Land use planning around major risk installations: From EC directives to local regulations in Italy

This paper offers some reflections regarding the application of regional and provincial laws concerning major industrial risks and urban and land use planning, and focuses on their application problems and capabilities with reference to some practical cases. The European Directive “Seveso 2” was implemented in Italy with two national laws, and in Piedmont they were enforced with the “Guidelines for the assessment of industrial risk in land use planning”. According to the Guidelines, the municipalities had to introduce into their urban and land use planning instruments new criteria for the areas around Seveso plants. The application of the Guidelines requires a multidisciplinary approach but local authorities are often not sufficiently prepared for this kind of multilevel analysis, because they do not have the human or economic resources or even the technical abilities necessary to conduct it. As a result, they can underestimate the importance of a correct urban and land planning in the areas around major risk installations.     

Land use regulation and social regulation: an unexplored link. Some reflections on the origins and evolution of sprawl in the Veneto “città diffusa”

While the question of social and political regulation (in Polanyi’s sense) in areas characterized by industrial districts and systems of SMEs is well-known, alongside the effects of globalization in such situations, the role of land use regulation as a public policy has been underestimated. The sprawl that connotes these situations (and in particular our case-study, the Veneto region) has usually been intended as the product of a laissez-faire orientation. In our paper, we try instead to demonstrate that sprawl, in the golden age of development, has been intentionally pursued, through specific technical mechanisms and widely accepted policy discourses. The “planned sprawl” has been largely socially shared, and significantly contributed to, by a peculiar embeddedness of the public action in market and reciprocity mechanisms, to social integration and economic effectiveness, until the change of international division of labor, social and cultural transformations, and the rise of severe negative externalities as unintended consequence of the “planned sprawl”. Moreover, the paper discusses the lack of effectiveness of the recent regional reform of territorial planning in coping with the new social and economic requirements, compared to the variety of urban projects based on a governance style.     

国土空间规划的现代法治：良法与善治

研究目的:立足国土空间治理体系和治理能力现代化的目标,探索国土空间规划法治化的基本内涵、总体思路与逻辑框架,为国土空间规划现代法治的研究和实施提供参考。研究方法:文献研究法,综合分析法。研究结果:(1)国土空间规划法治化的本质就是国土空间规划的"良法"和"善治",应当遵循"良"的价值理念与"法"的完整体系、"善"的思维意识与"治"的秩序机制的总体思路来构建国土空间规划法治化框架;(2)国土空间规划治理的"良法"体系包括规划法律法规体系、地方法规规章体系、技术标准体系和规划成果体系,"善治"平台则包括规划编制审批、规划实施监督、规划信息平台和规划工作平台。研究结论:构建国土空间规划法治化的逻辑框架,提出完善和健全规划治理体系的具体路径,有助于对国土空间规划的现代法治进行顶层设计,以及推进国土空间规划法治体系与治理能力的现代化。     

Use of fuzzy cognitive maps to develop policy strategies for the optimization of municipal waste management: A case study of the land of fires (Italy)

This paper applies an analytical method for developing policy strategies to optimize municipal waste management systems (MWMSs) to the case of the Land of Fires (LoF). The LoF is an area of Italy’s Campania region that is characterized by a legacy of authoritarian environmental governance and the improper dumping and burning of waste. In this paper, we employ the fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) method, which draws on a participatory approach. Specifically, the complexity of the investigated system was determined from the causal relations identified by relevant stakeholders and experts. The results show that the most effective policy strategies to improve the LoF MWMS, as identified by informants, include: fostering social innovation (e.g. communication and information campaigns); promoting technological innovation (e.g. material and process design); and supporting scientific and technological cooperation among actors. The overall diversity of the identified policy strategies suggests that policy makers must move beyond a simple “best option” approach, given the systemic complexity of the waste management sector.     

Moving out or living on a mound? Jointly planning a Dutch flood adaptation project

All over the world spatial flood risk management policies are on the rise. This paper analyses the planning process for the Overdiepse polder, a so-called “Room for the River” project in the Netherlands. After high water in the 1990s, the Dutch government changed its flood risk management policy. While before 2000 it leaned heavily on dikes to separate water from land, after that year spatial measures to “let the water flow” were introduced. This required the integration of two formerly separated policy domains: flood risk management and land use planning. In the densely populated and economically highly developed Netherlands, returning space to the river unavoidably impacts on the lives and livelihoods of those who live and work along the rivers. Therefore, such spatial measures to decrease flood risk have to be negotiated with various stakeholders. The planning process towards making the Overdiepse polder suitable for temporary water storage deserves more in-depth analysis. We describe and analyze the development of relationships between key actors in the planning process, with a focus on planning practices rather than on assumptions about the existence of certain types and qualities of relationships. We conclude, among others, that citizen involvement can, under specific socio-political and institutional conditions, build trust among stakeholders and increase local legitimacy for interventions by government agencies. However, it should not be idealized as “self-governance” or assumed to be part of a unidirectional change in water interventions towards new relationships between actors.     

韧性视角下城市国土空间安全体检评估指标体系研究

研究目的：由韧性的一般理论切入,从韧性城市内涵的不同维度构建城市国土空间安全体检的评估指标体系。研究方法：文献分析法、调查研究法。研究结果：（1）基于城市安全角度,从自然灾害、基础设施、公共卫生、城市交通、社会治理五个维度构建了表征城市安全情况的体检评估指标库;（2）在指标筛选和专家调查工作的基础上,对指标库中各项指标的合理性与可操作性进行了量化评估,最终筛选的关键核心指标能在实践中能够较好地反映国土空间规划中城市安全和韧性城市建设的真实情况;（3）通过核心指标体系的指标内涵和在城市国土安全建设过程中的推广应用水平,评价指标被分为引导性指标、强制性指标和倡导性指标三大类。研究结论：随着城市国土空间安全建设的完善和发展,相关管理部门可在强制性指标评估工作基础上,根据城市自身特点选用倡导性指标,逐步纳入引导性指标,强化实施国土空间安全监测评估。     

论城乡社会治理一体化的必要性与实现路径——关于实现“市域社会治理现代化”的思考

将社会治理区分为城市治理与乡村治理,并在两个方面实行不同的制度,这与国家治理现代化的要求南辕北辙。社会治理的这种二元结构,会导致经济效率降低、社会平等缺失以及社会稳定程度减弱。中国共产党十九届四中全会强调“市域社会治理现代化”,是解决这个问题的办法。中国需要做出系统性改革,最终建立城乡一体化的社会治理体制。     

Managing complexity of urban systems: A polycentric approach

The concept of polycentrism and territorial governance has been broadly discussed in spatial planning, as well as in governance communities. Polycentric urban development in the EU has brought a high concentration of both economic activities and population to urban spaces, efficient functional divisions between settlements, relatively territorially homogenous accessibility of services and working places for the population, as well as strong urban system interdependences. This has led to the growing vulnerability of urban systems to external shocks (natural and human), which whilst often appearing locally in fact affect whole systems. The combination of spatial–territorial polycentricism and multilevel polycentric governance concepts aims to address the challenges of managing external shocks, providing an adaptive and robust framework for the long-term sustainability of urban systems. Evidence from Transnational Municipal Networks demonstrates the potential of combine polycentricism to address the complexity of decision-making and fuzziness in the spatial development and create a new quality of spatial organization in a knowledge-based society.     

Exploring the environmental value of ecosystem services for a river basin through a spatial multicriteria analysis

Environmental quality preservation and nature conservation are complex land use planning problems, involving not only environmental aspects but also socio-economic and operational factors and represent ecosystem services of fundamental importance to human well-being, for health, livelihoods and survival. The present paper proposes a Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support System (MC-SDSS) development for the assessment of the environmental quality of the river basin of the Pellice river in the Province of Turin (Italy) with the objective of increasing awareness of environmental issues in the territorial planning phase. In order to fulfill this goal, the environmental quality issues were divided into two main aspects, “naturalness” and pressures”, which represent the strengths and the weaknesses of the territory. Different criteria were considered for each theme and were integrated into composite maps by a weighted linear combination of factors resulting from a focus group with several experts in different fields. The results of this approach generated a final suitability map of the study area. The map identifies some critical zones that need mitigation measures and highlights areas with high environmental quality which require future specific monitoring procedures and valorization actions. The application was performed by means of the IDRISI software. This paper is based on an integrated approach which facilitates the comprehension of complex phenomena and aims at exploring innovative MCDA models in the field of the environmental quality preservation assessment of territorial transformation.     

从土地利用规划到国土空间规划 ——科学理性规划的视角

研究目的:深入探讨从土地利用规划到国土空间规划的重大变革,明晰国土空间规划的观念、体系、任务、方法和实施要求,以期对正在开展的国土空间规划编制工作提供参考。研究方法:文献研究法和比较分析法。研究结果:国土空间规划要着力强化可持续发展、高质量发展、以人民为中心的发展观念,在规划体系建设中处理好空间规划与发展规划,国家规划与地方规划,总体规划与专项规划、详细规划之间的关系,把重塑国土空间开发保护格局和推动自然资源节约集约利用和自然资源资产保值增值同时作为新时代规划的主要任务,全面推进空间规划基本理论、基础性方法和前沿性方法研究,创新规划实施的行政、法治、经济、社会和技术机制。研究结论:国土空间规划作为空间规划体制改革的产物,既要继承包括土地利用规划在内的原有空间规划的优点,也要注意克服其不足,根据国土空间治理现代化的战略需要,在规划观念、规划体系、规划实施等方面进行全方位、重构性变革,发展具有中国特色的空间规划理论和方法。     

Building resilience: Mainstreaming community participation into integrated assessment of resilience to climatic hazards in metropolitan land use management

Building resilience is critical for metropolitan land use planning to strengthen the ability to cope with and minimize climatic disaster risks. Challenges still remain for metropolitan agencies in identifying the components or metrics for measuring resilience. Particularly, uncertainties in climate change and diversification in local contexts compel urban planners to mainstream community participation, indigenous knowledge and local attributes into the resilience assessment. This article aims to propose a novel methodology for assessing resilience, which can encourage stakeholder participation and communicate planners in shaping metropolitan land use policies. Using the Taichung metropolis, Taiwan as the study area, this article created a resilience metric called the Climatic Hazard Resilience Indicators for Localities (CHRIL) that is appropriate for use in a policy context. Then, this metric combined a fuzzy multicriteria decision analysis with a participatory geographic information system approach to measure and map resilience to climatic hazards. Through the participation of experts, local officers and community members, a multivariate analysis was applied to explain why low resilience areas occur in specific locations. Moreover, we performed a cluster analysis to group the areas into several types of resilience and revealed the relationship between the resilience factors and overall local development patterns. Results show that conflicts and tradeoffs may exist between some resilience factors, especially socioeconomic vulnerability and adaptive capacity. The findings provide stakeholders and policy-makers with a better governance structure to design and synthesize appropriate patchworks of planning measures for different types of resilience areas to reduce climatic hazard risks.     

Beyond the Pampas: Global capital and uneven development in Argentine soybean expansion

The article analyses the social processes introduced by globalization into agrarian production systems. In particular, it explores how capital installs a new agriculture that generates an urban fringe in rural localities. We claim that the expansion of agricultural frontiers is also associated with the rise of new actors, residential changes and transformations in labour markets. The objective is to study the transformation that takes place in the agrarian social structure of a marginal agricultural area. It shows how this transformation leads to new residential behaviour that redefines the local relational system and to a transition from a “peasant” way of life to an urban‐type through the logic of the expulsion of the peasant population and the logic of agribusiness.     

The Politics of Land Grabbing: State and corporate power and the (trans)nationalization of resistance in Cameroon

Approaching land grabbing as a site of politics wherein power functions in the challenge and/or stabilization of agrarian socioecological injustices, we capture agrarian relations in Cameroon in 2 fundamental ways. Drawing on Laclauian insights, we discuss power as a “counter‐hegemonic” practice, to characterize the resistance strategies of local NGOs, in terms of their articulated discourses around the socioecological effects of land grabs, on the one hand, and the political possibilities that this articulatory practice opens, in terms of (trans)nationalizing resistance across social identities and space, on the other hand. Here, the analysis adopts a Foucauldian‐inspired critique with strong commitments towards agrarian socioecological justice, in a context where policies to protect democratic access to land are absent. Second, framed as a hegemonic/governmental “form of rule,” we capture how state and diplomatic actors sought to override dissent and stabilize the contentious land deal. We also show how a moment of presidential “nondecision,” characterized by a hyper‐centralized bureaucracy conjoined with these hegemonic forces to disempower local administrative and judicial leverage, thereby fostering corporate power. The article thus contributes to debates on state and corporate powers, as well as the strategies of, or possibilities and constraints for resistance “from below” to irradiate and structure into a compelling force.     

Large-scale agricultural investments under poor land governance in Zambia

This paper looks at how large-scale land acquisitions made by foreign investors in Zambia are implemented. It scrutinizes both the steps that an investor has to go through in order to attain land within the Zambian land governance system as well as the actors shaping the acquisition process.As the most important formal change introduced to the Zambian land governance system, the Lands Act 1995 paved the way for foreign investments in land. The new actor “investor” on the other hand has emerged as a result of rising prices for food and non-food commodities. The study finds that the enforcement of formal rules in the process of acquiring land is currently weak and largely determined by a number of actors: while investors, local authorities and government officials have strong leverage, local land users are excluded from the process. If the process of transformations of customary land into state land continues, land administration will be inevitably shifted toward statutory jurisdiction. As a result, local chiefs will lose their discretionary power thereby further marginalizing local land users. As it stands, welfare implications are chiefly down to the individual actors. However, it is only the government that can issue a guarantee that local land users will also benefit from land acquisition.     

Uncovering climate (in)justice with an adaptive capacity assessment: A multiple case study in rural coastal North Carolina

Climate change resilience is an area of praxis where efforts to enhance community adaptive capacity are informed by theory. However, there is growing evidence that ethnocentrism and privilege are shaping coastal management policies while many communities with climate justice issues struggle to build resilience. Particularly, rural coastal communities, contrasting urban areas, have limited access to centralized planning efforts, unique local contexts for outreach, compounding social vulnerabilities (job loss, out-migration, limited social services), and receive less attention from resilience researchers. Following calls to integrate climate justice into resilience praxis, we assess perceptions of adaptive capacity within predominately African American communities in a rural low-lying coastal region in eastern North Carolina. We add a climate justice lens to evaluate the previously-validated Rural Coastal Community Resilience (RCCR) framework. The RCCR is intended to improve planning efforts by providing climate change information, initiating conversations, and contributing to resilience theory. In contrast to its previous applications, engagement led to declines in perceived adaptive capacity. This result highlights that the information sharing goals of the engagement efforts were poorly aligned with community concerns and threat perceptions. Additionally, perceived climate injustices emerged revealing instances of adaptation oppression. This study recommends strategies to rethink traditional extension efforts to improve inclusiveness by deeply interrogating the inherent whiteness of standard modes of communicating climate science.     

The Institutionalisation of “Noise” and “Silence” in Urban Politics: Riots and Compliance in Uganda and Rwanda

Amid ongoing debates about institutions and development, the importance of informal institutions (or norms) is widely recognised. Relatively little, however, is known about how informal institutions form and persist over time in particular contexts. This paper combines a concern with the process of informal institutionalisation and a focus on everyday politics in urban areas. Drawing on a comparative study of Kampala (Uganda) and Kigali (Rwanda), it argues that in the former the regular mobilisation of urban social groups into protests and riots has institutionalised what might be termed “noise” as the most meaningful form of political participation. In Kigali, by contrast, comparatively “silent” processes of collective mobilisation that involve structured activities and community “self-policing” have become institutionalised. The paper analyses these differential patterns, considering the tacit norms of negotiation in each case and the incentives for urban social and political actors to adhere to them.     

One village,one product: Agro‐industrial village corporatism in contemporary China

This paper investigates the implementation of “one village, one product” (OVOP) in four peri‐urban villages in China's Yangtze River Delta. China's agricultural transformation, including the introduction of new corporate actors and the growing pressure of market discipline, has challenged the relevance of villages in the organization of agricultural production. In response, village cadres in thousands of Chinese villages have used OVOP to transform their villages into agro‐industrial firms and re‐exert their control over the agricultural surplus, echoing earlier examples of village corporatism. Rooted in agricultural specialization, OVOP encompasses a diversity of strategies for the production of locality‐based value. I disaggregate these strategies into four sociospatial dimensions that comprise locality—place, network, territory, and scale. Place‐based branding is the dominant strategy, but village cadres also pursue complementary sociospatial strategies to ensure their control over the realization of the brand's value and reconstitute their redistributive and administrative powers.     

Land acquisition compensation in post-reform China: Evolution,structure and challenges in Hangzhou

This paper focuses on evolving land acquisition compensation policy and practice in Hangzhou, a better-developed coastal city in the Yangtze River Delta Region, by assessing the evolution of land acquisition compensation and the interplay among the main actors, especially the local government and affected individual villagers and rural collectives. It evaluates the hybrid compensation governance that includes monetary compensation, employment alternatives, share-holding co-operative, social security assurance, and rural collective retained land. The study reveals that while land acquisition compensation has been gradually improved in many aspects, land-lost villagers are still subject to various uncertainties in sustaining their lives, competing in the labor market, and adapting to urban life. Furthermore, markedly improved land acquisition compensation in Hangzhou has created newly emerging socio-economic problems amongst dislocated rural villagers. The paper reveals how different compensation measures have redefined rural collectives and land-lost rural villagers in the urbanization process.     

From “Green Hell” to “Amazonia Legal”: Land use models and the re-imagination of the rainforest as a new development frontier

Critical scholars have addressed land use models and related technologies by pointing to their epistemological underpinnings and the social consequences of visibilities and invisibilities induced by these instruments to different forms of governance. More recently, in addition to reaffirming the old dictum that the map is not the territory, some scholars have analyzed how land use models can shape perceptions, narratives and policy, and in this way “make” the territory and the state. In this study, we adopt the notion of sociotechnical imaginaries to highlight the role of land use models and basin-wide development schemes in the emergence of military developmentalism in the Brazilian Amazon. We show that earlier surveys of the Amazon were created in order to substantiate territorial claims and to guide the exploitation of natural rubber and other extractive resources. Mapping of the rivers as arteries with limited upland assessment implied a view of the Amazon as an immutable and invincible nature where resources were given as elements of natural landscapes. The approach of economic sectorial mapping that had dominated earlier surveys began to shift during and especially after World War II in an effort to imagine Amazonia as a separate and identifiable policy space which transformation would be possible with the application of development frameworks, such as the one derived from Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Likewise, experts from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization played a key role in providing land use models and assessment that “proved” the economic viability of large-scale colonization projects. This article points out that the extensive occupation and ongoing destruction of the Amazon rainforest was also informed by US large-scale planning regimes infused with technoscientific approaches derived mostly from Global North scientific institutions. Those concepts underpinned imaginaries of an integrated region whose “planning surface” would be oriented by the idea of the “Legal Amazon”, subject to a technocratic, centralized and authoritarian style of developmentalism. In this way this paper shows how land use models are not mere representations of the territory but also carriers of sociotechnical imaginaries that coproduce radical changes in social and natural landscapes.