oncepts
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P23_Defining the Metropolis
A design research that compares the development aspects in different metropolitan areas.What makes a big city a metropolis; its sublime location, its metro system, its inspiring history, its concentration of headquarters, its multicultural population or its exciting nightlife? Defining the Metropolis is a design research which investigates the development of the metropolis. By examining several aspects of metropolitan development - at an international, regional and local scale - Association Deltametropolis in collaboration with the universities situated in the Randstad Holland acquires more insight into the possible further development of the Randstad Holand.
More thought given to the further development of the Randstad Holland - an urbanised area of 8 million inhabitants - from the angle of what appeals to people in a metropolis is needed. The population growth of the Randstad Holland is expected to occur by immigration and migration of youngsters out of the periphery into the cities. For these groups employment, education, acquaintances and kindred spirits are the main reasons for staying. If the Randstad Holland is to compete with other urban agglomerations employment, housing and facilities must be of top reputation.
Related project: P27_the International Perspectives
2o1o, Randstad Holland, The Netherlands
here
pdates
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tIP 03|07 Flagship Developments @ UVA
Paul Lecroart is a Senior Urban Planner at the Urban Planning and Development Institute in the Paris Ile-de-France Region, working on various (sub)regional assignments. He studied the impact of major events on world cities and currently researches large scale urban development in 15 different European cities. Paul Lecroart has examined these developments from various perspectives. Firstly, he has looked at how these developments fit into the economic, social, environmental and spatial ambitions of the metropolitan area. Secondly, he has looked at the implementation of these projects: how they are planned, managed and delivered. Finally, he has looked at how a major event can give an impulse to the development of urban areas and the collaboration of various parties at different levels.
Photo by Fred Ernst“Flagship Developments demonstrate a big symbolic capacity: not just through huge icons and mega events, but also as strong symbols which relate to urban histories. It is therefore important to take the individual identity of cities into account when implementing these type of projects.”
“Flagship projects exist due to the public debate surrounding them: public participation, at the right scale, combined with media, cultural and social organisations is what keeps them alive.”
“The La Défense story illustrates how, for first time ever, the working scale was altered. Unlike before, where developments were strictly run by the dominating axes, developments were now created through connections: connections between local centres of activity and between local drivers of development. For La Défense, this was a whole new way of thinking about the area: its changed the scope and perspective of development and highlighted the importance of the interdependencies between people in the local area and Central Paris. The lesson thus shows that scale can change according to the work you plan to do.”
“Seoul Downtown Renaissance has hugely impacted mobility in the city. Although there is less traffic, there is now more mobility. The city managed to achieve this primarily by working on their traffic management: they changed their bus system and introduced a new rapid transit bus, improved parking and introduced incentives to walk or use the transit bus, such as taxing cars with less than 2 passengers.”
The report of the lecture and expert meeting held at the University of Amsterdam on Novembre 03 and 04, 2011. can be downloaded here.
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tIP 02|07 Social Network City @ UU
Christian Licoppe is Head of the Social Science Department and Professor of Sociology at Telecom Paris-Tech. Christian Licoppe has been researching the influence and potentials of locative media and games on ‘real’ urban environments. From a sociological standpoint, he has looked at the technological side of urban space, combining ‘real’ versus virtual worlds and seeing whether this combination offers a new way of social interaction. He argues that these new forms of social media can produce new environments of interaction, where urban public places can transform into ‘hybrid ecologies’.
Photo by Fred Ernst“Locative media can be defined as media in which people interact with some kind of locative awareness. In other words, locative media always involves some configurative media in which people disclose their location.”
“A hybrid ecology manages and incorporates the interplay between a digital positional awareness of space in relation to a real, physical experience of place.”
“After all, in both places, the norm is to not address strangers in public places. The main difference between the way in which the game was played in Tokyo and Paris thus lies in the way that people made exceptions to the rule.”
"The research has shown that multiple types of encounter are possible in hybrid ecologies. Digital encounters can take on many different forms in proximity-aware games and these can potentially change behavioural and mobility practices in urban public places. Location clearly has a great influence on the behavioural patterns when it comes to these games, as seen in both the Japan and France cases. The potential of these games can therefore really give us a new understanding of urban surroundings and its use."The report of the lecture and expert meeting held at the Utrecht University on October 13 and 14, 2011. can be downloaded here.
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tIP 01|07 Cultural Clusters @ TUD
Bernd Fesel is the Deputy Director of the European Centre for the Creative Economy (ECCE). This institute came about from the Ruhr European Capital of Culture (ECoC) event in 2010, for which Bernd Fesel was the advisor for the Creative Industry. His organisation supports, facilitates and tries to crosslink the creative economies in the Ruhr region, both at a local and regional scale.
Photo by Marco de Swart“The Cultural Capital allows processes to start which would otherwise be debated for ten years and never come to the point of ‘and now we do it’. So the European Capital of Culture allows you to say ‘if we don’t do it now, we will never do it.”
“If you don’t make the angles of urban development visible; if you don’t tell the story of artist and their power to change cities, you have no chance to really foster the process.”
“The value of time thus becomes very clear. Overall, it is also important to realise that to have a successful and sustainable event, the city or region should be large enough and diverse enough in its understanding of what culture is. It needs to take on a broad, open understanding of culture and have a relatively dense programme in order to make the coordination of the different groups possible.”
"Another important factor about cooperation is that, as the prisoners’ dilemma in economic theory teaches us, one can only move forward and achieve one’s goals by working together and helping each other out. Not cooperating is far more expensive than the risk of cooperating. And to avoid the feelings of anxiety towards cooperating, people should realise that cooperation is a never-ending game. To move up a level, cooperation is always required and this is the definition of sustainability."The report of the lecture and expert meeting held at the Delft University of Technology (TUD), Faculty of Architecture on the 22nd and 23rd of September, 2011 can be downloaded here.
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The middling brother of a rich family
What are the urban functions that support the future economic development of Randstad Holland? During the Ruimteconferentie 2o11 organised by the Planbureau, David Dooghe presented the first results of the research ‘Defining the Metropolis, Randstad’.
Defining the Metropolis researches the influence of global top urban facilities in the development of urban agglomerations in the world. The research is based on the Index of Metropolitan Functions developed by the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development. The Index of Metropolitan Functions defines five areas: politics, economy, science, transport and culture. The five areas of metropolitan functions are supported by specific urban programs. As far as allowed by available data, the global top list of these different urban programs is used.
politics
economy
science
transport
culture
Comparing Randstad Holland with other urban agglomerations in the world on the presence of urban functions it can be concluded that Randstad Holland, although having a low number of inhabitants, rates high. Randstad Holland scores the best on the areas: science, infrastructure and culture.
However, when comparing Randstad Holland with the nearby urban agglomerations, London ( 8,6 million inhabitants) and Paris (10,4 million inhabitants), we see that Randstad Holland ( 8 million inhabitants) is ‘the middling brother of a rich family’.
Politics, economy, science, transport and culture in Northwest Europe:
Politics
Randstad Holland is clearly not a political centre in Europe. Brussels and Geneva are leading in the northwest of Europe, followed by Vienna. The Hague has a limited international political power, but is unique as the Capital of Justice.
Map: international head offices political organisations and economic and monetairy organisations.
Economy
The merging in 2ooo of the Brussels Stock Exchange and the Paris Stock Exchange to form Euronext Amsterdam, gave the Randstad Holland a more important economical role in the world. Still Randstad Holland is not very popular among the world’s largest corporations, London: 22 head offices, Paris: 38 head offices, Randstad Holland: 11 head offices.
Map: top 50 world largest corporations (2010, revenues), source: CNN, money and top 20 stock exchange (2009, Market Capitalization, USD billions), source: World Federation of Exchanges.
Science
Randstad Holland has 6 universities in the leading top 2oo universities of the world and Amsterdam is an important international congress city. Looking more closely to which universities are leading by subjects (Engineering and Technology, Life Science, Pre-Clinical and Health, Physical Sciences, Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities) only 3 of Randstad Holland’s universities, each with just one specific subject, are in the top 5o of the world by subject. Most of the universities in Paris and London perform at toplevel in different subjects.
Map: top 200 universities in the world (2010, overall score), source: Times Higher Education and top 50 universities in the owrld (2010, Engineering and Technology _ Life Science _ Pre-Clinical and Health _ Physical Sciences _ Social Sciences _ Arts and Humanities), source: Times Higher Education.
Transport
The geographical position of Randstad Holland in the Eurodelta is flavourable for its infrastructural importance as a cargo gateway for Europe. Next to the Port of Rotterdam, Schiphol Airport plays an important role as cargo airport as well as passenger airport. For passengers by rail, Randstad is well connected with Brussels, Paris and London, but badly with cities in the east or north. The Netherlands and especially Randstad Holland is well equipped with less visible infrastructure, like Internet.
Map: Top 30 ports (2008, containter traffic (TEUs- Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units) , source: american Association of Port Authorities, European water streets, (UN/ECE- class IV-VII) source: via Donau 2005, airports in Europa by passengers (2010) source wikipedia and full high speed intercity railways, (avarage speed ubove 200 km/h) and extended service by high speed (2006-11) source: Johomaps.
Culture
Amsterdam is a well-visited city by international visitors. It has some world-class museums. The main cultural clusters in northwest Europe, however, are London and Paris.
Map: top 50 most visited museums in the world, source: The Art Newspaper Annual Reports and top 20 most visited cities by estimated number of international visitors, 2007-2008, source Wikipedia.
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Community of Competence Metropolisation
Can a polycentric system of different cities, like Randstad Holland, work as an integral metropolis?
Defining the Metropolis, the research about the influence of global top urban facilities in the development of urban agglomerations in the world, was input for INTA’s first Community of Competence on Innovative Metropolitan Development.
INTA International Urban Development Association is a global membership association of urban policy-makers and practitioners to share knowledge, experience and tools for integrated territorial development. INTA's ‘Communities of Competence’ are practical cross-disciplinary working platforms addressing specific issues identified within the membership that most likely will have a significant impact on urban society and businesses.
In the Community of Competence, the case of Randstad Holland was discussed. Defining the metropolis showed that some of the top urban facilities in the world are located in Randstad Holland. Although the inhabitants of Randstad Holland use a variety of these top urban facilities that are scattered around in Randstad Holland, they do not feel related to the urban agglomeration. Randstad Holland, a dispersal of urban areas each with a specific top urban facility, is there for lacking a ‘metropolitan atmosphere’. This conclusion made the discussion focus on the question: Can a polycentric system of different cities, like Randstad Holland, work as an integral metropolis?
Statements form the discussion:
- Randstad Holland can only become an integral metropolis if the inhabitants feel related to the scale of this urban agglomeration.
- Can Randstad Holland aggregate and concentrate when a suburban mentality prevails?
- The search for a metropolitan personality becomes crucial: how to create distinctiveness (cultural diversity, density and difference) in a polycentric system?
- The identity of a Nation is mainly built on a common history, which creates tradition, and tradition creates identity and political linkages. In a City, identity is built more often on the vision of a common future than on history. There is no common past and this weakens the identity. Thus, participation and interaction are needed to build both a common story and a common future.
Participants:
Line Algoed (INTA), Lawrence Barth (Architectural Association School of Architecture), Eric Corijn (Free University Brussels), Stephan Cox (Ecorys UK), Lola Davidson (INTA), David Dooghe (Association Deltametropolis), Paul Gerretsen (Association Deltametropolis), Martijn Kanters (INTA), Rupert Kawka (Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban affairs and Spatial Development), Jeroen Laven (STIPO, Rotterdam), Viviana Rubbo (INTA), Michel Sudarskis (INTA)
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Processing Utopia
‘The failure of realized utopias of spatial form can just as reasonably be attributed to the processes mobilized to materialize them as to failures of spatial form per se. There is a fundamental contradiction at work here. Utopias of spatial form are typically meant to stabilize and control the very processes that must be mobilized to build them. In the very act of realization, therefore, the historical process takes control of the spatial form that is supposed to control it.’
David Harvey 2000
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