globalization and urban planning

[urbania]

I am writing a paper on the topic of globalization and urban planning.

My main objective is how the globalization has brought changes to urban areas and how planners are adapting to change. I read in one article that urban planning is less codified and technical and more innovative and entrepreneurial as a result of globalization. I am thinking of taking this as one concept for the paper. I am thinking of making an comparative analysis of past urban planning methods and how it has changed over time, and how the globalization process has affected the planning process.

I would like to ask for some advice on how i should move on with my topic. Any ideas, concepts for the paper will be highly appreciated.

Thanx in advance

[DetroitPlanner]

I am writing a paper on the topic of globalization and urban planning.

My main objective is how the globalization has brought changes to urban areas and how planners are adapting to change. I read in one article that urban planning is less codified and technical and more innovative and entrepreneurial as a result of globalization. I am thinking of taking this as one concept for the paper. I am thinking of making an comparative analysis of past urban planning methods and how it has changed over time, and how the globalization process has affected the planning process.

I would like to ask for some advice on how i should move on with my topic. Any ideas, concepts for the paper will be highly appreciated.

Thanx in advance

You have to be kidding me right???? Detroit lies on an istmus known as the Detroit River, this wide river separates the United States from Canada. This crossing is the main point for trade of goods between the United States and Canada; and also links into markets in Mexico and other latin american countries. In trying to do cross-border planning for the site location of a new crossing (which is desperately needed on the Canadian side) we are running into two totally different political structures, philosophies, objectives, environmental protection laws and criteria that need to be satisfied. What works for one nation has flaws on the other side. For example, the canadians propose a crossing to what appears on areial phots to be unused land. This land contains a fort from 1812, the major waterworks that serves six million people, and many poor people (raises environmental justice flags), shopyards and salt mines. They try to sell this plan to they constituency (because it really works well for them I might add ), but does not look at the concerns of the United States portion .

Thousands of people on both sides of the border are now involved in this as a NIMBY.

[Dirk-DD]

That's kind of a complicated topic to deal with, for it offers a variety of different perspectives to begin with. But let's just throw something in that just came to my mind.
Globalization should not only be perceived as an economic direction, but something that shifts mind-scales of people, and therefore has impact on their everyday activities. City Centres are more and more dying because in time of internetshopping and cyberspace meeting points, people are no longer dependent on the goods offered in "their" city.
In Times of Mobilisation and Flexibility, they are not even willing to accept its limited offer or the specific public culture anymore. Its possible to get a flight from Dresden to London at the price of 19.99 Euro at times. Its possible to live outside the city in suburbia and reach the city centre just in time as a fulltimecitizen does. And on their way to the city centre, people are more and more soaked up by huge department stores, filling the gaps between housing estates and the nucleus of urban culture, the city centre. Perhaps that's a threat to the european cities primarily, but urban planning has to react on the perforation of urban bodies/figures, which is doomed to destroy the motivating force of zivil development.
But still I would not want to curse Globalisation for such things. Maybe we are on our way to discover new forms of publicity (virtual?) of living together, meeting and cultivating, without culminating in centres.
Planners should not try to handle the distortions of traditional urban environments, but rather enforce the positive energies/synergies, that lie underneath, and which people are directing to anyways. The faster communication and work is, the more time is left for free, the higher mobility is, the wider the range of manageable, reachable, and affordable activities/functions is to the many.
Task is to find out, how "urban" spaces fit into these globalised mechanisms of life and motion.

[urbania]

Thanx a lot DetroitPlanner and Dirk-DD for your valuable opinions and remarks.

What I am thinking is, how planning should be done to cope with the changes brought by globalization.
Any other comments, remarks, opinions, references will be highly appreciated.

[James76]

Here are some references from an excellent course I took last year that had to do with regional economic development in the global economy:

Scott, Allen J., John Agnew, Edward W. Soja, and Michael Storper. 2001. “Global-City Regions,” in Allen J. Scott, ed., Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy. Ch. 1, pp. 11-30.

Storper, Michael. 1997. The Regional World. New York: Guilford. Ch. 1, “The Resurgence of Regional Economies, 10 Years Later,” pp. 3-25.

Barnes, William and Larry Ledebur. 1998. The New Regional Economies: The U.S. Common Market and the Global Economy. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Chs. 6, “Economic Federalism and the New Political Economy”: pp. 63-81.