Workshop Input:

. Urban planning and urban renewal: growth and equity?

Possible urban worlds - the creation of opportunity structures by urban planning and renewal

 

Short abstract of the debate of the workshop organisers at their meeting in September 2001 in Berne, Switzerland. The abstract will be the starting point of the discussion in the workshop in Rotterdam. Papers may (but need not) directly refer to this abstract and give empirical evidence to the arguments exposed, or introduce new (critical) points of view.

 

Participants of the Berne meeting: Michael Bommes (researcher, Germany); Gianni D. Amato (researcher, Switzerland), Martina, Dvoracek (policy maker, Switzerland), Rebekka Ehret (researcher, policy maker, Switzerland), Barbara Emmenegger (policy maker, researcher, Switzerland), Marina Gartzia (researcher, Basque Country/Colombia/Switzerland), Hildegard Hungerbühler (NGO-representative, researcher, Switzerland), Annemarie Sancar (policy maker, researcher, Switzerland), Angela Stienen (researcher, Switzerland/Colombia).  

 

Abstract

In Switzerland, the idea that city planning and urban renewal could influence social integration (specially of immigrants) started to appear in the political agenda only in the 1990s. Interestingly enough though, in the political discussion city planning issues are represented as problems caused by migration/integration and not the other way around.

The demographic dynamics in Swiss cities during the 90s are characterised by a major immigration from abroad (mainly family reunion), and by a relatively high percentage of residents without Swiss citizenship (because of low naturalisation rates), as well as by the fact that middle and upper-class residents are moving out of the main urban centers to the wider urban region. Due to these dynamics, during the 90s, a general reorientation in urban development policies took place in the main urban centres of Switzerland.

The most important policy directions that are given priority now are:

1.      The development of strategic plans aiming at influencing demographic and urban development and securing long term tax income for the municipalities by preventing the exodus of middle and upper class residents out of the urban centers.

2.      The development of a policy that promotes so-called 'peaceful community life' in the cities and supports the integration of the non-Swiss population.

3.      Strategies aiming at turning Swiss cities more competitive in the globalized economy (. Standortwettbewerb. ), Swiss cities should become more attractive for new international investors.

 

Our approach to these policy directions is based on critical discourse theory. We therefore focus on the various strategies of problem description and definition as well as the representation policies in (Swiss) cities and argue that there are a lot of pre-established, underlaying assumptions which are not only conditioning our perception of so-called urban 'problems' , but also our political strategies, and which are preventing us from developing innovative and more sustainable and democratic forms of political action.

 

Actually, in Swiss cities, the following three discourses have become relevant and determine the above mentioned policy directions:

1.      A discourse on social and spatial segregation

2.      A discourse on re-urbanisation and renewal

3.      A discourse on participation

 

We like to ask the following questions:

·        What is described in terms of each of these discourses and which social and political actors are addressed to? (problem description)

·        Who has the power to shape and implement each of these discourses? (definition of actors)

·        Which kind of social and political actions are therefore becoming relevant in cities? (implementation/action)

 

These questions lead us to formulate the following main arguments:

The discourse on social and spatial segregation links together immigration and space. Territoriality is thereby reintroduced as a key category: on the one hand, to define the construction of social identities, and on the other hand, to 'measure' social integration.

In Swiss cities, during the 60s and 70s, the public policy of regulation aimed at obstructing socio-spatial segregation, i.e. the development of (ethnic and social) ghettos. Nevertheless, statistical data show that segregation in urban areas in Switzerland incremented during the last two decades. The discourse on social and spatial segregation in Swiss cities today is based on the assumptions 1) that segregation is equal to social desintegration, and 2) that re-urbanisation and urban renewal contribute to increase social integration in the cities. The old workers. neighbourhoods are now the main target for renewal programs. These rather deteriorated neighbourhoods have a high percentage of Non-Swiss residents due to the Swiss immigration policy of the sixties and seventies (active recruitment of low skilled workers mainly in Southern Europe and settlement of these immigrants in lower-strata neigbourhoods). Re-urbanisation and urban renewal should motivate Swiss middle-class families to (re-)settle in these (formerly deteriorated) neighbourhoods, and contribute to a major social heterogenity. The discourse on re-urbanisation and renewal is based on the idea that social heterogenity is equal to social integration.

The underlaying assumption of the third discourse, the one on participation, is that social integration means participation and that neigbourhoods are the territorial units where participation has to take place. (In some Swiss cities participation on the neigbourhood level is now imposed by the municipalities by decree). The residents of neighbourhoods, Swiss as well as Non-Swiss, are supposed to get actively involved in official renewal programs in their neighbourhood and thereby contribute to a major social and spatial integration.

 

We argue that it is a wrong premise to consider territoriality as a key category for social integration and identity construction. First, socio-spatial segregation not necessarily means social desintegration. Second, re-urbanisation and urban renewal which contribute to an aesthetization of urban territories are now part of the strategies of city-marketing by local governments, they are attractive because of their visibility. Nevertheless, they put a veil on the lack of adequate social and labour market policies, and rather than contributing to social integration they contribute to social exclusion. Third, participation is limited to discursive participation, i.e. the discussion about the 'problems' of neighbourhoods, specially when decreed by local governments. Discursive participation is controlled by Swiss middle-class residents and does not include participation in decision-making processes on transcendential political issues in the cities.

 

All three discourses (segregation, re-urbanisation and participation) offer semantic formulae which seems to be highly plausible from a political, sociological and economical point of view. Discursive fields are being established and are referred to as fixed frames for action. Nevertheless, they become criteria by themselves and are not challenged anymore. All three discourses have become so dominant that they serve as powerful means to mobilise various resources (money, manpower, space etc.), but their impact is highly ambigous.