Challenges of Spatial Planning in Kosovo in Transition Time

Spatial planning refers to the methods used by the public sector to influence the distribution of people and items in the area, always having balanced development in space. Spatial planning for people, land, homes, where we live, learn, heal, work, have fun, public service, and all items have their place. Today, many scientific disciplines are closely related to spatial planning, and through the three main components (social, economic and environmental). In the postmodern time, spatial planning takes place at the local, regional, national, transnational level and often results in the creation of a spatial plan within the state/s. System and spatial planning practices, though vary from one place to another, they have their similarities in content, however, distinguishes the approach and techniques used. Until 2000, spatial planning in Kosovo is developed at a modest scale, concentrated only in urban areas (cities) and master plans (some regions of the country), in postmodern period (after 2000), the system and practices of spatial planning have made progress in general and especially in drafting national spatial strategies and local development strategies and urban however, there are also disadvantages. In this period, spatial planning, despite the progress, there are still many challenges that face every day and particularly local institutions and thus hinder the lives of citizens. In addition, the lack of human capacity, financial and unwillingness of policy-making and decision-making to address this issue so seriously, in the design and implementation of spatial plans, made uncontrolled developments, take shape across municipalities, causing loss of agricultural land, unplanned development, imbalance, degradation of natural and cultural values, rapid population migrations from the countryside to the city, creating urban chaos and making the citizens\u27 lives more difficult

A Global Review on Peri-Urban Development and Planning

Urban regions worldwide are increasingly facing the challenge of dealing with highly dynamic metropolitan growth and, at the same time, institutional changes like decentralisation and globalisation. These kinds of changes express themselves most evidently in peri-urban areas, where urban and rural life meets. These peri-urban areas in particular have been the stage for rapid physical, social and economic transformations, both in developed and developing countries. Peri-urbanization takes place here. Based on literature review, this paper presents an effort to identify generic attributes of peri-urbanisation and the way in which development planning tends to reply. Three major attributes are identified: peri-urban space (the spatial expression of peri-urban development), peri-urban life (the functional appearance of land uses, activities and peri-urban innovation), and peri-urban change (a causal and temporal perspective featuring flows and drivers of change). It is also shown that prevalent institutional replies in planning and development generally fail to acknowledge the dynamic and increasingly fragmented attributes of global peri-urbanisation

Public and private use of open space in a densely urbanized context

The boundary between the Flemish urban and rural areas has faded in recent years and a fragmented spatial structure has emerged. The ‘open space’ is evolving from an agricultural production area to a semi-urbanized consumption area. On the one hand the public use of open space seems to be growing, particularly because of the success of recreational networks. On the other hand the open space also seems to be increasingly used in a private way, as a consequence of residential development, setting up gardens and hobby farming. An empirical case study showed that these evolutions are actual phenomena and that some determining conditions can be defined. Both evolutions tend to change the open space profoundly. Planning policy should be aiming to guide these evolutions in the best way possible, considering the limited carrying-capacity of open space. Maybe the control of accessibility of the countryside is part of the solution

Inferring land use from mobile phone activity

Understanding the spatiotemporal distribution of people within a city is crucial to many planning applications. Obtaining data to create required knowledge, currently involves costly survey methods. At the same time ubiquitous mobile sensors from personal GPS devices to mobile phones are collecting massive amounts of data on urban systems. The locations, communications, and activities of millions of people are recorded and stored by new information technologies. This work utilizes novel dynamic data, generated by mobile phone users, to measure spatiotemporal changes in population. In the process, we identify the relationship between land use and dynamic population over the course of a typical week. A machine learning classification algorithm is used to identify clusters of locations with similar zoned uses and mobile phone activity patterns. It is shown that the mobile phone data is capable of delivering useful information on actual land use that supplements zoning regulations.Comment: To be presented at ACM UrbComp201