Public Private Partnership in Land Development Contracts – A Comparative Study in Finland and in the Netherlands

This paper is based on a comparative study made by both authors. The study includes a comparison of public-private co-operation in land development process both in Finland and in the Netherlands. The land development process involves the acquisition of raw land, detailed physical planning, improvements of soil, construction of the infrastructure and building site disposal. The land developer can be the local government (municipality) or a private enterprise or the two in co-operation. In Finland and in the Netherlands the municipalities have played remarkable roles in producing building sites for the use of housing, retail, offices and industry. Increasing the role of private enterprises is a topical issue in both of the countries. The adequacy of housing sites in particular has been a problem in the Netherlands, which is a small densely populated country in Central Europe. Finland is a rather large and sparsely populated country in Northern Europe, but because of the movement from sparsely populated rural areas to bigger cities in the south, there is a scarcity of building land in these cities. The implementation of the Fourth National Planning Report Extra (also known by its Dutch acronym VINEX) of 1990 in the Netherlands was the turning point from the municipal land development to the increase of public-private co-operation and partnership carrying out this task. In Finland private land development and the associated public-private partnership was much utilised in the Greater Helsinki area in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The role of the private enterprises has later been slighter, but during the present real estate boom the question of their role is again becoming more important. Different alternative contract models are presented, evaluated and classified. In the end a general four-dimensional model is presented. The dimensions are: type of land, owner of land, model of co-operation and type of contract

Open National CORS Data Ecosystems: A Cross-Jurisdictional Comparison*

Developments toward Open Government Data (OGD) also affect the data from National Continuously Operating Reference Station (NCORS), an infrastructure supporting standard and precise positioning in spatial activities. The application of OD policies on NCORS data (OD-NCORS) varies per country. This article explores the approaches and impact of OD-NCORS in three European countries: Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. Understanding the differences in the implementations may benefit other countries in their strategies to implement OD for their NCORS. It may also provide insights for organisations considering OD for other data. The research found that the key factors affecting OD NCORS implementation are the national governing nature and the existence of commercial CORS networks. There is no single approach for OD-NCORS implementation that fits every national context

Brazilian urban porosity

Urban areas have spatial discontinuities, such as disconnected neighbourhoods, brownfield areas and leftover places. They can be captured by the metaphor of urban porosity. This article aims to highlight potential social consequences of urban porosity by creating a “porosity index”. We argue that these areas can provide capacity for flexibility, fluidity, and absorption in major cities, but that they can also be a source of fragmentation, disconnection, and isolation between different social groups, eroding the adaptive capacity of metropolitan systems. Porosity may thus have both positive and negative influences on the resilience of urban systems. Brazil’s rapid process of urbanisation over the last 50 years shows both these sides of porosity, which create treats and threats for its urban systems. This paper develops an analytical framework within which to study how porosity manifests itself in Brazilian metropolises, which helps to identify porosity in contexts of urban growth and decline. It uses statistical data from IBGE relating to 12 Brazilian metropolises to generate the proposed porosity index. Additionally, the paper discusses the added value of the concept of urban porosity in addressing urban resilience and briefly elucidates the issues and opportunities caused by discontinuities in the urban fabric in Brazil’s metropolises

Rethinking planning education using massive open online courses: The case of rethinking the city

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) are becoming a popular educational tool in different disciplines. Urban planning education is no exception and new MOOCs are being released every year. Despite this, it is still not clear how this new learning experience is being developed, delivered, and impacting upon planning education. This article sheds light on this issue using the case of the Rethink the City MOOC organised by the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of TU Delft. The course received the AESOP Excellence on Teaching award in 2017 and serves as an example of how planning education is facing the change towards online education. The article briefly introduces the course and develops on the challenges and results of it. Based on the course team experience of preparing and delivering the course, the article contributes to the debate about online education and supports fellow academics involved with the creation of new MOOCs

Financial Instruments and Territorial Cohesion : Final Report

The main objective of this research activity is to provide territorial analysis on the impacts of European Structural and Investment Funds’ financial instruments in the 2007-2013 programming period and where data allows in the 2014-2020 programming period. The main outcome should be evidence on what the increasing shift to using financial instruments implies for the objective of territorial cohesion and whether using financial instruments as a complement to grant schemes is an effective way to implement European Structural and Investment Funds in terms of added value for territorial development