Nach Abschaffung der Apartheid gehörte zu den wichtigen politischen Aufgaben, die segregierten Städte des Landes zu restrukturieren und sie für die bislang ausgeschlossenen Armen zugänglich zu machen. Das Buch berichtet am Beispiel Kapstadt, wie die Stadtplaner dieses Ziel umzusetzen versuchten. Dabei wird deutlich, wie die Planung von der Vergangenheit beeinflusst wurde und wie neue und alte Ansprüche auf die Planer einwirkten. (DÜI-Sbd)
Cities in Sub-Saharan Africa are growing faster than in any other part of the world, driven by expanding informal settlement (usually on the urban periphery) and the real-estate sector aiming for up-market property development. The continent currently has the highest real-estate value growth potential in the world. Much up-market property development is currently taking the form of new 'cities'—sometimes a redevelopment of an entire city (e.g., Kigali), sometimes a new city on an urban edge (e.g., Eko-Atlantic, Lagos) and sometimes a new satellite city (e.g., Tatu City, Nairobi). These projects are driven by international property development companies often in collaboration with governments and sometimes with local planning and property partners. All manifest as plans in a new way: as graphics on the websites of international consultants. Most involve no public participation and attempt to by-pass planning laws and processes. Producing these new plans (as computer generated images) are a new set of professionals: architects, planners, visualisers, advertising executives and project managers, working together in offices in global capitals of the world. Their aim is commercial. Planning in these projects is no longer shaped by the materiality of the city and attempts to achieve socio-spatial justice and sustainability. Rather planning is shaped by the circulation of graphics through a network of software programmes and marketing professionals. This article will situate Africa's new cities in theorisation of urban development and the role of urban planning through digital visualization.
Cities in Sub-Saharan Africa are growing faster than in any other part of the world, driven by expanding informal settlement (usually on the urban periphery) and the real-estate sector aiming for up-market property development. The continent currently has the highest real-estate value growth potential in the world. Much up-market property development is currently taking the form of new 'cities' - sometimes a redevelopment of an entire city (e.g., Kigali), sometimes a new city on an urban edge (e.g., Eko-Atlantic, Lagos) and sometimes a new satellite city (e.g., Tatu City, Nairobi). These projects are driven by international property development companies often in collaboration with governments and sometimes with local planning and property partners. All manifest as plans in a new way: as graphics on the websites of international consultants. Most involve no public participation and attempt to by-pass planning laws and processes. Producing these new plans (as computer generated images) are a new set of professionals: architects, planners, visualisers, advertising executives and project managers, working together in offices in global capitals of the world. Their aim is commercial. Planning in these projects is no longer shaped by the materiality of the city and attempts to achieve socio-spatial justice and sustainability. Rather planning is shaped by the circulation of graphics through a network of software programmes and marketing professionals. This article will situate Africa's new cities in theorisation of urban development and the role of urban planning through digital visualization.
Planning theory has shifted over time in response to changes in broader social and philosophical theory as well as changes in the material world. Postmodernism and poststructuralism dislodged modernist, rational and technical approaches to planning. Consensualist decision-making theories of the 1980s took forms of communicative and collaborative planning, drawing on Habermasian concepts of power and society. These positions, along with refinements and critiques within the field, have been hegemonic in planning theory ever since. They are, in most cases, presented at a high level of abstraction, make little reference to the political and social contexts in which they are based, and hold an unspoken assumption that they are of universal value, i.e. valid everywhere. Not only does this suggest important research methodology errors but it also renders these theories of little use in those parts of the world which are contextually very different from theory origin—in most cases, the global North. A more recent 'southern turn' across a range of social science disciplines, and in planning theory, suggests the possibility of a foundational shift toward theories which acknowledge their situatedness in time and place, and which recognize that extensive global difference in cities and regions renders universalized theorising and narrow conceptual models (especially in planning theory, given its relevance for practice) as invalid. New southern theorising in planning is drawing on a range of ideas on societal conflict, informality, identity and ethnicity. Postcolonialism and coloniality have provided a useful frame for situating places historically and geographically in relation to the rest of the world. However, the newness of these explorations still warrants the labelling of this shift as a 'southern theorizing project' in planning rather than a suggestion that southern planning theory has emerged.
Planning theory has shifted over time in response to changes in broader social and philosophical theory as well as changes in the material world. Postmodernism and poststructuralism dislodged modernist, rational and technical approaches to planning. Consensualist decision-making theories of the 1980s took forms of communicative and collaborative planning, drawing on Habermasian concepts of power and society. These positions, along with refinements and critiques within the field, have been hegemonic in planning theory ever since. They are, in most cases, presented at a high level of abstraction, make little reference to the political and social contexts in which they are based, and hold an unspoken assumption that they are of universal value, i.e. valid everywhere. Not only does this suggest important research methodology errors but it also renders these theories of little use in those parts of the world which are contextually very different from theory origin—in most cases, the global North. A more recent 'southern turn' across a range of social science disciplines, and in planning theory, suggests the possibility of a foundational shift toward theories which acknowledge their situatedness in time and place, and which recognize that extensive global difference in cities and regions renders universalized theorising and narrow conceptual models (especially in planning theory, given its relevance for practice) as invalid. New southern theorising in planning is drawing on a range of ideas on societal conflict, informality, identity and ethnicity. Postcolonialism and coloniality have provided a useful frame for situating places historically and geographically in relation to the rest of the world. However, the newness of these explorations still warrants the labelling of this shift as a 'southern theorizing project' in planning rather than a suggestion that southern planning theory has emerged.
Five years ago Yiftachel (2006) called on planning theorists to focus attention on cities of the global 'South-East' where issues differ significantly from northern contexts – which currently inform much planning theory work. This article asks if any such new directions have emerged in this period. It first reviews recent writings on socio-political and material conditions in these cities and suggests a set of assumptions to inform thinking about planning in these regions. It then identifies and assesses new strands of planning thought (some with older roots), and considers the project of taking forward planning theory-building in the global South-East.
The article suggests that planning's current sources of moral philosophy are no longer an entirely satisfactory guide on issues of ethical judgement in a context of deepening social difference and an increasingly hegemonic market rationality. A focus on process in planning and a relative neglect of product, together with the assumption that such processes can be guided by a universal set of deontological values shaped by the liberal tradition, are rendered particularly problematic in a world which is characterized by deepening social and economic differences and inequalities and by the aggressive promotion of neoliberal values by particular dominant nation-states. The notion of introducing values into deliberative processes is explored.
The article focuses on three contemporary and better-known normative theories of planning: communicative planning theory (Forester, Healey, Innes and others), the Just City approach (Fainstein), and those concerned with the recognition of diversity and cultural difference (Sandercock). Such theories are of great interest to planners who continue to grapple with the problem of overcoming the extreme forms of inequity, division and social breakdown that persist in the cities of Africa. The article examines some of the central assumptions underlying these theories and considers the extent to which they provide useful direction, or simply attempt to generalize a western context.
