Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas: A View to the Global Transition (Comparative Studies of Political Agendas) 3031083873, 9783031083877

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COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF POLITICAL AGENDAS

Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas A View to the Global Transition Edited by Francesca Gelli · Matteo Basso

Comparative Studies of Political Agendas Series Editors

Christoffer Green-Pedersen Aarhus University Aarhus, Denmark Laura Chaqués Bonafont University of Barcelona Barcelona, Spain Arco Timmermans Leiden University The Hague, The Netherlands Frédéric Varone Université de Genève Geneva, Switzerland Frank R. Baumgartner University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, USA

The series publishes books on policy agenda-setting dynamics broadly understood. This includes for instance books dealing with the policy effects of agenda dynamics, the relationship between the political agenda, public opinion and the media agenda, and agenda dynamics in relation to particular issues. The series publishes both comparative books and books dealing with single countries if these single countries are placed in a comparative context. The books can be either monographs or edited volumes.

Francesca Gelli  •  Matteo Basso Editors

Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas A View to the Global Transition

Editors Francesca Gelli Department of Architecture and Arts University Iuav of Venice Venice, Italy

Matteo Basso Department of Architecture and Arts University Iuav of Venice Venice, Italy

ISSN 2947-8146     ISSN 2947-8154 (electronic) Comparative Studies of Political Agendas ISBN 978-3-031-08387-7    ISBN 978-3-031-08388-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

This book encompasses the results of a comparative research project entitled Models of national urban agendas in perspective, developed within the Jean Monnet Chair “The Urban and Territorial dimension of EU policies” held by Francesca Gelli (from 2016 to 2019) at the University Iuav of Venice. The Jean Monnet project was an opportunity to consolidate and expand the interdisciplinary working group on National urban agendas in the EU and abroad, which she promoted under the Italian Centre for Urban Policy Studies. The Centre, set up soon after the end of Mario Monti’s mandate as Italian Prime Minister (from 2011 to 2013), corresponds to a period of great enthusiasm in Italy: pro-European ideas and a series of circumstances favoured a concrete policy window for a national urban agenda. This was the Italian government’s first success after several failed attempts. Fabrizio Barca, as appointed Minister for Territorial Cohesion, oversaw the definition of the urban agenda policy guidelines. Both Monti and Barca gained European prestige acquired in previous relevant roles. Monti served as European Commissioner and Barca greatly contributed to an innovative proposal to reform the Cohesion Policy of 2014–2020, as adviser to the EU Commissioner for Regional Policy. Within the European programming framework, the Axis for Sustainable Urban Development of the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) introduced a principle according to which the Member States had to submit a national urban agenda in order to obtain the allocated funds. A European policy axis devoted to cities was an occasion not to be missed. The drafting of national v

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urban agendas thus found new stimulus among the European States interested in accessing EU funds. In Italy, a parliamentary intergroup had been set up, promoted by senator Walter Vitali, former mayor of Bologna and president of Eurocities, long committed to combating the long-standing lack of a national urban agenda for Italian cities. An inter-ministerial Committee for Urban Programming was thus instituted within the national government to coordinate action. Following the Monti government experience, former senator Walter Vitali advocated a centre in Italy devoted to urban policies, calling on Italian academics and universities to partake in its organization. This is how the Italian Centre for Urban Policy Studies, called Urban@it, was founded. Made up partly by senior and young researchers from various Italian Universities who have specialized in urban studies, the Urban@it working group on National urban agendas in the EU and abroad identified possible case studies on countries’ national urban agendas of the European states and external countries. The Jean Monnet Chair programme extended comparative analyses to include other European countries, non-EU countries in the Global South, and supranational urban agendas. Scholars from other universities joined the project. A specific focus was on the ongoing process to elaborate the urban agenda for the EU. In addition, research was conducted on the strategic role those European institutions (like the European Commission) and international organizations (such as UN-Habitat and OECD) had in supporting the national governments of developing countries to come up with their own urban policy agenda. Preliminary results were published as background papers for the 2016 Urban@it first annual report on cities (https://www.urbanit.it/rapporti-­ annuali/). Based on these papers, Francesca Gelli was also the author of a comparative chapter published in the same report, whereas Matteo Basso introduced first findings on the Chinese case. A presentation and discussion of the case studies were also offered on the occasion of the 2016 congress of the European Urban Research Association (Turin, June 16–18), within a dedicated session “The changing geography of national urban agendas and urban policies: the cases of EU, China, Brazil, U.S.A., Angola in perspective”. A dedicated international research conference (“The changing geography of national urban agendas and urban policies”)—open to researchers of the extended working group on “European and National Urban Agendas in perspective” and to PhD students—was held at University

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Iuav of Venice in 2018 (February 12–13), partly funded by the Jean Monnet Chair. Researchers and scholars who are the authors of the book’s chapters have been selected on the basis of their knowledge and direct contact with their case study contexts. Matteo Basso, Paola Briata, Valeria Fedeli, Francesca Ferlicca, Francesca Gelli, Elena Ostanel, Maurizio Pioletti, and Daphné Reguiessé, for instance, spent time and conducted long study visits in selected countries (China, the UK, Argentina, the US, Canada, Brazil, India) during their PhD studies, and thanks to Marie-Curie fellowships in the case of Briata and Ostanel. They also collaborated with national research centres or NGOs, and developed, in conducting their fieldworks, academic local interactions and exchanges. It is no coincidence that, within this editorial project, some of them also involved local experts as coauthors, to take active part in the drafting of the single chapters. Some of the researchers and scholars who took part in this project work permanently in academic institutions abroad, and a few others are local (this is the case, e.g., of the authors of chapters on France, Portugal, and Spain’s urban agendas and on the politics of participatory budgeting). The book’s chapters discuss the results of empirical research conducted by the authors on national urban policies and agendas over the last years. Each case study has been developed according to a policy analysis approach, following specific research guidelines defined by Matteo Basso and Francesca Gelli, which have been agreed with the authors to facilitate cross-cutting analysis and learnings from comparison. Each contribution has been discussed several times with the authors, to thicken the general analytical framework. The original core of the book proposal is inspired by urban policy classic studies in the fields of political science and urban planning, revisited in the light of contemporary debate and empirical research. The two editors, as well as some authors, share a constructivist-­ pragmatist policy approach, transferred in Italy—precisely in Venice at University Iuav—by Pier Luigi Crosta about four decades ago. Crosta was the founder and long-time director of a multidisciplinary PhD curriculum in urban policies and planning with a strong relationship with academic traditions in the US—namely Harvard and MIT’s urban and policy research programmes during the 1970s—and with more recent English and French contaminations, in particular of urban sociology and theory of action. Research developed by the PhD curriculum’s candidates over the last years have progressively focused also on non-European contexts of

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inquiry, with developments on urban aspects in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. These research operations challenge, and at the same time innovate, the consolidated analytical and interpretative frameworks. They also follow the change of reflection—which is evident in the field of international urban studies—from the old to the new geography of contemporary urbanization. Our project takes this opportunity and fits precisely within this trajectory. We wish to thank the many persons, organizations, and institutions who helped make this book possible. Special thanks must be given to the contributors to the volume, for their dedication, precious critical insights, comments and suggested helpful improvements, and for having trusted the whole project in a path that has been quite long. We also wish to record our gratitude to Alessandro Balducci, Fabrizio Barca, Marco Cremaschi, Lara Fabiano, Patrick Le Galès, Paul Kantor, Theodor Lowi, Domenico Patassini, Claudio Radaelli, Silvia Macchi and Laura Ricci, and Walter Vitali for their valuable feedback in initial and intermediate stages of work. Thanks are due to young researchers, colleagues, students, and participants in the seminars and workshops where single case studies, which are part of the book, were presented. Finally, we cannot thank our families and friends enough for their love and care. Responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book remains ours alone. Venice, Italy 

Francesca Gelli Matteo Basso

Contents

1 Knowledge  and Craft of Urban Agendas  1 Matteo Basso and Francesca Gelli Part I The “Old” Geography: Between Continuity and Change  27 2 Urban  Policies in France: Stronger Metropolises and Steering State 33 Deborah Galimberti and Gilles Pinson 3 The  Financialisation of Urban Policy in the UK: From Area-Based Initiatives to Area-Based Value-Capture 57 Paola Briata and Mike Raco 4 China’s  National Urban Agenda: Transition and Reframing Cities 77 Matteo Basso and Lan Wang 5 The  Politics of U.S. Urban Agendas: Ideology, Government, and Public Policies101 Francesca Gelli

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Part II The Changing Geography: Critical Examples 157 6 Towards  a National Urban Policy in Argentina163 Francesca Ferlicca and Fernando Murillo 7 The  Federal Urban Agenda in Brazil: Democratization and Politicization of Planning Practice189 Maurizio Pioletti and Veridiana Dalla Vecchia 8 Learning  from Mistakes? India’s New Urban Planning Order of 2020215 Daphné Reguiessé 9 The  Urban Agenda in Canada. Limited Room for Action in Federal-Municipal Relations243 Elena Ostanel and Francesco Campagnari Part III The Forthcoming Geography: Capacity Building, Social Innovation, and Public Participation 263 10 National  Urban Policies in Europe, a Contrasted and Fragmented Picture or a Shared Social Construction?269 Valeria Fedeli 11 Analysis  of the Spanish Urban Agenda from a Policy Transfer Perspective. Advancing to More Resilient Post-COVID Urban Areas289 Moneyba González Medina and Sonia De Gregorio Hurtado 12 Housing  Policy in the Political Agenda: The Trajectory of Portugal311 Marco Allegra, Simone Tulumello, and Giovanni Allegretti

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13 Social  Innovation, Welfare Regimes and National/Urban Agendas: Going Outside “the Local Trap” in Social Innovation Studies333 Maurizio Busacca 14 Connecting  the Dots of an Implicit Agenda: The Case of Participatory Budgeting as a Travelling Policy357 Giovanni Allegretti and Gianluca Sgueo Index387

Notes on Contributors

Marco  Allegra  is senior researcher at Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, where he chairs the Urban Transitions Hub, and associate researcher at CIES-IUL. His area of expertise includes Middle East politics, planning theory, and urban studies; his current research activity focuses on housing policy, housing activism, and the role of knowledge in the policy process. Giovanni Allegretti  is a planner and senior researcher at the Centre of Social Studies at University of Coimbra (Portugal), where he conducts research on participatory processes, coordinating the H2020 Project “PHOENIX: the Rise of Citizens’ Voices for a Greener Europe”. Consultant in 50 countries for the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Council of Europe and has been co-chair of the Independent Authority for Participation of Tuscany Region. Matteo Basso  urban and regional planner, PhD in regional planning and public policy, is Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at University Iuav of Venice, Italy. His research interests broadly refer to the analysis of urban, territorial, and landscape transformations from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective and the design of urban and spatial policies. Paola  Briata is Associate Professor of Planning and Urban Policy at DAStU, Politecnico di Milano. Her background is in planning, ethnography, and urban studies. From 2012 to 2014 she has been Marie-­Curie

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Research Fellow at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. She has written widely on the topics of urban p ­ lanning and regeneration with particular attention to multi-ethnic contexts. Maurizio Busacca  is Assistant Professor of Economic Sociology (tenure track) at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy. His work focuses on the transformations of the welfare state and in particular on “social investment” and “social innovation” policies. His interest is in the travel of ideas that foster the transformations of welfare state and in the changes of contents, forms, and meanings of social work. Francesco  Campagnari  is a research fellow at the University Iuav of Venice. His research explores self-organized citizens’ initiatives in relation to urban planning and public policies. He focuses on the urban effects of the processes of institutionalization, innovation, and learning on local and supralocal networks of citizens. He is Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales from September 2022. Veridiana  Dalla  Vecchia  is a PhD candidate in international strategic studies at PPGEEI (International Strategic Studies Doctoral Program), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Ufrgs); a member of the Research Group on International Relations and the Environment (Gerima/Ufrgs); a journalist and master in Communication and Information at Ufrgs. Sonia  De  Gregorio  Hurtado is Professor of Urbanism and Urban Regeneration in the Department of Urban and Spatial Planning in Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain. Among other professional tasks, in the last years she has been expert for the Action Plan of the Urban Poverty and Urban Regeneration Partnership of the Urban Agenda for the EU and for the prospective work ESPAÑA2050 (leaded by the Spanish Presidency of the Government). Her fields of research are urban regeneration and urban policies from a holistic and multiscalar perspective. Valeria  Fedeli, PhD  in regional planning and public policy (Iuav), is a full professor and vice coordinator of the PhD course in Urban Planning, Policies and Design at DAStU, Polytechnic University of Milan (Italy). Among her recent co-edited publications are “EU Regional and Urban Policy Innovations and Experiences from the 2014–2020 Programming Period” (Springer, 2020) and “A Modern Guide to National Urban Policies in Europe” (2021).

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Francesca Ferlicca  is an architect and magister in urban planning (Roma Tre University). She is a PhD candidate in regional planning and public policy at the University Iuav of Venice. Her research interest lies in regularization policies for informal settlements in Argentina. Since 2020 she is teaching assistant at Iuav. Previously, she worked in Argentina as urban planner consultant at the Ministry of Environment and Public Space and at CIPPEC. Deborah  Galimberti  holds a PhD in political science and urban and local studies (University of Lyon and University of Milan Bicocca). She is a former Marie-Curie fellow and has studied urban policies and local politics in France, Italy, and Poland. Francesca Gelli, PhD  in Regional Planning and Public Policy, is Associate Professor of Political Science at University Iuav of Venice (Italy). Founder and director of the Postgraduate Specialization Program in Participatory Policy Design, she was Jean Monnet Chair in European Union Policies (2016–2019) and scientific coordinator of the PhD programme in Urban Planning and Public Policies (2014–2018). Moneyba González-Medina, PhD  in Political Science and Administration, is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations—Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. She has been visiting researcher at the Universität Konstanz (Germany), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and University of the West of England Bristol (UK). Her research interests encompass local governance, urban development policies, urban Europeanization, and public administration reform. Fernando Murillo  is an architect, magister, and PhD in architecture and urbanism at the University of Buenos Aires and director of the master of urban and regional planning (PROPUR). He has a professional experience in urban-regional planning, architecture of low-income housing and infrastructure of mega-projects in different countries working with several UN Agencies, especially UN-Habitat, UNHCR, UNRWA, UNDP, and so on. He is Senior Technical Consultant in World Bank Group. Elena Ostanel  is Assistant Professor in Urban Planning at the University Iuav of Venice and has been Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow in partnership with the University of Toronto and TUDelft. At Iuav, she teaches courses in community planning and she is the vice-director of a Master

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Course on urban regeneration/social innovation. Among her publications: (In)visibilising Vulnerable Community Members: Processes of Urban Inclusion and Exclusion in Parkdale, Toronto for Space and Culture. Gilles Pinson  is Full Professor of Political Science and Urban Studies at Sciences Po Bordeaux and researcher at Centre Emile Durkheim (Sciences Po Bordeaux, University of Bordeaux, CNRS). Maurizio  Pioletti, PhD in Urban and Regional Development at Polytechnic University of Turin, is a researcher on spatial governance and planning systems in Europe and Latin American countries, with a specific focus on metropolitan regions, and a member of the International Advisory Board of FICA (Fundo Imobiliário Comunitário para Aluguel) São Paulo, Brazil, and the Banca Popolare Etica’s GIT, Territorial Initiative Group, Turin, Italy. Mike Raco  is Full Professor of Urban Governance and Development in the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. His background is in planning, geography, and urban studies. He has written widely on the topics of urban governance and regeneration, urban sustainability, housing markets, social diversity, and the politics of urban and regional economic development. Daphné Reguiessé  has a European PhD in regional planning and public policy (University Iuav of Venice, Italy), in collaboration with Aarhus University (Denmark), CNRS Poitiers (France), CSH Delhi (India), and University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands). Her background studies are in international and regional politics (University of Padua, Italy). She has conducted several fieldwork research in India to strengthen her expertise in Indian studies. Gianluca Sgueo  is post-doc researcher at the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (Portugal). He is also an associate research fellow at the Brussels School of Governance (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). He teaches at the école d'affaires européennes at Sciences Po Paris. Gianluca has conducted extensive research and published on the use of game design into public policy, civic engagement, and digital democracy. Simone  Tulumello is an assistant research professor at Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa and co-coordinator of the PhD in Development Studies of the University of Lisbon. His research interests span at the border between human geography, critical urban studies, and

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spatial planning; urban security and violence; housing policy and politics; austerity and neoliberal urban policy; urban imaginaries; Southern European and Southern US cities. Lan  Wang  founder and head of the Healthy City Lab, PhD in urban planning and policy, is Professor and Deputy Dean of College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, China. Her research focuses on healthy city planning and design, urban development strategy and planning, methodology and technology for urban planning.

List of Figures

Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2 Fig. 11.1

Fig. 11.2 Fig. 12.1 Fig. 12.2 Fig. 12.3

The evolution of the national urban agenda in Argentina. (Source: Authors own elaboration) 172 The phases of the formulation of the NUP in Argentina. (Source: Authors own elaboration on the basis of the National Urban Policy Argentina (UN-Habitat 2018)) 179 Steps of urban actors and policies evolution toward an Urban Agenda for India through policy schemes. (Elaboration of the author) 222 Historical evolution of Indian urban policies triggering an urban agenda for India. (Elaboration of the author) 224 ERDF co-funded urban programmes in Spain. (Source: Own elaboration, from data retrieved on the Red de Iniciativas Urbanas website. More information about this network created by the Ministry of Finance can be found at: https:// www.rediniciativasurbanas.es/)294 Evolution of the SUA process (2014–2021). (Source: Own elaboration)295 Evolution of main components of welfare public expenditure as a percentage of GDP (1972–2012). (Source: Adapted from Santos et al. (2014) (based on data DGO/MF and INE/BP)) 316 Distribution of national public spending for housing (1987–2011). (Source: Adapted from IHRU (2015)) 320 State expenditure in housing and collective services 1995–2020. (Source: Our elaboration on data Pordata (https://www.pordata.pt/DB/Portugal/ Ambiente+de+Consulta/Gr%C3%A1fico/5826223))323

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List of Tables

Table 7.1 Table 8.1 Table 9.1 Table 11.1 Table 11.2 Table 11.3 Table 13.1 Table 13.2

Brazilian urban policy since the return of democracy 193 A focus on the major political interventions on urban planning issues from 1951 to 2021 225 Periods of explicit urban action by the Canadian Federal Government245 The SUA’s strategic objectives 298 Programmes promoted by the plan for housing rehabilitation and urban regeneration (2021) 303 Object of transfer in the SUA 306 Selected case studies 334 A comparison of national and local portraits 346

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List of Boxes

Box 8.1  Defining “Urban” in India Box 8.2  Levels and Topics of Planning in India Box 8.3 10 Sutras: Principles to Guide India in the Implementation of NUPF

218 219 233

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CHAPTER 1

Knowledge and Craft of Urban Agendas Matteo Basso and Francesca Gelli

1   Urban Agendas as Planning Efforts Infused with Politics1 Currently, international policy studies on urban agendas have gained great momentum (Zimmermann and Fedeli 2021; Armondi and De Gregorio Hurtado 2020; Kundu et al. 2020). Important cross-disciplinary insights are being proposed in case study analysis of agenda-setting processes in comparative policy research (Bali and Halpin 2021; Brasil and Jones 2020; Baumgartner et al. 2006). Several aspects may explain, to some extent, such renewed interest. Identifying future developments, setting goals and priorities is the proper task of policy agendas that engage in representations of the future and inform strategy-making. Agenda-setting is a very delicate phase of the 1  This contribution stems from the common reflections of its authors. However, in the final draft, Francesca Gelli is the contributor for Sects. 1, 2, 3, and 4, and Matteo Basso for Sects. 5 and 6.

M. Basso (*) • F. Gelli Department of Architecture and Arts, University Iuav of Venice, Venice, Italy e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_1

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policy process in consensus building, to give political and institutional substance to visionary policy design aims. Urban agendas—as is our case— are policy instruments to plan economic and social change which exhibit elements of urban relatedness (Sapotichne 2010). Thus, a first point concerns interest for the agenda policy instrument itself, which is malleable and well suited to facilitate the promotion of new ideas, that is a core task of policy design. Promoting new ideas of urban life and development needs design as well as social-oriented foresight “to push out the boundaries of the possible in public policy” (Majone 1989; Schroth et al. 2020). From this angle, urban agendas are planning efforts infused with politics (Wildavsky 1987), which assemble intellectual cogitation—analysis, casual knowledge, criteria to achieve desired outcomes— and political interactions about preferences, which are continually reformulated and cannot be predictable and ultimately knowable. Like any other public policy, predictive planning and risky politics should find a synthesis; in the enterprise of urban agendas, the aspiration is to define what is better for the future of cities. Challenging urban agendas are necessary to support proposals that shift existing patterns of development to pursue a new vision in urban policy and a different allocation of values. New ideas may nevertheless face powerful intellectual and institutional obstacles. Dominant power interests aimed to maintain the status quo mobilize to inhibit change, as demonstrated in the theorization of non-­ decision making referred to economic and political elites and bureaucracies (Bachrach and Baratz 1962, 1963). The theory has been taken up in recent European debate on the Italian case to explain the perduring underdevelopment traps affecting areas, especially in the South (Barca 2012).2 Another factor is inertia, as ideas that are in line with current practices and accepted doctrine usually enjoy a considerable comparative advantage over new proposals (Majone 1989), and the social structure of science (i.e. power groups, institutions dealing with science) may not be aligned with the cognitive one (i.e. individuals and groups committed to unconventional proposals, defending breakthroughs in scientific works). 2  The Italian case has a specific dimension of resistance to change, reasoned non-decision making. What can be called the underdevelopment trap is the observation of how national and local elites can decide to maintain the status quo, benefiting from the absence of changes. From this angle, problems of effectiveness in development policies are connected to a moral question, of which politicians usually do not speak. Fabrizio Barca wrote about the moral question in official documents, when he was Minister of Territorial Cohesion under Monti’s Government (Gelli 2017).

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This divergence is responsible for many conflicting relations and brakes on innovation (Merton 1968). A second point concerns attention to city growth in connection with increasing urbanization on a global scale. The powerful narrative of large Countries that are acknowledged and depicted as nations of cities is partially explained by the prevailing urbanization trend observed worldwide for decades, with different rates and growth speeds. This global phenomenon, as we will see in Sect. 5, is optimistically presented in statistics that relate to the twenty-first century, and to the challenges and opportunities it poses, on the condition that: “national governments are competent and have a framework in place for its urban development” (Kundu et al. 2020, p. 3). Cities are notably crucial for the organization of political and social life. They are widely considered as an engine of growth, both in economic and demographic terms. The “developmental face” of urban agendas (Kantor 2013) is once again stressed and placed at the core, although shifting towards sustainability of the development patterns in use,3 which is solidly rooted in the mainstream of international and supranational urban agendas. Two past viewpoints are preserved in the enlightening UN-Habitat National Urban Agenda (NUA) and New Urban Policies (NUP) framework, pursuing sustainability objectives in a dialogue between international technobureaucratic elites, bottom-up movements, and local communities. The distinction that is made between “developed” (donors) and “developing” (recipient) Countries is reproposed in policy transfer, at least in language, as a category which vehicles a development model consolidated on Western world experience of growth, with the consequent lessons learned: this body of knowledge is presented with potential for transferring and adaptation to other contexts, for the betterment of “less developed Countries”, together with growth corrective action to avoid previously made mistakes. An open question is if, within this frame, urban agendas contribute to the identification of the Countries’ own path towards wellbeing, from the bottom, and contribute to foresee new modes of sustainable development, in the redesign of policy instruments and in potentially setting different goals. Moreover, the sustainable development perspective still expresses and institutes a human-centred perspective. Urban metabolism presents 3  Sustainable and integrated development is at the basis of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the National Urban Agenda proposed at the III UN-Habitat Conference in 2016 and a pillar of the Urban Agenda for the EU launched in the same year, with the Pact of Amsterdam.

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two faces on the planet, an exploiting one and a nursing one, highlighting that the maintenance of urban systems involves the resources of large territories and complex transactions between human and non-human spheres. While the political metaphor associated with the governance conceptualization of the political economy of cities (Le Galès 1998) underlines that the city produces new territories of alliance (Deleuze and Guattari 1980), the ecological metaphor associated with urban metabolism recalls the territories of consumption that cities generate for their equipment. The ecological issue has found a place in the paradigm shift to ecological transition. Ecological transition differs from sustainable in that it marks the profound change from a condition where humanity seeks to control nature through technology to a condition where humanity finds itself dealing with the new inability to control nature, which now takes over while humanity must deal with the consequences of neoliberal and capitalist choices and life-styles (new pandemic, climate change, and migration, etc.). The call for a “comprehensive ecology” that embraces the relationship between man and nature against the dominant technocratic paradigm was also launched by Pope Francis with the 2015 Encyclical Laudato sì, an inspiring universal agenda for urban and territorial policies as well. From this angle, urban agendas are a policy window for the representation and advocacy of the non-human: not only the animal and plant world but also the inorganic. Today, governing cities implies managing transactions between human and non-human: an unresolved case has to do with issues of urban regeneration (post-industrial areas, post-disaster areas, etc.). In the collective imaginary, city life is viewed as an asset for human development to attract new populations. Therefore, cities are places where many different individual and collective hopes are stratified, accumulating a potential that may be explosive. The main theme entails a falsification of the representations of humanity: inequalities and disparities are enormous not only among human beings, as they are among territories, as far as access to natural and economic resources, information, civil rights, and public goods are also concerned. Urban-territorial agendas strongly intertwine with these aspects. This last point opens another theme which is the control of cities and the decisions that affect them. This is a very sensitive matter, of interest to many, in the marketplace of governments and private businesses. Urban agendas are thus instrumental in providing an organized setting for the plural interests at stake that generates multiple arenas of exchange and mediation that converge in a plan for action.

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2  Between Low and High Politics Urban agendas are conceived as communicative acts and analysed as policy discourses, to the extent they constitute an influential representation of urban reality, framing problems and setting a hierarchy of relevant issues.4 Our research has more to do with urban agendas as attempts to address the challenge that urbanization poses for governments, as a field of public policy. One problem is the delineation of political systems that in many cases are still not structured at the central/national level to treat problems associated with urbanization. Undoubtedly, overpowering economic forces have major implications on city life and urban growth—as the impacts of global capitalism clearly highlight—but the choices of economic policy that forge national urban policy and political capital with its investments play an equally determinant part in directing the type of urban development. The case studies selected in this volume present a different legislative history and government orchestration in coordinating policymaking on urban matters, depending on the type of political regime, national party coalitions, the dominant interest constellation, periods of rising or declining institutional commitment, and public interest in urban affairs. In some cases, and in the shift to expansionary national government, a specific urban policy subsystem is organized as an area of government activity with a structured apparatus and well-defined tasks, personnel, dedicated budget, complete instrumentation, and regulation. Fragmented policymaking has been negatively biased as a weakness in governance when the orientation to comprehensive public designs and overarching urban policies prevailed for effective public problem solving and intervention in distressed urban areas. Furthermore, ideals of high politics and coordination have inspired a political culture and professional planning practices. Fragmentation, on the contrary, has been qualified as a positive resource when the design of urban policies and programmes reflected devolutionary impulse and low politics, driven by local autonomy and self-governing ideals. A diachronic analysis of the evolution of urban 4  A tradition of political research on agenda-setting processes that focuses on the cumulative effects of the media on structuring public opinion (Dearing and Rogers 1996) has been of inspiration. See for instance the theory of Powerful Media first developed between the 1960s and 1970s (Cohen 1963; McCombs and Shaw 1972; Shaw 1979). The deliberative policy analysis (Hajer and Wagenaar 2003) is another interesting stream of literature in policy studies for developing analysis on urban agendas as policy discourse.

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policies in the twentieth century from the Second World War highlights that in the periods when leadership and ideologies begin to falter, along with the institution of the State and the national political system in a crisis of public authority, the government itself was seen as the problem. The counter-thesis is that local people know best how to solve their own problems and local governance is more responsive than the national government. In those contexts, the claim for decentralization has emerged as a political issue. To this extent, the politics of revenues is crucial for budgetary equilibrium and private investments contribute significantly to local government revenues. Public entrepreneurship and the financialization of urban policies have been types of response at the local and regional levels, often concurrent to the reduction of national government financial assistance. A decentralist order based on small-scale politics and strong competition among cities to attract private investment has been encouraged as an adaptive mode of governance to the dynamics of a market-driven urban society, which calls for more flexibles policy design formulas. The government’s attention is more likely to shift to a general framework for national urban policies when there is evidence of problems at the urban scale that is particularly difficult to define and to address, what analysts and planners call “ill-structured” (Rittel and Webber 1973), “wicked” and “super wicked” problems (Peters 2018).5 The mismatch between the scales on which problems occur and the scales on which they are governed, the interrelatedness and interdependence of the contexts of intervention to a multiplicity of factors of change, call for more efforts towards joint action and a common direction. National and global urban agendas are therefore considered as policy instruments to approach such problems at the appropriate scale. Wicked problems expose policies to radical uncertainty concerning outcomes and lack of usable knowledge. Climate change, growing inequalities in the difficulty of governments to achieve a reorientation of development trends, and justice, are examples of contemporary issues having a career of wicked and super wicked problems. These same issues are in fact topical matters in most discussions over urban agendas.

5  Problems of such nature typically involve state-market complex interactions, conflicting volitions over the kind of urban development, internationalization of economic and social exchange, various jurisdictions, and scales.

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3  Definitions and Scopes for Urban Agendas Empirical research supports the thesis that agreement on a national urban agenda is the way forward when there is an emerging urban question perceived as a national concern, bringing cities within the national governmental orbit of power (Kantor 2010). At today’s state-of-the-art, national urban agendas are policy instruments of some success, as the number of state governments, federations, unions and supra-national organizations that have enacted official urban agendas or are equipping themselves with general urban policy frameworks has significantly increased worldwide. The decision to provide the government with a national urban agenda is not necessarily made in times of crisis, or when an urban question comes to public attention. The initiation may be following inside autonomous political will, based on an institutional stimulus from below (i.e. by State’s impetus) that meets pressures from above (i.e. a cities’ mobilization)6; or it may depend on various policy-­transfer mechanisms. A policy window for a national urban agenda opens, in some cases, in circumstances of time and action described in Kingdon’s multiple stream theory (1984), inspired by works of March and Olson (Cohen et al. 1972) and utilized to explain policy change.7 The elaboration of the urban agenda at the state, federal, or supranational level does not necessarily imply the formulation of an explicit overarching urban policy that attempts to address an expansive range of urban problems through programmes aiding cities according to a place-based approach. Policies and programmes that a national urban agenda puts in place exhibit various elements of “urban-relatedness”. Urban agenda can be implemented through a set of urban-related programmes that focus on specific urban-related problems which differently affect central, peripheral, suburban areas; or on potential urban resources targeting urban opportunities and assets for growth like housing, development, infrastructure. Not only place-based, but also people-based policies (educational, employment programmes, social services, etc.), targeted to demands of urban populations can realize specific goals of urban agendas. 6  The analysis confirms existing modelization in political theory which refers to agendasetting: the inside initiation and mobilization model, the outside initiation (Cobb et al. 1976). 7  The theory suggests that three streams (problem stream, policy stream, political stream) operating independently on each other come together in order for a policy to emerge, apparently by chance, as it is from consistent action by advocates. Focusing events, changes in trends, feedback messages from policy evaluation may be enacting factors.

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Many public policies can be analysed for their urban effects; moreover, the so-called nonurban national policies may have bigger impacts on cities than explicit—that is, conscious and comprehensive—urban policies (Cuciti 1990). Yet, it is worth reconsidering whether the analytical perspective in use includes or excludes non-urban policies in the evaluation of the government’s commitment to an urban question. It is the analytical lens that one adopts that concludes if a government has, or does not, a commitment to urban issues associated with a strategy of action comprehending a broad set of programmes and sustainable urban policies. Case study analysis highlights how, in some political circumstances, government intervention has not been directed by a comprehensive or systematic and explicit urban policy, inspired by a firm understanding of city problems and their causes, measurable goals and objectives—that is, by comprehensive planning—and resulted in a great number of categorical programmes. In those phases, governments even expanded the lines of action to be responsive to different client groups and categories of social demands, thus increasing the flow of resources to urban populations. Thus, the evolution of urban policy can follow interactive and incremental modes of governance, which can be understood within a conflict-consent model, limited analysis and coordinated planning and not exclusively according to a cooperative-coercive model based on comprehensiveness in planning (Wildavsky 1987). Following the conceptualization proposed by Lascoumes and Le Galès  (2007), an urban agenda is a type of policy instrument to frame urban problems and organize related urban policymaking. Problem identification and problem structuring are fundamental stages in the formulation of urban agendas. Many times, this phase is characterized by evidence, argument, and persuasion (Majone 1989). Agenda-setting is a highly selective, very incremental, and enterprising process, driven by informal dynamics of communication and interactions which are not easy to reconstruct in empirical research works.8 Processes of urban agendas are largely non-linear, open to uncertainties, fragmented, and can be rationalized mostly a posteriori.

8  Official documents and meeting reports, when available, rarely return information on these aspects, and in any case, the communication is strategically oriented and built upon influent narratives. Usually, analysts use interviews with key observers and actors involved for more insightful developments.

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Rarely urban agenda-setting is a case of policies without publics (May 1991), but a limit may be that the publics which have been included are made of professionals, experts and institutional actors, so extensive efforts are needed to socialize to the wider public the contents and the aspiration of agendas. This is typically the case of urban agendas that are constructed by policy-transfer mechanisms, by imitation or adaptation, under the impetus of supranational actors or under the technical assistance of international organizations that are leading experts in the field, and a widely recognized point of reference by national governments of developing and developed Countries. Yet, despite the goodness of goals and priorities at stake, the implementation may be very critical in processes of such a nature. More in general, even in cases in which inclusive practices prevailed and the participation was open to the consultation of civil society actors and representatives of interest groups, the exchange remained circumscribed to expert groups and political and administrative apparatuses, with a few exceptions. As a policy instrument, urban agendas can be operationalized through various tools and techniques: legislation acts; new or redesigned urban policy programmes and non-urban public policies; proceduralized tasks and ad-hoc institutions; newly established bodies of government and dedicated administrative units; frameworks for intergovernmental, public-­ private cooperation, for coordination; financial devices; expert task forces, and so on. The urban agenda may be comprised of many issues or be very selective with only a few issues. As regards the expected effects, it might contain redistributive issues according to a social urban agenda, and distributive issues as well, pursuing a centralized or decentralized state-­ sponsored urban development. The social face of urban agendas is more conditioned by ideological factors (Kantor 2013) and the influence of national coalitions of interests, conservative, socialist, or progressive ideas. Even in contexts where extreme liberalism is predominant, there are measures for the disadvantaged and for the reduction of social disparities within some hope of urban social welfare. The policy instruments framework (Lascoumes and Le Galès  2007) moves beyond functionalist approaches. It is fruitful for our analysis to explain urban agendas as socio-political and technical constructs. Viewed from a political sociology approach, urban agendas are not neutral devices, they reveal a theorization of state/market relationship and an interpretation of the social in urban development. In mobilizing different values and ideas of the future of urban societies, they also envisage possible

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agreements on forms of regulation. Official policy documents introducing urban agendas generally incorporate more or less explicit evaluations of the current state-of-the-art of urban and territorial development, and the demand for change. Selected arguments are based on a range of causal theories explaining urban problems and proposals for action, predictive models for economic and demographic growth, different conceptions of the adequate organization of societies in time and space. The ideas that urban agendas incorporate may encourage or inhibit specific actions for change.

4  A Changing Geography A few Countries have a long-term trajectory of national urban political agendas, with associated urban policy programmes. Those that have configured models and have become reference examples for urban policy design include the UK, France, and the Netherland in Europe, the United States of America, and the People’s Republic of China. All these Countries, at least since the end of the Second World War, experienced an emerging urban question that gained national public attention, with investments in political and economic national projects and programmes directed to cities, pursuing urbanization processes. The diachronic and synchronic analysis points to convergences and mutual exchanges between Western European Countries and the U.S., especially when experimenting with programmes of aid to cities, and place-based policies. In periods of lesser direct government engagement and dynamics of punctuated equilibria (Jones and Baumgartner 2005), the debate and the mobilization of various publics around urban issues maintained a still vivid interest in urban policies. In a theorization referred to the last century, the U.S. is identified as an extreme case of polyarchy, market interaction, and social coordination, and China as a political system based on synoptic rationality, analysis, and comprehensive planning, where also the market system is a major instrument of governmental central planning (Lindblom 1979). This conceptualization confirms the two different models of national urban agendas that the U.S. and China case studies, respectively, outline. Since the end of the 1980s, a new geography of meaningful experimentation of national urban agendas and urban policies has emerged, including the experiences of other large Countries dealing with rapid urbanization and growth, reflecting the challenges of democratization. Planning issues and institutional reforms were also on the agenda. Within this frame,

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Brazil, India, Argentina are important contexts of inquiry, in relation to their specific condition that sees influential political leaders at the government alternating with dramatic changes in the political regime. In these cases, technobureaucratic national and international elites play a key role in setting ideas and orienting the path to the implementation of urban agendas and urban policies. Canada is a significant case of discontinuous but interesting phases of explicit urban action by the federal government. Area-based approaches were adopted, although in a situation lacking autonomy of municipal governments. In the last decade, new actors emerged at the supranational and international level, giving new impetus to national commitments towards urban problems. This is the case of the European Union Commission that launched a new urban framework for Old and New Member States, still under implementation; or the case of the UN-Habitat NUA and NUP, giving technical assistance to many Countries in Africa and Asia. Within this frame, some European States gave new impetus to their national urban agendas and policies—Spain and Portugal are meaningful cases. While other Countries with a consolidated tradition of national urban policies, like the UK and France, repositioned their political projects according to domestic social demands and global pressures. In any case, the balance in terms of urbanization process and even urban studies has shifted competitively, from old Western Europe and the U.S. to other parts of the world which pose engaging new issues for a global agenda. Viewed together, this book’s collection of essays suggests that urban agendas analysed as policy instruments are not peripheral to the study of public policy, for a valid reason: urbanization, which is the main issue-­ context of urban agendas, is a more pervasive phenomenon that has enormous impacts on contemporary governmental policymaking. If the focus goes to the urban dimension of public policies, there is evidence that most of the public action has important urban and territorial effects.

5  What’s Urban in National Urban Agendas? Beyond the official definitions that have been circulating proposed by transnational actors such as UN-Habitat, there is still no single, shared definition of what a national urban agenda is, or rather, what it should be or do. In fact, as often happens when it comes to the domain of urban policy (Le Galès 2005), the notion of urban agenda is rather elusive, not representing a clear-cut object even in terms of scientific research.

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Following Cochrane (2007), it becomes thus imperative to explore— regardless of any a-priori definition effort—the processes by which, in different geographical contexts, such agenda has been constructed (and thus defined) in practice. This philosophy underlies the rationale behind our editorial project. As said in Sects. 2 and 4, the cases collected in this book differ not only as regards the geo-political position of a Country, but also in terms of its urbanization levels and rates, socio-economic characteristics, political-­ administrative and legal traditions. Some Countries have a proper national urban agenda even without explicitly calling it so; others, on the contrary, have adopted specific documents labelled as agendas, whose contents however remain anchored to a mostly rhetorical dimension, with limited practical use due to a lack of dedicated policies, programmes, or funding schemes. In Countries with an explicit urban agenda, this can often be conceived in two ways. On the one hand, as voluntary tools of “soft policy”—documents consisting of mostly strategic goals—often with no proper implications in terms of special allocation of funding, or reform of ordinary administrative powers and competences among different government levels. On the other, agendas can be considered as “programmes of action”, meaning that proper funds and special programmes at the national level are actually conceived. In the first case,9 national agendas almost become a blueprint for cities to elaborate their own local agendas, and to make—at least rhetorically—concrete steps towards sustainable urban development, according to the latest international recommendations (i.e. the 2030 Agenda). Needless to say that for some Countries the motivations underlying the decision to draft a national urban agenda have undoubted political implications which help to showcase and legitimize, within a broader international arena, the government’s commitment to foster sustainable urbanization. Despite the differences among Countries, a diachronic and synchronic reading of the case-studies proposed by the book’s contributors allows the identification of some common traits. It is not simply the notion of urban agenda that is elusive. The very nature of “urban” is hard to define, due to its constant redefinition. In the last decades, in fact, global changes—now even faster and more pervasive 9  As for instance Spain, where a dedicated Ministry was also appointed in 2020. In this Country, the construction—since 2013—of the national urban agenda has been the result of an institutionalized process which was highly influenced by UN-Habitat.

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thanks to transportation and ICTs—have contributed to the planetary diffusion of the urban phenomenon in its physical-spatial, socio-economic, and political-cultural dimensions. Such diffusion has impacted not only what scholars have commonly called cities, but also socio-spatial settlements of much smaller size, peripheral, with a rather low population density, as well as rural, natural, and very remote environments. Amin and Thrift (2002) recognize the presence of the urban “everywhere and in everything”: the urbanized world, conceived today as a chain of metropolitan areas connected by places and communication corridors, extends its “footprints”—capitals, commuters, tourists, teleworking, means of communication, lifestyles, etc.—to territories traditionally not considered as urban, be they small towns, rural centres, or the countryside more generally. Brenner (2014a) and Brenner and Schmid (2013, 2014) thus suggest definitively breaking away from some classical dichotomies within urban studies, such as city/countryside, urban/rural, inside/outside, society/nature.10 Interweaving networks and multiple, trans-scalar, material and immaterial flows produce a condition of widespread anthropization which in turn generates unprecedented urban geographies. Densely populated urban areas are linked—through networks of dominance, control and regulation on a planetary scale, as well as investments of trans-­ national capital—to remote and semi-natural territories, often generating intense political-social and ecological conflicts. These spaces are intentionally selected and transformed into “functional and operational landscapes” (Brenner 2014b) to support cities and, more generally, the functioning of the global economy, becoming part of an urban fabric that extends on a planetary level. Such an elusive concept makes any criteria to define a city difficult to compare internationally.11 There is no global agreement on what a city is as definitions vary from Country to Country in terms of urbanization trends, national urban structure, and statistical methods of 10  Such dichotomies do not actually reflect the current processes of regionalization of the urban, agglomeration of people and economic activities within large urban areas, suburbanization, formation of new centralities, and simultaneous emergence of marginalities. 11  Usually Countries set quantitative population/density thresholds beyond which local administrative units are defined as cities, according to different sizes. Other Countries, however, consider the presence of certain services (transportation, health care, educational, governmental bodies, etc.), the physical forms of these settlements, or when the majority of its population is employed in non-agricultural activities (see, for instance, India in this book). Also urbanization rates (the share of the national population living in urban areas) vary from Country to Country depending on the national classification of urban areas.

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measurement. Moreover, the above is also tied to an idea of urbanity that is based on political evaluation, for instance, to allocate financial resources to socio-spatial settlements. How does the concept of urban enter into national agendas? Whether they are explicit or implicit, discursive or programmatic tools, national urban agendas have all had to deal with—at some point in the history of their respective Countries—the State’s concern to regulate the Country’s urbanization process (Kundu et al. 2020). In particular the rising—thanks to internal migrations—number of people living in urban areas as a percentage of the total national population, but also the physical growth of cities. This has become particularly evident throughout the so-called Keynesian-Fordist period, where priority was given to fostering industrialization and demographic growth, and hence modernization. As such, agendas often embodied a recognizable nationally coordinated vision— followed by strategies and specific action programmes—to drive the urbanization process, and structure the national urban system into a hierarchy between cities of different sizes/political-economic importance, and territories characterized by development imbalances and inequalities. As Brenner (2004) stresses, this had both a spatial and economic goal, since regional development policies had the aim of tackling historical patterns of unequal spatial development and spreading urban growth as evenly as possible throughout the national territory. Although national urban polices are only partially and rarely defined within coherent and explicit frameworks and are thus a set of mostly fragmented initiatives (D’Albergo 2010), national urban agendas of this period consisted mainly of policies that foresaw targeted aid to less developed regions and cities, and, later, industrial areas that were in crises.12 Particularly significant examples of such explicit national agenda are those of France with the métropoles d’équilibre policy that, throughout the Sixties, sought to strengthen second-tier cities in West and South France and thus counterbalance the political-economic dominance of Paris and Île-de-France; and China, with the programmes launched during Mao Zedong’s era to shift urbanization and economic development towards the interior and Western Provinces. In the U.S., federal policy programmes of aid to cities were characterized by a very consistent budget and a vast 12  These policies have been implemented through the relocation of industrial assets, economic activities, facilities and administrative functions, but also the provision of funding, fiscal incentive and administrative simplification within targeted regions.

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scale of intervention, within an explicit national urban agenda. The reform seasons of John F.  Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon’s Administrations focused on the problems of urban America experimenting different modes of intervention. Where Johnson’s urban policy targeted redistributive aims—inspired to ideals of social justice and democratization—the urban policy under Nixon developed a widespread general distributive policy scheme, which included a greater number of rich and poor localities, with more local political discretionary power. The adoption of a targeted, area-based approach under Johnson’s urban policy was more centrally coordinated and concentrated on distressed urban areas. Whereas a mix of person-based and area-based policies were functional to the objectives of decentralization of Nixon’s urban policy, to benefit urban areas in general. General revenue sharing and block grant programmes were the two strategic policy instruments. Worth noting that, in recent times, some Countries have once again shifted their attention to reverse imbalances in territorial development. In the UK, for instance, Johnson’s Conservative government (since 2019) is oriented in boosting economic development in Northern England, thus reducing London’s dominance through funding schemes allocated to smaller urban areas. France is currently refocusing attention on the need to rebalance growing spatial inequalities in the Country, by calling for ad hoc territorial cohesion policies for small- and medium-sized cities and rural areas. In Argentina, the draft of its national urban agenda—adopted in 2018—explicitly fixed the goal to balance regional development and shift existing urbanization trends, following the experimentations, between 2008 and 2018, of the Planes Estratégicos Territoriales that guided public investments towards strategic infrastructure projects at a federal level. In addition to this, other sectoral policy domains (land-use, infrastructures, transportation, housing, welfare, environmental protection, etc.) entailed alleviating the negative impacts produced within cities by massive rural-to urban migrations, agglomeration economies and later, the structural crisis of industrialization: overcrowding, physical and environmental degradation, poverty, unemployment and racial issues. The central State’s concern and intervention in urban affairs—often with progressive attitudes—targeted specific types of urban space, for instance the deprived inner-city neighbourhoods, peripheral areas, large-scale rundown housing estates, etc., framing the issues mostly in quantitative terms, that is in

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relation to the material and infrastructural equipment of cities.13 Within this perspective, central governments played a powerful role in tackling the issue of living conditions in urban areas in the thirty years from the end of the Second World War. In fact, several Countries established dedicated Ministries, commissioners, committees, task forces, and ad hoc governance structures specifically dedicated to the reconstruction of cities, through the provision of intervention programmes and funding schemes. In Canada, for instance, one of the few (short) moments in which an explicit federal urban agenda and the role of the federal government on urban issues is recognizable is in the Sixties and Seventies.14 Today, unprecedented public policy attention has brought urban issues back into the spotlight. As pervasiveness, in public and scientific discourse, of supranational agendas such as the UN’s 2030 Agenda and New Urban Agenda confirms, arguably—at least at a discursive level—the political centrality of cities and of urban issues is acknowledged by many Countries worldwide. Such centrality points to a move towards the goals set by Habitat III and the SDGs.15 In Argentina, for instance, the newly elected Macri government requested in 2016 support from UN-Habitat to set up its national urban agenda. In the fastest urbanizing Countries, in particular as a consequence of staggering internal rural-to-urban migrations, national urban agendas have massively focused on resolving basic needs and providing public services to fight against socio-economic inequalities, housing shortage, poor health and education services, the lack of proper infrastructures, but also environmental conflicts. In short, to ensure the proper right to the city (Lefebvre 1996). This is evident for instance in India, where a National Urban Policy Framework was adopted—with the influence of UN-Habitat—in 2020 by the National Institute of Urban Affairs. But also in Brazil under Lula (2003–2010) and Dilma (2011–2016), 13  This has also generated significant social conflicts and discontents, for instance protest movements for public housing, social welfare and against urban mega-projects such as slum clearance and the renewal of neighbourhoods. Modernist/functionalist styles of policymaking were also greatly criticized (Castells 1983). 14  Otherwise limited by the provincial constitutional jurisdiction over municipal and urban affairs. 15  As somehow confirmed by the outbreak of Covid-19 that not only represented a health issue, but also triggered a deep socio-economic crisis. Cities besides population concentrate on different human activities: the measures that governments introduced (lockdowns and social distancing) significantly affected the use of space, calling for a reflection on how, in the near future, cities will have to be managed also in terms of provision of public health infrastructures and services for all.

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where the grounding of an institutional and legal framework to ensure basic social welfare was formalized as a way to foster a democratic transition after the end of military dictatorship. Therein, the main goals of the agendas encouraged strengthening democracy, public participation, social justice, equality and environmental protection.

6  Reframing Cities Within National Urban Agendas National urban agendas are not neutral tools of public policy, as far as the system of values on which they are constructed and which they aim to pursue is concerned. Following Lascoumes and Le Galès (2007), herein we argue that urban agendas not only transform their configurations, scopes, and ranges of application over time; they also reveal a (changing) policy narrative, a way of conceiving cities and urban that has significant consequences in terms of how implementation tools are “framed” (Schön and Rein 1994) as regards to content, targets but also policymaking styles. The book explores cases that highlight, in their diachronic evolution, the policy changes that have affected the Countries’ agendas. Urban agendas therefore reflect and contribute to broader national and international economic changes along with national political projects and orientations, which mirror governmental changes. In addition, they manifest the changes in the configuration of power relations between national governments and cities. In the Keynesian-Fordist period, urban referred essentially to a “unidimensional” concept, with emphasis on the spatial-physical dimension of urban interventions. Urban policy, in short, was framed mostly in quantitative terms (i.e. the infrastructural equipment of cities), and urban agendas framed cities as a problem. On the one hand they sought to tackle the urban decay/crisis, and on the other to reduce the demographic pressure on urban settlements through decentralization.16 For many Western Countries, the combination of deindustrialization and globalization processes—in the Eighties—led to the adoption of more entrepreneurial styles of urban policymaking (Harvey 1989), denouncing the ineffectiveness of previous Keynesian approaches and encouraging resizing the role of the State through decentralization. National urban agendas in this period 16  For instance, the New Towns in the UK, but also the métropole d’équilibre policy in France that framed second-tier cities as new growth poles.

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predominantly framed cities as engines of economic growth, hence not just the object of national policies, greatly encouraging private initiatives in urban policy (mostly in brownfield areas), to attract international investments and pursue property-oriented or business-led development models. Among the most important implementation tools were ad hoc agencies that had special planning powers, and the designation of special zones where tax reduction, financial incentives, and relaxed planning regulations were at play. In the following decades, however, urban was framed in a much more “multidimensional” manner within national agendas, launching competitive policy programmes aimed at fostering an interconnected and intersectoral approach, notably the French Politique de la Ville and the British experiences with programmes such as the Single Regeneration Budget.17 Policies for deprived neighbourhoods, for instance, for the first time considered the structural intertwining and overlapping aspects that may lead to socio-economic deprivation, not simply related to problematic behaviours of individuals and social groups. Housing, in short, passed from simply being a public works and welfare issue to a matter of urban policy. The main goals of the so-called area-based agendas were to enhance local economic development, with specific social-oriented actions intended to tackle processes of exclusion, and fostering social justice. This in turn called for the negotiation and collaboration of different levels of government and departments (housing, land-use planning, transportation, welfare, education, public security, etc.), the integration of funds, but also the establishment of partnerships among politicians, technicians, civil society and private sector stakeholders, and the development of participatory approaches to strengthen community empowerment. The Nineties and Noughties saw, in many Countries, the emergence of a rather different approach that was mostly based on the discourses to promote, as in the case of the UK, a “new localism”.18 In public narratives, cities—especially large urban regions and metropolitan areas—have been framed on the one hand as the “drivers” of national economic competitiveness in an increasingly globalized and interconnected world, thus fostering efficient spatial and economic agglomerations of functions,

17  Although in this Country an area-based approach was already in place in 1968 with the launch of the Urban programme by the Home Office. 18  Notably with the New Labour experience.

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infrastructures, capitals, and high-tech and innovative businesses19; on the other, they have been regarded as the origin and solution of contemporary global challenges (Gleeson 2012). In policy terms, this has meant a process of devolution of power to the local level and greater fiscal, financial, and administrative autonomy, as well as the emergence of a developmental face within urban agendas (Kantor 2013).20 According to the subsidiarity principle, indeed, urban issues could be tackled more effectively at the local level. Higher government levels (i.e. the national one) acted as enabler of city autonomy instead of directly intervening in urban issues. Regional and urban development also became much more dependent on an interterritorial competitiveness approach, whereas cities, emerging as new global actors, increasingly organized themselves in national and international networks. In Latin America, current urban agendas—aligned since 2018 to the international guiding principles of UN-Habitat and to the Regional Action Plans, framed cities as macro-level public goods that guarantee economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights. In the U.S., local electorates found better responses in the competing marketplace of governments at the local level, and Clinton’s agenda promoted a “marriage” between pragmatism and entrepreneurialism. Policy tools were the Empowerment Zones, where massive funds were concentrated, and the Enterprise Communities which were selected on a competitive base with respect to distressed urban neighbourhoods and rural communities. In addition to the social problems that emerged in different historical phases, national agendas and the urban concept also evolve as a result of national political changes (i.e. party leadership) and orientations, and the influence of international actors and discourse. In Canada, for instance, when in 2006 the government led by Conservatives came into power, it reversed the policies of the past introduced by the Liberal party which recognized the need for a federal New Deal for Cities, stressing the primary role of provincial governments in urban policy. With their return to power in 2015, the importance of cities was once again recognized by the Trudeau’s government, that prioritized their role, at least in policy 19  A pro-urban and competitiveness-driven narrative is particularly evident in the French case with programmes such as the National Policy of Clusters or Pôles de Compétitivité (2005) and later the Sarkozy’s project for the Grand Paris, but also in China (i.e. the Tenth FiveYear Socio-Economic Plan) and India (Mega-City Scheme). 20  According to Le Galés (2011), this has generated—in Europe—a condition of “return of cities” within national political and economic agendas.

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discourses, in fostering overall economic development and sustainable economic growth. In the UK, changes between labour and conservative governments led to thematic shifts and discontinuity also as regards to the national urban agenda. Important changes followed indeed the election in 1979 of the Thatcher’s conservative government, which resulted in a set of policy reforms aimed at enhancing market forces and more entrepreneurial policymaking styles, framing cities as engine of economic growth. Conversely, especially with the New Labour government in the Nineties, intervention on the so-called inner-cities was mostly based on principles such as community involvement and social and functional mix. A further reversal of the English urban agenda came with the election of the Coalition government in 2010. Drawing on the vision of a “Big Society”, the Coalition fostered a de-regulation of the planning system and implementation of austerity cuts to welfare spending by local governments. The foundational principle, called National Planning Policy Framework, prioritized market-led planning approaches undertaken by private sector investors, as well as value-capture mechanisms coming from property investments to fund welfare demands and meet social policy goals. In France, with JeanLouis Borloo, Minister of Cities under the Chirac presidency, a reversal of the principles and paradigms that had inspired the Politique de la Ville was promoted with the launch, in 2003, of the National Urban Renewal Programme and the establishment of a dedicated State agency. The programme targeted social housing areas by fostering mostly physical interventions of demolition and reconstruction, opening calls for projects that see local governments competing among each other. In Spain, such evolution can be appreciated when looking at the leadership of different Ministries in the national urban agenda-setting, an aspect that reveals how Spain has turned to diverse international debates to shape its agenda. In the early process (2013), the leadership consisted of the Ministry of Finance that started drafting the agenda during negotiations with the European Commission for the EU structural funding period 2014–2020. Under the conservative government, the leadership was passed to the Ministry of Public Works, and the United Nations became a very influential reference point (2030 Agenda and the New Urban Agenda). The leadership was eventually held by the new Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda in 2020 under a left-wing government. Argentina experienced a drastic change in terms of political leadership in 2015. This also marked a break in the approach that the Kirchner Peronist governments had followed between 2003 and 2015—characterized for the State’s active role

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in the economic realm through the launch of neo-developmentalist policies—and the Macri government that came to power in 2015. The latter, in fact, went back to a stronger neoliberal approach that sought financial valorization and the reduction of subsides for public services. India’s comprehensive development policies launched after its independence (1947) and between the Fifties and Sixties were intended to foster an equitable development among classes and rural/urban areas. In the Nineties, however, cities were progressively conceived as engines of economic growth through the launch of programmes such as the Mega-City Scheme, focused on promoting economic competitiveness and efficiency. Whereas the programmes of the Modi government between 2015–2021 were still biased towards big cities covering mostly issues of economic growth, digitalization and provision of infrastructures, the National Urban Policy Framework reversed such dominant frame. The new framework proposed an organic “human-centred” vision for the development of cities, where cities act as engines of social inclusion by addressing the long-standing issues of poverty, slums, but also citizens participation. Such reframing also occurred in China, where the recent National New-Type Urbanization Plan was inspired by the principle of a “people-oriented” urbanization which reversed the dominant narratives of cities as engines of economic growth that had prevailed since the start of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reform in the late Seventies. These important statements reflect the direction of the urban agenda towards the goal of a just city (Fainstein 2010). In Brazil, the construction of a national urban agenda has intertwined with the process of democratic transition, started at the end of the dictatorship in 1988. This has changed the goals, values, and ideas of urban/ city, as the shift from the Lula and Dilma Party of Workers’ governments (2003–2016) to the neoliberal and conservatives Temer (2016–2018) and Bolsonaro’s (since 2019) governments clearly highlight. Whereas in the first phase the drafting of the agenda went hand in hand with a democratization of the planning practice, substituting the technocratic approach of the military dictatorship, and recognizing the social/political function of cities and urban planning,21 the second phase basically coincided with a process of dismantling public policies. Not only has the urban issue, under 21  Basically recognizing the social function of urban landed property, the right to the land for slum dwellers (building titles were attributed, through a regularization of land occupation, to low-income people, thus legitimizing the possession), and the citizen’s direct participation.

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Bolsonaro, gone off the political agenda for instance with the suppression of dedicated Ministries; but he has also put forward the idea that the city is a machine that generates wealth, as in the case of the reform of the housing programme known as Minha Casa Minha Vida, intended, from this point on, to favour the wealthier classes. Moreover, he also pushed for changes in the rural and urban land regularization policy introduced by the previous governments. The housing policy evolution, in the Portuguese urban agenda, underscores a reversal of the idea of what a city should be in terms of built environment and home ownership. Whereas between the Eighties and Nineties, policy tools such as subsidized mortgages and tax deductions facilitated private ownership and individual housing, since 2000 there has been an effort—owing to the influence of the EU Cohesion Policy—to integrate housing policy and urban policy more explicitly. This has brought, in the last few years (2016–2020) to a return of the housing issue within the political agenda of the socialist government, with greater effort to its integration within spatial planning to promote a rather different idea of city. The main tools are aimed at fostering a larger social housing stock, public ownership, rental contracts and projects to refurbish, and overall reduce the number of families overburdened by housing costs, specifically targeting individuals or families that live in unbearable housing conditions.

References Amin, A., and N. Thrift. 2002. Cities: Reimagining the urban. Oxford: Polity. Armondi, S., and S. De Gregorio Hurtado. 2020. Foregrounding urban agendas. The new urban issue in European experiences of policy-making. New York: Springer. Bachrach, P., and M.S.  Baratz. 1962. Two faces of power. American Political Science Review. 56: 947–952. Bali, A., Halpin D. 2021. “Agenda-setting instruments: means and strategies for the management of policy demands.” Policy and Society, 40(3): 333–344 Baumgartner, F.R., Green-Pedersen, Ch., and Jones, B.J. 2006. “Comparative studies of policy agendas.” Journal of European Public Policy, 13(7): 959–974. ———. 1963. Decisions and nondecisions: An analytical framework. American Political Science Review 57: 632–642. Barca, F. 2012. Metodi e obiettivi per un uso efficace dei Fondi comunitari 2014–2020. Roma: Ministro per la Coesione territoriale. Brasil, F.G., Jones, B.D. 2020. “Agenda setting: Policy change and policy dynamics A brief introduction.” Brazilian Journal of Public Administration, 54(6): 1486–1497.

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Brenner, N. 2004. New state spaces: Urban governance and the rescaling of statehood. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———., ed. 2014a. Implosions/explosions: Towards a study of planetary urbanization. Berlin: Jovis Verlag. ———. 2014b. Introduction: Urban theory without an outside. In Implosions/ explosions: Towards a study of planetary urbanization, ed. N. Brenner, 14–30. Berlin: Jovis Verlag. Brenner, N., and C. Schmid. 2013. Planetary urbanization. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37 (3): 909–922. ———. 2014. The ‘Urban Age’ in question. In Implosions/explosions: Towards a study of planetary urbanization, ed. N. Brenner, 310–337. Berlin: Jovis Verlag. Castells, M. 1983. The city and the grassroots: A cross-cultural theory of urban social movements. University of California Press. Cobb, R.W., J.K. Ross, and M.H. Ross. 1976. Agenda building as a comparative political process. American Political Science Review 70 (1): 126–138. Cochrane, A. 2007. Understanding urban policy: A critical approach. Oxford: Blackwell. Cohen, B.C. 1963. The press and foreign policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cohen, M.D., J.G. March, and J.O. Olsen. 1972. A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly 17 (1): 1–25. Cuciti, P.L. 1990. A nonurban policy. Recent public policy. Shifts affecting cities. In The future of national urban policy, ed. Kaplan Marshall and James Franklin, 235–252. Durham and London: Duke Press Policy Studies. D’Albergo, E. 2010. Urban issues in nation-state agendas: A comparison in Western Europe. Urban Research & Practice 3 (2): 138–158. Dearing, J.W., and E.M. Rogers. 1996. Agenda-setting. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Deleuze, G., and F.  Guattari. 1980. Capitalisme et schizophrénie. Mille plateau. Paris: Les éditions de minuit. Fainstein, S.S. 2010. The just city. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Gelli, F. 2017. Evolution without learning? The contentious issue of EU regional policy in Italy (2011–2016). In Italien zwischen Krise und Aufbruch. Reformen und Reformversuche der Regierung Renzi, ed. A.  Grasse, M.  Grimm, and L. Labitzke, 263–296. Wiesbaden: Springer VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Gleeson, B. 2012. Critical commentary. The urban age. Urban Studies 49 (5): 931–943. Hajer, M.A., and H. Wagenaar. 2003. Deliberative policy analysis. Understanding governance in the network society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harvey, D. 1989. From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The transformation in urban governance in late capitalism. Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography 71 (1): 3–17.

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Jones, B. D., Baumgartner, F. R. 2005. The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritized Problems, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kantor, P. 2010. City futures: Politics, economic crisis, and the American model of urban development. Urban Research & Practice 3 (1): 1–11. ———. 2013. The two faces of American Urban Policy. Urban Affairs Review 49 (6): 821–850. Kingdon, J. 1984. Agendas, alternatives, and public policies. New  York: HarperCollins. Kundu, D., R. Sietchiping, and M. Kinyanjui. 2020. Developing national urban policies. New York: Springer. Lascoumes, P., and P. Le Galès. 2007. Introduction: Understanding public policy through its instruments—From the nature of instruments to the sociology of public policy instrumentation. Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions 20 (1): 1–21. Le Galès, P. 1998. La nuova political economy delle città e regioni. Stato e Mercato 52: 53–92. ———. 2005. Elusive urban policies in Europe. In Cities of Europe. Changing contexts, local arrangements, and the challenge to urban cohesion, ed. Y. Kazepov, 233–254. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2011. Le Retour des villes européennes. Sociétés urbaines, mondialisation, gouvernement et gouvernance. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Lefebvre, H. 1996. The right to the city. In Writings on cities, ed. Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas, 158. Cambridge, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9780631191889. Lindblom, Ch.E. 1979. Politica e Mercato. Milano: Etas Libri. Majone, G. 1989. Evidence, Argument and persuasion in the policy process. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. May, P.J. 1991. Reconsidering policy design. Policies and publics. Journal of Public Policy 11 (2): 187–206. McCombs, M.E., and D.L.  Shaw. 1972. The agenda-setting function of mass media. Public Opinion Quarterly 36: 176–187. Merton, R.K. 1968. Social theory and social structure. New York: The Free Press. Peters, G. 2018. Policy problems and policy design. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Rittel, H.W.J., and M.M. Webber. 1973. Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences. 4: 155–169. Sapotichne, J. 2010. The evolution of national urban policy congressional agendas, presidential power, and public opinion. Paper prepared for a Congress Project-­ Comparative Urban Studies Project Seminar: National Urban Policy: Is a New Day Dawning? Washington, DC.  Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

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Schön, D., and M. Rein. 1994. Frame reflection: Toward the resolution of intractable policy controversies. New York: Basic Book. Schroth, F., H.  Glatte, S.  Kaiser, and M.  Heidingsfelder. 2020. Participatory agenda setting as a process—Of people, ambassadors and translation: A case study of participatory agenda setting in rural areas. European Journal of Futures Research 8 (6). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40309-­020-­00165-­w. Shaw, F. 1979. Agenda setting and mass communication theory. Gazette 25 (2): 96–105. Wildavsky, A. 1987. Speaking truth to power. The art and craft of policy analysis. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers. Zimmermann, K., and V. Fedeli. 2021. A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe. Cheltenham, UK, Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.

PART I

The “Old” Geography: Between Continuity and Change

The cases presented in this part—which focuses on urban agendas of France, the UK, the People’s Republic of China and the US—introduce a geography of national urban agendas that can be traced back to the second half of the twentieth century, right after the Second World War.1 The contexts analysed herein, despite their respective constitutional, economic, ideological and political differences, highlight innovative formulations of explicit national urban programmes, aimed at implementing priorities and objectives of the country’s political agenda. The above-mentioned countries have different urbanization patterns and levels. France, the UK and the US are currently amongst the most urbanized countries in the world in terms of population living in urban areas, as recorded by their respective national statistics. Accordingly, the rate in France is at almost 80%, whereas in the UK and the US it is about 89% and 83%, respectively. China, on the contrary, shows a much lower urbanization level (64% in 2021, according to the China’s latest Statistical Yearbook). However, compared to the European and North American context, China’s urbanization rates have undergone a phase of massive growth over a much shorter time, that is, less than three decades. According to UN-Habitat, China, together with India and Nigeria, will host in the  The selection is not exhaustive: future research could also include the robust Dutch historical tradition of national urban policies and, to some extent, the Australian government’s experience in the same domain. 1

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near future one-third of the global urban population growth. Despite these differences, the countries featured in this part highlight long-term trajectories of national urban agendas with national governments playing an active role in launching urban policy programmes. In our analytical timeframe, the to-and-fro pendulum in national urban policy reveals dynamics of “punctuated equilibrium” (Jones and Baumgartner 2005). Periods of greater political commitment to national urban issues alternated with phases of mild interest in public action, as well as disillusionment with public urban policies and the central government’s direct intervention. As reaction, a shift towards more market-oriented initiatives and decentralized governance was set in motion. The ensemble of selected cases outlines the backbone of models of urban agendas that, to varying degrees, have become reference for policy design practices in countries worldwide, throughout the twentieth century to the present day. To date, these cases still constitute a milestone in policy studies literature. Between the 1950s and 1990s, governmental policymaking and public policy tools have evolved with common traits in the UK, the US and France, to address the many challenges of urbanization processes. Specific trajectories of intervention strategies are highly correlated to local contexts. In a first phase, urban policies—especially place-based programmes for impoverished urban areas and renewal programmes to combat urban blight (1940–1970)—incorporated community development ideas grounded on comprehensive planning and expert problem-solving. Aimed at ameliorating the residents’ living conditions in distressed neighbourhoods, approaches to urban policy design were characterized by solutions for the local. They incorporated specific theories on poverty, marginality, deviance, and social change which inhibited local participation and activation of people’s resources for change. Community became the object of planning for the greater general interest. Recalling Charles Lindblom’s thesis in Politics and Markets, the community development perspective—applied to urban diagnosis for correct interventions and policy decisions—was coherent with the model of the intellectually guided society. The model “specified that some people in the society are wise and informed enough to ameliorate its problems and guide social change with a high degree of success […]. Since it is knowledge rather than volition that guides society, the intellectual elite is simultaneously a political elite” (Lindblom 1977, p. 249). The same model involves a dichotomy between rulers and the ruled, which can be clearly observed in “the economic planning of

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the communist variety”, as the China case study highlights. The three case studies related to Western Europe and the US thematize the failures of programme initiatives guided by community development ideals to achieve objectives of change. They also highlight additional problems and unexpected outcomes which include a worsening of social and economic disparities, the exacerbation of racial discrimination and urban disorders. A meaningful description of “wicked problems” is made by Theodore Lowi in the End of Liberalism (1969) within a dedicated chapter on Cities: The American Tragedy. Therein he argued that a cause of city decline and general fiscal crisis was the governmental structure and policy that, driven by liberal ideology, had rapidly lost its ability to deal with modern social policies. Moreover, the old shame and new was the recurrent fear and hatred towards new incoming ethnic and racial groups and lower classes, which stimulated the escape of the medium and high classes from the city, triggering suburbanization dynamics. In the 1960s, a shift towards the adoption of a community involvement approach in urban programme design brought significant changes in policy urban regeneration and redevelopment tools, giving rise to a new season of more participatory urban policies. Such reforming ideas encouraged the involvement of local communities—citizens, above all the have nots, as well as local governments—strengthening proximity relationships and the nexus between people and places. Urban interventions were planned in tandem with the city, in policies of the local, thus emphasizing the demand for inclusive decision-making processes. From a citizen’s perspective, participation was related to power and change of the status quo, while, from the government’s perspective, participation was oriented to advise, to enhance local people’s knowledge and competencies on dealing with local problems. The politicity of planning practices lay in the interaction, as a method of defining problems and increasing choice options. Public-private partnership was a practical tool to enhance effective multi-stakeholder involvement in urban project design, and joint action in implementing steps. But also inter-governmental and inter-agency collaboration had a new impetus to overcome the fragmentation of public intervention and improve institutional coordination. Participation was seen as a tool to develop more integrated urban policies. Community involvement was actually a step towards the adoption of a governance approach, developing economic and social dimensions of urban policies. Community involvement revealed difficulties in developing processes of effective participation—inclusive, open and accountable. Moreover, it

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showed its weaker side in the difficulty it encountered in giving continuity to the outcomes of participatory processes. In many contexts, it turned out to be a sporadic and inconsistent effort. In the 1990s, community-­ building approaches were introduced in urban policies with the aim of empowering local people and local governments, to strengthen their autonomous capabilities. Local communities were regarded as protagonists of urban project design and implementation, encouraging collaborative relations with public institutions. Planning was conceived within and throughout the community. The potential social capital of localities—networks, informal individual and collective relationships, and other social assets—was regarded, in urban policy, as an effective resource for design and implementation purposes. Going back to the contributions that make up this first part, Deborah Galimberti and Gilles Pinson discuss the French case by presenting, in a diachronic perspective that starts from the second post-war reconstruction, the evolution of the country’s national urban policy. Accordingly, the authors present three sets of policies that can arguably be considered part of an urban agenda: urban planning policies, regional development policies and urban constituent policies. Their analysis traces the changes that occurred in the power relations between urban governments and the central state, challenging in this way the idea of a highly centralized country that is widespread within international public debates. By focusing specifically on the issue of urban regeneration, Paola Briata and Mike Raco examine the historical evolution of the UK’s urban policy, starting from the 1960s. The authors thus highlight phases of continuity and discontinuity triggered by periodic changes that not only reflect broader political orientations but also ways of framing cities and places. Matteo Basso and Law Wang explore China’s case, a country where a national urban agenda, embodied in specific Five-Years Socio-Economic Development Plans, is in force since 1953. Transition from a centrally planned to a market economy triggered by the economic reforms was launched in the late seventies. Such transition called for a shift in the role and function of cities in Chinese politics, society, culture and economy. Currently, it is still ongoing, supported by the recent launch of a New-Type Urbanization Plan. Finally, Francesca Gelli examines the evolution of the American national urban agenda from a policy analysis perspective. In the past, American urban policy programmes and governance were a reference model in urban policy studies, acknowledged worldwide. The US urban agenda has also been a source of policy transfer for policy design, owing to innovations in

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legislation, policy tools, methods of intervention and experiments of federal aid policy programmes to cities with a very consistent budget and intervention scale.

References Jones, B.D., and F.R. Baumgartner. 2005. The politics of attention. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lindblom, C.E. 1977. Politics and markets: The world’s political-economic systems. New York: Basic Book. Lowi, T.J. 1979. The end of liberalism. The second republic of the United States. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.; first edition, 1969, The end of liberalism, ideology, policy, and the crisis of public authority. W.W.  Norton & Company, Inc.

CHAPTER 2

Urban Policies in France: Stronger Metropolises and Steering State Deborah Galimberti and Gilles Pinson

1   Introduction Does France1 have an urban policy? This is a hard question to answer! What is an urban policy (Cochrane 2007)? Is it a policy carried out by a centralized government, a national state or a powerful regional government, which would apply it to the whole territory under its control? And if so, does the policy focus on a particular public policy domain, or on several domains (housing, transport, environment, etc.)? Does it focus on a specific type of urban space (e.g. deprived neighbourhoods, large-scale

1  According to INSEE (French National Statistics Institute) eight out of ten French residents live in an area qualified as “urban” (more than 2000 inhabitants in a continuous built surface); 80% of urban areas have less than 10,000 inhabitants, but they count only for 13% of the total population (INSEE 2020).

D. Galimberti • G. Pinson (*) Sciences Po Bordeaux/CNRS, Bordeaux, France e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_2

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social housing estates)? Should the category of urban policy be extended to all the policies that are designed and implemented by urban governments themselves? Do these two sets constitute a coherent whole or, conversely, are they fraught with contradictions? This makes the notion of “urban policy” a very “elusive” category (Le Galès 2005). Despite the elusive nature of the term “urban policy”, all policies which have cities and the spatial organization of urban areas as their object can be considered to fall into this category, irrespective of the organizations behind these policies. This first set of urban policies will be referred to here as “urban planning policies”. However, as far as France is concerned, we considered important to add two other types of policies. The first are those policies that in France are called politiques d’aménagement du territoire, a notion that can be translated as “regional development policies”. These policies historically aimed at correcting development imbalances and territorial inequalities. As in other European countries, they mainly consisted in specific targeted aids for less developed regions or areas experiencing a crisis of their industrial apparatus. One specificity of the French context is that regional policies aimed at reducing territorial inequalities have been framed within an urban agenda, targeting in particular the so-­ called regional capitals (or métropoles d’équilibre) outside Paris. A second type of public policy that can be included in the category of urban policy concerns programmes aimed at strengthening the political capacity of cities through the devolution of policy functions and resources. We call this latter type “urban constituent policies” inspired by the category coined by Theodore Lowi (Lowi 1972). In the French case, this type of policy entailed the promotion of different set of reforms aimed at encouraging and strengthening forms of intermunicipal cooperation at the metropolitan scale that played out over more than 50 years. A first central argument of this chapter is to claim that, in the French case, if there is an urban policy, it is made up of these three types of policies: “urban planning policies” which can be carried out either by the state or by urban governments; “regional development policies” aimed at modifying the urban structure and intervening on territorial inequalities, “urban constituent policies” aimed at strengthening metropolitan governance devices, at the expenses of lower levels, in particular the municipalities. The second key argument in this chapter concerns the impetus for urban policy initiatives and the ability to set an urban agenda. Contrary to the image of a highly centralized country that is sometimes used in the

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international public debate when referring to France, the history of urban policies shows an oscillation in terms of the impetus and capacity of innovation over time. At some point, the central state steers changes in policyideas and instruments, but progressively urban governments have also developed an autonomous capacity to define policy-issues and solutions, and in general, urban policies are most often the result of a complex dialectic between the state and urban governments. This chapter is organized in a chronological way. We distinguish three periods that correspond to three distinct orientations of urban agendas, but also to a distinct configuration of the dialectical balance of power between the state and cities. For each period, we discuss the three types of urban policies that we have identified.

2   1945–1980: The State as the Major Actor of Urban Planning and Regional Development During the three decades following the end of the Second World War, the central government became a powerful actor in the design and implementation of urban policies. This dynamic of recentralization of urban policy had already been initiated by the Vichy Regime and put an end to a period, which had begun with the beginnings of the Third Republic (around 1875), that had been characterized by municipal initiatives in urban planning. During the 1960s, the central government also developed a more systematic concern for regional development and launched a policy of métropoles d’équilibre which had enduring outcome on the national urban structure. Finally, since it was unable to reduce by fusion the number of municipalities, it promoted policies promoting intermunicipal cooperation in large cities. 2.1   Urban Planning Policies: The Central State as the Orchestrator of Reconstruction and Urbanization Urban planning policies are one of the rare domains of public policy whose structuring is not due to the initiative of central government administration. Apart from the specific case of the major works of Prefect Haussmann in Paris, urban planning was born of a series of scattered initiatives by municipalities at the end of the nineteenth century aimed at regulating the

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relations between tenants and landlords, building collective facilities and experimenting new planning tools (Gaudin 1985). During the Second World War, the Vichy regime initiates a first movement to centralize urban planning policies. A new ministry was created— the Commissariat à la Reconstruction Immobilière—which took charge of the reconstruction of cities damaged by the war. This new interest of the state in urban issues was confirmed at the Liberation with the creation in 1944 of a Ministry of Reconstruction and Urban Planning. This ministry centralized and distributed the funds allocated to urban reconstruction, but the planning and implementation of reconstruction operations remained the responsibility of local governments. In addition, the state-­ owned bank Caisse des dépôts et consignations, which collects savings funds, begins to allocate its financial resources to social housing. This logic of recentralizing urban planning policies was accelerated by the launch of the Zones à Urbaniser en Priorité (ZUP) (priority urbanization zones) programme in 1958. The construction of new housing in cities to cope with the rural exodus and the baby boom was not enough. The state, through the prefect, therefore decided to take back control not only of financing but also of planning and building large social housing estates in areas located on the outskirts of cities where land was easily available. This state influence on cities and urban policies was then extended to infrastructure and equipment through the creation in 1967 of the Ministry of Equipment, which merged the Ministry of Reconstruction and Urban Planning and the Ministry of Public Works. Through its decentralized services—the powerful Directions Départementales de l’Equipement—this ministry controls housing, transport and urban equipment policies. The urban governments and their administrations were reduced to the role of auxiliaries with respect to the state that was strongly redesigning the material infrastructure of French cities. 2.2   Regional Development Policies: Strengthening Regional Main Cities to Counterbalance the Economic Dominance of Paris The central state intervention in urban affairs was not limited to the scale of the cities but concerned more widely the urban structure of the country. As in other European contexts, these policies can be qualified as part of the spatial Keynesianism paradigm that characterized the Fordist period of industrialization (Brenner 2004). As stated by Neil Brenner “its linchpin was the political alleviation of entrenched patterns of uneven spatial

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development by spreading urban growth as evenly as possible across the entire surface of each national territory” (ibidem, p.  115). In France, regional development policies were characterized by a very pronounced urban framing focused in particular on the strengthening of regional main cities. In other words, it is through the strengthening of the economic role of regional mail cities that French Gaullist civil servants intended to act on the spatial organization of the economy in order to fight territorial imbalances. The publication in 1949 of a book entitled Paris and the French Desert by a geographer, Jean-François Gravier (1960), greatly influenced the problematization of the problem of territorial inequalities. In this book, the author pointed out the Paris hyperconcentration and the relative underdevelopment and marginality of regional main cities in the French economy. Until the beginning of the 1960s, the Paris region concentrated 39% of the liberal professions, nearly half of the engineers, two thirds of the researchers, and 60% of the automobile and aeronautics industries. In addition to this problem of Parisian hypertrophy, the issue of the underindustrialization of the West of France, which fuelled a rural exodus that essentially benefitted Paris region, become visible. There were also the first signs that traditional industries in the north and east of the country were running out of steam. After the war, some programmes were launched to correct this uneven development. In 1955, a Decentralization Committee was set up, bringing together top civil servants and representatives of the Chambers of Commerce, to try to contain the development of the Paris region. In 1960, an interministerial committee for regional planning was set up in order to raise a concern for regional planning among sectoral ministries. However, it was only with the creation in 1963 of the Délégation à l’Aménagement du Territoire et à l’Action Régionale (DATAR) that a voluntaristic policy based on a proper allocation of monetary resources was launched. During the first two decades of its existence the DATAR was under the control of the Prime Minister and thus benefitted from a strong political legitimization that allows the agency to influence investment decisions of sectoral ministries. As for the main policy-tools deployed directly by the agency to fulfil its missions to counterbalance uneven development, it is worth citing a policy that subjected private companies’ plans to set up or develop in the Paris region to a state authorization. Most notably, the agency was responsible to allocate benefits to companies that were identified as targets of the regional development policy as well as to encourage, through allocation of funds, the relocation of major industrial

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and administrative assets in peripheral territories, notably in the Western and Southern France (Monticher, de 1995). In its project to reduce development imbalances, DATAR intends to rely on cities. In the agency’s vision, cities are the equivalent of the “growth poles” of François Perroux’s theory. The development of cities and in particular of regional main cities was meant to modify the national urban structure in order to create economically dynamic second tier cities such as Manchester, Munich and Milan, as well as to benefit the development of hinterland areas. This theoretical and ideological orientation underpins the policy of métropoles d’équilibre which consisted in the relocation of industrial and administrative assets in eight urban regions (Lyon/Saint-­ Etienne/Grenoble, Aix/Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Lille/ Roubaix/Tourcoing, Nancy/Metz and Strasbourg). State aids for companies creating employment in industrial sectors in Nantes, Bordeaux and Toulouse were also reinforced. These cities received also state aids for housing, infrastructure projects and university facilities. The outcomes of these interventions in the framework of the métropoles d’équilibre policy are mixed. From the one hand, this policy-programme combined with the state control for companies’ settlement in Paris, have allowed to counterbalance the concentration of economic activities in the capital. They also allowed to endow regional main cities with facilities and infrastructures that have boosted their development. In fact, most of the largest French cities which are nowadays economically dynamic correspond to the former métropoles d’équilibre identified by the DATAR. On the other hand, the focus on the regional main cities has been criticized for having contributed to the acceleration of the rural exodus and the decline of the network of small- and medium-sized cities. Moreover, the policy of métropoles d’équilibre as all DATAR’s interventions, has been characterized by a very top-down and centralized orientation. In contrast to Jean-­ François Gravier’s vision, who advocated for devolving more power to local governments in order to effectively act on the hyper concentration of Paris, civil servants and elected officials that directed the DATAR were fiercely defending a vision according to which only the central state could be entitled to intervene in regional affairs and tackling uneven development. As stated by Jérôme Monod, head of DATAR between 1968 and 1975, “what centralization has done, it alone can undo” (de Castelbajac & Monod 2004, p. 41). So, if the policy of métropoles d’équilibre has contributed to boost the economic development of regional main cities, it did not

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contribute to reinforce their political capacity and autonomy but rather left them in a dependency relationship towards central state policymakers. 2.3   Urban Constituent Policies: The Timid Creation of Intermunicipal Cooperation Bodies During this period, while the state was very influencing, even invasive, in the design and implementation of urban planning policies, it was much more cautious as for the promotion of reforms aimed at modifying the institutional architecture of urban and local government. While many European countries were promoting policies to rationalize the number of municipalities and sometimes build metropolitan governments, France stood out for its immobility in this domain. In 1962, the country still had more than 38,000 communes; 20 years later, the figure had dropped to 36,547. In the same period, Sweden divided the number of communes by ten, the United Kingdom and Germany by three. In France, a policy of merging communes was launched in 1971 by the Minister of the Interior Marcellin, but it faced strong resistance and produced few results (Tellier 2017). The explanations for this failed initiation of an institutional reform can be found by placing France in the international categories of national systems of local government and state-local relations. According to Brian Smith (Smith 1985), France is one of the countries in which local government is associated with “community” values, in other words, local governments are seen above all as tools for representing and defending a local identity. This model is opposed to the “efficiency” model, which corresponds to countries in which local governments are seen more as entities whose vocation is above all to provide services to the population. In this second category of countries, one can expect that the reorganization of local government, less politically sensitive, will be easier to orchestrate. In a similar vein, Goldsmith and Page (1987) have proposed a typology of local government systems that identifies a “Northern” group and a “Southern” group to which France belongs. While the typology is somewhat out of date, as the authors themselves have acknowledged in a more recent publication (Goldsmith and Page 2010), it remains very enlightening for understanding the French situation (Pinson 2010a). In the North, local governments were deemed to exercise many competences, to enjoy a certain discretion to do so, but to have little access to national decision-­ making spaces. In the South, a diametrically opposed situation has

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prevailed for a long time: few competences, little discretion but a strong capacity to influence national policy thanks, at least in France, to the practice of holding both national and local mandates by local elected officials.2 This explains the discrepancy between an all-powerful state in terms of territorial policies, relegating local governments to secondary roles, but faced with elected officials who are legitimate in defending territories and local societies against attacks on their administrative boundaries and identity. This situation has been well summarized by the formulas of “peripheral power” or “tamed Jacobinism” by Pierre Grémion (Grémion 1976). At the end of the 1960s to get around this difficulty in rationalizing the number of municipalities, the state invented an institutional formula focused on the promotion of intermunicipal cooperation (Kessler and Bodiguel 1968; Guéranger 2008). This formula was first tested in the large cities. By a law of 1966, the central state creates intermunicipal governments (communautés urbaines) in four big agglomerations: Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon and Strasbourg. The aim was to compensate the inadequacy of existing municipal administrations due to the process of urbanization and to organize urban services on a metropolitan scale, while respecting the sovereignty of municipalities. Competences relating to networks—roads, water, public transport, waste collection, etc.—are entrusted to new intermunicipal administrations better endowed with engineering capacity and governed by councils composed of elected municipal officials. Electoral legitimacy remains the prerogative of mayors and municipal councils, which retain the more politically sensitive areas of responsibility such as urban planning, housing and assistance to associations. Similar administration—the syndicates of new agglomerations—were created to govern the new cities created on the outskirts of Paris, Lille, Lyon, Marseille or Rouen.

3   1980–2000: Decentralization Reforms and the Rise of Cities In this period, we see a fairly widespread questioning of the public policies which characterized the previous period. The city remains at the heart of political agendas, but in radically different ways. The urban crisis affecting most Western societies did not spare France. It is particularly evident in 2  Before its exercise was limited by a series of laws: the cumul des mandats (accumulation of mandates) consisted in the simultaneous exercise of different national (parliamentary) and local (councillor or even president of a local executive) mandates by political professionals.

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the large social housing estates which were at the heart of the urban policy of the previous period. The expression crise des banlieues (suburbs crisis) began to be used. This crisis led to questioning of the state’s action methods. This questioning is not unrelated to the second major upheaval which characterizes the period: decentralization. This series of reforms did not explicitly target cities and urban issues—it actually did not even say a word about them—but it had important repercussions on the relationship between the state and local governments, from which cities benefitted greatly. Decentralization made cities the new major protagonists of urban policies. Cities were no longer just objects of urban policy, they became major subjects of it. 3.1   Urban Planning Policies: The Invention of the “Politique de la Ville” From the 1970s onwards, the urban policies orchestrated by the state were increasingly criticized. In the central areas of cities, these policies were particularly traumatic for the existing urban fabric: so-called urban renewal led to the destruction of entire neighbourhoods; the deployment of motorways created huge physical cuts in the cities. The 1970s also saw a number of “urban struggles” organized in response to these policies (Castells 1983; Cossart and Talpin 2015). It was also in the large social housing estates built on the outskirts of cities that the state’s urban planning methods showed their limits. These neighbourhoods were built where land was abundant and easily available, that is in peripheral areas that were often poorly connected to other neighbourhoods. They were designed according to the principles of functionalist urban planning, making them “dormitory neighbourhoods” lacking in public and private facilities. At the end of the 1960s, people began to talk about “sarcellite”, named after the commune of Sarcelles, west of Paris, where a large complex of 12,000 housing units was built between 1955 and 1975. The term “sarcellite” was soon used to describe the malaise of the inhabitants of this soulless commune, which had no services and no effective connection with the rest of the agglomeration. In the 1970s, this malaise spread to many large social housing estates. There were two reasons for this: the development of mass unemployment with the onset of the economic crisis; and the reversal of housing policies which now facilitated home ownership and individual housing and led to a massive departure from the large housing estates of households belonging to the middle

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class and the upper fraction of the working class. A spiral of stigmatization then began: the more affluent households were replaced by more modest ones, the more the social image of these neighbourhoods deteriorated and the more they provoked rejection by the middle class (Stébé 2010). The first measures were implemented for these neighbourhoods in 1977 with the launch of the Habitat et Vie Sociale programme. But it was in the following decade, following the occurrence of riots in the large social housing estates, that a specific policy was launched, which quickly took the name of Politique de la Ville. This policy attracted attention because it seemed to symbolize a completely new style of public policy conceived in a context of decentralization (see below). It was intended to be cross-sectoral and comprehensive, and to overcome the barriers that might exist between, for instance, social, housing, transport and security policies. It was intended to be territorialized: its objectives were to be decided locally on the basis of a diagnosis of the problems specific to each neighbourhood. It is negotiated and contractual: the state and local authorities agree on priorities for action, shared responsibilities and financial commitments, all of which are set out in Contrats de Ville (City Contracts) (Donzelot and Estèbe 1994). This Politique de la Ville absorbed a good part of the energy devoted by the state and local governments to urban policies in the 1980s and 1990s. A specific ministry (Ministère de la Ville) was even created in 1990. Its results varied from one urban area to another (Epstein 2011). Where local actors are highly committed and the level of socio-spatial segregation is low, the implementation of this policy allowed to encourage social inclusion and fight the stigma surrounding large housing estates. Conversely, where political commitment was weak and segregation high, the policy failed to halt the process of urban relegation. 3.2   Regional Development Policies: From State-Led Projects to the Endogenous Development of Cities and Regions Since the mid-1980s regional development policies embraced a more bottom-­ up orientation, through the promotion of forms of partnership between the central state and notably regional councils as well as encouraged the development of strategic planning process led autonomously by urban and metropolitan governments, in particular the communautés urbaines. The DATAR continues to play an important role in influencing the main cognitive frameworks and policy-ideas for urban development

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models in particular as for the promotion of metropolitan regions, but lost progressively its direct capacity to steer state-led development projects by autonomous budgetary resources (Béhar and Estèbe 1999). The publication in 1986 of an influential report by a commission director by the former (and first) gaulliste director of the DATAR, Olivier Guichard, marked an important shift in the state orientations by granting a new power of initiative to local actors, notably elected officials but also private ones, in the elaboration of local development projects (Guichard 1986). The central state continues to play a role in local affairs and notably regional planning and development through the establishment of contracts (Contrat de Plan Etat-Régions—CPER) aimed at financing major infrastructures but also employment programmes, and which complement the financing of programmes by European structural funds. CPER are underpinned by a spatial rebalancing objective but progressively take also on board the promotion of attractiveness of regions in line with the mainstream new regionalism thinking. The DATAR strongly contributed in the 1990s to build a public narrative around the centrality of cities as sources of national competitiveness in Europe (Biarez 2000, pp. 16–17). If in the 1960s and the 1970s the allocation of resources to regional main cities was intended as part of spatial Keynesianism paradigm, in the following two decades the public discourse on regional development strongly turned to an interterritorial competitiveness paradigm, usually qualified as the promotion of city-regionalism (Jonas and Sami 2018; Galimberti 2021). The paradigmatic map of European cities and of the “bleu Banana” released by DATAR in 1989 perfectly crystallizes the emergence of a new narrative around the economic and political role of big cities for the competitiveness of national economies. If the agency lost its direct steering capacity it continues to play an influential role thanks to the network of experts and research institutions that it contributes to gather together for advancing a reflection on the main challenges raised by the metropolitanization process (Olive 2015). 3.3   Urban Constituent Policies: The Decentralization Reforms and Their Urban Blind Spot The developments mentioned above should be seen in the context of the “return of the cities” theorized by Patrick Le Galès in relation to Europe (Le Galès 2011). They are made possible by a series of phenomena that are not specific to France: the recomposition of the state, Europeanization,

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globalization and transformations in productive systems that seem to give more weight to localities. They are also facilitated by institutional reforms that affect the distribution of competences and political authority between the state and sub-national governments, particularly urban governments. In France, they are notably facilitated by the major decentralization reform that took place in 1982–83. This series of laws transferred a certain number of competences to the local authorities. They also freed the latter from the supervision of the prefect. The control of the state representative is transformed from a discretional control of decision-making to a simple control of legality of local government acts. They also marked the transition from functional regionalization to political regionalization: the regions become local authorities in their own right with an elected assembly. It must be emphasized that the decentralization laws were silent about the urban fact and about intercommunal cooperation. They were beneficial to the three levels of local government—region, department and commune—and particularly to the latter, which regains the strategic competence of urban planning and the regulation of land use rights. However, in accordance with the unitary and standardizing approach typical of territorial administration in France, decentralization did not introduce any distinction between small rural communes and large urban communes. Thus, the large cities took advantage of the new competences and resources they enjoyed to launch entrepreneurial policies typical of the period: construction of prestigious facilities (convention centres, TGV stations, etc.), revival of public transport, development of business parks, etc. But the suburban municipalities and medium-sized towns were not left out and also embarked on ambitious urbanization policies. Thus, the laws of decentralization tend to unleash the logic of territorial competition at all levels. It was not until the 1990s that the state tried to moderate this competitive logic by relaunching intermunicipal cooperation. The crisis affecting large social housing estates in suburban municipalities was increasingly interpreted as being caused by competition between municipalities within urban agglomerations and inequality in terms of tax resources between municipalities. A first law in 1992 created new forms of intermunicipal cooperation bodies called to recover competences in the field of planning and economic development and to benefit from the business tax, the rate of which would be uniform throughout the intermunicipal territory. But the real “leave forward” in intercommunal cooperation came in 1999 with

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the Chevènement Act, which reduced the number of intercommunal cooperation formulas to three,3 strengthened the competences of the intermunicipal cooperation authorities and created a system of positive (bonus in terms of state transfers) and negative (capacity given to the prefect to force a municipality to join an intercommunal organization) selective incentives. This arsenal was to be the starting signal for a spectacular development of intercommunality and the affirmation of embryonic metropolitan powers in the largest cities, a process that would be confirmed in the following decade (Baraize and Négrier 2001).

4   2000–2022: Strategic State and Emancipated Metropolises The entry into the new millennium has seen a fairly radical change in the relationship between the state and local governments, which has had an influence on urban policies. It is as if the central state, after a period of doubt about its role in a decentralized institutional landscape, had finally found a position, that of the strategic state, delegating more and more competences to local governments while seeking to better influence their conduct. The notion of “government at a distance” is gradually becoming established in the reading of the new centre-periphery relationships. However, this evolution does not prevent the continuation of a process of emancipation of large cities and the affirmation of metropolitan powers. 4.1   Urban Planning Policies: Place-Selling Policies and Urban Renewal It can be said that today in France, urban policies are mainly the business of urban governments, whether they are municipalities or, increasingly, intermunicipal cooperation authorities (especially the Metropolises, which will be discussed below). The decentralization acts, but also the growing belief in the existence of territorial competition, have produced profound transformations in the way in which urban elected officials and bureaucrats conceive their role. Whereas before decentralization they tended to see themselves as auxiliaries to the central state, elected representatives and 3  Namely the communautés urbaine for big urban areas, communauté d’agglomération set up for municipalities gathering all together at least 50,000 inhabitants with a central one of 15,000 inhabitants and the communauté de communes for smaller ones.

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urban technicians increasingly see themselves as the bearers of a territorial project (Borraz 1998; Le Bart 2017; Pinson 2009). Urban policy agendas are mainly designed locally according to the economic and social perceived needs and the political and partisan balances specific to each city. Some scholars even go so far as to say that the way in which actors interact within power structures, which closely resemble the urban regimes theorized by American political science, has become a more important explanatory factor of urban policies than the vertical relationships between cities and states (Pinson 2010b). Indeed, the bulk of the policies which constitute the standard urban policies portfolio were invented by urban governments from the 1970s and 1980s onwards, often in reaction to the urban policies of the state. What is this portfolio made of? A massive reinvestment in public transport, especially in the so-called exclusive lane public transport solutions like metro or tramway; an effort to rehabilitate the urban heritage through soft gentle regeneration policies in old districts; the pedestrianization of city centres and the care given to the quality of public spaces; a revival of cultural policies combining, in varying degrees of balance, concerns about cultural democratization and territorial marketing; economic development policies whose instruments have been diversified (enrichment of the real estate offer intended for companies, support for setting up settlement projects, cluster policy, reinforcement of links with the world of research, territorial marketing and branding, etc.). It should be noted that these policies have often been developed by left-wing cities, which are often more advanced in terms of urban innovation. These initiatives subsequently became “mainstream” and circulated from city to city. For example, the reintroduction of the tramway, which was initially a feature of cities governed by the left, has also affected cities on the right (Pinson 2020). This circulation of urban policy models and “recipes” takes various forms. It takes the form of the professional mobility of urban administrators, which has become widespread since decentralization, allowing the creation of a real national labour market for city managers. It is made possible by the diversity of associations and clubs uniting local governments and urban management professionals. However, the state is not left behind. Although it is no longer the central actor in urban policy innovation, it remains an important protagonist in the selection and dissemination of “good practices” through the use of instruments such as calls for

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projects and the distribution of labels, distinctions and other awards (Béal et al. 2015). The last two decades have also seen a significant evolution in the policy towards large social housing estates. Until the beginning of the 2000s, the Politique de la Ville was characterized by objectives mixing social interventions (assistance to associations, social integration policies, efforts to improve the relationship between inhabitants and administrations) and physical interventions (housing rehabilitation, public spaces) and by operating modes based on the cooperation between state services and local governments both in the definition of objectives and their implementation. From 2003 onwards, a new paradigm emerged, that of “urban renewal”, at the initiative of Jean-Louis Borloo, the charismatic minister of Presidents Chirac and Sarkozy. With urban renewal, the objectives of the policy towards social housing areas changed. It is no longer a time for a gentle and multiform regeneration policy; it is a time for a strong policy tackling what a large part of the elected representatives consider to be the source of the problems of the neighbourhoods: the urban form of these neighbourhoods. The National Urban Renewal Programme voted in 2003 planned the demolition of 250,000 dwellings and the reconstruction of the same number, but according to planning and architectural solutions that broke with the landscape of the grands ensembles and mixed social and private housing. It is also the operating methods of the PNRU that break with the initial spirit of the Politique de la Ville. The definition of the programme is the prerogative of a specially created state agency: the National Agency for Urban Renewal (ANRU). This agency breaks with the principle of contractualization and local negotiation of the objectives of the Politique de la Ville. It distributes its subsidies within the framework of calls for projects that put local governments in competition between one another. Renaud Epstein speaks of the PNRU/ANRU system as the embodiment of a new form of relationship between the state and local government that he has coined “government at a distance” (Epstein 2013). The central state is less and less present locally in the negotiation and implementation of urban policies. It is gradually dismantling its field services in favour of centralized agencies. But paradoxically, this withdrawal from the local level gives it—at least that is the objective—more capacity to control the conduct of local governments.

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4.2   Regional Development Policies: The Affirmation of Metropolitan Regions and Interterritorial Competition by the State … and Their Political Backlash If already during the 1990s the DATAR contributed to fuel a public narrative on national competitiveness centred on cities, since the 2000 this narrative explicitly targeted metropolitan regions as engines for the national growth. The affirmation of big metropolitan regions was explicitly recognized in 2003 by an interministerial regional planning committee (Ghorra-Gobin 2015, p. 22). The report that was released explicitly advocated for giving up a “defensive and distributive policy of regional development” for encouraging instead a new regional policy in the era of globalization. The DATAR was renamed Delegation for planning and competitiveness of territories (Délégation interministérielle à l’aménagement et à la compétitivité des territoires). This was not just a cosmetic change, but entailed a strong reorientation of regional development objectives. The process of economic agglomeration in particular of high-­ tech industries that concerned big metropolitan regions was explicitly recognized as a development recipe to be sustained by ad hoc policies. The launch in 2005 of the national policy of cluster (pôles de compétitivité) by the Ministry of Industry and the DATAR can be considered to be part of this ideological movement centred on the idea of spatial concentration, notably in big cities (Bouba-Olga and Grossetti 2015). In 2009, the central state encouraged the creation of a committee for the promotion of metropolitan regions, whose objective is to legitimize the role of big cities but also to encourage forms of cooperation with their hinterland. Beyond the issue of cooperation with small and medium municipalities, the narrative around the contribution of metropolitan regions to national competitiveness is paramount. This will have important consequences as for the constituent policies promoted by the state. We can notably cite also the launch by Nicolas Sarkozy of a new debate around the Big Paris (Grand Paris) project as well as the promotion of OIN (operation d’intêret national, national priority project), big urban and infrastructural investments financed by the state aimed to sustain the renovation and extension of business centres and big infrastructures, such as Paris La Défense and Bordeaux Euratlantique. Moreover, the central state adopted new policy-­ tools to steer at distance process of local development, in the domain of innovation and digital technologies. These policy-tools are mainly based on the allocation of a national label (i.e. the example of French tech) in

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order to symbolically legitimize the local initiatives promoted by urban governments, without any allocation of public funds. These initiatives have been analysed as part of a competitiveness-driven paradigm that encourages competition among territories at the expenses of objectives of territorial cohesion. If during the 1950s and 1960s the French case corresponded to a paradigmatic example of spatial Keynesianism policies, that last two decades marked a clear shift towards the adoption of agglomeration economies receipts and urban development models centred on the role of big cities, considered as new national champions in an era of globalized capitalism and new competition among advanced countries (Crouch and Le Galès 2012). If the diffusion of a new economic geography thinking focused on agglomeration economies and an urban centred narrative concerns more widely postindustrial advanced societies, the case of France is characterized in the last years by a strong public narrative around metropolitan cities, as the new “winning scale” to play the game of globalized capitalism. This new course of regional development policies and of public narratives around territorial competitiveness contributed to fuel an imaginary of metropolitanization and urbanization as two processes dictated by market principles and notably neoliberal globalization. This took place in a context characterized by a new mediatization of the issue of rising territorial inequalities and emergence of new spatial divisions in society (Davezies 2012). The publication in 2014 of an essay by the geographer Christophe Guilly La France périphérique (Guilluy 2016) contributed to radicalize the public debate through the promotion of a quite simplistic, but indeed very strong imaginary, that opposed the big globalized metropolitan cities to their hinterland and rural areas, which are deemed by the author to uniformly experience an economic and demographic decline and concentrate on working class citizens. The scientific validity of this argument has been strongly criticized for the unitary image it contributed to fuel, but it can be considered as a powerful anti-urban narrative that has been subsequently taken up also by representatives of challenger parties, notably the extreme right National Front (Rassemblement National). In her congress speech given before the municipal elections, Marine Le Pen made a plea for a demetropolitanization of France4 warning against the effects engendered by the territorial divide between “world-cities”, namely Paris and few other big metropolitan regions, and small and medium cities located 4

 RN, Convention nationale des municipales, 12th January 2020.

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in particular in rural France. Against the political view that she qualified of “globalist” typical of big cities, Marine Le Pen proposes a “municipal localism” which respects traditional values of local communities while at the same time encouraging relocalization of jobs in small cities. If this speech clearly shows a recent “rural turn” of the RN (Ivaldi and Gombin 2015) in terms of mobilized electorates, it also suggests that the urban agenda has become in the last years in France a source of social and political conflict. It is worth mentioning that the issue of increasing spatial inequalities has also reached the state policy-community. In 2017 a national commission advocated for a return of regional development policies oriented by territorial cohesion and ad hoc intervention to alleviate spatial imbalances. The commission insists on the need for a thorough rethinking of the state’s regional policies. If the role of big metropolitan regions in fostering France’s international competitiveness is not questioned, the report insists on the necessity to implement ad hoc intervention for small and medium cities, for revitalizing their economies as well as for fighting against inequalities of access to basic public goods and services. In the last years, a specific rural agenda and policies for the revitalization of commerce in small and medium size cities have been launched by the ANCT (Agence Nationale pour la Cohésion des Territoires), the national agency for the Cohesion of Territories, which took the place of the DATAR. This return of small and medium cities on the national agenda is common to other European countries. It is not clear if, however, these new policies will mark a clear shift towards a new regional development paradigm, oriented towards cooperation and territorial cohesion at an age of increasing spatial inequalities. 4.3   Urban Constituent Policies: Metropolises Complete Their Affirmation Despite Signs of Recentralization The period 2000–2020 was characterized by two phenomena that may seem contradictory but can also be seen as embodying a “French path to metropolization”. On the one hand, the institutional aspect of metropolization policies was confirmed and amplified during this period. The Sarkozy term of office (2007–2012) constituted a first high point. Shortly after taking office, the president launched the debate on Greater Paris by taking over the initiatives taken in this area by the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë. From the outset, Sarkozy set the terms of the debate: the most

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important issue for him was the competitiveness of Paris in the concert of world-cities, and more particularly the competition with London, which has had its own metropolitan government since 2000. The issues of redistribution and sharing of tax resources were more secondary than in the debates that led to the vote on the Chevènement Act in 1999. Moreover, the state quickly lost interest in the institutional issue of the governance of Greater Paris. Its action and resources were concentrated on the design and launch of a major infrastructure project, the Grand Paris Express, which consisted of the creation of four new orbital metro lines and the extension of two existing lines. The project was initially supported by a specially created ministry, the Secretariat of state for the Development of the Capital Region, and then implemented by a public company, the Société du Grand Paris, created and controlled by the state (Chauvel 2021; Lescloupé 2021). Still under the Sarkozy presidency, the status of metropolis was created. At the beginning, the government’s intention was to allow urban intermunicipal authorities administering territories with more than 400,000 inhabitants to exercise the competences of the department and certain regional competences. The aim was to provide France with powerful metropolitan centres with appropriate governance structures capable of competing with major European cities. The aim was also to eliminate the department in the most urbanized areas. Finally, the territorial reform law voted in 2010 was less ambitious. The transition to the status of metropolis remained optional and the departmental lobby succeeded in pushing back the spectre of the disappearance of this level. Besides, in a context where the majority of large cities are governed by the left, only Nice chose the status of metropolis. It was under the presidency of François Hollande (2012–2017) that the metropolitan turn was definitively taken. In 2014 and 2015, the laws on the Modernisation of Public Action and the Affirmation of Metropolises (MAPTAM) and the New Territorial Organisation of the Republic (NOTRe) allowed for the automatic transformation of existing intermunicipal governance structures into metropolises in the 22 largest conurbations of the country. However, several cases must be distinguished. In the 19 so-called common law metropolises, most of which were previously urban communities, the change is essentially symbolic. The scope of competences does not change radically and the method of designation of the metropolitan councillors follows the pattern of second-degree election. Under agreements, metropolises can exercise the competences normally

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exercised by the departments and regions. Things are different in the cases of Paris, Marseille and Lyon. The first two have inherited very complex metropolitan governance arrangements where two intermunicipal levels are superimposed: the metropolis, which exercises strategic functions in terms of economic development and transport, and the “territories”, intermediate levels between the commune and the metropolis, which take over the politically very sensitive competences of urban planning and housing. The most integrated form of metropolitan governance can be found in Lyon. In this agglomeration, which already had a very powerful urban community from political and technical points of view (Galimberti et al. 2014), the new metropolis has taken over the competences of the department on its territory and now has a metropolitan council made up of elected representatives appointed by direct universal suffrage in the framework of a specific ballot. Thus, the pro-metropolitan tropism of the state’s spatial planning policy now has an explicit institutional side. This constant promotion of the metropolitan scale could lead one to believe that the French state is following a quasi-federalist reform scheme in which the country would be considered as a network of metropolises taking over most of the competences in terms of territorial governance. The reality is a little more complex because, at the same time, the French state is engaged in a process of reorganization of its relations with the territories which sometimes takes the form of recentralization. Moreover, for some authors, since the start of the new millennium, the time has come not for decentralization but for “territorial reform” (Frinault 2021). The reform fever has not abated, but it is no longer necessarily in favour of greater autonomy for local governments or deconcentration. In reality, what has been at stake for the last 20 years is the progressive abandonment of a model of territorial public action known as “fused” and “territorialized”,5 in which urban policies were co-produced locally in the 5  The adjective “fused” (fusionné in French) describes the mode of cooperation that has long prevailed between the State and its deconcentrated services on the one hand, and local governments on the other. The merged model is often contrasted with the “dual” model. The dual model of public policy is based on a clear distinction between the functions of elaborating the objectives and operating methods of public policies on the one hand, reserved for the State, and the functions of implementation left to local governments on the other. Conversely, in the merged model, both levels participate in the different phases and must therefore cooperate. The adjective “territorialized” (territorialisé in French) designates modes of construction of public policies in which problems and responses are constructed locally by taking into account the specificities of places.

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constant interaction between local governments and field state services. The state is gradually dismantling its field services and repatriating its financing and control capacities to the centre (Bezes and Le Lidec 2010). As we have seen, the Politique de la Ville and the urban renewal policy have been laboratories for these movements. Under the Sarkozy administration, they were amplified through the reform of the state’s decentralized services and the constant search for a “decoupling of competences”. These reforms have had the effect of creating a new type of relationship between the state and local governments. The state has gone from being a co-producer to being more a steerer and controller. The budgetary austerity measures introduced in the 2010s have further accentuated this evolution towards a hardening of the relationship between the centre and the peripheries. Under the Hollande presidency (2012–2017), the state reduced by a third the Dotation Globale de Fonctionnement, the main channel of financial transfer from the state to the local authorities. Under Emmanuel Macron (2017–2022), these attempts to control the behaviour of local governments by manipulating their resources continued with the decision to gradually abolish the taxe d’habitation, one of the main tax resources received by local governments. However, it should be noted that it is mainly rural areas and small- and medium-sized towns that have been most affected by these austerity and control measures. Large cities fare better, in particular because they are less dependent on state transfers and because their dynamic property market guarantees them regular incomes.

5  Conclusion In the course of 75 years, urban policy in France has undergone major changes. It was largely defined and implemented by the State and its field offices until the 1980s, and then it was largely delegated to urban governments. What is striking about the attitude of the French state is that even though it has taken charge of the reconstruction and urbanization effort of the country itself, it has also consistently promoted cities and intermunicipal cooperation authorities not only as a support point for national spatial planning, but also as political actors capable of defining for themselves the modalities of their insertion in an increasingly open and globalized economy. The recent signs of recentralization which have marked the country, particularly with the tightening of austerity policies, have not really

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challenged this attitude of the state towards cities. Firstly, because large cities are less sensitive than smaller cities and rural areas to the reduction in state transfers. Secondly, because until recently the state was very satisfied with the orientation of urban policies conducted by cities, which were largely dominated by the criteria of attractiveness and competitiveness. However, this relationship of complicity between the state and the metropolises is perhaps changing. In particular, by attacking the housing tax, the state has attacked one of the cities’ own tax resources. At a deeper level, we are currently seeing signs of a reversal in metropolitan agendas. Under the pressure of social movements that question metropolization strategies (Halbert et al. 2021), but also of the growing weight of political ecology (cities such as Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Marseille and Poitiers have been governed by majorities dominated by ecologists since the 2020 municipal elections), the competitiveness paradigm is tending to give way to other orientations that are more sensitive to the quality of life of inhabitants, to environmental protection and to better handling of social problems. The entrenchment of political ecology on the scale of large cities and that of neoliberal Macronism on the national scale may herald turbulence in the idyll between the French state and its metropolises.

References Baraize, F., and E. Négrier. 2001. L’invention politique de l’agglomération. Paris: L’Harmattan. Béal, V., R. Epstein, and G. Pinson. 2015. La circulation croisée. Modèles, labels et bonnes pratiques dans les rapports centre-périphérie. Gouvernement et action publique 4 (3): 103–127. Béhar, D., and P. Estèbe. 1999. L’État peut-il avoir un projet pour le territoire? Les Annales de la Recherche Urbaine 82 (1): 80–91. https://doi.org/10.3406/ aru.1999.2229. Bezes, P., and P.  Le Lidec. 2010. L’hybridation du modèle territorial français. Revue française d’administration publique 4: 919–942. Biarez, S. 2000. Territoires et espaces politiques. Grenoble: PUG. Borraz, O. 1998. Gouverner une ville: Besançon, 1959–1989. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Bouba-Olga, O., and M. Grossetti. 2015. La métropolisation, horizon indépassable de la croissance économique ? Revue de l’OFCE 143 (7): 117–144. Brenner, N. 2004. New state spaces: Urban governance and the rescaling of statehood. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Castells, M. 1983. The city and the grassroots: A cross-cultural theory of urban social movements. University of California Press.

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Chauvel, J. 2021. La construction territoriale d’un problème public en contexte multiniveaux. Le cas du Grand Paris. Revue Gouvernance/Governance Review 18 (1): 10–39. https://doi.org/10.7202/1077285ar. Cochrane, A. 2007. Understanding urban policy: A critical approach. Blackwell. Cossart, P., and J.  Talpin. 2015. Lutte urbaine. Croquant (Editions du): Participation et démocratie d’interpellation à l’Alma-Gare. Crouch, C., and P.  Le Galès. 2012. Cities as National Champions? European Journal of Public Policy 19: 405–419. Davezies, L. 2012. La crise qui vient. Paris: Le Seuil. de Castelbajac, P., & Monod, J. (2004). L’aménagement du territoire. Paris, PUF. Donzelot, J., and P. Estèbe. 1994. L’Etat animateur. Essai sur la politique de la ville. Paris: Esprit. Epstein, R. 2011. Politiques de la ville: bilan et (absence de) perspectives. Regards croises sur l’economie 9 (1): 203–211. ———. 2013. La rénovation urbaine. Démolition-reconstruction de l’État. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Frinault, T. 2021. Chapitre 5. In De la dé-centralisation à la réforme territoriale: un nouveau projet de l’État pour la Périphérie? Armand: Colin. Galimberti, D. 2021. (Un)usual suspects? Le pouvoir idéationnel des experts dans la construction et diffusion du paradigme de la compétition interterritoriale dans les villes françaises. Métropoles 29. http://journals.openedition.org/ metropoles/8580; https://doi.org/10.4000/metropoles.8580 Galimberti, D., S. Lobry, G. Pinson, and N. Rio. 2014. La métropole de Lyon. Splendeurs et fragilités d’une machine intercommunale. Hérodote 3: 191–209. Gaudin, J. 1985. L’avenir en plan: technique et politique dans la prévision urbaine, 1900–1930. Editions Champ Vallon. Ghorra-Gobin, C. 2015. La métropolisation en question. Paris: PUF. Goldsmith, M., and E.  Page. 1987. Central and local government relations: A comparative analysis of west European unitary states. London: Sage. Goldsmith, M.J., and E.C. Page. 2010. Changing government relations in Europe: From localism to intergovernmentalism. Vol. 67. Routledge. Gravier, J. 1960. Paris et le désert français. Les Etudes Philosophiques 15 (2): 280–281. Grémion, P. 1976. Le pouvoir périphérique. Paris: Le Seuil. Guéranger, D. 2008. L’intercommunalité, créature de l’état. Revue française de science politique 58 (4): 595–616. Guichard, O. 1986. Propositions pour l’aménagement du territoire. Rapport au ministre de l’Equipement, du Logement, de l’Aménagement du territoire et des Transports, Paris, La documentation française. Guilluy, C. 2016. La France périphérique. Comment on a sacrifié les classes populaires. Paris: Flammarion. Halbert, L., Pinson G., and Sala Pala, V. 2021. Contester la métropole. Métropoles, no. 28.

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INSEE 2020. Toujours plus d’habitants dans les unités urbaines, INSEE Focus, N°210. Ivaldi, G., and J. Gombin. 2015. The front national and the new politics of the rural in France. In Rural protest groups and populist political parties, ed. D. Strijker, G. Voerman, and I.J. Terluin. Wageningen Academic Publishers. Jonas, A., and M. Sami. 2018. City regionalism as geopolitical processes: A new framework for analysis. Progress in Human Geography 42 (3): 350–370. Kessler, M., and J. Bodiguel. 1968. Les communautés urbaines. Revue française de science politique XVII (2): 257–277. Le Bart, C. 2017. Les Maires. Sociologie d’un rôle. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. Le Galès, P. 2005. Elusive urban policies in Europe. In Cities of Europe. Changing contexts, local arrangements, and the challenge to urban cohesion, ed. Y. Kazepov. Blackwell. ———. 2011. Le Retour des villes européennes. Sociétés urbaines, mondialisation, gouvernement et gouvernance. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Lescloupé, C. 2021. Une configuration indécidable. In Retour sur vingt années de réforme ininterrompue des institutions du Grand Paris (2000–2020). Paris: Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Lowi, T.J. 1972. Four systems of policy, politics, and choice. Public Administration Review 32 (4): 298–310. Monticher, de, N. 1995. L’aménagement du territoire. Paris: La Découverte. Olive, M. 2015. Métropoles en tension. La construction heurée des espaces politiques métropolitains. Espaces et Sociétés 1 (160–161): 135–151. Pinson, G. 2009. Gouverner par projet. Urbanisme et gouvernance des villes européennes. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. ———. 2010a. France. In Changing government relations in Europe: From localism to intergovernmentalism, ed. M.J.  Goldsmith and E.C.  Page. London: Routledge. ———. 2010b. La gouvernance des villes françaises. Métropoles 7. https://doi. org/10.4000/metropoles.4276. ———. 2020. Quelle gauche urbaine? L’Economie politique 85 (1): 102–112. Smith, B. 1985. Decentralization. The territorial dimension of the state. London: Allen and Unwin. Stébé, J. 2010. La crise des banlieues. Paris: PUF. Tellier, T. 2017. La constitution d’un nouveau modèle d’action publique territoriale: la loi Marcellin de 1971 et la fusion de communes. Revue française d’administration publique 2: 253–266.

CHAPTER 3

The Financialisation of Urban Policy in the UK: From Area-Based Initiatives to Area-Based Value-Capture Paola Briata and Mike Raco

1   Introduction1 The chapter argues that urban policy in the UK has undergone a series of periodic changes that reflect broader political projects and ways of thinking about cities and places. The UK is amongst the most urbanised countries in the world. In 2019 it was estimated that 56.3 million people, or 89% of a total population of 65.9 million, lived in urban areas containing 1  This contribution stems from common research and reflections of the authors. Sections 2–4 have to be attributed to Paola Briata; Sects. 5–6 to Mike Raco.

P. Briata (*) Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy e-mail: [email protected] M. Raco Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_3

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10,000 people or more (HM Government 2021). Given this scale of urban residency, we start from Cochrane’s (2007, p. 2) view that there is no one unique definition of urban policy and it is imperative “to explore the process by which urban policy develops and defines itself in practice rather than assuming that there is some universal definition waiting to be rolled out wherever the term is used to describe particular clusters of policy”. Section 2 will explore national urban policy in the UK, trying to understand where they have been activated, and how the concept emerged during the 1960s. Sections 3 and 4 will outline the evolution of urban policy from the 1980s to the beginning of the 2000s. This was not a linear process: discontinuities and thematic shifts (e.g. economic and property development or social and cultural issues) were related to different elements, but one of the main points was related to the changes in the broader political orientation of the central governments. In this overview, a specific focus will be on the promoters and on the supposed beneficiaries of urban policy within the different phases, as well as on the complex relationships between the central government, the local authorities, and the local organisations and communities. Finally, Sects. 5 and 6 will focus on how, from the 2010s, the ways in which planning systems and urban policy across the UK have been systematically reshaped by the twin process of privatisation and marketisation of local government finance.

2   Where and How: Towards a Policy for the Inner Cities A consolidated way to talk about urban policy in the UK is related to a series of initiatives launched since the 1960s for the so-called inner cities (Edwards and Imrie 2015; Tallon 2021). Inner city has become the term for urban areas with problems, requiring programmes of regeneration and revitalisation. These areas are neither peripheral nor in the cities’ inner core. They have been associated with urban areas suffering from physical and environmental decay, the persistence of poverty, the presence of rundown housing estates, industrial decline, very high localised rates of unemployment, social and racial deprivation, drugs, and crime (Sorensen 1987; Robson 1988). This notion is also related to an historical Anglo-Saxon trend in urban development, characterised by extensive processes of decentralisation of the middle classes in the suburbs (Hall 1981). The inner cities are thus relatively central urban areas that could be assimilated

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to peripheral areas in terms of socio-economic deprivation or for the bad quality of the built environment. Until the 1960s urban decay and consequent forms of intervention have been framed in the context of two perspectives. On the one hand, the focus was on poverty, and especially after the Second World War, the main initiatives were slum clearance, physical renewal of bombed neighbourhoods, measures to improve living conditions in working-class dwellings. These first initiatives were carried out by the Home Office and were related also to the social control of people living in these areas. The Home Office adopted a “social pathology” approach, not considering structural issues leading to deprivation, and associating problematic situations to the pathological behaviours of individuals and groups in poor areas. On the other hand, overcrowding and degradation of poor neighbourhoods, uncontrolled urban spreading, and regional imbalances led to identifying the city itself as a problem, and to proposing forms of intervention aimed at decreasing the demographic pressure on urban settlements through decentralisation in the New Towns (Taylor 1998). It is important to underline that in this phase local and central government relations were closely aligned. Regarding “how” urban policy emerged, during the 1960s the concept of urban regeneration started to be introduced, by referring to initiatives to transform the built environment of the city without displacing settled populations. Persistent poverty and growing racial disquiet were recognised by the national government. This is a phase in which a series of initiatives started to be called “urban policy”. In a process of mutual exchange with the United States,2 the idea that poverty tends to concentrate in some areas and where some specific groups live started to be a core point. This means that the emerging concept of urban policy was related also to an attempt from the government to establish special actions for deprived areas (McKay and Cox 1979). One of the first programmes that can be related to this new conception was the Urban Programme, launched in 1968 by the Home Office. The aim of the Urban Programme was coping 2  During the 1960s a wide range of initiatives aimed at coping with poverty converged on the definition of Urban Policy thanks also to the strong commitments of Presidents such as Johnson and Nixon. In particular, policies to deal with the riots in the major cities, especially in the “black neighbourhoods” started to be read as urban crises to be faced through urban policy. Poverty was read in this case especially as marginalisation: the poor is a “stranger” in the mainstream society who has to deal with multiple problems, hence the idea of launching integrated policies.

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with urban issues where different problems intertwine and overlap, hence the need for cooperation with different Departments in the Central Government, as well as the idea of working by mobilising partnerships between the local actors to deal with issues related to education, public buildings, services, and welfare. The Urban Programme implied an “area-­ based” approach where special funding was mobilised to face multiple and intertwined aspects of deprivation in specific areas. In 1969 the Home Office launched also the Community Development Projects where participative approaches and action research were experimented. This was an attempt of establishing forms of cooperation between the universities, communities, and third sectors groups, as well as forms of integration between national and local policies (Raco and Imrie 2003). In 1972 responsibility for urban policy passed from the Home Office to the Department of the Environment, reflecting change also in policymaking. The social pathology approach started to be substituted by a structural vision of socio-economic deprivation, and by a reflection on how challenging power relationships are in the society. This reflection led also to the awareness that more funding was needed for regeneration. The focus on the structural nature of urban problems was actually translated into a more significant investment in economic regeneration, taking distance from welfare provision. During the 1970s, this vision was supported by a series of studies promoted by the Labour Governments. Among these, the White Paper Policy for the Inner Cities (Department of the Environment 1977) represented a sort of milestone to understand approaches to urban problems outlined during the 1970s. Despite this, the severe structural crisis of the industrial city resulted in economic decline and rising unemployment, especially in the inner cities. These events had also a profound impact on urban policy during the 1980s.

3  From the Property-Led Approach to Single Regeneration Budget: Policies Under the Conservative Government (1979–1997) In 1979 the election of the Conservative Government led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher led to a completely new approach. The New Right emergence was related also to the lack of effectiveness and subsequent loss of faith in Keynesian models and to an increased emphasis on the need for a minimal state, the free market, and the entrepreneurial

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spirit. A growing role was given to private investment that had to be mobilised for regeneration. A core point was the economic decline of deindustrialised areas. Deprivation started to be read as an effect of the lack of entrepreneurial attitudes by local residents and businesses. For this reason, a new policy narrative was developed, arguing that the only way to bring regeneration in deprived areas was attracting big national and international investors to stimulate forms of development (Thornley 1991). The approach adopted in these years is known as “property-oriented” or “business-led”. Two implementation tools were instituted by the Local Government Planning and Land Act in 1980 for the implementation of these approaches: the Urban Development Corporations—agencies for regeneration controlled in terms of planning power and regulation by the central government; and the Enterprise Zones—target areas set up to encourage private investment in the inner cities, by offering exemptions on bureaucracy, tax reduction, financial incentives, and relaxed planning regulations. The main point in these initiatives if compared with the action on the inner cities proposed by the 1977 White Paper was the significant effort to bypass local authorities (Saumarez Smith 2020). This approach was also characterised by significant investment in some flagship projects for urban transformations that should testify to the effectiveness of the new Government strategy for regeneration. Projects of such a scale aimed to put some areas on the maps of metropolitan, national, and international networks and investments. According to the rationale of property-led regeneration, attracting big capitals in deprived areas would have had positive effects also for local economies and communities—the so-called trickle-down effects. During the 1980s the attention was rapidly captured by the regeneration of Canary Wharf, one of the former port areas of London, decommissioned between 1967 and 1970. The docks and their transformation into the Docklands—a new financial district at the international level—became a symbol of the approach to regeneration promoted by Thatcher. Despite this, the implementation of this project was problematic: local governments and communities had been systematically excluded by decision making; new buildings and landmark skyscrapers remained empty for a long time; infrastructures were not developed enough to support such a type of development. Finally, the initiative ended also with a financial failure, and the policy approach relying on the unconditional sustain of private intervention started to be criticised also inside the Conservative Party. Atkinson and Moon (1994) have underlined negative evaluation of

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property-­led developments: policies did not create sufficient service sector jobs to replace those lost in manufacturing, inequalities continued to widen, and paradoxically, these projects were dependent on state resources. In 1990 John Major succeeded Thatcher as Prime Minister. His Conservative government recognised the limits of property-led interventions, and proposed a significant revision of the State’s urban regeneration. The main critical points that emerged through a report by the Audit Commission (1989) were related to the emphasis on the physical dimension of urban renewal that had led to underestimating the social aspects of deprivation, the systematic exclusion of local authorities and communities by decision making, the need to integrate public and private efforts for urban regeneration. This is the background that led, in 1991, to the promotion of City Challenge, an experimental programmes inspired by the French model of the Contrat de Ville. City Challenge encouraged a local planning model based on the constitution of partnerships among public, private, and third sector actors working on a common project to participate in a competitive bidding process. A background idea was related to the belief that the failures in strengthening the local markets had been key issues that led the previous programmes to fail. Competition would have been the most relevant tool to stimulate an entrepreneurial attitude in the local governments and communities. A National Index of Deprivation was created to identify areas that needed support from regeneration funds. Local authorities included in this list could participate in the bids to have access to funding. Some projects resulted thus included, others excluded from funding. City Challenge had a limited budget: 37.5 million pounds for each project to be developed in five years. The main objectives were related to economic revitalisation, but particular attention was given to local economies. With City Challenge the local governments were no more excluded, and they were encouraged to stimulate forms of “community involvement” (Davoudi and Healey 1995). The emphasis on the core role of the private actors that characterised the 1980s was substituted by the focus on community involvement, community empowerment, and capacity building. Ex post evaluations have underlined the challenges in involving community organisations in the bidding process given the tight deadlines. At the same time, the arm’s length companies constituted to implement City Challenge at the local level had always to find the right balance between funding actions to sustain the local welfare and funding actions for the revitalisation of local economies.

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In 1993 still under the Conservative Government a major revision for urban regeneration policies was announced and Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) was promoted. SRB was managed by the Department of the Environment, and 20 programmes previously promoted by five different departments in the national government were unified in a “single budget” for the most deprived areas’ regeneration. The competitive bidding process’ approach was confirmed, as well as community involvement principles. The emphasis on the integration of funds, policies, and actors experimented with City Challenge was strengthened with SRB. By proposing a reframing of the trickle-down model, the relevance of the economic regeneration of deprived areas was still a core objective. Economic revitalisation would have been indirectly beneficial also for the social aspects of deprivation: this was the idea (or the rhetoric) underpinning this positioning. Also in this case the targets of regeneration policies were the most deprived areas of the UK, included in a National Index of Deprivation. From these years, this index has been periodically updated, ranking deprived areas and building up a sort of “official map of the country’s deprivation”. Three rounds of SRB were launched under the Conservative Government. It was presented as a programme based on decentralisation of decision making but, in reality, the Central Government still had a dominant role in the evaluation during the competitive process (Hambleton 2017). A significant contribution was given by local authorities participating in the bidding process, but also in this case the involvement of community organisations was not easy, especially in the start-up phase.

4  Debates and Policies Under the Labour Governments: Bringing Britain Together and the Urban Renaissance (1997–2010) In 1997, after 18 years of Conservative rule, a new Labour Government guided by Prime Minister Tony Blair was formed. The first initiatives for urban regeneration followed the approaches traced under John Major’s Government. SRB had funded mainly local projects aimed at sustaining small enterprises and related local job markets. Despite this, in the face of a broad recognition of the failures of previous initiatives in terms of trickle-­ down effects, the main focus shifted from the economic aspects of deprivation to the social ones with a stronger focus on community involvement. SRB was confirmed, as well as the competitive bidding process approach

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and the community involvement principles. Given these premises, three rounds of SRB were launched under the New Labour Government. In the late 1990s the Labour Government also asked to architect Richard Rogers to be the chair of the Urban Task Force that produced the report Towards an Urban Renaissance (1999). One of the main arguments to explain the inner cities’ decline was related to the long-term anti-urban tradition in the British context. According to the report, the inner cities had been “abandoned” to deprived groups, and for this reason, among its 105 recommendations related to different policy sectors, a significant effort was dedicated to bringing back the middle classes in the inner cities. The Urban Renaissance principles have been very influential from the beginning of the new century. They explicitly implied to attract knowledge, services, enterprises, and people (middle-upper classes) into the cities, building up “sustainable neighbourhoods” founded on social and functional mix principles, quality of the built environment and urban landscapes, people involvement in building up and maintaining the places where they live (Rogers and Coaffee 2005). The main discontinuity with the past was related to the recommendation of avoiding urban sprawl, by realising high-density intervention in brownfield areas to preserve existing green spaces. Functional and social mix was related to the idea of bringing people back to the inner cities to contrast the prevalence of deprived groups in these areas. From the first years to 2000 the urban regeneration agenda was outlined through an incremental process with the publication of a series of reports aimed at individuating strengths and weaknesses of previous approaches. A part of the Labour Party did not agree with the competitive nature of programmes such as SRB, but this approach was finally confirmed. A few months after the installation of the new government, the objectives of the new Department of the Environment, Transports and Regions were made explicit: a more significant focus on integration between different funds from the central government; more powers to be given to local governments; the establishment of partnerships that according to the policy documents should be more open to a wide variety of local actors, not involving only the most established and active ones. Community involvement and sustainability were recurring keywords in the government’s documents for regeneration. Two main points were underlined: on the one hand, the need to invest more in integration between programmes focusing on local economic development with specific social-oriented actions; on the other hand, the need for a specific focus on social exclusion

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at the neighbourhood level. This last assumption implied a change in the scale of the interventions: if SRB had worked on areas accommodating around 25,000 people, the focus on neighbourhoods led to programmes that should last ten years targeting areas accommodating from 1000 to 4000 people. The reduction of the scale of intervention was introduced to deal with one of the main weaknesses of SRB: the initiatives introduced in the 1990s had in fact not been able to reach some “pockets of deprivation” located even in the context of wealthy areas. Ten-years programmes would have been more effective in reaching really deprived communities and activating forms of empowerment. This line was strengthened in 1998 when the Social Exclusion Unit instituted by Blair published Bringing Britain Together. A National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal. Reports produced by the Social Exclusion Unit and by the Department of Transports and Regions led the Labour Government to focus on two main programmes: • an updated version of SRB more focused on social inclusion and on community involvement in decision making; • the launch of New Deal for Communities where 20% of funding from SRB was used to fund programmes focused at the neigbourhood level. The first two rounds of NDC have been addressed to 39 “pockets of deprivation” across the Country. Social inclusion was the main objective, and also in this case projects should capitalise on the presence of public, private, and third sector actors already working in the targeted neighbourhoods. Under the New Labour social inclusion, community involvement and empowerment became keywords in regeneration programmes. Despite this, many authors have underlined the challenges in involving local communities in the most deprived areas of the country. Looking retrospectively at all the experiences carried out through competitive bidding processes from City Challenge onwards (the most relevant was SRB that funded 1027 projects during its six rounds), the more successful experiences occurred where regeneration was carried out by groups and actors already active at the local level, and in some way “more ready” to work in partnership. Involving less structured groups in very deprived realities was more challenging (Raco 2000; Lawless 2010). In 2000 the publication of Our Town and Cities—The Future—Urban White Paper (ODPM 2000), was the first attempt to understand what was

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happening in the British cities after the White Paper of 1977. Three main issues were considered: (1) given the new development framework inspired by the Urban Renaissance, the focus should shift from the inner cities to cities as a whole system and their development strategies, investing in urban competitiveness, social and economic development; (2) initiatives at the neighbourhood level based on the principles of NDC and Bringing Britain Together should go on in the countries’ most deprived areas, but programmes should last 20 years (2000–2020). The focus on the neighbourhoods’ needs was confirmed for the countries’ pockets of deprivation, but the competitive bidding approach was abandoned: resources were mobilised to provide, improve, or activate services in the most deprived areas: to this end, 88 areas were then included in a “Neighbourhood Renewal Fund”; (3) the governance system at the local level should be reformed. After 20 years of area-based initiatives, many micro-­partnerships at the local level had been activated. All these realities were difficult to coordinate at the National level. For this reason, the Government decided to promote the formation of “macro-partnerships” addressing a strategic role to rationalise the activities of smaller partnerships acting in the neighbourhoods. The so-called Local Strategic Partnerships could be formed voluntarily, but for the 88 areas included in the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, their promotion was compulsory. Some LSPs involved more than 40 associations acting at the local level, and coordinating their work was very challenging.3

5  The Decline of Area-Based Urban Policy (2010–2019) Two events conspired to transform English urban policy during the decade 2010–2020: an economic global financial crisis that began in 2007 and whose effects reverberated through private sector markets; and the election of a radical, reformist Coalition government in 2010 that promoted, 3  LSPs were thought as macro-partnerships able to involve a wide range of actors working at the local level (public authorities, service providers—schools, police, social services—local associations between entrepreneurs, third sector and community organisations), and promote a strategic vision in the context of a very fragmented reality. The promoters of LSPs were local authorities and the main critique has been related to the fact that their leading role was never challenged and led to the marginalisation of more unstructured groups. At the same time, a strategic vision was never produced and LSPs became an additional body to be activated just to get funding from the State.

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in a very active way, the “de-regulation” of the planning system and the implementation of austerity cuts to welfare spending by local governments. Under the Labour governments of 2007–2010 planning guidance and documents had expanded relentlessly. In response, the Coalition in 2011 abolished all existing guidance and converted them into one simple document, of just over 60 pages, known as the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). The NPPF was based on the foundational principle that the delivery of planning outcomes will be market-led and undertaken by private sector investors and developers. Public benefits and interests were re-defined as being the same as those found in the private sector and could only be accrued once private gains have been made—through value-­ capture arrangements, or the promotion of development from which surpluses could be captured and recycled to meet welfare demands and social policy objectives (Bradley and Sparling 2017; McGuinness et al. 2018). A range of existing legal mechanisms that existed to provide some surpluses from development projects to compensate local communities for the disruptions they faced, were re-tooled to become active programmes that could be used to incentivise new growth. Legal contracts, known as Section 106 agreements, took centre-stage. These were enforceable codes, originally enshrined in planning policy in the 1990s, in which developers and by extension investors agreed to make substantial payments to a local authority in return for proposals being allowed to proceed. In some of the largest projects these agreements could provide millions of pounds over a decade or more. They were also supplemented by the introduction of a Community Infrastructure Levy, a payment to local authorities usually calculated per metre squared of a new development, or on every new residential or commercial unit. The priorities that had shaped urban policy programmes in previous decades could not, it was argued, be set by central and local governments. Instead, new forms of development and welfare would emerge through the empowerment of a Big Society in which governments did less and individuals, communities, and the private sector took on more responsibility for their own and collective welfare. The NPPF represented a seismic shift in English planning policy and the traditions of urban policy. The text was designed to ensure that “planning must not simply be about scrutiny. Planning must be a creative exercise in finding ways to enhance and improve the places in which we live our lives … This National Planning Policy Framework changes that. By replacing over a thousand pages of national policy with around fifty, written simply and clearly, we are allowing people and communities back into

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planning” (p. 1). Most significantly it required local planning authorities in cities and elsewhere to prioritise economic development, with a “presumption” that all significant proposals for new projects are accepted and that local authority should “positively seek opportunities to meet the development needs of their area” (p. 5). In governance terms the planning system was re-centred around new forms of devolved localism in which local planning authorities and planners were required to both identify suitable sites for investment and establish working partnerships with developers and investors to facilitate new projects. It was anticipated that local arrangements would be put in place to enable investors to make viable financial returns from property investments, whilst also generating income for the public sector through value-­ capture measures and property taxes. For governments (at multiple scales) intent on reducing budget deficits, such an approach opened up opportunities to generate revenues, whilst simultaneously boosting private sector activity and providing much needed investment in urban property markets and welfare service provision. The consequence of these changes, as with all market-led forms of intervention, was to further entrench already existing spatial disparities and inequalities. Perhaps most significantly the reforms also saw the effective elimination of Area-based Initiatives. The measures that had existed since the Urban Programme was introduced in 1968 and described above were replaced by the market-led NPPF, in which it was up to local authorities and communities to find ways to promote new growth in their neighbourhoods. To create incentives for growth-led programmes the NPPF sought to introduce new forms of entrepreneurial governance with local authorities required to find innovative ways to generate finance to become “self-­ sustaining” in the wake of austerity cuts of over £18 billion since 2010. Many are using their land and assets to de-risk urban sites and open up opportunities for private investors and developers to both build more housing units and raise income and contributions through planning gain agreements, that can then be used to fund social and welfare commitments. The changes are so profound that authorities no longer fulfil their traditional post-war role of acting as local providers of national welfare programmes, dependent on the re-distribution of centrally allocated funds (Cochrane 1993). In its place, local actors are being converted into spear-­ heads for a wider governmental programme that prioritises the delivery of housing and economic growth in England’s cities and regions. In the longer run it was expected that “local government will retain 100% of taxes

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raised locally. … The system will have stronger incentives to boost growth, and areas that take bold decisions to boost growth will see the benefits” (DCLG 2016, p. 7). The situation is reinforced by a further shift in the planning system towards viability-based arrangements and the opportunities these offer to local authorities to raise much needed revenue (see Colenutt et al. 2015). Good planning in the NPPF is elided with expedited decision making that will ensure that “pre-commencement planning conditions are only imposed by local planning authorities where they are absolutely necessary” (Smith 2016, p. 11). The shift towards viability-based planning represents the extension of processes of financialisation into state and governmental practices or the “ingraining of financialised metrics and reasonings into spaces and situations where they were previously non-existent or less common” (Chiapello 2015, p. 15). The growth of calculative practices, which are based on rationalist paradigms of mainstream economics, are being gradually incorporated into a broad range of public policies. As a result, traditional approaches to the valuation of programmes and assets are being increasingly challenged and affected by financial economics (Crosby and Henneberry 2016). Financialisation is having an ever-­ stronger impact on the determination of “what should” and “should not” be considered during the processes of valuation (Halbert and Attuyer 2016). In this scenario, investors take on a leading role as they are seen as having the capacity to identify the most profitable investments and “rational” choices which result in improved economic efficiency. According to Chiodelli (2012), since financial calculations are underpinned by general statistical models, this changes the viewpoint from which the value of investments are calculated, by disassociating them from their impacts on local economies and actors. The ethos of the planning system is thus inverted. Its traditional role of ensuring that development proposals are granted permission once they conform to local, publicly defined needs is replaced by a legal requirement, wherever possible, to prioritise growth and the expansion of new homes and development projects. The role of planning practice is to take the messiness and complexity of places and convert them into spaces ripe for investment. The requirement to become financially self-sufficient will make local authorities increasingly dependent on property market uplift, whatever the wider impacts on marginalised local residents, businesses, and places. As Penny (2017) notes, this is leading to a growing correlation between English local government and the entrepreneurial models of

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“localism” and growth that have characterised local governance in the United States since the early twentieth century. All of this has taken place in a context of growing social and spatial inequalities across England, fluctuating and unpredictable welfare demands from increasingly diverse communities, growing pressures on local welfare services brought about by ageing populations, and the constant threat of major governmental shocks, such as the effects of Brexit, de-globalisation, and/or another financial crash. The challenge for contemporary planning systems is to both deliver growth and market-based property development whilst maintaining a diversity of activities and land uses. The effects of the introduction of viability-based, highly financialised planning have been that all developments are now subject to viability negotiations in which decisions are made over the amounts of profit a developer or investor is allowed to make and the amount of planning gain payments they should make to a local authority. The existing evidence demonstrates that private sector actors have benefitted significantly from such negotiations and that local authorities have struggled to capture significant amounts of money (Catney and Henneberry 2019; Colenutt 2020). Reliance on the market requires the building of more expensive units to generate sufficient profit to return to the public sector. But that, in turn, encourages new projects to be less affordable and more expensive. The scope and scale of area-based urban policy have been drastically reduced and re-tooled in the wake of these reforms. During the 2010s a series of estate regeneration programmes were launched. However, unlike the New Deal for Communities programmes of the early 2000s, that sought to improve the quality of estate and the lives of residents, these new policies aimed to bring about the wholesale redevelopment of sites and their removal (Watt 2016). Those who own the land, normally local authorities or housing associations, were required to establish joint ventures with private sectors partners and put in place development projects that would remove much of the social housing and replace them with market housing. Estate development thus became privatised, with the solution being the introduction of new housing for sale. As with all developments, viability rules are also applied, meaning that developers argue that they need to ensure that projects generate sufficient profits to enable them to provide any cheaper (affordable) housing units or to pay towards any other welfare infrastructure and services. The net effect has been to replace social and affordable housing with more expensive, unaffordable units that generate profits but do not meet social needs.

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To summarise, the period 2010–2019 saw the introduction of new forms of financialised urban policy in which earlier principles and objectives, that focused on social and economic regeneration, were replaced by market-driven programmes of development. Some elements of earlier rounds of urban policy were maintained, especially in London in which the presence of the Mayor acted as a brake on programmes of reform. Two small Mayoral Urban Development Corporations—one in the former Olympic site around Stratford in East London and one surrounding new rail infrastructure in an area known as Old Oak Common in West London—continued to operate. Other initiatives included the reinforcing of 33 “Opportunity Areas” (OAs) defined as, “London’s principal opportunities for accommodating large scale development to provide substantial numbers of new employment and housing, each typically more than 5000 jobs and/or 2500 homes, with a mixed and intensive use of land and assisted by good transport accessibility” (Mayor of London 2011, p. 297). But the resources devoted to these UDC and Opportunity Areas is limited and as Ferm et al. (2021) argue there is a lack of support for those investing in such sites and they are pale shadows of the powerful, well-­ funded institutions of earlier decades. Across England, local authorities and other providers of housing and welfare have found themselves having to act as financial players, generating income from the market. Even Housing Associations that were traditionally welfare-focused social organisations, have become increasingly involved in market activities and new projects to build private housing and using the surpluses to cross-subsidise their social activities (Crook and Kemp 2019).

6  The Future of English Urban Policy The period since the election of the Johnson Conservative government (2019–) has seen a renewed interest in the possibilities for spatial policy interventions. One of the most significant policy promises has been to bring about a “levelling-up” of economic development across the country and to move development and economic growth out of London to places in the north of England, many of whom have electorates that voted for the Conservative Party for the first time. New interventions have been made to boost the economic development of smaller urban areas, most notably a Towns Fund that was introduced in 2019. The Fund is £3.6 billion to be shared out through arrangements with local authorities in 101 urban areas. Projects are to be designed by local partnerships to meet social and

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economic needs, although much of the initial spending has been devoted mainly to environmental improvements to retail streets, rather than significant interventions in housing or employment schemes (MHCLG 2019). There has also been much criticism that spending is not directed by need but by political considerations and attempts to divert state resources to places for a political advantage. As Hanretty’s (2020) analysis shows: “on the basis of the data collated by the ministry and published by the NAO, there is robust evidence that ministers chose towns so as to benefit the Conservatives in marginal Westminster seats. This evidence is robust in the sense that the effects persist even when controlling for other town characteristics that might justifiably affect selection” (p. 1). Under previous governments urban policy spending has always, of course, had a political dimension. The Labour governments of 1997–2010 drew on large-scale political support in cities—the very areas that were recipients of area-based funds. However, under the Johnson government, the allocations of spending are more explicitly focused on those outside of major cities and with a clear political purpose. There is little strategic oversight or a meaningful set of agendas beyond loose calls for more of a “levelling-up” of places. In the meantime, market-driven planning arrangements remain in place, with local authorities and communities increasingly required to come up with five-year plans that outline where new housing will be delivered and how. There is no replacement for the NDC programmes, or the Urban Programme, or similar measures. Instead, the presence of spatialised socio-economic inequalities is viewed as a problem that can be fixed by market investments and the replacement and breaking up of poorer communities within new gentrifying groups. Instead housing has become a part of a wider political-economic project that draws on new housing development investment to drive forward urban, regional, and national competitiveness. The problems facing excluded and marginal groups are reduced to economic problems that can be solved through a growth agenda—with little or no additional tailored urban policy support required. Moreover, the English experience has relevance for countries across Europe and beyond in which there is a growing supra-national policy emphasis on making planning systems more “flexible” and market-­ oriented (World Bank 2020). This flexible approach will lead to disjointed and fragmented forms of intervention, making it exceptionally difficult to construct a meaningful “urban policy” in the traditional sense of the term.

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However, we are not claiming that urban policy has disappeared in the wake of financial and regulatory changes, only that it has taken on a different form. What has happened to inner urban areas during the 2000s was almost unthinkable in the 1980s or 1990s. A combination of selective deregulation and structural changes in economies and global finance has converted areas that were seen as “left-behind” and generated new problems—especially over the affordability of housing and growing inequalities between those who own urban assets and those who do not. In cities such as London even middle-class groups—the agents of earlier forms of gentrification—are no longer able to afford housing in large areas of the city. The politics of urban policy has therefore shifted from that of seeking to promote growth in areas of low market demand, to one of managing growth and seeking to find solutions to the problems of over-investment and social sustainability. Gone, at least temporarily, are the large public sector-funded area-based initiatives that characterised interventions for decades. In this new policy environment, gentrification is no longer viewed as a core problem to be tackled through area initiatives. Instead, its presence is welcomed as both a driver and a consequence of enhanced urban competitiveness and the attractiveness of cities for higher income social groups. Little has been has done to maintain the presence of diverse population groups or existing businesses in inner urban areas—in fact the opposite has sometimes been an objective of policy, as evidenced by recent re-building projects in former social housing estates discussed above (Watt 2016). As argued through the chapter urban policy therefore both reflects and helps reproduce broader economic trends and the political projects that sustain them. Its character has changed markedly since the 1960s, as has its priorities and core modes of delivery. As we move in to the 2020s, definitions of the urban problem, and how to tackle it, continue to shape policy imaginations and interventions. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit fundamental questions are once again being asked over the future of British cities and the sustainability of the economic and social processes that have sustained their twenty-first-century growth. It is unclear what the longer-term impacts, if any, will be. In North America some writers in early days of the pandemic talked on “peak-urbanism”, or the idea that urban growth of the 2000s and 2010s may have gone into reverse (Florida 2020). In the UK early trends appeared to show a similar trend, with people leaving cities, especially larger urban areas such as London (The Economist 2020). The Financial Times (2021) reported that during 2020–2021 London

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residents spent £55 billion on homes outside the city and that this was likely to translate into falling population numbers over the next few years, especially if waves of coronavirus continue to make urban living unpredictable and unsafe. Such trends also pose existential threats to urban policy models based on expansion. The question emerges—what happens to a growth-led model of policy when there is no growth? The over-reliance on markets and unsustainable expectations of perpetual growth found within urban policy models has been exposed, although there are still questions over the long-term impacts of the pandemic as urban markets by the end of 2021 appeared to be re-bounding and showing signs of growth again. In this wider context, it is possible that more stable state-funded urban policies may once again play a strong future role in shaping recovery strategies and dealing with reversals and new rounds of decline. Acknowledgements  The authors would like to express thanks to Francesca Gelli and Matteo Basso for organising an earlier seminar at the University Iuav of Venice that supported the production of this chapter and for their supportive and insightful comments on an earlier draft. Research for some of the work presented here was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council UK [Grant Number: ES/S015078] under the project “WHIG? What is Governed in Cities: Residential investment landscapes and the governance and regulation of housing production”.

References Atkinson, R., and G. Moon. 1994. Urban policy in Britain. The city, the state and the market. London: Macmillan. Audit Commission. 1989. Urban regeneration and economic development: The local government dimension. London: HMSO. Bradley, Q., and W. Sparling. 2017. The impact of neighbourhood planning and localism on house-building in England. Housing, Theory and Society 34 (1): 106–118. Catney, P., and J.  Henneberry. 2019. Change in the political economy of land value capture in England. Town Planning Review 90 (4): 339–358. Chiapello E. 2015. Financialisation of Valuation. Human Studies 38: 13–35 Chiodelli, F. 2012. Re-politicizing space through technical rules. Planning Theory 11 (2): 115–127. Cochrane, A. 1993. Whatever happened to local government? Milton Keynes: Open University Press. ———. 2007. Understanding urban policy. A critical approach. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Colenutt, B. 2020. The property lobby: The hidden reality behind the housing crisis. Bristol: Policy Press. Colenutt, B., Cochrane, A., and Field, M. 2015. The rise and rise of viability assessment. Town and Country Planning 84: 453–458. Crook, T., and P. Kemp. 2019. In search of profit: Housing association investment in private rental housing. Housing Studies 34 (4): 666–687. Crosby, N. and Henneberry, J. 2016. Financialisation, the valuation of investment property and the urban built environment in the UK. Urban Studies 57 (3): 1424–1441. Davoudi, S., and P. Healey. 1995. City challenge: Sustainable process or temporary gesture? Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 13: 79–95. Department for Communities and Local Government [DCLG]. 2016. ‘Selfsufficient local government: 100% Business Rates Retention’, HMSO: London. Department of the Environment. 1977. Policy for the inner cities. London: DoE. Edwards, C., and R.  Imrie. 2015. The short guide to urban policy. Bristol: The Policy Press. Ferm, J., S.  Freire Trigo, and N.  Moore-Cherry. 2021. Documenting the ‘soft spaces’ of London planning: Opportunity areas as institutional fix in a growth-­ oriented city. Regional Studies: 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/0034340 4.2021.1902976. Financial Times. 2021. Londoners spent a record £55billion on homes outside the city. 26 December. Florida, R. 2020. How Coronavirus will reshape U.S. cities. Bloomberg News 2 July. Halbert, L., and K.  Attuyer. 2016. Introduction: The financialisation of urban production: Conditions, mediations and transformations. Urban Studies 53 (7): 1347–1361. Hall, P. 1981. The inner city in context. London: Heinemann. Hambleton, R. 2017. The super-centralisation of the English state—Why we need to move beyond the devolution deception. Local Economy 32: 3–13. Hanretty, C. 2020. The pork barrel politics of the towns fund: Funding decisions were driven by party-political considerations, not by need. LSE Blogs: London. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-­p ork-­b arrel-­p olitics-ofthe-­towns-­fund/. HM Government. 2021. Trend Deck 2021: Urban population. https:// www.gov.uk/government/publications/trend-­d eck-­2 021-­u rbanisation/ trend-­deck-­2021-­urbanisation. Lawless, P. 2010. Urban regeneration: Is there a future? People, Place and Policy 4: 24–28. Mayor of London. 2011. The London Plan – A Spatial Strategy for London, GLA: London. McGuinness, D., P.  Greenhalgh, and P.  Grainger. 2018. Does one size fit all? Place-neutral national planning policy in England and its impact on housing

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land supplies and local development plans in north East England. Local Economy 33 (3): 329–346. McKay, D.H., and A.  Kox. 1979. The politics of urban change. London: Croom Helm. MHCLG. 2019. Towns fund—Prospectus. London: HMSO. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM). 2000. Our town and cities the future. London: HMSO. Penny, J. 2017. Between coercion and consent: The politics of ‘cooperative governance’ at a time of ‘austerity localism’ in London. Urban Geography 38 (9): 1352–1373. Raco, M. 2000. Assessing community participation in  local economic development. Lessons for the new urban policy. Political Geography 19: 573–599. Raco, M., and R.  Imrie. 2003. Urban renaissance? New labour, community and urban policy. Bristol: Policy Press. Robson, B. 1988. Those inner cities. Reconciling the social and economic aims of urban policy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rogers, R., and J. Coaffee. 2005. Moral panics and urban renaissance. Policy tactics and youth in public space. City 9 (3): 321–340. Saumarez Smith, O. 2020. Action for cities: The Thatcher government and inner-­ city policy. Urban History 47: 274–291. Smith, L. 2016. Planning for housing – Briefing Paper No. 03741, House of Commons Library, London: HMSO. Social Exclusion Unit. 1998. Bringing Britain together: A national strategy for neighbourhood renewal. London: HMSO. Sorensen, E. 1987. Report on the inner cities. The National Archives, PREM 19/2463. Tallon, A. 2021. Places left behind: National urban policy in the UK—From boom to slump and recovery? In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K. Zimmermann and V. Fedeli. Cheltenham: Elgar Publishing. Taylor, N. 1998. Urban planning theory since 1945. London: Sage. The Economist. 2020. Briefing—Cities after Covid-19. June 13: 14–16. Thornley, A. 1991. Urban planning under Thatcherism. London: Routledge. Urban Task Force. 1999. Towards and urban renaissance. London: Spon. Watt, P. 2016. A nomadic war machine in the metropolis: En/countering London’s 21st-century housing crisis with focus E15. City 20 (2): 297–320. World Bank. 2020. Private participation in infrastructure—2020 annual report. Washington: World Bank.

CHAPTER 4

China’s National Urban Agenda: Transition and Reframing Cities Matteo Basso and Lan Wang

1   Introduction1 Chinese cities have experienced remarkable transformations over the past forty years. This is the result of the transition from a centrally planned economy (1949–1978) to a market economy initiated by Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in the late Seventies (the so-called open

 This contribution stems from common reflections of its authors. However, in the final draft, Matteo Basso is the  main contributor for  Sects. 2, 3, 4, 5.1 and  6.1; Lan Wang for Sects. 5.2 and 6.2. Sections 1 and 7 have been written jointly. 1

M. Basso (*) Department of Architecture and Arts, University Iuav of Venice, Venice, Italy e-mail: [email protected] L. Wang College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_4

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door policy”).2 While the population living in urban areas (out of a total of 542 million) amounted to 11% in 1949, a peak of 64% was reached in 2020 (out of a total of 1.4 billion people) (China Statistical Yearbook 2021). Compared to European and North American contexts, China has undergone a phase of massive urbanization over a very short time, in less than three decades. China is a unitary State with an influential national government at the top of an administrative hierarchy (Chung and Tao-Chiu 2010). Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.) in 1949, urbanization has always been a major concern on the central authority’s political agenda. A national urban agenda—comprising specific Five-Year Socio-­ Economic Development Plans similar to the Soviet Union’s planning system—has been officially set up by the Communist Party of China (C.P.C.) since 1953 (Zhang 2019). The Chinese government, over the years, has brought a series of reforms to the agenda as regards goals, priorities, tools and the main actors involved in its implementation. Such changes—we argue—have greatly modified the role and function of cities in Chinese politics, society, culture and economy, reframing the meanings and values attributed to urban environments. Between the Fifties and the Seventies, cities were basically stigmatized as symbols of unbridled consumption and rising socio-economic inequalities (especially the largest cities on the East Coast),  and their development process was discouraged as priority was given to the development of small- and medium-sized towns in interior and western Provinces. With the transition, however, cities were progressively regarded as China’s main driver of economic growth. Unprecedented physical, environmental and socio-economic transformations of Chinese cities have generated some significant challenges for policy-makers, highlighting a renewed attention to the urban issue within national (and local) political agendas. New issues such as environmental sustainability, migrations, population ageing, welfare and urban regeneration have markedly emerged. After thirty years of heavy urbanization, top 2  Reforms led to the establishment of market socialism (or “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, mixing both plan and market mechanisms). Unlike the transitions that characterized Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, China’s experience in “growing out of the plan” (Naughton 1996) stands out not only for its tradition of being a strong State in the political, social and economic realm; also, for the maintenance of some policy and institutional socialist legacies, and the political resilience and dominance of the Communist PartyState amidst a rapidly expanding and internationally competitive capitalist economy. For its distinctive development path, China is considered as a “red swan” (Heilmann 2018).

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Chinese leaders have emphasized the need for a “people-centred urbanization” with a series of strategies to guide the Five-Year national Socio-­ Economic Plans, as well as the planning system from master planning to site planning. This chapter encourages a discussion of the strategies that the Chinese government has pursued in its national urban agenda since 1949, recalling the most important documents, plans, policies and programmes launched at the central level. It also provides insights on key concerns, priorities, goals and tools of the agenda, as well as the actors involved in its elaboration. It is organized into five main sections. The second, third and fourth analyse and discuss the main periods in the historical evolution of the national urban agenda. They also explore the policy changes that occurred during the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market one, and the implementation of urban policies and programmes with their intended and unintended consequences. Such historical overview becomes a fascinating starting point to understand the changing ideological role and meaning of cities within China’s political, social and economic landscape. The fifth section briefly features the case of Shanghai’s transformation from an industrial city to a metropolis and international financial centre, to highlight the local implementation of the national urban agenda. The sixth section presents an analysis of the new urban agenda and model of urbanization introduced in 2014 to achieve sustainable development for the whole Country. Theoretical considerations are supported by important international scientific literature, official documents and reports. Methodologically, exploration of the national urban agenda is guided by the approach of public policy analysis oriented on understanding the set of actors, goals, priorities and interests at stake involved in its formulation.

2  Reframing Cities Within a Changing National Urban Agenda Over the last forty years, Chinese cities have been expanding and transforming at a stunning speed as a result of a transition process from a centrally planned economy to a market one. According to Campanella (2008), contemporary Chinese urbanism and its changing cityscape are characterized by five main defining aspects: speed, scale, spectacle, sprawl and segregation. Yep et al. (2019) argue that the aforementioned transformations have triggered massive socio-economic inequalities and uncertainties, as

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well the degradation of heritage assets and the environment, factors that have contributed to social conflicts and discontents. In 1949, only about 11% of the national population (out of a total of 542 million people) lived in cities, and this percentage nearly doubled in the Fifties. With an annual growth rate of 2.3% in the Sixties and the Seventies, the rate of urbanization remained constant until the Eighties (18%–20%). China, by and large, between 1949 and 1979 was still a nation of farmers with most of its population engaged in some kind of farming activity, cattle raising and living in rural areas (Ren 2013). It was not until 2011 that its urban population touched a peak of 51% (Wu and Gaubatz 2013). By 2030, 1 billion people are expected to live in cities (Miller 2012; UN-Habitat 2014; World Bank and the Development Research Center of the State Council, P. R. China 2014). According to official estimates, the highest urban population growth rate ever recorded was in the first decade of the twenty-first Century, with 654 officially recognized cities in 2009. In 2010, for example, 129 cities had more than one million people (there were only 18 in 1981), and 110 cities had a population ranging from 500,000 to one million (Ren 2013). Carrying out a statistical analysis of the urban population is however rather complex (for instance, official statistics only count the registered population and migrants staying in cities for more than six months as the urban resident population), and the data very likely underestimates the actual pace of urban growth. The transition towards a market economy has greatly modified the role and function of cities in Chinese politics, society, culture and economy, reframing both the meanings and the values attached to urban areas (Schön and Rein 1994).3 The narrative that guided China’s revolution during the Fifties and the Sixties, differently from the Soviet one, was distinctly based on an “anti-urban” bias which relied upon a strong rural social base (Chan 1992; Lin 2007; Campanella 2008; Ren 2013; Wu and Gaubatz 2013). As a consequence, during the Maoist era (1949–1978), cities were basically stigmatized as symbols of unbridled consumption and rising socio-economic inequalities (Zhang 2019). Development of the largest cities on the East Coast was thus discouraged, giving priority to urban centres which pivoted on the industrial and technological sector and to development in interior and western Provinces. Conversely, with 3   Transition has been supported by processes of devolution, globalization and marketization.

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the economic reforms launched by Deng Xiaoping’s open door policy in 1978, and in the Nineties more than ever, cities were progressively perceived as the primary engine of economic growth, being the industrial, financial, commercial and business epicentres. Positioning large cities at the core of the national agenda highlights a new “urban” bias in policy-­ making, which was no arbitrary move (Ren 2013). According to Zhang (2019), the Chinese national urban agenda envisages two types of policies. The first set of policies (urbanization policies) are aimed at directly guiding the progress of urbanization and size of cities in the Country; the second (spatial economic development strategies), at designating preferred cities and regions for national economic development. The next sections will illustrate both types of policies as an attempt to provide a short historical overview of the profound changes in the urban agenda.

3  National Urban Agenda in the Maoist Period (1949–1978) In line with the Communist ideology of the period, national economic growth and urbanization policies were oriented at reducing inequalities among social groups, regions, cities and rural areas (an overall goal towards equity and regionally balanced development). The goal was threefold: to secure food supply, prepare for potential wars and support rapid industrialization (Zhang 2019). China has traditionally been characterized by a spatially unbalanced urban system. Natural geographical factors (waterways and coasts) and historical events (the Treaty Port Cities, see Sect. 5.1) have favoured urban development along the East Coast. In the Mao era, a series of policies and institutional measures were introduced to (a) control urban population growth with measures such as the hukou, a household registration system to discourage rural-to-urban migrations4; (b) discourage the growth of the large cities along the East Coast, favouring intermediate and small-­ sized cities (provincial capitals of the North-West and South-West inland

4  The socialist hukou institution restricted people’s residence status (to rural or urban citizenship) assigned at birth, and regulated the access to social welfare services for migrants. The government first relaxed its control over mobility in 1983, during the reform era.

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and rural regions)5; (c) create industrial and urban centres in inland underdeveloped areas to realign the regional imbalance; (d) encourage massive national investments to develop rail transport infrastructures and coal mining, petroleum and hydroelectric power plants in the inland regions.6 The approach to urbanization in the Fifties seemed somewhat controversial. On the one hand—as already pointed out—largest cities were regarded as centres of consumption and excess, places that reflected great socio-economic inequalities, very remote from the rural-centred ideals celebrated by the Chinese Communists during the revolution. On the other hand, the first Five-Year Plan (1953–1957) simultaneously foresaw the development of key inland cities as manufacturing centres (in some cases created from scratch) with heavy industry and the reallocation of central government investments.7 But there is also another reason: despite the government’s anti-urban attitude, its policies relied primarily on the largest cities to collect the taxes required to support China’s overall economic development (Ren 2013). The remaking of cities, from service and consumption centres to industrial production centres, was also strongly recommended by Soviet advisors, who did not stigmatize urban life. Change came, but at a very slow pace. The response from the central government was to restructure a more ambitious industrial programme based on the development and diffusion of small-scale industries, both in urban and rural contexts. The so-called Great Leap Forward (1958–1960) was designed to enhance local self-sufficiency, establishing, for instance, blast furnaces for steel production. In the long run, however, the programme did little to encourage the overall urban economic growth, as many of the established small industries failed and rural-urban migrations were restricted owing to the introduction of the household registration (hukou) system. Throughout the Sixties, socio-economic convergence between western and eastern regions became a priority on the national urban agenda. Mostly for reasons of military defence, ideologically the Country was 5  Between 1953–1970, for instance, 10 of the 25 inland provincial capitals doubled in population and 5 of them tripled. By the mid-Seventies, 22 of the 26 provincial capital cities were the largest cities in their Province (Wu and Gaubatz 2013). 6  Before 1949, the railway had been built by joint ventures established by colonial governments, corporations and the Chinese government, especially in the North-East and along the East Coast (port cities). 7  One hundred and eighteen of the 156 key projects included in the framework of the first Five-Year Plan were located in inland areas (Lin 2007).

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made up of three “fronts”: a first front, namely coastal cities, a second front that coincided with central inland cities and a third front comprising western inland regions. In 1964, in particular during the third Five-Year Plan (1966–1970), a new programme, the Third Front, allocated most of the national industrial investments and projects to underdeveloped mountainous regions.8 As a result, factories and workers with their families were forcefully transferred from the East to the West. Worth noting that the pre-1949 urban system was not only modified through a set of programmes related to the spatial location of new infrastructures and industry. Young people living in big cities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Wuhan were moved to rural, underdeveloped areas as personal re-education opportunity based on the Communist countryside revolutionary ideology. The result of this was an urban population decline of over 17 million people in the late Sixties. Considering that in 1949 roughly two-thirds of the urban population lived in the eastern region, by 1980 only about half that number resided there. In addition, although the total number of cities had grown by about one-third, most (44%) were located in the central region, to the detriment of cities (36%) in the East. During these years, the urbanization rate was fairly constant (18%–20%). However, despite ambitious and costly government efforts, urbanization and industrialization remained unbalanced, being focused on the larger cities along the East Coast which still retained most of China’s facilities and production. To conclude, China’s political orientation in the planned economy period can be said to have promoted its overall industrial development and curbed the urbanization process (and relative costs) in the largest cities. Differently from the Western experience (for instance London’s case), China’s particular situation, framed by scholars as “industrialization without urbanization” restricted rural-urban population movements (Ren 2013). Cities seemed far from being a priority, but rather a spatial consequence of a broader economic strategy.

8

 Coastal regions for the military were viewed as particularly vulnerable.

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4  National Urban Agenda in the Reform Period (1978–Present) Deng Xiaoping’s political leadership and vision, after 1976, had a significant impact on China’s future. He reinvigorated what was perceived as an outdated political and economic system, expanded international diplomatic relations, foreign trade and investments (the so-called open door policy), stimulating rapid economic growth. In 1978, after announcing the programme Four Modernizations, the government identified four essential pillars: industry, agriculture, national defence, science and technology. The programme, in Chinese cities, triggered an intense period of spatial and socio-economic transformations which ultimately resulted in massive rural-urban migrations, urbanization and city growth. Urbanization processes not only affected large mega-cities but even medium-sized and smaller towns. New settlements—new towns and new districts—were also founded either from scratch or by the reclassification of previously rural areas. Compared to the Maoist period, the national economic and urbanization policy objectives were reversed whereby, from now on, cities would be considered as new economic growth engines (Zhang 2019). The Sixth (1981–1985) and Seventh (1986–1990) Five-Year Socio-Economic Plans identified Three Economic Belts: the eastern, central and western regions. Unlike the measures introduced in the Sixties (i.e. the Third Front strategy), which sought a balanced regional development mostly towards the inland western regions, this programme was designed to shift national urban investments back to the eastern regions: large coastal cities were once again considered the most competitive, and thus prioritized. Their role within the national economic development agenda was reframed, following the imperative of efficiency and competitiveness, and encouraging regionally unbalanced development: resources, export-oriented industries, foreign direct investments and international economic activities were profitable and concentrated therein.9 The open door policy was designed with pragmatism and an incremental approach. Reforms were initially experimented within strictly demarcated geographical contexts or a particular economic sector and, if successful, were gradually transferred nationwide through a series of 9  Central regions were instead perceived as the most suitable location for agriculture and energy sectors; farming and mining were encouraged in the West.

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operational phases (a sort of trial and error process; see Lindblom 1959). For instance, despite the city’s new meanings and values, early initiatives aimed at a market reform were actually being tested in rural areas. Ad hoc semi-­private rural companies (the Township and Village Enterprises) were established to promote local entrepreneurship and stimulate growth in small- and medium-sized cities, generating a bottom-up process of “urbanization of the countryside” (Ma and Cui 2002; Ren 2013). Subsequently, in 1980, the national government created four Special Economic Zones (SEZs)—located in Southern China—to encourage international economic activities, technology transfer and export-oriented activities to flourish. Such zones (Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou in Guangdong Province; Xiamen in the Fujian Province; Hainan Province in 1988) had special, flexible economic legislation that created a sort of “state of exception” (Agamben 2005) where ordinary laws and procedures were partially suspended in favour of foreign direct investments and companies. Although investments were promoted, companies remained under strict control.10 Given the economic success of these special zones and growing demand—both domestic and international—the Chinese government, in 1984, opened fourteen coastal cities (known as the Open Cities Programme) to foreign investments to expand production, services and infrastructures. A new programme established three Open Coastal Economic Areas in 1985 to foster growth along the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, the Min River Delta, and, in 1988, in Shandong and Liaoning. In addition, a larger coastal development strategy called Outward-oriented Development Strategy was launched to attract international economic activities. Local governments were thus encouraged to adopt a more entrepreneurial approach to guide their economic and urban policy-making process, establishing development zones that would attract foreign investments (Harvey 1989; Wu and Zhang 2007). As a result of the national urban agenda of the Eighties and fiscal reforms introduced in 1988 and 1994, the Nineties experienced unprecedented urbanization dynamics (a “city-centred urbanization”, see Ren 2013). Local governments now had the right to locally lease land-use 10  SEZs were zones where market forces could be locally experimented. They provided several opportunities, for instance tax incentives, flexible labour regulations, flexible land-use right regulations, greater autonomy for international trade, to establish joint ventures between domestic and foreign companies.

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rights for urban transformations (that soon became a key source of revenue). Staggering buildings and infrastructures were built, particularly in large cities on the East Coast (Hsing 2010).11 Spectacular urban architecture and mega-projects became a key lever among competing, promotion-­ seeking local officials (Yep et al. 2019). According to Zhang (2019), in the early economic transitional period, there was an evident mismatch between spatial economic development strategies and urbanization policies. Concerns about overdevelopment, environmental and social issues caused by irrational investments started to arise, while stocks of real estate remained underutilized. The national government, as a consequence, maintained strict control on urban growth, especially that of large cities: from the Fifth (1976–1980) to the Ninth (1996–2000) Five-Year Socio-Economic Plans, the goal was to strictly control the growth in size of large cities and rationally develop medium-­ sized and small cities (Zhang 2019).12 However, large cities continued to grow, particularly in the eastern regions, confirming how the coastal areas clearly dominated within China’s unbalanced urban system. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, based on data collected from the second national economic census (2008), over 50% of the economic activities of the second and third sector were located mostly along the coastal strip. In 2010, the GDP of the Province of Shanghai was higher than the one, for example, reported in Countries such as Finland (Ren 2013). Starting 2000, response to such a widening gap between coastal and inland regions, and to China’s “crisis” of former low-end, manufacturing-­ based, export-oriented growth model (Yang 2012) involved shifting and reframing the national priorities for economic and spatial development. The general aim was to foster—once again—a regionally balanced and coordinated development that would prioritize city-regions to drive economic competitiveness and the development of inland areas. From the Tenth Five-Year Socio-Economic Plan (2001–2005), priority was given to promoting a coordinated development of large, medium-sized and small cities and small towns, to structure a more rational urban system. From this point on, the national agenda focused on (a) developing key 11  In addition to fiscal reforms, a decentralization process of administrative powers from central government to the cities was launched. 12  The 1989 national urban planning law introduced a number of directives aimed at discouraging the growth of big cities.

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city-­regions, urban agglomerations and metropolitan growth poles13; (b) developing central cities in inland areas thanks to the construction of transportation corridors (high-speed railway networks and highways), industrial policies and fiscal support; c) promoting inclusive and sustainable growth. The Ninth (1996–2000) and Tenth (2001–2005) Five-Year Socio-­ Economic Plans launched a major new programme called Western Development Strategy (or Go West Policy14) in which the government supported inland areas by offering massive public investments, including the construction of new towns, to encourage greater regional coordination and reduce socio-economic inequalities and disparities throughout the Country (Berta and Frassoldati 2019). As in the Sixties and Seventies, national investments were once again directed towards the western Provinces and cities—like Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi’an, Kunming—which, until then, the market forces (namely foreign direct investments) had not fully favoured.

5  Shanghai’s Urban Agenda: From Industrial City to International Financial Metropolis 5.1   From “Paris of the East” to Industrial City As reported, changes in the national urban and economic agenda (contents, priorities and goals) have led to reframing the roles and meanings of Chinese cities since the establishment of the P.R.C. in 1949. Whereas cities, prior to 1949, were conceived as a place of administration and trade, with the central government’s policies they rapidly became manufacturing centres, without any commercial aspirations. Since the market reform, a new role has been conferred, making the city a business and trade centre: the engine that would drive China’s opening to the world. In this context of unparalleled socio-economic and spatial transformations, Shanghai—the symbol of Chinese urban and economic renaissance—is a significant example of a changing urban agenda, which rapidly tipped from being a dilapidated industrial city to an international financial 13  City-regions were considered as the main form of contemporary urbanization. Viewed as potential agglomeration of knowledge, modern industrial sectors and strategic functions, they were believed to foster economic growth and international competitiveness. 14  The policy was officially announced by Secretary Jiang Zemin in 1999.

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metropolis. The massive changes undergone by the city are not solely the result of national policies. Chinese cities gained new centrality by also developing their own local urban agendas, based on the decentralization process of administrative powers and responsibilities from central to local government. Shanghai’s renovation as the fastest-growing globalized city in the world (Chen 2009) has stretched along two decades, starting in the mid-1990s. Before the Communist revolution, which overshadowed the role of the city for roughly thirty years, Shanghai was already an important international city. In 1842, the Treaty of Nanking marked the end of the first Opium War between Great Britain and the Chinese Empire, with British victory. As a result, coastal cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Fuzhou and Xiamen, the so-called Treaty Port Cities, were forced to open to international trade through a series of unequal treaties signed by China and the Western imperial Empires (Ren 2013). Several concession areas— extraterritorial entities subject to foreign authority and rights, not under the Chinese legal system of rule—were therefore established in Shanghai. The city rapidly became known as a vibrant colonial commercial centre that has played a leading role in the nation’s economic development. Furthermore, foreign capitals and corporations, labour-intensive light industries such as textile, food and cotton manufacturing, along with banks were gradually flourishing. The international status and cosmopolitan dimension it attained in the years between the Twenties and Thirties were so important that the city was internationally known as the “Paris of the East” or the “Asian New York”. With the victory of the Chinese Communist Revolution and the establishment of the P.R.C. in 1949, Shanghai plunged into a phase of heavy stagnation and disinvestments, that resulted from the central government’s economic and urban policies and the lack of investments in infrastructures and housing.15 Shanghai’s glorious past as commercial, cultural and service centre seemed cancelled, transforming the city into the most important Chinese centre of state industry, especially textiles and steel. Moreover, being a large coastal city, it was no longer a priority on the national urban agenda: as pointed out in previous sections, the central government was more focused on developing the poorest inland Provinces. Even in the early years of the market reform,

15  As already mentioned, during the Maoist period city revenues were collected centrally and redistributed throughout the Country to subsidize underdeveloped regions.

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the priority remained in the Southern cities where SEZs were successfully tested. More than ten years would pass before seeing renewed political attention to the city. In 1992, when visiting the Southern Chinese cities benefitting from the open door policy, Deng Xiaoping admitted that excluding Shanghai from the SEZs had been a political and economic mistake (Wu 2006). Since then Shanghai has metaphorically represented—both in the collective imagination and within the policy goals defined by the 14th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party—the Chinese “dragon head”: a strategic node in opening-up Chinese economy to the outside world. This underscores the strong political vision, the strength and pervasiveness of the Chinese State (at the national and local level) in the process of decentralization and globalization. In particular, Shanghai’s renaissance highlights the Chinese State’s ability to reinvent itself through a new regulatory framework driven by the globalization process (Logan 2008; Wu 2006; Ren 2011, 2013). 5.2   An International Financial Metropolis In the Nineties Shanghai once again imposed itself on the national and (especially) international arena. The city tried to keep pace with the spectacular economic success of pilot cities such as Shenzhen in the early round of National Economic Development Zones (NEDZs). A new version of the Shanghai Master Plan was developed in 1986. It provided the basic framework for an increasingly market-oriented economy. A SEZ called Pudong New District, established in 1992 in a former marshy area located East of the river Huangpu, sees the creation of the city’s modern skyline—the Lujiazui financial centre. Driven both by national policies and by the leadership of such mayors as Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji and Wu Bangguo, a “golden decade” was launched (Chen 2009). Shanghai’s Master Plan of 2001 focused on internationalization. Its aim was to promote the city as an international economic, financial, trade and shipping centre. As Shanghai strives to become the most important global city of South-East Asia and the most important economic, financial and commercial Chinese centre (Ren 2013), political and bureaucratic elites of the national and municipal government collaborate with private (international) developers in redesigning the form of the

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city and its economic base.16 Such effort was also supported by massive government investments in infrastructures and urban mega-projects with a high economic return. This version of the Master Plan launched the suburbanization of Shanghai with the so-called One City Nine Towns programme, proposing a series of new large satellite towns away from Shanghai’s urban centre (Wang 2019). Initial public investment on roads and infrastructures of the new towns served to pave the way as an attempt to guide private real estate investments to suburbs. In a few years, the number of multinational companies, professional activities and rising demand for knowledge workers triggered heated competition with cities such as Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo. In terms of GDP and employment levels, third sector activities exceeded secondary ones since 2001 (Chen 2009). Shanghai, however, has still not developed the concentration of advanced business services established in cities such as New York and London. Perhaps this explains why it is still far from being considered a “true” global city (Sassen 2009). As Ren states (2011), China’s adoption—in the mid-Nineties—of the political and academic discourses on the global city has resulted mostly in State infrastructure construction and major urban projects aimed at attracting international capital. The term global city was formally adopted as an urban development objective for Shanghai in its newest version of the Master Plan (2016–2040). The Plan’s new vision for Shanghai is “excellent global city-the city of innovation, humanity, and ecology”. The planning tool develops guidance for a transition from land-oriented urbanization to people-centred urbanization, from urban expansion to urban regeneration, in accordance with China’s National New-Type Urbanization Plan 2014–2020 (see Sect. 6.2). Zero expansion is expected to force economic transition and environmental protection. The new development formula for Shanghai, therefore, adopted technological and scientific innovation as new engine for growth, culture as substance, and ecological balance as the baseline. Shanghai is expected to develop a role model for Chinese cities in the new circumstances towards a new “normal” (Xin Chang Tai) economy. Meanwhile, this Master Plan was developed through an extensive collaborative planning process involving 16  Shanghai’s political leadership between the Eighties and the Nineties became a steppingstone for many Chinese politicians who took top-positions in the central government. This confirmed a renewed centrality of the city, at the heart of the national urban-economic agenda. Mayor Jiang Zemin was appointed President of the P.R.C. (1993–2003), Zhu Rongji became Premier between 1998 and 2003, Wu Bangguo vice-premier between 1995 and 2003.

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many departments, stakeholders and local residents through public forums, the use of internet and Wechat. It is not only a document adopted by the planning administration, but also a public policy announced by the Shanghai municipal government, and the mayor’s manifesto.

6  Towards a Renewal of the National Urban Agenda: The New Urbanization Policy 6.1   Political and Scientific Debates on the Need to Restructure the Urban Agenda The unprecedented pace and scale of China’s urban transition over the last four decades has generated major social concerns as regards the rising spatial and socio-economic inequalities, environmental pressures and depletion of natural resources (Gottlieb and Ng 2018).17 According to Guan et al. (2018), China’s land-centred urbanization process after 1978 was marked by “four highs and five lows”: high (financial) investments, consumption of energy and natural resources, pollutant emission and expansion of built-up areas; low-level quality, harmony degree, inclusiveness, and sustainability. Often referred to as the world’s largest construction site (Zhu 2009), concerns about urbanism in China have not only been featured in numerous academic works (for an overview see Tan, Xu and Zhang 2016); they have also become an issue of intense political attention and debate which called for a renewed urban agenda. Despite public concern and the social tensions triggered by dynamics of massive urbanization, discussions were mainly confined to the technical and political national arena, where Chinese and international experts played a key role. After forty years of heavy urbanization, China’s top leaders have finally recognized the need to promote a “rationalization” of the Country’s urban system and foster a new urbanization model. Defined in the Twelfth (2011–2015) and Thirteenth (2015–2020) Five-Year Socio-Economic 17  Having avoided some of the common social ills of urbanization processes in other developing Countries (and in developed Countries of the past as well) such as massive urban poverty, unemployment and squalor (Tan et al. 2016), China’s urbanization is without precedence in absolute numbers. Its increase, however, has not been exceptional compared to other Countries. The relationship between urbanization level and income is still lower than expected, hence with great potential for agglomeration economies (World Bank and the Development Research Center of the State Council, P. R. China 2014).

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Plans, the model strives to promote more balanced and equitable cities in terms of wealth and welfare distribution (i.e. a growing middle class), and more environmentally sustainable and economically competitive urban areas (i.e. based on productivity growth, service sectors and innovations). Against this backdrop, cities and urbanization processes are conceived as the gateway to future socio-economic progress/modernization of the whole Country: a collective “urban dream” that comes true (Taylor 2015). Once again—following Mao Zedong’s ideology in the Sixties and Deng Xiaoping’s vision in the Eighties—the role of the city and their dominant narrative have been reframed. The following section summarizes the main characteristics of the new urban agenda. In 2011, Li Keqiang, China’s vice-premier at that time, explicitly included urbanization as one of the government’s top priorities to achieve better and more sustainable economic growth.18 In November 2012, the World Bank Group and the Development Research Center of the State Council of the P.R.C. worked on a joint research called Urban China. Toward efficient, inclusive, and sustainable urbanization.19 As the report title reveals, this new path to urbanization is likely to be efficient (making optimal use of China’s productive factors—its people, land, capital—which had been severely exploited for over thirty years), inclusive (providing all people equal access to public services and wealth distribution) and sustainable (protecting land, air, water and other natural resources and providing quality of life in cities). The first Central Urbanization Work Conference of the C.P.C.  Central Committee, in December 2013, also defined the key principles that determine a transition towards “human-oriented” urbanization, thus shifting from a growth model based on scale and speed to a model of development based on quality and performance (UN-Habitat 2014). Driven by massive (foreign) investments in “hard” infrastructures, capital accumulation and land leasing, Chinese urbanization has been based on land conversion which implies inequality in the distribution of its wealth, generating urban sprawl, ghost towns and underutilized real estate

18  One of China’s four harmonized pillars for a new modernization drive, as then defined by the Central Committee of the C.P.C. (18° National Congress of the C.P.C. in 2012): industrialization, information technology, urbanization and agricultural modernization (UN-Habitat 2014). 19  This research follows up a previous study focused on the long-term challenges of China’s economy (China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative Society). The Development Research Center of the State Council is a top-level think tank in China.

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developments.20 From a social perspective, despite the astonishing number of migrants that entered urban areas (over 260 million in the past three decades), administrative obstacles to population mobility—the previously mentioned hukou household registration system—have exacerbated the urban-rural divide in terms of urban welfare services guaranteed to urban and rural citizens. Furthermore, the large inflow of migrants adds to the pressure put on public services, generating conflicts among urban citizens over the quality of services. From an environmental perspective, such land-intensive urbanization has increased air pollution within cities and eroded scarce natural resources like water and productive farmland in the countryside. According to the joint research (World Bank and the Development Research Center of the State Council, P. R. China 2014), China’s urban landscape will continue to change in the near future, but at a slower pace. Future urbanization will be driven mostly by migration. Large coastal city regions will tend to become even larger and more closely tied to global markets,21 diversifying their economies towards services, knowledge and innovation. Land-intensive specialized industries will more likely be concentrated in secondary cities which, thanks to new job prospects, will reduce migration pressure on large cities; inland cities and rural towns are expected to be suited locations for smaller industries. In general terms, a more equitable distribution of income and a growing middle class will most likely increase consumption and a more service-based urban economy. The priorities identified by the new urban agenda and new model of urbanization rely on the introduction of a comprehensive set of strategic policy reforms (see Sect. 6.2). The reform package centres on four priority areas to support social policies and service delivery, urban planning and environmental management: land, hukou, the fiscal system and the incentive system for local governments. As precondition, the government must be more collaborative with market forces: given the overall strategic development plan and institutional environment, cities should be allowed to grow organically and efficiently 20  Ghost towns are new towns with an extremely high vacancy rate. According to Wang et al. (2015), the dynamics are not driven by market demands, rather by the need, for local governments, to collect financial resources through land sales: between 2000 and 2011, for instance, new town-constructed areas had grown by 76.4% while urban residents increased only by 50.5%. 21  Especially mega urban regions such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.

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according to these decisive forces (UN-Habitat 2014; World Bank and the Development Research Center of the State Council, P. R. China 2014).22 In short, rebalancing state-market relations transforms the State from being a mere provider of infrastructures and public services (and exercising administrative control) to one that encourages a market-based allocation of people, land and capital across China. The joint research has recognized the need to stimulate (instead of suffocating) market forces to change the spatial distribution of economic activities and people across the Country. Driven by cheaper land and labour, market forces could thus push industrial activities (and related economic benefits) to small- and medium-size secondary cities, to reduce the migration pressure on large coastal cities. At the same time, these cities are expected to attract high-skilled workers, reinforcing their transition towards an innovative service economy. Land reforms are deemed as the best way to ensure a more efficient use of rural and urban land, and to increase the compensation (hence income and wealth distribution) that farmers receive from land requisition and conversion. Furthermore, reforms are designed to make cities denser, more sustainable and spatially efficient, encouraging the reuse of existing urban land, enhancing environmental services and protecting agricultural productive farmland. Finally, they are necessary to protect the local cultures and preserve the historic heritage of cities and towns, regional characteristics and national food specialities. The hukou reform is expected to reduce wealth disparity among Chinese citizens, promote inclusion by integrating rural migrants in cities, and deliver a minimum standard of public services to all residents (i.e. housing security, health care, education, retirement insurance, employment, etc.), irrespective of their place of origin. Increased mobility should contribute to reducing spatial and rural-urban inequality. A series of fiscal and financial reforms are aimed at obtaining resources to finance a minimum standard of public services across the Country, regulating local government dependence on land leasing revenue (especially by converting rural land), as well as controlling the credit system which, in the recent past, had financed the wrong real estate investments: ghost towns and empty or underused housing stock are the evidence.

22  State-market relations represent a basic concept in both planning and public policy theory (see, for instance, Lindblom 1977).

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Finally, changes in career pathways of local officials are encouraged. These should be based on the success of local leaders in addressing national development priorities evaluated in terms of goals such as quality of life (health, culture, education and good environment offered to citizens), instead of criteria as the easily measurable annual GDP growth produced by the cities that they govern. Greater citizen participation within the government decision-making process is another important goal to enhance local government accountability and administrative effectiveness. 6.2   The National New-Type Urbanization Plan 2014–2020 The aforementioned political discourses and scientific reflections eventually culminated in the promulgation, by China’s National Development and Reform Commission, of the Country’s first national urbanization blueprint in March 2014, issuing guidelines for all Chinese cities: the National New-Type Urbanization Plan 2014–2020 (NUP). The NUP represents the government’s effort in rationalizing the Country’s urbanization and urban system. As an overarching policy framework, it is conceived to cluster policies with multiple goals (Wang et al. 2015). The six-year plan lays out the strategies and related quantitative goals that have to be reached, identifying the new conditions for urban development and planning, based on the debates outlined in Sect. 6.1. For instance, the urban resident population should meet the 60% threshold by 2020, and the urban population with an urban hukou of 45%. To reach the goals, the hukou-urban registration has to be partially eased in middle-­ sized and small cities in central and western regions, a way to once again overcome the historical regional inequality between East and West. Transition from a land-centred urbanization model to a people-oriented urbanization model (Chen et al. 2016) implies improving access to welfare services (basic public services) for migrants: in fact, 99% of migrant children living in cities are expected to receive compulsory education. Fostering a sustainable urbanization means improving urban infrastructures (public transportation, water supply, sewage treatment, community service facilities) but also reducing the exploitation of natural resources. The plan also envisages new institutional measures to develop national-­ level urban clusters in different regions, establishing coordination between urban and rural areas, improving urban governance and the preservation of historic urban settlements.

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Despite its innovative scope, some authors (see, for instance, Wang et al. 2015) criticize the new measures that the NUP is promoting, that is differentiating the hukou registration system for smaller cities and moderating urban growth control. This last point, indeed, calls for a comprehensive reform of the local government finance that still needs to be fostered. For a better local implementation of the plans adopted in the framework of the NUP, a new approach to urban development has been promoted by the central government. Known as Integration of Three Plans to One (San Gui He Yi), it encourages collaboration among government departments in the decision-making process. The three plans include the Five-Year Socio-Economic Plan developed by the National Development and Reform Commission, the General Land Use Plan developed by the Ministry of National Land Resource to protect basic farmland, and plans for cities and townships allocated to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-­ Rural Development. The central government requires that the three plans must be integrated into a blueprint plan for the allocation and preservation of resources, and for the implementation of the new-type of urbanization. However, in seeking better governance and development patterns, this new approach has been hindered by segregated interests and different rationale of government departments. Efforts to promote the new-type of urbanization in China continue.

7  Conclusions This chapter intends to provide insights to better understand the transformations of China’s national urban agenda, with the unprecedented spatial, environmental and socio-economic changes experienced by Chinese cities over the last forty years. As highlighted, the Country’s urbanization dynamics represent the concrete manifestation of an overall economic and political change that has resulted in the transition from a centrally planned economy (1949–1978) to a peculiar socialist market economy, or socialism with Chinese characteristics (1978–present). With the so-called open door policy initiated by the new leader Deng Xiaoping at the end of the Seventies, the role and function of cities in China’s political, social, cultural and economic landscape have greatly changed. The national urban agenda in fact has reframed both the meaning and the values attached to urban areas. The central government’s urban policy between the Fifties and the Seventies fundamentally reshaped the Chinese urban system that had

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historically been dominated by the large coastal cities located East. Furthermore, cities were stigmatized as symbols of overconsumption and socio-economic inequality. As a result, the set of urban programmes launched during the Maoist era was aimed at discouraging development in eastern cities, giving priority to growth inland and in western Provinces. Cities soon became dilapidated industrial centres, setting any commercial ambitions aside. Shanghai’s glorious commercial and business past (once internationally known as the “Paris of the East” or the “Asian New York”) became overshadowed by the policies prioritizing interior and western Provinces, that, for roughly thirty years, plunged the city into a phase of heavy stagnation and disinvestment. Conversely, economic reforms progressively conferred new roles to cities, making them business and trade centres. Cities thus became the engine that drove China’s opening up to the world. Since 1992, Shanghai—the symbol of Chinese urban and economic renaissance—has (once again) been radically transformed to make it the most important global city of South-East Asia. In short, China’s urban policy in the Eighties—and in the Nineties more than ever—was characterized by massive (domestic and foreign) investments in infrastructures, urban mega-projects and land conversions, which triggered a number of significant concerns and challenges for policy-makers. In the last years, Premier Li Keqiang explicitly included urbanization as one of the government’s top priorities, focusing on the quality of economic growth. After thirty years of heavy urbanization, China’s top leaders have recognized the need to promote people-centred urbanization, through intense, ongoing debates and political attention to urban issues (i.e. environmental sustainability, migrations, ageing population, welfare and urban regeneration). As briefly pointed out herein, an agenda of important reforms is currently a national political priority to pursue a new model of urban development based on principles of efficiency, inclusiveness and sustainability. With the central government’s shift in priorities, nowadays cities are considered as a leading platform for economic development where greater attention is given to the quality of life for residents. Local governments, however, face challenges which include generating new revenue as land leasing (one of the major sources for urban development for over thirty years) has started to fall, owing to increasing environmental issues and limited resources. Shanghai, one of China’s pilot cities, serves to meet the paradigm shift in developing Master Plans capable of

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meeting the challenges and of pursuing the goals set by the new national urban agenda. Since the Covid-19 pandemic began around January 2020, the “healthy city” has also become a significant issue on the national urban agenda. Xi Jinping has adopted Healthy China as national strategy, thus integrating health into all policy domains. He also urged the implementation of “life-­ cycle health management” in all phases of urban planning, construction and administration. The (ongoing) research and practice of healthy city development focuses on decreasing the incidence of chronic non-­ communicable diseases and preventing infectious diseases. More research and in-depth studies on this topic are needed. Based on the information drawn from literature, the urban agenda’s main challenge will be to actually implement its general goals and guidelines at the city level. Hence, it will be pivotal to explore whether, and to what extent, the national agenda can be translated into concrete urban policies designed as a set of interrelated programmes, plans and urban initiatives.

References Agamben, G. 2005. State of exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Berta, M., and F. Frassoldati. 2019. New urbanisation and ‘go west’ policies. In The city after Chinese new towns: Spaces and imaginaries from contemporary urban China, ed. M.  Bonino, F.  Governa, M.P.  Repellino, and A.  Sampieri, 78–89. Berlin, Boston: Birkhäuser. Campanella, T.J. 2008. The concrete dragon. China’s urban revolution and what it means for the world. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Chan, K.W. 1992. Economic growth strategy and urbanization policies in China, 1949–1982. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 16 (2): 275–305. Chen, X. 2009. Introduction. A globalizing city on the rise. Shanghai’s transformation in comparative perspectives. In Shanghai rising. State power and local transformations in a global megacity, ed. X.  Chen, XV–XXXV.  Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press. Chen, M., W. Liu, and D. Lu. 2016. Challenges and the way forward in China’s new-type urbanization. Land Use Policy 55: 334–339. China Statistical Yearbook. 2021. On-line at http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ ndsj/2021/indexeh.htm. Last accessed February 7, 2022. Chung, J.H., and L. Tao-Chiu, eds. 2010. China’s local administration: Traditions and changes in the sub-national hierarchy. London: Routledge. Gottlieb, R., and S. Ng. 2018. Global cities: Urban environments in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

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Guan, X., H. Wei, S. Lu, Q. Dai, and H. Su. 2018. Assessment on the urbanization strategy in China: Achievements, challenges and reflections. Habitat International 71: 97–109. Harvey, D. 1989. From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The transformation in urban governance in late capitalism. Geografiska Annaler 71 (1): 3–17. Heilmann, S. 2018. Red swan: How unorthodox policy-making facilitated China’s rise. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. Hsing, Y. 2010. The great urban transformation. Politics of land and property in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lin, G.C. 2007. Chinese urbanism in question: State, society, and the reproduction of urban spaces. Urban Geography 28 (1): 7–29. Lindblom, C.E. 1959. The science of ‘muddling through’. Public Administration Review 19 (2): 79–88. ———. 1977. Politics and markets. The world’s political-economic systems. New York: Basic Books. Logan, J.R., ed. 2008. Urban China in transition. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Ma, L.J.C., and G.  Cui. 2002. Economic transition at the local level: Diverse forms of town development in China. Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 43 (2): 79–103. Miller, T. 2012. China’s urban billion. The story behind the biggest migration in human history. London, New York: Zed Books. Naughton, B. 1996. Growing out of the plan: Chinese economic reform 1978–1993. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ren, X. 2011. Building globalization. Transnational architecture production in urban China. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press. ———. 2013. Urban China. In Cambridge, UK. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Sassen, S. 2009. The global city perspective. Theoretical implications for Shanghai. In Shanghai rising: State power and local transformations in a global megacity, ed. X. Chen, 3–29. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press. Schön, D.A., and M. Rein. 1994. Frame reflection. Toward the resolution of intractable policy controversies. New York: Basic Books. Tan, Y., H. Xu, and X. Zhang. 2016. Sustainable urbanization in China: A comprehensive literature review. Cities 55: 82–93. Taylor, J.R. 2015. The China dream is an urban dream: Assessing the CPC’s national new-type urbanization plan. Journal of Chinese Political Science 20 (2): 107–120. UN-Habitat. 2014. The state of China’s cities 2014/2015. Beijing: China City Press. Wang, L. 2019. Planning for urban visions: The case of the Shanghai 2040 master plan. In Handbook on urban development in China, ed. R. Yep, J. Wang, and T. Johnson, 22–35. Edward Elgar Publishing. Wang, X., E.C. Hui, C. Choguill, and S. Jia. 2015. The new urbanization policy in China: Which way forward? Habitat International 47: 279–284.

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World Bank and the Development Research Center of the State Council, P. R. China. 2014. Urban China. Toward efficient, inclusive, and sustainable urbanization. Washington, DC: World Bank. Wu, F., ed. 2006. Globalization and the Chinese city. London; New  York: Routledge. Wu, W., and P. Gaubatz. 2013. The Chinese city. London; New York: Routledge. Wu, F., and J. Zhang. 2007. Planning the competitive city-region: The emergence of strategic development plan in China. Urban Affairs Review 42 (5): 714–740. Yang, C. 2012. Restructuring the export-oriented industrialization in the Pearl River Delta, China: Institutional evolution and emerging tension. Applied Geography 32 (1): 143–157. Yep, R., J. Wang, and T. Johnson. 2019. Introduction to the handbook on urban development in China: Urbanization with Chinese characteristics. In Handbook on urban development in China, ed. R. Yep, J. Wang, and T. Johnson, 1–20. Edward Elgar Publishing. Zhang, X. 2019. Transformation of Chinese cities and city-regions in the era of globalization. In Handbook on urban development in China, ed. R.  Yep, J. Wang, and T. Johnson, 137–154. Edward Elgar Publishing. Zhu, J. 2009. Architecture of modern China: A historical critique. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.

CHAPTER 5

The Politics of U.S. Urban Agendas: Ideology, Government, and Public Policies Francesca Gelli

1   Introduction The essay is concerned with the evolution of the American national urban agenda, from a policy analysis perspective. The study spans nearly a century, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Joe Biden Presidencies. During that period at least 15 Presidents have served American citizens, as heads of the U.S. government—but for some pertinent points, the study will draw further back in time, to Woodrow Wilson’s Presidency. The discussion underlines several different attempts at modeling that have been developed in selected policy literature, providing meaningful

F. Gelli (*) Department of Architecture and Arts, University Iuav of Venice, Venice, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_5

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conceptualizations of the politics of U.S. urban agendas and thematization of policy design features.1 Where caution is needed is in using and overly simplifying such attempts at modelling. For instance, in concluding that an urban agenda is lacking because there isn’t an exclusively urban policy in nature, acting through an explicit overarching, place-based urban policy. This is the case even in the presence of a set of programs and initiatives that distribute costs and benefits to cities, promoting various dimensions of urban development. Recurring risks facing available analysis include the over-­personalization of Presidential power and macro-players, stereotyping market-led or big government ideologies, self-explanatory categorization of “explicitly urban” and “non-urban” policies taken too literally, cause-­effects theorization to approach public policy issues that have a career of difficult, “ill-structured” problems (Banathy 1996). Comprehensive analysis on urban-related policymaking deals on the one hand with the complex web of demographic and macroeconomic dynamics affecting agenda-setting. Strategic shifts in policies or urban priorities that are “agendized” intertwine with unplanned events and a plethora of unexpected effects. On the other, the analysis deals with the institutional complexity of governmental policymaking, focusing on structured interactions between relevant public and private actors within the policy sub-system addressing urban affairs or sectors targeting urban problems (Wolman 1999). What emerges from this optic is that the reality of urban policy arenas is fragmented in less structured relations, networks, or coalitions interested in urban-related issues. To this fact, the demand for a federal urban agenda and nationally coordinated policymaking that devotes political and administrative attention and organization to treat the problems associated with urban life becomes a central theme. Although generally acknowledged that America is a nation of cities, favorable conditions for such a process have not always been met. The very purpose behind this study is to bring together learnings from the American case on methodological aspects of urban policy analysis, with a specific focus on agenda-setting processes at a national scale. 1  See Lowi 1969, 1979; Pressman and Wildavsky 1973; Wildavsky 1987; Pressman, 1975; Kaplan and Franklin 1990; Sapotichne 2010; Savitch and Osgood 2010; Kantor 2013; Silver 2016. Trajectories that frame urban policies in the period considered offer enlightening insights from more theoretical or historical perspectives (Martin 1994; Carmon 1999; Biles 2011). None of the available conceptualizations have as empirical ground the entire time span.

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What lesson might be drawn, that can be presented as an understanding of the context or as a generalization valid per se? Considering that, in the process of abstraction, urban policies (their making and results) are nevertheless historicized. A first understanding is that behind the codification of national urban agendas there is an emerging urban question that assumes different traits over time. The national urban agenda has evolved during the century to deal with complex policy problems, tackling highly politicized urban issues: this was true in the first decades when combating corruption, city center blight and decay, poverty, racial discrimination; in later years halting economic growth, unemployment, fiscal deficit; and more recently in the global era, dealing with terrorist attacks, prolonged economic crises, natural disasters, and pandemics. These kinds of problems were and are in no way “soft”, instead, they are ugly and tough to address, besides being a big concern. Therefore, how urban issues get on or are dropped from the agenda, how and where policy initiatives are formulated to tackle urban problems, is interdependent on the process of recognition and legitimation of urban problems and the political and social mobilization that takes place at the national level, achieving government attention. The policy design of urban-related programs or an overarching urban policy is influenced by problem definition and problem structuring (Hoppe 2011). In the evolution of American national urban policy different alternating policy design approaches can be observed. A distinctive feature is the prevailing technical or socio-political constructions of policy problems related to the rationality of planning at work—whether the “design attitude” (Boland and Collopy 2004) moves beyond ideas of technical innovation and social engineering, based on powerful social theories, professional problem solving and ex-ante policy integration, or whether a more interactive designing is under experiment, with open and participated problem-solving, incremental coordination, inspired by ideas of social innovation and democratic design thinking. Several types of important factors come into play in the enterprise of urban agendas at the national level. Political and legal resources, public scrutiny, expert advice and advocacy planning, academic involvement matter a lot; but the ability to activate local resources is essential to the goal. During specific periods, the influential leadership of charismatic Presidents was crucial to give impetus to a political agenda for urban America. Political and ideological consensus, budget constraints, unforeseen events

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conditioned the results for change. But policy narratives describing urban conditions and potential for innovation produced new powerful representations of America and its future, becoming a frame for action with influential legacies in the aftermath. Differently from other countries where the stimulus to a domestic national urban agenda derives from policy transfer mechanisms, under the influence of supranational or international organizations—by adaptation, or imitation, rarely coercion—and/or in the opportunity of global urban policy agendas, the U.S. governmental system elaborated its own methods and schemes of intervention. In the past, American urban policy programs and governance have been a model of reference in urban policy studies, acknowledged worldwide. A tradition of urban studies in American Political Science, which flourished especially between the 1950s and the 1970s, was an important ground to develop insights that contributed to a better understanding of urban political processes and to the formulation of well-known theorizations in policy analysis and democratic empirical theory (Gelli 2009, 2012). The U.S. urban agenda has also been a source of policy transfer for policy design, owing to innovations in legislation, policy instrumentation, or methods of intervention. Federal policy programs of aid to cities had a very consistent budget and a vast scale of intervention. Studies of federal urban policies in the above-mentioned timeframe demonstrate different logics of governmental action and ideological disposition, “the expansionary and interventionist national urban policy, … the shift from Keynesian to neoliberal macroeconomics, from public works to public partnership, and from federal to state and local-level program priorities to the more recent financialization attempts” (Silver 2016, 11–12). Two facets, one social, and the other developmental (Kantor 2013) were always pursued in the politics of both the Democrat and Conservative Party coalitions, with different combinations and intensities. This does not imply less commitment to learning from other contexts of experimentation. Reference is made not only to the UK experiment, or to European patterns of urban policy design. The experience of foreign aid was a field of major importance to understand conflictual relations between donor and recipient organizations generated by programs of aid which can bring strategic resources as well as new problems. Intergovernmental and interagency relations, viewed as a bargaining process, became a central subject of governance arrangements to improve cooperation and coordination (Pressman 1975). The U.S. federacy is a territorially based democratic system. The political culture of federalism is a determinant character of the

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American way of urban policies; it is civic, republican, and participatory, a synthesis of aspiration for good commonwealth and an open political marketplace (Elazar 1991). The principles and the governing practices of shared rules and self-rule, of integrity and autonomy, of non-­centralization of powers (Elazar 1987) which frame cooperation and participation processes, are often misunderstood from a non-federalist or European mode of state decentralization.2 The non-centralization of powers involves continuous negotiations not only between the local, state, and national levels of political representation but also between the public and the private spheres. American federalism is a multifaceted partnership and a contractual democracy. Finally, a critical issue is recalled: policies that aim at solving specific problems end up generating new problems. This is particularly true with the history we analyzed, where several times attempts of federal legislation and policy programs created undesired effects as a by-product, exacerbating social inequalities, race discrimination, gentrification, unemployment and abandonment, fiscal crisis.

2  The Evolution of Urban Policies from a Historical Perspective: The Changing Urban Question and Urban Agenda 2.1   From Problems to Agendas: Shaping Urban Issues for Political Action from the 1930s to the 1970s From the Great Depression in the early 1930s to the 1970s a complex urban question gained visibility in the evolving urban and suburban American scene. Evidence of wicked urban problems (Peters 2018) with cross-country impacts consolidated the federal government’s involvement in urban life. Gradually, greater efforts were made to define the issues and modes of intervention to properly address social and economic demands that became more concentrated in cities. The idea that government authority and its resources along with those of its allies in the private sector were needed to tackle urban issues did not receive immediate consensus in large sectors of public opinion. This explains why at every important city-­ oriented legislative act or program policy much focus was given to   Integrity means the whole in its entirety and at the same time, the autonomy of the parts themselves; autonomy indicates the capacity for self-government and at the same time the ability to cooperate with the other levels that make up the system. 2

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building a narrative and communicating to the public about policy aims and the quantity of federal money invested. Powerful symbols and target groups were attached to problems.3 In those years, the U.S. government was very committed to developing new domains of expertise—skills and institutions, the organization, coordination—and policy design, within responsive democratic governance (Hoppe 2011). Elected Presidents and Congress worked to exercise their respective powers over the agenda and political negotiations among different interests, framing urban problems, defining goals and selecting priorities, deciding the criteria for fund allocations and setting the general framework for urban policies. The federal administration grew taking on new tasks and responsibilities to develop the policy toolbox, experimenting different schemes and types of intervention. Great effort went into designing public policies in terms of “program design”, linking specific policy instruments to targeted urban issues (Howlett 2010), gradually adding categorical policies, top-down regulation. Issues of “meta-design” were considered to plan integrated urban policies attempting to combat large-scale social problems (inequalities, racial discrimination, poverty, etc.) through large-scale interventions (Peters 2018, 13–14). This was especially the case in the 1960s and 1970s, when the U.S. government actively engaged in direct interventions, launching very ambitious national area-based urban policies. In some circumstances, “political design” (Peters 2018, 15) was clearly visible at the Congress level, where there were contrasting “ideological designs” (i.e., neo-liberal, private sector policy solutions vs. big government-public sector solutions, supported by national partisan coalitions, powerful economic and professional interests, etc.), and deciding on policy design solution depended on a successful compromise among conflicting interests (Kantor 2013). The case of Urban Renewal Policy under Title I of the National Housing Act of 1949, is an example of the first successful steps. At the decision-making stage, the ambiguity of policy goals and lack of clarity about the means of legislative acts were positively emphasized for the political feasibility of the policy proposals, favoring the bargaining and compromises among the parties. Years later, the vagueness of intents was contested by those who had 3  Here are some recurring examples: “The community blighted and diseased”; “Urban renewal is Negro removal”; “Two cars in every garage”; “The Federal bulldozer”.

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advocated and supported it for the high implementation costs and negative impacts seeing that it had contributed to weakening the program’s technical feasibility (Scharpf 1988). American Presidents who had the foresight, on the contrary, were better at conceiving more challenging urban agendas: when the political leadership of a newly elected President was particularly influential, and the party coalition supporting the President dominated in Congress, the urban policy was more characterized often experimenting with “meta-­ design”. A similar case involves the reform seasons of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon’s Administrations. Despite the dramatic events of prematurely interrupted action (Kennedy’s assassination; Watergate scandal; and Nixon’s resignation from the office), their legacy lasted beyond their mandates. In those years, Presidents were particularly active in creating institutions to improve federal-local communication (Pressman 1975). Aspirations toward a more systematic experimental design on the part of the federal government do not imply that there was a single formal strategic decision-maker in U.S. urban policy (Downs 1999) as governmental orchestration actively involved federal-state-city relations. All three levels of the federal system participated in developing an American urban policy (Kantor 2013). A reconstruction of the urban question as “agendized” during the 1930s and 1970s reveals that the federal government was greatly concerned with problem structuring and policy design, expanding urban aid, while states and cities had other fundamental tasks in policymaking. States assumed greater responsibilities in enacting and enabling legislation, thus expanding their veto powers; the cities, awarded federal aid, had to initiate, plan, carry out and concretely realize local projects, conceiving and managing their roles which nonetheless had to be within the outlines of the national program policy. Frequently, friction among government levels arose, especially in those years in which federal-aid payments for urban areas increased substantially (1961–1972). Moreover, the federal government tended to bypass the states in establishing and carrying out urban programs, creating funding channels that went directly from the national government to the cities, generally with the mayor’s approval in large cities (Pressman 1975). But there was also federal-local friction due to differences in perspectives with regard to program goals, problem definition, the interpretation of procedures, or fund allocations to independent third institutions often non-aligned with municipal administrations (Pressman 1975).

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Legislative acts, urban programs, cooperation frameworks, financial schemes, designated administrative units and agencies, expert task forces, and other tools formed the government’s planning machine designed to institutionalize the U.S. urban policy over time. Governmental instrumentation had political effects, mobilizing values, ideas, and conceptions of the relation between the public and the private interests, those who administer and those who are administrated (Lascoumes and Le Galès 2007). The following pages illustrate how, in the four decades considered herein, a changing urban question comes to be defined and entered the political agenda becoming a matter of public concern and government formalized action. Additionally, brief focus on features of urban development since the end of the nineteenth century is also provided being of seminal importance. The general premise of this review is that government action and inaction determined the shape of American cities (Jackson 2009). 2.2   Outmigration and the Urban Renewal Label In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, neither progressive movements determined to reforming urban government—such as the Efficiency and Economy Movement,4 the National Short Ballot Organization5—nor the National Municipal League6 regarded the federal government as a potential ally to improve urban America. The federal 4  The Movement’s aim was to improve efficiency in local government functions, fostering the technical capacity of municipal governments to administer public goods and satisfy citizens’ demands for quality services. Adherents to the movement combated the old-style political machine governing large American cities, dominated by party organization and party loyalty. 5  Also known as “The short ballot movement to simplify politics”, the reform was committed to changing the rules through a simplified electoral process; moreover, it introduced drastic reductions in the number of public offices to be subjected to popular vote. It had the support of President Woodrow Wilson (March 1913–1921) who initially was a distinguished scholar dedicated to the study of a more effective public administration (Wilson 1887). To the reformer’s movement, the practice of the short ballot should limit the power of both local bosses and corrupted politicians, de facto controlling election by manipulation of the electorate, and political specialists, who too easily detected the monopoly of knowledge of the political process. This reform ran in parallel with the request for more regulation of direct primary election. 6  Organized in 1894, united various city reform groups throughout the country.

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government’s first active role in cities was that of housing developers. First experimented during Woodrow Wilson’s Administration at the end of the First World War, professional urban planners, architects, and housing reformers attempted to design and model communities, that is, residential settlements for the working class inspired to ideal living standards, thus with the highest quality, equipped with recreational facilities, social and urban services (Biles 2011). But the experiment was temporary and limited. A decade later, the housing demand came to be regulated by the housing market, with private construction booming in suburban areas. State and federal governments subsidized all forms of mobility. Most of the federal subsidies were spent on the automobile sector and to support the expansion of new roads and highways networks. Much less went to mass transport. By 1925, about 85 percent of all automobiles on earth were manufactured in the U.S. (Jackson 2009). Substantial federal subsidies later also went to purchase private home properties, which exceeded the spending on public housing. These two factors were a big stimulus for the suburbanization of metropolitan areas. Economic growth continued until the shock of the Great Depression. High unemployment rates, bankruptcies, a slowdown of suburban expansion, rapid urban decay amid a flaring financial crisis were becoming major problems. Circumstances had opened a window for widespread consensus on the urgency for more federal relief efforts. The U.S.  Conference of Mayors was founded in Washington as a permanent urban lobby for cities with populations of 50,000 or more. The first concrete response of the federal government to the mayors’ call under President Herbert Hoover (March 1929–1933) was weak, with no concrete impact in terms of improved urban environment although it anticipated the subsequent introduction of the New Deal Program.7 The election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (March 1933–April 1945) did not represent a turning point, as he was not in favor of distributing federal funding to cities, or to public housing, seeing “homeownership as a cherished American ideal” (Biles 2011, 9). Instead, the presidential ideological orientation favored the concentration of investment aids  in densely populated metropolitan areas, to encourage economic opportunities and employment. Federal funding was used to support cities through a series of categorical programs introduced in the New Deal political agenda, that served to finance relief 7  President Hoover signed in 1932 the Federal Home Loan Bank Act and the Emergency Relief and Reconstruction Acts.

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and public works, build infrastructures such as airports, hospitals, public buildings, streets, bridges, and viaducts, water supply systems, etc. Automobility was boosted. The pressure of housing reformers, some Senators in Congress, and local officials confronted the problem of slum formation in cities and lack of low-income housing, striving to give it a voice. However, the winning argument toward taking action was to help the private construction industry. In 1934, President Roosevelt signed the first Housing Act into law. The federal law launched a policy known as the Better Housing Program targeting affordable housing and mortgages to support family homeownership and recovery of building industries at an impasse in a stagnant real estate market. The formula was insuring the loans of banks and other financial institutions: for the lender, the loans were risk-free and for the borrower they were low-cost. The new financial scheme (the Modernization Credit Plan) was a way to promote building without direct federal spending. Under the legislation, a new agency was created, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation. Its prime mission was to insure savings and loan account-holders deposits.8 The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was also instituted to insure mortgage lenders, in case of borrowers’ default.9 The legislation was successful in boosting the housing market and extending homeownership, subsidizing low-density, single-family housing units. The Housing Act of 1937, sponsored by two Democratic Senators devoted more attention to tackling the issue of better low-income housing conditions for families. The newly created agency within the policy program, the United States Housing Authority (USHA),10 was committed to greater inclusivity of local representatives. The new governance helped to accelerate housing construction projects, in fact, in 1939 alone, 50,000 housing units were built. Although the two Housing Acts of 1934 and 1937 reflected American values of the reform period and Constitutional

8  Active until 1989. After the loan crisis of the 1980s, and despite various attempts at recapitalizing with taxpayers’ money it went bankrupt. 9  In 1965 the FHA was incorporated in the new Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). 10  USHA assumed the role of the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration (PWA), and loaned federal subsidies to Local Housing Authorities, created by State governments.

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principles like the “general Welfare” of the Nation,11 some critics regarded government action on housing policies to be driven by capitalism, especially seeing the segregation outcomes and increased inequality of wealth (Jackson 1980).12 Those who would benefit the most were white people, who qualified for the programs. A problem and by-product of federal intervention was to stimulate the suburbanization of the metropolitan periphery. New affordable housing was available in new suburban areas, where cheaper land allowed lower-middle-class families to achieve their dream of better living conditions, in new higher standard neighborhoods. The white population fled to suburban areas, triggering a non-reversible phenomenon. Non-white people—African Americans and other minorities concentrated in inner-city areas, occupying abandoned vacant neighborhoods, arranging the often-overcrowded substandard houses to their needs. Deterioration and decay of the inner city were the downsides in the following two decades. This double movement worked as a new frontier, reshaping the demographic and social structure of American cities (Irwin 2008). Wartime brought a second Great Migration into large industrial cities. Coming mostly from southern States, Afro-Americans, Mexican Americans were in search of employment. This led to growing racial tensions that impacted the urban areas where they concentrated. The return of peacetime terminated, by congressional decision, the experience of the National Resources Planning Board (NRPB), a federal agency instituted in 1939, dedicated to urban planning. The NRPB had an agenda for postwar planning which emphasized the commitment of the federal government to urban problems.13 Under Henry Truman’s Presidency (April 1945–January 1953) and the National Housing Act of 1949 (Title I), urban renewal efforts on the 11  U.S. Constitution, Preamble and Article I, Section 8, Clause 1“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States”. 12  Minority neighborhoods were subjected to discriminatory practices; within the so-called policy of redlining, residential security maps divided each city into four types of neighborhoods by color. Those neighborhoods were inhabited mostly by African Americans. The red perimeter around it stood for “risky” and de facto excluded the area from loan opportunities within public housing programs. 13  Congressional conservatives distrusted the socialist origins of centralized planning that permeated the NRBP’s proposals. Private interests were in contrast with attempts to introduce comprehensive urban planning for urban redevelopment.

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part of the federal government took on a much larger scale, launching a massive public program for slum clearance and redevelopment known as the Federal Urban Renewal Program.14 The program—the first which enabled the federal government to explicitly support cities as an attempt to manage urban decay—was an important item within the Fair Deal. The progressive agenda of legislative federal reforms and policies was directed to fostering economic growth and social welfare in times of peace.15 The legislation raised awareness on the proliferation of slums in downtown areas and dramatic substandard urban living conditions of the inhabitants of slums, seen as physically deteriorated, unsafe, forgotten places. Urban “blight” was labeled as “geographically contagious”, detrimental to the well-being of its dwellers and those living near such areas of decay. In the President’s words, five million families were living in slums and three million families were sharing their homes with others. Truman’s interest in urban affairs related to big cities with political influence, and to their urban electorates, supporters of the Democratic Party (Eldersveld 1949).16 Within the Urban Renewal Program—an impressive housing policy that concentrated resources that targeted residential areas—urban renewal projects strove to reverse the image and living conditions of blight areas for spillover effects in the city, to reduce outmigration, rising property values, gain attractiveness, thus affecting city-level outcomes. Like many other initiatives of President Truman’s political agenda, facing the opposition of a coalition of conservative Republicans and southern conservative Democrats, congressional approval of the Urban Renewal Program was uncertain. In the postwar years, while more than two-thirds of Americans lived in urban areas, a social understanding of urban renewal problems was still needed. Such recent issue needed time to achieve broad recognition and popular consensus (Blumer 1971).17 14  Title II of the Housing Act of 1949 consolidated the FHA mortgage insurance program; Title III set aside the goal and funding of constructing more than 810,000 units of public housing over a six-year period, expanding ambitiously the projections of 1934 and 1937 Housing Acts; however, by 1954, only a quarter of the units had been realized. 15  From 1946 to 1957 the national economic growth at a measured pace, except for two short periods of temporary halt (1949 and 1953–1954). 16  According to Eldersveld, for Democrats the political support of a dozen large cities was determinant to win 1940, 1944, 1948 elections. 17  “A social problem does not exist for a society unless society recognizes that it exists … Yet after gaining initial recognition, a social problem must acquire social endorsement if it is to be taken seriously and move forward in its career. It must acquire a necessary degree of respectability which entitles it to consideration in the recognized arenas of public discussion…the third stage is a mobilization of the society for action” (Blumer 1971, 301–303).

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The two faces of the housing issue in the postwar period could be represented as follows: a demand for better housing from middle-income families, and a high concentration of deteriorated housing in slums where low-income families lived. In politics, willingness to channel public money into urban areas was against the interest of a vast part of the voters. New proposals for direct federal funding demanded expanding government activity and influence—through regulations, subsidies, bureaucratic apparatus—in more intervention areas, with increased public spending and fiscal effects. Conservatives favored limited government spending, wanting instead business-friendly policy programs to spur economic growth (Davies 1966). If (as was the case) benefits went to urban dwellers, the proposal risked even more criticisms and political distrust of the conservative coalition, considering the rural value-orientation that still prevailed in the American way of life, and the cultural and economic pressures of a strong rural constituency. The proposal won congressional approval and was co-sponsored by the conservative coalition leader, Robert A. Taft, who was convinced that the nation lacked adequate housing, based on the results of a public inquiry. The housing crisis, during the mediation, worked as a powerful driver and renewal became secondary.18 “Urban renewal” became thematized and was central to inner-city housing, in terms of large-scale clearance efforts and construction of new houses. The intervention strategy was conceived to implement two interconnected steps: slum clearance and urban redevelopment. These two objectives, in fact, were points of convergence in the national domestic agenda, a way for varied interests to be matched (Gelfand 1975; Wilson 1966; Teaford 1990). Attempts to stimulate urban growth and modernization had to balance plural concerns: political representatives at the municipal level interested in increasing tax revenues and affordable housing stock in central areas; central-city businessmen expecting a bump in downtown property values; social welfare leaders and reformers advocating better housing conditions for the poor and the inclusion of all the 18  Taft also supported the allocation of federal aid to the states to fund public schools. The dynamic that prevailed in mediation was that parties had to agree on single issues, for different purposes. Agreements reflected cultural assumptions and the cognitive biases of the political actors playing their political games. It is not surprising that a program aimed principally at renewal and community building and secondarily at building housing is reversed: in the bargaining process, not only the interests but also the ideas were made an object of the market.

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minorities living in slums; professional planners and architects entrusted with engineering and design interested in introducing new international standards and advocating the involvement of target beneficiaries through ad hoc techniques (Teaford 2000). The Housing Act framed the social problems that led to urban blight, implicating solution patterns (of clearance and redevelopment), creating powerful narratives in favor of public direct intervention for prevention and care. In Donald Schön’s words “the public view of government has come increasingly to include the notion of government as a social problem solver” (Schön 1978, 144). A rhetorical vision and imaginary construed on a mix of military analogy and medical metaphors permeated federal accounts of its engagement in renewal policies, replicating the experience cultivated in foreign politics within the “Truman doctrine” (which envisaged aid and direct military intervention to keep a nation free, i.e., away from communist influences). Public discourse on urban blight echoed the battle-therapy language of danger, impending disaster, control, protection and care, and battles to fight against and to join forces. Cities were described like bodies affected by infectious diseases, and slum clearance as the solution for the safety and security of inhabitants, the public health of urban societies, and even for the economy. The program sequence foresaw a series of articulated steps: new public agencies and administrative units had to be instituted, plans and projects approved, slum residents displaced and relocated (according to specific standards). It often took several years for the plan to be executed. The aim of the program was to have federal, state, and urban governments along with private developers acting together to fight housing poverty. Within the collaborative plan for action, each actor was assigned a role with specific tasks: Congress provided the basic policy tools, granting federal government support, financing housing subsidies, supporting part of the costs for city planning, code enforcement, and neighborhood rehabilitation. State legislatures passed acts enabling newly instituted Local Public Agencies (LPA) to launch locally planned urban redevelopment projects.19 Thanks to federal grants and ad hoc regulatory framework of states, cities 19  LPAs had the task of identifying target areas, elaborating comprehensive renewal projects (of clearance and redevelopment at first: later in the ’60s, with the subsequent legislation, a more conservative approach was emphasized enhancing rehabilitation project planning), estimating all demolition and construction costs including those for displaced residents and business activities, holding public hearings, seeking approvals to proceed from both the Municipality (City Council) and the Federal Agency (HHFA).

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assumed real power to acquire and clear properties, as well as to sell the cleared land. The Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA) was authorized to locally assist urban renewal projects. The building industry, in all its segments, was encouraged to play an active role in creating affordable housing. From proposal to completion, on average, urban renewal projects spanned from 10 to 13 years (Weicher 1972).20 At the end of 1959, 94 metropolitan areas, urban regions and special areas had been awarded planning assistance grants (Leach 1960). The physical and social transformation of cities, from clearance to redevelopment, was tangible in the late-mid 1950s and 1960s. At the end of 1966, approved clearance projects impacted over 400,000 housing units, forcing over 300,000 families to relocate, more than half were non-white (Collins and Shester 2011). A recent study reports that by the time new funding for the program terminated, in 1974, total federal spending was roughly $53 billion (in 2009 dollars) for more than 2100 urban renewal projects and related activities (Collins and Shester 2011).21 In the following years, under Dwight D.  Eisenhower’s Presidency (January 1953–January 1961) and after changes in politics (from Democrats to Republicans), a different renewal pattern was set up, coherent with new commitments to balance the budget, decentralize government and free enterprises (Merriam 1956).22 With the 1954 Housing Act, direct federal investments in public housing were gradually reduced and formally tied to slum clearance projects only.23 However, in many of these projects, low-income housing was not necessarily a priority, generating a dramatic lack of public housing units and requiring solutions to relocate 20  The National Commission on Urban Problems reported that on average an urban renewal project required more than four years to plan and six to nine additional years to execute. 21  After 1974, federal funds were channeled to cities under the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program (Galster et al. 2004). 22  Robert Merriam, an expert of metropolitan governance affairs in charge of interdepartmental relations at the White House, was greatly involved in structuring analysis and dealing with metropolitan areas problems. In fact, better relations among the agencies that directly interacted with cities could improve the effectiveness of program policies. But he never pointed to greater Federal intervention at the local level as solution (Biles 2011, 52). 23  The implementation of the Urban Renewal Program experienced a notable delay: on 647 projects that were started, only 26 were completed, and about half were underway. Moreover, many existing areas needing intervention were never targeted for planning (President Eisenhower reported in his Budget Message on January 8, 1960).

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the residents of slums subjected to clearance interventions. The racial policies of Conservatives such as residential segregation triggered great concern. New impetus was given to the efficacy of greater projects by introducing city-wide planning, code enforcement, mortgage insurance measures, and rehabilitating older buildings (Guandolo 1956). For the first-time municipalities were required to carry out comprehensive community planning. A dedicated program was launched (The Comprehensive Planning Assistance 701 Program) which established that planning was a government function, at the local, metropolitan, and state levels.24 It not only strengthened local capacity to plan and manage renewal projects, but the provision also encouraged hesitant city governors to involve professional planners to benefit from their expertise (Teaford 1990). Subsequent legislation25 enabled state and local governments to finance the construction of public facilities within clearance and redevelopment projects (1955) and authorize universities to receive renewal funds with no obligation for housing plans (1959). Two years later (1961), the same mechanisms were extended to hospitals in the central city, increasing the funds for commercial projects. Federal resources for renewal were defended by lobbying initiatives of big-city Mayors, the American Municipal Association, with the support of Democrats who obtained majorities in both the Senate and the House. 2.3   Critical Consensus The implementation of the program was controversial. The urban strategy for revitalizing American cities gradually lost consensus being unable to satisfy all its early supporters. A premise for Congressional adoption was the ambiguity of Title I in defining the policy goals: the legislation accommodated different interest groups and the policy discourse was construed to be open to interpretation. All the various supporters could therefore find confirmation to their expectations and purposes (Gelfand 1975). On this basis, the policy scheme could seem conflictual thus requiring a number of adjustments, 24  The Program was terminated in 1981. Many subject areas were covered under comprehensive planning. Cities had to submit a workable program for redevelopment prior to receiving federal aid. Cities with a population of less than 25,000 people received financial support to constitute planning agencies. 25  1955, 1959, 1961 Amendments to Housing Act.

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developments, and further decisions during implementation. The law was subjected to systematic amendments (over 40). Leach (1960) observed a mismatch between Congress’ interpretation of the program’s aims and the program’s mission. Congress acted politically to tackle the housing crisis: urban redevelopment was a priority, considering the social pressures for the right to adequate housing. From this perspective, urban renewal was an aspect of housing. Yet the program’s impetus was inspired by different ideas of community development. The original aspiration was to plan urban renewal projects within a new urbanization model to organize city life as a whole.26 Strong criticism against the execution and observation of planned and unplanned effects27 grew incrementally. An impressive array of academic and professional analyses spread over the years thematizing what emerged as a new phenomenon.28 With accountable results that spanned two decades, the program’s evaluations evolved, changing substantially perspective and reference data. In the following decades, American scholars continued to pay close attention to the program. They engaged in intense public and scientific debates on program outcomes and impacts, coming up with different conclusions. Various methodologies of research and theoretical perspectives are available on the topic. Core themes found in the literature on policy design and implementation provide useful insight on the pattern of planning adopted and the method of “federal dollars to solving urban problems” (Teaford 2000). During concrete implementation, problems emerged in  local-federal relations and interagency coordination.

26  From this perspective, according to Leach (1960), urban redesign should also include commercial and industrial areas. 27  To give some examples: private developers who engaged in renewal projects made a profit with public funds (clearing land that was sold to them at a lower price) and with redevelopment. New houses had no rent regulation by law, and this led to high-rent structures, to the detriment of the objective which was to expand the low and moderate-income housing stock. Not infrequently, areas with a purely residential vocation were, in many cases, replaced with commercial developments—a more fruitful business supported by federal subsidies. Public housing supporters accuse renewal projects of being in favor of downtown property owners and private developers, rather than being pro-welfare toward the poor. Businessdriven renewal projects prevailed over expert and professional planning for renewal and value-driven public policies. 28  Gans (1965) observed that there was little public discussion of the federal program, and its problems; local press did not give publicity to protests and opposition to projects.

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High social and political costs of the bulldozer scheme (Anderson 1964) and racial issues recur as criticism. The new redevelopment projects could not replace the sense of community and self-organizing that characterized many slum areas. In first-generation renewal programs, public housing was conceived in a social vacuum, lacking places where people of different age groups could meet and socialize. The program created new ghettos of marginalized communities. Because the percentage of non-­ white families was high, an outcome of the policy involved ghetto-­ building.29 The housing market was reshaped by government housing policies. The renovation of old houses was not encouraged by regulation.30 This had two consequences: displacement of low-income families from downtown slums areas,31 still the privileged objective of renewal and redevelopment,32 who were being deprived of the multi-family rental housing model found in a slum which, for them, was an economic and community asset and reflected their identity; a huge number of small houses were built in new suburbs, given the greater availably of land, spreading new residential areas which however lacked facilities and services. Most of the literature is overwhelmingly negative in its assessment, although a few authors propose an analysis of the program’s effects on local economies based on an econometric evaluation of pertinent data (Collins and Shester 2011). It includes property value, income, and population growth (family income, employment rate, and poverty rate). Their research premises span across the entire period in which the program operated. The different conclusions yielded a more positive portrait of urban renewal policies. Based on a dataset for all the cities with more than 25,000 residents between 1950 and 1980, they demonstrate that the cities that had engaged more actively in urban renewal had better outcomes 29  Urban renewal means “negro removal”: A Conversation whit James Baldwin (1963) recorded for “Perspectives: Negro and the American Promise”. 30  Given the lower profits, it was less attractive to developers than the construction of single-family homes, confirming the trend in the building industry that has begun since the post war years. 31  Temporary displacement consequent to slums demolition interested in those years an enormous number of people and families in many American cities, and frequently was permanent; the relocation process was often as problematic as it was neglected. The federal grant to family units and business activities to aid in relocation in many cases emerged as insufficient, or the requirement of decent and safe housing did not materialize in concrete situations. 32  Although the proliferation of slums was a phenomenon widely involving new suburbs, in those years renewal projects were concentrated mainly in the central city.

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in 1980, independently of the displacement of residents with relatively low human capital.33 Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones (1993) distinguish between two basic models of issue expansion: one, centered on a “wave of enthusiasm”, and the second, which results from a “wave of criticism”. Their conceptualization helps to interpret these two decades in which the U.S. government tackles the urban question and experiments programs of direct intervention. A consequence of great early expectations and later dashed hopes was the loss of faith in the ability of rational analysis to solve urban policy problems. Urban poverty, growing inequalities, and racial and ethnic cleavages not only demonstrated to be problems that require long-term investments and robust policies for change (Kenneth 1980). More radical public measures directed at addressing the above issues seriously questioned the government’s ability to do good amid growing skepticism in state policy design, led by expert and professional knowledge for social problem-­ solving (Lindblom and Cohen 1979). Skepticism in turn led to less faith in the political left at the head of the government. The urban question revealed certain characteristics of wicked problems, that include: frame diversity as not only the actors involved had different views to the problem, but some actors even denied the problem’s existence (Schön 1978); frequent and uncertain changes because of the high complexity and interconnectedness with other issues (Candel et  al. 2016) with many unintended effects, while urban policy design showed weaknesses, as highlighted by later analyses by Pressman and Wildavsky (1973) on the implementation, in Oakland, of a federal urban program. 2.4   The “Shame of Our Cities”: A Problem of Democratic Representation Under the Eisenhower Administration, a variety of civic and institutional actors, civil rights leaders, professionals, and academics yearning for greater attention to urban America consolidated their mobilization. From fragmented non-organized networks, they organized themselves into a more structured coalition, advocating major shifts in policy at the federal level. With urban renewal federal programs at the heart of bipartisan criticism, 33  The authors themselves warn that the results of their study don’t affirm that the pattern of action chosen by the Housing Act for aid to cities was the best way to operate.

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defenders found support from both local and national policymakers, taking advantage of operations of renewal.34 On the one hand, this network had to fight another network, animated by representatives of a political culture that vetoed excessive government spending and the centralization of functions at the federal level which backed real interests and a rural American anti-city electorate at the state level. On the other, for the first time, the urban question had a solid advocacy coalition characterized by at least two competing public-private, local-state-national networks struggling for dominance (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1994). A neglected urban renaissance and the voice for greater federal involvement in urban affairs had won sufficient support from the outside and inside (Cobb et al. 1976), becoming an issue of public and political interest in the upcoming Presidential election also crucial for the future federal institutional agenda. A perfect urban Democratic presidential candidate was Senator John F. Kennedy35 who wanted to see cities have greater political representation, as his articles, statements, and speech at the Annual Meeting of Nation’s Mayors, in 1957, illustrate. He underscored an unspoken aspect of the urban “blight” when addressing mayors, “you and I share a common stigma, a common handicap—the label of a ‘big-city politician’ … the tragic fact remains that the anti-urban prejudices created half a century ago and earlier persist—and with serious consequences”. In Kennedy’s words, the mobilization of the stigma hindered the renovation of the local g ­ overnment and city politics as driven by decades of reforms. And the survival of antiurban prejudice against the “old urban machine” politicians (viewed seen as corrupt, dishonest, incompetent) produced an even worse consequence, that is, “the second-class citizen … inasmuch as city voters cast the great majority of the votes and pay the overwhelming majority of the taxes” (with reference to Americans living in cities).36 At the time 125 million people

34  The broad coalition included mayors of big cities, local activists and representatives of grassroots movements, social reformers, urban planners, lobbyists of interest groups such as the American Municipal Association, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the majority of Democrats and a few moderate Republicans at Congress. 35  “The grandson of a Boston mayor, congressman from an urban district, senator from the most urbanized U.S. State (Massachusetts), Kennedy had a thorough and intuitive knowledge of city problems. Indeed, if elected, he would become the nation’s first president born and raised in an urban environment” (Biles 2011, 86). 36  On this point, Kennedy argues that small rural States were given disproportionate influence in the legislative bodies at the State and Federal levels.

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lived in urban and suburban areas, and 13 million in small towns and on farms. Kennedy’s influential political discourse on the city brought attention to other important urban agenda subjects such as air and water pollution, crowded schools, insufficient educational services, growing inequalities, and racial discrimination (Kennedy 1958). Therein, he confirmed the federal responsibility of addressing city problems with ad hoc policies within a strategy of intergovernmental and interagency coordination. In a later speech,37 Kennedy announced a program for “the new urban frontier”. It announced the establishment of a cabinet department for urban affairs. With the development of the Cold War, foreign policy asserted itself in the election campaign (Biles 2011). The U.S., to maintain and develop its economy, military capacity (and space force as a branch of the military), and diplomatic relations greatly engaged in foreign relations.38 In the years that followed, foreign affairs would compete with federal urban policy in terms of national funding allocation, being in the eye of public opinion and of military and economic-related interests. Public concern for foreign politics proves pivotal in structuring political debate in the U.S., for the simple fact that periodically, the U.S. military engages in conflicts worldwide. From Capitol Hill’s perspective, military involvement has a Nexus with energy policy strategies and other priorities on the domestic agenda, besides exerting global influence. It is worth noting that spending for urban policies is part of discretionary spending and the military budget accounts for the largest part of the discretionary U.S. Federal budget.39 Military defense spending, at its lowest point in the postwar peace period, suddenly escalated with the Cold War, the founding of NATO, followed by the Warsaw Pact, to peak during the first military action of the Cold War (1950–1953) when countering North Korean’s invasion of the South and the forces of international communism. Military expenditure then stabilized until the Vietnam War, but still supported an

 At the Urban Affairs Conference in Pittsburgh.  Kennedy stated that a strong America had to reinforce and use its outside prestige to attract the countries that recently obtained their independence and/or were uncertain of whether or not to adhere to the Soviet Union bloc, to make use of their freedom for democratic development. 39  Discretionary spending refers to the portion of the budget that Congress, through the annual appropriation process, decides to spend each year. Mandatory spending is spending that Congress legislates outside of the annual appropriations process. 37 38

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aggressive U.S. national foreign policy under Truman’s and Eisenhower’s Presidencies. Kennedy, during the electoral campaign, maintained a convincing communication channel with big-city mayors and suburbia voters, during the electoral campaign. Votes from the cities were crucial to him to win in the Presidential election against the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon. Once elected, based on suggestions from the big task force created to formulate policy recommendations to meet the strategic issues of the agenda, President John F.  Kennedy (January 1961–November 1963) signed a policy for depressed areas and rural Appalachia (the Area Redevelopment Act of 1961). The legislation served to intervene initially in selected depressed sites to stimulate employment, pursuing action programs that would continue in the upcoming years.40 An ad hoc Housing and Urban Affairs41 task force was appointed, to set up the new urban agenda to reform metropolitan America. Its focus included: more resources for low-income housing and urban renewal projects; improvements to mass transit; housing programs for elderly and college students; creating a cabinet department for urban affairs;42 liberalized FHA requirements. New comprehensive housing legislation was proposed to extend current programs and increase funding. But the coalition for reduced federal engagement in urban matters opposed it. The “open space initiative” was a controversial issue as it supported municipalities with federal aid to ­purchase and preserve land for parks and permanent open space. The Omnibus Housing Act of 1961, with its reduced budget allocation and mediated goals, nonetheless provided grants that, in two years, amounted to what had been spent in the previous eight years of the past administration (Biles 2011, 108). Federal Executive Boards were established in ten of the largest cities with the aim of not only improving communication between Washington and Federal field officials located in program target areas but also fostering cooperation among federal agencies (Pressman

40  In 1965, the Area Redevelopment Agency was replaced by the Economic Development Administration. 41  Robert Wood, an MIT political science was Kennedy’s adviser. He later became the first undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 42  In President Kennedy’s intention, Robert C.  Weaver, an influential African American academic, who served many federal departments, was the perfect candidate to be appointed to chair the new cabinet. He advocated racial equality keeping a distance from representatives of the private housing industry and financial institutions.

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1975).43 Crucial unresolved issues remained racial discrimination in housing and the creation of a cabinet department for the cities, which were opposed by many Conservatives and politicians of medium-sized cities, feeling they had been omitted from public discourse that spotlighted few big influential cities. The cabinet institution itself became a “racial issue” as the President confirmed his intention to appoint Robert Weaver (an African American).44 Mass transit legislation was also stopped. Foreign affairs, in 1963, came to be under the spotlight, diverting attention with the crises in Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, Germany, which called for political and military research and development. President Kennedy’s tragic assassination, in November 1963, truncated his Administration. Kennedy’s political discourse on cities and first policy decisions terminated the first generation of urban policies characterized by the bulldozer approach as the leading regeneration strategy, physical determinism and emphasis on the built environment (Carmon 1999), laying the groundwork for a new approach to be developed in future years. 2.5   Model Cities and the Community Action Approach Under Lyndon B. Johnson’s Presidency (November 1963–January 1969) a new season of reforms started, the so-called Great Society whose imperative was to combat poverty and racial inequalities. Public policies of direct government intervention had new stimulus with the launching of federal programs for education, extending access to health care,45 urban regeneration and transportation. Thanks to broad consensus in the ­ Democratic Party in Congress, the federal funding of urban policies met widespread success. Moreover, public opinion became more favorable than before toward public programs which required large federal allocations for urban welfare purposes, and public discourse included a “rediscovery of poverty” (Cullingworth 2007).

43  In following years, the number of boards increased. In 1965, during Johnson’s Presidency, new tasks were assigned such as identifying unmet urban needs and providing recommendations to help solve critical urban issues. 44  The proposal concerning the cabinet was rejected and stopped. President Kennedy signed an Executive Order to prevent discrimination in housing, applied to new public housing. 45  Medicare and Medicaid programs.

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Continuity of intent and method was observed with President John F.  Kennedy’s policy agenda46 and New Deal orientation toward federal engagement in addressing important territorial social and environmental issues. The new President’s ambition was to build an autonomous, challenging political line, able to leave a mark; innovations in urban policy were a focal point of the agenda. The framing of urban blight problems shifted in policy discourse in the light of the growing discontent in cities, to include aspects of urban violence, neighborhood socio-economic revitalization, outmigration and interinstitutional collaboration. The Great Society approach to urban policy combined local participation with federal involvement (Savitch and Osgood 2010). The first results were the Housing Act of 196447 and 1965,48 the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 launched the Community Action Network of the newly instituted Community Action Agencies (CAAs), private non-profit or public organizations that carried out Community Action Programs (CAPs) to combat poverty in designated geographical areas, and enhance local participation, focusing on empowering poor citizens. The lead agency was the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), located in Washington DC. CCAs were an instrument to give a federal imprint in big cities across the country: local residents could access a variety of services and have direct contact with outposts of the central government (Savitch and Osgood 2010). Johnson’s Administration policies on poverty failed in preventing urban riots which broke out in the mid-1960s in major American cities.49 The response was the Model Cities program (Haar 1975). A Task Force on Urban Problems was appointed in 1965 by the President, led by the renowned Robert Wood, Head of the Political Science Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former adviser of President Kennedy. The task force concluded recommending an active role of the  Lyndon Johnson was Vice-President from 1961 to 1963.  Under this Act a new regulation was introduced which prescribed that within three years all municipalities receiving urban renewal funds had to set a minimum housing code standard and demonstrate its enforcement. Moreover, rehabilitation was considered prior to demolition. 48  Under this Act urban renewal program was extended for four years with a new considerable budget allocation. Furthermore, it supported delivering rent supplements for lowincome families. 49  Riots in Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, and Washington DC were quelled by the intervention of armed federal troops. 46 47

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federal government in the urban renewal efforts. It suggested a new scheme: a five-year experimental program that would rationalize existing government activities in urban central areas, concentrating the available resources and strengthening coordination efforts (Rubin 1994). With the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966, specific legislation was approved kicking off the Model Cities initiative which allocated $924 million to implement the programs. The program was co-­ financed by the federal government (80%) and local authorities (20%). The law was no longer entirely focused on housing, but rather considered a more integrated approach in neighborhood renewal to improve people’s living standards, creating jobs and income opportunities with less dependence on subsidies and more attention to job-houses interconnections; providing educational facilities, enhancing cultural and recreational programs; combating crime and violence. The law no longer focused entirely on housing but considered a more integrated approach in neighborhood renewal to improve people’s living standards, creating jobs and income opportunities with less dependence on subsidies and more attention to job-houses interconnections; providing educational facilities, enhancing cultural and recreational programs; combating crime and violence. A specific aim was to foster maximum feasible participation of residents in the program and mobilize local political leaders in the planning process (Rubin 1994). An Interagency Agreement served to improve the coordination across the numerous federal departments and agencies involved in the program, with special attention to social services. Similar coordination was arranged at a local scale, to oversee and assist project implementation for technical aspects. The new governance structure also envisaged a stronger role for the newly created Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which had to administer the program funds and provide technical assistance to cities, through regional offices (Frieden and Kaplan 1975). A two-level, place-based strategy was chosen to allocate policy funds: 150 cities were selected nation-wide, based on criteria related to decline; the selected cities identified “model neighborhoods” (of no more than 15,000 inhabitants or 10% of the total population, independently of city size), to allocate the federal funds. The cities that obtained government funding had to constitute City Demonstration Agencies (CDA). Like CAPs, Model City projects were based on popular participation. Residents ran in the local elections for positions in a given project. This was an example of Johnson’s “low and high politics”, viewed as two sides of the same coin (Savitch and Osgood 2010) according to

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widespread political culture among Democrats which puts the responsibility on public administration services (“low politics”) on the same plane as matters of state, international policy and economy (“high politics”).50 Central control was exercised as the -federal government set the rules and tasks; local agencies and urban neighborhoods played a role from below. Increased American military engagement in the war in Vietnam, in 1964, changed the course, diverting public attention, economic, and human resources away from the war on poverty and related programs of intervention.51 Another important step in the lifecycle of the Model Cities program was its review, under the Nixon Administration (January 1969–August 1974). As President, who represented the moderate wing of the Republican Party, he set up a Task Force of eminent scholars to evaluate the ongoing status of the program and make recommendations on future direction. Discussion in Congress was animated by opposition to the program. A critical aspect to emerge had to do with the vagueness of program goals of the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act. Its first outcomes were below expectations, as excessive constraints and binding regulations made implementation difficult. More in general, the community action approach shared with CAP was regarded as too speculative and embedded in academic theories about social behavior, thus too distant from the main goals of improved employment and income opportunities (Moynihan 1969). Sherry Arnstein’s analysis (1969), which later became a milestone, highlighted the limits of participatory practices and the darker side of manipulation and therapy in citizens’ involvement when pro-forma ritual initiatives were apparently adopted to build consensus on projects while maintaining the status quo unaltered. Many mayors protested to prevent that available funding be destined to other policy targets. Edward Banfield, Professor of Urban Government at Harvard University, chaired the Task Force; James Q. Wilson, chairman of the Harvard University Department of Government and former Director

 The distinction between “low and high politics” was proposed by Bulpitt (2008).  For a number of years, the build-up of military forces continued without any guarantee of success, with public tensions and growing peace movements. 50 51

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of the Joint Centers for Urban Studies at MIT and Harvard,52 was also included in the Task Force.53 The final report (Banfield 1970) was critical about the over-regulation of federal grant-in-aid programs. It also contained very sensitive issues such as the interrelation between Congress funding decisions and special interests. If some problems derived from a bureaucracy that had grown elephantiac, others were the direct consequence of planned decisions, as in the case of the too many strings attached to local aid, the excessive number of categorical programs that were beyond the federal government’s capacity to exercise control, and a vertical approach that inhibited the activation of local capabilities. Federal directives on local planning were very stringent and not in harmony with local government processes. Preparing the plans and being able to comply with federal requirements was a difficult task that caused delays, and uncertainties. The report emphasized the initial consensus and the good premises of the Model Cities program, which intended to give more responsibility to cities over decisions concerning the use of federal funds, in impoverished neighborhoods. The time had come to revive the program’s original mission. Toward this goal, the following recommendations applied: to reduce the number of categorical programs involving local governments, calculated to be around 400 (enacted in large numbers by Johnson’s Administration); to pass federal aid to cities by revenue-sharing, rather than by categorical grants-in-aid; to limit federal regulation to few essential strategic objectives and standards; to assist cities at their request rather than experimenting long-term exchanges of personnel among federal, state, city governments. Another critical issue that emerged from the evaluation was the large number of projects that were being carried out in 52  Banfield helped lead the MIT-Harvard Joint Centers for Urban Studies for two decades (1960s–1970s). The Joint Centers was founded by Martin Meyerson (city planner with an academic career at many prestigious universities: Columbia, Chicago, Harvard and Berkeley, Pennsylvania), who contributed to theoretical foundations in urban planning, placing this domain within political and urban management studies (see the book Politics, Planning and the Public Interest, coauthored with Banfield, 1955), and Lloyd Rodwin, MIT urban studies professor, renowned for opening planning studies to social sciences and humanities and extending analysis to urban and regional problems in developing countries. 53  Banfield and Wilson were the co-authors of an inquiry on urban politics in American large cities, City Politics (1963), based on 30 case studies. Its focus on the political urban process and the political dimension of local government contradicts the consolidated thesis on the administrative role and the service function of the local government.

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suburban and rural areas, weakening the central goal of regenerating central urban areas. In the following years, a number of cities that performed well were selected for further experimentation based on new arrangements, until the program terminated, in 1973. With the end of Model Cities, a second generation of urban policies was concluded (Carmon 1999), which experimented neighborhood rehabilitation and the adoption of participatory, comprehensive approaches to social problem-solving. By the time the program came to an end, the federal government had approved over 3 billion dollars’ worth of grants to over 1200 municipalities over the years of its implementation.

3  Foundations for a New Federalism A new policy strategy demonstrating a Republican alternative in delivering federal aid to cities was necessary to the Nixon Administration. To attain this goal, two policy instruments were strategic: general revenue sharing and block grant programs.54 General revenue sharing—the money provided by the federal government to cities with almost no strings attached, according to an intergovernmental income redistribution scheme—was introduced as an innovation mechanism to improve federal-city relations. Local and state governments could set their own spending priorities of federal funds, within nine predefined policy areas (Martin 1994). Block Grant programs first experimented by the Johnson Administration were ambitiously proposed to consolidate 129 different programs into six block grants. Although Congress’s negotiation weakened the President’s proposal, the block grants provided more money than the programs they replaced (Finegold

54  On October 20, 1972, President Nixon signed the State and Local Fiscal Assistant Act of 1972. State allocations were determined by the statutory formula in which “state governments received one-third and local governments, two-thirds of each state allocation, and distribution among local units within a state was achieved through the application of a similar formula” (Martin 1994, quoting Thomas J. Anton 1980, “Federal Assistance Programs: The Politics of System Transformation”, in National Resources and Urban Policy 15, 24, Douglas E. Ashford ed.).

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et  al. 2004) in employment, training, social services and community development.55 Block grants, compared to entitlements, which create individual rights to benefit, allowed greater flexibility and discretion for recipient cities and states in how to use grants. The revenue-sharing formula strove to replace the categorical grant method that favored cities with larger populations, particularly sunbelt cities and suburbs with solid electorates. The design of the new scheme not only maintained certain features of previous programs (Urban Renewal; Model Cities), it also addressed housing and living demands of low- and moderate-income residents, aimed at reducing social disparities and expanding economic opportunities. The new pattern obtained broad consensus, both in Congress and among the nation’s mayors and state governors, who could exercise direct political control over local decisions related to federal funds. A “New Federalism” (Martin 1994; Biles 2011) based on decentralization to states and local governments inspired President Nixon’s urban agenda. The aim was to lessen the concentration of power in federal bureaucracy, granting greater autonomy to localities and more neighborhood involvement. Differently from Johnson’s previous Administration, federal urban programs under Nixon’s Administration did not use local popular mobilization to advance central policy objectives. Instead of cutting programs, the tactic used was to diminish the allocation of budget to dedicated federal agencies, such as the HUD. Attention shifted toward suburban authorities to the detriment of inner cities (earning Nixon the label of “anti-urban”, from his critics), with a renewed role for state involvement in urban policies and less emphasis on direct federal-cities relations. Federal funding was transferred, as in the case of urban mass transit, but new attention was given to locating projects in areas of suburban growth. Another example was the increase of HUD programs for low-income housing, substituting public housing with a new building pattern under the dynamics of the private marketplace. Technically, a new tool was introduced—the housing vouchers. Public projects and facilities were substituted with personal choices, left to single individuals, based on the offer provided by the marketplace. Citizens were thus 55  President Nixon’s block grants were enacted under the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973 (CETA) and the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, signed by President Gerald Ford.

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transformed into consumers. This experiment was extended to education, with school vouchers, and to health care, with private insurance (Savitch and Osgood 2010, 422). To sum up, Nixon’s Block Grants gave localities greater flexibility to spend federal funds, and less bureaucracy compared to targeted categorical grants under Johnson’s period. Moreover, a larger number of localities would benefit from the grants. The marketplace emerged with a new public function, distributing benefits guaranteed by injections of public funds. Applying Lowy’s interpretative public policy scheme to urban policy choices (1964; 1972), a conclusion could be that Johnson’s urban policy targeted redistributive effects, inspired to ideals of social justice and democratization, while the urban policy under Nixon developed a widespread general distributive policy scheme, which included a greater number of rich and poor localities, with more local political discretionary power. Another consideration is that the adoption of a targeted, area-­ based approach under Johnson’s urban policy was more centrally coordinated and concentrated on distressed urban areas. Whereas a mix of person-based and area-based policies were functional to the objectives of decentralization of Nixon’s urban policy, to benefit urban areas in general. In conclusion, President Nixon changed the pattern of presidential approach to territorial politics: his style reflected that of Republicans56 that “separated high from low politics”, differently from the “commonality of both high and low politics” that President Johnson adopted as his distinctive style (Savitch and Osgood 2010). The first lesson learned from the two generations of urban policies analyzed herein is that political and ideological aspects matter in forming the policy agenda and so does the range, method, and level of federal involvement in cities. Much of the literature on the U.S. national urban agenda and urban policy about the first and second generation of urban policies converge on the idea that Congress power politics and Presidential leadership are two decisive variables of the domestic policymaking arena. Moreover, when federal urban aid programs were important policy 56  The terms “low” and “high” politics depend on the political ideology of the ruling party and political elites; Republican political culture recognizes that “low” and “high” politics occupies a different place on the policy hierarchy (Savitch and Osgood 2010, 409). In addition to the previous definition of the concept referred to “high” and “low” policy tasks, herein “high” and “low” are used to indicate levels of government and political control, within a governmental hierarchy.

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instruments to achieve key objectives of the political agenda and specific ideological aims (Martin 1994), budgetary constraints were surmountable. From this perspective, an interesting thesis distinguishes among three “prototypes” of Presidential urban politics (Savitch and Osgood 2010) that can sum up the urban politics of most U.S. Presidents (like “sub prototypes”). Both Johnson’s and Nixon’s urban politics are prototypes, within the terms considered herein. The third prototype—which will be introduced in the following discussion—is Ronald Reagan’s approach to urban politics which comes to a “near-total abandonment of low politics”. A second lesson learned is that even in the case of an “anti-urban President” innovation in urban policies and an increase in the total amount of federal aid to cities are still possible. Within this frame, the development of a national urban policy shifts its emphasis on programs that help individuals to deal with economic changes and market forces. Place-oriented programs are deemphasized (Cuciti 1990). After the Watergate scandal Nixon resigned, interrupting his mandate traumatically. Gerald R. Ford (August 1974–January 1977), a key exponent of the conservative wing of Republican leadership in the House, became President in 1974. From the start, he had to face an acute economic downturn amid the global energetic crisis, factors that affected political decisions on federal spending, including financial aid to cities. Unemployment rates and loss of population spiked particularly in Frostbelt cities which were greatly affected by the depletion of the existing production cycle. The fiscal crisis of cities becomes a new urban question that dramatically captured the attention of the entire country. City governments turned to the federal and state governments for increased financial aid. Ideologically, President Ford was in line with President Nixon’s New Federalism. He supported the shift in urban policies, toward measures that empower states and local governments such as block grants and general revenue sharing. His orientation in political and economic matters was anti-Keynesian, in favor of tax cuts for individuals and businesses, reducing discretionary budget spending on social policies, and the budget deficit (Biles  2011, 202). As he took office, President Ford signed the Housing and Community Development Act—Title 1 authorized Nixon’s Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs). The allocated budget was the highest in the history of federal funding for cities ($8.6 billion for three years). The CDBG program strove to maintain local policymaking

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autonomy, but also favored compliance with national objectives and federal oversight. It represented a sort of compromise between New Federalism and the categorical grant approach of federal dominance (Martin 1994).57 Moreover, the legislation “accelerated the shift away from construction toward rent subsidies” (Biles  2011, 198). Benefits reached the suburbs, where the number of Republican voters and Sunbelt communities was considerable. The National Mass Transportation Act authorized a huge amount to be spent long-term ($11.9 billion over six years), boosting mass transit systems in cities with more than 50,000 residents. Nevertheless, President Ford gained the reputation for being an insensitive leader vis-à-vis the tragedy of cities. The declining economic conditions and the urban crisis had Congress discuss proposals to further aid cities, which President Ford systematically vetoed, arguing that the cities’ fiscal debt was not an economic responsibility of the federal government. His idea was that city initiatives were essential for budget re-balance and that cities needed effective local solutions for local problems more than federal money. He had dissenting opinions on the Great Society liberalism (Biles 2011). In 1976, Congress passed two major urban aid programs, the Anti-Recession Fiscal Assistance program, and the Local Public Works program, as its own initiative and over Ford’s veto. That same year, the approaching electoral campaign faced the Ford Administration with new sentiments on cities, partly to respond to the accusation put forward by the Democratic candidate for the Presidential election, Jimmy Carter, who argued that America’s number one economic problem was the urban question and Republican’s indifference to the suffering cities going bankrupt (Biles 2011, 219). The President formed a Committee on Urban Development and Neighborhood Revitalization to receive new proposals on how to improve relations between the federal government and local officials and assess existing urban policies. The Committee visited several U.S. cities to define an urban aid agenda, initiated by the Ford Administration to set it apart from the previous Nixon Administration. The new draft proposal introduced the notion of “Targeted New Federalism” which concentrated more federal funds on distressed cities and revised the general revenue sharing 57  Eighty percent of the CDBG grants went to “entitlement” cities and urban counties, according to a set of criteria (population, poverty population, and the degree of overcrowded housing) identified for the selection of target areas; 20 percent constituted a discretionary fund administered by HUD, targeted to non-metropolitan cities (Martin 1994).

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distribution formula to accomplish new goals. Other measures implied revising taxes instead of new spending devoted to housing rehabilitation and downtown city redevelopment. The urban policy under the Ford Administration remained in the formulation stage. However, the policy concept of targeting funds for distressed cities would be adopted by Jimmy Carter’s Administration, becoming a key point of the national urban agenda. 3.1   The New Foedus: Toward an Effective Intergovernmental Partnership During the electoral campaign, Jimmy Carter promised city mayors special attention to all cities and to their demand for federal aid, triggering a mounting discontent that eight years of two Republican presidencies had generated. Once President (January 1977–January 1981), his political project for urban America was twofold: (1) to formulate the first true comprehensive national urban policy approach to counter urban ills (Kaplan 1990), following Nixon and Ford’s previous urban growth policies that attempted to overcome categorical programs launched by the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations to address multiple social commitments; (2) to substantially shift both the method and the mindset, toward “The Partnership for Urban America”, that is, a giant alliance policy among and between federal, state, and local governments, considered full members and de facto equally responsible for addressing urban problems and planning for city change (James 1990). The partnership had to also include elements of the private sector, primarily businesses, and the new neighborhood movement (Schambra  1990). Other focal points of the Carter Administration were the policies related to energy, major jobs, and income. The comprehensive policy envisaged an articulate and cohesive set of initiatives concerning cities (“all cities: declining, stable, and growing”) based on explicit strategies and measurable related goals “that would specifically govern programs, budgets, and subsequent performance evaluation” (Marshall and James 1990, 3). The policy approach to social problems permeated the comprehensive urban policy, opposing the program approach which was incapable of dealing with its interrelated urban concerns that called for an integrated vision, evaluation, and coordinated action. The understanding shifted to the urban dimension of public policies, non-urban programs included, considering planned and unplanned impacts that affected cities (Cuciti 1990). The challenge of governing

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urban America was puzzling the complexity of urban society and managing interrelated policies. Despite efforts, such complex comprehensive urban policy had very limited success (James 1990). The lack of priorities and openness to special interests triggered criticism, while advocates of the complexity of the scheme supported the attempt at governing “the mélange of often conflicting programs that had theretofore characterized federal interventions in the cities” (Schambra 1990). During the years of the mandate, criticism evolved to attack the President’s entire agenda as too ambitious and complicated, lacking clarity in purpose and a sense of priorities, in other terms, not feasible. The governance of “problem policy liberalism” of the Carter Administration failed to accomplish what the policies had promised because it made explicit the comprehensive policy approach to problems, even in legislative initiatives, dismissing the “national idea” and the sense of “national community” which drove the public philosophy of successful liberal Presidents of the past like Roosevelt and Johnson. Their governance of “national community liberalism” was incremental, introducing apparently modest single-issue programs for approval of Congress although within big visions as the New Deal or the Great Society (Schambra 1990, 205–207). Resources were concentrated to be destined prevalently to distressed cities, which became the primary target for efficient action. The policy strategy was place-oriented, directed mainly at the economic and physical revitalization of cities experiencing population loss and fiscal problems. The Urban Development Action Grant (UDAG) was the new program initiated by the Carter Administration to encourage public and private investments in distressed cities. Eligible cities could compete for federal funds. Development projects were intended to stimulate commercial and industrial activities, and housing in order to attract private investments and generate employment opportunities thus increasing tax revenue. Its implementation was successful in assigning funds to distressed cities until the program was terminated by the Reagan Administration. Other programs like the previous Block Grant were reformed to permit the federal government to assume more control over local decisions. The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) was revised to meet low and medium-­ income family needs, designating funds to distressed areas (Martin 1994).

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3.2   Non-Urban Policies in “Reaganomics” and Clinton’s Plan to Change America In Wildavsky’s words (1987), President Carter’s methodical, scientific, or planning approach to public policies, making changes comprehensively rather than incrementally, favored intellectual cogitation and rational coordination over social interaction and politics.58 Conversely, greater emphasis on interinstitutional and social interaction processes, bargaining and exchange mechanisms, public-private cooperation was stressed in the third generation of urban renewal policies in the U.S. by Conservatives and Democrats that alternated in the national government. Public-private partnerships in city economic development projects were a feature of third-generation urban policies. Agreements were generally successful in implementing large commercial projects, but their profit distribution was concentrated on specific interests which accentuated disparities, social conflicts, and divisions. New immigrants breathed life into New  York’s deteriorated neighborhoods (Carmon 1999). Segments of the middle class and a highly educated population were in inner-city neighborhoods yielding with some revitalization effects and gentrification dynamics. Segments of the middle class and a highly educated population flowed back to inner-city neighborhoods encouraged by local governments triggering some revitalization effects and also gentrification dynamics. In small-scale projects, new immigration of skilled immigrants revitalized the new city-life businesses and new employment, the renovation of houses, schools, and public buildings (Carmon 1999). Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 (January 1981–1989) and served two full terms. His clear victory reflected a real widespread discouragement throughout the Nation due to the general economic downturn and a foreign policy afflicted by the Vietnam syndrome. The voters were prevalently conservative white residents living in suburban areas.59 Big-city mayors, trade unions, and other special-interest groups involved in

58  “The problem was not so much that he did not say specific things about issues as that he placed greater emphasis on methods, procedures, and instruments for making policy than on the content of policy, itself … therefore if there is a danger for President Carter, it is not that he will support unpopular policies, but that he will persevere with inappropriate procedures” (Wildavsky 1987, 239). 59  “No victorious presidential candidate from 1980 to 2004 has received substantial electoral support from urban voters” (Sapotichne 2010).

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previous Democrat Administrations played no part in election results (Biles 2011). Two main problems still deeply affected cities: “a central city fiscal and social problem and a metropolitan-area economic problem, the latter concentrated primarily in older regions of the country” (Wolman 1986). Reagan’s urban policy abandoned the framework of past debate, based on two different positions:60 “jobs to people”, pursued by Carter’s Administration strategy, through place-oriented programs designed to attract economic activities in distressed areas and federal fiscal assistance; and “people to jobs”, that is, a public people-oriented policy to stimulate job mobility, addressing -federal problems to respond to people’s needs, there where they are living (Wolman 1986). Their proposal relied on a market approach. Public spending cuts and tax reductions, deregulation, market liberalization, increased government spending for national defense, and new technology investments to surpass the Soviet Union, was the Republican party’s successful program of intents which, for the first time after many years, gained control of the Senate, reducing the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Reagan was a great communicator who reached out to ordinary American citizens about the change in strategy and the new ideas inspired by Milton Friedman’s neoliberalist theory which reflected the dominant Thatcherism in the UK. Key points that identified his political style to public opinion included redefining the federal government’s role in the economy, rejecting Keynesian interventionism, and putting emphasis on the central government’s limited ability to be a social problem-solver. In his inaugural speech,61 Reagan explicitly stated his view on Federalism in which States created the Federal government (not vice versa). This fact, together with the new approach to political economics determined the change of direction of federal aid to cities and urban policy more in general. The Reagan Administration abandoned central intervention in local affairs and “low politics” having a strong free-market orientation and supply-­side economics base (Savitch, and Osgood 2010).

60  The two positions emerged in the work of the Commission for a National Agenda for the 1980s. 61  “Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem … we are a nation that has a government, not the way around …” (Reagan, U.S. Presidential Inaugural Address, Washington, January 20th, 1981).

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In principle, improved economic performance could benefit cities the most. State and local officials, rather than the federal Administration, would take responsibility for decisions related to the mix and quality of local goods and public services. New collaborations were encouraged with the private sector (Martin 1994). A robust economy would stimulate a virtuous cycle of growth, generate local revenue to address social demands of public services, and tackle persisting problems of urban poverty, and unemployment without dependence on federal government aid. The “rising tide lifts all boats” was a meaningful metaphor to speak about the changes in federal-state-local relations where cities had to compete for attractiveness instead of federal grants.62 In the years of Reagan’s Presidency, national defense expenditure gradually absorbed a considerable part of the discretionary budget for domestic programs (among these, the urban programs). States assumed the initiative for urban programs and were the recipients of federal aid, arranging different patterns of interaction with local governments. The initiatives of private actors became an important driver for the revitalization of distressed urban areas. Corporate income taxes were lowered from 39.6 percent to 17.8 percent between 1981 and 1988 (Savitch, and Osgood 2010). The formula of general revenue sharing was eliminated. Federal urban-oriented policies were resized (for instance, the popular CDBG program). Cuts to urban aid programs directly affected urban governments,63 but changes in regulation and distribution of funds (benefit levels and/or eligibility criteria) also regarded certain non-explicit urban programs, having relevant impacts on urban areas and residents living therein (Wolman 1986). In all, intergovernmental aid to cities was reduced from almost $14 billion in 1980 to just over $7 billion in 1988 (Sapotichne 2010). An increase in local revenue related to economic recovery in many cities balanced local spending capacity, but local governments were not always able to raise local taxes. A 62  “A healthy economy is our most powerful tool for revitalizing our cities and improving their fiscal position”, The President’s National Urban Policy Report of June 20, 1984, Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Washington. 63  Between 1980 and 1990 the federal Administrations reduced federal funding to local governments by 46 percent (Savitch and Osgood 2010); CDBGs were decreased by 20 percent between 1980 and 1987; “grants for community and regional development were cut by two-thirds, and those for education, training and social services fell by forty-five percent” (Martin 1994, 112).

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disproportionate number of recipients of preexisting forms of government aid in large urban areas and central cities worsened the condition of a segment of urban populations and deepened disparities among urban areas. A new program and legislation had to be introduced to establish Enterprise Zones (EZs) in well-defined poverty areas within cities. Tax incentives would encourage business locations. The formula of EZs, inspired to “free trade zones” created in Great Britain under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was oriented to develop the entrepreneurial capacity of inhabitants, boosting employment in small businesses, and improving the infrastructures of existing neighborhoods by upgrading or replacing facilities that needed intervention (Martin 1994). The new scheme symbolically reversed the Great Society’s Model Cities program based on centralized planning and government subsidies. But the legislation stalled in Congress and the government failed to adopt EZs which targeted low-income, low-skilled, and uneducated residents of inner-city areas. EZs were however revived during the Bush Administration and became a centerpiece of Clinton’s national urban agenda under the Community Development initiative. Reagan Administration’s non-urban approach was open to dual evaluation, of failure or success, depending on the different evaluation perspectives. The country’s economy grew stronger in terms of growth and production,64 and the U.S. gained world supremacy due also to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Military spending led to mounting public debt, widening the gap between social classes, and increasing inequality between the haves and the have-nots (Biles  2011, 250). Reagan’s prototype of non-urban, less government and market-led policies, characterized by a substantial abandonment of low politics and coherent with states federalism, altered territorial politics in America. George H.  W. Bush’s Presidency (January1989–January1993) gave continuity to Reaganomics, relying upon the same electoral base and political subtype (Savitch and Osgood 2010), despite certain differences in political culture.65 Greater sensitivity to high rates of urban poverty and homelessness led to the elaboration of a series of initiatives to tackle social problems of the underclass. Budgetary politics exposed to elevated levels  The positive conjunction of the Iran-Iraq war had brought advantages to the oil price.  Bush, two-term vice president under Reagan’s Presidencies was designated for his skills in foreign policy. A centrist Republican, he was quite distant from the party’s right-wing political economy anchored toward the supply-side economics (Biles 2011). 64 65

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of military spending and the temporary stunting of economic growth reduced the renewed antipoverty sentiment to two proposals only: the Enterprise Zones (never enacted, despite prominence and acceleration in 1992, following the Los Angeles riot), and the Homeownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere (HOPE), which obtained Congress approval. The measure, however, dealt with the housing crisis affecting low-income families but was insufficient, as it lacked other necessary measures of investment. The legacy of Bush’s Administration was to develop community empowerment, which became a turning point in urban policies for the following Clinton Administration. The new Democrat President Clinton (January 1993–January 2001) reacted to the rising attention given to big-city ghettos and deteriorated cities. Promising a larger federal spending package within an Economic Plan for Change in America, he undertook several investment programs and reforms. Political and electoral consensus on the new President was never high, creating a series of difficulties in passing legislative reforms that led to a reformulation of proposals.66 Clinton’s agenda paved a third path for urban development, a marriage between pragmatism and entrepreneurialism, aware of the levers of empowerment methods67 for institution and community building. He maintained domestic spending cuts, defense expenditure, avoiding place-based urban programs, encouraged public-private partnership, limiting direct government activities and fostering local initiatives. Achieving national economic recovery became the key objective of federal action, and the concrete strategy to obtain resources for urban welfare. Although effective funding was limited due to the budget deficit he inherited, and less than 2 percent of the entire spending went directly to cities, a series of initiatives were launched which would

66  Clinton was elected in 1992 securing only 43 percent of the popular vote and won reelection with 49 percent. The Republican Party was strong in both Houses of Congress and the Democratic Party had no cohesion within. The $16.3 billion economic stimulus package was rejected in Congress, including measures targeted at cities (Biles 2011, 323). 67  An interpretation of federalist culture and a reinvention of government as “economic responsibility, community responsibility, family responsibility, and individual responsibility”, cross-cutting conservatives and liberal orientations.

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significantly impact urban populations and community development (Martin 1994).68 An important moral point of Clinton’s political agenda was the government’s responsibility to combat racism and poverty and to improve the living conditions in inner-city ghettos. Newly appointed experienced policymakers with insight on conditions of declining neighborhoods in central cities, designated at apical positions of the federal Administration (as in the case of HUD secretary),69 enhanced the national government’s capacity to address urban issues. A successful proposal was the legislation known as the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 which created ten Empowerment Zones where massive funds were concentrated, and more than 100 Enterprise Communities were selected on a competitive base with respect to distressed urban neighborhoods and rural communities (Lemann 1994).70 The free-market approach was restricted by social service grants, a new requirement for community planning at the local level, federal monitoring, and evaluation. In EZs/ECs the attention given to places and people strategically becomes a single body, funding community development activities within a ten-year plan. Program efforts were oriented to outreaching resources and opportunities in housing, services, and jobs in the designated target areas. Local plans were directly involved in the economic development of neighborhoods characterized by big safety problems which showed both physical and social damage. The policy offered technical assistance to local partnerships to build the necessary capacity and organization skills required for its implementation. Program guidelines stressed how businesses create new jobs, and not just move existing jobs into the designated areas (Martin 1994).71 Local business groups played an active role in the projects in revitalizing poor neighborhoods. The 68  “At the meeting with the mayors, Clinton outlined how his attention to two matters— bringing health care costs in line with inflation and getting banks to lend freely again—would provide more aid to cities than anything else the federal government could do” (Biles 2011, 321), 69  Henry Cisneros was designated secretary of HUD for his valuable entrepreneurial and political skills developed by close contact with urban reality. 70  The bill allocated $2.5 billion in tax breaks over five years and $1 billion in new financing for a flexible social services block grant (Lemann 1994). Previous EZs created by states’ initiatives were huge in number but limited in funds. 71  Critics were related to the requirement of creating new financial institutions to provide capital to many low-income and minority neighborhoods.

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­ rogram stressed the importance of small businesses in urban regenerap tion, empowering their own resources of networks and relationships. In parallel, a multitude of local organizations, like grassroots inner-city community groups, obtained recognition. Another influential actor included universities located in selected cities. Universities were active partners that collaborated to plan and implement revitalization projects, bringing their expertise and technical competencies, and young human resources. The program strategy prescribed those applications submitted by each local community had to be agreed upon by the local government. The program strategy was also to prescribe that applications submitted by each local community had to be agreed upon by the local government as well. By doing so, past political conflicts generated by the obstructions often faced by politicians who wished to participate in managing or supervising community development initiatives could be avoided (Rubin 1998).

4  The Great Transformation Our retrospective analysis highlights how government—that is, all three levels of government within the federal system—has historically been a strategic decision-maker in urban policy, considering the dual nature of American urban policy driven by a social and a development policy agenda  (Mollenkopf 1984). In the conceptualization proposed by Paul Kantor (2013)72 the social face is an ephemeral component, susceptible to shifting national partisan coalitions, voter groups, and ideological policy orientation; while the developmental face is more stable, as dominant political interests that drive urban development are highly fragmented and favorable to the maintenance of a radically devolutionary American urban system (Kantor 2013). After the 1990s, a great differentiation of growth of urban centers has stratified mobile geographies of renaissance and decline, reshaping Rustbelt, Frostbelt, and Sunset cities. Centralized solutions for territorial inequalities like federal programs aimed at equalizing regional development opportunities or national blueprints for urban development had poor consensus among local electorates who found better responses in the competing marketplace of governments at the local level. The federal government played a pivotal role in orientating choices

72  Paul Kantor was the former President of the American Political Science Association Urban Politics Section.

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concerning the policy instrumentation73 and the methodology for intervention, drawing differently, over time, on expert knowledge to address urban issues. There was great potential in governance solutions that, on the one hand, pursued interagencies, and intergovernmental coordination and, on the other, the involvement of voluntary and non-profit organizations, and private initiatives. The architecture of urban programs reflected the governmental orchestration of interinstitutional cooperation and the interplay between public and private interests for community development. As a result, urban policies can be regarded as arenas of power, a new site of political and economic activity, characterized by changing coalitions more locally or nationally based (Chaskin and Peters 1997) and multi-­ stakeholders constituencies, pro-social or pro-developmental oriented (Kantor 2013). The years of George W.  Bush’s Presidency (January 2001–January 2008) were in essence a conservative social agenda, giving low priority to addressing problems of distressed urban areas, despite the rise of urban social inequalities. Urban initiatives remained minor and symbolic, cutting or resizing previous urban programs (Kantor 2013). Divestment of public housing and an increase in housing vouchers and rental subsidies was a prevailing trend at the time. Under Bush’s Presidency, America was more than ever before politically polarized between Republican/conservative and Democrat/liberal areas. Party strategists believed that territorial divisions worked to their advantage. Under the narrative of the President’s self-described compassionate conservatism, the Bush Administration launched the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, devoted to supporting financially religious organizations, voluntary associations, and churches to bring assistance to inner-city neighborhoods. Charitable and social action alone could not however respond to urban decline and deprivation, and the new initiative resulted in modest outcomes. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush’s image came to be consolidated as the wartime President. U.S.-led invasions divided the world’s public opinion and triggered massive budget deficits. Underestimation and inefficiency in the emergency and post-disaster management after Hurricane Katrina generated a loss of popular consensus. The White House allocated big amounts 73  Distributive, redistributive, and regulative measures; the politics of subsidies, awards, and incentives.

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of federal dollars for rebuilding and victim assistance. As the victims were largely black and poor, the decision caused underlying discontent in part of the electorate and in public opinion that was still divided on issues of race and class, raising great expectations for change. 4.1   A Changing Urban Policy for Metropolitan America? Scholars converge in attributing to Barack Obama, as a candidate and the president-elect for two mandates (January 2009–January 2017), a renewed commitment to urban America (Silver 2010, 2016; Kantor 2013). Much has been said on his experience as a community organizer in Chicago, which he recounts in his memoir (Obama 1995), and on his legacy with Saul Alinsky’s seminal work on radical democracy (1971) forged in urban struggles alongside the weakest and “speaking truth to power”.74 With increasing polarization and urban social inequalities in American society, a worrisome divisive conflict between political and business élites which concentrated resources became a central theme in urban policy discourse and in President Obama’s rhetoric and universal policies (Smith and King 2014). Experimentation of community empowerment, institution building to effectively revitalize impoverished neighborhoods, and development of bottom-up tactics of mobilization and mediation to facilitate connections between marginalized communities and decision-makers, deeply permeated Obama’s political culture. His early understanding of urban policies as catalyst agents for effective change was reflected in his later innovations in government. The social face of urban policy was substantially reformed reconsidering values allocation. Person-based policies like programs for social assistance and national health care were successfully enacted against unified Republican opposition. Obama’s social urban policies overcame the bipartisan moderate social face of national urban policy as supported by intermittent engagement from both Republicans and Democrats.

74  Reference is made to the title of the successful work by Aaron Wildavsky (1987) which expressly symbolizes the differences in policy choices on mostly divisive issues. The work by Jerome Corsi (2012) focuses on Alinsky’s lessons that inspired Obama’s electoral campaigns and political vision. In his terms, community organizations are the only effective way that the socialist elites could mobilize the “Have Nots” to take power from the “Haves”. The reference is to Alinsky’s work in Chicago, organizing the poor, the minorities for power against bankers, business owners, management and capitalist, political bosses.

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His own victory in 2008, in the Democratic ticket with Joe Biden,75 reflected mostly metropolitan electorates (63%), Blacks (95%), Hispanic (67%) and other minorities, gays, lesbians or bisexuals (70%), Jewish and Catholics, young and first-time voters (69%), both the most-poorly educated and very highly educated Americans and the lowest family income.76 After a long period of weak political sponsorship and loss of federal aid, cities had critical votes to represent their interests in Congress, as well as the Presidency, lined up in favor. The Obama Administration’s explicit national urban and metropolitan agenda which foresaw a set of coherent policy initiatives, reforms in governance, and new institution-building was a pivotal point in the programmatic agenda for change. For the first time, Black America and the disadvantaged urban population had effective representation. In public communication and policy narratives, the new President wanted to shift the focus on the way metropolitan areas are perceived: from a place where problems are concentrated to one that flourishes and offers great cultural resources, economic and social opportunities which represent a capital that can be activated for better living and innovation. The focus on the relationships between resources and objectives anticipated a trait of the new philosophy in designing urban program policy. The shift to urban American metropolitan life was a response to new political equilibrium and socio-demographic dynamics. The President’s electoral coalition was sensitive to demands coming from suburban populations as well as from inner areas of large cities. In the previous 20 years, immigrants, for residence and work reasons, gradually moved to spread in suburban areas; different segments of the population were expelled from inner cities and also dispersed in suburban areas. Minor interest in programs that targeted inner cities came about with the reshaping of the metropolitan population that altered the geography of Democratic voting in the sophistication of social demand. At stake was the challenge to overcome the gap between inner cities and suburbs, on mutual recognition that problems cannot be solved in isolation and that metropolitan area concentrated 85 percent of jobs and 90 percent of incomes (Obama 2009). Racial segregation and ethnic spatial divisions gradually diminished, leading to more assimilation (Massey and Denton 1993), while 75  Obama triumphed by a sizable margin of the popular vote over the Republican candidate John Mc Kain. 76  Source: Exit polls conducted by Edison Research, for the National Election Pool.

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typical city challenges like physical decay, pollution, traffic, high crime rates, and shortage of affordable housing emerged as crucial issues of suburban areas. The financial crisis of 2008 further exacerbated this trend leading the entire U.S. economy into a deep recession. The federal government’s response to the great recession was to expand direct intervention and federal control to tackle problems that the government does not traditionally cover, injecting federal dollars to save the industrial and banking systems, maintain domestic consumption, and transportation, and enhance social services. Local communities affected by the crisis were also assisted; old fashion place-based programs that concentrated massive intervention in large cities situated in inner areas were basically dismissed (Kantor 2013). Public spending for person-based urban social policies increased, despite budget deficits of the previous Bush administration, raising the public debt. The White House Office of Urban Affairs, instituted in the first month of the Presidency, gave full-scale operation to interagency and interdepartmental coordination and promoted the adoption of a different policy design method. Evaluation as opportunity to learn from implementation was pursued on two levels: an inquiry into three decades of urban program design at the federal level77—to create awareness and a shared view on the failures and successes—and more cross-cutting designing, interactivity, incremental policymaking, in adherence to “new policy design” practices (Peters 2018). Efforts involved public officials in charge of policymaking, encouraging the acquisition of direct knowledge of existing innovative initiatives and policies that perform positively, drawn from concrete experiences. Toward this goal, a series of study visits to cities where good practices of urban sustainable development, social inclusion, urban health and safety were organized, enhancing mutual exchange of information and

77  “The first comprehensive interagency review in 30 years on how the federal government approaches and funds urban and metropolitan areas so that we can start having a concentrated, focused, strategic approach to federal efforts to revitalize our metropolitan areas (…) As part of the interagency review, the Office of Management and Budget, in conjunction with the Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council and Office of Urban Affairs, will ask each agency to conduct an internal audit of specific policies impacting urban and metropolitan America. Once the review is complete, OMB and other White House offices will work with the agencies to coordinate federal policies and funding streams more effectively” (Obama 2009).

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views between federal and local officials.78 The whole idea was to test, through a pilot approach, the new urban policy instead of conceiving rigid, ambitious patterns at the federal level, to be implemented in cities from above. The national urban policy under Obama’s Administration had three main goals—to be competitive, sustainable, and inclusive—which were aligned with the European Union’s agenda in the programming period (2007–2013) and as outlined by the Lisbon Strategy. Place-based, locally led, data and result-driven, flexible funding, developing strategic and accountable partnership were keywords to define the policy approach adopted in the design of new federal urban initiatives, like the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative (NRI), a strategy launched in 2010, made of various target programs.79 Community outreach, input, and leadership were critical for success (Price 2011). Similar guiding principles were at the base of the EU Cohesion Policy for local and regional development in the subsequent programming period (2014–2020), as though a new mainstreaming consolidation process in the urban and regional policy of Western countries was underway, in dealing with the recovery from the global economic crisis as though a new mainstreaming consolidation process in urban and regional policy of Western countries was underway in trying to recover from the global economic crisis. The legacy of Presidents Carter and Nixon’s Administrations was highlighted with regards to reforms in urban governance that included interagency coordination, a review of existing programs, rescaling or decentralizing to local governments and private sector involvement (Silver 2016). The bridge with community-building, empowerment approaches and residents’ engagement as experimented under Clinton’s Administration was evidenced in specific programs of intervention. From a different position, the authors of the inquiry on Presidential Approaches, Territorial Politics and the Field of Urban Policy (Savitch and Osgood 2010) affirm that in the long run, they are inclined to believe that Obama will follow the Johnson prototype and mix low politics. In addition, President

 Philadelphia, Denver, Kansas City, and New York were among the destinations.  See Building Neighborhoods of Opportunities, The White House Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative Report, 2011. 78 79

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Kennedy’s programmatic lines can be reconsidered as synthesized in Robert H. Connery and Richard H. Leach’s analysis (1960).80 Most of the initiatives of the new urban agenda were resized to meet the economic crisis which demanded resources, while urban social programs were boosted, urban development policies followed a more consolidated economic-driven logic, concentrating government aid to strategic business sectors. Transportation projects had a dedicated budget heading (Tiger Grants). Explicit urban programs carried out according to place-­ based methodology81 reached a limited number of cities and disadvantaged neighborhoods. A recategorization process of many block grants was observed, although within a multi-goal strategy of regeneration (Kincaid and Stenberg 2011). The response to the mortgage crisis was critically examined. A core issue, rental housing for lower-income households and inadequate housing, remained a serious problem because of the rising number of people in need and budget restrictions, while the ongoing polarization between Democrats and Republicans in Congress was not significant in the housing domain (Bratt and Immergluck 2016, 95). An area of adaptation and retooling under the Obama Presidency was Social Impact Investing in pilot initiatives of performance contracts involving government, foundations, think tanks, nonprofits, and universities to design new policy and funding mechanisms that address urban social problems (Lake 2016).82 Exploratory programs were authorized and financially supported, adopting the Social Impact Bonds scheme which 80  The conclusion of their analysis focuses on a proposal which suggests: Presidential commitment to an assessment of federal spending impacts in metropolitan areas; overcoming the categorical approach; more attention to the social and community dimension of urban programs; the promotion of collaborative efforts among States in dealing with metropolitan areas; the constitution of an ad hoc office with a dedicated staff, part of the Executive Office and responding to the President, to coordinate Departmental and Agencies initiatives. 81  The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative was a strategic housing program for distressed urban areas, part of the NRI.  The revitalization policy combined investments for employment, education, public transportation, and safety within an integrated approach. Promise Communities attempted to address problems of low-income families, providing a network of cultural and social services. Promise Zones was targeted to the middle class to enhance opportunities for better jobs, education, and housing through multi-stakeholder local partnerships. Ending Homelessness was a priority, given by law (HEARTH Act) which involved all federal agencies, with increasing assistance grants. 82  The White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Partnership was the federal government unit in charge of the Pay for Success potential market. Various federal departments were involved in Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) experimentation.

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directs private capital to social programs with a return on capital, depending on the achievement of targeted program outcomes. The application of SIBs mechanism to urban social policy has been critically researched within the financialization process, penetrating the fabric of daily life (Moreno 2014, 244, discussing Costas Lapavitsas’s definition of financialization of capitalism), but also by a biased understanding of social problems stemming from deviant individual behaviors that need correction. 4.2   From Covid-19 Pandemic to Wartime in Europe: The Ephemeral Anchorage of Urban Agendas Donald Trump’s Administration (January 2017–January 2021) launched policies that proposed significant changes for urban America, reversing from the basic social and environmental priorities of the Obama Administration’s urban agenda oriented to sustainable patterns of economic growth. Some federal “non-urban policies” had direct and indirect impacts on cities and suburban, rural territories, as in the case of the long-­ delayed disaster aid bill devoted to rebuilding the places that needed to recover after hurricanes, fires, floods; or the First Step Act, the criminal justice reform to reduce recidivism; or environmental deregulation measures fostering energy independence from fossil fuels and energy development on federal lands, as part of the implementation of the American First Energy Plan.83 Other federal policy decisions explicitly focused on urban areas; the Opportunity Zones (OZs) program, enacted in 2016 with the Investing in Opportunity Act, was probably the most significant incentive. The new tool reflects a market-oriented approach that aims to attract investment of underserved capital gains in areas designated as OZs.84 Investors benefit from tax breaks. Criticism regarded the qualification criteria and the state’s selection of targeted areas that yielded very different outcomes (Theodos et al. 2018). The program covered nearly half of the country’s areas affected by persistent poverty, according to an average

83  In September 2019, the Trump Administration replaced Clean Power Plan with the Affordable Clean Energy rule, which did not cap emissions. 84  The Economic Innovation Group (a bipartisan public policy organization that combines research and data-driven advocacy to address America’s most pressing economic challenges) estimates that the potential capital that was eligible for reinvestment in Opportunity Zones amounted to 6.1 trillion dollars in 2017.

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poverty rate of 29 percent (the national rate was 15 percent).85 Another area of drastic change had to do with transport policy which strove to expand highways to the detriment of new public transit projects. Funding to the TIGER initiative (an Obama initiative enhancing multimodal transit projects) was cut in favor of highway projects. Several cuts were also applied to public housing and community development programs. Presidential elections were marred by political turmoil and the end of the Trump Presidency was marked by national tension.86 Joe Biden took office in January 2021. Biden Administration’s political agenda is very concerned with U.S. short-term economic recovery; a medium-term strategy to boost economic growth is also set up. The drivers for change relate to a set of policy priorities presented by the elected President in his inaugural address using the keywords: health, jobs, income, climate, and equity. Sustainability has been restored in the political discourse and ecological transition has become the new rhetoric that gives impetus to the urban agenda. The pandemic has exacerbated territorial imbalance within the country along with class, gender and race inequalities in income, child poverty, and access to health care. To give an example, job loss was much greater within Latinos and Black communities, whose unemployment rate is generally double that of white communities, especially among women; reemployment opportunities were very differentiated, in the historical gap between high-wage workers who could rapidly find quasi-normal employment conditions again and low-wage workers, who suffered and are still suffering perduring unemployment (Gorman and Lenain 2021). First evaluations confirm the positive results of federal investments in creating new jobs, improving the family’s economic secureness at all income levels (Konczal and DiVito 2021). Huge fiscal packages in 2020 and 2021 (with the American Rescue Plan)87 introduced additional federal funding to state and localities, direct cash payments to citizens and other measures to stimulate the economy and support social policies. The U.S. government seemed prompter and more efficient in helping people and businesses than many European 85  In about 20 percent of cases area-target were not disadvantaged; they were college campuses, areas where no one lived, where Amazon was going to build its HQ2, already-gentrifying areas (from an analysis provided by the Brookings Institute). 86  Election results were claimed as non-legitimate. 87  The Act was signed by President Biden on March 11, 2021.

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countries, hampered by a slow bureaucratic apparatus and overbearing regulations.88 U.S. economy is the largest emitter of amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) and CO2 per capita among G20 countries (Lenain et al. 2021). More inclusive and carbon-free growth, climate-friendly procurement are objectives over a medium-long term period that require a set of structural reforms,89 huge spending in infrastructures, high building efficiency standards, research, and technological innovation. The Paris Climate Agreement was rejoined at the beginning of Biden’s presidential term.90 Target cuts to GHG emissions within 2020, decided by Obama’s Administration, were reached, despite the step backward taken with the Clean Air Act, under Trump’s Administration, that had introduced subsidies favoring fossil fuels, and curbs on state-level regulatory standards (Lenain 2021).91 Biden’s Presidency has set a more ambitious target to be achieved by 2030 and an even more radical one within 2050: zero net emissions. The America Jobs Plan introduces a remarkable innovation in policy design, in that it connects environmental policies to social policies, emphasizing Obama’s value-driven strategy in the frame of ecological transition. Thus, the social and developmental face of the national urban agenda finally coexist in a unique vision and are explicitly integrated in policy goals. For instance, the plan targets 40 percent of the benefits of climate and clean infrastructure investments to disadvantaged communities. Moreover, the plan expands access to long-term care services under Medicaid. Various measures are directed to decarbonize electric power production and transportation,92 but investments are planned both in physical and social infrastructures to improve people’s living standards. However, at least two questions remain unresolved: with regards to the climate crisis, sectors such as agriculture, industry which are large GHG 88  Different capacities in implementing direct person-based public policies acquired by the U.S. government in the decades, from the experimentation of vouchers under Nixon’s Presidency must be considered. 89  Immigration and labor reforms, new regulation, etc. 90  President Trump had pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement. 91  The explication relies on progress in the energy market at the subnational level and with tax credits encouraging the use of renewable energy sources, energy efficiency, and the rise of natural gas, in the abandoning of coal (Lenain 2021). 92  The America Jobs Plan also stipulates that goods and materials used in infrastructure projects must “be made in America and shipped on U.S.-flag, U.S.-crewed vessels” (Law, Government and Society).

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emitters have not been explicitly included in the vision; with regards to foreign affairs, policy discourse explicitly sets the goal of mobilizing all of the resources that the country has to challenge China’s economic competition and autocratic leadership. Energy policy is a very exposed political issue that involves domestic changes along with international influential relationships that imply either collaboration or competitiveness. Recovery of worldwide supremacy thus becomes strategic. With different rhetoric, from a carbon economy to ecological transition, American politics is back to seek self-sufficiency and regain its hegemonic role. For the midterm election, the narrative of clean energy and decarbonizing the economy plays an important stake for Democrats. Announcement to stop gas imports from Russia, as part of the response to the war and invasion of Ukraine in 2022, designs highly uncertain scenarios.

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PART II

The Changing Geography: Critical Examples

The four case studies presented in the second part of the book—on the national urban agendas of Argentina, Brazil, India, and Canada—are critical examples (Flyvbjerg 2001) of the changing geography of urban agendas that since the 1980s emerged internationally. A shifting focus to include Latin American, Asian, and North American experiences is due to several factors. A first important point is the evolution of urbanization processes on a global scale; economic and demographic growth trends have significantly characterized these and other new regions of the world. They are among the largest countries in the world in terms of surface area: Canada is the second-largest country, Brazil the fifth, India the seventh, and Argentina the eighth. An exceptionally high percentage of their residents is recorded as urban population, since urban areas occupy a small part of the entire territory. This is extremely evident in Argentina, where 92% of the total population concentrates in urban areas, which represent 2% of land use. Or in Brazil and Canada, where 87% and 82% of residents belong to the urban population, and where urban areas represent 2% and 1% of land use, respectively. India has a different equilibrium, as only 35% of the population is urban, and urban areas represent 7% of land use. But India is the second country in the world in terms of population size, just after China; consequently, its cities are densely populated (World Data.info 2020).1 As  https://www.worlddata.info.

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UN-Habitat often recalls, one-third of the future global population growth will take place in this country, alongside China and Nigeria. As Roy (2011) argues, the urbanization axis has shifted in recent years from the North to the South and from the West to the East. As commonly believed, however, while urban areas of the Global North are generally considered as “winning” city models on an international scale, those of the so-called Global South are often stigmatized as unliveable, chaotic, hyper-­ urbanized; unreasonable concentrations of urban “megalomanias”. Urbanization dynamics trigger new opportunities and problems, affecting urban and metropolitan areas differently. But this does not always go hand in hand with political awareness of the need for national policy frameworks which should consider urbanization as a field of public policies to be set in branches of the national government. A second point relates to democratization issues in emerging countries. This aspect is particularly sensitive in cases of strong mobilizations which may lead to drastic changes in political regimes, such as in countries like Argentina and Brazil that have gone through a transition towards democracy. The right to land and housing, part of the urban reform, gained popular and institutional attention together with the issue of environmental protection: they became core matters of the national urban question. Reference is made to the 1980s, however the democratization issue is still topical in both countries. In later decades, at different stages, many positive achievements were definitely weakened, and government upheavals re-proposed a demand for effective democratic quality. On the other hand, countries like India that were undergoing a phase of democratic consolidation faced much political turmoil and crisis that negatively affected the implementation of meaningful reforms, limiting, to a certain extent, the democratic quality of public investments. However, India’s overall economic growth is remarkable, resulting in improved urban living conditions, despite significant contradictions. To give an example, life expectancy is about 10% lower than in Western developed countries. And, compared to Brazil and Argentina, India’s corruption index is still quite high. In general, India today is the world’s largest parliamentary democracy and has reversed its international position as an emerging country and market. In today’s global scenario, it occupies a position of influence. To summarize, in the first three cases of the book’s second part, income disparities, social exclusion, and inequalities in the implementation of democratic rights have emerged as major issues that affect those living in

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urbanized areas. Conditions of social injustice and limited access to common goods and to opportunities for full human development are associated not only to the undesired effects of growth but also to the impacts of global crises. They can also be attributed to the low responsiveness and accountability of policies decided by the political establishments, who often resisted change. The analysis highlights indeed the recurrent problem of elites who reject any innovation that may affect their status quo and question the privileges they acquired. From this angle, charismatic leaders with foresight and capable of making a difference emerge in the three cases, offering meaningful stories in this regard. In periods of government stability under influential and innovative political leaders, an urban question is defined in terms of national political priority, calling for consequent solutions. In such circumstances, political agendas focus on urban-related problems experimenting with urban policy programmes. Moreover, they raise the question of how cities can become actors of urban change. The rise of cities as possible protagonists of a shift in the patterns of urban development relaunched further political dynamics, strengthening, on the one hand, the demand for decentralization and local autonomy and, on the other hand, the interest in international networking, within public-private alliances and the formation of new coalitions. A third relevant point, therefore, has to do with the periods that follow dictatorial or highly controversial regimes. Aiming to gain wide recognition for the shift that has taken place in government and political orientation, strong leadership interprets the occasion to build a national urban agenda as a strategy to reposition the national government within the international marketplace. To do so, mechanisms of policy transfer by voluntary imitation are sought. In the case of Argentina and India, pursuit of the principles of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Policy (NUA) of UN-Habitat have been explicitly followed, within a more general adherence to expert contributions. The elaboration process of urban agendas at the national level has seen the involvement of national intellectual elites, with the participation of think tanks, research centres specialized in urban policies, and universities. Participatory policy design approaches launched by the NUA—United Nations programme has been functional to the scope, although criticism for a technocratic orientation has been levelled. The support of external international bodies frequently brings standardization of urban agendas as regards to themes, in

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adaptation to international formulations. Social inclusion and social innovation, sustainability, circular, green and smart growth, and climate change are among the primary objectives, together with balanced regional development and inclusive city development. The risk of such standardization is a loss of political content and the construction of urban agendas as layering policies. In a consolidated democracy like Canada, the democratization issue has met the demand of local governments to improve federalism in intergovernmental relationships. Historically, more municipal autonomy was sought, as Provinces de facto maintain substantial decisional powers. A big issue that remains unresolved is the redistribution of competencies. Fourth point: Argentina, Brazil, India, and Canada are examples of federal arrangements, with different cultural commitments to federalism. Today, most of the world’s population lives within polities that are formally federal or utilize federal arrangements. Federal principles are concerned with the combination of self-rule and shared rule; in federal systems, basic policies are made and implemented through negotiations involving all government levels, to preserve the integrity of each part and foster a sense of belonging to a unity (Elazar 1991, p. XV). Federalism has emerged as a means of accommodating people’s widespread desire to preserve legitimate internal diversities, revive the intimacy of small societies, and the growing necessity for larger combinations to mobilize the utilization of common resources better, also guaranteeing greater security (ibidem). A widespread prejudice is that federalist countries are not likely to have a national urban agenda, as decentralization and pluralism prevail according to principles of non-centralization of powers. However, the US case shows that this is possible and hoped for. Not only that, but the hypothesis is also that federalism has generative potential for urban policies. The proper functioning of a federalist system lies in the relations among levels of government, and as seen, this has proven to be a fundamental factor for the effectiveness of urban agendas and policies. The interpretation of the covenant (the foedus) is a key point, as it regulates the partnership, that is, the special kind of sharing agreed upon by the partners. The US federal polity is a particular type of arrangement, a federal-­ state-­local, public-private partnership. Political culture is thus fundamental to federalism—in this case, US political culture is civic, republican, and participatory. The four countries presented herein have elaborated different political cultures throughout time—our case studies clearly illustrate the point.

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Finally, the notion of developing countries that frames Argentina, Brazil, and India recalls us of a crucial aspect, which is not purely demographic as it has social and economic consequences that are pivotal for many of the governmental public policies: the population median age. India (with 28.4 years), Argentina (31.5 years), and Brazil (33.5 years) are countries whose urban areas concentrate young populations, with a generally high life expectancy (above all with reference to Argentina and Brazil). Differences with Western Europe are clear: a comparison between the population pyramids shows that many nations are experiencing serious ageing trends (the median age is around 45–47 years) that are constrictive. Canada, with a median age of 41.1 years, is in between. The second part of the book starts with Francesca Ferlicca and Fernando Murillo’s contribution on the Argentinian case. Their in-depth analysis of the processes that led to the construction of a National Urban Policy (NUP) in Argentina focuses on the influence of UN-Habitat’s New Urban Agenda launched in 2016. Although the NUP resulted from a wide-­ ranging participatory policy-making process—involving consultants, steering committees, academia, and civil society—the experience did not generate effective changes in urban and territorial planning practices. The authors discuss the reasons behind this, highlighting the risks related to the local implementation, within specific socio-political contexts, of documents formulated by international experts. Maurizio Pioletti and Veridiana Dalla Vecchia introduce the Brazilian experience, an important case to understand the wider significance and role of urban agendas. In this context, the design of the urban agenda has intertwined with the country’s broader democratization process, which started at the end of the military dictatorship. In this perspective, the Brazilian experience highlights—at least until the end of Dilma’s mandate—a broader process of politicization of planning practices which came to replace the technocratic approach of military dictatorship. This framework explicitly recognized the social and political role of the cities, strengthening participatory democracy, social justice, and equality, together with environmental protection. Concretely, it was translated into policy measures that tried to guarantee the right to the city, land, and housing. It is important to note, however, that changes in government (first with Temer’s presidency, then Bolsonaro’s) have led to a drastic re-­ orientation and change of policy objectives. The Indian case is discussed in the chapter written by Daphné Reguiessé. Herein, the author offers a detailed reconstruction of the various national

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city programmes and initiatives launched by the country’s national government. The analysis also discusses the recent influence of supranational policy documents and organizations (UN’s 2030 Agenda) in setting up the latest National Urban Policy Framework (2020): this document addresses the most important urbanization challenges in terms of provision of basic needs (infrastructures, housing, health, education, etc.). The author’s contribution also illustrates how the idea and meaning of “city” have been reframed over time, alongside changes in political orientation and policy programmes. The final case presented in the second part of the book, written by Elena Ostanel and Francesco Campagnari, introduces Canada. Acknowledging the presence, in this country, of an explicit urban agenda limited to certain periods of time (1968–1979; 2001–2006), the authors explain the reasons that have determined this situation. Indeed, while the federal government has established agencies and developed city programmes, their impacts have been (and continue to be) limited by provincial jurisdiction over municipal and urban affairs.

References Elazar, D.J. 1991. Federal systems of the world. A handbook of federal, confederal and autonomy arrangements. Essex: Longman Group Limited. Flyvbjerg, B. 2001. Making social science matter. Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roy, A. 2011. Conclusion. Postcolonial urbanism: Speed, hysteria, mass dreams. In Worlding cities: Asian experiments and the art of being global, ed. A. Roy and A. Ong, 307–335. Blackwell Publishing.

CHAPTER 6

Towards a National Urban Policy in Argentina Francesca Ferlicca and Fernando Murillo

1   Introduction In 2016 UN-Habitat launched the NUA—New Urban Agenda—a document aimed to provide a guideline to achieve the sustainable urbanization goals of the Agenda 2030 through the implementation of regulations, planning, design, and a focus on local governments and municipal finance. In 2018 the RAP—Regional Action Plan—for the implementation of the New Urban Agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean was presented. Its main purpose was to promote urban policies and expert assistance to all Latin American and Caribbean countries to achieve sustainable urban development (ECLAC/Minurvi/UN-Habitat 2018). The RAP presents

F. Ferlicca (*) University Iuav of Venice, Venezia, Italy e-mail: [email protected] F. Murillo University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina World Bank Group, Washington, DC, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_6

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six concrete instruments.1 One of them is the implementation of NUPs— National Urban Policies—conceptual documents reporting how the national urban systems function and the need to introduce adjustments to correct regional disparities. Some countries stepped forward and accepted to adopt a NUP coherent with RAP’s and NUA’s goals. NUPs were expected to be designed by local consultants who would be continually assisted in technical terms by UN-Habitat. However, the NUP design process under the NUA principles clashed with the existing national regulatory frameworks and posed to the policy makers the challenge of overcoming the gap between a sustainable agenda and a serious lacuna in the national and sub-national legal frameworks. Argentina is a case in point: the national government invested significant efforts and resources into setting up a NUP to face up to social, environmental, and economic challenges with a rational, effective, and transparent governance framework. However, although the Argentinian NUP eventually saw the light, it has never become the source for a new regulatory framework for the local, provincial, and national governments, thus preventing implementation and monitoring. There are multiple reasons for this: a political hostility to any innovation affecting the privilege of elites; pressure groups of powerful actors who enjoy extraordinary land and real estate profits; the misguided cultural orientation celebrating demagogic urban policy initiatives against poverty and pro human rights, never tackling the long-term root of urban inequalities; economic obstacles within the current liberal economies; and limitations of national budgets in the Global South. This chapter aims to describe the process of elaboration of the NUP in Argentina, as guided by the RAP. In 2017, the newly elected Government of Argentina, under Mauricio Macri’s leadership, requested support from UN-Habitat to define, along with key national stakeholders, a policy that would support the balanced regional development of its vast territory. Through this process Argentina—a country where 92.2%2 of the total population lives in urban areas—aimed to harness its urbanization and enhance its benefits, spillovers, and externalities. Together with 1  The six policy instruments are: (1) National Urban Policies; (2) Urban legal frameworks; (3) Urban and territorial planning and design; (4) Urban economy and municipal finances; (5) Local implementation and (6) Monitoring, reporting and revision mechanisms (ECLAC/ Minurvi/UN Habitat 2018). 2  https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/argentina/#people-and-society (Accessed 20 January 2022).

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UN-Habitat, the Ministerio del Interior, Obras Públicas y Vivienda (Ministry of Interior, Public Works and Housing) carried out a policymaking process, setting up steering committees involving the public and private sectors, academia, civil society, development banks, and international organizations. The outcome of the collaboration was the elaboration of the Argentinian NUP, in agreement with UN-Habitat, and assessed the influence of the international discussion therein. Before the elaboration of the NUP, the PET—Plan Estratégico Territorial (Strategic Territorial Plan)3—was the national instrument to guide investment in strategic infrastructures. The PET provides a framework to (1) identify the necessary investments in infrastructure and improvements in capacity needed to reduce the regional gap in development outcomes and (2) promote economic development in lagging areas that need to increase productivity and strengthen their connection with local and international markets. The questions guiding our analysis of the elaboration of the NUP in Argentina are as follows: a) To what extent is this document in line with the perspective and postulates of the New Urban Agenda, and what innovations does it bring to Argentine urban policy? What innovative perspectives does the NUP provide in relation to the PET? b) With regard to the multilevel participation of a range of actors, who defined the objectives of the NUP? And how was the decisional process structured? What was the overall impact of local government and civic participation? What was the relationship between experts/technicians and those representatives of the political and administrative system during the drafting of the document? c) How was the NUP legal viability and operationalization as a state policy assessed within its design, bearing in mind the country’s federal administration, in which the provinces are legally autonomous and, in turn, delegate planning to municipalities? d) Given the interdependency between urban agendas formulation and the electoral results, does the NUP put forward any mechanisms to guarantee the continuity of the implementation process? 3  The PET is the product of a process coordinated by the National State, through consensus-building with the provincial jurisdictions, which defines the general guidelines for the achievement of a balanced, sustainable, and socially just national territory.

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As for the methodology and materials used for the analysis, our research drew on primary and secondary sources. On the one hand, these involved an analysis of academic publications, official governmental reports and statistics, newspaper articles, and national urban plans; on the other hand, we conducted five interviews with national governmental public officials, and UN-Habitat consultants and experts, involved in the elaboration of the NUP in Argentina. This chapter is structured as follows: in the first section, we outline the development of the National Urban Agendas in Latin America, as guided by the RAP for the implementation of the NUA. In the second section, we describe the fragmentation of the territorial planning matrix in Argentina, addressing what we understand as its four major causes. Thereafter, we reconstruct the historical evolution of the urban agenda in Argentina from 2003 to 2019 through a critical analysis of the different versions of the PET. This background offers a better understanding of the elaboration of the NUP from 2017 to 2019 promoted in agreement with UN-Habitat after the third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development held in Quito in 2016 (Habitat III). By way of conclusion, we present the limits and outcome of the NUP. Our final remarks are based on the analysis of the document such as the valuable information obtained through the interviews with key actors, which gave us an inside view of the drafting and decision-making process. Finally, in the epilogue, we take into account the main challenges of urban agendas in the face of the pandemic in the Latin American region.

2  National Urban Agendas in the Latin American Region Since 2018 the development of national urban agendas in Latin America has been guided by the RAP for the implementation of the NUA in the region (ECLAC/Minurvi/UN-Habitat 2018). The RAP is built on two conceptual pillars: (a) the need for a shift in urbanization trends orchestrated at the national level and (b) the acknowledgement of cities as a macro-level public good where economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights are guaranteed. Such pillars must be understood within the context of regional challenges: uncontrolled urban growth, especially in slums, inequalities, along with growing insecurity and increased international migration resulting from climate-change-related disasters.

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Urbanization as an engine for sustained and inclusive economic growth, social and cultural development, and environmental protection is the only means of achieving sustainable development for all. However, as the RAP demonstrated with a robust diagnosis of the achievements of territorial and urban policies applied in the region, the results have fallen short compared to their goals. Therefore, the RAP recommends a radical and systemic change in key policy areas, to respond to the increasing externalities of urban and metropolitan agglomerations. The latter block the path towards future regional and national sustainability creating the institutional framework of urban systems, strengthening regional and national development. The RAP establishes guiding principles aligned with those assumed internationally, for example, leaving no one behind and ensuring a sustainable environment and strategic objectives tailored to the regional reality. The action plan proposes four areas for change: (a) New patterns of production and consumption: introducing a whole reconversion towards a circular and green economy based on a more sustainable use of available resources, in addition to a culture of optimizing energy, reducing, recycling, and recovery. This reconversion must be applied to the different industrial sectors, with a focus on construction and real estate. (b) Poverty reduction: understanding that social programmes are relevant but that location defines strategically where and when the poor are included in the creation and distribution of wealth generated by cities. In this regard, socio-territorial inclusion programmes, as an evolution of the slum upgrading approach, reflect a move towards more systematic changes. (c) Vulnerability to the effects of climate change: generating the right planning mechanisms to simultaneously respond to, and prevent, potential climate change disasters. (d) Proper institutional frameworks to optimize cities as a macro-level public good to ensure that all citizens and migrants access basic urban services. Such areas of change define the NUP focus for the countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region. It therefore goes without saying that the region must face up to the challenges associated with reconverting its production and consumption matrix. It must leave behind

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old-fashioned, unsustainable industrial activities characterized by traditional energy consumption and air, water, and soil pollution, in favour of a “green and circular economy” based on principles of reducing waste, recycling, and reusing resources and products. Preventing traffic congestion also creates more liveable cities within the framework of national urban systems, while, at the same time, it promotes a respect for the natural environment as the way forward for poverty reduction, whereby the most vulnerable people, targeted by efficient social promotion programmes, are included into the city’s wealth generation opportunities. Such positive cascade effects are impossible without addressing the threats created by climate change through proper institutional frameworks based on empowering cities as a realm of inclusive and sustainable public policies. The methodology to promote such an ambitious agenda includes: –– the development of initial documents consolidating the diagnosis of problems and resources and key information for discussion; the creation of expert groups elaborating such initial documents; –– city summits in which concrete actions are adopted and presented publicly with the support of local governments; –– several public consultations dedicated to getting community feedback, in the attempt to legitimize the validity of the approaches and ideas promoted. Within this methodology, the same document presents six concrete policy instruments. We will focus on the first one, NUPs, characterized conceptual documents which analyse how the national urban systems function and the need to introduce adjustments to correct regional disparities. It is worth emphasizing that national urban policies do not replace local public policies; on the contrary, they “complement and reinforce them to facilitate the enabling conditions necessary for sustainable urban development, maximize the benefits of urbanization, [and] mitigate inequalities and potential negative externalities” (UN-Habitat/OECD 2018). This means that national urban policies are understood as opportunities to align international, national, regional, and local policies. A NUP is understood as “a coherent set of decisions through a deliberate government-led process of coordinating and rallying various actors towards a common vision that will promote more transformative, productive, inclusive and resilient urban development for the long term” (UN-Habitat 2020). The uniqueness of NUP also lies in its ability to

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converge national sectoral urban policies and help clarify roles and responsibilities horizontally across ministries, as well as vertically between all levels of government.

3  The Challenges of Territorial Planning in Argentina This section looks at how territorial planning in Argentina is affecting the cities’ capacity to tap into the benefits of agglomeration economies. The primary challenges related to territorial planning in Argentine cities are institutional. On the one hand, the federal government has no legal framework to influence urban development and territorial planning, and, on the other hand, the provincial governments have weak regulatory frameworks to guide the planning of municipal land use. Similarly, municipalities often lack basic urban planning instruments and have limited incentives and capacities to update their plans. Local planning initiatives lack cross-­ sectoral integration and coordination, and institutional fragmentation is a constraint for metropolitan planning. Although a few initiatives promote horizontal coordination, the absence of institutional instruments for metropolitan planning prevents those efforts being scaled up. Furthermore, strict land-use regulations contribute to constrained access to formal land and housing in urban areas and stimulate the proliferation of informal settlements. Finally, the use of instruments to capture land values is not yet common practice in Argentina, although innovative initiatives are emerging. Such shortcomings in territorial and urban planning are a major barrier to the country tapping the benefits of agglomeration economies. They directly affect prosperity and liveability in agglomerations by encouraging sprawl, which reduces efficiencies in urban development. 3.1   Main Characteristics of Territorial and Political Fragmentation in Argentina Territorial and political fragmentation can be explained through four main variables: 1. The diversity of actors involved in territorial planning, and their conflictual expectations and power asymmetries; the complexity of the institutional map; the divergence between different interests and

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objectives which has thus shaped a historical evolution of urban and territorial policies characterized by advances and setbacks that, in turn, are explained by the conjunctural variation of power relations. 2. The federal organization of urban and territorial planning involves three levels of government—national, provincial, and municipal— with different types of regulatory capacity. Even though the National Constitution promotes a territorially balanced development, there is still no National Law on Territorial Planning that articulates it. Although the three levels of government have specific remits, the provinces and municipalities are the primary legislators, and they have the main responsibility for land-use planning. In functional terms, this legal framework provides excessive levels of autonomy to the provinces.4 This situation of planning fragmentation and the lack of instruments to organize and govern the territory represents a continuous source of controversy between the three levels of government. The historical absence of coordination between the levels of government is compensated with the executive discretionary power of the president.5 3. The unstable terrain in which these policies have taken root: on the one hand, drastic changes in political leadership and in policy orientation and, on the other hand, weakening of the state’s capacity for intervention. This has been a result of the limited availability of public funds, derived from the lack of liquidity and monetary weakness. This political-economic instability is the result of, on the one hand, a political culture of “continuous national refunding”, which 4  In terms of territorial organization, Argentina has 23 provinces (provincias) plus the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires). Provinces are autonomous and are subdivided into 2277 autonomous local governments. The largest province is the Province of Buenos Aires (307,571 km2). The provinces are primarily responsible for land-use planning. For instance, each provincial constitution establishes which responsibilities it delegates to municipal governments, which makes each province a separate case. Thus, provincial governments exercise control over the natural resources in their territory and have the legitimacy to establish regulations on the use of the latter. However, at the provincial level, land-use planning and regulation are very weak, and only three provincial districts (Province of Buenos Aires, Province of Mendoza, and Autonomous City of Buenos Aires) currently have a land-use planning regulation. In the other Argentine provinces, legislation is fragmentary, dispersed, and outdated. 5  While it is true that the national executive power enjoys the broad attributes provided by the presidential system, it is no less true that the structure of fiscal federalism reproduces in provincial terms the discretion that can be observed at the national level.

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­ revents setting and achieving agreed long-term social goals, and, p on the other hand, the macroeconomic cycles of currency inflows and outflows due to the difficulties of the national central bank total reserves.6 4. The implementation of urban public policies has not been accompanied by technical monitoring on the part of the actors who designed them. National plans have historically worked as frameworks: they therefore failed to provide clear indications as to what characteristics the monitoring devices should have in order to review not only the effects but also the shortcomings of the implementation process. In this regard, instead of providing a flexible structure with clear guidelines for governance purposes, these frameworks create loopholes that generate conditions for discretion that reinforce territorial fragmentation, as they lack legitimacy from the outset. By virtue of the interrelation of the aforementioned variables, the forging of a solid and continuous vision for a national urban agenda has become unattainable. The matrix emphasizes how urban governance and legislation in Argentina are challenged by decentralization, in which local governments have important administrative powers but lack the financial and human resources to implement them. The result of this dynamic is weak local governments which depend on transfers from the national and provincial governments. In addition, urban legislation is heterogeneous across the country and only 3 out of the 24 provinces have up-to-date urban legislation (Reese 2006).

4  The Historical Evolution of the Urban Agendas in Argentina We have identified two cycles of agenda setting (Fig. 6.1). The first one, from 2003 to 2015, is characterized by the institutionalization of territorial planning in Argentina through the creation of a Ministry in 2004 and the elaboration of the PET, as a national vision and strategy to reduce the existing regional gaps and promote the equitable development of all regions. The second one, from 2015 to 2019, is characterized by a drastic change in terms of political leadership with the election of Mauricio Macri, 6  The country’s financial autonomy depends on the rise and fall of international prices of primary products and the external financing from multilateral credit organizations.

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Fig. 6.1  The evolution of the national urban agenda in Argentina. (Source: Authors own elaboration)

leader of the Republican Proposal (PRO) party. In terms of territorial planning, the innovation is the elaboration of the National Urban Policy (NUP) in Argentina, in agreement with UN-Habitat. We will identify the key milestones in the creation of PET and its updates up to the development of the NUP, and we will offer a critical reading of the evolution of PETs elaborated by different administrations, analysing what agenda priorities they tried to set, who participated in their formulation, and the policies and/or programmes derived from them. Through the analysis we want to show the agenda priorities that emerged over time and the outcomes in terms of national agenda setting. 4.1   2003–2015: The Return of Territorial Planning in Argentina From 2003 onwards, the growing centrality of the state on the political scene gave greater importance to territorial planning as a public policy tool for development. As part of this process, the SSPTIP was created in

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2004, under the brand-new Ministro de Planificación Federal, Inversión Pública y Servicios (Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services). Four years later, in 2008, the COFEPLAN, Consejo Federal de Planificación y Ordenamiento Territorial (Federal Council for Territorial and Land-Use Planning), was set up. The federal government has taken some steps to support provinces’ territorial planning within their jurisdictions with the creation of the COFEPLAN. This national agency, which comprises the federal government, all provinces, and the city of Buenos Aires, was given a mandate to issue guidelines that would address planning bottlenecks within each province’s specific legal framework. Since its creation, COFEPLAN has promoted initiatives to address current institutional bottlenecks for territorial planning, including the development of an Anteproyecto de Ley Nacional de Planificación y Ordenamiento Territorial (Preliminary Draft of the National Law on Territorial Planning). The period between 2003 and 2015 was characterized by the state taking an active role in the economy through a series of neo-developmentalist policies, for example, incentives for the domestic market; policies that expanded political, civil, and social rights; the return of territorial planning to the political agenda; and an increase in public investments in infrastructure, social services, and housing. In terms of environmental issues during this cycle, the “development with inclusion” model entailed a set of tensions and limitations, as expressed by the political contradictions evident at different levels (Catenazzi et al. 2020).7 During this period (2003–2015), three versions of the PET (in 2008, 2011, and 2015, respectively) were elaborated under the Peronist governments of Nestor Kirchner (2003–2007) and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007–2011; 2011–2015). The SSPTIP prepared the first PET 7  The source of public financial resources for increasing social programmes for the most vulnerable during this period (marked by high levels of public investment and the state’s active role as a producer and regulator) was foreign currency (American dollars), as well as taxation from the extraction and export activities of primary resources. The result in environmental terms was a depredation of soils combined with the contamination of water sources and not labour-intensive activities which forced a process of domestic migration of rural populations to the peripheries of urban centres in search of better environmental, housing, and working conditions. As Maristella Svampa stated, “developmentalist neoextractivism is characterized by large-scale enterprises, a focus on exportation, and a tendency for monoproduction or monoculture” (Svampa 2015, p. 66). Thus, the period was characterized by not only new housing and social programmes but also environmental conflicts, linked to processes of dispossession, enclosure of the commons, and the deepening of extractivism by Kirchner’s governments.

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(2008) which, together with its different updates, broadened the territorial planning agenda. The PET was rooted in the document entitled “Argentina 2016: National Policy and Strategy for Development and Spatial Planning” (Government of Argentina, Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services of Argentina 2004), which defined the guiding objectives of national policy and established the implementation of a set of planning instruments. The PET was one of the instruments conceived to manage the achievement of the objectives. The PET was developed as a national vision and strategy to reduce the existing regional gaps and promote the equitable development of all regions. The PET provides a framework to (1) identify the necessary investments in infrastructure and improvements in capacity that are needed to reduce the gap in development outcomes between regions and (2) promote economic development in lagging areas that need to increase productivity and strengthen their connection with local and international markets. The PET divides the national territory in 25 sub-regions grouped into three main categories depending on the level of urbanization, integration, and economic activity. 4.1.1 Pet I (2008) Two innovations can be observed in the first PET: (a) the return to state planning as a mechanism for allocating public investment and territorial development, after several years in which market forces and interests were left to lead these processes; (b) the method used to carry out the diagnoses and proposals, which was particularly sensitive to proposals coming from provincial urban planning expert teams that participated in the document’s elaboration (Corti 2008). The document explored two territorial models and scenarios: the current and the desired. The current model is described through a review of its historical evolution and the regional context into which it was inserted. It also delved into its four principal characteristics: the built environment, the economic dimension, the social dimension, and the environmental dimension. The desired model proposes the following goals: 1. to strengthen territorial and cultural identity and the sense of belonging to the national territory; 2. to achieve economic development and the realization of personal projects without necessarily leaving the place of origin;

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3. to live in a sustainable environment, which guarantees the current and future availability of resources; 4. to participate fully in the democratic management of the territory at all scales; 5. to have access to essential goods and services that allow personal and collective development with a high quality of life (Government of Argentina, Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services 2008). The first PET expresses the national effort to engage provincial expert teams in carrying out a diagnosis of the problems and establish common strategies. As a result of this endeavour, each province drew up a diagnosis of its territory in the form of a Current Territorial Model, projected its future expectations in a Desired Territorial Model, and defined a portfolio of infrastructure projects identified as necessary to transform the Current Model into the Desired Model. The first PET defines three areas of work: (1) areas of intervention (or lagging areas); (2) connectivity corridors; and (3) polycentric urban system.8 Within the areas of intervention, the PET identifies (1) the most dynamic areas, with competitive economies, inserted in the international market; these regions must adapt their infrastructures and equipment to present and future demands and mitigate the impacts of unplanned growth; (2) areas with a certain dynamism, based on emerging activities that have not yet reached high levels of consolidation; and (3) the country’s currently most lagging and least populated areas (Muzzini et al. 2016). Beyond the tangible products of this first stage of work, the launch of the PET implied the reopening of the debate on territorial planning at the different scales of the public sphere and the beginning of the process of institutionalization of territorial planning in Argentina.

8  Based on a classification of the national territory, PET identifies the areas of intervention according to three categories of actions: requalification, development, and enhancement. Given that in Argentina a few areas concentrate cargo and passenger flows, causing the isolation of a large part of the national territory, the connectivity corridors are intended to reinforce the existing facilities, decongesting the most sought-after sections and linking areas that are currently disconnected from the main system. Thus, the aim is to achieve a polycentric urban system that interprets the territory no longer exclusively in terms of areas and corridors, but as a combination of both dimensions of analysis: as a system of human settlements.

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4.1.2 Pet II (2011) The second PET summarized the inclusion of urban topics in the national agenda and strengthened the activities aimed at promoting territorial planning in the public sphere. It represented a complexification of the national urban agenda, as reflected in three aspects: firstly, the implementation of specific programmes in accordance with the new PET guidelines; secondly, the necessary articulations, crossovers, and coordination with sectoral areas at all levels of government at the national and regional levels; and finally, the tackling of new issues in response to the territorial challenges identified throughout the deepening of the work. The main initiatives embodied in PET II were (a) the systematization of the process of identification and weighting of strategic infrastructure projects; (b) the Urban Argentina Programme9; (c) the Disaster Risk Reduction Programme; (d) bilateral integration programmes and plans; and (e) multilateral integration programmes and plans10 (Government of Argentina, Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment, and Services 2011). 4.1.3 Pet III (2015) The third PET (2015) laid down as its main challenges the strengthening of the legal-normative territorial planning framework and the systematic production of information and knowledge about the territory. It reviewed and compiled the most significant results of the planning process under way. The document’s most innovative contribution is its third part, “Desired Territorial Models and Strategic Projects by Province”. This section gives an account of the federal vision present in the PET from the 9  The main innovation the second PET introduced was “Argentina Urbana” (Urban Argentina), a publication which develops one of the slogans agreed upon in PET I: the promotion of a polycentric system of urban nuclei. Starting with a hierarchy and characterization of the national urban system, a casuistic analysis is carried out, centred fundamentally on medium-sized cities, which reveals the intrinsic characteristics of the urban production process. 10  In terms of regional integration, the dynamics of joint work with the countries of the region within the COSIPLAN-Consejo Suramericano de Infraestructura y Planeamiento (South American Council of Infrastructure and Planning) has allowed this body to consolidate itself as a platform for discussion and coordination of the IIRSA-Iniciativa de Infraestructura Regional de Sur América (Initiative of Regional Infrastructure in South America, strategically decided in the context of the UNASUR [Union of South American Nations]).

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beginning, and it summarizes the update of the Desired Model and the portfolios of priority strategic projects for each province and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. 4.2   The Period 2015–2019: The Overlapping Between the Elaboration of National Urban Policy (NUP) and the Continuity of the PET The period from 2015 to 2019, under Maurico Macri Government, was characterized by a drastic change in terms of political orientation. In general terms, Macri’s administration returned to some of the neoliberal experiences of financial valorization and reduced subsidies for public services, while maintaining the extractivist economic model. In terms of territorial planning, under Macri’s administration, the creation of the Ministerio del Interior, Obras Públicas y Vivienda (Ministry of the Interior, Public Works and Housing) attempted to centralize the coordination and overcome the sectorization of territorial planning. Government action was based on criticism of previous governments, particularly with respect to corruption and the misallocation of public funds, which implied a waste of public effort and resources. Macri’s administration sought to recompose the relationship between Plan-Proyecto-Obra-Resultado (Plan-Project-Works-­ Results) from a transparent and integral conception of the state. This vision not only meant organizing administrative procedures but also reflected a substantial cultural change in the management of public investments in line with the country’s development objectives. During Macri’s administration a new version of PET was developed in 2018. The fourth PET incorporated the link between infrastructure and production, on the understanding that the virtuous cycle of growth and territorial development could be achieved through job creation. In this sense, the PET proposed a portfolio of public works prioritized not only in relation to social needs but also in relation to production (Government of Argentina, Ministry of Interior, Public works and Housing 2018). In the same period, from 2016 to 2018, the NUP is elaborated. The NUP appears as an opportunity to adopt the NUA in Argentina after Habitat III and to elaborate a tool that enables the country to provide a vision to drive and guide the urbanization process. Therefore, in this period, two national planning instruments coexist: PET IV, whose elaboration and implementation are validated by COFEPLAN, and NUP, abandoned with the change of government in 2019.

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4.2.1 Pet IV (2018) When updating the PET during the Macri’s administration, the Secretaría de planificación territorial y coordinación de obra pública (Secretariat of Territorial Planning and Coordination of Public Works), under the newly created Ministerio del Interior, Obras públicas y Vivienda (Ministry of the Interior, Public Works and Housing), articulated international, national, federal, and local planning and, in turn, incorporated the sectoral planning of each agency, in order to link all public processes in the territory. Likewise, the sectoral bodies fed into the holistic vision of the PET. Thus, at the national level, the PET represented a reference framework for the Provincial Strategic Plans and for other national plans and initiatives, such as the Belgrano Plan, the Patagonia Project, the Federal Strategic Plan for Sustainable Tourism (PFETS), the National Transport Plan, among others. In the framework of the PET, planning is considered as an indissoluble part of the integral process of territorial management, in which the sequence Plan-Project-Work-Results becomes especially relevant. 4.3   An Assessment of the Role of PET in the Evolution of Urban Agendas in Argentina According to our periodization, it is possible to state that the urban agenda in Argentina begins its historical path from 2003 onwards, with the elaboration and subsequent updates of the PETs as policy instruments arising from problem-identification of the lack of national instruments to guide urban and territorial planning. In this sense, the PETs, through the aforementioned COFEPLAN, work granting validity to all federal planning projects of both national and provincial scales. In this way, the PETs become a roadmap for the provinces. To a large extent, the PETs managed to achieve continuity beyond their intrinsic limitations and the strong political changes and economic-financial instability in Argentina, institutionalizing territorial planning in the country in an unprecedented way. The most relevant contribution of the PETs has been to achieve both a technical anchorage through the participation of specialists in their elaboration and monitoring and a financial anchorage reflected in its place within the national budget, discussed and approved each year in the legislative level. However, although the highest authorities of the Undersecretariat of Federal Planning of Public Investment tried to bring the PETs to the parliamentary level through a draft bill (2010) prepared by COFEPLAN, this bill was not supported by any parliamentary bloc or

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by the National Executive Power, which in Argentina has the power of legislative initiative (Art. 77 of the Argentinian National Constitution).

5  The Elaboration of the National Urban Policy (NUP) in Argentina The NUP was developed within the framework of the global conferences and agendas led by the United Nations and reaffirmed the commitment adopted by the Argentine Republic in 2016 during the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, Habitat III (Fig. 6.2). A Technical Collaboration Agreement was signed in 2016 between the Ministry of the Interior, Public Works and Housing of the Argentine Republic11 and the United Nations Human Settlements

Fig. 6.2  The phases of the formulation of the NUP in Argentina. (Source: Authors own elaboration on the basis of the National Urban Policy Argentina (UN-Habitat 2018))  The secretariat that coordinated the drafting of the NUA in Argentina was the Secretaría de Infraestructura Urbana (Secretary of Urban Infrastructure) and not the Secretaría de planificación territorial y coordinación de obra pública (Secretariat for territorial planning and coordination of public works), which drafted the latest version of the PET in 2018. 11

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Programme (UN-Habitat) for the development of a PNUH—Plan Nacional Urbano y del Hábitat (National Urban and Habitat Plan). This represented the beginning of the NUA implementation process in Argentina.12 According to UN-Habitat (2014), a NUP is “a coherent set of decisions derived through a deliberate government-led process of coordinating and rallying various actors for a common vision and goal that will promote more transformative, productive, inclusive and resilient urban development for the long term” (p. iii). The specific feature that renders NUPs unique is their potential to coordinate national sectoral urban polices, collaborating with the clarification of both horizontal (across ministries) and vertical (levels of government) roles and responsibilities. At the same time, a NUP is both a technical and political process, which requires not only technical capacity but also political commitment, as well as a sustained stakeholders support to be successful and transformative (UN-Habitat 2014). The promotion of NUPs as national strategies for sustainable development is an innovative approach, and in much of the region, as well as globally, policy responses to urbanization processes have been articulated at the urban scale. It is important to highlight that NUPs do not replace local urban policies but rather complement and reinforce them to facilitate the creation of the necessary conditions for sustainable urban development. In this sense, they maximize the benefits of urbanization and mitigate inequalities and potential negative externalities (OECD/ UN-Habitat/UNOPS 2021). In addition, a NUP offers the opportunity to align national and local activities with global priorities: within the framework of the 2030 Agenda, the New Urban Agenda (2016), the Paris Agreement (2016), the Addis Ababa Agreement on Financing for Development and the Sendai Framework for Action (2015). A NUP, in short, is a key instrument to support the implementation and monitoring of the global urban agenda at the local scale. The following paragraph will analyse the elaboration of the Argentinian NUP, looking at the institutional process and multi-stakeholder participation, its content and proposed action plan, and finally the constraints to its future implementation. 12  The newly elected government strategically used the opportunity to develop a NUP as an attempt to set a marketing strategy to internationalize the country’s political agenda. This took place amid the Argentinian organization of G20 summit (2018) and the beginning of the debt negotiation talks or with the IMF—International Monetary Fund.

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The Argentinian NUP was developed through a series of meetings, reports, and briefings that laid the groundwork for its formulation. The work process began with the holding of the National Urban Forum in the city of Mendoza in June 2017. This event, organized by the Ministry of Interior, Public Works and Housing, together with the Municipality of the City of Mendoza and UN-Habitat, brought together 357 people, 18 provinces, and 75 municipalities. Participants met at multi-stakeholder working tables where they exchanged views and perspectives related to four thematic areas: territorial governance of habitat; territorial development and urban planning; land and housing policies; and urban economy and municipal financing (UN-Habitat 2018). Prior to the formulation of the NUP, a synthesis document bringing together an extensive analysis of the challenges and potential opportunities presented by urban development in Argentina was prepared. It included a survey of the main national programmes, initiatives, and strategies being implemented in terms of public policies that have an impact on the territory and the national urban system. A range of actors, local and provincial governments, actively participated in the formulation of the NUP. An Advisory Council was formed, made up of ten national ministries and four sectoral roundtables to bring together proposals from academia, international organizations, civil society, and the private sector. In addition, working groups were set up, which were sectoral working groups that had been divided according to their level of responsibility. The document also explicitly states the intention to incorporate the actions resulting from it with policies and programmes already in place, including some that have continued since the previous government. In this sense, the reference to the COFEPLAN as a federal meeting point between provinces, the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, and the national government is significant, insofar as it indicates a commitment to the establishment of state national urban and territorial policies, transcending electoral and partisan disputes. 5.1   The Contents of the NUP and the Action Plan By looking towards 2040, the NUP proposes to develop a balanced territory and liveable, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities based on adequate and solid institutional, regulatory, and financing frameworks. It rests on six principles: equity in accessing the city; the territorial balance between the urban and rural system; completeness in the fight against poverty and

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inequality; care for the environment, resilience, and climate change; economic opportunities for social and economic development; and democratic governance and social participation. Based on these, the NUP presents general objectives that seek to define national priorities; orient urban development; promote multisectoral and multiscale investments and actions among different stakeholders; provide the legal foundations and institutional basis for the management of urban and territorial policies; and promote the financial autonomy of municipalities. In order to guide the process of dissemination, appropriation, and implementation of the NUP, an Action Plan was formulated. The latter was developed according to four pillars: firstly, develop a socialization strategy to promote its appropriation by various actors, create spaces for exchange, transparency, and participation, encourage the commitment of urban actors, and involve the provinces and municipalities. This strategy envisions broad communication and dissemination initiatives, national urban forums, agreements with provinces and municipalities, prioritization workshops, and open government practices and tools linked to information and communication technologies. Secondly, the document proposes a review of the background and identification of actors linked to the nine NUP axes13 and contemplates gathering information related to current policies, plans, programmes, and projects, as well as the national regulatory framework. Thirdly, it suggests three implementation strategies aimed at different levels of government, accompanied by examples of good international practices: (1) an integral approach to access to housing; (2) an approach built on urban planning and territorial planning, risk management, and the environmental regulation of the territory; (3) and continuous training programmes in sustainable urban management. These strategies address some thematic axes. In coordination with the provinces and municipalities, as well as other actors, the national government will push forward 13  The nine axes are (1) Integral Management, Urban Planning, and Territorial Planning; (2) Integrated Mobility and Transport; (3) Integrated Urban Infrastructure and Equipment; 4) Access to Urban Land and Socio-housing Equity; (5) Competitive and Inclusive Economic Development; (6) Environmental Management, Resilience, and Climate Change; (7) Effective Local Governance; (8) Sustainable Local Finance; and (9) Empowerment of the Community. Each of these axes contains a number of different policy guidelines, possible instruments for their implementation, and a description of the key actors involved. In addition, each guideline proposes a series of strategies for the involvement of the different levels of government in the short, medium, and long term.

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with the development of new strategies according to the needs, availability of resources, and priorities to be addressed. Fourthly, the Action Plan highlights monitoring, evaluating, and updating NUP strategies as the instruments of management and fundamental decision-making in the implementation process. In this sense, it raises the need to establish systems of urban indicators and encourage the development of national and local observatories. As such, it grants a key role to the Federal Urban Observatory, as well as other monitoring instances at the different levels of government, in connection with the Cities Prosperity Initiative (CPI) developed in several countries. Likewise, it suggests a tentative timeline for the execution of National Urban Forums, the revision of the National Urban Policy, the signing of provincial and municipal agreements, the holding of awareness-raising workshops, and the implementation of the Action Plan’s strategies. 5.2   Conclusion. The Limits and Outcomes of the NUP In 2016, on the occasion of Habitat III, a new instrument promoted by the United Nations, the NUP, burst onto the scene. The NUP arose as a means for Argentina to present itself to the international community as a country willing to adopt measures that had been inspired by criteria shared by other states and regional and international organizations. However, there are multiple reasons why the NUP was in practice limited to being an exercise with no impact on Argentine planning, despite the fact that it was an initiative that involved enormous economic expenditure for the national government of a country repeatedly beset by a serious situation of poverty and indebtedness. We found a series of limits in terms of both policy design and policy implementation of the NUP, which limited the potential application and institutionalization of the instrument. In particular, in terms of policy design we focused on the complex horizontal and vertical policy coordination and the limited policy innovation and learning. Regarding horizontal and vertical coordination, the presence of a super partes actor (UN-Habitat) managed to promote a consensus-building process based on the creation of an inter-ministerial arena for exchange and debate (Advisory Council) with the aim of setting the objectives and guidelines of the urban policy in a participatory manner. Nevertheless, due to the bureaucratic personalism typical of the Argentine public administration, the usual consequence of which is a factional competition between

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government agencies competent in the same area of planning, the NUP did not manage to go beyond the technical-administrative sphere of its creation. This is a common dynamic in Argentina that hampers the process of designing and implementing public policies and the possibility of coordination and collaboration between state bodies. Although other ministries and ministerial agencies were involved in the design of the document, they had a passive role (mainly data provision).14 In addition, the lead secretary in charge of the elaboration of the NUP (Secretaría de Infraestructura Urbana) was not that of urban and territorial planning (Secretaría de Planificación Territorial y Coordinación de la Obra Pública). Therefore, the PET 2018 and the NUP did not mutually feedback in terms of content and possible coordination due to the absence of communication between the competent state agencies. This deepened the scenario of fragmentation in planning, despite the fact that both instruments did not conflict in technical terms. These design process’ characteristics were unsuitable for policy innovation and learning. A problem that emerges in terms of implementation is how the drafted document enters the national political agenda, in which UN-Habitat has a limited capacity to affect the national political process. We identify three obstacles that prevented an effective policy implementation of the NUP: the lack of distinctness regarding (a) the governmental agency in charge of its development, (b) the sources of funding and economic feasibility to implement it, and (c) the regulatory instruments and legal framework to institutionalize it. As the NUP has never been enshrined in law, political changes in future administrations might jeopardize any possible future prospect for its implementation. Moreover, in the Argentinean case, the end of the drafting of the document coincided with national elections. This coincidence limited interest in the NUP in favour of the electoral campaign. Following the political change after the elections, the NUP has neither been adopted. After the change of government in 2019,15 the NUP had no continuity within the state sphere because the sub-secretariat that designed it was dissolved. Presumably, the new administration did not find any incentive to seek the

14  Similarly, the civil society organizations and private actors were involved in the process, but their decision-making capacity was limited. 15  Alberto Fernández, presidential candidate for the Macri’s government political opponent electoral coalition Frente de Todos, was elected.

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institutionalization of the NUP through a national law, or at least discuss it or reform it, resulting in a step backwards in terms of planning. To sum up, the NUP elaboration experience constitute a lost opportunity both in terms of economic and human resources spent by the Argentinean Government and as a precious occasion for finally institutionalizing urban and territorial planning in Argentina. Although the PET represented a strategy to create an urban and territorial federal planning culture and instrument in Argentina, the NUP represents a step backwards with respect to such progress.

6  Epilogue: Challenges of Urban Agendas in the Face of the Pandemic Although the NUA foresees all problems and factors affecting urbanization, it does not foresee the possibility of a global pandemic, with its consequent restrictions on movement. The impact on cities has been paramount, with the collapse of urban economies. This is especially true for cities relying on tourism, and a higher rate of contagion and death was reported in dense cities and overcrowded neighbourhoods (UN-Habitat 2021). It is evident that in global terms the NUA is missing a key aspect. As a response to this reality, the whole system of the United Nations and bilateral banks reacted by adjusting their technical and financial mechanisms to minimize damage. Regional conferences, webinars, and publications have multiplied, each seeking to identify key areas for intervention. A warning issued by ECLAC (2021) notably pointed out that Latin American countries face a dangerous dilemma, between adjusting their national budget to allocate more resources to support the public health system (which is under serious threat of collapse) and minimizing the budget assigned to environment, the original cause of the pandemic. The recommendation is to maintain and even increase their budgets to protect and monitor the fulfilment of environmental law, as the pandemic is understood as a direct predecessor to the coming climate change process, which is likely to have an even greater impact on urban and regional management in the region. Such clear linkages of urban and metropolitan plans with the environment are clearly an area demanding further development in the NUA, in order to address the challenges associated with post-­ COVID demands. However, in practice, the aforementioned limited progress in key areas of national urban policies and urban and territorial

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frameworks, among others, has demonstrated that although these are valid points, there is a need for a radical and rapid shift to really respond to the scale and speed of the coming problems. On the governance issue, UN-Habitat has produced a handbook advising local governments on how to deal with the pandemic (UN-Habitat 2021). This handbook summarizes some of the evidence collected on the effect of COVID-19 at the municipal level, proposing systematic change to deal with challenges that are aligned with the principles of NUA, while paying special attention to protecting the most vulnerable populations. The handbook provides guidance on urban design and planning to both minimize contagious disease and protect the local economy by offering alternative ways to keep informal activities and social services operating, notably during lockdown. On the other hand, it also presents a clear way forward for municipalities, providing step-by-step milestones to design an early recovery plan, one conceived to take advantage of the emergency to push for the greater fulfilment of human rights through special subsidies and social protection networks. Such actions make sense in the context of the “building back better” philosophy—cornerstone of the resilience principle—and developing the capacity to adapt to contingencies. Resilience and sustainability are two principles that United Nations agencies see as fundamental and must be introduced into urban design and planning practices. Another relevant piece of work produced by the Interamerican Development Bank contributed to learning from how cities—and particularly informal settlements—responded to the challenges created by pandemic (IADB 2020). The publication offered a systematic revision in the cities of the region of governmental and non-governmental initiatives to address challenges created by COVID on a daily basis, but also with very interesting actions seeking to take advantage and introduce the issue of sustainability and resilience in the long term. One of the study’s clear messages is the enormous reservoir of solidarity-driven community practices reported in cities of all sizes and geographies. The report emphasizes their importance as the most sustainable and efficient way to cope with a pandemic, but also how to use a pandemic to pave the way for the necessary radical changes that NUA sought to introduce before the pandemic. A detailed analysis of these practices pointed out programmes in informal settlements as key to sustainable and systematic change, insofar as they are able to count on the initiative of local residents. Food distribution programmes, health insurance, the expansion of housing and infrastructure,

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microbusiness as a pillar of local economic recovery, exclusive bicycle lanes, waste collection cooperatives remodelled as recycling enterprises, bioclimatic housing design transformed into energy-efficient initiatives, and biodiversity through urban reforestation—these are just some of the many initiatives present in the report, which opens new windows onto a post-pandemic future aligned with the principles of the NUA. It is still early to say how far humanity has grasped the necessary facts to reorientate its urban policies towards sustainability and resilience. However, contrary to the events which followed Habitat I and II, in the case of Habitat III there is no doubt that the pandemic set the stage for humanity to understand the need for change.

References Catenazzi, A., E. Reese, and A. Mango. 2020. Argentina 20 years of habitat II: The pending subjects. In Urban policy in Latin America: Towards the sustainable development goals? ed. M.  Cohen, M.  Carrizosa, and M.  Gutman. New York, NY: Routledge. Corti, M. 2008. El Plan Estratégico Territorial y la construcción de la Argentina deseada. La búsqueda de consensos para el despliegue territorial de la inversión pública. Café de las ciudades. https://cafedelasciudades.com.ar/planes_ 66_2.htm. ECLAC/MINURVI/UN-Habitat. 2018. Regional action plan for the implementation of the new urban agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean (2016–2036). Printed at United Nations. Santiago de Chile with permission from ECLAC. ECLAC. 2021. The prolongation of the health crisis and its impact on health, the economy and social development. COVID-19 Report ECLAC-PAHO. Santiago: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Government of Argentina, Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services. 2008. Plan Estratégico Territorial (PET), avance I. Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Planificación Federal, Inversión Pública y Servicios, Subsecretaría de Planificación Territorial de la Inversión Pública. Government of Argentina, Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment, and Services. 2011. Plan Estratégico Territorial Avance II: Argentina Urbana. Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Planificación Federal, Inversión Pública y Servicios, Subsecretaría de Planificación Territorial de la Inversión Pública. Government of Argentina, Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services of Argentina. 2004. Argentina 2016: Política y Estrategia Nacional de Desarrollo y Ordenamiento Territorial. Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Planificación

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Federal, Inversión Pública y Servicios, Subsecretaría de Planificación Territorial de la Inversión Pública. ———. 2015. Plan Estratégico Territorial (PET), avance III. Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Planificación Federal, Inversión Pública y Servicios, Subsecretaría de Planificación Territorial de la Inversión Pública. Government of Argentina, Ministry of Interior, Public Works and Housing. 2018. Plan Estratégico Territorial Argentina, Avance 2018. Buenos Aires: Ministerio del Interior, Obras Públicas y Vivienda, Secretaría de planificación territorial y coordinación de obra pública. IADB. 2020. ¿Como se están preparando las ciudades en América Latina y el Caribe para una reapertura ante el COVID-19?. Retrieved from https://publications. iadb.org/es/como-­se-­estan-­preparando-­las-­ciudades-de-­america-latina-y-elcaribe-­para-­una-­reapertura-­ante-­el. Muzzini, E., B.  Eraso Puig, S.  Anapolsky, T.  Lonnberg, and V.  Mora. 2016. Leveraging the potential of Argentine cities: A framework for policy action. Directions in development. Washington, DC: World Bank. OECD/UN-Habitat/UNOPS. 2021. Global state of national urban policy 2021: Achieving sustainable development goals and delivering climate action. Pairs: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/96eee083-­en. Reese, E. 2006. La situación actual de la gestión urbana y la agenda de las ciudades en la Argentina. Enfoques urbanos. Svampa, M. 2015. Commodities consensus: Neoextractivism and enclosure of the commons in Latin America. The South Atlantic Quarterly 114 (1): 65–82. UN-Habitat. 2014. The evolution of national urban policies. A global overview, UN-habitat publishing, united nations human settlements programme, Nairobi: UN-Habitat. https://unhabitat.org/the-­evolution-­of-­national-­ urbanpolicies#:~:text=More%20than%20half%20of%20the,planned%20 or%20they%20simply%20spread. ———. 2018. Política Nacional Urbana Argentina. Nairobi: UN-Habitat. https://unhabitat.org/node/142220. ———. 2020. Monitoring and evaluating national urban policy: A guide. Nairobi: Un-Habitat. https://unhabitat.org/monitoring-­and-­evaluating-­national-urbanpolicy-­a-­guide. ———. 2021. Cities and pandemics: Towards a more just, green and healthy future. Nairobi.: UN-Habitat. https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2021/03/ cities_and_pandemics-­towards_a_more_just_green_and_healthy_future_un-­ habitat_2021.pdf. UN-Habitat/OECD. 2018. Global state of national urban policy. Paris: OECD Publishing/Nairobi: United Nations Human Settlements Programme. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264290747-­en.

CHAPTER 7

The Federal Urban Agenda in Brazil: Democratization and Politicization of Planning Practice Maurizio Pioletti and Veridiana Dalla Vecchia

1   Introduction In the Federative Republic of Brazil, the population is more than 210 million inhabitants (IBGE online)1 and 87% of it is urban (IBGE 2019). The strong urbanization trend, pushed by industrialization and by demographic explosion, is due to the extremely limited implementation of the agrarian reform that has been permanently causing rural dwellers to migrate towards urban areas (Veiga 2001; Silva 2002; Martins 2003, p. 178). In fact, urban Brazil grew with a proportion of more than 400% from 1960 to 2010 (IBGE 2010). 1

 https://www.ibge.gov.br/apps/populacao/projecao/index.html.

M. Pioletti (*) Polytechnic University of Turin, Turin, Italy email: [email protected] V. Dalla Vecchia Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_7

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Brazilian federalism is tripartite and is organized into three levels of government: federal, state and municipal. It results from a process of just partial devolution of power (Franzese 2010): no regional level was established, and a considerable proportion of public investments is generated at the federal level of government, which, by doing so, is able to politically influence the states and the municipalities. After the military dictatorship (1976–1983), when the democratization process began, the official approval of the Federal Constitution (FC) in 1988 provided state and municipal governments with more autonomy in managing public policies and public budgets. Although Brazilian federalism has oscillated between moments of greater and lesser centralization (Souza 2002), the municipalities became the main responsible authorities for ensuring minimum conditions of social welfare. Since no national standard of social policies was imposed and regional inequalities were structural (Bachur 2005), this municipalization process had different rhythms and priorities. Nevertheless, since the mid-1990s, the federal government has set national public policy standards and increased coordination among federative entities (Franzese 2010). An urban agenda was progressively introduced to respond to several social needs expressed in urban areas. This was in consequence of decades of massive rural-urban migration, rapid urbanization and urban growth, deep social and economic inequality and environmental conflicts. A consumer middle class had been considerably growing with the economy from the 1980s until 2014. This agenda has been developing simultaneously at the federal, state and municipal levels and has been supported by a strong institutional and legal framework. This framework has been especially evident since 2003, with the establishment of the Party of Workers (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) in the federal government (President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 2003–2010, and Dilma Rousseff, 2011–2016). Several wide reforms and measures have been introduced. In order to strengthen democracy, social justice and equality and to mitigate environmental impacts, these provisions have aimed to comply with the objectives of the so-called urban reform. This mainly consists of the regularization of land tenure in the low-income neighbourhoods and informal settlements. A range of specific planning tools addressed to land use and urban development were introduced and implemented. Relevant changes in housing policy orientation occurred especially thanks to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government, with its highly increased amount of dedicated funds. Nevertheless, both the

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number of idle buildings and the cost of rents have remained excessively high in the central urban neighbourhoods, with a consequent increasing number of settlements in environmentally fragile areas on the outskirts and the segregation of low-income groups far from districts where services and workplaces are concentrated (Klink and Rolnik 2011). In 2016 Dilma Rousseff, the last president of the Party of Workers, was impeached for the so-called Lava Jato judicial inquiry and the Petrobras business, one of the biggest cases of corruption in Brazil (Veiga et  al. 2020). After that, with the governments of Michel Temer (2016–2018) and Jair Bolsonaro (2019–), most of the reforms and measures introduced by the Party of Workers have been in a process of dismantling. With Temer, the first set of neoliberal measures was introduced, paving the way to the establishment in 2019 of Bolsonaro who is currently president of the extreme right (Junior et al. 2020). This political change has represented a strong turn towards conservatism and deconstructed the right to the city, abolishing social and redistributive measures, limiting the democratic practice and social participation in public policies and deepening social injustice and inequalities. In particular, their action has affected housing, land tenure, water and sanitation management, urban mobility, cooperative metropolitan governance, revenues, culture, public spaces and diversities (Junior et al. 2020). In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has been dramatically worsening urban living conditions, with overcrowded hospitals, abuses of power by the police, unemployment and hunger. The spread of the virus and the huge number of victims (619,334 people on December 31, 2021, STATISTA online)2 has been out of control and exacerbated by the federal government’s negligence and a sequence of actions based on minimizing the severity of the pandemic. A scientific report by the University of São Paulo (CEPEDISA and Conectas 2021) identified 3049 legal rules and political discourses announced by Bolsonaro’s government during the pandemic. It showed that the federal policy in facing the pandemic was so ineffective because the priority was to favour businesses and not to care about the virus’ impacts. This has been caused by an evident lack of public territorial control not only in urban areas but also in forested areas, such as the Amazon and Pantanal, where the deforestation rate has been dramatically increasing. Indigenous and traditional local communities have

2

 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107028/brazil-covid-19-cases-deaths/.

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been left at high risk, both for the environmental deregulation and for the lack of effective implementation measures to tackle the pandemic. With these premises, this chapter discusses the political role of urban policies in the Brazilian democratization process by distinguishing the period of the Workers’ party governments from the current neoliberal and conservative phase. The period of the Workers’ party was extremely rich in the public policy provision. It is presented focusing on the role of urban planning, especially in complying with the right to land and housing, housing policy, metropolitan governance and planning. A separate section is dedicated to the environment and public health policy. The current period is characterized by the implementation of several neoliberal measures and the dismantling of numerous social and environmental policies.

2   Agenda as a Political Issue In Brazil, the urban agenda (Table 7.1) has had a wider social and political impact than in other countries and has been strictly connected with the national urban reform, which has mainly focused on the social function of urban landed property and cities,3 the recognition of the right to land for slum dwellers and the citizens’ direct participation in urban policy-­making. In this sense, cities must be considered as the sum of all the urban landed properties (and related uses) and are supposed to accomplish the social function as a whole. Since the 1960s, social movements have demanded access to housing, welfare and urban services as well as equality as priorities of the political and developmental agendas. The National Urban Reform Forum (Fórum Nacional de Reforma Urbana) was created in 1987  in order to unify the multiple initiatives proposed by urban movements which had been disorganized and fragmented until that moment. This Forum promoted the Constitutional Amendment of Popular Initiative (Emenda Constitucional de Iniciativa 3  In Latin America, the principle of the social function of property was included in several democratic constitutions and has represented the legal basis for the agrarian and urban reforms. According to León Duguit, a French jurist, the owner has to make properties productive and the state should protect property only when social function is fulfilled. If an owner does not accomplish that, the state should encourage to accomplish or to punish him/ her, using such tools as taxation and expropriation (Foster and Bonilla 2011).

Table 7.1  Brazilian urban policy since the return of democracy Presidency

Year

1985–1990 José Sarney (PMDB)a

1987 Popular Initiative Constitutional Amendment and creation of a National Urban Reform Forum composed of civil society actors 1988 Adoption of the Federal Constitution, with two chapters on urban issues 1991 Presentation of the National Social Housing Fund bill

1990–1992 Fernando Collor (PRN)b 1995–2003 Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB)c 2003–2011 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT)d

2011–2016 Dilma Rousseff (PT)

2016–2019 Michel Temer (PMDB) 2019–… Jair Bolsonaro (PSL, PL)e

Provision

2001 Launch of the urban Federal Law, namely the City Statute

2003 Establishment of the Ministry of Cities 2004 Institutionalization of the National Cities Council and creation of the National Programme of land tenure regularization 2005 Institutionalization of the Regulatory Framework for environmental reclamation 2005 Approval of the Social Housing National Fund and the National Campaign for participatory master plans 2007 Launch of the Growth Acceleration Programme 2009 Launch of the Minha Casa, Minha Vida federal programme 2009 Definition of the National Policy of the Climate Change 2010 Launch of Solid Waste National Plan 2011 Creation of the National Centre for Monitoring and Alerts for Natural Disasters 2012 Establishment of the National Policy of Protection and Civil Defence 2014 Launch of National Basic Sanitation Plan 2015 Approval of the Metropolitan Statute 2016 Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff 2017 Temer’s neoliberal reform on land and housing tenure and regularization 2019 Institutional and policy dismantling leading to impeding collaborative sustainable urban development and environmental protection, including forests and indigenous territories 2020 Approval of a law enabling the privatization of public water management companies

Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro, Brazilian Democratic Movement Party Partido da Reconstrução Nacional, National Reconstruction Party c Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, Brazilian Social Democracy Party d Partido dos Trabalhadores, Workers Party e Partido Social Liberal, Partido Liberal, Social Liberal Party, Liberal Party a

b

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Popular de Reforma Urbana) that included several innovations. Bassul (2010) reported a list of 14 items (pp.  77–78). Hereafter, they are reported: 1. management of cities; 2. the possibility of public authorities expropriating urban properties (with payments in public debt bonds) in order to produce social housing, with the exception of homes occupied by their owners, who would be eligible to receive prior full compensation (in cash); 3. property value capture arising from investment of public funds; 4. popular initiatives and vetoing of laws; 5. the possibility, in the absence of regulatory federal law, of directly applying a constitutional norm on the basis of a court decision; 6. public authorities failing to comply with constitutional precepts to be subject to penal and civil action; 7. pre-eminence given to urban rights on the basis of instruments such as progressive property taxes, a property appreciation tax, preferential rights, expropriation, description of public land, designation of buildings of heritage importance, a special urban and environmental protection regime, Real Right of Use Concession and Compulsory Parcelling and Building; 8. separation between ownership and building rights; 9. special usucapion for housing purposes, a form of adverse possession, applied to public and private land; 10. the right to housing based on public policies ensuring urbanization and tenure regularization, housing programmes to enable people to purchase or rent their own homes, maximum limits fixed for basic rents, technical assistance and provision of non-reimbursable funds from local budgets; 11. state control of indices applied to rent adjustments and adjustments to be valid for a minimum period of 12 months without adjustments; 12. a state monopoly introduced to provide public services and ban taxpayer-subsidized private sector outsourced services; 13. the establishment of a public transport fund to subsidize fares amounting to over 6% of minimum monthly wages; 14. popular participation in the elaboration and implementation of a “land use and occupation plan” and procedures in the legislature before its approval.

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At the end of the constituent process, the Amendment was only partially approved. Neither the social movements nor the business community were completely satisfied. First, the movements were disappointed because the principle of social function of property was made subject to a federal provision. The federal government in turn set out urban policy guidelines making that principle conditional on the issuance of municipal Master Plans, with a top-down approach. Second, important business organizations—like the São Paulo State Federation of Industries—declared not to agree with the urban usucapion, one of the innovations introduced by the Constitution (Maricato 1988). The new FC (1988) and the City Statute-CS (2001)4 represent the first two milestones of this process. With the CS, new urban planning and legislative systems have been introduced in order to claim: the constitutional recognition of the autonomy of municipal government, the democratic management of cities, the social right to housing, the regularization of informal settlement, the social function of property and the contrast to urban real estate speculation. Civil society and the government promoted participation at all levels. In particular, Lula’s Government organized numerous public conferences at the municipal and national levels, aimed at promoting youth policies, racial equality, senior citizens’ rights, cultural policy, women’s rights, the rights of the disabled, children and adolescents’ rights, health, environment and public security. Nevertheless, this wide-ranging and broad-based participatory effort does not seem to have significantly transformed the quality of democracy, nor reduced the level of exclusion. In the same period, the rise of neoliberal globalization deepened urban poverty and inequalities first in the “peripheries of capitalism” (Maricato 2010). While the welfare state was being dismissed in many developed countries, Brazil experienced an atmosphere of great excitement and expectations due to the outcomes of neoliberal public policies. Nevertheless, the public debt expanded and interest payments drained off substantial public resources to the benefit of the financial markets.

4  Estatuto da Cidade, Federal Law 10.257/2001. CS is the overall federal urban planning law.

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3  The Lula and Dilma Age: Building Democracy 3.1   The Political Role of Urban Planning: The City Statute In 2001, the CS was approved. It is the federal urban planning law, based on the art. 182 and 183 of the FC,5 which thereby established political and social rules to regulate the use of the urban property. Since its promulgation, the urban issue has moved to the centre of the political debate and has entered the political federal agenda. Most of the public policies stemming from the constitutional provisions were defined and implemented during Lula’s (2003–2010) and Dilma’s (2011–2016) governments. In 2003, the Ministry of Cities (Ministério das Cidades) was created to define and implement urban policies, together with the Conference of Cities (Conferência das Cidades, 2003) and the Council of Cities (Conselho das Cidades, 2004).6 The Ministry of Cities was responsible for the design, management and financing of urban development policy and such sectoral policies as housing, environmental sanitation and urban mobility. It included the National Secretariat for Regional and Urban Development (Secretaria Nacional de Desenvolvimento Regional e Urbano) that supported municipalities in local development and planning with a specific focus on property rights and the management of settlements in risk areas (Kühner et al. 2021). The Ministry of Cities organized the Conferences of Cities at the municipal and state levels in order to define a national policy for the municipalities dealing with housing, sanitation, urban programmes, mobility, participation and public management. The Council of Cities represents an important tool for the democratic management of the Urban Development National Policy. This council is a deliberative and consultative body of the Ministry of Cities, aimed at 5  The municipal urban development policy aims to set the full development of the social functions of cities and ensure people’s well-being. The municipal Master Plan is compulsory for cities of over 20,000 inhabitants, and it is the basic tool of the urban development and expansion policy (art. 182). Possession of an urban plot (up to 250 square meters), for five years, without interruption or opposition, for family residential use is converted into the property, if no other urban or rural properties are owned by the possessor (art. 183). 6  https://antigo.mdr.gov.br/conselho-das-cidades/mocoes-concidades/108-conselho-­ das-cidades/conferencia-das-cidades/1570-1o-conferencia-das-cidades. https://www.gov. br/mdr/pt-br/composicao/orgaos-colegiados/conselho-das-cidades-concidades.

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defining and implementing the Urban Development National Policy. It ensures the active participation of different stakeholders and civil society in the decisions taken by the Ministry.7 The CS promotes the social function of the urban landed property and the city, the fair distribution of the costs and benefits of urbanization and the democratic management of the city (Rodrigues and Barbosa 2010). The high added value of the CS consists in a strategic and integrated vision of urban development. It provides guidelines for good urban management and national, fiscal and legal regulation, as well as informal land tenure regularization, social participation, municipal budgets, public and private partnerships. In order to control the strong urban expansion, in 2012 the CS was modified, foreseeing that the municipalities oriented to the enlargement of the urban perimeter will have to elaborate a specific project for the new settlements. Furthermore, the Inter-ministerial Ordinance 17 (27/6/2014)8 established the Inter-sectoral Commission of Urban Land Conflict Mediation (Comissão Intersetorial de Mediação de Conflitos Fundiários Urbanos), aimed towards defining peaceful solutions for conflicts involving low-income families or vulnerable social groups. Regarding the distribution of public power, the CS strengthened the concepts of autonomy and devolution, introduced by the FC.  It gave municipalities the competence to define the use and the occupation of the urban land and placed at the forefront the social function of properties: urban land tenure and democratic government of cities had to be combined, in order to ensure the right to adequate housing and the right to the city for all the urban dwellers (Maricato 2010). At that time, Ribeiro and Cardoso (2003) discussed the concept of “politicized planning”, that is, a new concept of planning and management, a new methodology for the elaboration of new instruments. The plan had to include a map of stakeholders, and the federative pact among federation, states and municipalities was used for urban democratic management. As a result of the political debate, participation in public policies, a new planning approach and the inclusion of the informal city in planning and urban policies were introduced. 7  https://www.gov.br/mdr/pt-br/composicao/orgaos-colegiados/conselho-dascidades-concidades. 8  Portaria Interministerial no 17, de 27 de junho de 2014. https://www.in.gov.br/web/ guest/materia/-/asset_publisher/Kujr w0TZC2Mb/content/id/30057892/ do1-2014-07-07-portaria-interministerial-n-17-de-27-de-junho-de-2014-30057888.

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Participation was considered the main driver of the democratization of public policies. It dealt with social inclusion and reduction of inequalities and resulted in some participatory budgeting experiences, municipal conferences and participatory master plan definition, but also public debates and public audiences. For the first time, the elaboration of municipal master plans was made compulsory in municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants. In the elaboration of Master Plans, the conceptualization and demarcation of Special Social Interest Zones (Zona Especial de Interesse Social, ZEIS)—a tool introduced by the City Statute—was based on the identification of the urban parameters to define substandard settlements that would have been included in the zoning. In the case of ZEIS already occupied by precarious settlements, the main concern was to include all the dwellers in the delimitation. In fact, ZEIS demarcation had to ensure land tenure to its inhabitants, although such was not explicit. Greater difficulties arose when assigning the ZEIS label to vacant areas, to earmark those available for social housing. The main problem was how to define parameters according to which people in specific income brackets were eligible to be housed, the potential uses for the area, the sizes of plots and individual dwellings. In some cases, public authorities underestimated the number of ZEIS really needed. In some others, areas with economic interests were not demarcated, causing conflict (Rodrigues and Barbosa 2010). 3.2   Urban Planning, Right to Land and Housing As already said, the FC and the CS demanded the municipal master plans to ensure the social function of cities. The plans transferred complementary municipal laws the task of defining tools for the social function, but often they are not approved (Maricato 2010). Nevertheless, states should ensure the attribution of buildings’ titles to low-income people living in precarious settlements throughout the legitimation of possession, as a fundamental means for the land tenure regularization (Moraes 2012). The traditional land use right determined a conflict between the formal and informal city, and the CS promoted legislation not always able to provide affordable solutions to social needs (Melo 2008). Nevertheless, urban regularization is fundamental, because the lack of infrastructures in numerous informal settlements prevents total access to water, sewerage, public lighting, pavement and other urban services. In the case of private buildings in urban areas, art. 183 of the FC states that, with up to 250  m2

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occupied as housing for five consecutive years, without time interruptions and other people’s oppositions, it is possible to obtain housing tenure if the occupant is not the owner of other buildings. If the occupation occurs in public land, based on the Provisional Measure n. 2.220/2001,9 the “real right to use” may be granted by means of a contract between the state and the occupants. Further, the CS introduced the community usucapion option which is similar to the real concession of collective use. These juridical tools of the urban policy are combined with planning tools, such as the ZEIS delimitation, the expropriation for social interest as well as the “pre-emption right” of the state and the “surface rights”. Moreover, in case of unauthorized private buildings in public areas that are not occupied by low-income families with an overt social need, the land property regularization should not be granted. Therefore, the auction process should be adopted to set the highest price for the occupied land and thereby maximize the public interest for the public land transfer (Fernandes 2011). On the contrary, low-income families actually required public aid, and in 2009, Law 11.97710 introduced the Minha Casa Minha Vida (MCMV) programme. It created mechanisms to incentivize the construction and purchase of new housing units or the retrofit of urban (or rural) buildings for families having a low monthly salary (at that time it had to be lower than 4650.00 Reais). It also introduced the legitimation of the possession as a registrable tenure. Throughout the registration, the possession (de facto) is converted into the right (de iure), with the purpose of housing, in favour of the direct possession holder. After five years the possession can be converted into the property, based on the usucapion mechanism (art. 183 of the FC and arts. 9 and following provisions of the CS, related to the usucapion, art. 60). In the 2000s, the economic boom pushed the social inclusion process, based on the increase of the formal employment, the revaluation of the minimum salary, the guaranteed minimum income, through aids to families (Bolsa Família) and several sectoral programmes of great social impact. At that moment it seemed that the country would be able to continue investing and promoting state and private entrepreneurship, thereby 9  Medida Provisória n° 2.220, de 4 de setembro de 2001. It deals with the provision of the special use (art. 183 of the FC), the creation of the National Council of Urban Development (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Urbano, CNDU). 10  Lei n° 11.977, de 7 de julho de 2009, on the Minha Casa Minha Vida programme and the land regularization of urban settlements.

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increasing consumption. From this perspective, a Keynesian programme of public investments (Growth Acceleration Plan-Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento, PAC) was approved in 2007, but these investments were realized with a traditional urban development approach, supporting private mobility, real estate speculation, urban sprawl, house ownership and public works by big companies, favouring the middle class. Despite such big programmes for urban and housing development as MCMV, urban problems have remained: housing and sanitation deficit, an increase of the land rent and purchase prices, the rise of gated communities, the loss of green areas, the occupation of idle lands and buildings, excessive commuting distances (Bonduki 2016, pp. 79–80). MCMV financed wide housing construction with a significant proportion of private investments. It provided access to property housing for lowincome families through the assignment of grants. Since it offered direct incentives to construct new buildings, it was a very attractive programme for both foreign and national real estate developers. In fact, it allowed rapid building and at reduced costs, fast profits, a short average time to realize the construction, sale and cash (seven months), limited taxation. In 2011, the second phase of the aforementioned programme was launched to invest in urban improvements, management, lighting, transportation and energy. However, the results attained were questionable. Especially between 2009 and 2015, it was possible to observe that the raised gated communities and social housing structures produced by MCMV reinforced urban sprawl and segregation. Contrary to the necessary land and housing regulation, to maximize private profit, local governments made the legislation flexible and expanded the urban boundaries including agricultural lands, especially in mid-sized cities. As a result, the square metre price of building increased as well as the price of rents, becoming unsustainable for many families (SECOVI-SP 2017; Maricato et al. 2018). Such events as the protests in June 2013 showed that advantages brought by Lula’s governments, that is, economic growth, an increase in the minimum wage and political stability, did not result in an effective general and integrated improvement of the urban conditions. In some areas, improvements were registered in terms of accessibility and healthiness of informal settlements. In others, relevant investments were made in the infrastructure for private mobility or such mega-events as the World Football Championship and the Olympic Games, definitively deviating from the efforts and goals originally centred on participatory urban and social development.

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3.3   Metropolitan Governance and Planning Regarding metropolitan institutionalization, since the FC has demanded the state governments to create the metropolitan regions, numerous municipalities have been afraid to weaken their federative autonomy and take charge of the costs of the interinstitutional integration. In 2004, a Federal Law draft combining all the rules concerning metropolitan development, originally entitled “National Policy on the Urban Regional Planning” (Política Nacional de Planejamento Regional Urbano), was presented. Since then, the political, institutional and technical debate had lasted a decade, and finally, in 2015, the Metropolitan Statute11 was approved. It introduced compulsory metropolitan planning, the Integrated Urban Development Plan (Plano de Desenvolvimento Urbano Integrado) and derivative macro-zoning and financial funds. It also provided criteria for federal support to actions based on the inter-federative governance in urban development. Regarding the role of the state, state legislation defines the institutionalization process of metropolitan regions, the Public Functions of Common Interest (Funções Públicas de Interesse Comum), metropolitan governance configuration, the consultative and/or deliberative councils that would support this management and the metropolitan management financing (Costa et al. 2010). Unfortunately, since Temer’s establishment, the obligation of producing metropolitan plans has been removed, making the Brazilian metropolitan policy devoid of the main implementation tool.

4  Temer and Bolsonaro: Dismantling the Public Action Since the impeachment of Dilma in 2016 and the establishment of Temer’s government, followed by Bolsonaro’s in 2019, a drastic change in the orientation of all the Brazilian public policies has occurred. For the sake of brevity, we will present only the most impacting ones within the urban agenda framework. They deal with the national governance of cities and housing and with land tenure. Regarding the national governance of cities and housing, in the middle of the 6th Cycle of Conferences on Cities and near to the realization of the 11  Estatuto da Metrópole, Federal Law 13.089/2015 on metropolitan governance and planning.

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National Conference, the Temer Government published the Decree 9.076/2017,12 stating the retirement of the power to announce and organize the Conference of the National Council of Cities and postponed the 6th National Conference in 2019. This was considered as a lack of respect for democratically elected entities, which were part of the Council and threatening the popular participation system and the democratic management, foreseen in the CS. In addition to that, the Bolsonaro government abolished the Ministry of Cities, whose functions are currently embodied by the Ministry of Regional Development. Urban policy is being shaped by a neoliberal economic orientation, and the institutional apparatus— which has been governing urban democratization for long—has been dismantled with evident strong social and political consequences. In particular, regarding housing, the Temer government, supported by real estate companies, reformed the MCMV programme—now called Casa Verde e Amarela programme13—in order to support the financing of upper-level housing categories that are more profitable for the real estate business. According to the National Urban Reform Forum, Bolsonaro kept the programme but the respective national fund is drastically under revision and could be used to contribute to pay the public debt. This clearly implies the exclusion of the slum dwellers from the benefits of any housing policies (Junior et al. 2020). As far as land tenure is concerned, Temer’s government approved Federal Law 13.465/2017.14 According to Sousa (2017), it modified the rural and urban land regularization policy, establishing mechanisms that change the procedures for the disposal of federal buildings. Law 13.465 enables the alienation of public lands, including the ones where settlements have taken place since the Agrarian Reform (art. 17) and comprised the occupied urban area by low-income families. By art. 22, municipalities have transferred the responsibility to manage the land division, but local governments are largely influenced by landlords so a land division based on the Agrarian Reform equality principles cannot be achieved. 12  Decreto n° 9.076, de 7 de junho de 2017. Dispõe sobre a Conferência Nacional das Cidades. 13  https://www.gov.br/mdr/pt-br/assuntos/habitacao/casa-verde-e-amarela. 14  Lei n° 13.465, de 11 de julho de 2017. Dispõe sobre a regularização fundiária rural e urbana, sobre a liquidação de créditos concedidos aos assentados da reforma agrária e sobre a regularização fundiária no âmbito da Amazônia Legal; institui mecanismos para aprimorar a eficiência dos procedimentos de alienação de imóveis da União; […].

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Furthermore, Section II introduces the legal institution of land legitimization (art. 23) throughout a public act. “Land legitimization” consists in “acquiring the real right to property, for the ones having in a public area or possessing in a private area a building with urban function, belonging to an informal urban centre consolidated before the 22nd December 2016”. Furthermore, the Bolsonaro government approved the Federal Law 13.874/2019, namely, the Declaration of Rights of Economic Freedom,15 that minimized public intervention also in decisions concerning urban space, increasingly favouring land grabbing. With the Proposal of Constitutional Amendment 80/2019,16 the extreme right side tried to deregulate the constitutional social function of property, since the restoration of an absolute and individualistic paradigm of the property function, that is, that fact that the social function corresponds to a function of individual interest.

5  Environment Sustainability and Protection In the Brazilian urban agenda, another important point that has not received adequate consideration from local governments concerns the impacts of climate change on metropolitan areas. Extreme climate phenomena in heavily populated urban areas endanger large numbers of people, especially in the most vulnerable urban settlements. Even so, urban environmental planning and actions to combat climate change are still incipient in Brazilian cities, where urban development and environmental sustainability are issues that have only recently been jointly reviewed (Kühner et al. 2021). At the local level, in 2017 only 7 of the more than 5000 Brazilian cities had specific policies for climate change mitigation and adaptation to climate change (Barbi and Ferreira 2017; Barbi 2018): Belo Horizonte (MG), Feira Santana (BA), Palmas (TO), Recife (PE), Rio de Janeiro (RJ), São Paulo (SP) and Fortaleza (CE). Urban environmental sustainability, as well as environmental protection, are priorities defined by the CS. Therefore, they should be included in all the municipal master plans 15  Lei 13.874, de 20 de setembro de 2019. Conversão da Medida Provisória n° 881, de 2019. Institui a Declaração de Direitos de Liberdade Econômica; estabelece garantias de livre mercado; […]. 16  Proposta de Emenda à Constituição n° 80, de 2019. Altera os artigos 182 e 186 da Constituição Federal para dispor sobre a função social da propriedade urbana e rural. https://www25.senado.leg.br/web/atividade/materias/-/materia/136894.

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(Lemos 2010). In 2010, the Solid Waste National Plan (Plano Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos, Federal Law 12.305/2010)17 was approved to promote the correct waste collection and management. Brazilian cities must also respect the two federal laws connecting climate change with urban planning: the Federal Law 12.187/2009, which establishes the National Policy of the Climate Change (Política Nacional sobre Mudança do Clima, PNMC), and the Federal Law 12.608/2012, which establishes the National Policy of Protection and Civil Defence (Política Nacional de Proteção e Defesa Civil, PNPDEC). However, several large cities in Brazil have not explicit orientations and regulations for the implementation of the climate change policy and it is a very complex task to embody scenarios of climate change in the agenda of urban public policies, in terms of both mitigation and adaptation (Espíndola and Ribeiro 2020). This lack also makes it difficult to establish the parameters to assess the contribution to the achievements of the objectives proposed by the Brazilian government in the Paris Agreement (UN Conference of Parties 2015).18 At the national level, some policies have been implemented over the years with relevant influence on the environmental sectors, such as the National Solid Waste Plan and the National Basic Sanitation Plan (Plano Nacional de Saneamento Básico, launched in 2014, as determined by Law 11.445/2007) that together with the Urban Mobility National Plan (Plano Nacional de Mobilidade Urbana, Law 12.587/2012) attempt to address part of the environmental problems of cities. Despite this, the New Sanitation Regulatory Framework (Novo Marco Regulatório do Saneamento, Law n. 14.026/2020), regulating water and sewerage distribution up to 2033, allows the privatization of the water public companies. In 2011, the National Centre for Monitoring and Alerts for Natural Disasters (Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Alertas de Desastres Naturais, CEMADEN) was created. The Centre makes projections of future climate change, assisting managers in making decisions regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. In 2019, the Ministry of Environment presented its National Agenda for Quality Urban Environment (Agenda Nacional de Qualidade

17  Lei N° 12.305, de 2 de agosto de 2010. Institui a Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos; altera a Lei no 9.605, de 12 de fevereiro de 1998; e dá outras providências. 18  https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf.

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Ambiental Urbana),19 focusing on large metropolitan areas. Six areas were identified: sea waste, solid waste, urban green areas, air quality, sanitation and water quality and contaminated areas (MMA 2019a). However, by the beginning of 2020, only the diagnosis and action plan of two topics had been made public: garbage at sea, with the Sea Waste Combat Plan (Plano Nacional de Combate ao Lixo no Mar, MMA 2019b), and solid waste, with the Zero Landfill Programme (Programa Nacional Lixão Zero, MMA 2019c).

6  Conclusion The Brazilian Urban Reform Agenda has focused on the definition and implementation of urban planning and zoning policy for almost all the municipalities, the devolution and municipal federative autonomy, the urban democratic management, with wide participatory decision-making, the tenure regularization of informal settlements through area-based actions (Marconi and Pioletti 2015). This Agenda must be analysed at the various federative levels of government, in different political phases and within different territorial boundaries. It is part of the political discourse at the local, state and national levels but was also embodied in the technical effort of the administrative bodies in charge of urban management and development planning. The main principles stem from the FC, firstly the social function of property, the right to housing and the right to the city. At the international level, the Brazilian debate on the urban issue was recognized as one of the most developed in the Global South, especially for the innovation of progressive urban public policy (Kühner et  al. 2021). Several challenges are mentioned in the Brazilian report for the Third Conference of the United Nations on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development addressed to the New Urban Agenda (2016).20 In analytical terms, the Brazilian “urban agenda” must not be considered as an institutional official provision, nor a technical tool. It is rather a wide arrangement of urban policy initiatives for the whole national country with a wider social and political impact than in other countries and strictly connected with the national urban reform process that started in the 1980s. The social and political effort for the urban reform in the last  https://antigo.mma.gov.br/agenda-ambiental-urbana.html.  https://habitat3.org/the-new-urban-agenda/.

19 20

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decades led to the introduction of a new legal and urban order (Fernandes 2010, p. 144) and is also a historical response to the lack of implementation of any urban reform in the 1950s and 1960s, differently from other LAC countries. Since the beginning of the implementation of the urban agenda, it has been possible to observe a new planning approach substituting the technocratic one used during the military dictatorship, resulting in the democratization and the politicization of planning practice (Silva and Saule Júnior 1993). Despite this, the Brazilian democratic transition occurred throughout a restricted pact, among elites mainly composed of landlords, preserving their economic interests, reproducing the tradition of the individual mandates, articulated in networks and electoral-political organizations closed to the public administration (Avritzer 2003). Public investments in urban development and slum upgrading have represented a powerful electoral means. In fact, allocating a proportion of the public budget to directly face the problem of housing raised the electoral consensus towards political leaders who had promoted such actions (Avelino Filho 1994; Carvalho 1997). In Brazil, land use and occupation are local governments’ responsibilities, while the federal government and partially the state governments control most of the budget for investments in urban areas (Rolnik 2009). Therefore, being the local governments’ control on financial resources rather limited, municipalities are not fully autonomous in leading urban development, nor in terms of the real estate opportunities nor of slum upgrading. Apart from the recent dismantling of the public action, according to the various sources already mentioned so far, it is possible to point out the main issues currently pending in the so-called Brazilian federal urban agenda. They are the following: 1. institutionalizing the Urban Development National Policy, Territorial Planning National Policy and the Regional Development National Policy; 2. ensuring the technical, financial and institutional capacity for urban and territorial planning and management and the services’ provision in all the municipalities and states; 3. promoting the realization of the Multi-objective Technical Cadastres21 in all the municipalities, unifying data on rural areas,  https://www.gov.br/ibama/pt-br/assuntos/servicos/cadastros.

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from the urban territorial platform of the IBGE and the notary public cadastre; 4. strengthening the strategies, incentivizing the articulation of the urban policies for the tools ensuring the social function of property and city; 5. establishing incentives for municipalities to make effective the tools to accomplish the social function of property and city; 6. improving the transparency of the state action at all the levels, as well as participation mechanisms and control of the civil society on the policies; 7. converging private planning tools towards CS principles and procedures; 8. enlarging and qualifying the participation of the local communities throughout the councils of urban development and councils of cities, at all the levels of the federation; 9. implementing the planning tools, to provide urban services and opportunities for all the inhabitants; 10. widening the municipal capacity of land regulation, overall in the sense of compensating deviations and injustice caused by the dynamic of the land market; 11. implementing the environmental management policy for the urban areas according to other urban planning tools; 12. ensuring planning and sustainable urban projects. The economic crisis that has been affecting Brazil since 2014, combined with a strong political crisis that reached its peak with the presidential impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in 2016, caused the arrest and modification of the implementation of public policies defined in the previous decades. The results achieved in the previous years, especially in regulatory terms, suffered from structural changes. The current government seems to be determined to decommission policies previously defined, such as the MCMV programme. This change in political priorities can dramatically affect the urban strategies activated with the establishment of the City Statute and the Ministry of Cities. Social challenges became bigger during the COVID-19 pandemic, and structural decommissioning and deregulation are vital in such areas as the environmental one. Additionally, nowadays, regarding international agreements, Brazil is committing violations of human rights when it comes to adequate housing, with the revocation of the first level of the MCMV that should have

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helped families with 0–3 minimum salaries and where 90% of the Brazilian housing deficit is concentrated. Public services of social assistance and urban infrastructure are made precarious; councils, commissions and any other bodies for civil society participation have been delated (Decree 9.759/2019), impeding collaborative sustainable urban development and environmental protection in general, including the safeguarding of forests and indigenous territories. Violation of the right to life and human dignity is also committed throughout intolerance-based propaganda, stimulating the intensification of land conflicts, as well as discourses promoting hate and violence. Land grabbers are now definitively free to invade rural lands, evicting local communities, based on a legal framework that criminalizes social movements and their leaders. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic that started in March 2020, the economic crisis that had already been affecting the country has worsened. Many people have lost work, and hunger has become again an object of public concern. According to the Network of the Solidary Research in July 2020 (Rede de Pesquisa Solidária 2020), the lack of food security has continued to be the main problem of the most vulnerable people, combined with the increasing use of drugs and conflicts with the police. The increase of domestic violence during the pandemic has also become an issue of public concern. Furthermore, during the pandemic peaks, the main urban areas suffered from the overcrowding of the hospitals also due to the arrivals of patients from underdeveloped areas and the economic arrest. The increasing cost of rents that had largely contributed to the housing deficit in Brazil in the last years has furtherly worsened further during and after the pandemic Gomes and Caldeira (2020), determining the growth of new urban squatter settlements.

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Barbi, F. 2018. Governando as Mudanças Climáticas nas Cidades: Riscos e Respostas Políticas. Diálogos interdisciplinares sobre a Governança Ambiental da Macrometrópole Paulista. FAPESP, maio de 2018. Barbi, F., and L.C. Ferreira. 2017. Governing climate change risks: Subnational climate policies in Brazil. Chinese Political Science Review 2 (2): 237–252. Bassul, J.R. 2010. City statute: Building a law. The city statute: A commentary. São Paulo, Brazil: Ministry of Cities, Cities Alliance, 71–90. Bonduki, N. 2016. Uma nova agenda de desenvolvimento urbano é possível? Um olhar a partir do Brasil. In Geopolítica das cidades: velhos desafios, novos problemas, ed. R. Balbim, 77–96. Brasília: Ipea. Carvalho, J.M. 1997. Mandonismo, coronelismo, clientelismo. Uma discussão conceitual. Dados 40: 2. CEPEDISA and Conectas. 2021. Boletim Direitos na Pandemia—Mapeamento e Análise das Normas Jurídicas de Resposta à Covid-19 no Brasil. Conectas Direitos Humanos e Centro de Pesquisas e Estudos de Direito Sanitário (CEPEDISA) da Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Costa, M.A., M. Matteo, and R. Balbim. 2010. Faces da metropolização no Brasil: desafios contemporâneos na gestão das Regiões Metropolitanas. In Infraestrutura social e urbana no Brasil: subsídios para uma agenda de pesquisa e formulação de políticas públicas, ed. M.P. Morais and M.A. Costa, 641–682. Brasília: Ipea. Espíndola, I.B., and W.C. Ribeiro. 2020. Cidades e mudanças climáticas: desafios para os planos diretores municipais brasileiros. Cadernos Metrópole [online] 22 (48): 365–396. Epub 17 Abr 2020. Fernandes, E. 2010. The city statute and the legal-urban order. The city statute: A commentary. São Paulo: Brazil Ministry of Cities, Cities Alliance, 55–70. ———. 2011. Regularização de Assentamentos Informais na América Latina. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Foster, S., and D. Bonilla. 2011. The social function of property: A comparative law perspective. Fordham Law Review 80 (3): 101–113. Franzese, C. 2010. Federalismo Cooperativo no Brasil: da Constituição de 1988 aos Sistemas de Políticas Públicas. Tese de Doutorado, Fundação Getulio Vargas, São Paulo, SP. Gomes, P.S., and R. Freitas Carvalho Caldeira. 2020. O que a rede urbana-regional do Brasil tem a dizer sobre o avanço da Covid-19? Ponderações para uma agenda urbana-regional atual e pós-pandemia. Espaço e Economia. Revista brasileira de geografia econômica 20 (novembro). IBGE, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. 2010. Censo Demográfico 2010. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE. ——— 2019. Projeção da população do Brasil e das Unidades da Federação. Junior, O.A.D.S., T.M.R.D. Diniz, and N.S. Junior. 2020. Dossiê do desmonte da política urbana federal nos governos Temer e Bolsonaro e seus impactos sobre as

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cidades: violações de direitos humanos e os riscos de construção de cidades intolerantes, excludentes, injustas e antidemocráticas. Rio de Janeiro: IPPUR. Klink, J., and R.  Rolnik. 2011. Crescimento econômico e desenvolvimento urbano: por que nossas cidades continuam precárias? Novos Estudos. CEBRAP 89, Março. Kühner, T., C.V. da Silva Pinto, and C.N.D. Amorim. 2021. International Urban Agendas and Sustainable Integrated Urban Development in Developing Countries. Cidades. Comunidades e Territórios Sp21 (abril). Lemos, M.F.R.C. 2010 Adaptação de cidades para mudança climática: uma metodologia de análise para os planos diretores municipais. Tese de Doutorado. Rio de Janeiro, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Marconi, G., and M. Pioletti. 2015. Agenda di riforma urbana in Brasile: il ruolo politico delle città. Urban@it Background Papers. Ottobre. Maricato, E. 1988. The urban reform movement in Brazil. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 12 (1): 137–138. ———. 2010. The statute of the peripheral city. The city statute: A commentary. São Paulo, Brazil: Ministry of Cities, Cities Alliance. Maricato, E., A.G. Akaishi, and M. Basquiat. 2018. O Brasil na era das cidades-­ condomínio. Outras Palavras São Paulo 25 (05). http://www.centrocelsofurtado.org.br/arquivos/image/201805021454550.Artigo%20de%20 Erm%C3%83%C2%ADnia%20Maricato%20e%20Ana%20Akaichi%20publicado%20no%20Outras%20P Martins, J.S. 2003. O sujeito oculto: ordem e transgressão na reforma agrária. Porto Alegre: Ed. UFRGS. Melo, M.A.B. 2008. Legitimação de posse dos imóveis urbanos e o direito à moradia. Rio de Janeiro: Lumen Juris. MMA. 2019a. Agenda Nacional de Qualidade Ambiental Urbana. Brasília, DF: Ministério do Meio Ambiente. ———. 2019b. Agenda Nacional de Qualidade Ambiental Urbana: Programa Nacional Lixão Zero. Brasília, DF: Ministério do Meio Ambiente. ———. 2019c. Agenda Nacional de Qualidade Ambiental Urbana: Plano de Combate ao Lixo no Mar. Brasília, DF: Ministério do Meio Ambiente. Moraes, P.R.S. 2012. A legitimação da posse como instrumento de regularização fundiária urbana. Revista Jurídica da Presidência 13 (101): 551–585. Rede de Pesquisa Solidária. 2020. Covid-19: Políticas Públicas e as Respostas da Sociedade. Boletim 17. Nota Técnica No. 17. USP. Ribeiro, L.C.Q., and A.L. Cardoso. 2003. Reforma urbana e gestão democrática: promessas e desafios do Estatuto da Cidade. Rio de Janeiro: Revan. Rodrigues, E., and B.R. Barbosa. 2010. Popular movements and the city statute. The city statute of Brazil: A commentary. São Paulo, Brazil: Ministry of Cities, Cities Alliance, 23–34.

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Rolnik, R. 2009. Democracia no fio da navalha: limites e possibilidades para a implementação de uma agenda de reforma urbana no Brasil. Revista Brasileira de Estudos Urbanos e Regionais 11 (2): 31. SECOVI-SP. 2017. Relatório Aluguel Índice do Valor Médio Contratado. Série histórica. Silva, J.G. 2002. O desenvolvimento do capitalismo no campo brasileiro e a reforma agrária. In A questão agrária hoje, ed. J.P.  Stédile. Porto Alegre: Ed. UFRGS. Silva, A.A., and J.R.N. Saule. 1993. A cidade faz a sua constituição, 10. São Paulo: Publicações Pólis., PÓLIS. Sousa, D.M.M. 2017. Regularização fundiária no governo Temer: notas sobre a lei n. 13.465/2017. Revista Culturas Jurídicas 4 (8): 443–450. https://periodicos.uff.br/culturasjuridicas/article/download/44917/25823 Souza, C. 2002. Brazil: The prospects of a center-constraining federation in a fragmented polity. Publius 32 (2): 23–48. Veiga, J.E. 2001. O Brasil rural ainda não encontrou seu eixo de desenvolvimento. Revista Estudos Avançados 15 (43): 101–119. Veiga, L.F., S. Dutt-Ross, and F.B. Martins. 2020. Os efeitos da economia e da Operação Lava-Jato na popularidade da Presidente Dilma Rousseff no período pré-impedimento. Revista de Sociologia e Política 27.

Online References https://antigo.mdr.gov.br/conselho-­d as-­c idades/mocoes-­c oncidades/108-­ conselho-­d as-­c idades/conferencia-­d as-­c idades/1570-­1 o-­c onferencia-­ das-­cidades https://habitat3.org/the-­new-­urban-­agenda/ https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf https://www.gov.br/ibama/pt-­br/assuntos/servicos/cadastros https://www.gov.br/mdr/pt-­br/assuntos/habitacao/casa-­verde-­e-­amarela h t t p s : / / w w w. g o v. b r / m d r / p t -­b r / c o m p o s i c a o / o r g a o s -­c o l e g i a d o s / conselho-­das-­cidades-­concidades https://www.ibge.gov.br/apps/populacao/projecao/index.html https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107028/brazil-­covid-­19-­cases-­deaths/

Legal References Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil de 1988. http://www.planalto. gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constituicaocompilado.htm; http://english. tse.jus.br/arquivos/federal-­constitution Decreto n° 9.759, de 11 de Abril de 2019. Extingue e estabelece diretrizes, regras e limitações para colegiados da administração pública federal.

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DECRETO n° 9.076, DE 7 DE JUNHO DE. 2017. Dispõe sobre a Conferência Nacional das Cidades. Estatuto da Metrópole: Lei Federal n° 13.089 de 12 de janeiro de 2015. Institui o Estatuto da Metrópole, altera a Lei n° 10.257, de 10 de julho de 2001, e dá outras providências. LEI n° 10.257, DE 10 DE JULHO DE 2001. Regulamenta os arts. 182 e 183 da Constituição Federal, estabelece diretrizes gerais da política urbana e dá outras providências. (Estatuto da Cidade). LEI n° 11.445, DE 5 DE JANEIRO DE 2007. Estabelece as diretrizes nacionais para o saneamento básico; cria o Comitê Interministerial de Saneamento Básico; […]. Lei n° 11.977, de 7 de julho de 2009. Dispõe sobre o Programa Minha Casa, Minha Vida—PMCMV e a regularização fundiária de assentamentos localizados em áreas urbanas; […]. LEI n° 12.187, DE 29 DE DEZEMBRO DE 2009. Institui a Política Nacional sobre Mudança do Clima—PNMC e dá outras providências. LEI n° 12.305, DE 2 DE AGOSTO DE 2010. Institui a Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos; altera a Lei no 9.605, de 12 de fevereiro de 1998; e dá outras providências. LEI n° 12.587, DE 3 DE JANEIRO DE 2012. Institui as diretrizes da Política Nacional de Mobilidade Urbana; […]. LEI n° 12.608, DE 10 DE ABRIL DE 2012. Institui a Política Nacional de Proteção e Defesa Civil—PNPDEC; dispõe sobre o Sistema Nacional de Proteção e Defesa Civil—SINPDEC e o Conselho Nacional de Proteção e Defesa Civil—CONPDEC; autoriza a criação de sistema de informações e monitoramento de desastres; […]. LEI n° 13.465, DE 11 DE JULHO DE 2017. Dispõe sobre a regularização fundiária rural e urbana, sobre a liquidação de créditos concedidos aos assentados da reforma agrária e sobre a regularização fundiária no âmbito da Amazônia Legal; institui mecanismos para aprimorar a eficiência dos procedimentos de alienação de imóveis da União; […]. LEI 13.874, DE 20 DE SETEMBRO DE 2019. Conversão da Medida Provisória n° 881, de 2019. Institui a Declaração de Direitos de Liberdade Econômica; estabelece garantias de livre mercado; […]. LEI n° 14.026, de 15 de Julho de 2020 Atualiza o marco legal do saneamento básico e altera a Lei n° 9.984, de 17 de julho de 2000, para atribuir à Agência Nacional de Águas e Saneamento Básico (ANA) competência para editar normas de referência sobre o serviço de saneamento, a Lei n° 10.768, de 19 de novembro de 2003, para alterar o nome e as atribuições do cargo de Especialista em Recursos Hídricos, a Lei n° 11.107, de 6 de abril de 2005, para vedar a prestação por contrato de programa dos serviços públicos de que trata o art. 175 da Constituição Federal, a Lei n° 11.445, de 5 de janeiro de 2007, para

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aprimorar as condições estruturais do saneamento básico no País, a Lei n° 12.305, de 2 de agosto de 2010, para tratar dos prazos para a disposição final ambientalmente adequada dos rejeitos, a Lei n° 13.089, de 12 de janeiro de 2015 (Estatuto da Metrópole), para estender seu âmbito de aplicação às microrregiões, e a Lei n° 13.529, de 4 de dezembro de 2017, para autorizar a União a participar de fundo com a finalidade exclusiva de financiar serviços técnicos especializados. MEDIDA PROVISÓRIA n° 2.220, DE 4 DE SETEMBRO DE 2001. Dispõe sobre a concessão de uso especial de que trata o § 1o do art. 183 da Constituição, cria o Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Urbano—CNDU e dá outras providências. PORTARIA INTERMINISTERIAL n° 17, DE 27 DE JUNHO DE 2014. Institui a Comissão Intersetorial de Mediação de Conflitos Fundiários Urbanos. Proposta de Emenda à Constituição n° 80, de 2019. Altera os artigos 182 e 186 da Constituição Federal para dispor sobre a função social da propriedade urbana e rural.

CHAPTER 8

Learning from Mistakes? India’s New Urban Planning Order of 2020 Daphné Reguiessé

1   Introduction In 2019, the United Nations estimated that India will overcome China as the world’s most populated country by 2027. India’s urbanization is expected to increase in the coming decades. According to the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), from 2011 to 2036, urban growth will be responsible for 73% of the rise in total population (MoHFW 2019). Earlier estimations of United Nations (2018) already suggested that about 416 million people would be added as urban dwellers in India between 2018 and 2050 and that India would be 50% urban by 2050 (UN-Habitat 2017). With these data, India’s Government recognized the need to uplift the urban planning of its cities with a structured and effective approach to tackle the urban questions, still largely anchored to basic need resolution. Indeed, referring to Debroy et al. (2014), “land policy, infrastructure services, and connectivity-coordinated improvements in this triad can help India reap dividends from improved economic

D. Reguiessé (*) CSH Delhi, New Delhi, India © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_8

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growth and social inclusion that can come with well-managed urbanization” (p. 152). It is to be noted that the past British model has reluctantly kept haunting the Indian administrative system and way of producing policies for years. Many scholars (Nair and Sharma 2017; Sarkar 2017; Praharaj et al. 2018) have critically analyzed this “old-fashion”—besides, paternalistic model1—which eventually left behind open questions that should have been at the core of India’s agenda (poverty, basic needs, access to housing, healthcare, education, infrastructures, etc.): there cannot be a centralized model of urban development as every city has specific developmental needs, a unique culture, and different socio-political conditions (Nair and Sharma 2017). As a result, until 2020, a multiplication of missions and programs framed as urban policies were released by the Government of India (GoI) with broad theoretical indications and a lack of operational implications. In short, this model was inefficient. Currently,2 it seems that the pending question of tidying up the plurality of urban policies under a structured, centralized, and participative vision has found a framework under the National Urban Policy Framework (NUPF) proposed by the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA). It took about two years for the Government of India, the Urban Planning Commission (NITI Aayog), and the NIUA to define the criteria (sutras) and priority contents which should have been listed in this agenda and certainly represent a strong paradigm shift for India, trying to patch together the insights from the United Nations Habitat agenda, from best practices of other countries and from the academic field. Has the Government of India finally found the way to the Urban National Agenda that India was seeking for? To find answers to my broad research question, the present work, with all its limitations, has analyzed the path toward the NUPF which was released in its final version in October 2020 by the NIUA by experts in urban policies, especially considering the international guidance of the UN’s 2030 Agenda. This chapter is divided into three main parts. It first explores the process of urban policy creation in India starting from defining what is 1  I call it paternalistic since India keeps being largely influenced by its previous policies established by UK governors, or what is then described as the British Raj. 2  October 31, 2021.

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“urban” for India; it carries on appraising the past attempts of building an urban agenda for India, from the British Raj, through the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) to the subsequent mission packages. In the last part, the chapter presents the NUPF and concludes by discussing the possible implication of the agenda in the post-­ COVID-­19 pandemic. The data of this chapter use a range of primary and secondary sources. An eclectic methodology inspired by Dahl’s approach (1961) has been employed, based on literature review; official government reports analyses and review; semi-structured interviews with academic experts on urban planning in Europe and India and key observers3; participation in international workshops and discussions; newspaper articles; and reports. Finally, a two-year studying period4 across Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan states and in Delhi National Capital Territory (NCT) to visit some of the bulging Indian cities, included those under Smart City Mission. These data were subsequently implemented with secondary data updated by New Delhi’s CSH scholars (Parkar 2021; Gravel 2021).

2  The Urban Question in the Indian Setting India is the second largest urban system in the world after China, although the production of urban policies in India is among the lowest in the world (Singh 2016). Despite this lack of policies, as assessed by Singh (2016): “seventy world’s largest urban centres are in India”, hence urban centers have acted as a pillar of Indian economic growth by increasing 60% of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 2011 to 2019 (Smith et al. 2019).

3  Since several of the interview respondents requested anonymity, they are not explicitly identified or quoted in the text. Conversely, when names are mentioned, informants agreed on being cited. I want to thank the participants in my research, especially my friends at CSH in Delhi: Rupali Pal and her friend Nandini working for Delhi’SCM, for enlightening me with precious hints. 4  The analysis is thus framed by direct observation on the ground started in 2015–2016 during my master studies on India’s educational public policies, followed by successive stays occurring between 2018 and 2019 at the French Research center of New Delhi (Centre de Sciences Humaines: https://www.csh-delhi.com/team_member/daphne-reguiesse-2/).

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2.1   Appraising the Urban Question from Its Definition In this pattern, it can be useful to first keep in mind what is “urban” in the Indian setting. A definition of “urban area” is provided by the Census of India: 1. All places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee, etc.; 2. All other places with: a minimum population of 5000; at least 75 per cent of the male main working population engaged in non-­ agricultural pursuits; and a density of population of at least 400 people per sq. km. In India, urban is defined referring to settlements classified based on functions they perform (see Box 8.1). Box 8.1  Defining “Urban” in India

Urban settlements in India consist of: Statuary Towns: all places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board, or notified town area committee as declared by the state law. Census Towns: places which meet the following criteria: A minimum population of 5000; At least 75 per cent of male main working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits; A population density of at least 400 persons per square kilometer. Cities: urban areas with a population of at least 100,000. The others are termed as Towns. Metropolitan Cities: cities with a population of at least 1 million. Urban Agglomerations (UAs): continuous urban spreads constituting a town and its adjoining urban outgrowths (OGs) or two or more physical contiguous towns together and any adjoining urban outgrowths of such towns. A UA must consist of at least one statuary town, and its total population of all constituents put together should not be less than 2  million as enumerated in the Census of 2001.

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As NITI Aayog’s recent report of September 2021 has underlined, this definition of urban is not appropriated anymore for the following reasons: “almost half of the 7,933 ‘urban’ settlements are census towns, that is, they continue to be governed as ‘rural’ entities. Small and medium towns face vulnerabilities due to rapid growth and inadequate planning. Moreover, several studies have indicated that the current definitions of ‘urban’ are not reflective of the extent of urbanization that the country has already witnessed” (Government of India 2021b). Besides, another issue is related to the fact that traditionally, the term “urban planning” was associated with spatial planning in Indian policy’s view. Therefore, an important challenge for urban planning in India today is to give capacities at both the local and state government level to strengthen their production of urban planning policies in an organic—or ecosystemic—manner. Currently, the governance of urban planning in India occurs at different levels. At the state level, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs’s (MoHUA) role is to provide legislative, administrative support and to enable the environment for facilitating the process of planning. Therefore, it requires an inclusionary approach, at regional and local level. Then, the local government’s role is to envision and prepare a City Development Plan (CDP), a master plan, and a financial plan (Mohanty 2014; Mishra and Mohanty 2017). Meanwhile, we can observe that over time, there have been several attempts to adjust the urban and regional planning—that is, the way Indian states and territories are planning urban settlements at micro-level skills across multiple sectors for different scales of interventions—as reported in Box 8.2.

Box 8.2  Levels and Topics of Planning in India

At the city level:

• Land use planning: development plans, master plans, town planning schemes, building construction permits, development control regulations, inter-agency coordination local area plans for redevelopment of inner-city areas, heritage conservation, environmental improvement, and so on (continued)

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Box 8.2  (continued)

• Mobility planning: comprehensive mobility plans (including parking strategies, adoption of intelligent transportation systems), planning of bus/rail rapid transit systems, and so on • Environmental infrastructure planning: city sanitation plans, water supply infrastructure plans, solid waste management plans, and so on • Implementation of various government schemes and programs such as SAAPs and formulation of GIS-based master plans under AMRUT scheme • Public outreach including participatory planning and grievances redressals At the regional level: • Land use planning: district/metropolitan development plans, regional plans, district development plans, metropolitan development plans, industrial area plans (industrial regions/SEZs), tourism management plans • Regional infrastructure: planning of highways, metropolitan transportation planning, planning of multi-modal logistic parks, and so on At the national/state level: • Policy framework such as National Urban Transport Policy, National Housing and Habitat Policy, and so on • Design of programs/missions such as the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), Smart Cities Mission (SCM), Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) • Strategic/Project planning Source: NITI Aayog Report, 2021, https://www.niti.gov.in/ sites/default/files/2021-­0 9/UrbanPlanningCapacity-­i n-­ India-­16092021.pdf

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2.2   Urban Policies as “Machines for Living”, Meeting the International Standards for a New Urban Agenda In India, the Urban Agenda’s question came out first as a matter of public concern. According to scholars, the growth of metropolitan cities in India has been accidentally and largely unplanned (Mohanty 2014; Ahluwalia 2017; Mishra and Mohanty 2017; Sarkar 2017; Vidyarthi et  al. 2017). The situation in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai,5 and so on is becoming worse year by year due to traffic congestion, dangerous pollution, and the increasing of urban poor6 (Tawa-Rewal 2012, 2018). Meanwhile, India’s population is still growing and so are the expectations of the new middle-class population about urbanization development, asking for higher level services. As Sami (2017) resumes: “urbanity is personality of a person living in the urban area” (p. 94). The problems of finding space and housing for all have been intensified; especially because mega cities generally attract people from both rural and urban areas but also from abroad by providing employment opportunities in both formal and informal sectors (Alhazzani et al. 2016; Breman 1996; Sassen 1994, 2008; Varrel 2012; Varrel et al. 2008). While the population is growing within cities, the current infrastructural system is not yet prepared to host so many permanent dwellers. Therefore, India still faces huge problems on basic needs delivery such as electricity and water supply (Ahluwalia 2011; Khan et al. 2018; Revi et al. 2014; Zérah 2017). For instance, in Mumbai the “economic capital of India”, it is common to have power cuts that generate a total absence of light/water for hours (Chanda and Da Lage 2014, p. 83). Most of the houses and hotels have generators to bypass this problem,7 but no permanent solution has been adopted to avoid the massive use of crafted adjustment’s systems. The government has not taken the necessary measures to 5  Cities I have personally visited: Bangalore (2018, 1 month); Chennai (2014, 2 months); Mumbai (2018, 1 week); New Delhi (many stays between 2015 and 2019). 6  I myself observed it in Delhi (2018–2019) during my visits to CSH New Delhi. 7  The Lalit Mumbai, a five-star hotel, Canadian customer review: “no electricity. No running water. No functional elevators. Dead phones. When the water came back, it was cold and brown in color” https://www.booking.com/reviews/in/hotel/the-lalit-mumbai. en-gb.html I was there personally on 26 August 2018, on Sunday morning at around 11 am, the power cut. It took more than 12 hours to bring back light, the hotel brought us water bottles and candles for the night time. Elevators were stuck, and we had to climb to the room from the safety stairs. The day after a big noisy generator was brought behind the hotel and it took about two days to fix the problem.

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Fig. 8.1  Steps of urban actors and policies evolution toward an Urban Agenda for India through policy schemes. (Elaboration of the author)

assess the unbridled urban sprawl. Overall, the way urban areas are planned, developed, and managed can create long-lasting impacts on the local supply availability (electricity, water, gas) and vulnerability to disasters. Conscious of these damaging infrastructural issues, the Urban Agenda’s creation also came out from a technical debate: the Indian government was pushed by the economic boom and globalization issues that made it necessary. Several institutions led by experts, researchers, professors, and civil society have accompanied the process (Jenkins et  al. 2014) (see Fig. 8.1). Furthermore, UE is sponsoring the Smart City Mission program to help the Asian giant to succeed in meeting Agenda 2030 expectations (European Commission and SESEI 2018). The UN-Habitat supranational agenda gave the final push: from mid-2015, full support has been given to position the Government of India vis-à-vis the Habitat-III process and the new Urban SDGs have been provided, India being particularly focused on fulfilling SDG 11 criteria: making cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable (GoI 2021a). As in western countries, resilience and urban regeneration are trendy in India, too. In all these years, cities were considered as “engines of growth”, engaged in competition at national and global level, in which the issue

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related to economic development could not be ignored (Ruet and LamaRewal 2009, p. 4). Indeed, as literature informs, in India, urban planning has been mapped together with changes in the political system (Sud 2014). As the political framework of urban policies in India was being reshaped, the vision of cities itself was changing: “cities in India are growing rapidly adding new complexities to urban issues” (Praharaj et al. 2018, p. 183). To manage economic efficiency and spatial equity trade-­offs for India’s urbanization, policymakers worked toward renewing existing cities and building new towns, so a new planning model appeared to grapple this challenge (Debroy et al. 2014, p. 166; Singh 2016, pp. 164–167). In Sharma’s article (2017), the paradigm shifted from sustainable to resilient nature of cities, where the key social, economic, and environmental features are central for cities. Besides, the author reminds that demographic changes across the globe have had an impact on the cities at large, a crucial indicator that displays the resilient nature of a city. The globalizing world is becoming increasingly local; thus, Mohanty (2014) suggests that the new planning model for India must be rooted in regional planning, hence assuming control at a closer territory level. The conceptual framework in which urban planning occurs in India has been clarified so far. Then, the next part introduces a note on India’s urban development history to provide sufficient background on the topic.

3   Learning from Mistakes: An Approach to Rethink Urban Planning in India This part includes a historical overview of the mission and programs which have stressed the need of harmonizing the on-going urban planning intervention, especially at local level. As Fig. 8.2 represents, there were many attempts to face the urban planning questions in India from 1951 to 2020. We can analyze these different approaches to urban planning following the timeline summed up in Table 8.1. 3.1   From the British Raj to an Economic Synoptic Model: 63 Years of Five-Year-Plans, from 1951 to 2017 As an old British colony, India has been inheriting for the past 50 years the UK planning system which was clearly not appropriate to a federal and fragmented territory where urban and rural areas are unequally

Fig. 8.2  Historical evolution of Indian urban policies triggering an urban agenda for India. (Elaboration of the author)

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Table 8.1  A focus on the major political interventions on urban planning issues from 1951 to 2021 Time lapse: Government: Political party Policy effective date

Instruments: Plans, scheme, missions, reforms

Discussion in the chapter

1951–2017

Five Years Plans (5YP)

Part 3.1

2005–2014

British Raj / Congress Party / BJP Manhoman Singh (PM, Congress Party)

2015–2021

Narendra Modi (PM, BJP)

2020

Narendra Modi (PM, BJP), through the NITI Aayog

Jawaharlal Nehru National Part 3.2 Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) Smart Cities Mission (SCM), Part 3.3 AMRUT, Swachh Bharat Mission, HriDAYS… National Urban Policy Part 4 Framework (NUPF)

distributed. First concerned by the housing question after India’s independence in 1947 and the World War II (WWII) refugees, India has been drawing “Five-Year-Plans” since 1951. In the post-independence era of the 1950s, the main activity of urban planning in India was related to the preparation of master plans or the so-called development plans with rigid land use, zoning, and development controls. The five-year-planning system is the legacy of the British Raj8 (1858–1947). In India, it took the shape of the “economic synoptic model” (Lindblom 19799). The goal was

8  The British gradually gained control over the whole of India by using various means like direct conquest, annexation, and diplomacy. This political control also meant a long-drawn interaction between two distinct cultures. The British Raj was inappropriate for such a “patchworked” country as India. Many British and Europeans (French, English, Portuguese, Dutch) stayed in India during this period which also brought significant territorial transformations. 9  Favored by political systems based on rational planning, these models are often outlined in discursive policies: they are both technical and political documents, imbued with scientific theories of urban development and oriented by ideological assumptions, which have to do with different conceptions of the organization of human society and, sometimes, rhetoric reproposed and ritualized by inefficient bureaucracies. The weight of the intellectual (theoretical, ideological) dimension is found clarified in Lindblom’s thesis (1979) who pursues problem-solving methodologies based on “the breadth and competence of intellectual analysis, extended to the entire economy and society”.

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to face the sudden increase in urban population10 after the end of World War II, and the recent independence from the British empire (1947). So, the Government of India, through the Ministry of Works and Housing, formulated a first Five-Year Plan in 1951 (Debroy et al. 2014, pp. 274–277) that was focused on housing, rehabilitation of refugees (coming mainly from Pakistan to India), and organized spaces for industrial settlements. Cities therefore needed “slum clearance” as defined in The Slums Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act of 1956. The concern with the housing deficit question and the need of infrastructures construction to keep the pace with modernization’s challenges (urbanization and industrialization) is included in almost all Five-Year-­ Plans. With the second Five-Year-Plan (1957–1961) the introduction of regional planning asked for local support to enforce the laws of that time. Apparently, the third plan period signed a slowdown:11 at the end of 1960s India was characterized by the lack of a comprehensive vision on urbanization (Batra 2009), and there was significant dispersal of urban planning and activities form the center to the states. In the 1990s, liberalization together with globalization processes was supposed to push the economic growth. Globalization arrived approximately 30 years after a quite long “floating period”; between 1992 and 1997, the eighth plan introduced properly the Mega city scheme12 for five metropolises: Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bangalore. To push cities into carrying out comprehensive urban reforms, radical

10  The Government of India has launched various programs since its independence, in 1947, to alleviate poverty and address the widening income gap, both among the upper and lower classes of society and among the rural and urban parts of the country. For example, “Eight Plan Policy” guidelines envisaged an integrated approach to urban poverty alleviation and servicing the urban poor with basic facilities so that their quality of life improved (Mohanty 2014). However, the initial success demonstrated by these programs did not have the expected performance in the long term, since the real problem is that economic reform remains incomplete so far. The shortsightedness of the Indian government has often led it to populist programs that do not work well. The Urban Agenda attempt (JnNURM)—that I will introduce later—is a product of this “five-year planning cycle” (Das 2012; Debroy et al. 2014). 11  Industrialization in the post-independent India has proceeded between periods of rapid industrial growth and intervals of relative stagnation. In some areas, agriculture is more commercial and reliant on modern infrastructures. If the agricultural practices remain mostly unchanged, industry and industrial employment are still scarce (Jenkins et  al. 2014; Ghosh 2017). 12  Mega city Schemes were already stated in the seventh Five-Year-Plan.

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measures were prepared within the Union Budget of 2002–2003,13 which was stimulating the promotion of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in urban infrastructures and services.14 After about 60 years of Five-Year-Plans collection, India re-emphasized that urbanization should be a “central matter of attention” in the 12th Plan (2012–2017). By that time, densification and agglomeration of economic activities stimulated economic efficiencies. From that moment onward, the planning system in India has been continuously reconfigured to meet growth (Mohanty 2014; Kennedy 2018). Lastly, to achieve the urbanization challenges, in 2015 the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and its government renamed the planning commission in charge of the FiveYear-Plans as NITI Aayog.15 The NITI Aayog started operating by providing sectoral16 allocation of money. While urban India would need an assessment about its actual requirements in line with the twenty-first century context, the layers of existing urban forms, persistent deficits in urban development since independence, weak civic engagement in shaping and governing cities, and emerging needs must be considered. 3.2   JnNURM: Learning from the Previous Urban Reform Agenda (2005–2015) In 2005, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) was launched inside the 10th Five-Year-Plan (2002–2007) as a “reform agenda” to carry out the schemes at state level through 13  The 10th Plan (2002–2007) was prepared in the backdrop of the Union Budget of 2002–2003. 14  According to Singh (2016, p. 182), the advent of PPP initiatives in building and maintaining infrastructural facilities has purely economic considerations. The role of Government as the “facilitator of state” is gradually minimizing. 15  NITI Aayog is the National Institution for Transforming India that was renamed replacing the previous Five-Year Planning Commission via a resolution of the Union Cabinet on 1 January 2015 (under Modi’s Government, chaired by Narendra Modi itself). See: https:// www.indiatoday.in/india/video/modi-government-renames-planning-commission-as-niti-aayog427907-2015-01-01. 16  NITI Aayog is the premier policy think tank of the Government of India, providing both directional and policy inputs. While designing strategic and long-term policies and programs for the Government of India, NITI Aayog also provides relevant technical advice to the Centre and States and is developing itself as a State of Art Resources Centre. At the core of NITI Aayog’s creation are two hubs—Team India Hub and the Knowledge and Innovation Hub.

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mandatory City Development Plans and Strategies. The Urban Reform Agenda for states and cities of JnNURM was meant to be a reform-linked urban investment program, containing a structured procedure and instruments as “toolkits”, launched by the Government (Vaidya 2009). Fifteen years ago, JnNURM came out as a first attempt to tidy up the urbanization process allowing a fast and profitable industrialization process for India’s economy, as the GoI of Manmohan Singh, the previous Prime Minister of India, used to interpret it. The emergence of a large urban incentive-based fund such as the JnNURM also marks a shift in the financial practices of the Government of India by making available central subsidies for development that are contingent upon the implementation of a specific set of reforms (IIHS 2014). JnNURM also represented a first attempt to implement the 74th Constitutional Amendment as a decentralization policy framework for India’s urban planning. In application to the 74th CAA of 1992,17 state governments should devolve to local governance some economic decision-­ making, especially in urban areas, where municipalities could act in the same way that panchayats18 do in rural areas: autonomously, by keeping under control the risk of excessive decentralization that might generate some competition among states (Debroy et al. 2014; Mohanty 2014). 3.3   Governing Urban Policies at Local Level: A Panoply of Missions and Schemes (2015–2021) In 2015, JnNURM was replaced by several new missions and schemes: Smart City Mission (SCM19), AMRUT, Swachh Bharat Mission, HriDAYS were launched by the Indian central government to improve the urban infrastructure. In this redesigned context, Modi’s government has decided 17  The 74th Amendment to the constitution helped in preparing municipalities to use institutional finance and eventually market instruments like municipal bonds for capital investment requirements. It mandates the preparation of District and Metropolitan Development Plans too (Mohanty 2014). Prior to the 74th CAA, there was no specific mention of municipalities in the constitution of India. The 74th CAA gave a new constitutional status to urban local bodies (ULBs) and to elected representatives who composed their deliberative wing as per Panchayats’ will (see next note n°18). 18  Panchaayat—Panch (five) ayat—is a committee of five decision-makers for villages in rural areas, similar to a Mayor with its council. Auditions are public. 19  The Smart City Mission is commonly considered as the implementation of the JnNURM policy (Sadoway et al. 2018).

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to use the “Scheme” approach to spread urban reforms policy across the country and to commit states in urbanization for their own cities, activating citizens’ participation. To face the challenges of urbanization, the Government of India introduced core initiatives to actualize government reforms among states. The two main schemes are AMRUT20 and Smart Cities for India. Those are transversally connected with other missions and schemes which are more adapted for India compared to JnNURM (Khan 2014; Reguiessé 2018): by including the possibility of tackling issues in existing urban space, this national urban policy attempts have marked a shift in India’s urban development policy (Smith et  al. 2019; Vidyarthi et al. 2017) approaching urban planning issues on a micro-level. Although urban development in India is a state subject, there has been an increasing attention on cities in the last ten years, especially due to the widespread urbanization envisioned in India’s development policies. In the past five years (2014–2020), India has been focusing on “smart cities” and developing Digital India (Roberts 2017) actively, while empowering e-governance. Under Modi’s Government (2014–2020), urban policies production and implementation suffered the consequences of its new “superfast” development model to tackle “the relentless invention of modern India” (Roberts 2017). In this model, cities and local communities have a concrete role in building the national urban agenda in India. Schemes such as the Smart City Mission were planned to stimulate individual cities to create a bottom-up vision for themselves and brought back some questions left opened in the past, like the need to first meet the population’s basic needs. Yet the implementation of the 74th CAA—on power decentralization from national to local level—has been very limited.21 What I noticed from the interview records, the conversations with locals and scholars, and the study of literature 22 is that many scholars 20  AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation), launched by the MoUD in June 2015, is a mission that envisages the rejuvenation and urban transformation of 500 cities of above 100,000 people. It aims to create infrastructures, providing better services to the people through 11 reforms dotted with 54 milestones, to be implemented by all mission cities in four years (Sadoway et al. 2018). 21  A sound example is given by the planning of a city as New Delhi, where Delhi Development Authority (DDA) oversees urban planning. The nation’s capital has no Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC), and the devolution of functions is far from complete. Then, the changes in urban governance due to economic reforms have contributed to the redefinition of relations between various types of local actors. On Delhi, see also Dupont (2011) and Sarkar (2017). 22  See Reguiessé (2018).

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complain about the fact that planning by Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) is not yet properly grounded in the process. 3.3.1 The Missing Participants Literature and reports have enhanced Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) as drivers to spouse a collaborative system23 that engages urban stakeholders and citizens in the decision-making process, as explained by Praharaj et al. (2018). Khan et al. (2018) disclosed the poor participation of citizens in the political discourse, despite the SPVs’ attempt to improve it. Besides, the addition of SPVs as an “extra” actor of urban planning has added a new layer that creates complexity rather than simplifying and integrating governance (Khan et al. 2018; Praharaj et al. 2018, p. 182). Overall, it seems that in the Indian context, smart cities were mostly used as a label rather than embracing the initial truly smart city ideas. The lack of means—knowledge and education, resources access and supply, connection, and digitalization—has limited participation and has largely contributed to the inefficiency of this kind of policies. Directly related with the participation issue, another concerning question is that cities are becoming places of exclusion. 3.3.2 Urban Poor Excluded from Cities People who have explored India on the ground know it. India is a country of contradictions: “one fourth of urban residents live under poverty and an equal proportion in slums” (Mohanty 2014). India would have 817 million habitants in rural areas in 2050 and is expected to achieve 50% urbanization mark between 2040 and 2050 (UN-habitat 2017) due to the

23  Calling for participation, the SCAF (Smart City Advisory Forum) is a consultative structure by nature and is also emerging as a new approach in urban landscape. SCAF is organized by SPVs CEO, and is meant to drive collaboration among various stakeholders, to review suggestions provided by citizens and do review of project outcomes. Praharaj et al. (2018) worked on the model of governance and observed a shift from the GIFT model (smart city marketing that promotes smart label) to a collaborative smart governance model (where government and industry dialogue with civil society for “community led innovation”). He declares that “SCAF is believed to be the beginning of collaborative governance in Indian cities. […] This large-scale spatial development and infrastructure upgrading aspire to use cutting edge digital and information and communication technology (ICT) to transform India’s urban landscape” (p. 172).

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fast-urban transition with deep economic impacts.24 Considering that 20% of Indian population is still living in slums (Roberts 2017), dreaming of cities “without slums” is unrealistic, also because they are those who constitute the workforce in the construction of new infrastructures ­ (Chanda and Da Lage 2014, p. 97; Da Lage 2017, p. 20): “the slums crop up on any available space” (see Mumbai situation25 explained by Da Lage 2017, p. 20). Again, the relevance of a strong and efficient policy at local level can be an answer to the social questions under hand; in the words of Mohanty (2014): “cities face many contemporary challenges like globalization, climate change, energy security, conservation of natural resources and demand of governance; in fact, urbanization becomes a resource for development when it is associated with good governance”. 3.3.3 Assessment The fast-track development of urban programs have shortcut some structural constraints and have made strides in enabling cities to conceive themselves as sustainable, inclusive, and economically vibrant. Eventually, most of the programs presented in this section were biased toward big cities, hence they were leaving behind middle-sized and small cities (and population)—especially those “towns” which are located on the edge of rural areas (described in Sect. 2.1, in Box 8.1). Although the intended reforms were laudable and comprehensive because of the imperative to give a coordinated response to managing urbanization in India, their implementation and impact were not clear. As I have discussed, the SCM and other missions and schemes have evidenced that there was a further need to downscale the implementation process of urban policies at city level which was already catalyzed into JnNURM: “for the first time, India adopted a demand-driven and reform-­ linked approach to develop cities as catalysts of economic growth through JnNURM” (Mohanty 2014, p. xvi), according to the principle of

24  According to India’s Census of 2011, urban dwellers are contributing to 63% of the Growth Development Product (GDP) and, according to the forecasts, by 2030 this figure will climb to 75% of GDP (Smith et al. 2019). 25  “The first thing you see arriving in Mumbai from the air is a mass of slums bordering the International airport” (Da Lage 2017, p.  20—translated from French to English by the author).

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subsidiarity26 as per the 74th Amendment. While talking about the subsidiarity’s principle, one of the core lessons of the policies presented is that decentralization must be accurately monitored, as it has started to multiplicate the actors of public policies on different scales and could generate negative externalities or might become a temptation for financial bypasses. Indeed, a predominant concern for Indian policymakers and experts is that “agglomeration externalities are the cornerstone of urban public policy in India” (Mohanty 2014). Learning from mistakes means to understand the structural reasons of limits and gaps that I underlined in this paper and to move forward “with a global movement towards democratization, decentralization, and empowerment of local governments, [where] cities have to gear up to meet the expectations of their citizens” (Mohanty 2014, p. 264).

4  NUPF: Meeting the International Standards for a New Urban Agenda? Today (2021), after about two years of crisis, GoI is opening its border to foreigners again. From mid-October 2021, it should be possible to visit India on the ground. What has happened in the meantime? Has NUPF 2020 started operating? If yes, how has the NUPF been implemented? Did it take into consideration the lessons which eroded its past policies? To what extent have the critical aspects affecting human’s lives during the COVID-19 pandemic been triggering a paradigm shift in planning policies for Indian cities? 4.1   The National Urban Policy Framework (2020) Finally, in 2018, the first draft of the National Urban Policy Framework came out as an answer to scholars’ claim for “order” into the multiplicity of urban policies from JnNURM onward. The vision underpinning NUPF first draft of 2018 was to conceptualize cities as “complex and changing agglomerations of people who are constantly interacting with each other, with socio-economic institutions and with the built environment”. NUPF draft of 2018 was successively updated 26  According to the principle of subsidiarity, the lowest possible level of competent authority in decision-making is the most appropriate to approach social policies. Decisions should be taken as closest as possible to citizens.

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Box 8.3  10 Sutras: Principles to Guide India in the Implementation of NUPF

1. Cities are clusters of human capital 2. Cities need a “sense of place” 3. Not static land use plans but evolving ecosystems 4. Building for density 5. Public spaces that encourage social interaction 6. Multimodal public transport backbone 7. Environmental sustainability 8. Financial self-sufficiency 9. Cities need clear and unified leadership 10. Cities as engines of regional growth

Source: NUPF intent, MoHUA.

2018

draft

and

NUPF

2020

strategic

by politicians, functionaries, scholars, and experts from NIUA, by integrating the draft with many corrective measures inspired by previously criticized policies such as the missions and schemes which have failed under many aspects so far. In 2020, the Government of India has published the National Urban Policy Framework which should provide a holistic framework to states and local levels to formulate their own policies in a “customized manner”. The NUPF acknowledges the variety of challenges for urban India and accordingly the policy framework and strategic intents pursue a “loose fit, light touch” approach, rooted into ten sutras (cf. Box 8.3) that are applicable to ten functional areas (NUPF 2021b). Indeed, NUPF is divided into ten sections, each of which deals with a particular functional area: Urban planning (1); Urban economics (2); Physical infrastructure (3); Social infrastructure (4); Housing and accessibility (5); Transportation and mobility (6); Urban finance (7); Urban government (8); Urbanization and information system (9); Environmental sustainability (10). The current way of re-interpreting urban planning in India claims to have replaced its conventional view of cities as “engines of economic growth”, oriented to the production and consumption of built space, in favor of an organic “human-centered” vision of cities. Following this premise, while NUPF 2021b was built upon the foundation that city should be approached as an evolving ecosystem (echoing with the 1930s

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Park’s vision for Chicago), holistically capturing the interaction between human beings, social practices, and space, some subsequent reforms as the NITI Aayog’s one (2021a) raise some concern: our urban planning machinery has not grown at the pace of the demands posed by urbanization and global technological advancements. Urban local bodies face a massive shortage of skilled and trained human resources as well as financial challenges. Furthermore, poor quality of planning is a huge ­limiting factor to realize the true economic potentials of urbanization. (Sh. Amitabh Kant Chief Executive Officer National Institution for Transforming India Government of India New Delhi, India, in NITI Aayog 2021a)

In the meantime, the “tailored-model” approach27 underpinning the NUPF report may signal a reverse-gear of policy formulation, abandoning for the first time a top-down approach that was one of the major reasons of policy paralysis in the Five-Year-Plan periods. Indeed, NUPF 2020, and its subsequent policy integrations (GoI 2021a), recognize and assess all the limits and failures of previous urban policies attempts of GoI, state and city level, and review them assessing corrective measures. At the core of the reform, it is clearly enhanced that India needs to move towards decentralized and strategic urban planning for its cities. 4.2   Assessing Potential Implications of the New Indian Urban Agenda in the Complex Post-Pandemic Framework Among the many priorities which arise from this reform document, I recall some questions which have not been solved yet and urge for answers and counter measures, especially in light of the post-pandemic setting. In 2021, it seems that GoI has finally reached the awareness that “urban planning is the foundation for the integrated development of cities, citizens, and the environment, [and] has not received adequate attention. For this reason, as the State and city governments continue to solve urban issues in a firefighting mode, urban areas struggle to achieve ‘basic services for all’” (GoI 2021a). Perhaps pushed by the COVID emergency, a definition of urban planning appears in an official document outlining the urge

27  By tailored-model, the official documents refer to a model which is especially designed on a local scale and takes into account the diversities of the Indian states and populations.

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of basic services for all, hence bringing back the first concerns of the Indian Government included in the first Five-Year-Plan (1951–1956). 4.2.1 The COVID-19 Implications for India As it has happened worldwide, in India, COVID-19 pandemic has had disastrous effects on population.28 In the depressing and dramatic context of the pandemic, India came out unexpectedly to the eye of the world as the “vaccine pharmacy”29 which could have rescued lives and re-stabilized economies everywhere (01/05/2021—Nicolas Gravel, CSH on France Culture): a prominent role for India’s economy and power disclosure on the world’s stage. Meanwhile, the country has faced a crisis with several difficulties and questionable interventions measures. When the first COVID wave stroke India between January and March 2020, cities’ governments set up a strict lockdown in a jeopardized manner which has obliged many (migrant)-workers to abandon cities. On 24 March 2020, the whole country was under lockdown. 4.2.2 Footloose Migrants and Infrastructural Shortcomings in Cities The topic of migrant-workers in India is a typical representation of how cities have become appealing centers by being conceptualized as “economic engines”. As Jan Breman had started observing years back (1996), the development of cities in India since the independence has occurred thanks to the unseen presence of migrant-workers, that he calls “footloose migrants”, ensuring low-caste jobs to be done (see People of Waste30): garbage collection, cleaning of streets and bathrooms, factory assembly line work, real estate construction, and so on. These jobs are precarious and under paid, defined by day-by-day needs of the economy and wealth of the job market. Yet, Indian economy and the Indian population residing in cities entirely rely upon the services and work provided by the footloose migrants: a complex and unbalance organization of work which in large part still relies on the stratification of society dictated by the caste-system.  https://www.mygov.in/covid-19.  “From the 1990s, the state introduced tax exemptions for the establishment of production units in a number of states considered backward. Investments were made in cities like Badi where more than 50,000 workers, many of them migrants, are employed in these companies” (Yves-Marie Rault Chodankar 2021). 30  “The people of Waste, Living plastic” is a documentary directed by my colleague Rémi de Bercegol [CSH], Grant Davis & Shankare Gowda sponsored by the French IRD, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwKGTFdLu1M. 28 29

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When the lockdown started, at the same time India’s government stopped the “non-essential” activities. People were stuck home, companies were closed, and thousands of migrant-workers were forced to abandon cities as they could not afford living there without having the daily income that they generally relied on to survive (Breman 2020). As cities were not safe nor affordable places for footloose migrants anymore, they desperately tried to reach their original villages by bus; we saw videos of them sitting on the dusty floor at bus stops while being massively disinfected by pipes31 hold by government functionaries. A complete dehumanization, a human right and human dignity violation. Media have shown depressing pictures of a massive cities-to-villages migration which in many ways was reminding the one that occurred at the time of partition between India and Pakistan (about 15 million people in 1947). Millions of people were displaced during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, there are no precise numbers though (Rao 2021).32 Soon, the government faced a transportation means shortage, and people left cities walking along the deserted cities’ roads, often being persecuted by local authorities since lockdown restrictions did not allow people to be outside their home. Where should you stay then if you do not have a home in cities? For those who eventually managed to reach their hometowns alive, the entrance of people who had lived for weeks in high-density areas without having access to suitable hygienic conditions had catastrophic impacts on rural areas all around the country as it contributed in large measure to spread the virus into remote places where the indigent population could not have access to health care. COVID-19 has revealed the dreadful need for planning and management of Indian cities, stressing the urgent need of strong infrastructures for health and supply of worthy public health care for all its citizens (GoI 2021a). The matters which arose dramatically—and endure even after the pandemic emergency—are related to the scarcity of facilities available in the country, the traffic congestion, extreme air pollution, urban flooding, water scarcity and droughts, as well as pressure on basic infrastructure. These issues are not solely mirroring infrastructural shortcomings in the  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52086274.  https://theconversation.com/indias-pandemic-exodus-was-a-biological-disaster-and-strandedmigrant-workers-should-be-classified-as-internally-displaced-161868. 31 32

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cities, they are the showcase of a profound and substantial lack of adequate urban planning and governance frameworks. Another key feature that should be addressed in the future directly related to the density of India’s population is the availability and use of land in a country where birth rate is raising. The agrarian question (Chandrasekhar 2017) is a global concern for developing countries as India and East-Africa (e.g., privatization by default, accumulation by dispossession). Therefore, cultivable land should be protected to avoid a huge food-dependence—as China has started to experience—from other countries: a mechanism that could generate conflicts in the future.

5  Concluding Remarks Building an Urban Agenda for India is not an easy task. As I have alluded here, past attempts have been dismissed in favor of a patchwork planning advocated through top-down rigid and centralized policies. On one side if the schemes and missions for Smart India have encountered many failures, at the same time, new technologies have raised the aspirations of people by providing them access to knowledge on governance practice globally (Martelli 2019; Mohanty 2014; Roberts 2017; Varrel 2012; Varrel et  al. 2008). The mismatch between people’s primary needs and policy development is massive in India. In part it reflects the huge gap between the poor and the rich who have different aspirations and requests from the government. There is a need to accelerate the achievement of inclusive growth since it is commonly agreed among scholars that the schemes and missions which have followed JnNURM often lacked a human-centered approach, focusing instead on economic growth and development without an appropriate governance system. So far, India’s schemes and missions have largely adopted projects that sought to provide basic urban infrastructures, on which COVID-19 has dramatically highlighted their limited capacities (Prévot et al. 2021). As high rates of urbanization have been expanding urban centers that were already sprawling (Smith et al. 2019), and as the future of the world’s largest population is at stake, there must be a clear definition of “urban” to ensure equitable spatial distribution and policy implementation. Effective decentralization and participation are two key words to overcome the failure of the past urban policies reform. Certainly, downscaling policies and decentralizing government decisions cannot

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happen overnight. It is a long and tough process to transfer plans at local scale without neither strong institutions nor implementation policies. For long-term resilient and sustainable planning transformations, systemic issues need to be identified and presented in an organic and non-­ static manner for urban and rural areas—together, as an ecosystem—to plan India’s territory. In this regard, educated professional planners aware of the social-cultural context of the Indian sub-continent are requested. Actually, India’s master planning model must be revamped with policies and practices able to fit and capture India’s diversity and contradictions. Thus, the issues of capacity building must be grasped by the institutions, while ensuring the population’s empowerment. In my opinion, the real urban challenge for Indian states in creating balanced policies can provide real transformations for all. To address and tackle the social issues related to the urban planning of Indian variegated territories, planners should use the concept of “social justice” and governing “just cities” (Fainstein 2010). It is also what scholars advocate: inclusiveness and resilience (Kundu and Samanta 2011; Revi et  al. 2014; Sharma 2017). The NUPF 2020 precisely aims at becoming a game-­ changer, offering a paradigm shift in India’s urban planning model: if cities might have become engine of growth, it is to understand whatever cities will be able to become “engines of social inclusion”. The concrete output and outcome of the NUPF remain to be seen in the post-­ pandemic era.

References Ahluwalia, I.J. 2011. Report on Indian Urban Infrastructure and Services. https:// icrier.org/pdf/FinalReport-­hpec.pdf. ———. 2017. Planning for urban development in India. 20. Alhazzani, M., F. Alhasoun, Z. Alawwad, and M.C. González. 2016. Urban attractors: Discovering patterns in regions of attraction in cities. ArXiv:1701.08696 [Cs]. http://arxiv.org/abs/1701.08696. Batra, L. 2009. A review of urbanisation and urban policy in post-independent India, CSLG/WP/12. Breman, J. 1996. Footloose labour: Working in India’s informal economy. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139171076. ———. 2020. The pandemic in India and its impact on footloose labour. The Indian Journal of Labour Economics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41027-­ 020-­00285-­8.

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Chanda, T., and O. Da Lage. 2014. Aujourd’hui, l’Inde. RFI: Casterman. ISBN 978-2-203-07847-5. Chandrasekhar, C.P. 2017. The agrarian question in India & India’s demonetisation and its impact in Turin Summer school TOIndia, 2017. Da Lage. 2017. Bombay: D’un quartier à l’autre, BiblioMonde édition, ISBN 978-2368020067. Dahl, R.A. 1961. Who governs?: Democracy and power in an American city. New Haven: Yale University Press. Das, G. 2012. India Grows at night: A liberal case for a strong state. Pengui books. Debroy, B., A.J. Tellis, and R. Trevor 2014. Getting India back on track, an action agenda for reform, ed. Random house in India. Dupont, V.D.N. 2011. The dream of Delhi as a global city: The dream of Delhi as a global city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35 (3): 533–554. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-­2427.2010.01027.x. European Commission, and Second European Standardization Expert in India. 2018. Report on Smart City Mission-India (Report on Smart City Mission-­ India, p. 36). Fainstein, S.S. 2010. The just city. Cornell University Press. Ghosh, J. 2017. India’s development trajectory in the neoliberal era, in Turin Summer school TOIndia, 2017. Government of India. 2021a. Reforms in urban planning capacity in India. NITI AYOG. ———. 2021b. NUPF 2020. MoHUPA. Government of India, G., and MoUD. 2016. India Smart City Mission. Gravel. 2021. https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/affairesetrangeres/inde-les-raisons-d-une-catastrophe-1367256. Jenkins, R., L. Kennedy, and P. Mukhopadhyay, eds. 2014. Power, policy, and protest: The politics of India’s special economic zones. 1st ed. Oxford University Press. Khan, S. 2014. The other JnNURM: What does it mean for small towns in India? Centre for Policy Research. Khan, S., P.  Taraporevala, and M.-H.  Zérah. 2018. Les villes intelligentes indiennes: Défis communs et diversification des trajectoires. Flux 114 (4): 86. https://doi.org/10.3917/flux1.114.0086. Kundu, D., and D.  Samanta. 2011. Redefining the inclusive urban agenda in India. 5, 10. Lindblom, C.E. 1979. Politica e mercato. Milano: Etas Libri. Martelli, J.-T. 2019. Dreamers: How young Indians are changing the world AU. Contemporary South Asia: 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1080/0958493 5.2019.1573885. Mishra, A.K., and P.K. Mohanty. 2017. Urban policy in Asia Pacific countries: A case for inclusionary zoning and housing. Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science 1 (1): 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41685-­017-­0033-­5.

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Mohanty, P.K. 2014. Cities and public policy: An urban agenda for India. SAGE Publications. MoHFW. 2019. https://main.mohfw.gov.in/sites/default/files/Healthand FamilyWelfarestatisticsinIndia201920.pdf Nair, P., and S. Sharma. 2017. Smart city: A failed approach to urban regeneration for Indian cities. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ ssrn.2929205. Parkar, K. 2021. The digital geography of India’s smart cities mission. Conference paper for AJEI 6.01.2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKjFwp6kSEY&ab_ channel=AJEI-AssociationJeunesEtudesIndiennes. Praharaj, S., J. Hoon Han, and S. Hawken. 2018. Towards the right model of smart city governance in India. International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning 13 (2): 171–186. https://doi.org/10.2495/SDP-V13-N2171-­186. Prévot, Gravel, Jaffrelot. 2021. https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/affaires-etrangeres/inde-les-raisons-d-une-catastrophe-1367256 Rao, M. 2021. India’s pandemic exodus was a biological disaster and stranded migrant workers should be classified as internally displaced. The consersation.com, June 21. https://theconversation.com/indias-pandemicexodus-was-a-biological-disasterand-stranded-migrant-workers-should-be-classified-as-internally-displaced-161868. Reguiessé, D. 2018. Learning from mistakes: India’s urban planning methods before the «Modi-fication». https://doi.org/10.13140/rg.2.2.15335.34723. Revi, A., J.  Koduganti, S.  Anand, J.  Uni, A.  Bazaz, and IIHS. 2014. Cities as engines of inclusive development. IIHS-RF Policy Paper Series, Policy Dialogue. Roberts, A. 2017. Superfast primetime ultimate nation: The relentless invention of modern India. Ruet, J., and S.T. Lama-Rewal. 2009. Governing India’s metropolises. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-55148-9. Sadoway, D., G. Gopakumar, V. Baindur, and M.G. Badami. 2018. JNNURM as a window on urban governance. 2, 11. ———. 2017. Learning by doing: Urban planning in Bangalore. In Understanding India’s new approach to spatial planning and development: A salient shift? 90–116. Oxford University Press. Sarkar, A. 2017. Shaping Indian cities—Planning and design with smart cities technologies [Delft University]. https://issuu.com/alankritasarkar Sassen, S. 1994. L’ethnicité et l’espace dans la ville globale: Une nouvelle frontière. Les Annales de la Recherche Urbaine 64 (1): 91–95. https://doi. org/10.3406/aru.1994.1825.

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———. 2008. Una sociologia della globalizzazione. Einaudi. ISBN 978-88-06-19005-7 Sharma, D.A.K. 2017. Habitat-III new urban agenda: Resilience of Indian cities. 11. Singh, A.K. 2016. Dynamics of urban development in less developed states of India. LULU COM. Smith, R.M., P.A. Pathak, and G. Agrawal. 2019. India’s “smart” cities mission: A preliminary examination into India’s newest urban development policy. Journal of Urban Affairs 41 (4): 518–534. https://doi.org/10.1080/0735216 6.2018.1468221. Sud, N. (2014). Governing India’s Land, World Development, Vol 60, pp 43–56. Tawa Lama-Rewal, S. T. (2018). L’Inde, fabrique (menacée) des intellectuels globaux. De la provincialisation de l’Europe à la mythologisation de l’Inde précoloniale; Revue du Crieur, Vol.9, Issue 1. Tawa-Rewal, S.T. 2012. Le conflit sur l’usage du sol à Delhi: Un révélateur des enjeux du renouvellement de la participation en Inde. Participations 2 (1): 147. https://doi.org/10.3917/parti.002.0147. UN-Habitat. 2017. World Population Prospects 2017 (BOOKLET ST/ESA/ SER.A/401; World Population Prospects 2017). United Nations. United Nations. 2018. Sustainable cities, human mobility and international migration: A concise report. UN. https://doi.org/10.18356/a11581d8-­en. Vaidya, C. 2009. Urban issues, reforms and way forward in India. 40. Varrel, A. 2012. NRIs in the city: Identifying international migrants’ investments in the Indian urban fabric. South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 6. https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.3425. Varrel, A., E. Ma Mung, and Université de Poitiers. UFR de sciences humaines et arts. 2008. “Back to Bangalore”: Étude géographique de la migration de retour des indiens très qualifiés à Bangalore (Inde). Vidyarthi, S., S.  Mathur, and S.  Agrawal. 2017. Understanding India’s new approach to spatial planning and development: A salient shift? 1st ed. Oxford University Press. Yves-Marie Rault Chodankar. 2021. https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/ podcasts/cultures-monde/inde-la-grande-pharmacie-1208876 Zérah, H. 2017. Penser la diversite urbaine: une analyse par les services essentiels en inde.

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Other Sources Interviews 1. Interview to MH Zerah (20/04/208) sharing precious unpublished work with me that answers to many interview questions:- « Les villes intelligentes indiennes: défis communs et diversification des trajectoires » - And her personal deep research « Dossier pour l’obtention de l’Habilitation à diriger des recherches Université Paris-Est » : PENSER LA DIVERSITE URBAINE: UNE ANALYSE PAR LES SERVICES ESSENTIELS EN INDE MARIE—HÉLÈNE ZÉRAH Novembre 2017 Volume 3 / 3: Essai original (quoted as: Zérah, 2017) 2. Interview to Shashikant Kumar (Phd AITP) expert in urban and regional planning, on ResearchGate (25/04/18) -« Does India have a zoning policy? If the central government provides the money to state’s government, how is it regulated? » Conversations with University of Padova Indian students as: Anuritha Das (political sciences), Amartya Sengupta (electronic engineer), Hemanth Dashora (electronic engineer), Sukrti Bansal (physical scientist), Kalparupa Mukherjee (electronic engineer) and Isha Gupta and Anuj Kalra (economics).

Conference Papers Khan, S., P. Taraporevala, and M.H. Zérah. 2018. Indian smart cities: Shared challenges, variegated trajectories, Discussion at CEIAS for: FLUX, Dossier « Perspectives asiatiques sur les Smart Cities », Paris. Reguiessé, D. Learning from mistakes: India’s urban planning methods before the Modi-fication, June 2018, Presentation at IUAV University, Venice. https:// bit.ly/2Nc6Tx0. CEIAS Paris, Loraine Kennedy, Questionner la ville intelligente en Inde Projets, gouvernance, acteurs au regard de la Smart City Mission (Conference: Paris, 25/09/18).

CHAPTER 9

The Urban Agenda in Canada. Limited Room for Action in Federal-Municipal Relations Elena Ostanel and Francesco Campagnari

1   Introduction In order to understand the extent and nature of the Canadian urban agenda, we should locate it in the context of the Canadian Constitution, of the relations between federal and provincial government, and of the fiscal and power imbalance they create for municipalities1 (Stoney and The authors developed and discussed the chapter together. They wrote jointly Sects. 1, 4, and 5. Elena Ostanel is responsible for Sect. 3 and Francesco Campagnari for Sect. 2. 1  Canada is a Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. It is divided in ten provices and three territories: the former have higher degrees of autonomy than the latter. Provinces have responsibility for multiple policy fields such as health care, education, welfare, urban planning, municipal autonomy.

E. Ostanel • F. Campagnari (*) University Iuav of Venice, Venice, Italy e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_9

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Graham 2009, p. 393). The jurisdiction over municipalities in Canada is in fact attributed by the Constitution to provincial governments, who have the power to create and legislate on municipal powers and responsibilities. Municipal governments, being “creatures of the provinces”, do not have vast powers of autonomy. Furthermore, federal-municipal relations have fluctuated over the decades for causes linked to nation-building strategies (Wolfe 2003), the amount of available federal surplus, the state of relations between federal and provincial levels of government, consensus strategies by federal parties (Stoney and Graham 2009). Even though federal impacts in urban affairs are unavoidable2 (Berdahl 2002, p. 27) both by direct policy actions (immigration policies, infrastructure policies) and by the indirect effects of government employment strategies and governmental real estate, the room for a concrete realization of the federal urban agenda in Canada still remains limited. Starting from these considerations, this chapter argues that the federal urban agenda has been short lived and ineffective even in the few occasions where the federal government (FG) explicitly referred to urban problems (often with progressive approaches). This chapter highlights that while federal governments often develop place-based narratives supporting the idea that decisions taken locally about land use, transportation, and any other issue related to urban development are crucial to effectively tackle these issues, a deep analysis shows that local governments have limited room for action. The localist agenda of the federal government, aimed at the financial autonomy of municipalities, was often blocked by provincial governments. In this condition, as Lehrer pointed out for Toronto, urban changes are strongly impacted by the global economy more than by the capacity of local policies to govern them (Lehrer 2006). This chapter is organized as follows: the first section illustrates the historical evolution of the approaches of the Canadian federal government to urban issues. Exploring federal programs and policies developed since the beginning of the twentieth century, the section focuses on two main 2  Canada is today a highly urban country, with 81% of its population living in urban areas. The situation was highly different at the end of the nineteenth century, when its institutional architecture was designed: in 1861, 84% of the population lived in rural areas (Statistics Canada 2015). The main Canadian cities are Toronto (5.5 million inhabitants), Montreal (3.5 million inhabitants), Vancouver (2.3 million inhabitants), Calgary (1.2 million inhabitants), Edmonton (1 million inhabitants).

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periods of explicit discussion of a federal urban agenda, linking them with the approach of the current Trudeau government. We argue that the periods of explicit urban intervention did not generate relevant impacts on the level of autonomy of municipalities and that the approach of the current government to urban issues has not generated different outcomes. The second section explores the planning mechanisms in the city of Toronto, in order to understand the practical implications of the lack of municipal autonomy; similarly, the third section explores the effects of the COVID-19 emergency on Canadian cities, assessing the measures adopted by federal and provincial governments to support urban areas. The conclusions finally summarize the contribution of this chapter to the current debate, allowing a better understanding of the current tackling of urban issues in Canadian cities.

2  The Federal Urban Agenda: Short-Lived Efforts for Explicit Urban Actions Over the years, the Federal Canadian Government has adopted different approaches to the issues emerging from Canadian cities. Differently from other cases outlined in this volume, the Canadian government explicitly conceptualized these issues as urban—meaning considering their interconnected and intersectoral nature—only in short periods. And, as we will see, even in these brief phases the federal government developed policies and programs with little impact at local level. This section focuses on the two periods of explicit urban action by the federal government—from 1968 to 1979 and from 2001 to 2006—and on the position of the current government, in charge since 2015. Table 9.1 Table 9.1  Periods of explicit urban action by the Canadian Federal Government Period

Government party

1968–1979 Liberal party 2001–2006 Liberal party

2015– today

Liberal party

Source: Authors’ own elaboration

Conceptualization of the federal urban agenda The federal government (FG) is a direct actor on urban issues The FG enables municipal autonomy on urban issues

International references

United States HUD programs and policies UK’s New Localism approach to local autonomy The FG develops comprehensive COP21, UN Habitat III, urban visions but disjointed 2030 SDGs sectoral policies

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summarizes the three periods. In the two periods of explicit development of urban visions and programs, the federal government showed the will to engage with urban issues. In both periods, the government established new agencies, developed programs, and aimed to acquire knowledge on urban issues. Through their differences, and in particular in the respective construction of urban problems, we can have a better understanding of their respective failures, of their impacts, and of their influence on today’s urban agenda. 2.1   1968–1979: The Federal Government as Direct Urban Actor In the first half of the twentieth century, as the Canadian population shifted toward cities, the problem of living conditions in urban areas entered the federal agenda. In this period, the issue was mostly framed in quantitative terms, in relation to the material and infrastructural equipment of cities, pushing for new housing and sanitary policies (Wolfe 2003). The understanding of these problems focused on this infrastructural dimension; action to tackle them was straightforward and structured around federal-provincial collaborations. At the end of the 1960s urban issues re-emerged in the federal agenda. Rising housing prices, the destruction of inner-city neighborhoods, and increased sensitivity to environmental protection led to protest movements for public housing and against urban renewal plans, mostly carried out by municipalities  (Spicer 2011). In this phase, these issues started being understood as multidimensional, thanks to the involvement of multiple problem-setting actors (civil society, technical and political actors). The liberal-led federal government, until then mostly focused on housing issues, adopted this integrated approach to urban affairs, influenced by the experiences being developed in that period by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The federal Task Force for Housing and Urban Development—appointed in 1968—recommended a stronger federal role in urban affairs and the establishment of a dedicated Ministry to coordinate comprehensive planning and research activity on urban affairs (Stoney and Graham 2009). In 1971, the Ministry of State and Urban Affairs (MSUA) was established to influence the process of urbanization, integrating federal policies and establishing cooperative relations with provincial and local stakeholders. The housing issue was now positioned in a broader frame, acknowledging the interconnectedness of the urbanization phenomenon.

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The MSUA was set up as a policy department, tasked with policy development, research, and coordination among departments and governments (Wolfe 2003). It had the goal of generating a beneficial federal government influence on the process of urbanization, integrating the federal government’s urban and non-urban policies, and fostering cooperative relationships on urban affairs with provinces and municipalities (Stoney and Graham 2009, p. 378). The approach of MSUA rested on the idea that effective solutions to urban issues would result only from the development of federal programs intentionally pursuing these problems and from the establishment of collaborative governance structures including provinces, municipalities, and other federal branches. In particular, the federal government started establishing direct links with municipalities, organizing meetings with Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), reducing the distance between municipal representatives and their federal and provincial counterparts. To integrate responses to urban issues, the federal government introduced trilevel meetings between federal, provincial, and municipal governments and also briefings with the FCM. In 1973, MSUA further expanded its mandate from policy to program development, launching programs for urban renewal in collaboration with provincial and local governments (Spicer 2010), providing loans and grants for land clearance, relocation, administration, and basic infrastructure. Funding for these programs increased during the 1970s, with a first allocation of $300  million over four years, and since 1978 $250  years annually (Carlson 1979). The MSUA framed urban problems as interconnected issues requiring the collaboration of different levels of government (in particular municipalities) for effective problem-solving. However, this construction of urban problems exposed federal action to provincial criticism. Provinces were initially hesitant in collaborating with the MSUA (Spicer 2015) and later became irritated by it. They perceived an invasion of provincial jurisdiction on municipalities by direct funding programs and federal-­municipal briefings; they also saw as a threat the interaction of the federal government with the FCM (Stoney and Graham 2009). The Ministry was also criticized by other branches of the federal government, as they perceived the MSUA to be trespassing in policy fields under their jurisdiction. These critiques ultimately led to the disbandment of the Ministry. In order to keep good relations with provincial governments, the MSUA was shut down by the federal government in 1979.

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The MSUA experience was a first experimentation of institutionalization of explicit comprehensive intervention of the federal government in urban affairs. It expanded the previous single-issue approach with interdependent aspects of urban programs like citizen participation and intergovernmental coordination. It led however to little long-term changes in the treatment of urban issues, as the collaborative institutional architecture it aimed to establish was swiftly removed by the following governments. 2.2   2001–2006: The Federal Government as Enabler of Municipal Autonomy In the 1980s urban issues entered only indirectly the federal agenda. A heated constitutional debate focusing on the division of power between federal and provincial governments involved municipal autonomy, but it ultimately led to no revisions of jurisdictions (Berdahl 2002). Instead of pursuing explicit visions, the federal government aimed to create new policy and program instruments moving the center of action from the federal to provincial and municipal levels (Stoney and Graham 2009) and adopting a place-based approach. The most representative instruments developed in this period is the Urban Development Agreement, a tripartite agreement between municipal, provincial, and federal governments. These agreements addressed complex and intersecting social and economic problems like poverty, crime, health, and social exclusion in inner-city neighborhoods, with important applications in Western Canadian cities (Doberstein 2011). Following the inspiration of the New Labour experience in Great Britain, at the end of the 1990s “new localism” became the main discourse around urban issues in Canada. Municipalities and cities were framed as the drivers of the national economy and the setting of the main social problems (Friendly 2016). This discourse supported a devolution of power toward the local level, arguing that municipalities should have greater fiscal and financial autonomy to directly tackle issues. This framework was supported by Liberal party, by the FCM, and by the mayors of the main Canadian cities. In 2001 the Liberal government created a Cities Secretariat and appointed a Prime Minister’s Caucus Task Force on Urban Issues. Its final report (Prime Minister’s Caucus Task Force on Urban Issues 2002) supported the establishment of a national urban strategy structured around

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long-term, stable sources of funding to municipalities for affordable housing, transit, and infrastructure (Spicer 2015). In 2002 Paul Martin, Minister of Finance from 1993 to 2002 and Prime Minister from 2004 to 2006, outlined his idea for a “New Deal for cities”. The Deal aimed at reframing the way governments work together for the social, cultural, economic, and environmental sustainability of cities and communities (Bradford 2007). It aimed to develop cooperative and integrated joined-up governance structures between federal, provincial, and municipal governments (Leo 2006), while recognizing provinces as their main federal interlocutors on urban affairs (Friendly 2016; Spicer 2010). In 2004 the federal government created the Ministry of State for Infrastructure and Community (MSIC) with the purposes of providing predictable long-term revenue streams for municipalities (Government of Canada 2005, p. 2), establishing tri-lateral government collaboration for area-based policy-making, and building knowledge on urban policy (Bradford 2007). Long-term revenue streams were pursued with federal investments and transfers to municipalities. Tripartite agreements supported local partnerships and area-based interventions. The knowledge-­ generating effort was pursued with investments in National Research Council regional centers and in research on infrastructure and experimental collaborative projects (Stoney and Graham 2009; Bradford 2007). The federal government also launched an External Advisory Committee on Cities and Communities to develop a 30-year vision for communities and cities in Canada. It proposed a double devolution of power, stable funding for municipalities, and a federal leadership for trilevel cooperation in partnerships (External Advisory Committee on Cities and Communities 2006). Considering the constitutional jurisdictions, the New Deal tried to involve provinces and territories more explicitly, recognizing them as key actors in urban policy and program development. Responsibilities were clearly divided through Memoranda of Understanding, occasionally involving municipalities and other stakeholders (Rose and Preston 2017). This approach recognized that a complete double devolution of powers could only be implemented with the collaboration of provinces. Differently from the MSUA period, the New Deal mostly remained a vision, as no policies or funding programs were implemented before the change of government in 2006. Nonetheless, it consolidated a new strong discourse on urban issues, theorizing the need for local solutions to local problems. Urban problems had to be tackled first and foremost by

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municipalities at the local level: the role of the federal government was therefore not to directly engage in those problems, rather to enable municipal autonomy. In this period, “urban” issues for the federal government coincided with “municipal” or “local” issues, as proven by the use of the two terms as synonyms in policy documents, without distinctions between urbanized and non-urbanized local governments. 2.3   2015–Today: A Federal Vision and Multiple Sectoral Policies In 2006 the new government merged the MSIC with the Ministry of Transportation, reversing the push for a New Deal for Cities and Communities (Horak and Young 2012; Bradford 2007). The Conservative government launched a “New Deal for provinces and territories”, stressing the primary role of provincial governments (Bradford 2007). It adopted the least joined-up and indirect policy instruments, reducing spending and giving tax credits instead of investing directly in social or community infrastructure (ibid). The effort aimed at establishing a minimal yet efficient federal presence in urban areas. In 2015 the Liberal party went back to government, with a platform based on promises of reviving the New Deal for Cities policies (FCM 2015; Spicer 2015) and committing to highly collaborative governance structures (Friendly 2016). In the last six years, the Trudeau Government has recognized the importance of Canadian cities, focusing on economic development, growth, and help to disadvantaged Canadians (McGregor 2016). It has not launched an explicit urban program or policy (Bradford 2018; OECD 2017), acting instead on two separate but interconnected levels: first, the federal government used international agreements, like the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, the COP21 agreement, and the New Urban Agenda (Reid and Charles 2017), to outline its vision on urban issues and interact with Mayors of the main Canadian Cities out of Constitutional constraints (Scruggs 2016). The Habitat III National Report (Government of Canada 2016) is the most representative among these international documents. Following the “new localism” approach, the government argued that the complexity of global phenomena active today at the local scale requires extensive collaboration between governments, as well as involving non-governmental and private-sector stakeholders. The federal government was tasked with an indirect role, aimed at empowering local governments. It proposed closer federal-provincial

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collaboration on sectors like infrastructure, poverty reduction, climate change, business innovation, and the introduction of federal accessibility legislation. Municipal-federal alignment in policy priorities was also considered. Furthermore, it recognized the FCM as a key stakeholder, to be integrated in the federal-municipal machinery for climate change policy. This document and the other agreements had however a visioning nature, with little effect on provincial policies on municipalities. The federal government operated then on a second level. The discussions of urban issues and the will to develop an urban strategy in these international agreements did not lead to federal policies or programs explicitly addressing urban issues, avoiding trespassing provincial jurisdiction over municipal affairs. The federal government focused instead on sectoral plans, programs, and strategies, systematizing interventions in fields of federal jurisdiction in connection with the vision embedded in international agreement. Among these instruments we can mention the National Housing Strategy, Canadian Poverty Reduction Strategy, National Climate Plan, National Infrastructure Plan, Early Learning and Child Care Framework, Federal Strategy on Gender-Based Violence, Strategy on Innovation. Each strategy was developed through a process of extensive stakeholder involvement in its specific field. None of these sectoral plans, however, explicitly aims to directly generate integrated urban effects. These strategies reinforced federal-provincial partnerships and multiple-­ stakeholder involvement. Compared with the international documents like the Habitat III National Report, the federal government mentioned municipal actors more cautiously. This caution testifies that despite efforts and implicit actions, provinces still acted as gatekeepers in federal-­ municipal relations and that explicit federal action on that regard is still limited by constitutional constraints.

3   Municipal Action in Toronto Between Desires and Concrete Realizations In the context we described in the previous sections, Canadian cities include a diffuse array of policies and programs aimed at realizing the “local turn” of the Trudeau government. Bradford talks about “implicit national urban policy” that to be effective requires creative experimentation with multi-level modes of governance to align national goals with

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local priorities and leverage collaborative opportunities (Bradford 2018) that are difficult to be achieved. Analyzing the possible concrete realization of the federal urban agenda at the local level is particularly important in a territorial context where the vast majority of Canadians live in cities and the vast majority of economic output and private investments is concentrated in cities. In fact, roughly half of Canada’s GDP is produced in its six biggest cities alone—Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa-Gatineau. Instead of explicit urban development strategies, the Canadian government support for cities has emerged over the years largely as the by-­ product of many policies and sectoral programs for the economy, environment, and society with an implicit spatial target (Bradford 2018) also as a consequence of the abovementioned division of responsibilities among level of governments (OECD 2017). In order to better understand this dynamic, we can focus on two of the main assets of the urban agenda of the Trudeau Government and assess their concrete realization in the case study of Toronto: the support to sustainable and resilient communities and access to affordable housing. Toronto’s socio-spatial polarization is proceeding at a rate much greater than elsewhere in Canada. Spatially, formerly middle-income neighborhoods are transforming into either high or low income (Walks and Maaranen 2008). The city is increasingly segregated, with visible minorities concentrated in low-income neighborhoods and white residents dominating affluent areas in numbers far higher than their share of the population (Hulchanski 2009). In this context, Toronto is experiencing both sustained gentrification and advanced suburban restructuring (August and Walks 2018). As Lehrer pointed out, urban changes in Toronto are more impacted by the global economy than by the capacity of local policies to govern them (Lehrer 2006) particularly in a strong neoliberalized government at least since the advent of the “common sense revolution” in 1995, when a Tory government was elected on a platform of neoliberal reform (Hackworth and Moriah 2006). These contradictions are particularly evident if we assess access to affordable housing in a context that relies almost completely on market mechanisms to supply, allocate, and maintain its housing stock (Scanlon and Whitehead 2004). In fact, about 95% of Canadian households obtain their housing through the market (Hulchanski 2007); the situation is particularly severe in a period of housing crisis (August and Walks 2018). In this context, the concrete realization of the National Housing Strategy is

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weak. Trends in the federal role in the secondary part (i.e. affordable housing) of the housing system depend on the particular nature of the federal-provincial relations and disputes of the day, the constitutional and social policy philosophy of the federal political party in power, and the effectiveness of national housing and social welfare organizations in mobilizing popular support for specific housing and urban policies and programs (Hulchanski 2007, p. 7). Again, Municipalities have limited room for action in the joint-funding formula—an offer of federal money that must be matched by provincial governments (ibidem, 2007). Even though the Municipal government could use instruments like Section 37 (see below) to provide affordable housing, the reality shows many constraints mainly due to the municipal-provincial relationship. Rules and regulations that define the development-planning context in Toronto are established in the Province of Ontario’s Planning Act. The legislation provides local municipalities with the planning tools that are necessary to regulate growth and development activity. The provincial level has complete jurisdiction over municipal government activities. The province exercises its oversight on municipal planning and zoning decisions. In Toronto, when a development requires a Zoning By-law amendment (i.e. city-wide regulations on land use, that could be useful to build affordable housing) the city has an urban planning tool, known as Section 37, which allows for the possibility of requesting benefits to construct or improve facilities in the city. The density for benefit agreements are defined by the Ontario Planning Act (Planning Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P.13.; Section 37) and establish a form of “density bonusing”, which refers to municipal governments’ ability to secure “benefits” from developers in return for allowing development that exceeds existing height and density restrictions (Moore 2016). Under Toronto’s Official Plan, developments that exceed a threshold of 10,000  square meters of gross floor area, and where the application increases the permitted density by at least 1500  square meters and/or significantly increases the permitted height, are typically subject to this tool (City of Toronto 2019, p. 1). The power to apply and negotiate the conditions of benefits are held by city elected councilors, with no involvement of the urban planning city team (Moore 2016). As a consequence, benefits are not inserted in a city-­ wide planning strategy but jeopardized according to the willingness and capacity of local councilors. Section 37 does not give directions about

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what type of benefits municipalities should secure (Moore 2016). Moreover, benefits are in close proximity to the development and do not necessarily impact the root causes of neighborhood inequalities (ibidem, 2016). From 2007 to 2011, Toronto parks, roads, and streetscapes account for 40% of all benefits secured, while heritage preservation and affordable housing account for only 11% (Moore 2016). Section 37 has been criticized because it can be used strategically by developers to raise density in neighborhoods. Once a density agreement has been approved by the city, other developers can appeal to that change as a condition to redefine the Zoning By-Law amendment. In addition, they can refuse the density agreement proposed by the city by appealing to the Ontario Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT). The LPAT is a judicial conflict resolution approach used by the province of Ontario to resolve urban disputes. The LPAT’s board is appointed by the province and it is empowered to adjudicate disputes. It has the option of upholding, striking-down, or changing regional and local municipal planning decisions. As Krushelnicki has pointed out, LPAT decisions are final and not subject to appeal based on the planning arguments and evidence presented (Krushelnicki 2007). Over its 85 years of existence, the history of the LPAT in urban planning resolutions has been controversial. Some authors have stated that the effect of its resolutions, instead of resolving conflicts, ended up creating planning policies (Webber and Hernandez 2016). Moore (2013), who has focused the analysis on the politics around the LPAT, stated that the tribunal act was a way of distancing councilors from the urban planning decision within the city; rather than viewing the tribunal as an impediment, municipal politicians are complicit in a process that allows them to defer contentious decisions. Supporters, including those associated with the real estate development industry, welcome the apolitical but professional hearing process of the tribunal, particularly when a decision has to be taken in urban contexts where resolutions have to be given without many resources (Webber and Hernandez 2016). Beyond the controversy around the LPAT or the Section 37 urban planning tool, it is clear that the Municipal level has limited chances to mitigate negative effects of neighborhood change and promote access to affordable housing. On the one hand, the LPAT is a provincial institution with no representation on the city level, and on the other hand, the use of Section 37 does not offer guarantees that citizens’ demands are accomplished.

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Besides the abovementioned specific planning tools, during the last years the City of Toronto has released specific policies directed to address neighborhood inequalities. In 2005 a neighborhood strategy (called “A strong neighborhood: a call for action”) was developed to improve neighborhood wellbeing based on an evaluation of the neighborhood’s access to services and safety. Based on this previous assessment, in 2012 the Toronto Strong Neighborhoods Strategy 2020 (TSNT) was designed. The TSNT was aimed at providing “an equitable set of social, economic and cultural opportunities for all residents, leading to equitable outcomes across all neighborhoods” (City of Toronto 2014, p. 2). The TSNT’s definition has been based on a neighborhood wellbeing assessment inspired by the World Health Organization, known as Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (World Health Organization 2010). The idea of adapting an international standard designed for cities in urbanizing contexts was jointly developed by the Centre for Research on Inner City Health/St. Michael’s Hospital, the City of Toronto, United Way Toronto, the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network and WoodGreen Community Services. The private not-for-profit sector had a key role in this process. This tool has been designed for measuring health inequities in the developing world (Prasad et  al. 2015) and applied and adapted to the specific context of the city Toronto (City of Toronto 2014). The TSNT assessment identifies 31 out of 140 neighborhoods “below the benchmark” and asks them to define place-based action plans. In order to support the action plans, the TSNT creates three types of funding streams: the first one is a direct investment from the city (called Partnership Opportunities Fund) to build or enhance community infrastructure in city-owned and city-leased locations (City of Toronto 2012); the second is a micro-grant (called Neighborhood Grants) that offers grants to resident-­led groups to help them animate their neighborhoods with events or activities (City of Toronto 2012); the last one is called Neighborhood Funders Network and is an indirect funding stream, based on the coordination of Foundations, Private and Public entities around the selected neighborhoods (City of Toronto 2012). Notwithstanding the investment of the Partnership Opportunities Fund ($12  million capital investment fund), the investment deals with infrastructure owned or leased by the city, excluding action on private properties and other public infrastructure not owned by the city. Micro-­ grants, as the TSNT Neighborhood Grants, have demonstrated to be a

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cost-effective approach for mobilizing social and health improvement action projects (Schmidt et al. 2009). In addition, micro-grants work as an incentive to stimulate community action and progress (Owens et  al. 2018). Lastly, the Toronto Neighborhood Funders Network funding stream is a good approach for coordination, especially with funders that can overlap objectives and visions, in a situation where a big number of nonprofits, not necessarily connected with the neighborhood and with different levels of organization, are competing for funding. The TSNS confirms what the OECD described in the assessment of the state-of-the-art of the national urban policy in Canada: the national level contributes indirectly to urban development by serving as a key infrastructure funding partner, working with provinces, territories, municipalities, the private sector and non-profit organizations, as well as other federal departments (OECD 2017). But in a context where multi-level governance is difficult to be implemented, while provinces act as gatekeepers in federal-municipal relations and private investments are difficult to be planned by the municipal level, ambitious federal policies (like the National Housing Strategy) are intended to remain on paper.

4  The Impact of the COVID-19 Emergency on Canadian Cities As described in the previous sections, international agreements and documents helped develop a vision for urban areas for the current federal government. Sectoral plans and programs may have helped approach monothematic aspects of urban issues. However, the federal government still lacks a way to support Canadian municipalities—as envisioned by the current federal discourses on urban areas and municipalities—in autonomously tackling urban issues. This limited municipal autonomy has been visible in particular during the COVID-19 crisis. Canadian Municipalities have been at the frontline in emergency management. They have often clashed with provincial governments (which override municipal ones) about the level of toughness of restrictions (Moore 2021). The federal government has provided additional financial support for municipalities through existing funding redistribution schemes like the Federal Gas Tax Fund (Government of Canada 2020a). The Safe Restart Agreement between federal and provincial governments, focused on providing subnational governments with increasing

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testing and contact tracing capacities, personal protective equipment procurement, and to fund enhanced sanitation measures to protect the elderly and most vulnerable, also included a dedicated funding stream for municipalities for COVID-19 and public transit costs (Government of Canada 2020b). Provinces like Ontario also provided additional funding to address increases in operating costs (Ontario Municipal Affairs and Housing 2020). These measures provided additional temporary funding through existing institutional relations but without proposing intervention on the root issue of lack of municipal autonomy. As a consequence, the pandemic triggered a series of unprecedented situations at a local level particularly delineating long-term effects on rental housing and urban neighborhoods. From 2014 to 2017 almost 40,000 rental units were constructed in Toronto and only 2.5% of them were considered to be affordable (Monsebraaten 2018). During the initial months of COVID-19, it is estimated that over 1 million jobs were lost in Canada (Evans 2020). Due to job loss, affording basic necessities such as food and shelter became very difficult for many individuals. During the first state of emergency in the City of Toronto (March 2020), many individuals were provided with rent relief from their landlords and subsidies from the federal government. This was for a limited period of time. Although it may be assumed that rental prices would decrease given the COVID-19 pandemic, that is not the case (Sunny 2021). CMHC notes that the increase in rental pricing may be related to the high vacancy rate within the city throughout 2020. The vacancy rate went from 1.5% in 2019 to 3.4% in 2020, which is the highest vacancy rate in the past 14  years. Since there have been less renters in the city, landlords are increasing the cost of rent to offset the balance of not having enough tenants (ibidem 2021). In the wake of the pandemic, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities still advocates for greater municipal autonomy, proposing the formalization of federal-municipal collaborations (FCM 2021). Similarly, Canadian urban scholars have renewed their call for an explicit urban policy (Eidelman and Bradford 2020).

5  Conclusions This chapter has highlighted how the federal urban agenda in Canada has limited room for action due to diverse and often interrelated factors. First of all, there is a question of competencies: the constitutional jurisdiction of

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Provinces over Municipalities has blocked any federal initiative directed to support the realization of the Urban Agenda at local level. This must be inserted in a political realm where calls for provincial sovereignty are rooted in discourses of protection of cultural differences (in particular from the French-speaking province of Quebec) and in the support of provincial predominance over federal government on municipal issues by conservative parties at federal level. Municipal governments, being “creatures of the provinces”, do not have vast powers of autonomy so they have organized lobbying structures such as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) to influence policies at the provincial and federal level, thus not directly impacting on the Federal Agenda’s implementation. Even if federal impacts in urban affairs are unavoidable both by direct policy actions (immigration policies, infrastructure policies) and by the indirect effects of government employment strategies and governmental real estate (Berdahl 2002, p. 27), the consistency of the Urban Agenda at local level has been short lived and ineffective. As this chapter has highlighted, this situation leads to a paradox: while federal governments often develop place-based narratives supporting the idea that decisions taken locally about land use, transportation, and any other issue related to urban development are crucial, a deep analysis shows how—even with a federal government active in the definition of a National Housing Strategy—local governments have limited room for action. The case study of Toronto shows how urban changes are strongly impacted by the global economy more than by the capacity of local policies to govern them (Lehrer 2006).

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Prasad, A., M. Kano, K.A.M. Dagg, H. Mori, H.H. Senkoro, M.A. Ardakani, and F. Armada. 2015. Prioritizing action on health inequities in cities: An evaluation of Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (Urban HEART) in 15 cities from Asia and Africa. Social Science and Medicine 145: 237–242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.09.031. Reid, J., and L. Charles. 2017. National Urban Policy regional report: Western and eastern Europe and North America. Nairobi: UN Habitat. Rose, J., and V.  Preston. 2017. Canadian municipalities and services for immigrants: A Toronto case study. Canadian Journal of Urban Research 26 (1): 29–39. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26204938. Scanlon, K., and C. Whitehead. 2004. International trends in housing tenure and mortgage finance. The Council of Mortgage Lenders Research Paper. Schmidt, M., T. Plochg, J. Harting, N.S. Klazinga, and K. Stronks. 2009. Micro grants as a stimulus for community action in residential health programmes: A case study. Health Promotion International 24 (3): 234–242. https://doi. org/10.1093/heapro/dap017. Scruggs, G. 2016. Canada has emerged as one of Habitat III’s strongest advocates for vulnerable groups. Citiscope. https://web.archive.org/web/ 20170708034448/http://citiscope.org/habitatIII/news/2016/09/canada-­ has-­emerged-­one-­habitat-­iiis-­strongest-­advocates-­vulnerable-­groups. Accessed 10 November 2021. Spicer, Z. 2010. Institutional policy learning and formal Federal-urban engagement in Canada. Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance 7: 99–119. ———. 2011. The rise and fall of the ministry of state for urban affairs: A re-­ evaluation. Canadian Political Science Review 5 (2): 117–126. ———. 2015. What will Trudeau’s urban agenda look like? IRPP Policy Options blog. http://policyoptions.irpp.org/2015/10/30/will-­trudeaus-­urban-­agenda-­ look-­like/. Accessed 29 January 2018. Statistics Canada. 2015. Canada goes urban. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/ pub/11-­630-­x/11-­630-­x2015004-­eng.htm. Accessed 22 December 2021. Stoney, C., and K.A.H.  Graham. 2009. Federal-municipal relations in Canada: The changing organizational landscape. Canadian Public Administration 52 (3): 371–394. Sunny, C. 2021. Affordable rental housing: Exploring the impacts of COVID-19 on rental housing in the City of Toronto. Paper submitted to the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Environmental Studies. York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Accessible at https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/ handle/10315/38581. Accessed 14 November 2021. Task Force (Prime Minister’s Caucus Task Force on Urban Issues). 2002. Canada’s urban strategy: A vision for the 21st century. Final Report. Ottawa.

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Walks, A., and R. Maaranen. 2008. Gentrification, social mix, and social polarization: Testing the linkages in large Canadian cities. Urban Geography 29 (4): 293–326. Webber, S., and T.  Hernandez. 2016. Big box battles: The Ontario Municipal Board and large-format retail land-use planning conflicts in the Greater Toronto Area. International Planning Studies 21 (2): 117–131. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/13563475.2015.1114451. Wolfe, J.M. 2003. A national urban policy for Canada? Prospects and challenges. Canadian Journal of Urban Research 12 (1-Suppl): 1–21. World Health Organization. 2010. Urban HEART: Urban health equity assessment and response tool. http://www.stmichaelshospital.com/pdf/crich/urban-­ heart-­who.pdf. Accessed 24 April 2019.

PART III

The Forthcoming Geography: Capacity Building, Social Innovation, and Public Participation

Contributions in the third part of the book add further insights to the comprehension of urban agendas as policy instruments that have at least two functions: to enhance coordinated policy responses and to address strategies of urban and social change according to a glocal perspective. With this premise, the section is structured with a dual purpose. A first intent is to offer an update of the European geography of urban agendas in its most contemporary evolution. The focus is on the national urban policies’ state-of-the-art, from a comparative perspective. To this end, Valeria Fedeli’s contribution provides a critical reflection. While growing national government interest in launching national urban policies is currently recognizable, the author argues that what emerges is still a rather fragmented and contradictory picture. By focusing on some common characteristics of policy debates in Europe fostered in the last forty years, the final part of the chapter opens a debate on whether a specificity of the European city—in terms of approaches in building urban policies— can actually be identified. Mainstream definitions of national urban policies in European urban studies share the idea that policies that are promoted by National States are coherent within an explicit centrally led or inspired framework. An integrated approach to urban interventions characterizes such policies. Starting from this assumption, recognition of urban policies conceived as an integrated set of actions and operating through place-based programmes, in central areas and/or suburbs, is a discriminatory factor to highlight that a country has a national urban

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policy and also an explicit urban agenda. The author then stresses the mainstream notion of urban policy on the basis of findings from comparative research conducted by the National Urban Policies working group of the European Urban Research Association. As known, urbanization in Western European countries evolved with a high density of settlements and population. Urban areas are home to around 80% of the population and occupy, at present, a relevant surface of the countries’ land use, varying from 14% of Spain and Portugal to 16% of France, 17% of Germany, 24% of the UK and Italy, 31% of the Netherlands, and 40% of Belgium (World Data.info 2020).1 Belgium is an extreme case, with 98% of its residents living in urban areas. In fact, “territory consumption” produced by cities’ expansion is on the rise. A dense network of infrastructures connects a myriad of small- and medium-sized centres. Agricultural areas occupy a vast surface of land use, varying from 40% in Portugal to 71% in the UK. Overall, land exploitation for anthropic uses is very high and it is not comparable, in terms of growth and ecosystem balances, with the countries described in the previous section (part II). Nevertheless, urban economies and societies are not always at the heart of state political agendas: attention to the city level has long been controversial, even within the European Union. The European Commission played a key role in developing awareness of the urban dimension of policies, giving impetus to the supranational level to define a sustainable framework for analysis and strategic programming. Since 2016, the European Union has equipped itself with an urban agenda that sets principles and priorities for a decisive shift towards sustainable and integrated forms of urban development. To facilitate such transition, the agenda was designed in harmony with national strategic objectives and cities’ effective involvement. The result of an Urban Agenda for the EU was achieved after twenty years of commitment, on the part of the European Commission, through a gradual confrontation and bargaining process with key decision-making bodies of the Union and its Member States. In parallel, exchanges with academic, expert, and civil society sectors have been broad and intense in terms of the knowledge acquired. Continuous changes in the equilibrium, due to the Enlargement Policy and agreements on the Cohesion Policy, which were at stake in the various programming periods, have affected the urban agenda-setting process. However, great concern also arose for the underlying frictions related to  https://www.worlddata.info.

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the exclusive competence of Member States in urban and territorial policies.2 The implementation structure of the European Urban Agenda reflects a multi-level governance model that emphasizes public-private and inter-institutional cooperation among different government levels. Thematic partnership served as the working formula, acting as arenas that included governments and non-governmental actors in charge of specific policy issues. The focus has shifted from explicit urban policies adopting area-based approaches to a wider urban dimension of public policies. To address the challenges that urbanization poses, in terms of both problems and opportunities, it is essential to consider urban and territorial effects of a variety of sectoral policies that affect urban areas and the population living therein. In addition, those sectoral policies can be a lever for action at urban scale to mobilize resources, strengthening local capacities. Within this frame, in a later phase, the Urban Agenda for the EU has contributed to the UN-Habitat New Urban Agenda. Thus, the European Commission has played the role of “entrepreneur of transnational policy transfer” in allowing the circulation of its ideas and patterns of development. From this perspective, a specific issue deserves attention. Considering urbanization and related issues experienced in Western and Southern Europe, the Urban Agenda for the EU incorporates theories in favour of density to contain land consumption, promoting patterns of sustainable mobility for goods and people. Mobility is regarded as a proper answer to many problems since vast territories of circulation respond to the needs of urban life and the contemporary economy. However, the pandemic has heavily affected these two basic assumptions. Currently, debates over a recovery and relaunch of programming policies do not foresee a clear future development model: the whole European Agenda is being redesigned. Meanwhile, decisions at the EU and state levels are often quite contradictory. The shift towards ecological transition is permeated by an influent narrative, even though concrete policymaking still struggles with demands that are not always consistent with strategies and contents aligned to the new principles. Policy learning seems to find obstacles again. Resistance to change in this case is motivated by both emerging interests and cognitive and inertia factors. 2  Resistance to a direct European urban policy has been strong, despite the successful implementation of some experimental initiatives launched by the EU Commission, such as Urban programmes or, in more recent years, the Innovative Urban Actions.

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A second intent in this section is to include case studies that focus on meaningful cross-cutting issues such as capacity building, social innovation, and public participation. All these issues may become important policy factors in the design of urban agendas, and even more in their implementation. A focus on the European case, from a capacity-building perspective, underscores the “Europeanisation” of urban policymaking contents and styles within the Member States. The experiences of individual countries in building their own national urban agendas, selected for this very purpose, include Spain and Portugal. The two cases represent meaningful trajectories. Moneyba González Medina and Sonia De Gregorio Hurtado introduce the Spanish case: a country that, over the years, has made good use of European funding and policy tools to design and implement urban policies and programmes. Their in-depth analysis of the origin and evolution of the Spanish national urban agenda (approved in 2019) sheds light on two dimensions which are key aspects in policy studies. On the one hand, policy transfer mechanisms—through imitation and adaptation—have inspired the construction of the agenda, namely, the EU’s approach on sustainable urban development, and the UN’s 2030 Agenda. The process has been quite technocratic in that the expert and technical knowledge served as a primary source to elaborate the agenda. On the other hand, changes in political leadership among ministers shaped the agenda’s contents, affecting its main features and the international documents of reference. Housing policy is used as an opportunity to explore the Portuguese urban agenda in the chapter co-authored by Marco Allegra, Simone Tulumello, and Giovanni Allegretti. Herein, the authors provide a detailed historical reconstruction of the country’s housing sector trajectory, reflecting on the main changes due to the EU’s influence. Shifting from simply being a matter of public works to one of social welfare and spatial planning, in the Portuguese urban agenda housing policy has evolved, reversing the idea of what a city should be in terms of built environment and homeownership. The last two chapters provide a more general reflection on two cross-­ cutting issues that are distinctive features of the social facet of the European urban acquis: social innovation and public participation. They represent current issues and thus help define different national urban agendas worldwide. Maurizio Busacca focuses on the debate on social innovation, analysing related policies within a comparative perspective that draws from

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case studies of the agendas of nine European countries. According to the author’s research hypothesis, there is a relationship between welfare regimes and social innovation policies: the reason is found in the solidity of national and local welfare infrastructures. Finally, Giovanni Allegretti and Gianluca Sgueo’s chapter centres on the case of a policy tool—namely, participatory budgeting—framed as a “travelling policy”. Drawing on the concept of policy instrument, the authors analyse the origin and evolution of such a tool, from the first experiments in the Global South thirty years ago, to recent applications in Asian contexts. Participatory budgeting has been reconfigured and re-semantized by traveling through different historical periods, countries, and legislation systems. The chapter aims firstly to understand whether the “community of intent” that gathered around this tool—advocates, practitioners, policymakers—has actually triggered a common agenda of participatory budgeting goals and modes of operation. Secondly, it explores whether such agenda has a proper transformative capacity when interacting with other types of agendas such as urban ones.

CHAPTER 10

National Urban Policies in Europe, a Contrasted and Fragmented Picture or a Shared Social Construction? Valeria Fedeli

1   Introduction This chapter aims at providing a critical picture of the state-of-the-art of national urban policies in the European continent. It moves from the hypothesis that despite the current revival of urban policies in many European countries, this is neither the direct nor uncontested result of a programmatic and strategic return of city centrality in member states’ national policies. Not even the direct and univocal result of debates and experimentations promoted by the European integration project since its foundation. On the contrary, exploration carried out as part of a recent cross-comparison conducted by the national urban policies working group of the European Urban Research Association (Eura) shows that the old urban Europe still unfolds differentiated, contradictory, quite unstable

V. Fedeli (*) Polytechnic University of Milan, Milan, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_10

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attempts to display urban policies. Moreover, despite being active for decades on this front, in particular, national urban policies all over Europe seem to suffer from a sort of amnesia, stuck in the trap of reinventing the wheel every now and then for decades, without consolidating on a convincing and shared model and approach (Tallon 2021). In the following pages, we will assume as a specific object of reflection national urban policies, urban policies promoted by national states within a possibly coherent and explicit central-led or inspired framework. This means considering only a specific point of view on urban policies in Europe, which cannot be exhaustive; urban policies are social constructions and a complex policy arena, where the local scale is more and more crucial than ever. More generally speaking, we also move from the idea that urban policies cannot be analysed and discussed as a result of univocal and shared strategies. On the contrary, they are often the arena for developing strategies, expectations, multiple and diversified interests, which only sometimes take on the appearance of recognisable action frameworks, within objectives and rhetoric explicitly declined in favour of cities and which are also given a specific institutional-organisational form. This is even more true and particularly evident in the case of national urban policies, which are, per se, quite rare cases (D’Albergo 2010). In the real life, policies, even if launched at the national scales, remain often sets of fragmented initiatives, only partially and seldom defined within a coherent and explicit framework. Nevertheless, international reports as well as experts’ comments often search for comprehensive frameworks, with the risk of underestimating the complexity of the field, projecting implicit biases and underestimating practices. Of course, every critical analysis of national urban policies should look for the solidity of the overarching vision and the effectiveness of the dispositive and mechanisms supporting it; at the same time, every attempt to reflect on a European scale cannot count or look for a comprehensive catalogue of examples of a somehow clear-cut object. In this perspective, this chapter tries to track some characteristic features of the last 40 years of the debate on the design of urban policies promoted by the state level in Europe, highlighting its specificity if compared to other contexts. This chapter shows the manyfold interpretations of urban policies provided at national level by discussing practices of urban policies (from spatial frameworks to area-based interventions); at the same time, it tries to detect how and to what extent some underlying concepts and expectations generated by the EU integration project have contributed to shaping a peculiar approach of national urban policies in Europe.

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In this perspective, this chapter also tries to contribute critically to develop the debate on the specificity of the European city, particularly moving from the sphere of policy design.

2  The Urban Policy Arena and the Pending Heritage of Four Decades of Decentralisation Processes Many recent historical reconstructions of the state-of-the-art of national urban policies in Europe significantly depart from the early or late 1980s. During this decade, most of the founding states of the European Community, then the European Union, have undergone a process of decentralisation that has thoroughly redefined the relationship between the national and the local level. The necessary devolution of powers and competencies, started in those “glorious” years at different rhythms and based on different models, seems to represent the origin of the current framework, with its potentials and contradictions and limits. Decentralisation processes are seen as responsible for the disappearance of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century state-led policies concerning cities. They have paved the way for the beginning of a contradictory period where cities were asked to assume a new role and new responsibilities, often without being given enough power and resources to support these new fields of action. Robust decentralisation processes have charged cities with new responsibilities, making them the protagonists of the design and production of urban policies at the local level. But, in most cases, this has happened with limited resources, especially in those contexts where decentralisation occurred in periods of reduction of public expenditures. While leaving the policy field open to the autonomous initiatives of cities, the state level remained highly engaged in sectoral policies, only rarely being able to adopt an integrated approach and promote coherent coordination within the redefined governance frameworks, despite the academic debate and the experts’ debate, since decades, discuss the need for such a thing, either under the influence of the twentieth century plea for comprehensive spatial planning frameworks or under the ascendancy of debates on urban agendas mostly developed in the last two or three decades under the European Union policy framework. At the same time, cities, which became the protagonists of local and sometimes challenging experiences, had hard

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times in shaping them within a shared meaning and action framework, if not a vision. In so doing, paradoxically enough, decentralisation processes have favoured the flattening of differences: small- and medium-sized cities and the most significant urban areas have been provided similar powers, too broad for small cities, too narrow and weak for large metropolitan areas (see the case of Portugal, Teles et al. 2021, or Italy, Fedeli 2021). This was sometimes a deliberate decision: see the case of the Netherlands, where no differentiation exists between urban and rural municipalities by the constitution (Denters 2021), or the case of Sweden, where the definition of a city is not even existing or applicable (Lidström and Hertting 2021). In some cases, there have been attempts to provide large urban areas with more strategic spaces and tools for action. However, the successful experiments of metropolitan governance in Europe can still be counted on one or two hands. Many of them have been state-led and, sadly enough, failures. This situation has impacted the nature and scope of urban policies, which have registered minimal inputs from the metropolitan debate, remaining concentrated within the boundaries of the largest cities or their immediate surroundings. More recently, as a reaction to three decades of urban policies targeting basically only deprived neighbourhoods in central urban areas, new attention has been devoted to the needs and roles of small- and medium-sized towns. But again, experts lament how the direct intervention of national policies on such contexts is still based on nationally set targets and indicators, lacking a consistent interpretation of local needs and space for innovation, local flexibility and creativity (as Tallon observes concerning the UK context; Tallon 2021). As highlighted by Demazière and Sykes (2021) and others, also in the French case, tools and targets developed in the past for large cities are re-used and adapted mechanically and with a top-down approach to different contexts (Demazière and Sykes 2021). As we will see in the following paragraphs, new attention to small towns, suburban contexts and inner and peripheral areas have emerged. Still, it remains quite traditionally state-driven, seldom generating further awareness and innovation in place-based policies and transcalar governance. The result is often that more than ever, cities of different kinds have invested their efforts and time in promoting networks able to lobby at national and regional levels to represent their differentiated needs better. Towns and cities in many European countries still miss relevant spaces for representation and negotiation with the government. In others, see, for

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example, the French case, associations of cities have obtained specific attention and resources for the different kinds of cities they represent, thus de facto producing contradictory results. On the one hand, breaking down the logic of top-down selection of priorities. On the other hand, flattening down the scope of urban policies rather than obtaining differentiated approaches. This action has helped to turn attention to the effects of the progressive erosion of the state outside major urban areas and the emergence of new processes/forms of marginalisation. Nevertheless, despite the multiplication of cities’ networks and associations of different kinds, cities’ voice and active role remain limited in designing national urban policies. The European policy arena has opened some innovative spaces for action and voice for some of them. Still, the mechanisms for managing cohesion policy’s resources have often reproduced the contradictory and unsolved relationship with the state. Nevertheless, this was also the occasion for post-communist countries to enforce associations of cities, which were able to play an interesting role in lobbying towards their needs (see the Polish case, Żuber et  al. 2021). However, the limits of public administration, with reduced technical, human and financial resources and competencies, are still evident in several European countries, especially in southern and eastern Europe. Even when, like in Portugal, innovative policy tools and governance frameworks have been instituted at the national level with quite relevant symbolic and financial investment by the central level (Teles et al. 2021), the results have not matched the expectations due to persistent complex interaction and cooperation. De facto, while cities have dropped out of the national public agenda, the field of urban policies has become a governance battleground. Conflicts between different institutional levels have emerged throughout the other member states, both in those states that have chosen a federal model and in those that have maintained a more centralised one. In this respect, national urban policies have become temporary forms of armistice among adverse and conflicting institutions and governmental bodies, rather than new coordination spaces and innovative assemblages. Despite rhetoric, national urban policies are nationally led light initiatives in federal countries like Germany, which do not resemble a coherent policy framework, basically offering “policies and funding options relevant to cities (that) take the form of joint or federal schemes” (Heinelt and Zimmermann 2021). This produces limited direct investment in the field also by the federal government. In countries where federalism is

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incomplete or based on a regionalist model like in France or Spain or Poland (Demazière and Sykes 2021; De Gregorio Hurtado and Sánchez 2021; Żuber et  al. 2021; Fedeli 2021), regions or similar intermediate institutional levels have often been obstacles to the emergence of an urban agenda and policy measures destined to cities. At the same time, the national level keeps launching extemporaneous initiatives, which often stress cities and towns, obliged to reset their programmes and projects in connection with changing rationales, rules and priorities (Fedeli 2021). A few countries, often smaller ones, with a limited decentralisation process, in the last two decades have formulated explicit urban policies under the form of national spatial development schemes and coherent urban policy frameworks. It is the case of Ireland (Russell and Williams 2021) and Portugal (Teles et al. 2021), or Poland (Żuber et al. 2021), where the central level seems to be interested in investing more comprehensively, directly and explicitly on and in cities, for their potential and role for achieving aims of territorial cohesion and development at the national level. Cities become central in the national strategy of territorial cohesion economic development. But, generally speaking, these latter seem to be relatively isolated experiences. In all cases, urban policies remain de facto contended spaces for action. On a completely different page are those countries where the weak role of the state (despite not being based on a federal model) is constitutive of an institutional framework that has progressively augmented the autonomy of cities and towns (see, e.g., the case of Sweden, Lidström and Hertting 2021) and considers the national level only responsible for stimulating or coordinating action. In so doing, “it reflects the expectations for autonomy and non-intervention expressed by the local level, with no interference from the national and regional level on the municipal level” (Lidström and Hertting 2021). In such a context, the urban policy becomes a policy arena where the state has a coordination role, rather than “a substantive policy issue” (Sweden, Lidström and Hertting 2021). Similar historical tensions between the centre and the periphery have also shaped the Norwegian experience: the opposition between rural areas, capital and regional cities, combined with a persistent silo approach by central authorities, generate a weak approach to national urban policy (Hanssen Gro 2021). A peculiar situation characterises the post-communist countries. Here, decentralisation has happened in different years and with other logics. Especially at the beginning, the common feature for several countries has

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been the withdrawal of the central government from the field of urban policies “justified as counter-reaction to the heavy-handed ‘systematisation’ policies of the Communist regime” (Stănuș et  al. 2021, p.  199). Since the end of the communist regimes, decentralisation processes have tried to introduce new local government levels of autonomy but with limited results and very scarce resources. This was often accompanied by conflicts and unclear division of competencies, producing fragmentation and insufficient coordination. At the same time, particularly in these countries, the impact of the EU access process has been decisive: Romania (Stănuș et al. 2021) primarily benefited by resources dedicated to the urban field and strongly absorbed, sometimes somewhat artificially, the EU logic, to the point of completely reversing their local aptitudes towards the local level, by experiencing the EU approach in regional and urban policy. Adopting the idea that cities and metropolitan areas could become drivers for economic development and attraction of EU fundings. Moreover, these countries worked intensively on privatisation and land restitution opening on the one hand to the market and on the other consistently reducing the role of the state and planning and regulation, despite keeping and updating an apparent robust planning system. At the same time, the post-communist countries have been a space for the “interplay of international, national and local actors” (Stănuș et al. 2021, p. 208), from the EU to the World Bank, which did not avoid interlocal conflicts between the state and the cities. More recently, decentralisation was promoted to overcome the insufficient capacity of central governments (in Romania) or to become the focus or, even more interestingly, for multi-governance systems and partners to improve public policies’ effectiveness (Stănuș et al. 2021). In several cases, like in Romania and Poland and Slovakia, the central state has promoted national territorial development strategies (Żuber et al. 2021; Finka and Husár 2021). However, on a different page, attempts to rethink the state’s steering role towards urban policies can be noticed here and there in different countries. One of the most coherent and permanent efforts in the last decade can be found in the Dutch context: the central government, rather than directly intervening in the cities as in the past, has chosen to focus its attention on enabling local actors to deal with urban challenges, acting as a facilitator or broker (Denters 2021). The new approach adopts covenants designed by the cities themselves rather than based on a template developed at the central level. These are agreements “between a selected number of cities, national government departments, civil society and the

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private sector to tackle a specific and self-defined problem. It acts as a vehicle for cooperation and commitment by mobilising stakeholders to pool their resources (e.g., financial, legal, expertise) to work together outside of standard operating procedures” (Hamers et al. 2017a, b, c). The underlying idea is that municipalities should be empowered to base the covenant on an integrated local strategy and develop it on a co-governance approach. This approach has been recently extended at that regional scale that had not found institutional recognition despite its relevance in such a country. Evaluations of such an approach highlight the limits due to the limited budget resources made available, as well as highlight its potential and role in providing spaces for a differentiated, situated interpretation of urban policies, together with a new attention to integrating people in the processes. However, although the initiative has more recently shifted from a city-based approach to a more traditional neighbourhood base, the Dutch City deals have undergone long-term experimentation, which could help to deal with the limits of the decentralisation processes when dealing with the state-city relationship.

3  The Unclear Scope of Urban Policy What shall urban policy be about is everything but settled in Europe, despite since the 1980s the influence of the UK and France in the European debate seemed to have contributed to a common vocabulary and, through the EU framework, the mainstreaming of urban policy (Fedeli et al. 2021). If we map the different contents and objectives associated with the notion of national urban policy, common words and rhetoric can be detected, but also quite relevant differences in terms of interpretations. But seen at a distance, whether this is positive or not, a shared definition remains an impossible mission. The idea of urban policy as urban regeneration emerged in particular in the 1970s, particularly concerning the UK context: after the post-war years, basically focussed on urban redevelopment and housing and infrastructural policies, led and regulated by the state, the 1970s developed a focus on area-based policies aimed at tackling the social problems of the most deprived urban areas through a mix of material and immaterial components, mainly focussing on the role of a requalified physical space. This definition has entered the academic debate and the policy makers’ one. Still, even in the UK case, it could not clarify the realm and effectiveness

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of the effort to combine the two primary objectives: economic development and social justice. In the UK case, according to some scholars, the urban policy sphere remained a confused and confusing landscape (Tallon 2021, p. 288), generating a problematic mismatch between expectations and outcomes, especially at the local level (Tallon 2021), often working on a logic of short-term results, unable to generate long-term commitment at the national level. At the same time, despite the spread all over Europe of urban regeneration policies based on the objectives mentioned above, segregation and deprivation seem to extend and worsen (in countries like Sweden, where inequalities increased more than in any other OECD country between 1985 and 2010; Lidström and Hertting 2021). The link between urban renewal and urban policies has also characterised the French context in the last two decades, with swinging rhythms of the politique de la Ville from a social dimension towards a mainly physical approach to regeneration, with an orientation towards a state-led process. In brief, the politique de la Ville “abandoned the bottom-up and cross-sector approach that had characterised its origins, prioritising instead the implementation of a demolition-reconstruction program, the objectives and content of which had been decided on at the national level” (Epstein 2015, p. 468), with the not clear relationship being shown “between the improvement of the living environment and social diversification. The inequalities between the inhabitants of the targeted districts and those of the agglomerations on which they depend have widened even more, particularly in terms of jobs, income and social mix” (Epstein 2015). This can also be considered the unexpected outcome of the difficulties of the French doctrine “in developing people-based policies and in integrating this empowerment, which is at the heart of urban policies in other countries” (Donzelot 2003). In countries like Italy, Spain or Poland (where the EU was a crucial resource to import the efforts to an integrated approach to urban policy), many experiences have favoured the physical dimension, lacking the complexity of the thematic, territorial and governance dimension proposed by the EU experimental method developed in the Urban Programmes of the 1990. On the one hand, lack of consistent data able to identify needs as well as relatively standardized interpretations of the urban question; on the other, too sophisticated analytical approaches and rules of engagement, produced severe obstacles to a coherent strategy, able to impress a fundamental switch in public policies, as well as to generate successful

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public-private partnerships in many of the EU countries which looked at the EU dimension as a significant model to look at. In most cases, urban policy in the European context remained attached to a traditional understanding of the nexus between urban development and economic growth, inherited by the nineteenth century and shaping the design of the urban planning realm. The twentieth century has produced the highest rate of urbanisation ever in the continent. Even though this rhythm has progressively slowed down in the last decades, it still informs and defines the spatial planning agenda of large, medium and small cities all over Europe. Undeniably the regeneration issue has become crucial in the second part of the century since the 1980s. Still, the path-­ dependency generated by the idea that cities have to grow and expand to support economic development has dominated the century and developed policy tools aimed at producing mediation and negotiation between the expectations for growth of the private actors and requirements provided by the public actors to redistribute and regulate the effects. As a result, on the one hand, tax-based renewal schemes have been generating speculative bubbles all over the EU, acting cyclically over the twentieth century’s history of the urban continent, producing entire parts of cities destined to remain monothematic and monofunctional and too quickly become empty and useless (see the effects of the speculative bubble in 1990s in Spain (De Gregorio Hurtado and Sánchez 2021); the housing shortage/surplus cycle becoming shorter and shorter in Portugal, e.g., Teles et al. 2021). On the other hand, urban regeneration has mainly been shaped as a redistributive policy focusing on the most deprived parts of society not entering the new capitalist phase. It remained focussed and physically concentrated in the left-over spaces of the urban not attractive to developers. In some countries, urban policies have been interpreted as a necessary complement to the welfare state (Sweden, see Lidström and Hertting 2021): the role of housing policies and public works ministries remained central throughout the century, witnessing the superposition of urban policies and redistributive policies all over Europe, while also showing the limits of European cities as forms of spatial fix to the contradictions of the twentieth-century capitalist model. More interestingly, in the UK, a new objective of urban regeneration is related to supporting places that have suffered de-industrialisation (and where there is a consistent concentration of low skilled workers) by rethinking the role of manufacturing sectors (Tallon 2021).

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Finally, in this respect, it is crucial to notice how the EU cohesion policy has touched cities, basically through the mediation of Finance Ministries, which have failed often to interpret the complexity of the challenge of sustainable integrated development, as proposed by the European Union. In this respect, especially in post-communist countries like Romania and Poland adopting thoroughly the territorial cohesion approach, but also in France based on the long tradition of Amenagement du Territoire, national, regional developmental strategies or schemes provided a frame for action for urban policies, looking at the urban dimension as a key to promote economic development, within a balancing perspective. In this respect, it is not unexpected that infrastructural policies have remained a central sphere of action at the national level. All over the century, member states have kept strongly investing in collective transport infrastructures able to support the new urban fabric and its nexus with the economic model, so much so that infrastructures have acted as urbanisation, first, and then regionalisation machines. Underground public transportation systems, as well as regional transport systems built during the second half of the century, and later high-speed rail systems have granted mobility and accessibility to large urban areas and supported polycentric and regional development, at the same time consolidating a quite hierarchic urban model, leaving to the realm of private transportation the rest of the continent. The role played by the Ministries of public works and transportation all over the member states indicates how national urban policies in most countries remain dependent on infrastructural policies, often traditionally silo-policies. A crucial element in this respect is still related to the possibility of direct action offered by the public property of land, which has provided the public realm new spaces for action and negotiation with private economic actors, based on a new active land policy (see the case of Bilbao in Spain: De Gregorio Hurtado and Sánchez 2021). In some recent cases, infrastructural policies have been associated with multilevel governance contractual management tools, like in the case of Norwegian Urban growth agreements, and oriented towards the integration with land use policies and management of growth (Hanssen Gro 2021). In this sense, it could also be affirmed the need to consider how infrastructure policies today must be rethought, where the future of development no longer probably passes from traditional infrastructures but from new digital infrastructures. In some countries, this transition is not

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yet the focus of attention, with a significant gap towards new investments in ICT and their potentials and contradictory and unplanned effects. The environmental dimension has finally become crucial in the late 1990s and early 2000, partially reshaping the policy agenda by introducing the ecological sustainability issue in the infrastructural and urban regeneration. Over the EU, the last 20 years have seen the emergence of ministries of ecologic transition, which are becoming crucial chains of transmission of new principles, resources and priorities in the agenda, as well as fields of attention of new political parties. National plans, programmes and initiatives have been launched concerning urban sustainability. Still, their impact and effectiveness often seem to be suffering from the same problems of coordination that have affected the history of urban policies (Teles et al. 2021). Also, in this case, there are growing contradictions between the need for central coordination and the fact that cities become necessary pillars for implementing such policies.

4  The Urban (and the Right to the City) Under Redefinition The third characteristic of the EU context and probably the most challenging one towards a revisited urban policy or agenda is the nature of the urban in the European continent. Urban growth trends producing large urban regions in many countries (from Portugal to eastern Europe, producing shrinkage and at the same time regionalisation of the urban dimension or suburbanisation) are slightly different from those that happened in the twentieth century, with conurbations taking shape all over Europe around main urban areas. On the one hand, even in the European continent, and maybe here more than elsewhere, we are experiencing a phase under which the distinction between urban and non-urban is less evident. Not only because the physical boundaries between urbanised and non-­ urbanised areas are more eroded than ever, within processes of agglomeration and interconnections that resemble what is happening in other parts of the world. But because urban and non-urban lifestyles are more than ever hybridised, with severe consequences for how the traditional right to the city is conceived and expressed. The typicality of urban problems became less evident, several issues appearing simultaneously in distant situations and next to each other. This makes it quite challenging to define priorities in terms of agenda-setting and draw geographies for action.

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Contradictory enough, at the same time, in some countries, the contraposition between urban and rural seems to be worsening, with figures that dramatically see the cleavages between growing and stagnating or shrinking contexts (in Sweden, Germany, Italy, the UK, France). The concentration of resources on the big cities and reduction of essential services in small- and medium-sized towns have characterised the end of the twentieth century, progressively fragilizing a consistent number of places, which have started expressing new forms of discontent, or silently exiting the map of urban Europe and public agendas. In eastern Europe, re-­ urbanisation and suburbanisation have contradistinguished countries like in the post-communist period. At the same time, the city’s definition is the outcome of a ranking based on the provision of facilities and infrastructure that an urban centre can deserve. For specific periods, policies tried to subsidise towns and cities to keep those standards. Rural areas often benefitted from unique resources (Stănuș et al. 2021). In this respect, the concept of the right to the city becomes less clear. The idea of “places left behind” partially seemed at some point able to restructure the agenda and the debate, highlighting the emergence of new forms of spatial injustice and discontent. But still, the many attempts to sketch unique geography of marginalisation provide contradictory results, are hard to generalise and are still too much based on a geography of cleavages. At the same time, European cities are more and more in a condition of fractal divides, where marginality and centrality often coexist, side by side (Behar 2017). The simplicity of the image of a territorial divide, the rise of the extreme right vote in ‘peripheral areas’ through the last two decades and the recent ‘Yellow Vests’ movement have extended the list of places national urban policies might target, at the risk of reducing their visibility and/or efficiency (Demazière and Sykes 2021). Limited signs of innovation appear in countries like Portugal, where urban policies in the latest period have focused on the intraurban dimension and networked nature of the urban (Teles et al. 2021). In this respect, area-based policies developed during the 1980s delimiting the boundaries artificially for action have failed to reduce marginalisation and deprivation. The preciseness of boundaries has de facto strongly contrasted on the one hand with the too-wide expectations and too much broad definition of urban policies, with multiple objectives being highly complicated to be achieved and perceived (Tallon 2021). At the same time, they were feeding stigmatisation and fertilisation processes indirectly through policy intervention (Hastings and Dean 2003; Tallon 2021). On

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the other hand, it is weak enough to deal with the glocal characters of contemporary capitalisms. However, many local observers lament the lack of political attention to the urban question in most political campaigns at the national level. Despite many attempts to promote initiatives to support cities, if not a comprehensive or strategic form of action, the focus on cities remains relatively low throughout EU member states. The newest political movements are not showing explicit attention to the urban dimension. Lack of a clear vision, but at the same time a myriad of initiatives dedicated to cities, characterises many national contexts. National levels are back on the scenes, but political uncertainty and instability at the local and national levels make the central role in urban policies quite changing in scope and rationales. In some cases, EU becomes a sort of political argument (Poland, see Żuber et al. 2021): “decisions made at the central government level are sometimes presented to the public as the result of broader pan-European procedures. It was the case with the introduction of ITI (Integrated Territorial Investment). The ministry responsible for implementing cohesion policy made a vague and voluntary mechanism proposed by the European Commission a prerequisite for granting EU funds to 17 Polish metropolitan areas. Thus, despite deadlock in developing metropolitan management tools, metropolitan cooperation was enforced on the pretext of the EU support management system” (Żuber et al. 2021).

5  Are National Urban Policies a Characterising Feature of the EU Continent? Patrick Le Galès and Arnaldo Bagnasco, at the end of the 1990s, concluded their famous book confirming the Weberian hypothesis about the specificity of the European cities if compared to other urban contexts in the world. Among the reasons, they mentioned a peculiar relationship with the state, being reshaped during decentralisation processes and providing new spaces of autonomy of action, synergically augmented by the EU integration project. Revisiting this message in 2015, Le Galès highlighted the changing conditions under which cities were operating in the middle of the new millennium. Processes of state restructuring have progressively been reducing the innovations generated in the 1990s by the intersection between national approaches to decentralisation and the

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impact of the EU. This impacted cities, reducing new autonomous actions and turning national states into member states. Polemizing with authors affirming the idea of a post-European city, he admitted a quite changing institutional and political context. Moreover, the economic crisis of 2007 accelerated globalisation and financialisation effects on EU cities, bringing in processes of state restructuring based on the attempts of the state to re-centralise some functions and reduce the relationship with cities within processes of limited negotiation. This warning sounds even more pressing in the aftermath of the new global crisis produced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the different phases of the pandemic, states have been back on the scene with a new centrality, calling back competencies and powers due to the state of emergency. A quick look at the official positions expressed by the associations of European cities and metropolitan areas or regional and local authorities towards the design and implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans offers some critical elements for sensing the situation.1 The document issued by Eurocities in September 2021, based on a consultation held in December 2020 and during 2021, indicated that cities felt to be outcast in the design of national recovery strategies and asked for more substantial involvement in the governance of recovery. They denounce indeed insufficient participation at the local level, lack of structured dialogue and political will to include them, also due to time constraints. At the same time, they ask for a new involvement in the implementation as a key for success, to better “reflect the real needs and capacities on the ground […]; a more substantial dialogue on the technical support and human resources that national governments will provide to project bidders and implementers”. According to 42% of respondents, governance arrangements were not inspired by the subsidiarity principles, and the influence of cities if compared to regions remains limited. They lament that the urban dimension is present in the national recovery plans, but not so explicit, passing through sectoral policies, with a low capacity to follow the integrated and sustainable development principles promoted during the last decades. At the same time, they fear falling again in a complex process of bidding procedures, slowing down the potential and need 1  The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is the most significant part of the Next Generation EU plan, 723.8 billion euros out of 801 billion, designed to support member states in carrying out reforms and investments to recover from the economic and social crisis produced by the pandemic.

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for short-term recovery strategies. The same concerns about the top-down nature of the recovery plans’ making were expressed in December 2021 by the European Committee of the regions: the rapporteur, Rob Jonkman, concluded his speech by saying, “we are in need of cooperation, not centralisation”: the paradox being that local and regional authorities are responsible more and more for public expenditures and more than half of public spending, but plans are mainly elaborated at the national level. In a certain sense, we could conclude that one of the critical features and the open issue of urban policies in Europe is the troubled relationship between cities and the state. Despite 40 years of decentralisation, the debate is still open and contradictory, with ups and downs showing that the state’s restructuring is happening within a clear path dependence in the politics of city/state relationship (Brenner 2019, p. 135). We assist to a growing, rather than diminishing role of the state (Brenner 2019), which continuously de facto intervenes on spaces without a clear and explicit urban policy (Fedeli et al. 2021). In other words, the state rescaling process appears tightly intertwined with urban restructuring. Cities, in this respect, have remained “at once nodes of accumulation and coordinates of state territorial power” (Brenner 2019, p. 149). States have tried to convey new spaces for capital accumulation, first focussing on policies rebalancing the effects of accumulation, then more recently to accompanying globalisation, thus reinforcing centralities and creating new forms and processes of marginalisation (Brenner 2019, p. 197). In this perspective, the state level’s current economic development strategies have been unable to progressively address uneven spatial development and polarisation generated by the different cycles of capital accumulation. Urban policy(es) in European countries remained largely inspired by state-led strategies of rebalancing or fostering accumulation, providing spaces for manoeuvre to cities and regions, but only seldom being able to generate room for innovation able to see, capture and tackle the changing shapes of the “urban question” (whether this may be defined) within a transcalar perspective. At the same time, city-­ centre conceptions of (sustainable) development taking roots in the last decades at the international level and widely influencing the European continent may seem in deep contrast to the reality of contemporary urban fabric. That was entirely reshaped by dynamics under which the city as a bounded (political and policy) action space cannot be anymore defined. The recent approval of the new Leipzig chart in 2020 and the process leading to the EU urban agenda at the end of the last decade, together

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with the EU’s decision to earmark 8% of resources of the cohesion policy funds for cities, both confirm the contradictory feature of national urban policies and provide some spaces for innovation. On the one hand, it conceptualises the interactions between the neighbourhood, the local and the functional area as constitutive of the European urban dimension, as the basis for good governance. At the same time, it addresses the need to develop a just, green and productive city within an integrated, multilevel governance and place-based approach. On the other hand, in the documents related to its implementation, the Ministers are relaunching, as the primary tool for implementing the urban agenda, one of the most interesting and recent methodological contributions of the EU elaborated, that is, the thematic partnership. Under this framework, the EU has generated a transcalar, thematic space for reframing crucial policy issues based on an open dialogue between different actors’ assemblages. Can this be a sound way to advance national urban policies, going beyond the limits shown by twentieth-century decentralisation processes and the attempts to define the urban and the urban question? It may sound too optimistic, but several scholars and policymakers are looking in this direction (Fedeli et al. 2021). From this perspective, we could conclude that the EU continent presents shared features and common expectations towards urban policies. But is still far from providing an accomplished and shared vision.

References Behar, D. 2017. Fracture territoriale. Le frisson qui rassure. In Nouvelle relegations territoriales, ed. E. Benbassa and J.-C. Assia. Paris: CNRS. Brenner, N. 2019. New urban spaces: Urban theory and the scale question, 461. Oxford University Press, New York. D’Albergo, E. 2010. Urban issues in nation-state agendas: A comparison in Western Europe. Urban Research and Practice 3 (2): 138–158. De Gregorio Hurtado, S., and J.R. Sánchez. 2021. Urban national policy in Spain? A diachronic critical review of four decades of government action. In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K. Zimmermann and V. Fedeli, 216–244. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar. Demazière, C., and O. Sykes. 2021. Acting for cities and towns? The perpetual reinvention of categories and tools of national urban policies in France. In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K.  Zimmermann and V. Fedeli, 34–57. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar.

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Denters, B. 2021. National urban policies in the Netherlands: An urban renaissance? In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K. Zimmermann and V. Fedeli, 103–126. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar. Donzelot, J. 2003. Faire société: La Politique de la ville aux Etats-Unis et en France. Paris: Seuil. Epstein, R. 2015. La gouvernance territoriale: une affaire d’Etat. La dimension verticale de la construction de l’action collective dans les territoires. L’Année sociologique 65 (2): 457–482. Fedeli, V. 2021. The unaccomplished quest for urban policies in Italy. ‘Waiting for Godot’ in the country of one hundred cities. In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K.  Zimmermann and V.  Fedeli, 87–102. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar. Fedeli, V., J. Carpenter, and K. Zimmermann. 2021. National urban policies in Europe: Does the EU make the difference? In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K. Zimmermann and V. Fedeli, 306–319. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar. Finka, M., and M. Husár. 2021. Multilevel polycentric governance in urban development policies—National urban policy structure in Slovakia. In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K. Zimmermann and V. Fedeli, 245–267. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar. Hamers, D., M. Dignum, and D. Evers. 2017a. Evaluatie city deals. Accessed 29 June 2020. https://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/downloads/pbl-­2017-­ evaluatie-­city-­deals-­29151.pdf. ———. 2017b. Evaluatie city deals—Vervolg. Accessed 29 June 2020. https:// www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/downloads/pbl-­2017-­evaluatie-­city-­deals-­ vervolg-­3015.pdf. ———. 2017c. Fact sheet: Dutch City deals evaluation—Follow-up. Accessed 29 June 2020. https://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/downloads/Factsheet PBLCityDealsEvaluation.pdf. Hanssen Gro, S. 2021. Becoming urban: The emergence of an urban policy in rural Norway. In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K. Zimmermann and V. Fedeli, 127–149. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar. Hastings, A. and J. Dean. 2003. Challenging images: tackling stigma through estate regeneration. Policy and Politics 31: 171–184. Heinelt, H., and K. Zimmermann. 2021. National urban policies in a federal system: The case of Germany. In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K. Zimmermann and V. Fedeli, 14–33. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar. Lidström, A., and N.  Hertting. 2021. Limited, fragmented and powerless: National urban policies in Sweden. In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K.  Zimmermann and V.  Fedeli, 268–283. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar.

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Russell, P., and B.  Williams. 2021. Irish urban policy: From benign neglect to national strategic planning. In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K. Zimmermann and V. Fedeli, 58–86. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar. Stănuș, C., D. Pop, and D. Dragoman. 2021. Changing urban system, changing urban policy: Romania since 1989. In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K.  Zimmermann and V.  Fedeli, 195–215. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar. Tallon, A. 2021. ‘Places left behind’: National urban policy in the UK—From boom to slump and recovery? In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K.  Zimmermann and V.  Fedeli, 284–305. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar. Teles, F., P. Romeiro, and S. Moreno Pires. 2021. Thirty years of urban policy in Portugal: Challenges and multilevel governance. In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K. Zimmermann and V. Fedeli, 176–194. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar. Żuber, P., K. Szmigiel-Rawska, and J. Krukowska. 2021. Boosting national urban policies by European integration. The case of Poland. In A modern guide to national urban policies in Europe, ed. K. Zimmermann and V. Fedeli, 149–176. Elgar Modern Guide, Elgar.

CHAPTER 11

Analysis of the Spanish Urban Agenda from a Policy Transfer Perspective. Advancing to More Resilient Post-COVID Urban Areas Moneyba González Medina and Sonia De Gregorio Hurtado

1   Introduction Currently there is a large and unprecedented public policy focus on urban issues. The recognition of cities as both the “problem and solution” to the most important sustainable global challenges of our time (the so-called urban paradox, see Gleeson 2011) underpins the recent pathways established by the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development (2015) and the United Nations’ New Urban Agenda (2016), on the one hand, and the Urban Agenda for the European Union (2016), on the other. This

M. González Medina (*) Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] S. De Gregorio Hurtado Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_11

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attention, together with the emergence of cities as global actors (organized in national and international networks), clearly demonstrates the political centrality of cities and urban issues (González Medina and Huete García 2018; Alonso Ibáñez et al. 2020). This focus has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic because of cities’ dense populations and because the measures put into place (lockdowns, social distancing, and various other restrictions) have led to new ways of using public space and facilities and inhabiting private space. This has resulted in policy reflections as to how to rethink the urban model (Fernández de Losada and Abdullah 2021). In order to respond to the current health and socio-economic crisis, the European Union (EU) has launched a recovery framework, formalized through the Next Generation EU, which establishes the investment priorities and reforms that Member States (MS) have agreed upon to incorporate into their national Recovery Plans. This path forward is contextualized by the 2050 vision proposed by the European Commission (EC) in December 2019, known as the European Green Deal, which is a “route map” that seeks to regenerate the economy in line with environmental sustainability and a just transition in which some authors and entities have argued that the role of municipalities will be crucial (De Gregorio Hurtado 2021; Eurocities 2021). In this context, this work focuses on Spain to understand how its Urban Agenda (SUA), approved in 2019, is evolving and providing (or not) policy responses to contribute to a better post-COVID urban future. According to the data, 80% of Spain’s inhabitants live in urban areas,1 and specifically, between 2001 and 2016 this population increased by 17% (SUA 2019, p. 31). As this is Spain’s first explicit national urban policy, this study analyses its evolution, from its approval to date, as well as its main features, to understand the kind of contribution that it has made to the national policy framework. Furthermore, it explores to what extent the SUA has been exposed to policy transfer dynamics from supranational urban development policy frameworks, and particularly the extent to which it aligns with the 2030 Agenda and the framework of Spain’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan—España Puede (Gobierno de España 2021).

1

 This represents around 13% of Spanish territory (Ministry of Public Works 2013).

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The analysis is based not only on qualitative research, using document analysis and participant observation (Kawulich 2005) as methods of data collection, but also on relevant previous works published by the authors (De Gregorio Hurtado and González Medina 2019). The analytical approach borrows the concepts of “agenda-setting” (Kingdon 1995; Birkland 1998) and “policy transfer” (Dolowitz and Marsh 2000; Newmark 2002), since the SUA has been a policy very much influenced by supranational agendas on sustainable and urban development. “Policy transfer” is defined by Dolowitz and Marsh (2000, p. 5) as a process “by which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political system (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political system”. The range of objects that can be transferred includes policy goals, structure and content, policy instruments or administrative techniques, institutions, ideology, ideas, attitudes and concepts, and “negative” lessons. According to this literature, Spain mainly follows a “policy taker” pattern (Carpenter et al. 2020) regarding its urban development policy. On the one hand, the SUA has been explicitly linked to the 2030 Agenda objectives (in particular, Sustainable Development Goal-SDG 11) and, on the other, it has employed the methodological approach—Urban Acquis (Atkinson and Rossignolo 2009) (strategic planning, citizen participation, place-based approach, etc.)—and the policy mechanisms (epistemic communities, training, etc.) present in the urban development programmes of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) since the 1990s. The European Urban Acquis, which builds on the experience gained while supporting integrated and sustainable urban development, is a term that has been used to suggest the building up of a common European intervention methodology, a body of knowledge and examples of action (e.g., “good practices”) (Atkinson and Rossignolo 2010, p. 195). In the following sections, we describe the SUA’s construction, its main features, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of policy development. The last section summarizes the main findings for each aspect, according to the policy transfer approach.

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2  The SUA Policy-Building Process Until Its Approval in 2019 Despite the population concentration in urban areas, Spain has traditionally been characterized by the lack of a national urban policy and indeed its reluctance to institutionalize this policy domain. The reasons for this have been analysed in the literature (Parkinson et  al. 2012; González Medina and Fedeli 2015; De Gregorio Hurtado and González Medina 2019; De Gregorio Hurtado and Ruiz Sánchez 2021), but one of the most relevant has to do with the framework of competences established by the Constitution in 1978, which has led to a very decentralized state within which territories compete. In this framework,2 regions and municipalities are predominantly responsible for territorial planning and urban policies, so the policy system has evolved over time with a “logic of defence” over competences (Parkinson et al. 2012; De Gregorio Hurtado and González Medina 2019), instead of advancing towards a collaborative multilevel and inter-administrative dynamic. This has resulted in a highly fragmented urban policy without a common strategic vision. In fact, each region has its own territorial planning framework, which fundamentally determines its urban development and evolution. The lack of a coordinated vision explains many of the country’s territorial and urban weaknesses (De Gregorio Hurtado and Ruiz Sánchez 2021). However, global environmental and health challenges have placed cities at the centre of responses and solutions. For the United Nations (UN) “the development of a national urban policy is a fundamental step to reaffirm urban space and territoriality. It is also vital to give the right direction and plan of action to support urban development”.3 Thus, after the Habitat III Conference (2016), the UN launched the National Urban Policy Programme4 (NUPP) in collaboration with the Cities Alliance and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Further, in recent decades, the EU has encouraged MS to develop their own urban policy frameworks through its Cohesion Policy. They both have had a great influence on the Spanish urban policy-building process 2  Spain is a “quasi-federal” country. It is territorially organized in 17 regions—Comunidades Autónomas: two autonomous cities in the north of Africa (Ceuta and Melilla), 50 provinces, and 8124 municipalities. Among these, only 402 municipalities have over 20,000 inhabitants, while almost 90% have less than 5000 (SUA 2019, pp. 46–47). 3  More information at: https://unhabitat.org/es/node/4407. 4  More information at: https://unhabitat.org/programme/national-urban-policy.

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that resulted in approval of the SUA in February 2019, the first national urban policy (FEMP 2020, p. 4) “as conceived by United Nations and the EU” (Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda 2021, p. 1). But how was it envisaged? What were the contextual conditions that resulted in this important policy change in the Spanish Government agenda? 2.1   The Launching of the SUA by the Ministry of Finance: An EU-Driven Initiative In 2013, during negotiations for the Structural Funding period 2014–2020 between the EC (Directorate General of Regional and Urban Policy—DG Regio) and the Spanish Government (represented by the Ministry of Finance), the country committed to start drafting its own urban agenda (Partnership Agreement 2014–2020 for Spain 2014). A similar agreement was arrived at by the DG Regio and other countries (e.g., Italy) at that time (González Medina and Fedeli 2015). Consequently, the Spanish Ministry of Finance began to construct the urban agenda by creating a specialist group composed of around 25 experts with varying profiles (e.g., politicians, public servants, practitioners, academics, etc.). This initiative took place at a moment in which there was no policy debate or significant demand from key domestic stakeholders to provide a framework for sustainable urban development. Another singularity of the process is that the Ministry of Finance was the leading actor in the construction of the urban agenda at that time. Even though the Ministry was acting as the ERDF’s Managing Authority in the country, and thus had no responsibility for urban issues, it was very much committed to urban development. In fact, it played a key role in implementing the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy through the programmes URBAN (1994–1999), URBAN II (2000–2006), the Iniciativa Urbana (2007–2013), and the Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategies—EDUSI (2014–2020) (De Gregorio Hurtado 2018; González Medina 2018; De Gregorio Hurtado et al. 2021) and in “downloading” their methodological approach for Integrated Sustainable Urban Development (ISUD) (Fig. 11.1). In this vein, it is worth mentioning that Spain is unique in the EU for continuously implementing the Urban Acquis through explicit Cohesion Policy urban programmes over four programming periods (De Gregorio Hurtado 2017, 2018). In this first stage, the expert group operated for two years, before being dissolved in 2017 when the Ministry of Public Works assumed leadership

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Fig. 11.1  ERDF co-funded urban programmes in Spain. (Source: Own elaboration, from data retrieved on the Red de Iniciativas Urbanas website. More information about this network created by the Ministry of Finance can be found at: https://www.rediniciativasurbanas.es/)

of the SUA construction. This was at a moment when Spain started to be particularly influenced by the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2015) and its associated SDGs. 2.2   A New Process Under the Leadership of the Ministry of Public Works: The 2030 Agenda as Dominant Policy Framework The increasing focus on urban issues by the UN, OECD, and EU explains the involvement of the Ministry of Public Works, which was given responsibility for the matter. Another relevant consideration is that at that time the minister of Public Works was Íñigo de la Serna who, as Santander’s former mayor, had a profound understanding of urban matters. Two unprecedented facts characterize this “new stage” in 2017 (Fig. 11.2): first, the Ministry of Public Works led the SUA by starting from scratch, leaving no role in the process for the Ministry of Finance. In this regard, the Ministry of Public Works gave great visibility to this new policy and presented the national government as a main actor in this regard, something that had never previously occurred in the field of Spanish urban policies (De Gregorio Hurtado and Ruiz Sánchez 2021).

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Fig. 11.2  Evolution of the SUA process (2014–2021). (Source: Own elaboration)

Secondly, beyond the EU’s influence on Spanish urban policies (Carpenter et al. 2020), the UN became a very influential actor because of the 2030 Agenda, and particularly the SDG 11.5 In fact, Spain had begun to develop its own 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. The UN’s policy framework (the SDGs and New Urban Agenda) constituted a “window of opportunity” (Kingdon 1995) to change leadership and initiate a new policy process characterized by distancing the SUA from its links to the ERDF funding and Ministry of Finance leadership. In this second stage, a new working group was established that involved ten external experts with significant knowledge about sectoral urban topics (especially in architecture, environment, and engineering)—but with no specific experience in the design of strategic policy instruments—as well as technicians and civil servants from the Ministry of Public Works 5  The office of UN-Habitat Spain is in fact located in the building of the Ministry of Public Works and a formal collaboration agreement has existed since 2010.

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that worked from June 2017 to March 2018 (De Gregorio Hurtado and González Medina 2019). This group worked thematically by analysing and addressing issues that were prominent on international urban agendas and then transposing the outcomes to the Spanish framework. At that stage there was no dialogue with the regions, cities, or other relevant stakeholders on the approach and policy scope of the urban agenda, and it was a process strongly centralized by the Ministry of Public Works. This restricted involvement and scarce multilevel governance of the process, as well as the thematic approach adopted, left off the agenda many pending and relevant policy matters (see Sect. 3). The first draft of the SUA was shared with all relevant stakeholders and the public in the summer of 2018 in a three-month participative process. It was presented as a document that was fully aligned with the UN’s 2030 Agenda, the New Urban Agenda, and the Urban Agenda for the EU (Ministry of Public Works 2019) and was approved at the beginning of 2019. The Ministry represented it as a soft policy based on a “strategic framework to guide sustainable urban policies in the country, with social, environmental and economic objectives” (Ministry of Public Works 2018, p. 9). At a political level, it is worth noting the continuity of the process. The SUA had been initiated in 2017 by a conservative party (Partido Popular) under President Rajoy and was continued by the following left-wing governments under President Sánchez in June 2018 (with the Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE) and in January 2020 (with the PSOE— Unidas Podemos coalition government). This is uncommon in Spanish politics, particularly regarding urban issues. Moreover, the current government has given further prominence to this issue. In fact, the Ministry of Public Works in January 2020 became Spain’s first “Ministry of Cities” by changing its name to that of “Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda” (MITMA). This transformation also aimed at following the steps of other European countries in the re-denomination of ministries with responsibilities for urban issues (Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda 2020). At administrative level, the label “urban agenda” was also added to the denomination of several departments within the Ministry (e.g., the Under Secretary of State, the Directorate General, etc.), coexisting with other issues that they traditionally managed, such as housing, architecture, transport, and soil policy. This evidences the urban agenda’s institutionalization and the strength with which it became important for the national

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government, as does the fact that the SUA was considered one of the nine “Action Plan policy levers” for implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Spain (2018) and a priority area for intervention under the leadership of the Ministry of Public Works (Government of Spain 2018, p.  131). At operational level, the process has been coordinated within the Ministry from the Directorate General of Urban Agenda and Housing by a small group of civil servants, and no further significant resources have been assigned to this policy. However, at this point the COVID-19 pandemic forced a new stage in the SUA process, which is closely linked to its implementation and the resources to be mobilized for it. As a global challenge, the pandemic has increased the role of supranational actors such as the UN and the EU in modelling domestic policies, particularly at urban level. In fact, the pandemic constitutes a “focusing event” (Kingdon 1995; Birkland 1998) that may have an enormous impact in terms of policy change and potentially strengthen the policy transfer dynamic already noted throughout the SUA process. According to the literature, a “focusing event” is defined as an event that is sudden, relatively uncommon, reasonably harmful (or able to generate greater future harms), concentrated in a particular geographical area or community of interest, and that is known to policy makers and the public simultaneously (Birkland 1998, p. 54). Such an event can change the dominant issues on the agenda in a policy domain, lead to interest group mobilization, and groups often actively seek to expand or contain issues after it (Birkland 1998). This further stage of the process will be specifically addressed in Sect. 5. The next sections will be dedicated to the SUA itself: What kind of urban agenda has resulted from this process? What has been the content and approach? What are its main features and singularities?

3  The “Urban Issue” Within the SUA: Approach and Content The SUA is a strategic document6 composed of 10 strategic objectives, 30 specific objectives, and 291 action lines aimed at defining a model of a “compact city” and based on a series of values underpinning sustainability (Table 11.1). It has no normative or economic implications and thus has a voluntary nature. It has been mainly conceived as a working method that  More information about the SUA can be found at: https://www.aue.gob.es/.

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Table 11.1  The SUA’s strategic objectives Code

Objective

S.O.1 S.O.2 S.O.3 S.O.4

Rationalize, conserve, and protect the use of land. Avoid urban sprawl and revitalize the existing city. Prevent and reduce the effects of climate change. Manage resources in a sustainable manner and strengthen the circular economy. Foster proximity and sustainable mobility. Boost and strengthen social cohesion and equity. Boost and foster the urban economy. Guarantee access to housing. Lead and foster digital innovation. Improve the instruments of intervention and the governance system.

S.O.5 S.O.6 S.O.7 S.O.8 S.O.9 S.O.10 Source: SUA (2019)

provides cities and small towns with methodological resources (data, indicators, training, etc.) to develop their own action plans in line with the strategic objectives of the SUA. With regard to the approach, the SUA was highly motivated by a double intention of the Ministry of Public Works, namely, (1) to take steps towards a strategic roadmap for Spanish sustainable urban development in line with international agendas and (2) to avoid disturbance to the status quo with regard to the urban and territorial competence distribution mentioned in Sect. 2, which could lead to conflicts between the national and other governmental levels (particularly the regions). In fact, we argue that because of (2) the SUA has adopted from the beginning a soft policy approach that (i) avoids legislative changes or introducing new norms that could be potentially contested by the regions and the cities and (ii) intentionally leaves out of the discussion certain policy issues that might be contested by lower government levels seeking to block advancement of the instrument and its implementation. Regarding the content of the SUA, one of the key issues left out of the policy reflection is a review of the urban nature of the country as well as the important role that cities need to play to address the climate and ecologic, socio-economic challenges from a territorially integrated perspective. The 17 different regional territorial frameworks and perspectives about “the urban” mean, as said, that policy is highly fragmented. This is not neutral and significantly determines advancement of the urban system

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towards sustainability in the different regions. In fact, some of these territories have approved their own urban agendas (e.g., Andalusia in 2018, the Basque Country in 2019, and Extremadura in 2021) in full alignment with the 2030 Agenda, and others are working on it (such as Valencia and Cataluña), while other regions (e.g., Madrid) still refuse to introduce regulations or strategic policy frameworks to govern their urban system from a territorial perspective. Similarly, the SUA did not integrate the metropolitan and functional areas issue, even though this subject is very present in policy and academic debates within the country (Tomàs 2018) and in the EU (Informal Ministerial Meeting on Urban Matters 2020). All these issues allow us to state that the SUA does not provide a cohesive understanding of “the urban” and aims instead to deliver a policy instrument perceived as “politically neutral” by the regions in terms of competences. On this basis, the SUA was proposed as a method or route map to advance towards achievement of the SDGs at local level, particularly contributing to SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. For this reason, it was operationalized through ten strategic objectives (SO) across ten urban policy areas, in which action is required by cities to advance to more sustainable urban development. Specifically, they are shown in Table 11.1 (Ministry of Public Works 2019). Each of these strategic objectives is further developed through a number of lower level objectives that are, in turn, related to the SDGs and targets of the 2030 Agenda and the topics of the Urban Agenda for the EU. The SUA also provides a set of indicators that municipalities can use to measure their progress towards the strategic and specific objectives. Cities and towns can also access the MITMA’s information system, with updated information on the aforementioned indicators. The SUA thus defines a framework that encourages municipalities to develop their own strategy for sustainable local development. These ten strategic objectives are the basic structure to be adopted by the Local Action Plans (henceforth, SUA Local Action Plans) to be developed by municipalities and other stakeholders. In this regard, it is worth noting that the SUA is not proposing any novel policy instrument or process, as it follows the path of the Local Agendas 21 and the recommendations of the Cohesion Policy’s urban dimension from the 1990s. Developing “action plans” (urban strategies) was a recommendation in 2007–2013 and became a condition to access funding in the Cohesion Policy’s following programming periods. The SUA’s main contribution is that it is more strategically rooted in an understanding of the limitations and potential of

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multilevel Spanish governance context on urban matters. This allows it to avoid the mistakes that have previously limited advancement of prior instruments proposed by the national government. Another significant step forward of the SUA is the fact that it is addressed to all the country’s municipalities, regardless of size. This focuses the national government on the sustainable development of towns and villages, an issue that had traditionally been excluded from the policy agenda and that offers great potential.

4   Key Distinctive Elements of the SUA and Its Construction As mentioned, the SUA was Spain’s first urban policy: but will it be consolidated as a policy instrument by municipalities and other stakeholders in their path towards more sustainable and resilient futures? Specific SUA features are going to be relevant in this regard, as it has been launched as a policy framework with a number of particularities: • a “new” policy for and with cities but based on path dependence trajectories of change: the evolution of the SUA shows that the MITMA is benefiting from the previous work on the ERDF co-funded programmes developed by the Ministry of Finance over the last 20 years through the implementation of the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy. The important task undertaken by the Ministry of Finance in the first national urban forum (the so-called Red de Iniciativas Urbanas), in which it worked closely with cities and other relevant stakeholders to review urban policies, has resulted over time in municipalities developing their capacity to attract EU funding on the basis of their integrated sustainable urban development projects (De Gregorio Hurtado 2017). This is a significant factor that makes the SUA an urban policy of the Ministry for and with cities, in which the regions emerge as secondary actors. To incentivize cities to develop their SUA action plans is crucial the relation between municipalities and other stakeholders to access European funding in the forthcoming Cohesion Policy programming period. • a “soft” policy conceived as a working method: the SUA has been presented to municipalities and other stakeholders (provinces, regions, universities) by the national government as a methodology to

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advance towards higher urban sustainability levels on a voluntary basis and without economic resources for its implementation. The MITMA argues that the main driver leading municipalities to develop their SUA Local Action Plans must be their own interest in sustainability. • an instrument “implicitly” linked to EU economic incentives: despite the effort to move the SUA away from the “EU-funding seeking logic”, the fact is that the agenda is being implicitly perceived by municipalities as the door to accessing this funding via the Cohesion Policy’s urban dimension in the period 2021–2027. Specifically, cities with an SUA Local Action Plan will have more chances of accessing this resource. This is also something that will be considered positively by the European Commission (EC), which has been advocating for this over the last decade. • an “open” policy not completely in-tune with post-COVID urban determinants: the SUA’s content is in continuous evolution, as it is considered a “living document”. Nevertheless, since its approval in 2019 the SUA has not integrated changes, additions, or new strategic objectives because of the impact of the COVID pandemic in the urban domain. Despite this new factor, the MITMA considers that the SUA continues to be in line with the need for sustainable development and that it is integrating emerging drivers in the framework of the collaborative work that it is developing with municipalities and other stakeholders that use to collaborate with the Ministry. This fact significantly limits the effects of the instrument’s evolution, as only local entities and other stakeholders working closely with the Ministry will have access to the innovations integrated in, or proposed by, the SUA. • a policy based on an “epistemic community-driven logic”: the SUA is evolving following an “epistemic community” logic. This is a network of knowledge-based communities with an authoritative claim to policy-relevant information and expertise, whose members share knowledge and have a reputation for competence and a common set of normative beliefs about what actions will benefit human welfare in such a domain (Haas 2011). This policy-building pattern thus replicates the same logic promoted by the EC in this policy domain and creates a fertile ground for policy transfer dynamics in the country. • a policy strongly oriented to its implementation: the most critical phase of a policy is its implementation. In fact, Pressman and Wildavsky’s

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pioneering study (1973) found that most policies fail to meet their original objectives (Chalmers and Davis 2001, p. 84). In this sense, it is worth noting that the SUA, together with its objectives, was already included in the Action Plan for the National Government— Plan de Acción de la Administración General del Estado—which provided both resources (data, know-how, etc.) and a simple process to encourage municipalities to design their own SUA Local Action Plans. Further, beyond municipalities, the SUA specifies other actors (e.g., universities) that can contribute to its application through the development of their own actions plans. This contribution is formalized through an agreement with the Ministry. It involves integration of the SUA’s objectives transversally in all the sectoral policies in which they are considered pertinent.

5  Relating the SUA with the Recovery Plan— España Puede This section explores the extent to which the SUA is evolving beyond alignment with the 2030 Agenda in the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan—España Puede—(Gobierno de España 2021). As mentioned in Sect. 1, the EU’s response to the pandemic has resulted in approval and implementation of so-called MS “recovery plans”. España Puede was prepared by the government and approved by the European Commission in June 2021. It comprises four transversal axes aligned with the EU Next Generation priorities (ecologic transition, digital transition, social cohesion, and gender equality) and ten “leverage policies”. The first leverage policy is the “Urban and rural agenda, fight against depopulation and agricultural development” (Gobierno de España 2021) that has three components. The second component, which is directly linked to the SUA, is the plan for housing rehabilitation and urban regeneration—Plan de rehabilitación de vivienda y regeneración urbana. The main objective of this component aims to foster the energy rehabilitation of existing buildings, in line with the EU Renovation Wave,7 and to increase rental housing in the country. The Recovery Plan states that to achieve the objective of energy rehabilitation, the government will 7  More information can be found at: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/ detail/en/IP_20_1835.

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implement the SUA, focusing particularly on the rehabilitation of buildings and urban regeneration as crucial elements to reactivate the construction and real estate sectors. This component has been allocated 6820 M€ to help achieve this, including the following axes of investment. Analysis of these programmes (see Table 11.2) allows us to highlight that most of them are sectoral and thus not contributing to the holistic vision and strategic planning for sustainable urban development that is proposed by the SUA. In this context, it is worth noting the inclusion of the “Programme for the development of pilot projects relating to the SUA actions plans8” because it is the first instrument that allocates funding to municipalities for specific development of the plans. Specifically, it aims to fund “demonstrative action plans” by different municipalities that can be used as a reference for others in the future (thus, with a high transfer potential). This vision has been introduced as a concrete objective (objective 38) of Spain’s Recovery Plan. It foresees that by September 2022 at least 100 local entities (municipalities, provinces, functional areas, etc.) will have developed their action plans using the methodology proposed by the SUA. For this reason, the Ministry launched a call in September 2021 Table 11.2  Programmes promoted by the plan for housing rehabilitation and urban regeneration (2021) Programme

Issue

Rehabilitation, economic and social recovery of residential areas Construction of rental housing that is energy efficient

Housing rehabilitation

Energy rehabilitation of buildings Urban regeneration and addressing the “demographic challenge” (for municipalities under 5000 inhabitants) Rehabilitation of public buildings Development of pilot projects related to the SUA action plans

Construction of rental housing Building rehabilitation Urban regeneration in small municipalities Public building rehabilitation Sustainable urban development

Source: Own elaboration

8  More information about the call can be found at: https://www.mitma.gob.es/ministerio/proyectos-singulares/pr tr/vivienda-y-agenda-urbana/programa_ayudas_ proyecto_piloto_accion_local.

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that has resulted in December 2021 in the selection of 121 local entities of varying sizes.9 This call was backed by 20 M€ in funding, with a small part of that allocated to Component 2 of the Recovery Plan. Nevertheless, it shows potential to start the structural reform pursued by the SUA (and “claimed by the EU”10). This is because the development of 121 pilot action plans and their dissemination from October 2022 by the Ministry will give content, visibility, and recognition to the epistemic community composed by the Ministry and local entities oriented towards sustainable development in the country.

6  Conclusions and Lessons Learned: “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed” The aim of this work has been to provide an overview of the SUA’s policy-­ building process and its main features, on the one hand, and to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this urban policy, on the other hand. The main conclusion is that even though the SUA has been presented by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda as Spain’s first urban policy, it was actually built on work initiated decades before by the Ministry of Finance. Further, the SUA is an example of policy transfer that borrowed from European Commission recommendations and integrated its methodological approach—Urban Acquis—to urban development. However, it is the 2030 Agenda that originally facilitated the novel leadership of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, determined its content, and has given more visibility to urban matters at national level once it became a leverage policy for the Agenda’s Implementation Plan in Spain. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has constituted a focusing event that has impacted on the SUA, since for the first time it has led to funding and reinforced its role as leverage policy.

9  Sixteen municipalities of less than 5000 inhabitants; 24 municipalities between 5001 and 20,000 inhabitants; 21 municipalities between 20,001 and 50,000 inhabitants; 22 municipalities between 50,001 and 100,000 inhabitants; 20 municipalities between 100,001 and 300,000 inhabitants; 8 municipalities of more than 300,000 inhabitants; 10 local entities that involve the integration of a number of municipalities (e.g., provinces). 10  Boletín Oficial del Estado 213 de 2021: 3.

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Regarding its main features, the SUA can be considered a policy for and with cities, which in someway “bypasses” the regional level but seeks to be as neutral as possible from a competence’s perspective. The SUA is a “soft” policy that has predominantly been conceived as a working method that municipalities and other stakeholders can subscribe to, depending on their interest in advancing sustainable urban development. It has no specific budget; however, it prepares cities for future funding opportunities, in what might be described as an “anticipatory” policy style (Richardson 2019). The construction process has been based on an epistemic community-­driven logic that replicates the way in which the European Commission—DG Regio—has traditionally operated in this policy domain. Finally, it is a policy that is strongly oriented towards implementation that seeks to overcome past mistakes by providing cities with know-­ how-­based resources (data, leading cases, methodology, training, etc.) and simplifying the process to join the SUA and develop Local Action Plans. In terms of policy transfer, the SUA has been built on a path established by the EU and the UN, which has successfully mainstreamed or localized at domestic level their sustainable urban development policy frameworks regarding contents (goals) and processes (methodological approaches) under the leadership of two different ministries: namely, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Public Works (renamed as the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda) (Table 11.3). On the one hand, the SUA was a commitment adopted by the Spanish government during negotiations over EU Structural Funds for the 2014–2020 period. In this vein, the SUA remains very much determined by the EU’s Urban Acquis in terms of process. On the other hand, the 2030 Agenda emerges as the dominant policy framework in terms of content. The opportunity provided by the introduction of the 2030 Agenda in the country, together with the knowledge gained in the EU Cohesion Policy context, leads us to consider the SUA to be a case of “hybridization” (Rose 1991; Newmark 2002), because in terms of policy content, structure, and style, it combines programme elements from two different sources. Finally, regarding the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the SUA, the allocation of economic resources through the Recovery Plan has been decisive in its consolidation. The call launched in September 2021 for the development of pilot projects of SUA Local Action Plans, even if financially modest, has significant potential to reinforce the visibility and political attractiveness of the SUA for municipalities and other stakeholders. The development of the 121 SUA Local Action Plans under this call and

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Table 11.3  Object of transfer in the SUA Dimensions

Definition

1. POLICY CONTENT

1.1. Policy goals (policy paradigm) 1.2. Policy instruments (policy techniques through which policy goals are reached) 1.3. Policy regulations and standards (regulations or standards to achieve policy goals) 2.1. Institutional framework (departments, agencies, etc.) 2.2. Policy networks (codes, guidelines, and ways of working) 3.1. Norms and values associated with administrative work (anticipatory/ reactive problem solving—consensual/ impositional relationship) 3.2. Ideology, ideas, attitudes

2. POLICY STRUCTURE

3. POLICY STYLE

EU Urban Acquis + Urban Agenda for the EU

2030 Agenda

X X X

X

X X X

X

X

Source: Own elaboration, adapted from Jordan and Liefferink (2003), Hall (1993), and Carpenter et al. (2020)

their future dissemination from October 2022 by the MITMA will advance the SUA’s implementation, particularly if municipalities become increasingly aware that an SUA Local Action Plan is decisive in accessing funding from the urban dimension of the Cohesion Policy 2021–2027. Interestingly, the pandemic has not resulted in significant urban innovations with regard to the SUA in terms of content or policy approach. However, the EU’s Recovery Plan has provided this policy with both an economic incentive and a policy relevance for its advancement.

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CHAPTER 12

Housing Policy in the Political Agenda: The Trajectory of Portugal Marco Allegra, Simone Tulumello, and Giovanni Allegretti

1   Introduction An “urban agenda” is a policy document, or a series of consistent policy measures, which recognizes the role of cities as crucial sites to address a variety of policy issues (from poverty and social exclusion to energy efficiency and climate changes) through interinstitutional dialogue and multi-­ actor cooperation. Housing policy, a field located at the junction between welfare and spatial planning, has always been playing a central role in the emergence of such an agenda, both in relation to the quality of life of city dwellers and because of its interdependence with several other areas of urban governance. In Portugal, where a national urban agenda has never M. Allegra (*) • S. Tulumello Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] G. Allegretti University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_12

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been formally defined, observing the progressive consolidation of housing policy offers an interesting vantage point over the dynamics of urban policy as a whole. Based on this understanding, this chapter focuses on the trajectory of housing policy in Portugal, trying to explore how, and to what extent, housing policy has been a factor in the emergence of the country’s urban agenda over four decades. During this span of time, housing has not only gradually emerged as a matter of political attention in its own right, but its place in the context of public policy has also shifted, as housing came to be conceptualized as key area of urban policy—while it was historically considered as a matter of public works (i.e. building public housing) at the national level and of welfare (i.e. attributing and managing public housing) at the municipal level (Tulumello et al. 2018). By adopting a multi-­ scalar perspective on the governance of the housing sector and focusing our attention on key moments in the country’s recent history, we will show how many different actors (central and local governments, policy experts, activists, etc.) and contingent events (such as the post-2008 economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak) have influenced these dynamics.

2   Housing Policies in the EU Housing is a traditional object for urban policymaking and a long-­standing area of intervention for local or regional government. For the best part of the last decades, however, housing has been by and large marginalized in the policy agenda of EU member states. After significant investments in the post-World War II (WWII) decades, most EU countries did not look at housing as a field of direct intervention (and especially in the form of direct provision): the focus moved instead towards regulation and stimulus of urban regeneration, while social housing stock began to be dismissed (Lundqvist 1992; Whitehead and Scanlon 2007; Whitehead 2017). Since the 1980s, there have been few exceptions to this trend, which include housing programmes like the Programa Especial de Realojamento (PER, Special Rehousing Programme, see below) in Portugal and the successful pressures by Eastern European countries to be allowed to use EU Structural Funds for refurbishing their housing stock (Tosics 2008). All in all, at the continental level, decades of public disinvestment and the increasing role of housing as financial asset have contributed in creating a structural lack of housing opportunities, although the scale of the

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problem differs among states and regions. Several studies, in different moments in time, have pointed to the social and economic consequences of this trend (DG/RES 1996; Stephens et al. 2015; Farha 2017). In 2018, the European Commission has measured the gap between actual and desirable housing investments in the EU at €57bn per year (European Commission 2018, pp.  40–41). Moreover, the economic crisis of 2008 exacerbated housing issues in several member states and in a certain number of urban areas. Indeed, some have described the spread of housing crises in Europe as the result of an increasing tension between the idea of housing as a commodity and the idea of housing as fundamental right (Rolnik 2013; Tosics and Tulumello 2021). At the same time, the economic crisis has called into question the long-term, downward trajectory of housing policies across the continent. While member states have never delegated to the EU any de jure competence over housing, the latter has historically exerted a visible de facto influence—both in technical and political terms—over its development (Chapman and Murie 1996; Kleinman 2002; Barlow 2005 [1998]; Doling 2006; Allegra et al. 2020). Allegra et al. (2020, p. 15) mention four channels through which the EU has impacted national policymaking: the implicit and symbolic conditionality inherent to Portugal’s adhesion to the EU; the effects that the EU-induced financial stability and the availability of European funds have had on the local housing policies; the harsh impact of austerity measures on government spending and on the progressive financialization of the housing sector; the travels of ideas, paradigms, and debates between EU and national arenas. In recent years, however, housing issues have been at the centre of growing attention. The EU has identified housing as a key component of its Urban Agenda (Pact of Amsterdam 2016), and the Action Plan of the Partnerships on Housing (2018) was one of the Agenda’s first documents to be published (Purkarthofer 2019). The European Pillar of Social Rights (2017) declared that “access to social housing or housing assistance of good quality shall be provided for those in need”. This renewed interest resonates with international documents such as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN 2015) and Habitat’s New Urban Agenda (UN 2017), which in turn place considerable emphasis on housing. It is too early to say whether the contents and approach of these documents have already trickled down into government priorities—for example, 2019 Eurostat data on public spending in housing do not signal any recent

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growth.1 And yet, some member states (such as Spain and Portugal) have launched new rounds of policies, while several cities (e.g. Vienna, Berlin, Barcelona) have tried to introduce local regulations on housing prices and on economic activities (like short-term rentals) considered to be responsible for the growth of real estate prices (Gennburg and Coulomb 2020; Tosics and Tulumello 2021). Portugal represents an interesting example of such a trajectory. The structural problems of the housing sector (in a country where the proportion of social housing in the total housing stock is among the lowest in the EU—around 2% of the total) were magnified by the harshness of the economic crisis (2010–2014) and of the austerity measures dictated by the Economic Adjustment Programme (2011) and, paradoxically, by the swift recovery after 2014, which (especially in Lisbon and Oporto and in the seaside destinations of Algarve) was largely based on a real estate investments and tourism boom. The combined effect of persistent economic inequalities, low salaries, and skyrocketing real estate prices brought about a severe housing crisis, which in turn contributed in bringing the issue of housing rights to the limelight again, pushing the government and parliament to act, producing, respectively, a number of programmes and a framework law for housing (see Sect. 6); although it is early to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on housing policy, it seems the key originating factors of the housing crisis (including unsustainable growth of real estate prices) have not been substantially altered. The events of the last few years represent only the last step of the trajectory of housing policy in Portugal. This chapter therefore provides a genealogical reconstruction of the trajectory of Portuguese housing policy in the last four decades.

3   After the Carnation Revolution In the second half of twentieth century, Portuguese society experienced a number of rapid and far-reaching changes: a violent process of decolonization, between 1961 and 1974; an armed but bloodless revolution in 1974 that brought about regime change by ending the dictatorship of the 1  Eurostat data measure the overall spending for housing and linked services, public spaces, basic infrastructures, and housing regeneration (but do not include contributions/tax deduction on mortgages). See https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index. php?title=Government_expenditure_on_housing_and_community_amenities.

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Estado Novo (1933–1974); two years of political turbulence (the so-­ called On-Going Revolutionary Process or PREC, 1974–1976); a transformation of the demographic structure of the country and a reversal of the immigration net balance; a situation of profound political and financial instability, which resulted into two rounds of IMF-imposed austerity policies (1977–1978, 1983–1985); and the country’s adhesion to a fast-­ changing EU as well as a process of economic, social, and political modernization. Among the challenges that stood before the young Portuguese democracy was a mounting housing crisis that would reach its peak in the late 1980s. A peculiar element in the Portuguese situation between 1970s and the 1980s was the proliferation of informal settlements (the barracas) throughout the metropolitan areas of Oporto and Lisbon. In the 1960s, growing immigration waves from rural areas resulted in significant pressure on the main urban centres of the country; in the 1970s, this pressure intensified as a result of the process of decolonization of the Portuguese empire: half million of retornados (i.e. Portuguese nationals which had left the former colonies) arrived to Portugal immediately after the revolution, followed by significant immigration waves from the lusophone black communities of Cape Verde, Angola, and other former colonies. Against mounting demographic pressure, the housing shortage was aggravated by the absence of a comprehensive national housing policy and by other structural problems in the housing system—such as a construction industry based on small firms, an urban development model based on big developments, and the general weaknesses of the financing system (see Ferreira 1988, pp. 55–60). For a long time, social housing provision was considered in Portugal in terms of “social services through public works” and on a single-programme basis rather than as a proper object of urban policy and in more strategic terms (Tulumello et al. 2018). The difficulty in firmly placing housing within a national urban policy agenda was deepened by the weak status of spatial planning in the Portuguese system (Campos and Ferrão 2015). Absent a universalist housing system, in the two decades preceding Portugal’s adhesion to the EU (1986), thousands of families resorted to clandestine construction in order to fulfil their housing needs, under the combined pressure of the lack of social housing provision, and the growth of interest rates accompanying the financial crises between the late 1970s and the early 1980s—which made private market inaccessible for most households. Before the early 1990s, the country largely failed in providing

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an adequate policy response to this burgeoning problem, although some innovative measures were undertaken. One of them was the Serviço de Apoio Ambulatório Local (SAAL Local Support Ambulatory Service; 1974–1976), which embodied a pioneering approach to the regeneration of informal settlements, and was founded on the cooperation between “technical brigades” formed by architects and residents’ associations, the latter being an active part in the design (and, partially, also in the implementation and management) of housing interventions (Bandeirinha 2002; Portas 1986).2 Indeed, the demise of the SAAL and the austerity policies adopted after IMF’s first intervention in 1977 relegated housing policy to the condition of “weak pillar” of Portuguese welfare state (Fig. 12.1) and inaugurated a first “housing drought” that would last until the late 1980s, when several rehousing programmes were launched (see Sect. 4). 8,0 7,0 6,0

Education Health Social security and policy Housing and public facilities

5,0 4,0 3,0 2,0 1,0 0,0 1972

1976

1980

1984

1988

1992

1996

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2004

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Fig. 12.1  Evolution of main components of welfare public expenditure as a percentage of GDP (1972–2012). (Source: Adapted from Santos et al. (2014) (based on data DGO/MF and INE/BP)) 2  The SAAL—a housing construction programme that emerged after the Carnation Revolution to try to meet the housing needs of disadvantaged populations in Portugal—was founded on the cooperation between “technical brigades” formed by architects and residents’ associations, the latter being an active part in the design (and, partially, also in the implementation and management) of housing interventions.

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As a result, by the mid-1980s, the barracas had grown into an important part of the urban reality of Lisbon and Oporto (Ferreira 1988). In 1993, a survey counted some 42,000 shacks in the metropolitan areas of Oporto and Lisbon alone, with more than 150,000 residents in almost 50,000 households (Guerra et al. 1999, pp. 40–41). For João Cabral, the situation of Lisbon in the early 1990s “[had] no parallel in any European city, let alone capital city” (Cabral et al. 2010, p. 5).

4   Portugal’s Adhesion to EU Portugal’s housing system has traditionally shared a number of structural traits with other southern European countries (Spain, Italy, and Greece), such as high levels of private ownership (Castela 2019); low levels of social rented housing; high proportion of secondary homes; strong role of family networks in supporting the access to home; and significant role of self-­ promotion in the production of housing (Allen et al. 2004; Arbaci 2019). This explains why the housing (and welfare) systems of these countries are pitted as a “Mediterranean” or “familist” model, in contrast with the “corporatist” and “social-democratic” models of central and northern Europe, characterized by a stronger direct intervention of the state (see Tulumello et al. 2018 for a critique of this taxonomic approach). Since the late 1980s, the renewed attention of Portuguese governments for housing resulted into two key initiatives: the promotion of homeownership through a regime of tax deductions for mortgage interests to encourage homeownership (the juros bonificados, 1986–2002) and the launch, in 1993, of a vast rehousing programme for the barracas, the Programa Especial de Realojamento (PER, Special Rehousing Programme). Portugal’s adhesion to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1986 represented a key factor in these developments (Allegra et al. 2020; Mateus 2013), as Portuguese leaders considered it as part and parcel of a broader process of modernization of the country. This implied a programme of economic and administrative reforms and infrastructural investments, as well as, in the longer run, a progressive of “Europeanization” of policymaking. Parallel to that, Portugal’s adhesion to the Maastricht Treaties (1992), and to the single European currency (1999), also implied a commitment to EU criteria of fiscal and budgetary responsibility, which would have significant consequences later on. Right from the start, however, joining the European Community provided Portugal with a long-desired financial stability and with fresh funds

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to invest (e.g. through the significant resources of the EU’s Cohesion Policy, see Mata and Valério 1993; Bouayad-Agha et al. 2013; Leonardi 2006). While EU funds could not be used directly for housing policy, they had a significant, indirect impact on the housing sector, as large EU-financed infrastructural investments (Cohesion Policy) and social programmes (European Social Fund) targeted the same areas that were at the centre of the main housing crisis, including many informal settlements. Furthermore, low interest rates greatly enhanced the impact of the policy of juros bonificados. As a result, in the 1990s (when average interest rates fell by two-thirds) government subsidized approximately half of all mortgage contracts signed in that period, which also contributed to a rapid growth of private and family debt (CRISALT 2013; Santos et al. 2014; Santos 2019). Indeed, support to homeownership (through subsidized mortgages) has been for long the only Portuguese housing policy implemented in a coherent fashion and on a large scale. Between 1987 and 2011 subsidies to mortgages absorbed 73.3% of the national budget allocated to housing policy, while only 17.9% was spent on direct housing provision (and mostly on rehousing operations) and just 8.7% on subsidies to rent (IHRU 2015, p. 4; see also Castela 2019; Santos 2019). For these developments, the (implicit and indirect) role of the EU has been twofold: in general, the shift towards the support to homeownership was the counterpart of the retrenchment of welfare policies (including direct provision of social housing) that marked EU policies at the time (cf. Kleinman et al. 1998); in particular, promotion of homeownership (together with an increase in labour mobility) was considered one of the benefits deriving from the reduction of the cost of borrowing allowed by the integration of financial markets (see, e.g. Doling 2006, on the 2004 Kok Report). At the same time, Portugal’s adhesion to the EU added to the local political momentum towards a more energetic approach to the situation of the barracas. Since the late 1980s, a more exact conscience of the problem had formed in the policy community (Ferreira 1993; Cachado 2015), and the reality of the metropolitan peripheries had emerged as a pressing social issue. Political campaigns by grassroots networks and by the socialist party put increasing pressure on the centre-right governments led by Anibal Cavaco Silva (1985–1995). In 1987, a general framework for rehousing in other locations the residents of the barracas was introduced (Decree-Law 226/87), which provided the administrative and financial basis for the so-­ called Planos de Intervenção a Médio Prazo (PIMP, Medium-Term Intervention Plans) implemented by some Portuguese municipalities in

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the following years. In 1993, the government launched a more comprehensive “housing package” whose key element was the above-mentioned Programa Espacial de Realojamento (PER, Special Rehousing Programme). This was followed, in 1995, by legislation on the so-called Áreas Urbanas de Génese Ilegal (AUGIs, Urban Areas of Illegal Origin, Law 91/95), which only included certain categories of unlicensed constructions—and mainly detached houses built mainly in the 1960s, where no significant conflict existed with current land-use schemes and where owners had the financial and organizational resources to invest in the process of requalification and regularization (see Raposo and Valente 2010; Cachado 2013). The PER, in contrast, had the declared purpose of solving once and for all the issue of the barracas in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Oporto. In quantitative terms, the PER proved to a large extent its effectiveness in reducing the problem of barracas—although it did not solve it completely: a recent national survey found that, of the 18,000 households needing rehousing in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Oporto, at least 12,000 are still living in self-built housing (IHRU 2018, p. 31). In its basic traits (i.e. its nature as an ad hoc programme; the emphasis on new construction and resettlement rather than regeneration; the extensive reliance on large residential projects of social housing, etc.), the PER was hardly an innovative programme: indeed, it was more reminiscent of large housing programme carried out in other European countries in the 1950s and the 1960s. Moreover, the PER remained a single-issue programme targeting a specific sector of the population, that is, the impoverished and marginalized residents of the barracas. All in all, between the late 1980s and the early 2010s, the lion’s share of public investments in housing policy continued to be directed at supporting homeownership (Fig. 12.2). Despite its shortcomings, the PER represented undoubtedly a turning point in the field of housing policy. For example, it gave municipalities a relatively large room of manoeuvre in the local implementation, due to the somewhat vague policy guidelines provided by the government and the lack of a proactive governance of the process on the part of the IHRU (the Institute for Housing and Urban Refurbishment). In turn, the municipalities differed greatly from one another in terms of the scale and nature of local housing issues; of the resources available to them (from land to administrative competence); of their past experience with the management of housing programmes; and in their conception as to the relation between housing and urban policies.

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Fig. 12.2  Distribution of national public spending for housing (1987–2011). (Source: Adapted from IHRU (2015))

The early 1990s and the PER also constituted a key junction of the debate among scholars, practitioners, and policymakers about what housing policy could and should be. The influential Livro Branco sobre a Politica da Habitação em Portugal (White Paper on Housing policy in Portugal), published on the eve of the launch of the PER by an experts committee directed by António Ferreira, had called for a 500,000 houses programme (a much vaster housing programme than the PER), as well as for a number of reforms in housing policy (e.g. the creation of regional housing companies through partnerships between the state and the local authorities; reforms of the rental market; the diversification of housing policy’s funding sources; the mobilization of publicly owned land to support construction plans), and a closer integration of housing policies in regional and urban planning. The distance between the scope of the PER and more ambitious quantitative and qualitative goals prompted a wave of early criticism on the

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programme and especially about the lack of consideration for the resident population in the process of rehousing—famously articulated by Isabel Guerra in the slogan as pessoas não são coisas que se ponham em gavetas (“people are not things you can put into drawers”, Guerra 1994; Cachado 2013). The implementation of the PER during the years stimulated a comprehensive reflection on housing policy (see in particular Guerra et al. 1999) that would lay the ground for important debates in the subsequent decade and beyond.

5  The Post-2000 Housing Drought The years between the early 2000s and the economic crisis of 2010–2014 present a paradox. On the one side, the planning system underwent a process of consolidation and policy paradigms shifted towards the integration of housing policy with urban policy (Tulumello et al. 2018). On the other side, the two key components of housing policy in the previous decade (i.e. support to homeownership and rehousing operations) were rapidly dismissed—thus inaugurating a second “housing drought”. In the early 1990s, after a very slow start, local master plans began to be systematically adopted by Portuguese municipalities; Law 43/91 had created the tools for local and regional strategic action (municipal masterplans and regional spatial planning programmes), and in 1998 a comprehensive reform (Spatial and Urban Planning Policy Act, Law 48/1998) was introduced to establish spatial planning as an autonomous policy area (as opposed to a matter of public works, see Campos and Ferrão 2015, p.  22). At the same time, the idea of “urban policy” emerged as a key concept for policymaking: in 2002, for example, the centre-right government created a “ministry of cities”, while its centre-left successor launched its own Politica de Cidades (Urban Policy), implemented under the National Strategic Reference Framework (QREN; 2007–2013) and its Regional Operational Programme. During the 2000s, the role of EU in regulation and debates related to these developments remained significant. First, much of the national urban policies and strategies—for example, the Política de Cidades and its follow-ups, like the programme POLIS (Baptista 2013), and the Planos Estratégicos de Desenvolvimento Urbano (PEDU, Strategic Urban Development Plans)—were financed by EU Cohesion Policy. Second, planning reforms intended to harmonize the Portuguese system with key principles underlying strategic EU documents such as the European

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Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP 1999; Medeiros 2014; see Pires 2005 for a more sceptical perspective). Various policy instruments were designed and implemented, which echoed European debates on area-­ based policies (European Commission 1997, 1998; Parkinson 2005; Atkinson 2007; Barca 2009) and a decade of experience of EU programmes based on formal “partnerships” between different levels of the state and diverse stakeholders (e.g. the URBAN Community Initiative and, later on, the URBACT framework) which had introduced and consolidated, in  local authorities, key operative principles of EU policies designed to change the relationship between the central state and the local levels. This was, for example, the case of the pilot programme Iniciativa Bairros Críticos in 2005 (IBC, Critical Neighbourhoods Initiative; see Sousa 2008; Allegra et al. 2020). How did all these transformations reflect on housing policies? The most ambitious (although never implemented) attempt at making housing a pillar of urban policy has been the preliminary study for a National Housing Strategy (Plano Estratégico de Habitação, PEH; 2008–2013)— which was commissioned by the government to a high-profile panel of experts (Guerra et al. 2008). Concrete steps, however, were few. The main consequences of the contemporary demise of the PER and the end of the regime of juros bonificados (2002) were a drastic reduction of public funds for housing (see Fig. 12.3) and the increasing of dependency of investments on private capital (Alves and Branco 2018) and on the availability of EU funds for urban regeneration (Allegra et  al. 2020). In broader terms, it is important to locate the housing drought within the wider European climate of fiscal austerity, which predates the financial crisis (see Lapavitsas et al. 2010). Indeed, the reforms of the housing sector passed during this period were pointing towards a diminishing role of the state as regulator of the housing market. The reform of the rental market (Novo Regime de Arrendamento Urbano, NRAU, New Urban Lease Regime, 2004) aimed at revitalizing the market through simplification and liberalization, and fiscal benefits were given to real estate investment funds (Law 64-A/2008, art. 71) as incentives for “urban refurbishment”. The situation only worsened during the years of economic crisis and of austerity politics. While public expenditure in housing was reaching a historical low point (Fig. 12.3), a number of reforms (most of which were explicitly requested in the context of the external bailout; Tulumello et al. 2020) further reduced the role of the state as regulator: the rental market was further liberalized (which allowed the conversion of thousands of

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Fig. 12.3  State expenditure in housing and collective services 1995–2020. (Source: Our elaboration on data Pordata (https://www.pordata.pt/DB/ Portugal/Ambiente+de+Consulta/Gr%C3%A1fico/5826223))

units into short-term rental; see Law 30/2012; Law 31/2012; Decree-­ Law 128/2014), while a new reform of the spatial planning system made supra-municipal coordination fundamentally impossible (Law 31/2014; Decree-Law 80/2015). Together with the concession of additional fiscal benefits for real estate investors, this paved the way for a cycle of economic recovery that was based on real estate and tourism (Allegra and Tulumello 2019; Allegretti 2019).

6   Back to Housing Policy? In the last five years (2016–2020), housing policy was brought back to the limelight due to several concurring reasons. The post-crisis economic recovery was reflected in the rapid growth of housing prices, especially in Lisbon, Oporto, and the Algarve. The existence of a housing crisis of large proportion began to be widely discussed in the public sphere; social movements intensified their campaigns on housing issues, and in 2017, the publication of a very critical report on the country by UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Leilani Farha (2017), was widely

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discussed on the media. Politics seemed to take note: housing issues became an important topic for electoral campaigning. Thus, in 2017, the socialist government appointed a new Secretary of State for Housing, who proceeded to launch the Nova Geração de Políticas de Habitação (NGPH, New Generation of Housing Policies; see SEH 2017, 2018). At the same time, the Portuguese parliament began to work on a Lei de Base da Habitação (LBH, Framework Law for Housing), approved in 2019 (Lei No. 83/2019), in parallel to the approval of the first revision of the PNPOT (National Program for Spatial Planning Policy—Law No. 99/2019). Finally, housing policy has a rather central role in the Plano de Recuperação e Resilência (PRR, Recovery and Resiliency Plan, 2021–2026), recently approved in the framework of the Next Generation EU. The NGPH is a broad (and rather vague) policy document, which brings together under the same conceptual umbrella a variety of policy programmes and initiatives, among which one must mention the Primeiro Direito (PD, First Right), a new rehousing scheme aiming to support solutions for people living in poor housing conditions and who do not have the financial capacity to access adequate housing through market mechanisms; and the Programa de Arrendamento Acessível (PAA, Accessible Rental Programme), a system of guarantees and tax incentives for landlords offering renting at 20% below the market level. The declared goals of the NGPH are to guarantee “universal access to adequate housing” (bringing the quota of public-supported housing unit from 2% to 5% of the total national stock in eight years); to shift the emphasis of housing policies, from new construction and homeownership to refurbishment and rent; to slightly reduce the number of families overburdened by housing costs (from 35% to 27%); and to introduce qualitative innovations in the governance of the sector—“from a centralized and sectorial policy, to a model of multilevel, integrated and participatory governance” and “from a reactive to a proactive policy, based on the sharing of data and knowledge and in the monitoring and evaluation of results” (SEH 2018). Another notable trait of the NGPH is its market-oriented approach (Mendes 2020). On the one side, the package includes programmes aimed at mobilizing private capital—including through financial instruments— to increase the offer on the housing market; on the other hand, some measures are meant to improve the functioning of housing market by reducing informational asymmetries (e.g. through the creation of a public database of real estate transactions).

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The goal of LBH is to provide the policy and legal instruments to ensure the universal right to housing, thereby giving substance to the provision of Portuguese constitution (art. 65). Beyond its symbolic importance, the law shows a number of significant features, for example, placing housing more firmly at the intersection of several areas of intervention by public authorities and tracing a direct link between housing rights and urban and environmental policies. In this respect, the law points at the elaboration of national and local housing strategies (i.e. the Programa Nacional de Habitação/National Housing Programme and the Carta Municipal de Habitação/Municipal Housing Charters) as crucial tools for the operationalization of state action in this field (Tulumello and Silva 2019). It is too early to assess the impact of this “new wave” of housing initiatives, which has started its path under uncertain political and budgetary conditions (see Roseta 2020)—which now include the present and future consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further legislation needs to be passed in order to fully implement the provisions of the LBH (e.g. there is no cogent element in the law that could guarantee the swift adoption of the Municipal Housing Charter by Portuguese local authorities), and some have argued (Rede 2021b) that the recently published draft of the Programa Nacional de Habitação (PNH, National Housing Programme, 2021–2026) does not amount to the national housing strategy that is called for by article 17 of the LBH, but rather reiterates what previous documents have already said, without presenting any up-to-date diagnosis of housing issues or new regulatory measures—and limiting investments in housing policy to EU funds provided through the PRR. Furthermore, the PNH draft has been released on the eve of new national elections (which took place January 2022) and might be amended or replaced altogether in the next future. As to some among the earliest NGPH programmes to be operationalized (such as the PD and the PAA), the judgement is mixed. In fact, the PD is already in a relatively advanced stage but has yet to produce concrete results, and its target population remains limited to those individuals and families living in unbearable housing conditions. Additionally, the state has decided to use the PRR to entirely fund the Primeiro Direito—de facto using European funds to substitute national investment in housing policy (see Rede 2021a). The PAA, on the other side, has been criticized for its inability to provide affordable housing opportunities where they would be most needed, that is, where prices on the real estate market have skyrocketed in the last few years

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(Travasso et al. 2020). Others have raised doubts over the government’s commitment to ensure adequate financial backing to the NGPH and on its excessive reliance on private investments in this respect (Allegra and Tulumello 2019).

7  Conclusive Remarks How much of what we have described amounts to a process of consolidation of Portuguese housing policy (and indirectly, on that of the country’s urban agenda)? This chapter has shown how, historically, this process has been slow and ridden with contradictions and remains by and large incomplete and, in its more recent development, difficult to assess. However, we can try to take stock of these initiatives by focusing on two key features that should define any strategy towards the emergence of a full-fledged policy agenda: a critical reflection on the past trajectory of policymaking and the definition of an appropriate governance framework that would support policymaking. As to the first point, there is little doubt that the NGPH and the LBH represent a further discursive step towards the consolidation of housing policy within a broader urban, inter-sectorial perspective—where housing is placed at a crossroad of different other policies, which include environmental concerns, territorial development strategies, and welfare provision. This step is coherent with the trajectory of national debates (at least from the publication of the 1993 White Book on housing onwards), as well as with continental trends—for example, in the NGPH’s emphasis on rent and refurbishment, environmental and energetic concerns, and on the mobilization of private capital. However, this step forward is largely taken at the conceptual and rhetoric level only. For example, and despite repeated calls for an inter-sectorial approach, there has been a lack of coordination with policies in fields such as tourism and foreign investments—which have had a huge impact on the housing sector and to which housing policy has been clearly subordinated. The subordination of housing to other policy fields is also evident in a significant contradiction of the PRR: though housing is one of the main fields for investment of the plan, the national agencies with responsibility for housing have not been included in the governing structure of the plan (Rede 2021a). More broadly, neither the NGPH nor the LBH have produced a comprehensive reflection on the institutional and administrative weaknesses that have crippled policymaking in the housing sector at the national and local level. The same

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lack of detail and practical innovations has been noted in relation to NGPH’s calls for “a proactive policy” (SEH 2017) and for a more participatory approach to housing governance that could promote, at the same time, effectiveness but also transparency and accountability of the different actors involved in housing policies (see, respectively, Allegra and Colombo 2019; Allegretti and Dias 2019). Indeed, strategic documents published in the past in Portugal or at European level have addressed these issues in a much more detailed fashion.3 As to the second point, the NGPH, the LBH, and the PRR guidelines are by and large silent on the subject of how the future system of integrated and participatory governance should be established (Allegra and Tulumello 2019), especially when it comes to the relation with the private actors. On the other side, neither the NGPH nor LBH seem to question the traditional division of labour between the three main protagonists of Portuguese housing policy: the government, providing funds to municipalities through a number of programmes; the IHRU, exercising a bland control on the administrative and financial aspects of housing operations; the municipalities, being largely left to their own devices as to the development of local strategies and policies. If we look at the way this relation is played out in the programme Primeiro Direito, it would be difficult to argue that the NGPH has introduced any structural innovation in this respect (although the social movements pressures have obtained the inclusion of residents’ associations among the local actors that can request funding and execute the projects). While the NGPH, the LBH, and the PRR put considerable rhetorical emphasis on the role of municipal housing plans as a tool for improving governance, no concrete steps have been taken to increase the capacity of the municipalities in this respect—and therefore local housing policy will remain affected by path-dependency trends related to each municipality’s capacities of measuring housing needs and delivering appropriate technical and financial solutions. In fact, municipalities continue to be marked by deep asymmetries (Teles 2021) in terms of financial and administrative resources; of their ability to define overall strategies; and of their capacity of fostering participation of local 3  See, for example, Guerra et al. (2008); the WhiteBook Project of Eurhonet (https:// whitebook.eurhonet.eu); the NHLP’s Green Book (https://www.nhlp.org/products/ green-book) or the Housing Partnership Action Plan of 2018 (https://ec.europa.eu/ futurium/en/system/files/ged/final_action_plan_euua_housing_partnership_december_2018_1.pdf) or Ipsos Mori et al. (2019).

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stakeholders. Absent any significant innovation in this respect, the risk is that local housing plans will simply constitute the fulfilment of further bureaucratic duties in order to access funds allocated via specific programmes. Even worse, municipalities will continue to progress along the trajectory of the last 20 years or so, that is, being charged with significant (indeed, growing) responsibilities vis-à-vis the shrinking of available resources.

References Allegra, M., and A. Colombo. 2019. A governança das políticas de habitação: (co) produção do conhecimento e capacitação institucional. CIDADES, Comunidades e Territórios, 38. Allegra, M., and S. Tulumello. 2019. O estado da habitação: introdução ao dossier. Cidades, Comunidades e Territórios 38 (June): 1–14. Allegra, M., S. Tulumello, A. Colombo, and J. Ferrão. 2020. The (hidden) role of the EU in housing policy: The Portuguese case in multi-scalar perspective. European Planning Studies 28 (12): 1–23. Allegretti, G. 2019. Verso un ridisegno antropocentrico delle politiche abitative nel Portogallo post-crisi. Urbanistica Informazioni 283: 40–52. Allegretti, G., and N. Dias. 2019. Participação cívica e políticas habitacionais: que desafios para Portugal? CIDADES, Comunidades e Territórios 38: 20–26. Allen, J., J.  Barlow, J.  Leal, T.  Maloutas, and L.  Padovani. 2004. Housing and welfare in Southern Europe. Oxford: Blackwell. Alves, S., and R. Branco. 2018. With or without you: Models of urban requalification under neoliberalismo in Portugal. In Changing societies: Legacies and challenges. Vol. i. Ambiguous inclusions: Inside out, inside in, ed. S. Aboim, P. Granjo, and A. Ramos, 457–479. Lisbon: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais. Arbaci, S. 2019. Paradoxes of segregation: Housing systems, welfare regimes and ethnic residential change in Southern European cities. London: John Wiley & Sons. Atkinson, R. 2007. EU urban policy, European urban policies and the neighbourhood: An overview of concepts, programmes and strategies. Paper presented at a EURA Conference—The Vital City, Glasgow, September 12–14 2007. Bandeirinha, J.A. 2002. O Processo SAAL e a Arquitectura no 25 de Abril de 1974. Coimbra: Coimbra University Press. Baptista, I. 2013. The travels of critiques of neoliberalism: Urban experiences from the ‘borderlands’. Urban Geography 34 (5): 590–611. Barca, F. 2009. An agenda for a reformed Cohesion Policy. A place-based approach to meeting European Union challenges and expectations. Independent Report prepared at the request of the Commissioner for Regional Policy. http://www. europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/regi/dv/barca_ report_/barca_report_en.pdf.

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Farha, L. 2017. Report of the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living, and on the Right to Non-discrimination in this Context. Mission to Portugal. United Nations General Assembly A/HRC/34/51’. www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/ RegularSessions/Session34/Documents/A_HRC_34_51_Add.2_EN.docx. Ferreira, A.F. 1988. Política(s) de Habitação em Portugal. Sociedade e Território 6: 54–62. ———., ed. 1993. Livro branco sobre a Política da Habitação em Portugal. Encontro Nacional da Habitação. ENH. Gennburg, K., and F. Coulomb. 2020. Stopping Berlin’s rent madness. Jacobin, March 2. https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/berlin-­rent-­cap-controlmietendeckel. Guerra, I. 1994. As pessoas não são coisas que se ponham em gavetas. Sociedade e Território 20: 11–16. Guerra, I., M.J.  Freitas, M.  Gross, A.  Texeira, D.  Moura, and P.  Vieira. 1999. Diagnóstico sobre a implementação do programa PER nos municípios das Áreas Metropolitanas de Lisboa e Porto. IHRU. Guerra, I., et  al. 2008. Contributos para o Plano Estratégico de Habitação 2008–2013. Estratégia e modelo de intervenção (document de trabalho para debate). www.portaldahabitacao.pt/opencms/export/sites/ihru/pt/ihru/ estudos/plano_estrategico/. IHRU (Instituto de Habitação e Reabilitação Urbana). 2015. National strategy for housing. Challenges and changes. https://www.portaldahabitacao.pt/documents/20126/36008/ENH_EN_FINAL.pdf/82f137f2-­8 8d2-­1 398-­ cd95-­9c968eec7def?t=1549965461604. IHRU. 2018. Levantamento Nacional das Necessidades de Realojamento Habitacional. February. http://www.portaldahabitacao.pt/opencms/export/ sites/portal/pt/portal/habitacao/levantamento_necessidades_habitacionais/ Relatorio_Final_Necessidades_Realojamento.pdf. Ipsos Mori, Technopolis Group and Economisti Associati. 2019. Assessment study of the Urban Agenda for the European Union (UAEU). Bruxelles: European Commission—Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy. https:// ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/assess_ uaeu_en.pdf. Kleinman, M. 2002. The future of European Union social policy and its implications for housing. Urban Studies 39 (2): 341–352. Kleinman, M., W. Matznetter, and M. Stephens, eds. 1998. European integration and housing policy. London: Routledge. Lapavitsas, C., A.  Kaltenbrunner, D.  Lindo, J.  Michell, J.P.  Painceira, E.  Pires, J. Powell, A. Stenfors, and N. Teles. 2010. Eurozone crisis: Beggar thyself and thy neighbour. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 12 (4): 321–373.

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Santos, A.C., N.  Teles, and N.  Serra. 2014. Finança e habitação em Portugal. Cadernos do Observatório 2. SEH. 2017. Para uma Nova Geração de Políticas de Habitação. Sentido Estratégico, Objetivos e Instrumentos de Atuação. October. https://www.portugal.gov.pt/ pt/gc21/consulta-­publica?i=213. ———. 2018. Para uma Nova Geração de Políticas de Habitação. Pacote Legislativo. April. https://www.portugal.gov.pt/download-­ficheiros/ficheiro.aspx?v=fd3 0b753-­6313-­43fb-­9642-­b9aadeb2a044. Sousa, S. 2008. Iniciativa Bairros Críticos: Uma experiência em torno de modelos de governança na gestão do território. Cidades—Comunidades e Territórios 16: 69–75. Stephens, M., M. Lux, and P. Sunega. 2015. Housing: Asset-based welfare or the ‘Engine of Inequality’? Critical Housing Analysis 2 (1): 22–31. Teles, F. 2021. Descentralização e poder local em Portugal. Lisboa: Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos. Tosics, I. 2008. Negotiating with the commission: The debates on the ‘housing element’ of the Structural Funds. Urban Research and Practice 1 (1): 93–100. Tosics, I., and S. Tulumello. 2021. Between markets and social rights: Confused EU housing policies. In EU Cohesion Policy and spatial governance. Territorial, social and economic challenges, ed. D.  Rauhut, F.  Sielker, and A.  Humer, 244–259. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Travasso, N., A. Varea Oro, M. Ribeiro de Almeida, and L. Sousa Ribeiro. 2020. Acesso ao mercado de arrendamento em Portugal. Um retrato a partir do Programa de Arrendamento Acessível. Finisterra 55 (114): 105–126. Tulumello, S., G. Cotella, and F. Othengrafen. 2020. Spatial planning and territorial governance inSouthern Europe between economic crisis and austerity policies. International planning studies 25(1): 72–87. Tulumello, S., A.C. Ferreira, A. Colombo, C. Di Giovanni, and M. Allegra. 2018. Comparative planning and housing studies beyond taxonomy: A genealogy of the special programme for rehousing (Portugal). Transactions of AESOP 1 (1): 32–46. Tulumello, S., and R. Silva. 2019. A brief assessment of the Portuguese Framework Law for Housing / Brève évaluation de la Loi portugaise sur le Logement. FEANTSA Housing Rights Watch E-newsletter, December, https://mailchi. mp/c538af88c7b2/housing-­rights-­watch-­e-­newsletter-­july-­2657093. UN. 2015. Sustainable Development Goals. United Nations. https://sdgs.un. org/goals. ———. 2017. New Urban Agenda. United Nations. http://habitat3.org/ the-­new-­urban-­agenda/. Whitehead, C. 2017. Social housing models: Past and future. Critical Housing Analysis 4 (1): 11–20. Whitehead, C., and K.J.  Scanlon, eds. 2007. Social housing in Europe. London: London School of Economics and Political Science.

CHAPTER 13

Social Innovation, Welfare Regimes and National/Urban Agendas: Going Outside “the Local Trap” in Social Innovation Studies Maurizio Busacca

1   Introduction This chapter, after the reconstruction of the presence of social innovation in the national and local agendas of a selection of nine European states and cities (Table 13.1), relates these agendas to the different national welfare regimes (Esping-Andersen 1990). Here we adopt the classification proposed by Kammer et al. (2012), suggesting the addition to the three original Esping-Andersen’s regimes—liberal, social-democratic, conservative—of the hybrid regime of the Netherlands and Belgium and the southern regime of the Mediterranean countries. The aim is to explore possible interrelations between welfare regimes and local social innovation trajectories.

M. Busacca (*) Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_13

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UK

Liberal

Country

Welfare Regime

Author’s own elaboration

London

City

The Netherlands Hybrid

Amsterdam

Table 13.1  Selected case studies

Conservative

France

Paris

Conservative

Germany

Berlin

Social democratic

Denmark

Copenhagen

Social democratic

Sweden

Malmo

Spain

Portugal

Barcelona Porto

Southern Southern Southern

Italy

Milan

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We decided to focus on Europe on the basis of a twofold convergence: both the literature on social innovation and the literature on welfare systems have focused extensively on the European context, which therefore appears to be the most adequate for developing reflections that can be generalised. Furthermore, Europe, more than any other international context, has embraced social innovation as a policy strategy and inaugurated policies aimed at social innovation, so we would expect that differences between strategies and tools in different countries are very small and this should reduce the influence of national welfare regimes. We selected states as representatives of different welfare regimes and cities as flagships of their states and therefore representatives of national tendencies. This chapter is organised as follows: the second section presents social innovation as policy strategy; the third section presents the “social innovation chapter” of nine European national and local agendas within countries with different welfare regimes; the fourth section discusses the results of the investigation according to welfare regime theory; the closing section reconstructs the correlations between welfare regimes and the treatment of social innovation as a policy strategy.

2   Background: Main Characters of Social Innovation as Policy Strategy Since 2010 social innovation re-emerged (Godin 2012; Busacca 2013) as a policy strategy in many countries and continents (Howaldt et  al. 2018, 2019) in response to the global crisis of 2007–2008 that has caused an increase in social problems and the reduction in governments’ capacity to act. BEPA (2010, p. 33) defines social innovations as “[…] innovations that are social in both their ends and their means. [They are] new ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously meet social needs (more effectively than alternatives) and create new social relationships or collaborations. In other words they are innovations that are not only good for society but also enhance society’s capacity to act”. Thus, social innovation emerges as a policy idea based on social activation as a way of dealing with complex and/or emerging social problems. Though its history cannot be considered here in depth, the term social innovation is still vague (Jenson 2015), but it is not vague because it is new, since it has a long and troubled history (Marques et al. 2018; Busacca and Borelli 2020). Rather, the vagueness of the concept has been one of the

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factors for success that favoured its adoption in different contexts and with different meanings, according to a cognitive mechanism typically associated with the creation and diffusion of policy ideas (Tilly 2001; Jenson 2010). Social innovation arrives in the European and international agendas in a top-down way, translating into strategies and policy initiatives and priorities set by the political leadership of international institutions to deal with the global crisis of 2007–2008 (Ayob et al. 2016). In Europe, this strategy presents important elements of continuity with that of social investment, from which it differs only in the activation strategies it promotes (Busacca 2019). In the case of social investment, activation concerns citizens and their participation in the labour market; in the case of social innovation, activation concerns society’s commitment to tackling social problems that neither the state nor the market has been able to solve. To contextualise social innovation, many attempts to define the term have been made in the recent wave of attention. In general, these attempts can be grouped into two streams: a transformative one (Moulaert et al. 2013) and a mainstream one (Mulgan 2012). The mainstream approach focuses on the development and implementation of new ideas, products and services. On the other hand, the transformative view focuses on grassroots initiatives developed to satisfy basic human needs. Recently, a definition capable of synthesising the two perspectives emerged. Oosterlynck et al. (2020, p. 5) write that “social innovation refers to initiatives, actions and policies that aim to satisfy basic social needs (content dimension) through the transformation of social relations (process dimension), which crucially implies an increase of the capabilities and access to resources of the target group (empowerment dimension linking the content and process dimension) (own adaptation of Moulaert et al. 2005).” As Oosterlynck et  al. (ibid.) highlight, what the different definitions (and approaches) have in common is the importance of the territorial dimension, but they highlight that the way of understanding the territorial dimension in the debate on social innovation is essentially uncritical and unspatial, adopting the terms spatial, local or territorial social innovation without including characteristics and elements of transformation that relate these terms to social, political and economic dynamics of territories. The authors observe that in the debate on social innovation, the territorial dimension is treated as a space where courses of action occur under the influence of specific problems and resources, a sort of deposit of opportunities or constraints. Thus, the territory is de facto indifferent to the phenomenon, thus the debate on social innovation shows high levels of

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determinism and functionalism in relation to space, taking for granted that the municipal, urban, suburban or intercommunal levels are the most appropriate for social innovation because the local scale is preferable a priori to the others. The local scale is thus assumed as the optimal scale for social innovation and not as the outcome of a socio-political conflict, generating what has been called the local trap (Purcell and Brown 2005). Oosterlynck et al. (2020), to problematise the spatial dimension in the debate on social innovation, remark that the territory shall be recognised as the place where social actors, institutions and policies interact with each other at different scales. It is in this perspective that multiscalarity becomes a key dimension in the debates and studies about the relation between territory and social innovation (Kazepov et al. 2020). In our critical perspective, the different declinations of social innovation are not only the result of different problems to be addressed and resources to do it with, but the outcome of a process of social construction of the policy strategy, where the territorial scale is one of the issues at stake. Here, the urban agenda becomes a lens that can help us to understand the complexity of the relationship between the territorial scale, social innovation policies/initiatives and welfare regime.

3  Nine Quick Portraits of National and Local Social Innovation Agendas In the next section, we will briefly present the characteristics of social innovation in nine  national agendas and those of nine European cities (Table  13.1). We based the portraits on secondary data collected from grey and scientific literature published as part of the projects Co-City,1 Social Innovation Community,2 Social Innovation Index,3 SI-Drive4 and 1  The CO-Cities Report contains the result of a work carried out by the research unit of the “Università degli Studi Guglielmo Marconi”, coordinated by Professor Christian Iaione, within the research project PRIN 2015—code 2015XYKZPP—“Democratic innovations among collaborative design, active citizenship and Internet governance” coordinated by Prof. Michele Sorice from LUISS Guido Carli. 2  SIC is a community for social innovators across Europe and is a Horizon 2020 Programme funded project, run by a consortium of 12 leading organisations across Europe between February 2016 and 2019. 3  The Social Innovation Index, sponsored by Nippon Foundation, was devised and constructed by an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) research team (Intelligence Unit of The Economist) led by Trisha Suresh. 4  The project “Social Innovation: Driving Force for Social Change” (SI-Drive) has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 612870.

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other research works. In the light of this, the main bibliographic references used for the creation of city portraits are Howaldt et  al. (2018, 2019); The Economist (2016); LabGov (2019); Social Innovation Community website5. For each country-city pair, the reconstruction focuses on the following dimensions: relationship between local and national agendas; main areas of intervention; actors involved; forms of mobilisation of local actors; direction of action; welfare regime; ranking in the Social Innovation Index. UK, London. The UK plays a key role in the recent wave of interest in social innovation (Busacca 2013) as demonstrated by the fact that in the 2016 Social Innovation Index (The Economist 2016), the UK ranked second after the USA, reflecting its capacity for developing social innovation. This suggests the UK has an institutional framework and policy context suited to SI (Howaldt et al. 2018). Since the term social innovation is used among a broad range of actors within government, civil society and research institutions, it indicates a certain degree of institutionalisation of SI, and UK policies have been instrumental in the creation of one of the most developed SI ecosystems in the world (ibid). In the UK, funding mechanisms for SI are many and various and range from traditional grant funding to more ground-breaking models like Big Society Capital and Social Impact Bonds. The UK has an estimated £24 billion social enterprise industry and has come to be regarded as a global leader in this field. In the last 15 years, more than £350 million of public money has been used to fund social entrepreneurship, charity capacity-building and social ventures. Thus, the UK policy strategy on social innovation is based on the mobilisation of social enterprises and private investors. Academic institutions are also taking a more active interest in social innovation whilst think tanks continue to help bridge the gap between the research community and policy makers (see online Social Innovation Community). Thus, the approach to social innovation in the UK is based on strengthening market mechanisms in the social economy, encouraging private investment and process and product innovation by social organisations (LabGov 2019). In the absence of dedicated literature to reconstruct the state of the art of social innovation in London, it was necessary to use a desk research method, from which some evidence emerged. Firstly, there are two main areas of intervention: one area where there are organisations that support 5

 https://www.siceurope.eu/.

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other organisations to design and fund social interventions and a second area where there are social organisations directly involved in innovating the way social risks are dealt with. In terms of types of organisations, there are three: foundations (e.g. NESTA), local social enterprises and social enterprise networks (e.g. Social Enterprise UK). The Netherlands, Amsterdam. Differently from what occurred in the 1980s and 1990s (when a policy-driven approach dominated the combat of social problems), in the period 2001–2010 social innovation focussed on workplace innovation (Howaldt et  al. 2018), that is, new ways of organising work, employment and industrial relations, labour productivity, organisational performance and the implementation of new technologies. The European Social Fund funded these activities. Only since 2010, following other European countries and the USA, social innovation initiatives and policies have been developing in the Netherlands (see online Social Innovation Community). Still, in 2017 social innovation is neither embedded comprehensively in policies on innovation nor in the creation of public value in combination with market failure (ibid). This explains why, despite a strong welfare state, the Netherlands only ranks 16th in the Social Innovation Index (The Economist 2016). In this framework, some municipalities started to experiment with public-private partnerships which fund effective social services through a performance-based contract, so-called social impact bonds. These experiments, in continuity with tradition, have focused on the active labour market policies. In 2016 Amsterdam was named the European Capital of Innovation not only because it is home to a booming start-up community, but also because it is a thriving hub for social enterprise and innovation (LabGov 2019). Public-private partnerships activate initiatives in various fields. Here are some examples: the Amsterdam Center for Entrepreneurship (training, mentorship, co-­ working space, and a community of innovators), Amsterdam Impact (an initiative of the City of Amsterdam to connect and support social businesses), Social Enterprise NL (a community of 300 social enterprises across Amsterdam), Lokale Lente (a platform that represents the interests of social enterprises at the neighbourhood level); in 2014 Ashoka launched its office in Amsterdam. Thus, the Netherlands policy strategy on social innovation is based on the mobilisation of enterprises (profit and no profit) and private investors. What emerges is a weak national strategy oriented towards experimenting (at the local level) with new forms of funding for the welfare state (especially social impact bonds) and supporting the local

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ecosystem of social enterprises (especially through incubator schemes and networks). France, Paris. In France, social innovation is closely linked with the social and solidarity-based economy, social entrepreneurship and social impact, thus it is oriented towards an entrepreneurial approach (see online Social Innovation Community). The French law on Social and Solidarity Economy of 2014 defines social innovation as projects involving one or more enterprises and providing goods or services via innovative forms of enterprises, of production, of organising work or of market conditions. Thus, the France policy strategy on social innovation is based on the mobilisation of social enterprises. The main fields of intervention are incubation schemes and co-working spaces, solutions for mobility in rural areas, circular economy, local networks and ecosystems and crowdfunding. Initiatives to support social innovation are funded through European Structural and Investment Funds and focus on supporting innovation by social enterprises (see online Social Innovation Community). Thus, the role of the state is to enable innovation in the social economy via access to private resources and support services (LabGov 2019). This approach is reflected in the Social Innovation Index, which ranks France seventh in the general classification and third in the Policy and Institutional Framework classification (The Economist 2016). Initiatives of regional governments in France are numerous and significant when compared with their peers in other EU Member States. In general, social economy organisations show a strong localisation. Many are rooted in the community and often do not operate beyond the limits of the region where they are located. The Rhône Alpes region is an example of a leading region as regards the development of the social and solidarity-based economy, with numerous initiatives supported by regional authorities and the highest number of jobs in the social and solidarity-based economy with the exception of Ile de France/Paris, where most of the actions supporting social innovation are concentrated (European Commission 2014). In Paris, there is no adopted plan or programme on solidarity economy, but the city’s visions and strategies are easily identifiable on other types of documents issued from the practical actions led by the city administration. There has been also noticeable growth in the popularity of research and teaching on social economy with the example of Grandes Ecoles, Sciences Po Paris and HECs incorporating them into their teaching programmes and research. Germany, Berlin. As in the UK, France, Italy and Spain, in Germany there is a concentration of activities in social innovation (Howaldt et al.

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2018) and for this reason the Social Innovation Index (The Economist 2016) ranks Germany eighth. The Germany policy strategy on social innovation is based on the mobilisation of cultural organisations and artists. A first success on the political level was the incorporation of the importance of social innovation in the most recent coalition agreement between the two governing parties in 2013 and 2017. In 2014, a network of partners from the civil society, the economic, policy and academic world published the Declaration “Soziale Innovation für Deutschland” (ibid.). In 2015, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy recognised the need for special support and frameworks for social innovation and published a study on the challenges of funding and scaling social enterprises. The latter is the focus of social innovation in Germany, thus the infrastructure for social enterprises has experienced a new impetus in the past years. Private networks and organisations have a crucial role in fostering social innovation. Ashoka plays a crucial role as an intermediary between politics and economics but also Social Impact has an important role. Social Impact focuses on the early stage of social enterprises and supports them in their funding period. In 2011, the organisation opened its first Lab in Berlin, which offers co-working, space for exchange and networking, coaching and qualification programmes, mentoring and access to finance for free. Berlin represents the heart of German social innovation, which here meets urban development policies focused on creativity and cultural industries and the implementation of such programmes falls within the competencies of Lands, which means, in the case of Berlin, that the city senate has direct responsibility on its development (Pradel-Miquel 2017). The funding comes from different sources: the national government, the European Union and Land Berlin (LabGov 2019) but also from private investors (see online Social Innovation Community) since the German welfare state is predominantly built on social insurance systems. Denmark, Copenhagen. Denmark is famous for its large and inclusive welfare system. In Denmark, where institutions generally function well and where everyone receives the same amount and level of services, social innovation is a lot more about supplementing or improving existing public sector-led initiatives (see online Social Innovation Community). Municipalities are central actors within the welfare system and are responsible for identifying and responding effectively to social needs (see online

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Nordregio6). The only area where demand for social innovation emerges is related to the ageing of the population: the need for social innovation arises as the Danish welfare system is beginning to have problems with providing a satisfactory level of support for its citizens due to its ageing population (see online Social Innovation Community): with shrinking budgets and an expected 60 percent growth in the 65+ age group over the next 30 years, many municipalities are looking for new ways to provide and address social challenges (see online Nordregio). A 2012 report entitled Social innovation and social entrepreneurs in remote areas reported that 67 percent of municipalities indicated working with SI.  Further, approximately 30 municipalities are members of The Danish Municipality Network on Social Innovation, a platform run by the Danish Technological Institute to facilitate the exchange of SI knowledge and inspiration related to social innovation. Although it is common for projects to be initiated by the public sector, there is also evidence of an active civil society in Denmark. One report (Copus et al. 2016) found that approximately 38 percent of the Danish population are engaged as volunteers and another found that many SI initiatives arise from activities in local associations and organisations. Thus, the Denmark policy strategy on social innovation is based on the mobilisation of social organisations. In light of this scenario, Denmark ranks fourth in the Social Innovation Index (The Economist 2016). At the local level, this framework determines a situation where projects are supported by the state and involve local actors (LabGov 2019). Copenhagen represents one of the cities where these dynamics are realised but does not present specific characteristics. Sweden, Malmo. Sweden is currently not a leading country in social innovation research or practice (Hansson et al. 2014). The Swedish welfare state model is similar to the Danish one: the role of the state in the production and provision of the welfare state is fundamental and the principles for delegation of powers, decentralisation and accountability of public administration began in the seventeenth century (Howaldt et al. 2018). The role of the state is central but models of enabling and facilitating collaborative governance prevail with the mission to work specifically on achieving social inclusion through the involvement of NGOs (LabGov 2019). An initiative to promote social entrepreneurship in Sweden was launched in 2008 by The Knowledge Foundation. In 2010 the Forum for Social Innovation Sweden was launched as a permanent national platform 6  https://archive.nordregio.se/Publications/Publications-2016/Territorial-SocialInnovation/Social-Innovation-in-the-Nordic-and-Scottish-context/Denmark/index.html.

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for social innovation, sharing knowledge and facilitating cross-sector collaborations to promote social innovation in Sweden. Sweden is still in need of national and regional policies and strategies to promote social innovation more systematically to make it become an area of growth (see online Social Innovation Community). Sweden ranks ninth in Social Innovation Index (The Economist 2016). Malmo is a city in Southern Sweden, very close to Copenhagen; a significant amount of city officials are committed to commons-based approaches to achieve both social (most of all migration and refugees) and ecologically sustainable outcomes around infrastructural projects (LabGov 2019). The city has a long history of social innovation, as evidenced by the commission for a socially sustainable Malmö formed in 2010 as one of the world’s first local commissions for decreasing social and health divides. Over 2000 people were involved in the report, and in 2013 the commission published a report that delivered 24 goals, 72 action points, and 2 overarching recommendations back to Malmö’s politicians (Hansson et al. 2014). In this context, consistent with the Nordic framework for social innovation, social innovation serves to reconcile the standing of a strong state with individuals that take an active part in fulfilling their needs, commonly benefitting from initiatives originating outside the realm of mainstream institutions. In fact, social innovations in the Nordics display an inherent interplay with categories of individuals and citizens that operate independently of policy (ibid). Thus, the Sweden policy strategy on social innovation is based on the mobilisation of social organisations and activists. Italy, Milan. In Italy, the demand for social innovation emerges in relation to the difficulty of facing social challenges due to the mix of severe economic and social problems triggered by the financial crisis of 2007–2008 (Howaldt et al. 2018, pp. 110–111). Italy ranks 17th out of 45 countries in the Social Innovation Index (The Economist 2016). Despite the lack of a strong and structured national policy strategy (see online Social Innovation Community), cities become the protagonists of Italian social innovation. In a scenario of lack of economic resources and international crisis, the ability of local economic systems to find forms of cooperation in the development of original production methods and to attract innovative economic and social players becomes decisive (Faggian et al. 2017). Cities increased their capacity to govern and provide collective services and goods supporting the capacity for action of local actors. Milan is an emblematic city in this framework (Pais et al. 2019). The public administration of the city launched the “Guidelines for Sharing Economy” in 2014 after a public consultation (Bernardi 2018). Since 2011, Milan has seen a succession of initiatives in

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many areas of the collaborative economy (ibid.) within the framework of an integrated municipal strategy (Tajani 2021). The actors involved in the local social innovation ecosystem are enterprises (social and profit), professional communities, banking foundations, universities and local public agencies. The leitmotif of the Milan initiatives is the attempt to make sustainable and inclusive economic innovation in the sectors of the creative and cultural industries and sharing economy, which are emerging sectors of Milan’s urban economy. The context is a longer-term paradigm shift towards participating, sharing, resilience, sustainability and inclusion with the city as the enabler (LabGov 2019). Thus, the Milan policy strategy on social innovation is based on the mobilisation of enterprises (profit and no profit) and individuals (professionals). Spain, Barcelona. Spain is a country faring worse than may be expected, ranking 28th in the Social Innovation Index (The Economist 2016), just below Kenya. Although there are numerous examples of local social innovation at the municipal level, there is little national awareness of social innovation as a cohesive concept and no national-level strategies or funding to encourage its adoption. Social innovation entered the public agenda tightly related to public innovation policies and new initiatives to foster the civil society participation and co-creation of common solutions through a social open innovation model (Howaldt et al. 2019). Without coordinated actions at the national level, Catalonia and the Basque Country are the pioneering territories in Spain where social innovation has been developed (Martínez-Celorrio 2017). Regionally, the Basque Country is an early adopter of the term social innovation with its incorporation into the Strategic Plan of regional government action in 2008. Just one year later, in 2009, the University of Barcelona’s social innovation research centre was born. In this context Barcelona excels (Cruz et  al. 2017). The process of adherence to social innovation accelerated when Barcelona en comù assumed city government. In 2015, Ada Colau was elected mayor of the city. With the “Pla d’Actuació Municipal 2016–2019” the new government claimed that the goals of their administration would be the economic and social development of the city through sustainability and the overturning of dynamics of polarisation and inequality (LabGov 2019). What characterises social innovation in Barcelona is the strong transformative orientation that local practices adopt, where the protagonists are grassroots social organisations such as local committees, social centres and political protest groups (Blanco et al. 2018; Blanco e Leon 2017). Thus, the Barcelona policy strategy on social innovation is based on the mobilisation of social organisations, with a strong emphasis on the

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political dimension. However, the study conducted by Cruz et al. (2017) reveals that social innovation practices are distributed very unevenly in spatial terms, being concentrated in middle-income areas with a tradition of social mobilisation. Portugal, Porto. Although lacking money, the government is really supportive and is interested in promoting and working on socially oriented projects (LabGov 2019). By creating the Portugal Social Innovation initiative in December 2014 (inspired by the UK Big Society Capital), Portugal was a pioneer in the use of ESF (European Social Fund) for financing the full life cycle of social innovation and social entrepreneurship projects, through four innovative instruments: a capacity-building grant scheme (Capacity-Building for Social Investment), a venture philanthropy matching-fund scheme (Partnerships for Impact); a Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) Programme; and a Social Innovation Fund (a financial instrument using ESF for social investment). Thus, Portugal embraces a strategy based on public policies to promote social innovation through the competition between providers, supporting social innovation ecosystems, including new funding sources inspired by market tools and agents, such as Social Impact Bonds, blurring boundaries between institutional logics (Howaldt et al. 2018). Thus, Portugal policy strategy on social innovation is based on mobilisation of private investors. Social innovation in Portugal has been characterised by a series of emerging and evolving projects, characterised by many collaborations and a wide variety of actors (public institutions, associations, companies, foundations, patrons, educators, etc.). Nevertheless, the Social Innovation Index ranks Portugal 22nd (The Economist), even though it is one of seven countries in the Index to get the top score for its national policy on the issue, awarded to those countries that not only have such policies but also actively implement them (with Canada, France, Italy, Portugal, South Korea and the USA). The Porto metropolitan region is the area of the country with the highest number of social innovation initiatives, which are characterised by a strong market orientation (Carvalho 2017), consistent with the financial approach adopted at the national level, linking the figure of the social entrepreneurs to the promotion of social innovation (Parente 2016). 3.1   Learning from Comparison The comparative discussion of these national and local portraits (Table  13.2) allows us to critically examine the relationship between national agenda, local agenda, social innovation and welfare regime.

UK

London Strategic (but under-­ funded) Derived from the national one Social economy, social finance

Social enterprises and private investors

Country

City National agenda on SI Local agenda on SI Fields of action

Private Actors

Derived from the national one Circular economy, co-working, crowdfunding, smart mobility Social enterprises

Fragmented

Social economy and workplace innovation Social enterprises, profit enterprises, private investors

Paris Strategic (and well-funded)

France

Amsterdam Weak

The Netherlands

Denmark

Derived from the national one Industrie culturali ecreative, Social Economy Social enterprises, cultural organisations, artists Social enterprises

Housing and ageing

Weak

Berlin Copenhagen Strategic (and Weak well-funded)

Germany

Table 13.2  A comparison of national and local portraits

Immigrant and refugees; socio-­ ecological innovation Organisations and citizens that operate independently of policy

Weak

Malmo Weak

Sweden

Social enterprises, professionals, sharing economy ecosystem

Pool and Sharing economy

Strategic

Milan Fragmented

Italy

Weak

Porto Strategic (but under-funded)

Portugal

Grassroots social organisations, local committees, social centres, political groups

Private funders, social enterprises

Urban Social sector regeneration, social inclusion

Strategic

Barcelona Weak

Spain

8

7

2

16

Strengthening Workplace social innovation economy Liberal Hybrid

Author’s own elaboration

Welfare regime Rank in Social Innovation Index (2016)

Action orientation

Local Regional governments government, Municipal government, Universities Based on Based on projects and national tools strategic axes and tools

Regional government, Municipal government, Universities Based on national strategic axes and development trajectories Innovation in Economic social economy innovation (local scale) Conservative Conservative

National and local government (weak engagement) Forms of Based on mobilisation national strategic axes and tools

Public actors

Strengthening the welfare state Social democratic 4

National government, Municipal government, Universities Based on projects

Expanding the public welfare arena Social democratic 9

National government, Municipal government, Universities Based on projects

17

Economic innovation (local scale) Southern

Based on projects

Based on projects

28

Southern

22

Southern

Transformative Funding social economy

Based on projects and demands

Fragmentation

Municipality, Municipality, Universities, Universities Banking Foundations

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The first aspect that emerges is the relationship between national agendas, local agendas and welfare regimes. In countries with southern welfare regimes, the weak and fragmented national social innovation agenda is compensated by strong local urban agendas, which give social innovation suppletive functions of intervention in those cases where the traditional welfare state is not able to address social risks. Through the mobilisation of private actors (LabGov 2019), the aim is to activate new and increased material (mainly funds) and immaterial (mainly ideas and solutions) resources. Here, social innovation initiatives are fragmented, fragile and temporary, mostly managed through projects. In countries with continental-­conservative welfare regimes, local/urban social innovation agendas are derived from national agendas, which frame social innovation as a strategy to strengthen the welfare pillar of the social economy (Howaldt et al. 2018, 2019). Social innovation strategies are complementary to the traditional welfare state. Here, initiatives are firmly anchored in nationally regulated lines of action, which define the most appropriate instruments of action and pursue objectives linked to economic innovation as a factor in combating social risks. In countries with social-­democratic welfare regimes, both the national and local agendas are weak because they assign to social innovation a residual function, that is, integrating an already large, generous and basically universalistic welfare state (see online Social Innovation Community). The role of social innovation initiatives is to extend an already broad and inclusive welfare state, trying to involve and activate also those independent social organisations that usually do not participate in the production of the public welfare state. The Netherlands is the only country with a hybrid welfare regime and it is similar to the northern European countries in assigning social innovation an integrative function. The UK, which is characterised by a liberal welfare regime, assigns social innovation a strategic function by giving it the task of increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of social interventions (Howaldt et al. 2018). In this context, social innovation is integrated and structured as in continental countries. Therefore, what emerges is a correlation between the degree of selectivity of welfare systems (given by their extent and generosity) and the centrality of social innovation in the policy agenda: where selectivity is higher, social innovation is at the centre of policy strategies; where it is lower, it is residual. A second aspect that emerges from the analysis, although it should be further investigated, is the inverse relationship between local social innovation and social investment strategies. Local social innovation is present

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to a greater extent in territories where social investment policies are limited—as in Southern Europe—and is absent or very low where social investment is a key policy strategy—as in Scandinavian countries. Inversely, it is positively related with the national social innovation agenda. In those territories where social investment is a characteristic feature of the welfare state model (Northern European countries), local social innovation is a strategy carried out in a limited way. In Southern European countries, where social investment has penetrated to a very limited extent, local social innovation is instead a key resource of local welfare systems. In the liberal UK, social innovation is at the heart of a selective and residual system where the beneficiaries of social interventions are the deprived and meritorious citizens as they attempt to produce wealth. This may depend both on the high levels of infrastructure of the welfare state required for a policy strategy based on social investment (Busacca 2019). These countries are at the top of the social innovation ranking because in robust welfare systems there is a greater capacity to generate innovation. In those where the social investment agenda has been widely adopted, such as France and Germany, local social innovation is a direct derivation of the national agenda. Broad, inclusive and well-coordinated infrastructures are needed for social investment to trigger the leverage effect linking increased labour market participation to higher tax revenues and a reduction in demand for social intervention (Esping-Andersen et al. 2002). Instead, for social innovation, an enabling state and an activating society are theoretically sufficient. Both strategies are based on the key principle of activation, which in social investment is pursued through individual empowerment and in social innovation through the activation of networks of social organisations or open innovation mechanisms. Social investment and social innovation are thus two sides of the same coin, pursuing a similar goal of activation through different strategies. Another effect related to the first one concerns territorial distribution. Only in those contexts where social innovation is structurally integrated into national social policy strategies, that is, in continental and liberal regimes, social innovation is homogeneously spread over the national territory and in cities. In contrast, where the national agenda is weak or fragmented, the territorial and urban distribution of social innovation is dependent on local political cycles. The second aspect that is evident from the analysis of the nine cases thus confirms that social innovation is time— and context—specific but also highlights that in contexts with weakly structured policies it is more affected by political cycles. The case of

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Barcelona is illustrative of this. Social innovation enters the local policy agenda before the rise of Barcelona En Comù but is treated differently. Until 2015, social innovation was declined in terms of economic innovation, as in the case of the 22@ Barcelona project, while after 2015, even in the same neighbourhood, it was declined in terms of social inclusion and urban regeneration (Busacca 2020). Similarly, Milan inaugurated the season of social innovation only after the victory of Giuliano Pisapia’s “orange” coalition (Pais et al. 2019) and made it a flagship initiative to demonstrate its goal of combining social inclusion and economic innovation in a context of decreasing resources (Tajani 2021). Analogously, in Scandinavian countries, social innovation does not have specific distributional traits. An aspect that crosses different regimes, national contexts and local political cycles is the clear prevalence of the market orientation (mainly social, but not only) of social innovation initiatives, which take the form of actions to strengthen specific economic sectors, social enterprise and forms of private financing of the welfare state. This is also the case in northern European contexts, where the welfare state is traditionally under the responsibility of the state. In the context of social innovation, market exchange thus tends to replace redistribution as the principle of integration of the welfare state. This evidence is reinforced by the analysis of the fields of action, where social economy and finance, sharing and pool economy and urban regeneration are prevalent, especially in the South European and continental contexts. The focus on social inclusion, ageing, housing, immigrants and refugees is more limited, present especially in northern Europe where the welfare state is more extensive and inclusive. The historical social risks are therefore dealt with by social innovation initiatives only in generous and inclusive welfare systems, while the more selective or residual systems tend to assign social innovation the responsibility of interventions in new and still marginal sectors of the welfare state. Social innovation triggers a process of policy drift becoming a sort of Trojan Horse to push neo-liberal reform ideas and processes, hidden under the banner of important and necessary new goals and strategies (Moini 2017; Fougére et al. 2017). A second aspect common to the different welfare systems is the configuration of local social innovation ecosystems, where public institutions, (social and non-social) enterprises and universities or research centres

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operate. Public institutions are expected to finance social interventions and enable other actors to act; research centres are expected to support local actors in terms of usable knowledge and available competences. Enterprises have the task to find new solutions or to finance social interventions. This is the case in both Southern European, Continental and Northern European systems, resulting in the classic triple helix of innovation (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 1998). The actors of the three institutional spheres do not act separately but interact with each other according to open innovation mechanisms enabled mainly by public institutions. Public institutions, in addition to providing funding, determine policy priorities and encourage the involvement of private actors and research centres through participatory and collaborative mechanisms, whether transformative, economic or financial. Universities and research centres are encouraged to participate through R&D and training activities by the availability of resources, the opportunity to access research fields and the possibility to increase their local influence. Companies are interested in raising financial resources and market opportunities and in experimenting with innovative forms of production. Finally, there is a third aspect common to the nine state-city pairs discussed here, that is, the convergence of intervention instruments. In all the territories, there are two instruments of intervention adopted: support for social enterprises or organisations and the mobilisation of private funding. In relation to the first dimension, the nine local agendas tend to be very similar and are characterised by the adoption of instruments typically associated with civic participation (in the case of Barcelona) or support for entrepreneurship (as in the UK case). Strategies based on civic participation and business support can be identified as a scale of the greater or lesser market orientation or socio-political transformation of social innovation agenda configurations. The majority of territories are in intermediate positions between these two dimensions, showing in some cases a greater market orientation (where the role of enterprise and professionals prevails) and in others a greater orientation towards socio-political transformation (where the role of social organisations and activists or artists prevails). In relation to the second dimension (private funding), a clear division emerges between those that provide it (the UK, Netherlands and Portugal) and the others. Thus, there seems to be a relationship between the levels of privatisation of welfare funding and the strong liberal orientation of national welfare systems.

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4  Conclusions Even if briefly, what we present in this chapter shows that there is a strong relationship between the welfare regime and national and local social innovation agendas. In the presence of infrastructured, broad and inclusive welfare states—such as those in northern European and continental countries—social innovation is configured as a strategy to expand, enhance or integrate existing social interventions. In continental systems this translates into a strong integration between national and local policies, which derive from the former and contextualise national policy objectives, while in northern European systems, this is translated into initiatives that aim at a further enlargement of the welfare state by involving those few actors that usually operate independently from the public welfare state. In southern European countries, on the other hand, social innovation is supplementary and is oriented towards remedying the infrastructural and financial limits of the traditional welfare state. This characteristic therefore risks turning social innovation into a reinforcing factor of pre-existing historical trends, and the gap between welfare systems would be destined to increase rather than decrease as a consequence of the spread of social innovation as a key policy strategy. The 2016 Social Innovation Index confirms this deduction by placing countries with highly structured welfare systems such as liberal and social-democratic regimes at the top of the ranking, with continental regimes slightly below and Mediterranean regimes further below. Social innovation would thus appear to be related to the infrastructure and selectivity of welfare systems rather than to their generosity or avarice: where the welfare state is more organised, the possibilities of social innovation are greater; where welfare is more fragile and less funded, the possibilities of innovation decrease. In the case of Spain and Italy, this dualism is also reproduced at the national level. The local presence of social innovation policies only in some cities historically characterised by robust welfare systems (relative to the national context) seems to determine a strengthening of the historical dualism. Although it is too early to say it, the COVID-19 pandemic may exacerbate these characteristics of social innovation. The pandemic puts welfare systems under pressure (increasing social risks and decreasing resources to deal with them), with the risk that robust welfare systems can continue to support the spread of social innovation while fragile welfare systems will have to redirect their limited resources to traditional policy areas renouncing innovation without being able to adapt their welfare systems.

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CHAPTER 14

Connecting the Dots of an Implicit Agenda: The Case of Participatory Budgeting as a Travelling Policy Giovanni Allegretti and Gianluca Sgueo

1   Introductory Remarks. How Public Policy Instruments Evolve over Time This chapter narrates the story of a public policy instrument (PPI)—called participatory budgeting (PB). PB was shaped 30 years ago in the Global South, travelled across countries and legal systems since ever, and, along this journey, was reconfigured and re-semantized multiple times. Yet, the memory of its original meanings—embedded in its procedural and methodological features—has brought together a wide community of developers, practitioners, policy-makers, and advocates of its implementation. This chapter aims at understanding, first, whether this “community of scope” that gathered around participatory budgeting shares a common understanding and agenda of PB; second, the nature of this agenda; and,

G. Allegretti (*) • G. Sgueo University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4_14

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third, how and to what extent the latter—while cross-contaminating with other agendas—is capable of deploying its transformative capacity. Academic interest into PPIs dates back to the 1970s. Scholars interested in this topic described PPIs as tools developed by governmental bodies to accomplish specific goals and/or to solve regulatory problems. PPIs’ main scope was considered to influence citizens’, markets’, and institutional behaviours (Bemelmans-Videc et al. 1998; Howlett 1991). Over time, however, the meaning of PPIs has broadened, as their use “dialogues” with the modes of governance that prevails where they are applied, and their meaning is continuously reshaped by a large number of actors (Bouwma et al. 2015; Lascoumes et al. 2011; Jordan et al. 2005).1 Democratic Innovations (DIs)2 and their combinations are particularly sensitive to the mutual transformations characterizing the relations between PPIs’ inherent logics and different modes of steering and implementation styles in different policy regimes (Böcher 2012; Van Gossum et al. 2010; Howlett 2009; Salamon 2002). Our claim is that PPIs lack axiological neutrality (Lascoumes et  al. 2011, p. 13; Acocella et al. 2006)—and therefore we argue that PPIs may transform its meaning, scope, and range of application over time.3 To 1  Bouwma et  al. (2015) distinguish five modes of governance (hierarchical governance, market governance, network governance, self-governance, and knowledge governance) and five different typologies of PPIs: legislative/regulatory instruments; economic/fiscal instruments; agreement based/co-operative instruments; (traditional) information/communication-based instruments; and knowledge instruments. The latter differ from traditional information and communication instruments, as their focus is in developing shared knowledge between actors and promote innovation: so, they are not one-way but two-way forms of communication. 2  This chapter refers to a definition of Democratic Innovations (DI) reformulated by Sorice (2019) modifying that of Smith (2009). They can be viewed as a large family of “experiences related to facilitation and increase of substantive participation”, shaped to directly involve citizens in taking decisions on their living places, which includes not only “institutions specifically designed to increase citizens’ participation”, but also “bottom-up experiences able to connect with institutional practices in the processes of policy-making and political decision-­ making”. PB well represents those DIs with a larger capacity of combining a dialogue between participatory spaces “by invitation” and “by irruption” (Blas and Ibarra 2006). 3  Lascoumes and Le Gales (2007, p. 3) state that PPIs not only reveal “a (fairly explicit) theorization of the relationship between the governing and the governed, as every instrument constitutes a condensed form of knowledge about social control and ways of exercising it”, but that they often “produce specific effects, independently of the objective pursued (the aims ascribed to them), which structure public policy according to their own logic”. Hence, some PPIs can—per se—engender forms of change (or inertia to change) which can differ from the legitimate expectations of those who plan to use them, as they embody forms of memory related to the origin of that instrumentation (Labbé 2007; Ihl et al. 2003; Fréry and Poitou 1994; Hatchuel and Weil 1992).

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prove this claim, we focus on participatory budgeting (PB). We trace back the birth of a wide community of stakeholders (both local and international) that gathered over time around PB and used it to pursue various goals. Yet member of this community never freed themselves from PB’s “original” meanings and perspectives. Hence, our question: are these diverging uses and applications of PB opposing the creation of a coherent “transnational agenda” for PB? Or, instead, due to the fact that PB maintains in part its original meaning, an agenda is actually taking shape? If so, what are the elements laying at the heart of this agenda? Before answering, a few points to clarify on the role/scope of transnational agendas: –– First, an agenda can be described as both a policy document with a discursive coherence and a series of consistent and coordinated policy measures and their theorizations, recognizing the role of local/ regional institutions to address a variety of policy issues through interinstitutional dialogue and multi-actor cooperation (ranging from poverty and social exclusion, including climate change and energy efficiency, as well as answers to collective catastrophes, etc.). –– Second, a transnational agenda must acknowledge the presence of different typologies of actors (in representation of different territories and their supranational networks) behind its formulation. These players (with their converging or conflictive agendas, both hidden and explicit) require coordination through some sort of diplomatic cooperation, following the above-mentioned governance modes. –– Third, official agendas usually require a decision locus (Livingston 1992). This means that a place exists (or even more than a single place) where each agenda is negotiated, approved, and shared across the interested publics. Possibly, local actors in each place try to exert a special pressure on decision-makers and in doing so to gain weight compared to other actors in the final stage of negotiations. –– Fourth, an agenda’s implementation is a dynamic process by design. It often faces unintended changes during its application, as in the inter-actor relations and cooperation practices. –– Fifth, and final, international agendas’ success may depend on three factors: one is the prevailing modes in which the agenda setting

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occurs (Cobb et  al. 1976; Kingdon 1984); another are further actions of implementation and renegotiation; a third consists of the creation of “access routes” (Mansbach and Vasquez 1981, p.  97) and “access points”. The latter can be defined as “practice-­dependent sites […] by or through which actors couple problem definition, policy alternatives, and global salience that agenda politics proceeds: [and] control of or location at these points is necessary for agenda success” (Livingston 1992, p. 315). With this in mind, there are four main reasons that support the interest of PB as the focus of our analysis. –– First, it is a complex and hybrid PPI, allowing participants to engage in social learning. It can be promoted by different actors but always needs some forms of agreement that commits the administrative entity in charge of formally approving the budget at stake. –– Second, it builds on over 30 years of experiences, across five continents. This led to its resignification and re-semantization, introducing added-values and ambiguities in its use. This evolutionary nature allows to clearly map its worldwide diffusion and transformations along time (thus, its “glocal” dynamics) in different contexts and conjunctures. –– Third, over the last three decades PB has become a central topic (and the specific object of interest) of a large series of multi-­actorial and thematic networks, both in the domain of research and polity interventions. These networks have contributed to criticize PB, to highlight its weaknesses and permanently engage in new challenges, to the point that it acquired a “self-reflexivity” capacity. PB becomes, by nature, a potential “self-learning machine” (i.e. a participatory device which permanently evolve and readapt to different circumstances, through mechanism of auto-appraisal from its success and failures—Ryan 2021). –– Fourth, despite its worldwide diffusion, PB remains a “controversial” (Sgueo 2016) and a “conflicted” PPI (Caponetto 2002). In fact, at the same time, it moves from recognizing conflicts and trying to channel them into shared solutions (so, it is intrinsically pervaded by conflicts—Allegretti et al. 2010), but also generates tensions—as

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it is stretched between different modes of use and governance models, which range from utopian/cooperative visions centred on the rebalances of powers in society, to the advancement of a neoliberal agenda focused on reducing the role of the state. If, for many distinguished researchers, PB stands out above many other DIs (Pateman 2012; Fung and Wright 2002), it is also because the story of this PPI casts light on ambiguous dynamics of change where the commitment to shape instruments for conceiving change in public policies coexists with an approach based on “changing instruments to avoid political changes” (Lascoumes and Le Gales 2007, p. 18). As Dagnino (2018) would say, PB attracts a dynamic of “perverse confluences” of different actors, whose interest for it embeds a fairly diverse range of different (and often opposite) visions. This derives from the fact that the substantive participation of a proactive and purposeful civil society stemming from different standpoints. On the one hand, there is the neoliberal project aimed to shape a “minimal State”, which calls for a strong committment of the so-called “big-society”; on the other hand, an intensive civic engagement is required by a diverging horizon, guided by the goal of widening and deepening democracy through participatory innovations. In the former case, participation serves to delegate responsibilities, while, in the latter, it is used to coproduce new emancipatory political visions (Baiocchi and Ganuza 2014, 2016; Baiocchi et al. 2011). This chapter follows as such. Sections 2 and 3 focus on PB, its changing geographies, and its re-semantization. Section 4 addresses the “community of developers and advocates” that gathered around PB. The concluding remarks (Section 5) summarize some peculiarities of the anomalous agenda of PB and provide an answer to the main questions of this article.

2  Definitions and Key Attributes of PB Participatory budgeting experiences occur with different ranges of spatial scopes (as they take places at local, regional, or national level), formats (area-based, topic-based, actor-based), and degrees of continuity in time, and they can be unilaterally or jointly promoted by diverse subjects that belong to public institutions, civil society, and—more rarely—management structures of market actors (Cabannes 2021a, b).

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Early PB experiences occurred in small cities of Brazil,4 during the political transition from dictatorship to democracy. The first large-scale process was implemented in 1989 in Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul State (Gret and Sintomer 2005; Allegretti 2005; Santos 2005; Abers 2000; Fedozzi 1997). The political conceptualization of PB’s founders described it as “a process of direct democracy, voluntary and universal, by which people can discuss and define the budget and public policies” and which “combines direct and representative democracy” (Genro and De Souza 1997). Later on, as diffusion of PB leveraged diversification, the most widely adopted de-facto definition among practitioners and scholars centred on methodological characteristics.5 For nearly two decades PB has been deployed locally. It is only by the late 1990s that PB experiments began to scale up, taking place at regional (Legard and Goldfrank 2021; Núñez 2018a; Serageldin 2005) and national levels (as in Korea or Portugal—see OIDP 2020; Falanga 2018). Today, the majority of PB cases continue to occur in state’s decentralized administrative units, as municipalities, parish councils, departmental or provincial governments. In some occasions, PB experiments take place in other types of public institutions (public/private agencies responsible for housing, transportation, or waste/water management, but also public schools, universities, and prisons)6 but also within civil society environments, as is the case of some internal PBs of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and professional orders.7 Rarely, PB is created jointly by public institutions and private enterprises8: but this is usually about single-­ shot “experiments”.  See the case of Pelotas in De Souza (2002).  Sintomer et al. (2012) stated that, to be within the realm of participatory budgeting, a process must: (1) include a series of steps leading to the discussion of financial/budgetary issues; (2) affect a territory governed by an elected or appointed body, which has some formal degree of power over administration and resources; (3) be repeated in time; (4) include some form of public deliberation within the framework of specific meetings/forums; (5) provide accountability mechanism, so that the outputs reflect the will of participants. 6  See the cases of Toronto Community Housing PB (Canada) or that of Paris Habitat social housing PB (France); for schools, see Gibbs et al. 2021; for the case of Bollate prison, see Allegretti and Pittella (2021) and Pittella and Allegretti (2022). 7  See the Portuguese cases of the Nurses Professional Rank of Central Portugal and the Order of Certified Accountants, and the Italian case of the Order of Psychologists of Lombardy Region. 8  See the “In Transit” pilot project, organized by Airbnb and the Palermo city council (Italy) in two districts. See also the Project “Ripartire” [Restart] organized by the enterprise 4 5

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PB experiences not only vary in format and space, they may also vary in time. In fact, several PB experiences tend to keep on adapting their design and methodologies to new circumstances, taking advantage of cross-­ fertilization and mutual-learning opportunities for improving their formats and effectiveness. Hence, a minimal common definition presents PBs as “a space for negotiation between citizens and the different authorities that are responsible for a budget of common interest, that provides the opportunity to make decisions on parts of such a budget (or on the overall value of it)” (UNDESA/CEPA 2022, p. 3). The more normative definitions used over the last decade9 maintained a strong link with the original scope and goals of radical Brazilian experiences of the 1990s. This was aimed at separating from “lighter” versions that started taking place with the new millennium in Europe and other Latin American locations. They served to disqualify those self-defined PBs relaying on a merely advisory or consultative methodology, where participants are entitled to present suggestions of proposals but not to rank the most important priorities they want to be funded, so that the latter are chosen through a discretionary “cherry-picking” operated by political authorities. Today, consensus exists about PB consisting of a sequence of steps/ phases that can be organized with different methodologies10 along three interconnected cycles (deliberation/decision-making; implementation of co-decided priorities; and management/assessment11). Each phase could be developed with different degrees of participatory intensity. The latter, measured through traditional ladders and spectra,12 depend on how important non-state actors are in each step of the process, in relation to other “gatekeepers” (as elected politicians or techno-bureaucratic bodies) that are entitled to take decisions. As the participatory intensity grows whenever non-state actors are central decision-makers in the majority of PB phases, different models can be clustered in relation to the level of civic protagonism granted them in each concrete implementation.

BiPart in several schools of Italy (https://ripartire.info). 9  See, for example, the four principles (Voice, Vote, Oversight, and Social Justice) stated by Wampler (2012), or the definitions used by the DRD Network, recalled in Nez and Talpin (2010). 10  Ganuza and Francés (2012a, b). 11  See Dias et al. (2021), p. 34. 12  See Arnstein (1969), or https://iap2.org.au/resources/spectrum/.

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Thanks to the polysemy, ductility, and malleability of PB, it can be imagined as an “ideoscape” (Appadurai 1990, 2016), signifying a political model which travels globally but exists through local appropriations, which—in turn—constantly contribute to incrementally modify and resignify the original model, characterized by a permanent evolution.

3  Shifting Geographies and Changing Protagonists The transformation of PB during its fast expansion around the planet was marked by asymmetries (in terms of distribution and concentration of concrete practices, as in terms of creation of regulatory framework and meaning attributed to this PPI), which can be strictly linked to the leading role of different social and institutional actors who demonstrate interest for experimenting with it. As we said before, beginning from the 1990s, PB expanded to other parts of Brazil and Latin America (Avritzer and Navarro 2003; Avritzer 2012). In some cases, the researchers who studied such dynamics contributed to the circulation of PB’s models. Thus, they played the role of “intercultural translators” (Santos 2019) and/or of “policy ambassadors” (Porto de Oliveira 2020), supported by a growing range of institutions that incentivized PB on a cross-continental scale, as is the case of the UN Urban Management Programme for Latin America and Caribe (PGU-­ ALC)13 and the URB-AL Cooperation Programme of the European Commission (Cabannes 2003). The studies promoted by them in many Latin American countries showed that PB was being superposed to pre-­ existing forms of community participation, giving a central space (unlike in Brazil) to organized social movements and civic associations and putting aside the non-associated individuals (World Bank 2011). From an URB-AL project, an important actor took shape: the International Observatory of Participatory Democracy (OIDP). Born as a “project deliverable”, it became an independent voice (funded by the City of Barcelona) and a transnational multi-stakeholders space devoted to foster mutual learning among participatory innovations and the dissemination of reports to favour forms of updated mapping and analyses of their evolution. 13  The Agency has been extinguished (and also the NGO CIGU—International Centre for Urban Management, which continued its legacy), so the memory of its publications is hard to find.

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After the “return of caravels” (Allegretti and Herzberg 2004) generated the first PBs in Europe, a cross-countries comparative research on 55 practices took place in 2004–2008, funded by the Böckler Foundation and the Marc Bloch Centre in Berlin.14 It revealed that in Southern Europe the novelty of PB had been diffused mainly through progressive political forces inspired by the alter-globalist movement (directly entering in contact with the Porto Alegre experience through the various editions of the World Social Forum), generating powerful and diverse—although scattered—adaptations (as in Spain or Italy), but also shallow consultative experiments (especially in centralist countries as France). Conversely, the UK-based PBs—stimulated by social and religious organizations—were dialoguing with pre-existing models of local community development. As far as it refers to German PBs (inspired by experiments from New Zealand), they had taken the shape of light “participatory modernization” of techno-­ bureaucratic administrative machines: in this perspective, they tended to be implemented by very different political coalitions and in dialogue with a pre-existing managerial literature on how structuring budgeting in a participative way may increase their quality and legitimacy within technical organizations (De Vries et  al. 2022; Brownell 1980; Swieringa and Moncur 1975). Cases as Portugal showed that grassroot actors (as NGOs and universities) used the support of EU-funded project to try “de-­ ideologize” PB (Dias 2018), showing that it is a powerful PPI which can be appropriated in different ways and for asymmetric uses, but anyway deserves to be used—as it strikes the “core-problem” of a disheartened society, favouring the reconstruction of trust in institutions especially by part of individuals suspicious of every form of social intermediation.15 Despite this, unlike referenda or other tools of direct democracy (which could tend to oversimplify complex issues), PB is not a tool for “disintermediation of society”, as it articulates continuous spaces of debate and interaction where each citizen has the opportunity to deliberate and interchange visions and arguments, in horizontal interaction with other diverse actors.

14  The research “Participatory Budgeting in Europe” was updated several times, producing books in different languages. The first publication issued was Allegretti and Herzberg (2004) and the last Sintomer et al. (2016). 15  This aligns with Falanga and Lüchmann (2019); Ganuza and Francés (2012a); Baiocchi et al. (2011).

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The first comprehensive and reliable world-mapping exercise (promoted in 2010 by the German Cooperation Agency and InWEnt gGmbH) counted less than 1500 cases of PB worldwide, while its updated version in 2013—funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)—censed almost 2800 cases in five continents.16 These overviews unveiled how PB—in times of financial crisis—appeared as a reliable way to face the scarcity of resources at local levels and produce common views on the most urgent priorities. They also identified the emergence of new transnational actors—as multilateral and bilateral agencies of cooperation-to-development—in the diffusion of PBs, in particular for Africa, where the lack of resources demanded to optimize redistribution, fight corruption and elite’s capture (Cabannes 2014, 2021c). They also unveiled risks for PBs tied to colonial legacies and neocolonialist approaches and a global “instability” of new experiments in low-income contexts for improving their processes and granting continuity. In these cases, policy-transfer mechanisms tend to prevail on those of policy influence that had marked the explosion of PBs in Europe, North America, and Asian countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (such as South Korea and Japan). Meanwhile, Brazil became the champion of PB disappearance, as it had been too strictly intertwined with single parties’ logics, and—after 25  years of experiments—it was not anymore felt as an “innovation” on which it was worth to invest (Goldfrank and Wampler 2022; Avritzer 2019; Bezerra 2018; Langelier 2015). During the travelling, three differentiate logics of conceiving PB became evident (Cabannes and Lipietz 2018, p. 70): first, those aimed at “giving power to the people”; second, those looking to it as a “tool of good governance”; and, third, those pivoted around a “technocratic” strategy to improve financial efficiency and optimize scarce public resources. Among the latter, we include important investments on PB by authoritarian regimes like Russia or China. In these and in other countries PB is “largely a controlled and orderly experiment” (He 2011, p. 128), where some of the meaningful connections with administrative/political reforms, intensification of democracy, and social justice objectives got inevitably lost, in spite of these being important preconditions for success in the Brazilian experiments (Ganuza and Baiocchi 2012; Goldfrank 2012). 16  See the reports published in several languages on the magazine Dialog Global (issue n. 25), Edition 2010, and Updated Edition 2013.

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Undoubtedly, these multiplication and divergence of different logics was made possible by the endorsement given to PB by several international events and transnational actors. Among the first, the most important was the Habitat III Summit on Human Settlements held in Quito in 2016, whose results were nurtured, at the same time, by a bottom-up multiplication of local successful practices of participatory budgeting, as by an acceleration of the interest for PB of several agencies and programmes of the UN universe,17 multiplied by the creation, in 2002, of the World Urban Forum (WUF)18 and the “Africities” biennial Summit.19 The latter are biennial event of exchange between the UN system and its different territorial partners (from local authorities to NGOs and academic circles) on the transformation of the “urban” and the approaches to its governance. Both events are pivoted around a permanent tension between the top-down centralistic approach of the UN system and its way of thinking (centred in “national priorities”) and a largely spread and more centrifugal “network culture” (Castells 2009). Among the new transnational actors which met in such negotiation spaces and decided to endorse PB as a pivotal strategy to increase public participation specifically in budgetary and fiscal policies, one can count “umbrella-coalitions” (which gather together different organized actors which operate in similar sectors) as the International Budget Partnership20 and Transparency International,21 but also state-funded mixed body as the Open Government Partnership (OGP)22 or the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT).23 In 2019, a grassroot and collaborative worldwide network emerged from previous cooperation among researchers, practitioners, and political/administrative authorities, for implementing a mapping exercise to monitor the diffusion and qualitative changes of PB around the world in a 17  Initially, the attention came from the Latin American branch of the Urban Management Programme, then from UN-Habitat, and later UNDP, UN-Women, UNESCO, and UNDESA. 18  https://wuf.unhabitat.org/. 19  https://africities.org/. 20  The International Budget Partnership is “a global partnership of budget analysts, community organizers, and advocates working to advance public budget systems that work for people, not special interests”. Its work is generating data, advocating for reforms, and building “the skills and knowledge of people so that everyone can have a voice in budget decisions that impact their lives”. See: https://internationalbudget.org/about-us/. 21  https://www.transparency.org/en. 22  https://www.opengovpartnership.org. 23  https://fiscaltransparency.net.

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stable manner, publishing annual editions of the Participatory Budgeting World Atlas.24 The 2019 edition showed an increase of PBs to almost 11,800 cases (62% experimented by local authorities and the rest by schools, province, regions, etc.). In Europe (which passed to lead the expansion trend, with more than 4600 experiments), nine regional administrations are mapped, which apply PB on their level of competences. This new observatory and its numbers make evident that the cross-fertilization dynamics and the complexification of the panorama of PBs have tended to go hand in hand with processes of “decaffeination” (Fung, quoted in PB Network 2015), de-radicalization, and shrinking of wide ambitions, especially for what refers to the main goals pursued by the first generation of PBs in relation to redistributive justice and social inclusion of the most marginalized citizens (Wampler et  al. 2021; Wampler 2007). However, they also show that, even when PB dies or disappears, important legacies of its passage on earth may remain alive, and lessons learned can be reused for improving other forms of participation. It is worth to underline that, in 2020, some traditional actors that contribute to cooperate with the main existing PB communities proposed further steps in their work of support. For example, the UN-Habitat agency, which continued to multiply the translations and updating of its series of Handbooks on PB started in 2004,25 also embarked in pilots to explore the multipurpose assessments which relate PB to different goals of the Agenda 2030 (UN-Habitat 2020) through the new Participatory Habitat Initiative.26 At the same time, new actors devoted to connecting the dots of PB on the international scene emerged as the “PB-base Network” (born from the EU-funded project “Empowering Participatory Budgeting in the Baltic Sea Region”27) and “People Powered” (PP).28 The latter is a US-based umbrella organization acting as a global hub for participatory democracy and a “global union for participatory democracy workers”29 with statutory attention to promote knowledge and pilot projects in the Global South. Germinated in 2019 from the Global Participatory 24  The Atlas provides a permanent observatory of PBs, thanks to more than 100 voluntary “aerials” spread in 65 countries. See: www.pbatlas.net/index.html. 25  https://unhabitat.org/72-frequently-asked-questions-about-participatory-budgeting. 26  https://pb.unhabitat.org. 27  http://www.empaci.eu/index.php?id=124. 28  https://pt.peoplepowered.org/. 29  People Powered applies PB methods to the distribution of part of its own internal resources for projects and other diverse activities.

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Budgeting Hub—a fiscally sponsored initiative of the Participatory Budgeting Project (a social enterprise that supports several North-­ American cities in doing PB30)—PP concentrates its action in coordinating research and sharing learning produced elsewhere, while also developing resources and building on the expertise of the main advocates and champions of the world PB community. The COVID-19 outbreak seems to have marked a visible inversion in the dynamic of PB growth, as around 55% of the initiatives underway were suspended, reaching rates of 80% in South America (Dias et  al. 2021; Falanga and Allegretti 2021). However, despite the quite adverse conditions, PB practices showed a certain resilience, as 24% continued without changes (especially digital PBs); those who suspended their deliberative cycle often concentrated on the implementation and management of previous years’ outcomes. Indeed, the pandemic emergency became an unexpected “laboratory” for a new more advanced digital model of PB, with blended components (online/offline) adapted to public safety measures.31 During the pandemic, two important dynamics of dissemination and transformation of PBs worldwide accelerated and are likely to constitute changes that will last and expand in the near future (UNDESA/CEPA 2022). The first refers to the increased use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in connection with PB—that tended to reduce many PBs to mechanical aggregational spaces for the individual preferences of participants, reducing their deliberative quality (Sampaio 2014). The second is represented by the increased process of institutionalization of PB that started in Peru in 2003 (World Bank 2011; McNulty 2011, 2018) and today involves a dozen of countries. Together, the legal obligations for local authorities to use PB (especially in African, Asian, and Latin American countries) and the laws containing incentives to those that choose to use it (especially in Europe—as in Poland, Russia, and some Italian regions) are becoming the main vector of PB diffusion—affecting around 60% of existing experiences worldwide (Dias et al. 2021; McNulty and No 2021; Allegretti et al. 2021).  https://www.participatorybudgeting.org/.  See Herrera Castro and Tesoriere (2021). Even practices developed mainly in rural areas (as the 3043 villages of Chengdu, in China, with their almost 16 million inhabitants) took the opportunity to boost their tools of digitization to improve their capillary role especially for improving their capacity of delivering results related to SDGs 10 and 11. See the pilot experience of the Community Support Fund E-Platform in 73 communities (2021), in the UN-DESA Good Practices archive. 30 31

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4  Which Agenda for a Community of Committed Advocates? Since the first PB experiences in Brazil, many different agendas have been crossing and intertwining together in asymmetric manners. The “confluence” of attentions was a “perverse” one (Dagnino 2018) when different players tried to “stretch” PB on purpose to fold and adapt its meaning to their own visions; but, in many cases, they just emphasized partial aspects of its multi-layered potentials.32 Recomposing the puzzle of all different perspectives and motivations which have been converging on PB during 30 years would be a titanic (and, possibly, inconclusive) effort. Conversely, to understand if a common “agenda-effect” exists around PB, and which direction it is going, wondering who and how has been structuring it, will be of help. Together with others (Lehtonen 2021; Legard 2019), the analyses of Porto de Oliveira (2017, 2020) help to understand the mechanisms of policy transfer behind the international diffusion of PB. Drawing the profiles of complementary typologies of actors that contributed to such abrupt expansion and incremental consolidation, he clarifies that single persons (“ambassadors of change”) have been far more important than institutions for building an agenda about PB. If the attention of multilateral and bilateral institutions often regarded PB mainly as a tool to optimize their aid-to-development, rationalize its benefits to marginal communities and the government capacities in poor countries, local implementers (usually public administrations) mainly aimed to use a variety of “entry topics” and “access points” to PB, to better align their policies with the most urgent needs of their inhabitants, thus gaining more trust and credibility. In between, several of these ambassadors of change have been circulating in different roles, acting as “pollinizing bees”: sometimes as researchers, then as external consultants, and even as appointed decision-makers (a sort of mix between a political figure and a technical expert) or as simple militants, personally dedicated to “the cause” of

32  The UNDESA/CEPA’s chapter “How can the strategy be of benefit and under what circumstances?” (2022, p. 8) contains a list of the most common benefits that PB can provide, referring them to different Sustainable Development Goals, and also list some promises (in the form of PB impacts) on which literature had provided evidence. Several of the national chapters of Dias (2013, 2018) highlight a diverse range of requests to PB which are central and most common in different contexts.

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participatory budgeting. Two main types of relations established with the main object of their commitment can be traced: 1. the “volatiles” are actors (but the reflection is extendable also to some institutions) that had an intense but short-termed contact with PB: for example, for a single research, a project, the redaction of an article, or a single-shot consultancy; 2. the “persistents”, instead, cultivate longer and recurrent relations with PB, which do not disappear even if and when—for a significant period—other central topics occupy their attention. Aware of the need to expand their contribution beyond a single, and apparently reduced, object, the “persistents” have tended to extend their attention beyond PB: for example, to its relations with its potential larger impacts or with other democratic or social innovations, as to the prevalent models of governance adopted in the experimenting territory (Sintomer et al. 2012). As Porto de Oliveira (2017) clarifies, their patient ant-work has a “missionary” component, a visionary and far-sighted perspective that further changes are possible, and a risk of isolation. The latter motivates a high engagement in promoting a permanent networking to promote a progressive agenda for PB. Building on Fung (2011), one could say that “persistent” actors preferred a “consequentialist approach” to PB (interested to maintain a durable relation with processes that list clear goals, build coherent methodologies for their implementation, and finally assess their effectiveness accordingly). Their personal profiles often counted a lot,33 even in partially modifying 33  An example quoted by Porto de Oliveira is Prof. Yves Cabannes: a French militant in Brazilian social movements and coordinator of a radical NGO, he led a UN-agency on Urban Management in Latin America, then coordinated as an external consultant in the network of the URB-AL Programme dedicated to PB; later on, he focussed on a university career (mainly involved in action research), while maintaining active collaborations to implement PBs (or coordinating training and assessment studies on it) with many international institutions (including the World Bank, UCLG, UN-Habitat), but also social movements and local/regional authorities. From his numerous articles and research reports, one could deduce his “consequentialist approach”—evident especially in his comparative studies on the impacts of PB in various polity domains (Cabannes 2014, 2016, 2020, 2021b, c) and on the interaction with other DIs. While floating between these different poles, Prof. Cabannes has also been an active organizer of many transnational events on PB, contributing to structure direct links of cooperation between different territories and actors interested in experimenting this device—especially those characterized by a high degree of political will, clear goals,

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the approach of important institutions towards PB. The “volatiles” have a more traditional approach to PB that could be defined as “deontological” (ibidem). The latter relies on a strong interest for PB per se, as a malleable tool to multiply plural voices, which is appreciated as an inherent dimension of full democratic practices, but a certain myopia prevents them from committing in developing evidence of its impacts, which can increase PB credibility and authoritativeness vis-à-vis with a larger community still not attracted by it. An example of how much choosing adequate spaces of networking constitutes a strategic option to set a new agenda is embedded in a reference—contained in the UNDESA/CEPA Guidance Note (2022, p. 11)—to the recent proposals that identify PB as a leverage “for building transnational climate justice approaches” through articulating the cooperation between local and regional territories that—in the Global North and South—are suffering the consequence of climate change and using PB to involve their local communities in tackling them through collectively conceived actions of prevention and mitigation (Cabannes 2021d; Falanga et al. 2021). Such reflection—built on a networking event organized by a series of advocates of PB together with UN-Habitat in the X World Urban Forum of Abu Dhabi34—neatly reveals new potentials of the cooperation and the articulations of multiple perspectives on PB. In fact, the proposal is built on a large series of learning mechanisms among actors directly involved in PB practices, who are constantly in search of focusing on new potentials and challenges, which can make PB grow as a global strategy for tackling widespread problems and attract the attention of transnational institutions. As a matter of fact, the entire Guidance Note is an important outcome of such articulation among diverse actors. In fact, it was technically elaborated by the United Nation Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) with the Committee of Experts on Public Administration

and an advanced methodological approach. In this journey, marked by a planetary scope that touched a hundred of countries, “persistence” appears an indispensable companion, as the “slow march towards new paradigms” (Allegretti 2014) implied frustrations, backlashes, and apparent victories (often easily reversible ones) while trying to set PB as a more central priority in the agenda of powerful international players or visible and influential institutions of single countries. 34  The 10th WUF was held on 07/12 February 2020. See: https://unhabitat.org/wuf10.

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(CEPA),35 but was revised collectively by 25 international peers belonging to several of the most active international networks that exchange ideas and skills about participatory budgeting. With these characteristics, the UNDESA/CEPA Guidance Note (2022) can be, possibly, seen as a “turning point” for the consolidation of PB worldwide and a milestone in the international community cooperation. In fact, it adopts PB as one of the UN 62 strategies to assist countries and cities with the operationalization of its “Principles of effective governance for sustainable development” and to comply with several of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda (UN-Habitat 2020; Cabannes 2018, 2019).36 The document recognizes that PB must be regarded not as a “mere tool” or a “participatory methodology” for a governance-driven vision of democracy (Warren 2009), but as a larger and substantive “enabling environment” for major substantive reforms and a strategy for a further step of joint democratization of public institutions and society at large (Fung and Wright 2002). Therefore, cases where PB leverages forms of democracy-­ led governance (Bua and Bussu 2020) must not be ignored. Yet, one could say that the UN Guidance Note is not a radical text, as it shows an over-evaluation of institutional dimensions of PB and misses references to the role that the World Social Forum and the alter-globalist movements had in the expansion of, and in the cross-fertilization among, PB practices (Santos 2005; Allegretti and Herzberg 2004). Furthermore, the text reveals an under-evaluation of the “bottom-up” origin of some PBs as a powerful tool of a “monitory democracy” (Keane 2018) and as a potential space to further stimulate more radical forms of co-designing alternative scenarios for democratic transformations and change in economic frames and development modes (Marcuse 2013; Harvey 2012). Nevertheless, the UN Guidance Note presents a lot of advancements and, coming from an authoritative source, further contributes to connecting the dots that still separate the large efforts made worldwide to invest in experimenting, mainstreaming, and improving this policy strategy and the

35  https://publicadministration.un.org/en/Intergovernmental-Support/CEPA/ Principles-of-Effective-Governance. 36  Explicitly, it moves from SDG 11 (make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable) and Target 16.7 (ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory, and representative decision-making at all levels) to recognize many other SDGs that PB can help to comply with as larger impacts of its action.

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production of evidence on how to maximize the implementation of its potentials.37 Furthermore, this document has the merit to recap some perspectives which gather consensus within the worldwide PB community, regarding some improvements and methodological priorities on which PB could focus in the next years, to increase its effectiveness, impact, and international legitimacy. Among other central elements of this composed agenda, one could quote: 1. the hybridization of models and the capacity of creating mixed processes that dialogue with other tools of participation more oriented towards the creation of wide visions and scenarios (as participatory planning, town meetings, the public debate methodology, citizens assemblies, local pacts for the shared management of commons, etc.); 2. the creation of eco-systems of participation (Spada and Allegretti 2020), able to coordinate different channels targeting different groups on different topics (also on the base of a common web-platform); 3. the possibility of applying PB not only to expenses, but also to chapters of revenue creation (taxes or not-budgetary resources—as planning or environmental compensations) that may contribute to enrich the global wealth of experimenting territory; 4. the need to create a multilevel governance for interrelating all the different PBs that can happen in the same territory, in order to reduce the burden of “participation fatigue” for citizens (Tshishonga 2020) and maximize the interaction about people and different institutions that act on the same living space (but with different responsibilities: national, regional, local, and sub-local levels); 5. the need to create regulatory frameworks (as is happening in many countries and regions) which can incentivize and stimulate PBs to grow, diffuse, and consolidate in quality and numbers, and also generate sharable datasets on existing practices, to better understand how different degrees and types of regulations affect their performance and evolution; 6. the need to face the permanent growth of digitalization through forms of co-design, which can not only face the challenges posed by 37  For an updated list of studies which provide evidence on PB variated impacts, see UNDESA/CEPA (2022, pp. 9–11).

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uneven level of digital alphabetization of different citizens and the risks of digital divides, but also the need to think about sovereignty of data and self-management of ICT infrastructures (Peixoto and Steinberg 2020). There is also the need to discuss more in depth the open-and-free nature of software and their incremental updating, eventually imagining how it could be granted by developers’ communities based on common principles. In this perspective, co-design could serve to visualize webportals and digital environments not only as mere “tools” for the procedural organization of participatory rituals, but also as spaces that “mirror” the image of a diversified local community (Allegretti 2022) and contribute to implement innovative strategies that target “inclusiveness as a democratic common” (Smith 2009; Saward 2003).

5  An Open Conclusion At the outset of this chapter we claimed that PPIs—and PB, specifically— are flexible and adaptive instruments, permeated by the values and visions of the public institutions and “communities of scope” experimenting and implementing it. We also suggested that PPIs, as non-neutral devices, play a dual role: indicators of qualitative changes of policies (in terms of meaning, cognitive and normative framework, and results) and actors in the polity processes, driving them towards specific ends. For these reasons, PPIs can produce effects misaligned with the original objectives—or they could even generate unexpected results. We focussed on the analysis of PB due to its neat and recognizable characteristics and its quick expansion worldwide. PB began as a radical innovation, but quickly evolved across countries, legal systems, and administrative levels. These changes favoured major shifts in PBs’ programming and adoption, to the point that today over 50% of PBs worldwide are mandated or driven by external actors, and several consultative processes and “light” experiences are entirely online that lost deliberative quality and capacity of reverse priorities. In short, while a gap persists in comparative evidence about PB’s effectiveness and impacts, critical voices argued that PB loses its transformative potential once endorsed by supranational regulators and promoted at national level. Hence, our crucial question. What motivates a large and varied pool of advocates—each from his/her standpoint—to find PB’s ideas appealing enough to implement it all over the world (a trend unlikely to slow down

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in the near future)? To this question, we found three possible, and inter-­ related, answers. The first answer is, in some respect, self-explanatory. We suggest that PB remains a credible and powerful PPI due to the very community of advocates that gathered around it along three decades. Many of them jealously keep alive the memory of PB’s origin, nurturing specific expectations in all territories where it is applied. Second and consequently, the same concept of “public policy” transformed alongside PB’s implementation by varied public/private/civic organizations. These organizations contributed to transform PBs’ meanings and encouraged a persistent tension between the visions proposed by the diverse promoters and those who were called to be active part of their implementation. At its outset, PB was regarded as a mere “device” for enhancing substantive participation. It later became itself a specific cross-­ cutting “policy”, charged of acting transversally to increase the effectiveness, credibility, and impact of other thematic policies. At present, it is largely read as a “strategy” to involve citizens in the transformation of their living environments, through the co-design of public policies and projects, in collaboration with other tools. Third and finally, albeit PB’s dynamics remain divergent, the changes that marked PB diffusion over time suggest the idea of the gradual creation of a transnational and cross-cutting agenda, built around the PB practices and the theorization of their importance. Such outcome is recognizable only accepting that an “urban agenda” is not necessarily a single one and a written one, but can also consist of a series of substantive and coordinated policy measures. Under this latter perspective, we advance the idea that PB has catalysed a shared transnational agenda, acting as a “bridge” between a series of other pre-existing, separate but also overlapping agendas related to urban transformation, democratization, and sustainability. Yet we clarify that, for recognizing this agenda, seven key characteristics of PB need to be considered: . it is a solid but implicit agenda; 1 2. its bottom-up nature moves at different speeds, to let a range of local, national, and international actors (each one with some specific agendas) to identify constraints and challenges and absorb them into a portfolio of solutions to be gradually tested and mainstreamed; 3. it is a patchwork agenda, emerging from the convergences, comparisons, latent conflicts of visions, and explicit debates among a wide range of different actors and territories (especially local authorities,

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professionals of democratic innovations and civic organizations that work on quality of daily life, inequalities and social inclusions— which are the most aware of the PB potentials). The latter permanently confront each other around the common topic of how a strategy as PB can foster transformative policy changes and produce a growing number of outcomes and impacts that could affect synchronically the transformation of territories (urban, but not only), of communities that live on them, and of institutional organizations in charge of guaranteeing their management and development through government actions and innovative governance dynamics; 4. it has a centrifugal nature, as far as it produces an overflow of explicit actions, recommendations, and programmes for the future transformation of its main object, which are often issued from peripheric positions and informal spaces of networking, and only seldomly and slowly are appropriated by powerful and central actors. When such appropriation occurs, it is thanks to the patient commitment of the transnational and multi-actoral networks which have been consolidating in the last three decades, to guarantee that such an agenda remains under permanent construction; 5. it is a headless agenda—as there is not a single subject that can claim for itself the right to impose its standpoint to others and solely decide in which direction and through which means the participatory budgeting transformation as to go; 6. as many agendas, it is prospective (as it looks to the future) but it has also a retrospective component generated by a sequence of experiments, incomplete assessments, and action for restructuring and re-­ signifying PB and its future challenges. This double-track anchors the lessons learned and the cross-pollination to a wide range of practices of PB matured in different contexts and conjunctures. The coexistence of these two gazes is granted by different typologies of actors and standpoints that look back to past mistake and lessons learned; 7. finally, the agenda is conflicted, as it is permanently crossed by tensions among the glocal action of the community of developers that continuously write and restructure it. PB’s main strength is the existence of a cohesive and committed community around it. This supporting community of developers and advocates, as for this wide and differentiate range of actors and organized stakeholders (which nurture a permanent, explicit, and “hot” debate on polity-goals, methodologies, and possible improvements), appears more

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important than deploying a calibrated diplomacy of superficial agreements on commitments which remain “cold and out of focus” as in many international and national written agendas. This proto-community seems to be based on sharing interests and affinities that pre-exist to the definition of goals which could guide the uses and modifications of PB. Their glue is a multigoal PPI, and its capacity to couple with other instruments to generate “a second age of democracy”, where the definition of the common good is no longer the sole monopoly of elected governments, but is a shared task of different actors, for allowing a better governability of increasingly differentiated and complex societies and claiming a “second-­ generation human rights” from the state. In this perspective, part of this community considers a focus on power and interests indispensable, to understand the real direction of each polity change that pass through PB and to make visible some of the invisible—hence depoliticized dimensions of PB diffusion and re-semantization. Under these conditions, there is possibly no need that such an implicit agenda becomes an explicit one, written and agreed through the classical negotiations of political diplomacy, as its strength comes from a tireless antwork of networking and an ethical commitment with the renewal of a democracy that is a pluralist space (unfinished and incrementally evolutionary in nature) and must go far beyond the simplified and depoliticized models of governance-driven participation (Warren 2009). Obviously, it cannot be excluded that authoritative endorsements of this implicit agenda—and their confluence into clear and not merely rhetoric or routinary written commitments of diverse international organizations—could further strengthen the consolidation and affirmation of Democratic Innovations as something more valuable than a mere instrumental device for shaping new formulas of governance (as is the case of the UNDESA Strategy on PB).

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Index1

A Action Plan, 167, 180–183, 205, 255, 297–300, 302–304, 313 Affordable housing, 70, 110, 111, 113, 115, 145, 249, 252–254, 325 Agenda-setting, 1, 5n4, 7n6, 8, 9, 20, 102, 171, 172, 264, 280, 291, 359 Amenagement du Territoire, 279 America Jobs Plan, 150, 150n92 American First Energy Plan, 148 Andalusia, 299 Angola, vi, 315 Anti-Recession Fiscal Assistance programme, 132 Area-based initiative(s), 57–74 Area-based policy(s), 15, 130, 276, 281, 322 Area-based value-capture, 57–74

Argentina, vii, 11, 15, 16, 20, 157–161, 163–187 Austerity, 20, 53, 67, 68, 313–316, 322 Autonomy, 5, 7, 11, 19, 30, 35, 39, 43, 52, 85n10, 105, 105n2, 124, 129, 132, 159, 160, 165, 170, 170n4, 171n6, 182, 190, 195, 197, 201, 205, 206, 243n1, 244, 245, 248–250, 256–258, 271, 274, 275, 282, 283, 292n2, 321 B Barracas, 315, 317–319 Basque Country, 299, 344 Belgium, 264, 333 Big Society, 20, 67 Brazil, vi, vii, 11, 16, 21, 157, 158, 160, 161, 189–208, 362, 364, 366, 370

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Gelli, M. Basso (eds.), Identifying Models of National Urban Agendas, Comparative Studies of Political Agendas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08388-4

387

388 

INDEX

Brexit, 70, 73 Business-led, 18, 61 C Cadastres, 207 Canada, vii, 11, 16, 19, 157, 160–162, 243–258, 345 Capacity building, 62, 238, 263–267, 338, 345 Capitalism, 5, 49, 111, 148, 282 Caribbean countries, 163 Carnation Revolution, 314–317, 316n2 Casa Verde e Amarela, 202 Central government, 16, 28, 35, 58–61, 63, 64, 82, 86n11, 87, 88, 90n16, 96, 97, 124, 136, 228, 275, 282 Central planning, 10 City Challenge, 62, 63, 65, 145 City growth, 3, 84 City(ies), v, 2, 17–22, 29, 34, 36–45, 57, 77–98, 102, 123–128, 157, 166, 191, 215, 230–231, 235–237, 245, 256–257, 263, 269, 280–282, 289, 311, 333, 362 City Statute, 196–198, 207 Civil society, 9, 18, 161, 165, 181, 184n14, 195, 197, 207, 208, 222, 230n23, 246, 264, 275, 338, 341, 342, 344, 361, 362 Climate change, 4, 6, 160, 166–168, 182, 185, 203, 204, 231, 251, 311, 359, 372 Coalition, 5, 9, 20, 66, 67, 102, 104, 106, 107, 112, 113, 119, 120, 120n34, 122, 141, 142, 144, 159, 184n15, 296, 341, 350, 365 Cohesion Policy, v, 15, 22, 146, 264, 273, 279, 282, 285, 292, 293, 299–301, 305, 306, 318, 321

Communism, 121 Community Action Programs (CAPs), 124–126 Community building, 30, 113n18, 139, 146 Community development, 28, 29, 117, 129, 140, 149, 365 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), 115n21, 131, 132n57, 134, 137, 137n63 Community Development Initiative, 138, 141 Community involvement, 20, 29, 62–65 Comprehensive ecology, 4 Comprehensive planning, 8, 10, 28, 116n24, 246 The Comprehensive Planning Assistance 701 Program, 116 Conflict(s), 13, 16, 16n13, 50, 80, 93, 121, 135, 141, 143, 173n7, 184, 190, 197, 198, 208, 237, 254, 273, 275, 298, 319, 337, 360, 376 Consensus building, 2, 165n3, 183 Contrat de Plan Etat-Régions (CPER), 43 Contrat de Ville, 62 Coordination, 5, 9, 10, 29, 87, 95, 103, 104, 106, 117, 121, 125, 135, 142, 145, 146, 169, 170, 176, 176n10, 177, 179n11, 182–184, 190, 219, 247, 248, 255, 256, 271, 273–275, 280, 323, 326, 359 Corruption, 103, 158, 177, 191, 366 Covid-19 pandemic, 73, 98, 148–151, 191, 207, 208, 232, 235, 236, 257, 283, 290, 291, 297, 304, 312, 314, 325, 352

 INDEX 

D DATAR, see Délégation à l’Aménagement du Territoire et à l’Action Régionale Decentralization, 6, 15, 17, 40–46, 52, 58, 59, 63, 86n11, 88, 89, 105, 129, 130, 159, 160, 171, 228, 229, 232, 237, 271–276, 282, 284, 285, 342 Decentralized governance, 28 Decision making, 29, 39, 44, 61–63, 65, 69, 95, 96, 106, 166, 183, 184n14, 205, 228, 230, 232n26, 264, 358n2, 363 Deindustrialization, 17, 278 Délégation à l’Aménagement du Territoire et à l’Action Régionale (DATAR), 37, 38, 42, 43, 48, 50 Democracy, 17, 105, 143, 158, 160, 161, 190, 193, 195–201, 315, 361, 362, 365, 366, 368, 373, 378 Democratic quality, 158 Democratic representation, 119–123 Democratization, 10, 15, 21, 46, 130, 158, 160, 161, 189–208, 232, 373, 376 Denmark, 341, 342 Deprived areas, 59, 61, 63–66 Developed countries, 3, 9, 91n17, 158, 195 Developing countries, vi, 9, 91n17, 127n52, 161, 237 Devolution, 19, 34, 80n3, 190, 197, 205, 229n21, 248, 249, 271 Devolved localism, 68 Dictatorship, 17, 21, 161, 190, 206, 314, 362 Digital innovation, 48 Donors, 3, 104

389

E Ecological transition, 4, 149–151, 265 Efficiency and Economy Movement, 108 Energy, 42, 84n9, 91, 121, 133, 148, 150n91, 151, 167, 168, 200, 231, 302, 311, 359 England, 68, 70, 71 Enterprise Zones (EZs), 61, 138–140, 140n70 Entrepreneurial governance, 68 Entrepreneurship, 6, 85, 199, 338, 340, 342, 345, 351 Environment, 13, 22, 33, 59, 64, 73, 78, 80, 93, 95, 109, 120n35, 123, 167, 168, 174, 175, 182, 185, 192, 195, 203–205, 219, 232, 234, 252, 266, 277, 295, 362, 375, 376 España Puede, 290, 302–304 Eurocities, vi, 283, 290 Europe, 10, 19n20, 43, 72, 148–151, 217, 263, 269–285, 313, 317, 335, 336, 337n2, 350, 363, 365, 366, 368, 369 European Green Deal, 290 European Union (EU), vi, 3n3, 20, 146, 264–266, 270, 271, 275–280, 282–285, 290, 292–297, 299, 300, 302, 305, 306, 312–315, 317–322, 325, 337n4, 341, 365, 368 European Urban Research Association (Eura), vi, 264, 269 F Federalism, 104, 105, 128–141, 160, 170n5, 190, 273 Federal urban agenda, 16, 102, 189–208, 244–252, 257 Financialization, 6, 57–74, 104, 148, 283, 313

390 

INDEX

Five-Year-Plans, 72, 82, 82n7, 83, 223–227, 234, 235 Five-years Socio-Economic Development Plans, 30, 78 Focusing event, 7n7, 297, 304 Foreign aid, 104 Four Modernizations programme, 84 Fragmentation, 5, 29, 166, 169–171, 184, 275 Frame(s), 3, 8, 10, 11, 21, 104, 105, 119, 131, 150, 161, 246, 265, 279, 348, 373 Framing, 5, 15, 20, 30, 37, 106, 124 France, vii, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17n16, 20, 27, 28, 33–54, 264, 274, 276, 279, 281, 340, 345, 349, 365 French tech, 48 G Geography, vi, viii, 10–11, 13, 27–31, 49, 141, 144, 157–162, 186, 263–267, 280, 281, 361, 364–369 Germany, 39, 123, 264, 273, 281, 340, 341, 349 Globalization, 17, 44, 48, 49, 80n3, 89, 195, 222, 226, 231, 283, 284 Global North, 158, 372 Global South, vi, 158, 164, 205, 267, 357, 368, 372 Governance, 4–6, 8, 16, 29, 30, 51, 52, 66, 68, 70, 95, 96, 104, 106, 110, 125, 134, 142, 144, 146, 164, 171, 181, 182, 186, 201, 219, 228, 229n21, 230, 230n23, 231, 237, 247, 249–251, 256, 265, 271–273, 275, 277, 279, 283, 285, 296, 300, 311, 312, 319, 324, 326, 327, 342, 358, 358n1, 359, 361, 367, 371, 373, 374, 377, 378

Government, v, 3, 28, 33, 58, 78, 101–151, 158, 163, 190, 215, 243, 246–250, 263, 272, 294, 312, 335, 362 Great Society, 123, 124, 132, 134, 138 H Habitat III, 16, 166, 177, 179, 183, 187, 222 Healthy China, 98 High politics, 5–6, 125, 126, 126n50, 130n56 Homeownership, 22, 41, 109, 110, 266, 317–319, 321, 324 Housing policy, 22, 41, 111, 112, 118, 181, 190, 192, 202, 266, 278, 311–328 I Ideology, 6, 29, 81, 83, 92, 101–151, 291 Impact(s), 5, 8, 11, 15, 60, 69, 73, 74, 84, 105, 107, 109, 117, 133, 137, 140, 147n80, 148, 159, 162, 165, 175, 181, 183, 185, 190–192, 199, 203, 205, 222, 223, 231, 236, 244–246, 254, 256–258, 275, 280, 283, 291, 297, 301, 304, 305, 313, 314, 318, 325, 326, 339, 340, 367n20, 370n32, 371, 371n33, 372, 373n36, 374–377 Implementation, 9, 11, 17, 18, 20, 30, 35, 36, 39, 42, 47, 52n5, 61, 67, 78, 79, 96, 98, 107, 115n23, 116, 117, 119, 125, 126, 128, 134, 140, 145, 148, 158, 161, 163–166, 171, 174, 176, 177, 180, 182–184, 182n13, 189,

 INDEX 

192, 194, 201, 204–207, 220, 228, 228n19, 229, 231, 233, 237, 238, 258, 265, 265n2, 266, 277, 283, 285, 297, 298, 300–302, 305, 306, 316, 316n2, 319, 321, 336, 339, 341, 357–360, 363, 369, 371, 374, 376 Implicit agenda, 357–378 India, vii, 11, 13n11, 16, 19n19, 21, 27, 157–161, 215–238 Industrialization, 14, 15, 36, 81, 83, 92n18, 189, 226, 226n11, 228 Informal, 8, 30, 169, 186, 190, 195, 197, 198, 200, 203, 205, 221, 315, 316, 318, 377 Infrastructure, 7, 15, 16, 16n15, 19, 21, 36, 38, 43, 48, 51, 61, 70, 71, 82, 83, 85, 86, 88, 90, 92, 94, 95, 97, 110, 138, 150, 150n92, 162, 165, 173–177, 186, 198, 200, 208, 215, 216, 220, 226–228, 226n11, 229n20, 230n23, 231, 233, 236, 237, 244, 247, 249–251, 255, 256, 258, 264, 267, 279, 281, 314n1, 341, 349, 352, 375 Iniciativa Bairros Críticos, 322 Inner city (ies), 15, 20, 58–61, 64, 66, 111, 113, 129, 135, 138, 140–142, 144, 219, 246, 248 Innovation, 3, 30, 35, 46, 48, 90, 92, 93, 103, 104, 124, 128, 131, 143, 144, 150, 159, 160, 164, 165, 172, 174, 176n9, 183, 184, 194, 195, 205, 251, 263–267, 272, 281, 282, 284, 285, 301, 306, 324, 327, 328, 333–352, 358n1, 361, 364, 366, 371, 375, 377 Institute for Housing and Urban Refurbishment, 319

391

Intellectually guided society, 28 Interagency relations, 104, 117 Intergovernmental relations, 104 Intermunicipal cooperation, 34, 35, 39–40, 44, 45, 53 International Observatory of Participatory Democracy (OIDP), 362, 364 Investing in Opportunity Act, 148 Issue, 4–6, 9–11, 15, 16, 16n15, 18, 21, 22, 28, 30, 37, 48–51, 58–60, 62, 66, 78, 86, 91, 97, 98, 102, 105–108, 110, 112, 113, 113n18, 118–120, 122–124, 123n43, 127, 135n58, 140, 142, 143, 143n74, 145, 147, 151, 158, 160, 173, 176, 186, 192–193, 203, 206, 208, 219, 222, 225, 229, 230, 236, 238, 244–250, 257, 258, 265, 266, 278, 280, 284, 296–300, 313, 314, 318, 319, 323–325, 327, 337, 345, 362n5, 365 Italian Centre for Urban Policy Studies, vi Italy, v–vii, 264, 272, 277, 281, 293, 317, 340, 343, 345, 352, 362n8, 365 J Joint Centers for Urban Studies at MIT and Harvard, 127, 127n52 L Land-use, 15, 18, 44, 70, 85, 85n10, 157, 169, 170, 170n4, 190, 194, 198, 206, 219, 220, 225, 233, 244, 253, 258, 264, 279, 319 Latin America, viii, 19, 163, 166, 192n3, 364, 371n33

392 

INDEX

Laudato sì Encyclical, 4 Legislation, 9, 31, 85, 104, 105, 107, 110, 112, 114n19, 116, 122, 123, 125, 132, 138, 140, 170n4, 171, 198, 200, 201, 251, 253, 267, 319, 325 Local Action Plans, 299, 305 Local Agendas 21, 299 Local community, 3, 29, 30, 50, 65, 67, 141, 145, 191, 207, 208, 229, 365, 372, 375 Local government, 6, 20, 29, 30, 36, 38–42, 44–47, 52, 52n5, 53, 58, 61, 62, 64, 67–69, 85, 88, 93–97, 108n4, 116, 120, 127, 127n53, 128n54, 129, 131, 133, 135, 137, 137n63, 141, 146, 160, 163, 165, 168, 170n4, 171, 186, 200, 202, 203, 206, 219, 232, 244, 247, 250, 258, 275, 312 Low politics, 5, 126, 130, 136, 138, 146 M Medicaid, 150 Mega-City Scheme, 19n19, 21, 226 Metropoles d’equilibre, 14, 34, 35, 38 Metropolitan governance, 34, 52, 191, 192, 201, 272 Metropolitan government, 39, 42, 51 Minha Casa Minha Vida (MCMV), 22, 199, 200, 202, 207 Model Cities, 123–129, 138 Modernization Credit plan, 110 Municipal autonomy, 160, 243n1, 245, 248–250, 256, 257 Municipal localism, 50

N Narrative(s), 3, 8n8, 17, 18, 19n19, 21, 43, 48, 49, 61, 80, 92, 104, 106, 114, 142, 144, 151, 244, 258, 265 National Economic Development Zones (NEDZs), 89 National government, vi, 3, 5–7, 9, 17, 28, 59, 63, 78, 85, 86, 107, 135, 140, 158, 159, 162, 164, 181–183, 263, 275, 283, 294, 296, 300, 341 National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), 16, 216, 232 National New-Type Urbanization Plan, 21, 90, 95–96 National Recovery and Resilience Plan(s), 283 National Urban Policy Framework (NUPF), 16, 21, 162, 216, 217, 232–238 National Urban Renewal Programme, 20, 47 Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, 66 Neighborhood(s), 111, 111n12, 114, 124–129, 133, 135, 138, 140, 140n71, 142, 143, 147, 246, 248, 252, 254–257 Neoliberal globalization, 49, 195 Netherlands, 10, 264, 272, 333, 339, 348, 351 New Deal, 65, 70, 109, 124, 134, 249 New Deal for Cities, 19, 249, 250 New Deal for Cities and Communities, 250 New Federalism, 128–141 New localism, 18, 248, 250 Next Generation EU, 283n1, 290, 302, 324 Non-decision making, 2, 2n2 Non-urban policies, 8, 102, 135–141, 148, 247

 INDEX 

Norwegian, 274 Nova Geração de Políticas de Habitação, 324 O Opportunity Areas (OAs), 71 Outcome(s), 2, 6, 29, 30, 35, 38, 67, 111, 112, 117, 118, 126, 142, 148, 165, 166, 172, 174, 183–185, 195, 230n23, 238, 245, 255, 277, 281, 296, 337, 343, 369, 372, 376, 377 Output(s), 238, 252, 362n5 Outward-oriented Development Strategy, 85 P Paradigmatic case, 49 Paris Agreement, 180, 204 Participation, 9, 17, 21, 21n21, 28, 29, 95, 105, 124, 125, 159, 165, 178, 180, 182, 191, 192, 194–198, 202, 207, 208, 217, 229, 230, 230n23, 237, 248, 263–267, 283, 291, 327, 336, 344, 349, 351, 358n2, 361, 364, 367, 368, 374, 376, 378 Participatory budgeting, vii, 198, 267, 357–378 Partnership, 18, 29, 42, 60, 62, 64–66, 68, 71, 104, 105, 133–135, 139, 140, 146, 147n81, 160, 197, 249, 251, 265, 285, 320, 322, 339, 367n20 Partnership Opportunity Fund, 255 Peak-urbanism, 73 People’s Republic of China (P.R.C), 10, 27, 78, 80, 87, 88, 90n16, 91n17, 92–94

393

Periphery, 53, 111, 173n7, 274, 318 Person-based policy, 15, 130, 143 Place-based policy, 7, 10, 272 Place selling policies, 45–47 Plan Estratégico Territorial (PET), 165, 165n3, 166, 171–179, 175n8, 176n9, 179n11, 184, 185 Planes Estratégicos Territoriales, 15 Planning, vii, 1–5, 8, 10, 18, 20–22, 28–30, 35–48, 52, 53, 58, 61, 62, 67–70, 72, 78, 79, 86n12, 90, 91, 93, 94n22, 95, 98, 103, 108, 111, 111n13, 114–117, 114n19, 115n23, 116n24, 117n27, 125, 127, 127n52, 133, 135, 138, 140, 161, 163, 165–167, 169–178, 179n11, 181–186, 189–208, 215–238, 243n1, 245, 246, 253–255, 266, 271, 275, 278, 291, 292, 303, 311, 315, 320, 321, 323, 374 Planning practices, 5, 21, 29, 69, 161, 186, 189–208 Plano de Desenvolvimento Urbano Integrado, 201 Poland, 274, 275, 277, 279, 282, 369 Polarization, 143, 147, 252 Policy analysis, vii, 5n4, 30, 79, 101, 102, 104 Policy approach, vii, 61, 133, 134, 146, 298, 306 Policy design, 2, 6, 10, 28, 30, 102–104, 106, 107, 117, 119, 145, 150, 159, 183, 271 Policy ideas, 35, 42, 335, 336 Policy instruments, 2, 3, 6–9, 11, 15, 106, 128, 130–131, 168, 178, 250, 263, 267, 291, 295, 299, 300, 322, 357–361 Policy issue, 35, 102, 265, 285, 298, 311, 359

394 

INDEX

Policymaking, 5, 8, 11, 16n13, 17, 20, 28, 60, 102, 107, 130, 131, 145, 165, 265, 266, 312, 313, 317, 321, 326 Policy(s), v–vii, 1, 2, 2n2, 4–12, 5n4, 7n7, 14–22, 14n12, 17n16, 27n1, 28–31, 33–54, 57–74, 78, 78n2, 79, 81, 82, 84, 86–89, 87n14, 91–98, 101–151, 158–187, 190–199, 196n5, 201–205, 207, 215–217, 216n1, 217n4, 219–224, 225n9, 227n16, 228–234, 232n26, 237, 238, 243n1, 244–258, 263–267, 265n2, 269–285, 289–302, 304–306, 311–328, 335–345, 348–352, 357–378 Policy tools, 19, 22, 28, 31, 37, 48, 114, 172, 266, 267, 273, 278 Policy transfer, 3, 7, 9, 30, 104, 159, 265, 266, 289–306, 366, 370 Politica de Cidades, 321 Political action, 105–108 Political economy, 4, 138n65 Politics, vii, 1–6, 30, 73, 78, 80, 101–151, 254, 284, 296, 322, 324, 341, 360 Politique d’aménagement du territorie, 34 Politique de la Ville, 18, 20, 41–42, 47, 53, 277 Polity, 160, 360, 371n33, 375, 378 Portugal, vii, 11, 264, 266, 272–274, 278, 280, 281, 311, 345, 351, 362, 365 Post-pandemic, 234–238 Power, 2, 7, 12, 15, 17–19, 21, 30, 35, 38, 43, 45, 46, 60, 61, 64, 82, 86n11, 88, 102, 105–107, 108n5, 111n11, 115, 129, 130, 142, 143, 143n74, 150, 160, 169–171, 170n5, 179, 190, 191,

197, 202, 221, 221n7, 229, 235, 243, 244, 248, 249, 253, 258, 271, 272, 283, 284, 342, 361, 362n5, 366, 378 Predictive planning, 2 Problem definition, 103, 107, 360 Problem structuring, 8, 103, 107 Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento (PAC), 200 Programa Especial de Realojamento (PER), 312, 317–322 Programa Nacional de Habitação (PNH), 325 Property-led approach, 60–63 Public action, 11, 28, 52, 201–203, 206 Public policy, 2, 5, 8, 9, 11, 16, 17, 21, 28, 33–35, 40, 42, 52n5, 69, 79, 91, 94n22, 101–151, 158, 161, 168, 171, 172, 181, 184, 190–192, 194–198, 201, 204, 205, 207, 217n4, 232, 265, 275, 289, 312, 345, 358n3, 361, 362, 376 Publics, 4–7, 5n4, 9, 10, 15–19, 16n13, 16n15, 21, 22, 28–30, 35, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46–51, 60, 62, 65, 66n3, 67, 68, 70, 73, 87, 90–95, 93n20, 102–106, 108–110, 108n4, 108n5, 111n12, 112–121, 112n14, 112n17, 113n18, 114n19, 117n27, 117n28, 123, 123n44, 124, 126, 126n51, 129, 130, 133–138, 142–145, 147n81, 148n84, 149, 150n88, 158, 165–168, 170, 173–178, 173n7, 179n11, 183, 185, 190–192, 194–200, 202–208, 221, 228n18, 232, 233, 236, 246, 255, 257, 263–267, 271, 273, 278, 279, 281, 282, 284, 290,

 INDEX 

293, 296, 297, 312, 313, 314n1, 315, 316, 319–325, 338, 339, 341–345, 348, 350–352, 357–362, 362n5, 366, 367, 367n20, 369, 370, 373–376 Punctuated equilibrium, 28 R Racial discrimination, 29, 103, 106, 121, 123 Recipients, 3, 72, 104, 129, 137, 138 Redevelopment, 29, 70, 111n13, 112–118, 114n19, 116n24, 117n27, 133, 219, 276 Reform(s), v, 10, 12, 15, 20–22, 30, 34, 39–45, 51–53, 68, 70, 71, 77, 78, 78n2, 81, 81n4, 84–88, 86n11, 93, 94, 96, 97, 107, 108n5, 108n6, 110, 112, 120, 122, 123, 139, 144, 146, 148, 150, 150n89, 158, 185, 189–192, 192n3, 205, 206, 226–229, 226n10, 229n20, 229n21, 231, 234, 237, 252, 283n1, 290, 304, 317, 320–323, 350, 366, 367n20, 373 Reframing, 17–22, 63, 77–98, 249, 285 Regional Action Plan (RAP), 19, 163, 164, 166, 167 Regional development, 15, 30, 35–40, 43, 48, 50, 84, 137n63, 141, 146, 160, 164, 279 Regional development policies, 14, 34, 36–39, 42–43, 48–50 Regulation, 5, 10, 13, 18, 44, 61, 85n10, 106, 108n5, 113, 117n27, 118, 124n47, 126, 127, 137, 150, 150n89, 163, 169, 170n4, 182, 197, 200, 204, 207, 219, 253, 275, 299, 312, 314, 321, 374

395

Retornados, 315 Revenue sharing, 15, 127–129, 131, 132, 137 Romania, 275, 279 Rural areas, 15, 49, 53, 54, 80, 81, 84, 85, 95, 128, 206, 223, 228, 228n18, 230, 231, 236, 238, 244n2, 274, 281, 315, 340, 369n31 Rural exodus, 36–38 S Sarcellite, 41 Short ballot movement, 108n5 Single Regeneration Budget (SRB), 18, 60–65 Slovakia, 275 Slum, 16n13, 21, 21n21, 59, 110, 112–116, 118, 118n31, 118n32, 166, 167, 192, 202, 206, 230, 231, 231n25 Smart City Mission (SCM) programme, 217, 220, 222, 228, 228n19, 229, 231 Social Impact Bonds (SIBs), 147, 147n82, 148, 338, 339, 345 Social Impact Investing, 147 Social inequalities, 105, 142, 143 Social innovation, 103, 160, 263–267, 333–352, 371 Social investment, 336, 345, 348, 349 Socialism, 78n2, 96 Social rights, 173, 195 Socio-economic disparities, 29, 87 Soft policy, 12, 296, 298, 300, 305 Southern Europe, 265, 349, 365 Spain, vii, 11, 12n9, 20, 264, 266, 274, 277–279, 290–297, 292n2, 295n5, 300, 303, 304, 314, 317, 340, 344, 352, 365

396 

INDEX

Spatial economic development strategies, 81, 86 Special Economic Zones (SEZs), 85, 85n10, 89, 220 Steering state, 33–54 Strategic planning, 42, 291, 303 Subsidiarity, 19, 232, 232n26, 283 Sustainable development, 3, 79, 145, 167, 180, 250, 283, 284, 295, 300, 301, 304, 373 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 16, 222, 291, 294, 295, 299, 313, 369n31, 370n32, 373, 373n36 Sweden, 39, 272, 274, 277, 278, 281, 342, 343 T Territorial development, 10, 15, 174, 177, 181, 275, 326 Territorial policy, 4, 40, 170, 181, 182, 265 Territory, 4, 13, 14, 33, 37, 38, 40, 44, 48–52, 148, 157, 164, 165n3, 170, 170n4, 174–176, 175n8, 178, 181, 182, 208, 219, 223, 238, 243n1, 249, 250, 256, 264, 265, 292, 299, 336, 337, 344, 349, 351, 359, 362n5, 371, 371n33, 372, 374, 376, 377 Towns Fund, 71 Transportation policy, 15 Travelling policy, 267, 357–378 U Ukraine, 151 Underdevelopment trap, 2, 2n2 Uneven development, 37, 38

Un-Habitat National Urban Agenda, 3 United Kingdom (UK), vii, 10, 11, 15, 17n16, 18, 20, 27, 28, 30, 39, 57–74, 104, 136, 216n1, 223, 264, 272, 276–278, 281, 338–340, 345, 348, 349, 351, 365 United States of America (USA), vi, vii, 10, 11, 27–30, 101–151, 136n61, 150n88, 150n90, 160, 246, 338, 339, 345 Urban, v, 1–22, 27, 33–54, 57–74, 77–98, 101–151, 157, 163–187, 189–208, 215–238, 243–258, 263, 269–285, 289–306, 311, 333–352, 367 Urban Acquis, 291, 293, 304, 305 Urban affairs, 5, 15, 16n14, 36, 102, 112, 120–122, 162, 244, 246–249, 258 Urban Agenda for the EU, vi, 3n3, 264, 265, 289, 296, 299 Urban agenda(s), v–vii, 1–22, 27, 28, 30, 34, 35, 50, 77–98, 101–151, 157, 159–161, 165–169, 171–180, 185–187, 189–208, 217, 221, 222, 224, 226n10, 229, 232–237, 243–258, 263–266, 271, 274, 284, 285, 293, 296, 297, 299, 311–313, 326, 333–352, 376 Urban agenda-setting, 9, 20, 264 Urban America, 15, 103, 108, 119, 133, 134, 143, 144, 148 Urban Argentina Programme, 176 Urban blight, 28, 114, 124 Urban change, 159, 244, 252, 258 Urban constituent policy(s), 30, 34, 39–40, 43–45, 50–53 Urban decay, 17, 59, 109, 112

 INDEX 

Urban development, 3, 5, 6n5, 9, 12, 19, 42, 49, 58, 81, 90, 95–97, 102, 108, 139, 141, 147, 159, 163, 168, 169, 180–182, 190, 196, 196n5, 197, 200, 201, 203, 206–208, 216, 223, 225n9, 227, 229, 244, 252, 256, 258, 264, 266, 278, 290–293, 298–300, 303–305, 315, 341 Urban Development Action Grant (UDAG), 134 Urban Development Agreement, 248 Urban Europe, 269, 281 Urban government, 30, 34–36, 44–46, 49, 53, 108, 114, 126, 137, 233 Urban issue(s), 8, 10, 16, 19, 21, 28, 36, 41, 60, 78, 97, 103, 105–108, 123n43, 140, 142, 196, 205, 223, 234, 244–251, 256, 289, 290, 293, 294, 296–300 Urbanization, viii, 3, 5, 10–15, 13n11, 21, 27, 28, 30, 35–36, 40, 49, 53, 78–86, 87n13, 90–97, 117, 157, 158, 162–164, 166–168, 174, 177, 180, 185, 189, 190, 194, 197, 215, 216, 219, 221, 223, 226–231, 233, 234, 237, 246, 247, 264, 265 Urbanization policy (ies), 44, 81, 84, 86, 91–96 Urban metabolism, 3, 4 Urban migration(s), 15, 16, 81 Urban planning, vii, 21, 35–41, 44, 52, 86n12, 93, 98, 111, 111n13, 127n52, 169, 174, 181, 182, 192, 195–200, 195n4, 204, 205, 207, 215–238, 243n1, 253, 254, 278, 320

397

Urban planning policy, 30, 34–36, 39, 41–42, 45–47, 219 Urban policy(s), vi, 2, 28, 33–54, 57–74, 79, 105–128, 143–148, 159, 163–187, 192, 216, 221–222, 228–232, 249, 263, 269–285, 290, 292, 312, 319 Urban policy programme, 9, 10, 28, 30, 67, 159 Urban poverty, 91n17, 119, 137, 138, 195, 226n10 Urban problem(s), 7, 8, 10, 11, 60, 73, 102, 103, 105, 106, 111, 115n20, 117, 133, 200, 244, 246, 247, 249, 280 Urban programme, 18n17, 27, 29, 59, 60, 68, 72, 97, 196, 265n2, 277, 293, 294 Urban question, 7, 8, 10, 103, 105–128, 131, 132, 158, 159, 215, 217–222, 282, 284, 285 Urban regeneration, 4, 29, 30, 59, 62–64, 78, 90, 97, 123, 141, 222, 276–278, 280, 302, 303, 312, 322, 350 Urban Renaissance, 63–66, 120 Urban renewal, 41, 45–47, 53, 62, 106n3, 108–119, 115n20, 118n29, 122, 124n47, 125, 129, 135, 246, 247, 277 Urban Renewal Program/Urban Renewal Programme, 112, 115n23, 124n48 Urban structure, 13, 34–36, 38 W Western countries, 17, 146, 222 Western Development Strategy, 87 Wicked problems, 6, 29, 119

398 

INDEX

World Bank, 72, 80, 91n17, 93, 94, 275, 364, 369, 371n33 World cities, 49, 51 World War II (WWII), 6, 10, 16, 27, 35, 36, 59, 225, 226

Z Zona Especial de Interesse Social (ZEIS), 198, 199 Zones à Urbaniser en Priorité (ZUP), 36 Zoning, 198, 205, 225, 253