Strategic and Spatial Regulation Tools for Harmonizing Land Use Interests in the Carpathians – Experience from Slovakia

Carpathian ecoregion is one of the last strongholds of biodiversity in Europe. The area spreads across several European countries and contains thriving populations of large carnivores and other species, while staying some of the least-fragmented areas in Europe. At the same time, it is under growing pressure to develop its infrastructure endangering this natural uniqueness. In this paper the pressures to develop the area are described in the light of the existing planning policies in Slovakia. We focus on one of the TransGREEN and ConnectGREEN project cross-border pilot areas located between Czech Republic and Slovakia ‘Beskydy-Kysuce’ where we discuss the pressures to develop the infrastructure and the measures to retain the fragmentation as low as possible. The paper discusses Slovak planning policies on national, regional and local levels. In its second part the focus is on examples of development in this pilot area demonstrating the growing pressure for more infrastructure being built improving the transport connection between Slovakia and Czech Republic. The measures to ease the conflicts between the interests of nature protection and green infrastructure, and the interests of developing the grey infrastructure in this area are presented. Lastly, we review the planning policies and tools in the Slovak national spatial planning system aimed at regulating the development considering all interests in the territory and managing this growth while keeping it in the lines of sustainable development, biodiversity protection and enhancing resilience of this area. The aim is to demonstrate in this pilot area the approach of Slovak planning policies and tools in the Slovak national spatial planning system leading to find the way how to anchor the regulation or adaptive measures so as to create a unified strategic framework for the Carpathian region with a set of recommendations to regulate a massive development in this unique area to avoid the conflicts between green and grey infrastructure

Involving Citizens through walking: Urban Walks as a tool for awareness raising in historic built areas

Abstract: Public participation in decision making is a hot topic for spatial planning for many decades. Since 2001, the Aarhus Convention is granting, among others, the public rights for public participation. However, as Arnstein already in 1969 wrote, there are many levels of participation and ever since the publication of her paper scholars as well as practitioners are deliberating various levels and a multitude of tools of how to involve the public, in what stage, up to what depth to make it as effective and efficient as the situation allows. Urban walks present one of the methods of stakeholder involvement in which participants, usually local citizens, are guided through a walk in the site with experts explaining their ideas and collecting remarks from the participants. They offer an opportunity for community engagement and informal discussion on various topics in the decision-making processes, to witness successful examples and innovative tools. They are one of the most appropriate ways for awareness rising among the general public, as they offer in-situ exploration together with face-to-face discussions with professionals who are guiding the walk. The paper examines two case studies of urban walks. Firstly, a set of 8 urban walks taking place within the INTERREG-Central Europe BhENEFIT project aimed at raising awareness and building capacities in the field of sustainable management of historic built areas. Altogether, there were 148 participants in these events, and at the end of the urban walks, they filled in the feedback forms. Responsible partners also prepared detailed reports about all of these events and, together with feedback forms, these are analysed and the results are presented within this paper. Secondly, the paper uses a case study from Rome (Italy) within the Jane's Walk International Festival presented at the III Biennial of Public Space. The method of urban walks had been selected as a proper way to involve citizens in the project, to help disseminate the project results and make the citizens a part of the decision making in historic built areas in the project pilot sites. The results from the analysed reports give evidence supporting the effectiveness of this method. The paper further on discusses different forms of public involvement for future events and ways how to include the public in the decision-making processes

Smart Cities and the Idea of Smartness in Urban Development - A Critical Review

The concept of smart cities is becoming another mantra for both developing and developed cities. For instance, Indian government in 2015 announced its objective to build one hundred smart cities all over the country. They clearly stated that they are choosing smart development as the underlying concept for their future growth as a way to foster economic development in smart way to avoid the paths of rapid industrialization and pollution of cities as it took place in Europe and United States. The first of these smart cities, Dholera, is already under construction and it attracts journalists and urban planners from all over the world. The aim of this paper is to critically discuss the theoretical backgrounds and the practices of smart cities and examine the ways the concept is implemented. The paper is based on thorough study of literature and examining the two case studies of Dholera (India) and Songdo (South Korea). Smart city is a contested concept without a unified definition. It stems from the idea of digital and information city promoted using information and communication technologies (ICT) to develop cities. By installation of ICT municipalities obtain large sets of data which are then transformed into effective urban policies. One of the pilot projects of this kind was Rio de Janeiro and building the Center of Operations by IBM Company. City made a great investment into the smart information system before two huge events took place -FIFA World Cup in 2014 and Olympic Games in 2016. The project raised many questions including whether and how it improved the life of its citizens and in what way it made the city smart. The other definition of smart city is the idea of smartness in city development in broader sense. It focuses on smart use of resources, smart and effective management and smart social inclusion. Within this view, the ICTs are one component of the concept, by no means its bread and butter. Technologies can be used in a variety of ways. Problem occurs when smart city is viewed as means to make investments from city budgets by any price, by promoting use of smart technologies as the only way forward, as necessity. Many companies, including technological giants IBM and CISCO already participate on many smart city projects supplying technologies for smart city projects. In this study, we are looking into two case studies, the city of Dholera in India and city of Songdo in South Korea, both pompous large scale projects. Smart City technologies are growing market which is projected to be annually worth 20 billion dollars by 2020 [ 19], with IBM participating in 2000 projects accounting for 3 billion dollars [ 19]. There are many concerns about these developments, among them the issue of equity, whose purposes the projects are serving, how these initiatives are developing cities and the general idea of smartness in urban context. The research concludes that the ambiguity of smart city definition allowing multiple interpretations is frequently bent and used to promote the lobbying of strong players in cities and in private sector

Analysis of The Planning Education in the Light of the Contemporary Trends in Planning

This paper examines the way the planning education is taught and examines the recent trends in the curricula of planning education institutions. The introduction of changing economic systems and planning in the field of education is discussed against these changes. Additionally, the evolution in the planner's role and how it affects the planning education is discussed. The paper is addressing trends and challenges the countries and their planning changes are facing in 21st century. The trends such as increasing globalization, fuzziness of spatial structures and their borders, complexity and uncertainty and the growing interconnectedness of the world are discussed. Another aim is to prepare a common ground, a platform at the university level for scientific cooperation in the field of planning. This study aims at examining the situation of planning in the contemporary world. The identified challenges include the need for more flexibility in planning and planning education, the emergence of innovations and creativity in planners and planning projects, the necessity of promoting soft skills while keeping the existing technical nature of planning and lastly, the need for more interdisciplinary work. The final part of the paper is discussing the future planning education and recommendations on how the schools of planning should reflect these changes

Policy instruments as a trigger for urban sprawl deceleration: monitoring the stability and transformations of green areas

Abstract The socialist era postponed suburbanisation in Central and Eastern European countries. After 1990, the process became extremely intensive and transformed the compact form of cities into more decentralised and dispersed urban structures. Therefore, the study aims to identify the main trends in land-cover transformation caused by urban sprawl in peri-urban areas of three Central and Eastern European cities (NUTS 3 level: the Pest County, Bratislava Region, and Krakowski subregion). In addition, we identified various policy tools for green infrastructure protection. We further investigated the extent to which the presence of legal means of nature conservation affects the stability of natural and seminatural areas. The research used an original questionnaire and spatio-temporal analysis. It has been confirmed that after decades of socialism, a highly intensive urban sprawl process started in the analysed regions. It generally slowed down after 2000 except for the Krakowski subregion. The majority of new artificial areas replaced agricultural land. Despite the dynamic urban sprawl, almost one-third of the analysed Central and Eastern European peri-urban areas were stable natural and seminatural areas. The traditional nature conservation tools proved to be effective in preserving natural and seminatural areas, but the protection of landscapes exposed to urban sprawl needs specific tools. The effectiveness of urban sprawl control is hindered by the fact that spatial planning competences are dispersed. This research may influence monitoring urban sprawl and offer an innovative method because it combines spatial analysis (quantitative approach) with the impact of policy tools (qualitative approach)