'CITIES TO BE TAMED? Standards and alternatives in the transformation of the urban South'
International Conference, Politecnico di Milano, 15-17 November 2012

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?