with whom I organised the Urban Typhoon workshops. Interdisciplinary research In this section I review the literature that informs this thesis. I start by providing a rationale for an inter-disciplinary and multi-scale approach to the question of residents’ participation in urban development. In the process, I also summarize the structure of this dissertation. The premise of this research is that local actors play an important role in the development of their neighbourhoods, particularly in neighbourhoods that have a history of incremental development. In settlements such as Dharavi, residents are directly involved in the physical production of their habitats. In Shimokitazawa too, people have historically been involved at different levels in producing the neighbourhood’s fabric. In both places inhabitants and “users” of the neighbourhood develop not only their homes and businesses, they also invest public spaces with meaning, thereby giving the neighbourhood its cultural identity. This process is a collective one, even if it is not necessarily coordinated. Overtime, the piecemeal intervention of residents produces a common space –and a space of commons- that is at once free and priceless. That space is not only physical; it is a space of interaction, trading, socialisation and friendship. The “communities” that inhabit Shimokitazawa and Dharavi are far from being homogeneous. They are fragmented and often internally divided. Not all residents relate to the neighbourhood in the same way. Some would like to preserve its fabric, others would like to see it change radically and others may want something else altogether. However, one thing that most people agree about is that changes affecting their neighbourhoods must involve them rather than being planned above their heads. The sense of agency that people have in Shimokizawa, Dharavi and many other neighbourhoods that share a history of incremental development and strong user involvement, is what makes them truly special. When a master plan is imposed on the neighbourhood by the authorities, with no consultation of its residents, there is naturally a widespread feel of outrage. This shared emotion becomes the basis of a collective response, which asserts the residents’ agency. The Urban Typhoon workshop was nothing else than an expression of collective agency. It was not driven by any specific vision,
forms of spatial organisations are similar, even though the historical, economic and cultural contexts cannot be compared. The Urban Typhoon workshops in Shimokitazawa and Koliwada-Dharavi are described in chapter 4 from a participant perspective. I retrace the history of the workshop, in the context of the activism of local groups and describe how it was conceptualised and who were the people that organised it in both neighbourhoods. I merge my own analysis and notes with the collective output of the workshop and describe both the neighbourhoods through the eyes of the workshop participants. I explain some of the planning ideas that emerged from it and try to give a feel of its atmosphere and some of the questions that arose regarding its methodology and purpose. Chapters 5 and 6 describe the larger political-economic context within which the neighbourhoods of Shimokitazawa and Dharavi are evolving. The work of Saskia Sassen, Manuel Castells and Susan Fainstein on the interactions between global communication networks, finance and cities, provides a framework to understand the pressures exercised on megacities at the age of globalization and financial deregulation. I then introduce the concept of the “urban system” based on Melvin Webber’s communication theory of the city and Anthony Leeds’ critique of the rural-urban conceptual division. David Harvey’s latest analysis of the urban roots of financial crises is used to expose the way speculative bubbles affect neighbourhoods and how the nexus between government and developers has turned the government into a real estate broker. I use specific examples from London, New York, Tokyo and Mumbai to illustrate the larger processes at work. I argue that processes of restructuration are legitimised by the narratives of the global city and the city. In chapter 6, I develop a conceptual framework to understand the inherent logic of neighbourhoods “in-formation” such as Shimokitazawa and Dharavi. This concept is derived on the one hand from my own ethnographic observations and discussions with the anthropologist Rahul Srivastava. On the other hand, it is based on a critique of the concept of “informal city”, which is used and abused by proponents of the “rationalisation” of parts of the city that are seen as illogical and messy. Based on Keith Hart’s reflection on the term “informal economy”, which he coined in the 1970s, I argue that the term is normatively
the forefront, but for the most part, processes are lead by top-level bureaucrats who are often fairly unaccountable to the public. However, for some years now, calls for more direct forms of participation have been rising, not just in urban planning but also in many other aspects of governance. Collaborative planning is now one of the most intensely debated themes in the field of urban planning. Many planning departments have opened up their databases and introduced clauses in their long-term plans that emphasise the role of the public in the planning process. Countries which have long traditions in local governance and public involvement are clearly at an advantage in the implementation of participatory planning processes. But, as urban planning theorist Patsy Healey points out, “in other governance cultures, such approaches come up against some deeply embedded institutional constraints against such collaboration.” (Healey, 2006: 34) This is particularly the case in cities where the stakes are high for various reasons. These usually include high land prices and high population density. In Mumbai and Tokyo, an additional difficulty comes from the fact that many neighbourhoods are mixed-use, which means that large urban plans in dense and valuable areas may not only disturb the character of the neighbourhood and the lifestyle of its residents but also income generation patterns enmeshed in the urban fabric. Moreover, in parts of the world where users have also historically been involved in the construction of their habitat made their own plans for the future – the demand for participation may become particularly pressing and political. In case of conflict between residents and the authorities, some urban planners choose to join force with local populations and use their skills to promote local interests against those of the state. A third type of planner identified by Lynch is the advocate planner. Advocates sometimes defend a particular approach or location, and develop a “client” base around these. This can happen with preservationists for instance who try to mobilize residents to preserve the heritage structures in a given neighbourhood. Advocates can also work for lobbies that push for a specific agenda such as the removal of vendors from a certain street or to promote the construction of a new parking space. They are not necessarily progressive or pro-local. Advocates can also serve business interests or political ambitions. However, advocates typically defend a cause they believe in. The Urban Typhoon workshops in Shimokitazawa and Dharavi were very much advocacy projects.
1) Describing a place and a context, imagined or existing. 2) Communicating a vision. 3) Implementation. At every level, there is a triangular relationship between the planner, the place (imagined or existing) and the audience. The plan gives form to the place so that the audience can relate to it. In the act of giving form, which is really a communicative act, the planner already expresses perspective, values and preferences. Because it is a communicative act, the plan must speak a language that is recognisable by the audience and provide an acceptable narrative. Without effective communication, the collective sense of purpose and direction required for the execution of any plan doesn’t happen. The relationship between the planner and the audience largely determines the mode of expression of the plan. For instance, an advocate sharing an idea with residents will use a different language than a project designer presenting to investors. Clearly, the mode of communication can exclude as much as it can include. The challenge of participatory planning is to turn the audience into planners. This happens when participants become not only producers of information (“informers”), but also diffusers and users of information. At first sight, it appears that at the scale of a neighbourhood it is simply impossible to turn everyone into a planner. This proposition sounds hugely utopian until we realize that in many ways, people who live and/or work in a place –the “users” – do contribute constantly to producing it. Michele de Certeau’s Practice of Everyday Life (1984) is essentially a study of how users give form (“enform”) and thus meaning to the places they inhabit. Participatory planning can therefore be defined as a methodology to turn participants into “enformers”, meaning, producers of forms –in some cases, it suffices to recognize how people are already active participants in urban planning. The forms produced in that way range from immaterial social and cultural patterns to more physical aspects of the neighbourhood. They are necessarily relational and therefore never fixed in time and space. This last remark is explored in detail in the next chapter. Actors in the planning process