Perspective Chapter: Reimaging Affordable Housing through Adaptive Reuse of Built Heritage

This chapter focuses on adaptive reuse of heritage for affordable housing in Canadian cities. The issue is critical in the context of efforts to create socially inclusive and affordable cities through integrated urban planning, heritage conservation and housing policies. The research has three main components. First, it provides a framework for future urban regeneration emphasising the environmental, economic and social aspects of sustainability. Second, it reviews the synergies between adaptive reuse and affordable housing provision and provides a compelling rationale for their integration. Finally, it outlines three main approaches to adaptive reuse—typological, technical and strategic—arguing for implementation through ‘policy-planning-partnership’ nexus. Using illustrations from successful affordable housing projects through adaptive reuse, the research demonstrates the importance of urban regeneration where strategic investment in diverse, socially cohesive affordable housing sustains the vibrancy and vitality of inner-city neighbourhoods

The housing policy nexus and people’s responses to housing challenges in post-communist cities

This article explores major trends and patterns of change embedded in the overall process of economic, social and political transformation reshaping the urban challenges in eastern European cities. It reflects on important drivers of change such as efforts to create a market-based housing system and competitive housing markets in the post-communist urban world. The research draws much-needed attention to an important set of urban and housing policy issues with broad implications for understanding the transition process in the region. It explores the multi-layered processes of market-based housing reforms (privatisation, deregulation and devolution) and their impact on the spatial transformation of urban housing markets in eastern European cities. The main argument, supported with empirical evidence from a number of eastern European cities, is that the impact of these most significant processes of urban change has created a mosaic of diverse urban challenges. Exploring these urban challenges through the housing lens sets the stage for a better understanding of urban social movements in eastern European cities and their dynamic realities. The article argues that the diverse role of urban social movements can be explained by reference to democratic traditions, practices and policy cultures in eastern European cities, and also to institutional structures and the capacity of non-market stakeholders. In some cases, stronger government and governance traditions since the political changes of the 1990s would allow non-government organisations to “voice” their concerns and be accepted as a legitimate partner in coalitions responding to urban challenges. In other cases, such capacity and institutional collaboration may be non-existent, leading to “exit” and abandonment of formal systems. In the first option, urban social movements have resurrected debates about gentrification and social segregation in housing estates and neighbourhoods previously insulated from the market, fighting for their “rights to the city”. In the latter option, individuals and organisations have resorted to informal solutions to growing housing inequalities, poverty and exclusion reflected in the massive growth of informal settlements and the illegality of urban construction

Housing Reforms: Implementation Challenges and Opportunities in Housing Policy and Practice

NoThe financial support of UNECE for this research is gratefully acknowledged

Le développement urbain durable en Europe et en Amérique due Nord: Défis et Opportunités

University of Calgary, Faculty of Environmental Design, Cities, Policy & Planning Research Series.Ye

Venturing into unknown territory: Strategic spatial planning in post-communist cities

Recent planning practice in post-communist cities indicates a growing interest in strategic spatial planning. In their search for new planning paradigms and more flexible approaches to city planning, municipalities in post-communist cities have embraced strategic planning as a way to involve residents, the business community and various stakeholders in defining a vision for the future. Drawing on the experience of six capital cities – Prague, St Petersburg, Vilnius, Sofia, Budapest and Riga – this article outlines the essential characteristics of the process (planning) and the product (a strategic plan). It establishes clear links between the strategic development process, its institutional framework and the hierarchical structure of goals, objectives and actions. Using a framework for strategic spatial planning in the context of rapid economic, social and governance change, the study evaluates the results of the process, focusing on “what” and “how” in the complex reality of planning. The framework applies the traditional strategic planning model, which establishes relationships between past, present and future to design alternative strategies for plan implementation, but in a much more unstable and unpredictable institutional environment. The research highlights the responsiveness of strategic planning to transition imperatives and its ability to define contextually appropriate multidimensional strategies for the spatial development of post-communist cities

Trends and Progress in Housing Reforms in South Eastern Europe

NoWith the support of the Council of Europe, UN-Economic Commission for Europe and Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Informal settlements in post-communist cities: Diversity factors and patterns

In some post-communist cities, the formation of informal settlements is a phenomenon associated with the wave of urbanisation of the 1960s and 1970s. In others, the phenomenon is connected with the influx of immigrants and refugees in the 1990s. Informal settlement areas are the result of various factors: inadequate spatial planning, outdated and complex legislation, housing policies that do not ensure the provision of affordable housing and outdated public administration structures. Illegal construction practices in urban areas, often due to the lack of a clear system of property rights and urban poverty, have created significant challenges in many cities such as Tirana, Belgrade, Tbilisi and Bucharest. This paper presents a typology of informal settlements in post-communist cities and discusses the interrelated economic, social and environmental challenges associated with this phenomenon. Various types of informal settlements, as well as the evolution of those types, demonstrate the complexity of the problem as well as the need to develop contextually sensitive and diverse solutions. This study presents the emerging related policy responses, including legalisation and inclusion in formal urban planning, the provision of essential social services (e.g., schools and medical clinics), the construction of technical infrastructure (e.g., safe roads, public transit, water and sewage systems) and resettlement programmes as part of social housing. Although these solutions represent various aspects of the policy continuum, they also require significant political will and the financial commitment of central and local institutions to ensure effective implementation

Preplet stanovanjskih politik in odzivi ljudi na stanovanjske probleme v postsocialističnih mestih

Avtorica v članku preučuje glavne trende in vzorce sprememb v splošnem procesu gospodarske, socialne in politične preobrazbe, ki preoblikuje urbanistične izzive v vzhodnoevropskih mestih. Obravnava pomembna gonila sprememb, kot so prizadevanja za oblikovanje tržnega stanovanjskega sistema in konkurenčnih stanovanjskih trgov v postsocialističnem urbanem okolju. Raziskava usmerja prepotrebno pozornost na pomembna vprašanja urbanistične in stanovanjske politike, ki močno vplivajo na razumevanje procesa tranzicije na tem območju. Avtorica preučuje večplastne procese tržnih stanovanjskih reform (privatizacijo, deregulacijo in decentralizacijo) in njihov vpliv na prostorsko preobrazbo urbanih stanovanjskih trgov v vzhodnoevropskih mestih. Njena glavna teza, podprta z empiričnimi dokazi iz številnih vzhodnoevropskih mest, je, da so ti najpomembnejši procesi urbanih sprememb ustvarili mozaik najrazličnejših urbanističnih izzivov. Preučevanje teh izzivov s stanovanjskega vidika omogoča boljše razumevanje urbanih družbenih gibanj v vzhodnoevropskih mestih in njihovi dinamični resničnosti. Avtorica meni, da lahko različne vloge urbanih družbenih gibanj razložimo z različnimi demokratičnimi tradicijami, praksami in značilnostmi politik vzhodnoevropskih mest ter z institucionalnimi strukturami in zmogljivostjo netržnih déležnikov. V nekaterih primerih tradicija močnih vlad in uprav po političnih spremembah leta 1990 nevladnim organizacijam omogoča, da »izrazijo« svoje skrbi in so sprejete kot legitimen partner v združenjih, ki se odzivajo na urbanistične izzive. V drugih primerih tovrstno institucionalno sodelovanje sploh ne obstaja, zaradi česar pride do izstopa iz formalnih sistemov in njihove opustitve. V prvem primeru so urbana družbena gibanja oživila razprave o gentrifikaciji in socialni segregaciji v stanovanjskih naseljih in soseskah, ki so bile prej izolirane od trga in so se borile za svojo »pravico do mesta«. V drugem primeru se posamezniki in organizacije zatekajo k neformalnim rešitvam problema naraščajoče stanovanjske neenakosti, revščine in izključenosti, ki se izraža v močnem povečanju neformalnih naselij in nezakonite gradnje v mestih