Concepts of cooperative urban planning and its influence on the development of inclusive urban spaces - An international comparative study on theories and practices

• Applicant: Professorin Dr.-Ing. Paola Alfaro d`Alencon
• Subject Area: City Planning, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
• Term: from 2017 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 396713676

Cooperative practices have grown to become important drivers, on-going debates point to an existing need to clarify which specific new instruments are being developed and tested in projects, and to deepen into processes and spatial implementations of cooperative urban production. This takes place against a background the entry of powerful private actors into urban development and the simultaneous withdrawal of the state that led to a clear shift towards more complex network of actors and an overall socially conflicting urban development. The actual research design focusing on social-spatial contexts turns out to be suitable in view of the currently intense national debate about urban policies. So Santiago de Chile as reference frame due to the considerably advanced privatization of spaces, processes, emerging conflicts and socio-spatial effects. Increasing relevance in regard to co-production can be determined. The approach is located in different dimensions of urban development, such as planning, design and research. A key result of the research points to cross-scale approaches that act as implementation methods, enabling frameworks for co-production practices by experimenting with collective forms of administration and closing local governance gaps. Various urban projects rely on cross-scale approaches in the sense of a sustainability agenda. In particular Co-production is widely recognized to play a powerful role in supporting the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is where the planned follow-up project starts in order to contribute to an improved understanding of possible implementation tools, actor constellations and resulting spatial transformation patterns. The ongoing research goal remains focused on the diversity and dynamics of the actors involved, their patterns of action, network activities and underlying processes. The knowledge developed and existing material, its processing and contextualization can supplement the state of research through the formulated objectives. Since challenges of a “successful” co-production, such as city-wide and local interaction and the integration of different sectors, reflects current needs in key issues of sustainable urban development. Relevant instruments that support these processes as the cross-scale approaches discussed by the New Urban Agenda for the "localization of SDGs". The international context of the research will convey the most differentiated picture possible of current knowledge and practices. The new research goal of coproduction in sustainability projects, serves to analyze mechanisms of action. Scaling-up: How co-production projects can overcome the pilot stage and become public policy project. The project discusses relevant policy approaches as well as practices and concepts of cooperative urban development. The transformative potential of innovative projects should contribute to a better understanding of the underlying actor constellations and spatial dynamics.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants