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> 'CITIES TO BE TAMED? Standards and alternatives in the  
> transformation of the urban South'
> International Conference, Politecnico di Milano, 15-17 November 2012
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> Contestedspaces 2012 | www.contestedspaces.info
> CITIES TO BE TAMED?
> Standards and alternatives in the transformation of the urban South
>
> CALL FOR PAPERS
> CITIES TO BE TAMED? is an international conference aimed at  
> simultaneously
> exploring and questioning the role played by urban planning, design,  
> and
> policies in the continuous urbanisation processes aff ecting the so- 
> called ‘global
> South’.
> Under the purposefully vague label of ‘urban South’, a nuanced  
> variety of urban
> environments scattered across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and  
> Latin America
> share: (1) the prominence of informal settlements, (2) the tension  
> between
> imported and endogenous paths to modernisation and (3) exacerbated  
> social
> confl icts related to the use of the urban space. In addressing one  
> or more of the
> three above mentioned topics, the Conference aims to explore the  
> diff erence
> between ‘standard’ and ‘alternative’ strategies of transformation –  
> especially
> investigating the relationships between the visions of policy- 
> making, and the
> transformative agency of everyday urbanity.
> As such, the Conference targets urban researchers coming from the  
> backgrounds
> of planning and urbanism, architecture, design theory, and geography  
> – and
> welcomes both theoretical refl ections and academic perspectives,  
> and casestudy
> related practices and insights.
>
> MAIN TOPICS
> (1) DESIGNING THE INFORMAL CITY/ THE INFORMAL DESIGN OF THE CITY
> As a growing number of regions are presently embroiled in the  
> process of
> urbanisation, informal settlements develop unabated in the  
> territories of the
> ‘global South’. In the last fi fty years, design-related disciplines  
> have informed
> a multitude of practices and conceptual frameworks exploring ways to
> qualitatively transform these sites. An enduring and highly disputed  
> problem,
> however, has remained the diffi culty in assessing within which  
> processes, and
> to which extent, the production of design strategies can acquire  
> agency and
> have signifi cant leverage eff ects within the informal sectors of  
> contemporary
> cities – thus eff ectively contributing toward the feasible  
> amelioration of living
> conditions for their inhabitants.
> What role do design-related disciplines currently play, in relation  
> to the selfproduced
> transformative logics that shape informal cities across the world?  
> What
> place might be accorded to design products and processes, at the  
> crossroad
> between the social and spatial dimensions of urban poverty and  
> inequality?
> Under which conditions and at which scales can design have a  
> strategic function,
> and contribute to producing structural modifi cations on the longer  
> term?
>
> (2) STEREOTYPICAL VISIONS/ ENDURING REALITIES
> Characterised by wealth concentration and social polarisation,  
> cities in the
> South of the world are also typically subject to a dual mode of  
> transformation.
> On the one side, we assist to the everyday reshaping of the urban  
> environment,
> spontaneously performed by a number of inhabitants and in most cases  
> referring
> to long-lasting conceptualisations of space, nature, society; on the  
> other side,
> governmental institutions display planning discourses – namely  
> visions and
> programmes – which tend to rely on stereotypical notions of  
> development and
> sustainability, fi xed at the supranational level and often detached  
> from cultural
> milieus in terms of problem assessments, objectives and solutions.
> By whom and for whom are visions conceived? How do global agendas
> aff ect local territorial transformation? Can diff erent  
> rationalities converge in
> setting priorities and excogitating ways to improve the quality of  
> life in urban
> environments? Can vernacular rules of transformation provide valid  
> alternatives
> for addressing the challenges posed by contemporary urban growth?
> (3) THE POWER OF PLANNING/ EMPOWERING BY PLANNING
> As Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber remind us, “Planning is a  
> component of
> politics. There is no escaping that truism”. Although this is true  
> everywhere, it
> is made more evident in many contexts of the ‘urban South’, where  
> ethnic and
> social confl icts are often exacerbated. In these situations,  
> planning and urban
> policies often act as a ‘veil of Maya’ hiding by a ‘technical cover’  
> the underlying
> political aims pursued by the design of space.
> Which are the diff erent articulations of the relationship between  
> spatial
> transformation, power, social confl icts, popular resistance in diff  
> erent ‘urban
> South’ contexts? How is it possible to fi ght back the ‘dark side’  
> of planning? Is it
> really feasible to empower citizens by participation in planning,  
> urban policies,
> architecture?
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