About Me

Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
Co-directors: Prof Gareth Williams, Dr Bob Smith, Prof Kevin Morgan, Dr Gabrielle Ivinson and Dr Gill Bristow - Research centre managers: Dr Dean Stroud (stroudda1@cf.ac.uk) and Dr Rebecca Edwards (edwardsrs1@cf.ac.uk) - 029 2087 6412 - Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, Wales, CF10 3WA

Thursday 8 May 2008

Planum Newsletter - Special News - May 2008

Planum Newsletter - Special News - May 2008

Planum is the online magazine and international network dedicated to
territorial planning, urban development and architecture.

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CORP 2008: 13th International Conference on Urban Planning
and Regional Development in the Information Society
3rd International Vienna Real Estate Conference · GeoMultimedia 008

MOBILITY NODES as INNOVATION HUBS

Download conference programme and schedule:
http://programm.corp.at/2008/CORP2008_program.pdf

Get more at:
http://www.planum.net/Nnews/detailNews.php?ID=949
http://www.corp.at/

Planum.net is CORP partner since 2004
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WELFARE & PLUS
New frontiers of urban welfare between stabilisation and creativity
Le nuove frontiere del welfare urbano tra consolidamento e creatività
Rome 13/06/2008

for further information contact Prof. Manuela Ricci: manuela.ricci@gmail.com
download the provisional programme at: http://www.planum.net/news/welfare.pdf
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Planum - The online magazine and international network dedicated to urban
planning, territorial development and architecture
http://www.planum.net
- ISSN 1723-0993
European Community project funded by Ten Telecom in the year 2000

Contact staff@planum.net
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through which to promote your special event or your firm, become a Planum
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http://www.planum.net/services/services.html

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Update from Planners Network UK

Dear PNUK members,

I thought you might like a report back on the event in London recently concerning the Olympics and its planning. The event was really successful on a number of levels – we had about 40 people come on Thursday evening, and about 20 for the longer meeting on Friday. Many were local residents. Iain Sinclair gave a really wonderful and insightful talk about life in the East End, and he was followed by Bill Parry-Davies from OPEN Dalston about large development pressures and disastrous planning messes currently underway in Dalston and Shoreditch. If anyone is keen to be further educated on the potentially harmful effects for local people and environments of holding an Olympics event, then watch the film The Five Ring Circus – an excellent documentary on a series of disasters currently unfolding in Vancouver and its region. Highly recommended.

On Friday we explored a whole range of planning-related issues concerning Olympics developments, the process that has been undertaken to date, the extent to which local people have been able to find a way to have a voice in those processes, and the various challenges they have faced. PNUK members were able to give some feedback on more general aspects of the planning system, its various guises and the changes afoot. Games Monitor representatives felt this was helpful. At the end of Friday, we constructed a list of ideas that might be useful in continuing work in this area. This was simply a brainstorming, rather than a definitive strategy, but there is much that PNUK could do not just on this particular issue of the Olympics but more widely. Here’s a summary of things I thought had particular resonance for a network like PNUK (they aren’t my ideas, they came from a variety of participants):
remind planners (ourselves?) that they’re citizens too. Get planners walking in the neighbourhoods they plan for.
can anybody do something with maps/graphics to show what is coming for the East End if all development plans for towers go ahead, eg show (graphically) the 2012 skyline with its fringe of towers? See skyscrapercity.com
make available some guidance (brief) on how to go about fighting against bad development plans, ways to object and have a say, language to use within the ‘industry’ of development planning. Also, keep a website (pnuk?) up to date on the changing planning system, new threats and opportunities and information that would help local groups
Run a series of seminars on how to fight against bad development, activist-led seminars on how to get through the planning process – hold them on different sites, estates etc to inform people.
more clearly articulate what we are trying to do. PNUK to create a research project and develop an alternative for planning. Provide analysis/data/depth of argument that can give weight to local groups who are trying to develop alternatives for development.

Two additional things emerged:
1. Bill Parry-Davies and the OPEN Dalston/Shoreditch groups are looking for some help to develop alternative plans for their centres and additional specific sites. One of the central concerns we discussed at both events was the importance of having an alternative to present rather than just relying on objections/submissions. The latter is seen as a particularly futile and counter-productive activity and there is considerable interest in developing alternative ‘community’ plans (for want of a better word). If anyone can provide any help at all specifically to OPEN Dalston/OPEN Shoreditch, please be in contact with Bill – his email is: bpd@dowse.co.uk. The OPEN groups have websites, see: http://opendalston.blogspot.com/ and http://open-shoreditch.blogspot.com/
2. Games Monitor are interested in pursing some project work but of course can’t do it themselves because they lack institutional support, funding, access to networks etc. Here’s a way that PNUK members, particularly those based in Universities, might be productively involved. Julian Cheyne (of Games Monitor) and I are currently putting together some thoughts on what the project might look like but will be based around attempting to assess the impact of the Olympics developments, as well as developing alternative models of urban change for the East End.

Anyone interested in any of these, or with helpful comments, ideas, contacts, resources etc. do please get in touch with either me, or Bill Parry-Davies, or just write to the list and share ideas.

By the way, a full report of the London event is now on the website, which you can read at your leisure. You will also find there some other new bits – in particular some papers from the roundtable PNUK hosted at the Planning Research Conference held in Belfast earlier this year. We hope to continue hosting roundtables at conference events in the future as it proved a useful forum for discussion. Be in contact if you’re keen to participate or can organise one.

Libby



Dr Libby Porter
Lecturer in Spatial Planning
Department of Urban Studies
University of Glasgow
25 Bute Gardens
Glasgow G12 8RS
Phone: 0141 330 3664
Email: l.porter@lbss.gla.ac.uk

Interested in progressive planning? Check out Planners Network UK www.pnuk.org.uk

The University of Glasgow is a registered charity, reference SC004401

Ideal City: Conference and Workshop in Amsterdam October 10-14 Register Now

Ideal City: Conference and Workshop in Amsterdam October 10-14 Register Now

We are doing a conference and workshop: The Ideal City: Amsterdam Conference October 11-14. We are looking for conference papers to be given for a edited book / journal (Sustain). In addition, we have arranged for numerous workshops throughout Amsterdamand Rotterdam on social policy, transportation, housing, green urbanism and tolerance in the Netherlands. We hope our colleagues from Urban Geography will join us and present papers on the "ideal city." Please visit our link for early discount registration:

http://www.hollandnow.org

Dr. John I. Gilderbloom
Conference Coordinator--Ideal City
Louisville, Kentucky
502-582-0024 / jgilde02@sprynet.com

New: MSc Geography, Policy, and Practice, Cardiff University.

MSc Geography, Policy, and Practice, Cardiff University.

The School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University is pleased to
announce that a new MSc is available in Geography, Policy, and Practice
for 2008/9 entry. There are also up to five £1000 bursaries available for
students enrolling on this degree before 30th May.

The MSc in Geography, Policy, and Practice offers a unique opportunity to
study human geography at postgraduate level in a context intimately
connected to current policy developments and informed by contemporary
critical theory.

It capitalises on the distinctive capacities of the School of City and
Regional Planning as a leading centre of expertise in research and
teaching in both human geography and spatial policy. The school’s staff
and students are actively engaged in geographically-related policy
development for a range of governmental, corporate, and voluntary bodies,
as well as critically investigating broader forms of political and civil
society activity.

The degree will develop an integrated and critically aware understanding
of geography, policy and practice. It offers:

• the advanced study of geography as an academic discipline and the
changing external context with which it engages;
• preparation for and/or development of a career in business, local
government, academia, or broader civil society with a critical
understanding of geography and its relationship with policy
• development of the ability to apply knowledge and understanding of
geography to complex issues to improve the functioning of policy and
practices within society.
• enhancement of lifelong learning skills and personal development
so students can strengthen their ability to work with self-direction and
originality and to contribute to geography, policy, and society at large.

Further details of the degree scheme can be found at School’s homepage
http://www.cf.ac.uk/cplan/ or by contacting the Course Director, Dr Jon
Anderson, Email: andersonj@cardiff.ac.uk Tel: (44) 02920 875308.

Deadline for bursary applications is 30th May, 2008.



Dr Jon Anderson

Course Director MSc Geography, Policy, and Practice
Email: AndersonJ@cardiff.ac.uk
Tel: 02920 875308
School of City and Regional Planning,
Cardiff University,
2.71 Glamorgan Building,
King Edward VII Avenue,
Cardiff, Wales, U.K.
CF10 3WA.