178 Governments. While these twince were born at the same conference they took separate paths right after the conference. The UNFCCC got its separate secretariat not at a UN Headquarters e.g. in New York, Nairobi or Geneva but at Bonn, Germany and the implementation and further follow-up is within the responsibility of the Conference of Parties (or COP) where all signatories meet on an annual basis. In contrast, for the effective follow-up of the Agenda 21 the UN General Assembly established in December 1992 the Committee on Sustainable Development. In 2015, climate and sustainability policy needed an uplifting. For the Agenda 21 this came in September 2023 in form of the 2030 Agenda with 17 Sustainable Development Goals while UNFCCC agreed just three months later at its COP21 on the Paris Agreement. Both were organized under the auspices of the UN but remained on their separate tracks. UNFCCC still has its secretariat in Bonn and the 2030 Agenda is monitored by the High Level Political Forum of the UN General Assembly. Now, in 2023 UNFCC and Agenda 2030 are both off track but they are also interdependent. There won’t be a mitigation of climate change without change of human behavior as it is aimed at by the 2030 Agenda. And, of course, the 2030 Agenda needs climate action (SDG 13). Why aren’t they merged? When I asked the question in the 1990s I was told that Climate Change requires a lot of scientific understanding and it is driven by political commitments by signatory states of UNFCC and Paris Agreement. That sounded a bit more like a distinction according to status rather than substantial necessity. After all, without scientific and social science understanding the 2030 Agenda cannot exist either. Also important, this distinction left a deep impression on the work of both strands. For instance, an online session at the Pre-conference of the Toronto Congress on 15 September 2023 organized by ISOCARP in collaboration with the Global Planning Education Association Network (GPEAN) and chaired by Zeynep Enlil (Istanbul, GPEAN and ISOCARP Scientific Committee) revealed that climate change is hardly a subject in curricula of the education of planners. This might be a consequence out of the artificial separation between climate and sustainability policy over three decades. Knowing that climate change has this science and policy making focus and (self-)image planning schools may have turned automatically more towards the broader sustainability planning and, as a side effect, largely ignored climate change. A change is slowly taking shape. ISOCARP with support of its Scientific Committee is now setting up a Climate Action Group to more closely follow UNFCC and to be present at COP28 in Dubai. And of course, the Congress in Toronto has a change to bring urban planning, climate action and urban finance closer together. I am looking forward to the discussions until 13 October 2023 in Toronto. Conference website: https://toronto2023.dryfta.com/

Quality of Life and Enhancing Territorial Governance

by Ulrich Graute • 26 Sept, 2023
The International Conference "Centrality in The Age of Dispersion" will be organized by Wrocław University of Science and Technology in collaboration with ISOCARP on Thursday and Friday of this week (28-29/09/2023). The subject of the conference is closely related to concerns of quality of life and on how territorial development is governed. I am very proud that the organizers appointed me to chair two sessions on these important aspects. In the session on Quality of Living Concerns on 29 September 2023 Constanze Zöllter will discuss attractive places to live in shrinking cities. Moti Kaplan of the Technion Israel Institute will analyse the contribution of linear parks to the regeneration of dense, high quality urban centers. As citizen of a garden city in Berlin I am looking forward to Justyna Kleszcz's presentation on a contemporary vision of a garden city. Other speakers from Olsztyn and Opole will feature the situation of elderly people and health-promoting urban forms.
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