CITY, URBAN 
PLANNING AND 
EDUCATION
Foreword
One of the goals of the International Association of Educating Cities (IAEC), ever since it’s creation in 1994, has been to influence the 
decision-making process of governments and international institutions 
on questions of interest to Educating Cities. In keeping with this, the 
Association has undertaken different initiatives to share information 
on projects in which associated cities are engaged, either to promote 
specific social policies, or to resolve concrete problems.
Over recent years—and putting technology at the service of the 
Association’s needs—the IAEC web page has served as a valuable 
source of information exchange on the experiences of different 
educating cities.
This current line of annual publications has been developed with 
the idea of closely examining, and presenting new perspectives on, 
subjects of interest for associated cities and, at the same time, offering 
local governments tools for action.
These monographs provide elements for fully developing the concept 
of the educating city and for putting the Charter of Educating Cities 
into practice. Each monograph focuses on one particular theme, 
approaching it from different perspectives through interviews with 
specialists, articles and recounted experiences of different cities that 
are addressing that subject in question in depth. 
The first in this new line of publications focuses on the subject City, 
Urban Planning and Education. It looks at urban planning that educates 
in a more civically-conscious and inclusive city dedicated to improving 
the quality of life of everyone living within it, in accordance with the 
principles of the Charter of Educating Cities, to which all of the cities 
in the Association are committed. 
CITY, URBAN PL
ANNING AND ED
UCATION 
MONOGRAPH
Montserrat Ballarín i Espuña
Delegated President of the IAEC
Deputy Mayor for Education and Finances, 
City of Barcelona
Contents
In
te
rv
ie
w
s
Jaime
Lerner
8
Xerardo
Estévez
12
Antanas
Mockus
16
Oriol
Bohigas
20
Urban Planning of Educational Facilities as the 
Infrastructure of the Knowledge City
Pedro Barrán
Rennes and Time-management in 
the City
Jocelyne Bougeard and Danièle Touchard
46
Bicycles in San Sebastian
Odón Elorza
The Right to the City: 
How to Better Promote Inclusive Cities 
at an International Level
Brigitte Colin
54
Citizen Participation and Environmental Recovery: 
Belo Horizonte’s Drenurbs Program
Ricardo de Miranda Aroeira and Valdete Lima Bontempo
50
42
Mirta Levin
Updating Planning and Management Tools: 
New Government Policies. 
The City of Rosario’s Experience.
Civic-mindedness and Mobility
Ole Thorson
38
32
Closed Developments and the Perpetuation
of the Dual City
Josep Centelles
26
Editorial6
58
CITY, URBAN PL
ANNING AND ED
UCATION 
MONOGRAPH
Josep Maria Llop Torné
This monograph aims to focus attention on the educating facets of urban planning, offering us a look 
at the subject from a new and important angle. The city as 
a community is constructed in a public space, and urban 
planning, together with education, plays an essential 
role in that process. Improved planning cannot happen 
without improved education. The keys to this opportunity 
are in unrestricted accessibility to public space, and in the 
evidence of harmony, of beauty, physical legibility, cultural 
innovation, and identity. 
The promise lies in combining urban planning and 
education for a more socially just result, because most of 
the population of the world lives in cities and they are the 
hubs of territorial networks, physical and otherwise, and 
of relationships among people and between people and 
the planet. These diverse relationships and interactions, at 
once local and global, are played out, for the most part, in 
the setting of the public, shared and collective spaces of 
cities, small and large, and of urban nuclei in general.
We believe that, in the context of the city, the two 
concepts are closely tied together, not operating in a 
parallel manner, but rather frequently crossing and 
overlapping. Urban change and management consist of 
method and action and so we must carefully consider how 
to accomplish that, who participates and who builds the 
city. This publication looks at the question from various 
different angles: experiences of specific cities, articles by 
professionals in the field and interviews with individuals 
well-versed in the subject. Drawing from their experience 
and my own I would like to focus on some ideas and 
proposals that help to direct education and urban planning 
down a joint path of building cities and shaping citizens. 
Xerardo Estévez points out that urban planning is an 
essential condition for good urban policy. His opinions are 
optimistic and he notes that urban planning does indeed 
win votes and can serve as the foundation for socially 
progressive urban policies. Oriol Bohigas claims that it 
is in the public spaces where quality of city life—not only 
physical, but in the lives of citizens; not only of urbs but 
also of the civitas—is built; it is through constructing the 
symbology of the public or common space that we can 
achieve a democratic city which, in addition, should be 
creative and beautiful, offering citizens the added bonus 
of quality. Jaime Lerner and Antanas Mockus offer a Latin 
American perspective on the question. Jaime Lerner states 
that to build a better city we must make things happen, 
Editorial
inspire people and transform the proposals for a better 
quality of life into real and viable solutions. And in traveling 
this path of building a city Antanas Mockus provides food 
for thought on the “pedagogical results” of this endeavor. 
The interviews with these individuals, who have had the 
responsibility of governing in their cities and/or managing 
their urban policies, illustrate the relationship between 
education and urbanism. 
In addition, this monograph offers us insights from a more 
sector-oriented perspective as well as accounts of the 
concrete experiences of various cities. I have drawn some 
ideas and reflections from a cross-sectional reading of 
those, that I would like to share below:
– Urban planning contains an educating element. The very 
planning of the educational system, beyond the instrument 
of the school mapping, bears witness to the possibilities for 
improving the city through the educational infrastructure 
and its facilities; but its knowledge and work methods are 
also “urban planning elements” and allow us to carry out 
policies that promote creativity, civic consciousness, and 
development of the so-called knowledge society, as we see 
in Pedro Barrán’s article about Montevideo (Uruguay).
- In his piece, Josep Centelles suggests that governability 
as a foundation for creativity and innovation, together with 
democratic transparency, are an alternative to an opaque, 
closed-system approach to urban planning, and counter to 
the processes of segmentation and division in the city.
- Ole Thorson addresses the question of mobility, transport 
systems and design criteria in cities, and particularly 
in public spaces. He brings to the subject his extensive 
experience in Barcelona, and is currently head of an 
association that supports towards pedestrian-friendly cities. 
He offers criteria for better use of street space, stressing 
the priority of pedestrians over vehicles and their rights. 
Public space should be quieter, slower, safer and more 
humane. Because it is a limited and finite space, that calls 
for new design criteria.
- Brigitte Colin focuses on the right to the city and its 
bearing on policies of social inclusion. From her UNESCO 
vantage point, she offers an overall view of the concept and 
the initiatives being developed so that the implementation 
of the charter for the right to the city becomes fundamental 
to the exercise of citizenship. The Charter of Educating 
Cities is also a valuable instrument in this regard.
Lastly, the accounts of the experiences of four educating 
cities are yet another important contribution to the 
discourse, providing concrete examples of urban policies 
that are in place and operating. The subjects covered in 
these articles range from the quality and efficiency of the 
decentralization of Rosario (Argentina) to the educating 
aspect of incorporating rivers and streams in the urban 
landscape, through Belo Horizonte’s (Brazil) Drenurbs 
program. Turning from Latin America to Europe, we have 
San Sebastian’s (Spain) example of encouraging bicycle use 
and more sustainable mobility in the city, that ties in closely 
with Ole Thorson’s article on mobility and transportation. 
And rounding out these experiences are the policies of 
time management being put into effect in Rennes (France), 
addressing less physical and tangible, but equally important, 
aspects of urban policies.
I would like to conclude by pointing out that the educating 
aspect of urban policy and urban planning is not only 
about physical projects or construction, but also, and 
very especially about the management of all of the city’s 
resources. And knowledge and awareness are important 
resources upon which to draw in order to better understand 
each city’s potential. Education and urban planning are not 
only interwoven concepts, they are symbiotic elements of 
urban policies. Urban planning on a worldwide scale will 
only improve if it educates citizens to build and inhabit 
better cities.
Josep Maria Llop Torné,
Architect and Urban Planner
CITY, URBAN PL
ANNING AND ED
UCATION 
MONOGRAPH
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  20098 MONOGRAPH
Jaime 
Lerner
Former M
ayor of C
uritiba
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 9MONOGRAPH
You were a three-time mayor of Curitiba. What were the 
priorities in terms of urban planning policy and what 
were the keys to their success?   
I had the honor of being mayor of Curitiba for three different 
terms: from 1971 to 1975, from 1979 to 1983 and from 1989 to 
1992. In each of those terms tried to make inroads on three 
important issues: mobility, sustainability and sociodiversity. 
That, of course, without diverting attention from the 
subjects of health, education and employment that are on 
every mayor’s agenda. We invested in public transportation, 
we created quality public spaces, and we respected those 
elements—rivers, forests, ethnic heritage—that are part of 
Curitiba’s identity, and we also involved people —including 
children— as active agents for change. 
In order to successfully manage a city, one must make 
things happen, starting with adopting unpretentious, simple 
solutions and adding to that public and private agents with 
a political commitment. 
Are the city’s form, its historical heritage and its urban 
landscape the basis of its cultural identity? How do we 
encourage a feeling of belonging to the city? 
Identity is a crucial element to quality of life; it represents 
a synthesis of the relationship between the individual and 
his/her city. Identity, self-esteem, the feeling of belonging 
are closely linked to the reference points that people have 
in their own cities.
Rivers, for example, are important references. Therefore, 
instead of putting them out of site or burying them in 
cement, cities should develop riversides as valuable land. 
By respecting the features of natural drainage, cities can 
guarantee that the preserved areas can cope with the 
periodic rising of the river’s water level and that these 
areas be used, most of the time, for leisure activity, in an 
economic and environmentally-sustainable manner. Parks 
can function along the same lines, providing areas where 
people can interact.
Old sections of the city are also important points of 
reference, closely tied in, from the start, with the city’s 
history. Over time, these areas often depreciate and 
become rundown. So, it is fundamentally important to fi nd 
ways to keep those areas alive by connecting identifying 
elements, giving new uses to old spaces, opening them up 
to a wide variety of uses 24 hours a day.
What are the keys to the success of the public 
transportation system in Curitiba? How can we improve 
on the relationship between private mobility and use of 
public transport systems? 
In terms of mobility, the future is in above-ground 
transportation and the combination of the different 
JAIME LERNER is an architect and urban planner, and founder of the Instituto 
Jaime Lerner. He was president of the International Union of Architects (UIA) and 
three-time mayor of Curitiba (Brazil) during which time he was at the forefront 
of an urban revolution and gave the city a reputation for achievements in urban 
planning, particularly with regard to public transportation, environmental issues 
and social programs. He was also twice-governor of the State of Paraná and, in 
that capacity, focused attention on economic and social changes in both urban 
and rural settings.
The international prizes he has received include the United Nations 
Environmental Award (1990), the UNICEF Child and Peace Award (1996), 
the World Technology Award for Transportation (2001) and, in 2002, the 
International Union of Architect’s Sir Robert Mathew Award for improvement in 
the quality of human settlements. 
INTERVIEW
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200910 MONOGRAPH
systems: buses, metro, train, taxi, cars, bicycles.  From 
my point of view, we can’t deny entire generations public 
transportation as they wait for an underground line to 
be built, while in less than two years entire above-ground 
transportation networks can be put in place. Each city 
must draw on the best of the systems it has, be they above 
or below ground. In addition the key to mobility is in not 
having multiple systems competing within the same space.
At the same time, it is important to work on the idea of 
“a private vehicle without individual ownership” as, for 
example, in Paris’ Vélib: a form of individual transportation 
that is part of the collective transport system. 
Curitiba’s experience with the ônibus as a public transport 
system began in 1974, when it carried close to 25,000 
passengers per day and traveled in designated lanes. The 
system grew into a complete network that now transports 
more than two million passengers a day and comprises 
different lines in an organized hierarchy. One of the main 
features of the network are the lines that use a pre-paid 
street-level boarding system in specially designed “tube 
stations” achieving the same result as the underground, 
but at a lower cost. 
How do we promote, from an urban planning perspective, 
more sustainable and healthy cities? Could you give us 
an example of how a city can incorporate nature into its 
urban fabric? 
In order to be sustainable, a city needs a design, a growth 
structure that ties together life and work. It must answer 
two basic questions: “To whom is it directed?” and “What 
do the people in the city live off of?” It must promote the 
roles a city is meant to play, together with a mix of income 
levels and ages. The bigger the mix, the more humane—and, 
as a result, the more sustainable—the city will be. That is 
socio-diversity.
It is necessary to fi nd an intelligent way of incorporating 
nature, of dealing with environmental issues. For example, 
many of Curitiba’s parks were conceived as a strategy 
to resolve serious problems associated with the affl uent 
in the city, so the parks were a way of providing people 
with access to nature by not channeling the rivers and 
simultaneously creating open recreational spaces. Other 
parks were built in rundown areas of the city such as 
quarries and abandoned sections: these are the wounds 
that we heal.
I maintain that “cities are not the problem, they are 
the solution.” By that I don’t mean to minimize cities’ 
signifi cant environmental impact, for example on 
greenhouse gas emissions, but rather to stress that one 
of the most important keys to building a more sustainable 
world is in the concept of our cities and in the resolution 
of basic questions such as mobility, sustainability, socio-
diversity, identity and coexistence. 
What should citizen participation in the design of public 
space consist of? 
The city is a collective dream. It is essential to create 
this dream. Without it, the important element of people’s 
involvement in their city would not be possible. Thus, those 
responsible for city planning should design clear settings; 
settings that are appealing to the majority of people, 
capable of motivating the efforts of a whole generation. 
Focus should be placed on project-oriented involvement, 
looking for the appropriate balances of co-responsibility 
that involve civil society, private initiatives and the 
governments, in order to make things happen.
What commitment should political leaders make to 
improving the conditions of city life? And what role 
should architects and urban planners play in that?
I fi rmly believe that any city, regardless of its size, its 
available resources and the number of problems it has, can 
signifi cantly improve in condition within a space of two or 
three years. In order to do so, however, it is necessary to 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 11MONOGRAPH
believe that is possible, given that there are a lot of people 
who put a great deal of energy into trying to prove that 
cities are not viable. And if one expects tragedy, one will 
fi nd it. To my mind, what we have are excuses. The problem 
is not in the size of the city or the lack of resources. If there 
is a good strategy, if there is political commitment and if 
there is a sense of solidarity, any problem in a city can be 
resolved. 
One important key to the successful experiences in 
Curitiba was implementing solutions that didn’t unduly tax 
people, creating equations of co-responsibility, arranging 
things in such a way that the costs of implementing a 
project would be paid over time and that the benefi ts would 
be enjoyed by all. 
There is always room for correction in the planning of a 
city. It would be very pretentious to believe that planning 
can be done only after gaining full control over each 
potential variable. The world is searching for ever-faster 
solutions and it is precisely at the local level where the 
fastest solutions can be offered, with people-focused 
planning.
In my opinion, it is incumbent upon future generation to 
resolve the problems of the future. In contrast, it is up to us 
to deal with the present and forge new paths, guided by the 
goals we are trying to achieve. Architects, as professionals 
who present proposals, cannot excuse themselves from 
that task. 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200912 MONOGRAPH
Xerardo 
Estévez
Former M
ayor of S
antiago d
e Compo
stela 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 13MONOGRAPH
You were mayor of Santiago de Compostela from 1983 
to 1998. What were your priorities in terms of urban 
planning policy? What urban changes were achieved?
Compostela is a medieval city sifted through a fine baroque 
sieve. That was the great transformation that took place in 
the 17th century, thanks to the substantial income generated 
by the Voto de Santiago (a “contribution” paid to the Church). 
Later reforms, in the late 19th century, were limited to tearing 
down walls and colonnades and expanding the city out as 
far as the railway line. This “new city” grew slowly until 
the first General Plan was put in place, with development-
oriented criteria that encouraged speculation as a result of 
demographic growth, the construction boom and the influx of 
money from emigrants in Central Europe.
The democratic elections in Spain in 1979 marked a 
turning point, opening the way for new urban policy, that 
was consolidated in 1982 when Santiago was designated 
the capital of the Galician Autonomous Community. In 
1985 the Law on Spanish Historical Heritage was passed, 
establishing the urban plan as an instrument for the physical, 
environmental, social and economic protection of the city’s 
cultural heritage. At the end of that year UNESCO added 
Santiago de Compostela to its list of World Heritage Sites. 
Taking advantage of the opportunity offered by the 1993 
and 1999 Jubilee years, a specific program was developed 
to bring about changes in the city, but that also focused 
on preservation, restoration and rehabilitation of the city’s 
heritage.
During the course of this, the General Plan underwent a 
revision in 1988. The new plan was based on a simple scheme: 
the city would be developed around a northeast-southeast/
southwest axis dividing it into two parts that would receive 
specific attention: the western part including the core of 
the old city and the university campuses, that would come 
under physical and environmental protection; and the eastern 
facade that would include new housing areas, infrastructures 
and facilities built up around a toll-free roadway running 
parallel to the urban stretch of the highway. The distribution 
of economic and social activities around this central axis, 
allowed for orderly income generation and a curbing of 
speculative activity that had characterized previous urban 
development, and at the same time it fostered private 
projects spurred by the stimulus from public investment. 
In addition to these planning criteria, attention was paid to 
the general traffic and public transport structure, regulating 
traffic flows in order to achieve more efficient and effective 
results. Service activity was decentralized, functions that 
were incompatible with the city’s historical fabric were 
relocated to other areas of the city, and the historical center 
was encircled by a ring of green, like a protective cushion.
The Special Plan, approved in 1997, lays out a detailed 
code for all of the buildings in the city’s historical district, 
addressing questions of structure, composition and 
distribution; categorizes buildings according to their type 
and architectural significance and defines their preferential 
use, placing special emphasis on recuperating their main 
function and their economic and institutional purpose; the 
improvement of residential areas; and the development of 
pedestrian areas.
What were the secrets of the plan’s success?
The keys to its success consisted of: careful planning 
and quality architecture, with commissions to talented 
architects such as Julio Cano, Josef Kleihues, Álvaro Siza, 
INTERVIEW
XERARDO ESTÉVEZ FERNÁNDEZ studied architecture at the 
School of Architecture of Barcelona. In 1972 he began working 
as an architect and urban planner and researching subjects of 
architecture, urban planning and cultural heritage in Santiago de 
Compostela (Spain). In 1983 he was elected Mayor of this city 
and during his successive terms in offi ce, the city underwent 
signifi cant changes on several fronts: urban planning and 
construction; cultural activity; and international recognition of 
the city and of the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage trail.
In 1999 he returned to his work as an architect, devoting time 
to lecturing and writing as well. He is a regular contributor to El 
País journal and a member of the board of the Museo Nacional 
de la Arquitectura y el Urbanismo (Spanish National Museum of 
Architecture and Urban Planning).
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200914 MONOGRAPH
Noguerol and Díez, Piñón and Viaplana, and John Hejduk; 
coordination of the different levels of government through 
one single channel, the City Consortium, that, operating 
through the Rehabilitation Office, played an essential 
role in  preserving the city’s historical heritage; and, the 
involvement of citizens and technical specialists in the 
renovation programs.
Have the significant changes undergone by the real 
estate market in Spain overwhelmed urban planning as a 
social practice? Can urban planning contribute to social 
cohesion? 
The city councils went from being, in the early years of 
democracy in Spain, a sort of Intensive Care Unit, providing 
cities with minimal services and facilities and rushing to 
produce strict planning guidelines, to finding themselves 
caught up, in the 1990s, in a real estate wave with elastic 
plans and an excessive building margin, particularly 
residential construction, that determined the pulse of the 
cities.
The city splintered as it stretched into the outlying areas, 
scattering the population in the process. Today it is harder 
to draw together as a social unit: with the deluge of events 
and images constantly bombarding us, we tend to close 
ourselves off. City policy begins to lose context and urban 
planning ceases to have a vision of the social, technical, 
political and aesthetic whole. But let us not forget that 
good urban planning practices, not only encourage the 
orderly growth of cities, but also generate positive political 
repercussions, specifically, by drawing votes.
Do the urban form and landscape of a city and its 
historic heritage serve as a foundation for cultural 
identity and an educating source?
The city continues to be the best buffer for our conflicts. 
The streets are, perhaps, some of the best breeding 
grounds for social cohesion.
Public space is made up of places that are conducive to 
personal encounters, and infrastructures that encourage 
mobility. This is as true of old quarters, streets, squares, 
parks and boulevards as it is of the arteries that tie it 
together; we must attend to the quality of all of those 
and guarantee their permeability. An appropriate balance 
between the design of gathering space and traffic space, 
together with compatibility among the multiple uses of a 
city so that it can be enjoyed, contribute to creating a sense 
of society and civic consciousness. You could say that good 
urban planning helps to generate a sense of belonging to 
a city, while, in contrast, chaos and barbarity create social 
splintering. 
Do new ways of moving around the city also change the 
way of perceiving it? 
A city that is segregated by the absolute preponderance 
of private vehicles and by disconnected, exclusive and 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 15MONOGRAPH
specialized nuclei does not educate, it is “anti-educating.” 
When we were children the city seemed immense to us 
and the adventure of discovering and mastering it was 
an essential element in our development as individuals. 
Today a child is exposed to a lot of new images from distant 
places, yet isn’t inspired to explore his immediate social 
surroundings. 
The change that needs to happen with regard to mobility 
is now more about how to intelligently and collectively 
use the spaces, facilities and equipment than it is about 
creating infrastructures. The challenge lies in living a city 
to the fullest, using it at a reasonable pace, one in which 
an individual can enjoy his or her surroundings and, at the 
same time, respect the needs of others.
We will always be juggling the balance between the 
individual and collective spheres. The degree to which each 
of these elements is necessary in the urban setting will not 
be dictated by great ideological statements, but rather is 
adjusted every day through the understanding and use of 
public space and through the pact between the individual 
and the community in a balanced plan. 
How can we improve upon the balance between private 
mobility and the use of public transportation systems? 
Are there spaces and times for education in mobility?
In accordance with the usual formulas, as a city becomes 
steadily more congested, measures must be taken to strike 
a balance between pedestrian and vehicular traffic, placing 
a priority on public transportation. Of course there are 
spaces and times for educating people in mobility and in 
order to do so, the city must be well conceived, reducing 
barriers to an absolute minimum. So, growth must be dense 
and continuous.
How do we foster more sustainable, healthier cities from 
an urban planning perspective? 
As I said before, the change will have to be made in how 
the existing city is used; slowing its rhythm, lowering its 
pollution levels, improving its environmental parameters 
in general. In order to allow for permeability between the 
city and its natural surroundings, we must avoid building 
walls that block communication. A city that is in touch with 
its surroundings is in step with how it can best be used 
and enjoyed in different time slots.  For instance, when we 
talk about balancing pedestrian and traffic needs in the 
old quarters of cities, it is no longer about creating more 
pedestrian spaces, but rather about traffic sequencing. This 
sort of policy is easier to carry out in a medium-sized city, 
where the pace is calmer and space/time are easier to keep 
in balance. 
What should citizen participation in the design of public 
space involve? 
In general, the initial idea, the plan and the project come 
from the government—the politicians and technical 
experts—but it is the community who enjoys the results 
or suffers from problems that arise daily in urban spaces. 
Therefore, the development of the idea, the plan and the 
urban project should involve greater citizen implication and 
co-participation and not be limited to simply consultation. 
On the part of politicians, this means providing first-
hand information in advance and dedicating time to the 
participatory process, and on the part of citizens, it means 
taking a more proactive, rather than reactive stance. 
Municipal councils and similar bodies tend to become 
bureaucratic when encouraging participatory action on 
specific issues, thus diminishing the freshness of the 
process and the openness to finding solutions to everyday 
demands. Having a variety of interlocutors is fundamental 
to the participatory process.
What role should architects and urban planners play in 
improving urban living conditions?
Everyone seems to agree that a bout of real estate fever 
that flew in the face of urban planning has now peaked 
and passed. Housing construction and mobility were taken 
out of the context of a larger urban plan. Hopefully, with 
the present crisis, which we have seen coming for a long 
time now, we will enter a cycle in which urban planning 
can recover its identity and we can, once again, talk about 
urban ideas, ways and projects. That is where the architect 
will regain the space to commit himself, not only politically 
as two decades ago, but rather by being able to experiment 
and aid in the creation of sensible cities, to be more of an 
“urbanologist” than an urban planner. 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200916 MONOGRAPH
Antanas 
Mockus
Former M
ayor of B
ogotá
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 17MONOGRAPH
You were mayor of Bogotá on two occasions. What 
were the city’s main priorities in terms of urban 
policy planning? Is public space a wellspring of civic 
education? 
In preparing the government plan in 1994, I was greatly 
infl uenced by Basil Bernstein and his ideas on the sociology 
of education, especially socio-cultural codes. Bernstein 
asserts that the context can have physical spatial markers 
but, at the same time, it is not a barren space, but rather 
is culturally-invested; a person is aware of where he/she 
is and that sets off a repertoire of internal codes. To my 
mind, in a certain sense, the ideal urban planner would 
be someone who, without stating it explicitly, regulates 
behavior. For example, a great well-designed library does 
not need a sign that says: “Quiet, please.”
In the fi rst budget proposal for Citizen Culture, one 
third of the funds were earmarked for changing behavior 
among citizens, one third for changing behavior among 
civil servants and citizens, and another third to make the 
necessary infrastructure adjustments to facilitate code 
changes. It was clear to me that citizen culture and public 
space are complementary concepts. In my opinion, urban 
transformation is determined by cultural change.
At the time, the city was lacking in suffi cient resources. 
In fact, I was very concerned about the condition of the 
curbs and the sidewalks, but the budget for fi xing up public 
spaces was $80-90 million and the total cost for the work 
that needed to be done was $300 million. So what I did was 
ask the cement companies to come up with a do-it-yourself 
fi x-it kit for the curbs (containing a trowel, cement and a bit 
of turf) that could be sold in the supermarkets; in essence, 
it was a very pedagogical initiative. In one neighborhood, 
the residents bought sections of turf and we were able to 
fi x up two blocks; I also fi xed the curb on the City Hall block.
Another pending problem was the potholes in the streets. 
This problem in Bogotá is due in part to the geological 
composition of the land, but is also a result of bad 
management. Fixing the potholes also cost $300 million, 
a disproportional amount in relation to the budget as a 
whole; but what I would like to stress here is that we raised 
people’s awareness about problems. 
When, in relocating 100 families of waste pickers that 
had settled along the train tracks—and trying to keep the 
community intact in doing so—we ran up against enormous 
resistance from the families. Given that experience, in later 
programs we placed our emphasis on matters of human 
safety rather than on group relocations. Whenever we 
could we legalized the irregular settlements. However, if 
they were located in high-risk areas, they were evacuated. 
That is what happened in a neighborhood called Soratama, 
where 12 families were evacuated and their homes torn 
down. It caused a furor on the TV news and people didn’t 
understand why the evacuation had taken place until a year 
later, when that area suffered a landslide that had been 
predicted by geologists.
The sidewalks of Carrera 15 (an avenue in the northeast 
area of the city) were another interesting example of urban 
transformation. The area was very rundown, because of the 
number of parked vehicles on the streets and sidewalks. 
What I found interesting was that the merchants agreed to 
put up the money for fi xing up the area. The construction 
work was accomplished through a collective effort, where 
the biggest challenge was to convince each contributor 
that the rest of the merchants were going to contribute 
as well and that the cost would end up being fairly evenly 
distributed.
How can urban planning foster more sustainable and 
healthy cities? Can you give us an example of how a city 
can incorporate nature into its urban fabric?
ANTANAS MOCKUS SIVICKAS is a mathematician and holds a 
Master’s degree in Philosophy. He was twice mayor of Bogotá 
(Colombia) from 1995 to 1997 and from 2001 to 2003. He served as 
Rector of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia from 1991 to 1993 and 
was Associate Professor and Researcher at the University’s Faculty of 
Sciences. In addition, he was a researcher at the Instituto de Estudios 
Políticos y Relaciones Internacionales (IEPRI); a Robert F. Kennedy 
Visiting Professor at Harvard University’s  David Rockefeller Center 
for Latin American Studies; and Guest Lecturer at Nuffi eld College, 
University of Oxford. He received his Doctor Honoris Causa from 
the University of Paris VIII (2004) and the Universidad Nacional de 
Colombia (2006).
Currently he is Director of the Grupo Federici of the Universidad 
Nacional de Colombia’s Faculty of Sciences, and Chair of the 
Corporación Visionarios por Colombia (Corpovisionarios). His latest 
research has largely been focused on studying coexistence and the 
relationship between law, morals and culture.
INTERVIEW
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200918 MONOGRAPH
One of the toughest disputes in my fi rst term as mayor 
had to do with fi xing up 300 meters of paved area along 
one side of the Bogotá river which one day we will be 
able to afford to clean up. It was very diffi cult because 
not all of the townships on the other side of the river 
were in favor of adopting a similar policy and that meant 
creating an interrupted riverbank park. In my next term 
we took a broader city-region approach to urban planning, 
reaching an agreement with the Cundinamarca provincial 
government and its townships in order to carry out a 
shared plan. 
One day as I was fl ying over the area in a police helicopter, 
I remember watching helplessly as a whole line of trucks 
dumped liquid into the river. After that we opened up a 
canal, cutting off access to the river edge, which was a 
pretty brutal move. Later we tried chain link fences and 
metal barriers, but what actually worked were the bike 
paths, and that is a good example of resolving a public 
space question and an environmental question at the same 
time.
In fact, the bike paths (Ciclovía) are the most important 
health-related accomplishment in Bogotá. Every Sunday 
over 125 km of roadway is closed for 6 or 7 hours in order 
to accommodate over one million cyclists. It is a very 
benefi cial form of physical exercise in terms of preventive 
health. Plus, studies have shown that bike paths promote a 
greater sense of interpersonal trust and solidarity.
What were the keys to the success of the Transmilenio 
public transportation system? What role did it play in 
building a sense of citizenship?  
We created a support service for the Transmilenio that 
provided both security and assistance to the public in 
how to use the system. That service was provided by 
a very mixed group, including young people, policías 
bachilleres1, and also ex-prostitutes and ex-addicts who 
received basic work training experience during 7-8 
months on the service. It is a social inclusion project with 
no stigma attached; these are civic guides who provide 
people with transportation direction. They followed in the 
footsteps of the mimes2 and, although they don’t have the 
aesthetic draw of the former, they enjoy the achievement 
of transmitting the rules and, at the same time, adopting 
them for themselves. The project applies the methods 
of American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg of self-
regulation and peer pressure.
Could you give us an example of citizen participation in 
the design of public space in Bogotá? What are the pros 
and cons of participatory management?
The city government needs the cooperation of its citizens. 
This is expressed in the constitutional principle of co-
responsibility and requires that citizens understand public 
policy.
The last phase of my fi rst government program was called 
Saldo Pedogógico (Pedagogical Results) and its aim was 
precisely to analyze the pedagogical results of all of the 
government’s successes and failures. Then, we created 
a citizen participation program called Obras con Saldo 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 19MONOGRAPH
Pedagógico (Pedagogically-positive Works), under the 
aegis of the Administrative Department for Community 
Action that carried on through 3 legislatures. The projects 
cost $30,000 each. One hundred of them went into effect 
in the fi rst year, and after that the numbers increased 
signifi cantly.
In order to carry out the program, ten young people were 
trained in planning participatory projects; they then were 
in charge of identifying needs in their neighborhoods and 
proposing a series of actions to be taken, such as fi xing 
some stairs in disrepair or a sports fi eld. Then, the ten of 
them were faced with the diffi cult challenge of choosing 
one single project to fi nance. This was a powerful exercise 
in citizenship, because it involved starting with the 
enthusiasm of listing the needs of your own neighborhood 
and then understanding the interests, urgency and 
arguments behind the needs of other neighborhoods. 
They were called “pedagogically-positive works” because 
what was important, above and beyond the physical job 
itself, was the youngsters’ learning experience in doing this 
sort of planning. The young people were selected by the 
Community Action Boards and many of them came from 
illegal neighborhoods and their great battle was to have 
access to public services and legally sort out their situation. 
One of the offshoots of the program is: “For a Better 
Bogotá,” organized by El Tiempo newspaper. This is a 
contest in which many of the fi nalists turn out to be 
youngsters who had participated in the program, which 
shows that it fostered a generation of individuals inclined 
towards participatory planning.
In addition, 10% of tax revenues in Bogotá are distributed 
in a participatory manner through the Board of Local 
Administrators (that is, approximately $70 million in 2003). 
Every 3 or 4 years, the local development plan is drafted 
through a process of citizen meetings. 
The participatory budget has a signifi cant pedagogical 
effect. People learn about the cost of things, they learn 
that a park is not as cheap as it might appear, because 
there is also the maintenance cost to be factored in. Each 
community must set its priorities.
In Ciudad Bolívar, the communities developed basic 
methodologies to evaluate projects on a point system and 
decide on criteria for rating and prioritizing the projects. 
We called a meeting there that was attended by over a 
thousand people, to talk about the proposal—the result 
of a local participatory process—to assign the available 
money to various street improvements. We marked the 
agreed-upon improvements on a map and argued that 
the improvements in question led to a fragmented vision 
of the city’s streets. Given that, we proposed some routes 
that provided more continuity and the people agreed. This 
shows the potential of what we call deliberative democracy, 
that is, when presented with strong arguments, people are 
capable of changing their preferences and controlling their 
more immediate individual interests.
What is the responsibility of political leaders with regard 
to improving conditions of city life? 
If people in the city did not understand a public policy, it 
was my responsibility as mayor to come up with a new 
approach in order to explain it. In that respect, I had almost 
blind faith in the technical experts. I often felt as though 
I had the typical task of a teacher, to re-contextualize, to 
listen to arguments that are valid in a particular context, 
in a certain language, under certain accepted criteria and 
take that to a place where people don’t share that same 
language. Questions such as cost-benefi t, the return on a 
million dollars invested in new transportation concepts, why 
the mayor shouldn’t simply opt instead—out of sympathy—
for an underground line, etc. I tried as hard as I could to 
understand the technical experts and then explain it to 
people in a simplifi ed manner, which isn’t easy. Simplifying 
things opens the door to more detailed dialogue down the 
road.
The governing individual has a hand in assigning 
resources, in the investments, and has the task of executing 
the rules, of carrying them out and seeing that they are 
carried out. Literally, one becomes mayor when he or she 
swears to carry out the constitution and the laws of the 
land and see that they are carried out. Those two duties are 
clear, but the duty of the leader as educating-educator is 
not as clear. The oath should state: “I swear to try to better 
understand my city and do everything in my power to use 
the knowledge that I have gained from the city.” Likewise, I 
would like laws to state: “publish, explain, understand, and 
carry out,” rather than simply, “publish and explain.” Those 
in governing positions should always take a pedagogical 
approach. 
1 The policías bachilleres are trained to do community service-related tasks: 
social, educational, encouraging civic-mindedness, etc.
2 Mimes were put on the city’s streets to order the traffic and see that 
vehicles respected pedestrian crossings.
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200920 MONOGRAPH
Oriol 
Bohigas
Architect
 and Urba
n Planne
r
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 21MONOGRAPH
Does public space have an educating role? 
A city is an artifi cial artifact of bricks, rooftops, cement, 
pavement, trees, etc., created as a place for people to 
live side by side and interact among themselves. It is an 
absolutely artifi cial artifact that goes against nature and 
supports civilizing attitudes.
When we talk about the city, we refer to all of the 
elements that shape it. Within this complex and highly 
interrelated whole, we have important and specifi c 
infl uence of the urban form that necessarily holds—and 
defi nes—the different social functions. Without an ordering 
space there is neither order of, nor stimulus from, social 
functions. In addition, the different categories of city 
spaces refl ect a political idea of the society. If this political 
idea is based on progress and values such as freedom 
and equality, the concept of public spaces should include 
elements such as legibility, identity and cultural innovation. 
All three are vehicles for coexistence and educating 
instruments. 
Public space and the city’s form must be a place in which 
people can develop. In this regard, public space must be 
quality space for it to be an effective educating space. If it 
is not, its very elements become seriously anti-educating or 
un-educating instruments. One of the most important anti-
educating factors is the lack of adequate maintenance in 
public spaces. If a restored square is constantly fi lled with 
litter, if a hundred trees are dying in a new park and are not 
replaced, if the pavement is crumbling, if monuments are 
covered in graffi ti, everything loses its educating effect and 
it all becomes part of a deteriorating process.
What features must a city have in order to be easily 
“read” and used by all of its citizens?
A readable city is one whose identity is able to be 
understood through its parts. Once you understand how 
a city is, you understand how it works. A city must be 
made more readable by structuring it in understandable 
and evocative spaces and routes, in which information 
and accessibility to the city are coherently conveyed. This 
perception of the urban fabric is very clear in cities where 
you have a dense collection of urban events ordered by 
streets, squares, gardens and monuments. The continuity 
of the public space is what makes a city readable and 
fosters collective life.
ORIOL BOHIGAS has a PhD in Architecture and a Technical Diploma in 
Urban Planning and is a founding partner of MBM Arquitectes. He has 
been Professor of Design Composition at the School of Architecture 
of Barcelona since 1971 and was the Director of the school from 
1977 to 1980. From 1980 to 1984 he was Head of the Department of 
Urban Planning for the City of Barcelona and Deputy Mayor for from 
1991 to 1994. He was awarded the title Doctor Honoris Causa by the 
Technischen Universität Darmstadt in 1992 and by the Universidad 
Menéndez y Pelayo in Santander in 1995. That same year he was named 
Professor Emeritus of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. He has 
been President of the Barcelona Athenaeum since 2003. 
Among the multiple medals and awards he has received are: the Gold 
Medal for Artistic Merit by the City of Barcelona (1986); Medal in Urban 
Studies from the Paris Académie d’Architecture (1988); the Sikkens 
Prize (Rotterdam, 1989); Gold Medal for Architecture from the Supreme 
Council of Architects of Spain (Madrid, 1990); the Creu de Sant Jordi 
awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Government) in 1991; 
Gold Medal from the Col·legi Ofi cial d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (2007) 
and the National Architecture Prize 2006 (2008). He is an Honorary 
Fellow of the Bund Deutsher Architekten, the American Institute of 
Architecture and the Royal Institute of British Architects. 
INTERVIEW
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200922 MONOGRAPH
With urban sprawl, this formal continuity has been 
arrested and public spaces—the spaces that are, in and 
of themselves, the description and content of the city—
have ceased to play a central role and become leftover, 
deformalized spaces. The search for information, access 
to what the city can offer, and the continuity of collective 
life have been interrupted and the urban space no longer 
fulfi lls the aim of the city. In these regards, the city has 
lost its usefulness and, above all, has lost its capacity to 
educate. 
Legibility and continuity must be maintained, and 
simultaneously, if possible, in any urban environment. 
We cannot deny the need for certain specifi c automobile 
routes or areas set aside for pedestrians. But, in general, 
we needn’t go overboard with this sort of traffi c zoning. 
A city, to really be a city—according to those principles 
of information, accessibility and the methodology of 
coincidence—must be a confl ictive environment, confl ictive 
in an orderly way. A city is made up of confl ictive or 
coincidental encounters, because if it is confl ict-free, 
it isn’t a city, it is a museum. The public administration 
and civil society itself have done what they can to keep 
confl icts as painless as possible, but they cannot be 
eliminated. Zoning is not just an error in terms of 
barriers created by controlling transit fl ow, but also 
in terms of any kind of control of particular functions. 
The city cannot be subdivided into functions, but rather 
into multi-functional neighborhoods where numerous 
elements are addressed and resolved, from schools to 
shopping, from leisure and sports facilities to health 
facilities, and from adequate contact with other areas of 
the city and city services to an internal solution to the 
mobility issue.
How can we fight against anti-educating elements in the 
cities such as those we see in the outskirts or ghetto 
neighborhoods? 
By imposing strict authority. First of all, we must 
promote the idea of public spaces being of equal quality 
throughout the city in terms of their capacity to be 
spaces of coexistence among different people. People 
must be encouraged to use the city, and we must provide 
the necessary instruments for that to happen, namely 
political and economic authority. Secondly, we must use 
propaganda.
In addition, we must link the outskirts to the downtown 
area, that is, establish a residential and commercial 
continuity to the extent possible. That is the only way 
that people living in the outskirts will manage to reap the 
benefi ts of city life. In order to be useful and educating, 
a city must refl ect a continuity in which the inescapable 
principles of equality are imposed. 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 23MONOGRAPH
Does urban design define certain uses of public space? 
As the Valencian writer Joan Fuster said, education always 
requires a certain degree of repression, a certain limit 
to individual freedom and an acceptance of recognized 
values. Likewise, public space classifi es, it must repress 
and prohibit certain behavior but, ideally, that would not 
be through a posted sign or a fi ne, but rather through the 
very form and structure of the space that encourages 
appropriate behavior. For example, no-parking areas should 
be situated in such a way that without even noticing it, you 
can’t park there. The very space itself should defi ne and 
limit its uses.
A city’s form, its public spaces, its historical and 
architectural heritage are the foundations of its identity. 
How do we encourage identification with the city?  
The city is—and must be—a place for individual 
independence and autonomy, a receptacle for all kinds of 
differences. But in order to support these differences, the 
city must offer certain degrees of identity. An individual 
must understand the importance, not only of the city, but 
of his/her neighborhood and city surroundings, in order to 
exercise responsible citizenship.
The fi rst group or place with which one identifi es is, 
obviously, the neighborhood. For example a city like 
Barcelona, in terms of size and features, must, fi rst and 
foremost, be understandable in terms of its specifi c 
neighborhoods. Without renouncing the unity of the 
city, it ends up taking on meaning as a sum total of 
neighborhoods, infl uenced by other larger identifying 
spatial confi gurations. The stages of this progression are 
quite clear: neighborhood, district, city and metropolitan 
area.
We must be able to describe a neighborhood by recalling a 
square, a monument, corners where people tend to gather, 
certain facades, a particular tree, a fountain. That is, with 
some characteristic image of that particular urban space. 
And that image will have had a great deal to do with the 
structuring and restructuring of the social elements and 
the ambience of the area as a whole.
But ties to the neighborhood or the street are not 
enough. People who live in a city must be aware of the 
metropolitan area as a whole, and take advantage of it. A 
neighborhood is not a village, it is part of a city, and a city 
like Barcelona is part of a metropolitan area. Being from 
Barcelona means consciously belonging to this metropolis, 
whether you live downtown or you sleep or work in the 
outskirts.
When we talk about the metropolitan area, we are 
referring to two very different areas: there is that which 
is linked by communication systems that ties it together 
into one economic and social unit; and there is the other, 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200924 MONOGRAPH
which is a physical unit, where you move from city to city, 
from street to street, without even noticing. Each must be 
dealt with in a very different manner. In the latter case, 
we must make sure that the physical identity is real, not 
just a tacked-on suburb, that it is an extension of the city’s 
design.
How can we maintain a city’s identity and, at the same 
time, promote cultural innovation within it?
Public space must not only fulfi ll certain social and physical 
conditions, but it must also fulfi ll a cultural role, it must be 
a well-designed space. Well-designed means many things: 
it must take into account group psychology and group 
behavior, but it must also be aesthetically innovative.
Art, and culture in general, is about innovation. All 
artistic and cultural movements begin as a revolt against 
established norms until the point is reached where, through 
a variety of circumstances, it becomes a consolidated 
movement. Without innovation and creativity, the fl ow of 
progressive development stops.
One of the most essentially educating things that 
can be done is to promote and support the aesthetic 
revolution in urban spaces. But that is a diffi cult thing to 
accomplish, because the outcome can alter the positive 
reading of the space for most of the people who use 
it—who are accustomed to the established languages that 
the “revolution” is precisely trying to overthrow—and, 
as a result, defer or negate references of identity. If we 
consider legibility and identity to be basic features of the 
urban form, there is no question about the diffi culties 
that arise regarding aesthetic innovation in urban spaces. 
There are no clear rules to follow but, in short, we could 
say that there are three things to take into consideration: 
the need for a didactic presentation of the project; specifi c 
attention to the different surroundings that infl uence the 
formal choices; and selective use of works of art that have 
a signifi cance within the context. 
What should citizen participation consist of in these 
urban transformation projects? 
Participation is basic to the city’s new project, but we 
must clearly defi ne what citizen participation means. 
Participation in the programs is one thing, and another is 
participation in the form, which must be clarifi ed. However, 
if we are talking about accepting the innovation, it is absurd 
to give citizens the reins in cultural decisions, particularly 
aesthetic decisions.
It is important to predispose people to the idea of 
innovation, to artistic quality, by providing the pertinent 
explanations and, to a certain extent, teaching them what 
this innovation means and how it relates to modern culture 
and, therefore, to contemporary society. 
Aesthetic innovation runs against the grain of certain 
tastes and preferences. It can have a place in social and 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 25MONOGRAPH
functional programs, but it is necessary for individuals to 
support those changes that, in the long run, will make them 
alter their tastes and preferences. True participation in this 
area is citizen involvement in previous cultural colloquiums; 
we are talking about a pedagogical process, an educating 
effort. 
These sorts of pedagogic dialogues have been tried out 
in Barcelona, either directly or indirectly, and with varying 
results. One example is the Plaça de la Palmera (Palm Tree 
Square) planned by American sculptor, Richard Serra. It was 
not easy to convince the inhabitants of a neighborhood in 
the outskirts of the city of the sculptural signifi cance of the 
two curved walls. But as the work on the square proceeded 
and dialogue progressed, the sculpture gradually found 
its place there. We should note that positive acceptance 
of aesthetically innovative works in Barcelona has almost 
always depended upon the functional and social effi ciency 
of the larger urban plan of which they are a part. 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200926 MONOGRAPH
Closed Develo
pments 
and the Perpe
tuation 
of the Dual Ci
ty
Josep Centell
es i Portella
Civil Planning 
Engineer, Cons
ultant on Urba
n Strategies a
nd Local Gove
rnance 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 27MONOGRAPH
A Glossary as Introduction
Urban Planning
We understand urban planning to be the techniques and 
practices put into effect to design and manage a city’s 
physical form. Streets, squares, parks, facilities, etc., take 
on the physical form that we choose to give them in order 
to serve the people of the city. 
Urban Planning is Culture
A constructed city (streets, squares, buildings, etc.) is 
a cultural product. Each urban form—be it functional or 
not—serves to organize spaces in a satisfactory manner: for 
living, working, relaxing and interacting with others, that 
people inhabit in a given historical and social context. But 
while the urban form is the result of a cultural process of 
adaptation to the surroundings, it also has a clear effect on 
how the cultural practices within it evolve. The physical city 
quickly turns into a symbolic construction and, thus, into 
an important part of the cultural identity of the people who 
use it.
If we understand “education” to mean the impartment of 
cultural forms, the re-creation of those forms in the people 
who “are educated,” we must look at how the constructed 
city educates us, prepares us, and leads us to behave 
in certain ways. It is always up to the social entity that 
generates those ways of behaving to judge whether they 
are acceptable or not, and this judgment is made based on 
the ethical criteria adopted as desirable. 
Urban Planning is Local Policy
No political ideology would dispute that urban planning is, 
essentially, a subject of public interest. Constructing a city 
is, by defi nition, a public activity that should be under the 
government’s control. To the extent that the circumstances 
of each town or city are different, it is the local government 
that has the most authority/responsibility in questions of 
urban planning. The City Government.
In the Western world it is widely accepted, and legislated, 
that there are three clearly interdependent facets to 
governments’ handling of urban development: planning, 
management and supervision.
Urban Planning
Urban planning is, without a doubt, the most political of 
these facets. It is about projecting ahead to the urban form 
of the city of the future; about being capable of imagining 
future scenarios that fi t with plans for shaping and using 
urban space that both resolve current problems and are 
adaptable to predicted future needs. 
Traditionally, urban planning has taken a comprehensive 
approach to cities. In relatively stable cities and in slow 
economies (according to present standards) projecting 
the needs for physical spaces in which to live, work, move 
around, interact and enjoy oneself, was a fairly easy task. 
Nevertheless, given the rapid and unexpected changes that 
are taking place today, the social and economic turmoil, 
and the increasing interdependence among the various  
players in the urban planning process (in the public sector, 
on different levels; private, for-profi t or not, of varying 
sizes; local or global, etc.), the smart thing to do—where 
the local government is capable of doing so—is to put 
shared strategic planning into practice and, from time to 
time give it expression in the form of a City Pact. From this 
perspective, the tailored urban form must be bound by the 
needs of the agreed-upon urban strategy. 
The different kinds of urban plans (directives, general, 
master, structural, etc., and their derivatives: partial, local, 
special and detailed), prove useful when they include land 
use regulation adapted to the agreed-upon development 
strategies. In other words they are useful if they provide 
rules of the game, a tool, that adequately resolves the 
confl ict between property rights (private) and the general 
needs of the urban community.
This article looks at how some urban forms, specifi cally “closed- 
developments”, do not prepare (educate) future governing elites to 
move beyond current forms of social segregation. The dual city is not 
just about the formal vs. the informal; there is another duality which is 
“segregation from above,” a product of the combination of closed urban 
development and the private automobile, which greatly affects the 
city’s governance.
ARTICLE
Urban planning is very much a part of governance, 
that is to say, it is an essentially political activity 
and, to a certain extent, hardly technical.
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200928 MONOGRAPH
Urban Management 
Urban management falls much more in the hands of 
technical experts in the local governments.  It is primarily in 
the hands of the urban planners. It involves administrating 
fl exibility and, above all, being proactive with regard to 
the agreed-upon strategy, attracting players, activities, 
investments, etc. to carry out specifi c urban projects. The 
tactical aspect of urban planning involves managing public 
land resources and the relationship among the necessary 
players (fi nancial backers or investors, owners, users, etc.). 
It is important to keep in mind that a good strategy is 
required in order to win a battle, but strategy alone is not 
suffi cient, tactics are what make the strategy effective.
Urban Policing
Supervision, or urban policing, is the third facet in the 
group. This is a non-negotiable element, normally in the 
hands of local governments and the law. While all laws and 
agreements must be adhered to, the laws and agreements 
regarding urban planning—that generate so many profi ts 
and redistribute or focus so much wealth, that involve so 
much human potential—must be even more scrupulously 
adhered to.
Urban Planning and Local Government
As mentioned earlier, it is normal in the Western world 
for local governments to have a broad hand in urban 
planning. In practice, our cities’ urban form, in spite 
of being highly subject to specifi c national laws and 
(constructive) customs, is basically the result of actions, 
or the lack thereof, by different local coalitions that have 
access to the City Government, or that control it. So, from 
an urban planning perspective, the following is expected 
of local governments: a) good strategic capability, b) agile 
and skillful management capability, and c) a great deal of 
authority and coercive capability. There is no question that 
these standards are not met by weak or little-respected 
municipal governments.
The Government and the Elite
One could argue that all human communities are governed 
by reliable and faithful representatives of their population. 
Directly or indirectly, it is the elite who govern, who decide 
on public matters. Removing the ideological connotations 
from the term, we see that etymologically, the word derives 
from eligere, “something selected.” Chosen by whom? It 
doesn’t matter if it is by God, by the minority of literate 
property owners or by the people, through universal 
suffrage. Seen from another angle, it is quite logical that 
the elite govern. Certainly nobody would expect the most 
ignorant or least powerful group to take decisions affecting 
the community as a whole. 
While there is no reason for people to throw up their 
hands in horror at the idea that we are generally governed 
by the elite, we must recognize that the elite come in many 
stripes. Historically, most of the elite are conservatives. It is 
understandable that if they hold power or have privileges, 
they will do everything they can to “conserve” them. But 
history teaches us that often innovative elite individuals 
emerge, progressive types who favor change and who take 
the risk of trying out formulas that lead to new and better 
social balances. 
The political behavior of the governing elite depends a 
great deal on their education as a social group.
In accepting that more often than not we are governed by 
the elite segment of our society, it is ironic that we devote 
a great deal of time studying the excluded minorities, 
the poor, the illiterate, the marginalized groups. There is 
nothing wrong with that, but why don’t we take a look at 
our elite and the values that have been instilled in them, in 
order to better understand what is taking place and foresee 
how our governments will act? 
Thus far, we have a brief sketch of how we defi ne 
urban planning, elite and government. It quickly appears 
evident that urban planning has a signifi cant impact 
on, and implication in citizens’ education with regard to 
coexistence, cohesion and social justice. In the following 
section of this article we will look at how certain urban 
forms—which we call “closed urban development” 
(increasingly common among the more privileged social 
groups in large Latin American cities)—mentally shape 
(educate) the governing elite to maintain and perpetuate 
the dual, splintered and unjust city that we all too often 
must put up with.
Urban management falls under the management 
area of government activity. Technical capabilities are 
essential in carrying out political directives.
Supervision or urban policing falls squarely in the 
bureaucratic realm of governmental activity, where 
law and order are uncompromising and where there 
should be no margin for either interpretation or 
negotiation.
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 29MONOGRAPH
The Educating Impact of “Closed 
Urban Development” and 
the Urban Elite1
Some Iniquities of Urban Planning
A constructed city does not always turn out as it was 
planned or conceived in the mind of the planner or the 
government who commissioned that individual. Often, 
the true form and function slips out of the control of the 
planners and governing bodies. 
Dual Cities
Unfortunately, all too often cities are built without any 
planning in mind, thus spawning shanty towns, bidonvilles, 
favelas, etc. totally outside the law, in terms of both 
possession and use of the land. This is the informal city. 
There exists a dual city: part formal, part informal. Two 
worlds: those who own property or have a rental lease 
and those who don’t. Those who have minimal urban 
infrastructures and those who have none or close to none.
Many pages have been written, and studies done, on 
the informal marginalized and marginalizing city, but 
infrequently do we see effi cient government action taken 
on the problem. In fact these fragments of cities emerge 
from chaos or the equivalent thereof: governments’ 
inability to prevent them, not so much through urban 
planning as through more redistributive overall urban 
policies. Shanty towns are not just a mere urban planning 
problem, they are an all-embracing political problem: 
regarding respectable work, education, infrastructures, 
culture, social imbalance and a torn social fabric, criminal 
business operations, etc. 
Shanty towns appear and persist because the cultural 
framework of the dominant elite classes tolerates, accepts, 
and to a large extent, justifi es their existence. Even when 
not consciously desired, having underemployment and 
unemployment in the immediate vicinity, offers clear 
immediate benefi ts of readily available cheap labor for 
many things. But this also inexorably leads to citizen 
insecurity that is at the root of a great majority of problems 
of poor city functioning, not as a cause of such, but rather 
as a result of other causes. That is why police action does 
not provide a solution to citizen insecurity.
The division into formal and informal is not the only 
split in the city. There is also segregation from above, the 
separation of more privileged groups from the rest of 
the city. This segregation is very marked in what we call 
“closed-urban development.”
Closed Urban Development
There are iniquities within formal urban planning—largely in 
reaction to insecurity—that, instead of providing a solution 
to the problem, establish the cultural rules (education) for 
perpetuating and reproducing it. That happens with “closed 
urban development,” the sort that hinges on the closed 
residential condominium, the restricted-access shopping 
mall and the private automobile in which to travel from 
one to the other. It is the antithesis to interaction and 
exchange and to creating opportunities for cooperation, 
the antithesis to diversity, in sum, the antithesis to the 
concept of city. 
Private Condominiums
The idea here is not to demonize shopping centers or 
closed residential condominiums per se. There are positive 
sides to both of these options. Nobody will argue with 
the need for security provisions for a 20-story residential 
building. Likewise, it is reasonable to have limited-access 
community spaces for the families that live in that building. 
The problem arises—as is the case with air pollution—when 
that goes beyond certain limits and becomes generalized. A 
dozen vehicles do not pollute the city, but many thousands 
of cars do, and seriously so! Some closed condominiums 
are, in and of themselves, innocuous; they are part of 
the enriching diversity of urban forms and a refl ection of 
a city’s diversity. It is only when the model becomes so 
pervasive as to become “unavoidable” for certain social 
groups that it turns terribly perverse. What is worrisome is 
the proliferation of this model of residence to the point of 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200930 MONOGRAPH
fi nding ourselves surrounded by nothing but high walls and 
electric fences. 
Shopping Malls
Likewise, there is nothing inherently wrong with shopping 
malls. Quite to the contrary, all cities have and need 
shopping areas and markets. The effects on bordering 
areas (external factors such as an increase in land prices, 
tension or specialization in land use, etc.) are, in most cases 
positive and add a certain diversifying element to the city. 
The problem is when they become obtusely restrictive. A 
mall that is open to its urban surroundings—even where 
certain clear limits are in place, including the possibility of 
closing accesses—generates richness and diversity, while 
the restricted-access shopping centers breed exclusivity. 
Security, cleanliness and maintenance and comfortable 
temperatures—features that make shopping centers so 
appealing—can be achieved, and are achieved in lots of 
cases, through open, accessible models that generate 
positive repercussions outside the actual mall itself.
The trend of closed shopping areas, shielded by 
impenetrable walls, is not as much about security, 
cleanliness and temperature control as it is an economic 
question: assuring that the shopping mall gets every last 
possible cent and seeing to it that nobody in the vicinity 
can profi t in any way from the mall’s investment. Whoever 
wants to sell anything must rent a space inside the shopping 
center. Its surroundings are deserted. This is the antithesis 
to the agglomeration economies that are the economic 
foundation of a city. Once again, we are looking at the 
antithesis of the true essence of a city. 
Private Vehicles
The third element making these closed and segregated 
city models operative, is the private car. The automobile 
boom has disrupted city life. In Europe, with “saturated”2 
driving levels, and in spite of the fact that a private vehicle 
continues to be a symbol of social prestige, this has not 
had the same radical effect as it has in Latin America, of 
dividing the city into those who own a car and those who 
don’t.3 Nevertheless, there are many cities in Latin America 
where closed urban development is growing at an alarming 
pace and the gap between those own a car and those who 
do not is ever widening. The problem is not so much about 
the automobile, in and of itself, but rather about the city 
model that is progressively taking hold. There are many 
large cities in Latin America in which 10-20% of families 
depend on a car for their sole means of transportation. 
The Motorized Elite?
The motorized segment of the population4 enjoys a higher 
status and greater urban opportunities than the rest of 
the city’s citizens, but they, too, are victims of the very 
model they promote, experiencing the steady splintering 
of the city space and living in a segregated city with the 
resulting lack of diversity and opportunities for interaction. 
Depending so heavily upon a car greatly limits spontaneous 
encounters among people; for the most part, these become 
programmed events, which means closing oneself within 
one’s own social group and only having contact with “social 
peers.”5 Once again, this represents the antithesis to a city, 
this time in terms of social relationships. 
Taken as a whole, it is one of the more aggressive liberal 
capitalist trends that, rather than serving the people 
in general, serves only the “solvent” among them. The 
commercial strategies of the large companies and/or 
investors think of the car-owning population as a solvent 
target group and are not interested in the rest. Do our local 
governments play into this strategy?
The Impoverishment of Public Space
Inevitably, the rest of the city, what is not inside shopping 
malls, condominiums, schools, formal work spaces and 
paid recreation spaces, ends up abandoned. Instead of 
being public spaces for interaction and exchange, streets 
and squares gradually turn into dirty, poorly-lit, dangerous 
and disagreeable leftover spaces. The city is turned inside 
out like a sock. The streets, once the soul of city life, have 
lost their sheen and only those in the “minimum salary 
category” wander them now. 
The great majority of municipal decision-makers, elected 
politicians and technical teams in the local administration, 
etc. belong to the “motorized elite.” Quite naturally and 
comfortably, they observe the city from their vehicles. 
They see the city “inside out” and they don’t very much 
like what they see, which is why, in their political discourse 
they say, with all good intentions, that they are going to 
change it. But in fact, they are probably victims of their 
own paradigm. The truth is, living in a dual city, at the end 
of the day the little money remaining in the city budget is 
applied to faster arteries for automobiles and for defensive 
security (that obsession with video surveillance). Nothing, 
almost nothing, is left over for the normal city. 
How Do We Educate the Urban Elite?
We are always concerned about the educational defi cits 
of the broad marginalized or excluded segments of the 
population. As I mentioned, that is a healthy and necessary 
concern, but it may also be useful to look at the educational 
defi cits of the urban elite, particularly of their children who 
will be the ones governing in the future.
The question is: what educational impact does closed 
urban development have on the thinking of adolescents of 
this motorized elite? Let’s put ourselves in the place of one 
of these youngsters in the midst of puberty or already in 
early adolescence.
He, or she, plays in the pool, or if the condo is especially 
large, in its walled-in streets and little squares. He has a 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 31MONOGRAPH
small, closed group of friends of the same age. Whenever 
he leaves the condominium it is in a car, in the company of 
an adult, or in school transportation. He sees few “normal” 
city streets because the car routes used are generally ring 
roads and highways. He is used to check points, either to 
enter a shopping mall or to pass the security gate when 
visiting family friends. That is all a part of normal life. The 
city is not a continuum, but rather a series of protected 
spaces in which his life unfolds. The city is an archipelago 
where a car is used to travel from island to island. He 
knows that another city exists out there, the one he sees 
on television or glimpses through the windows of the 
locked car he rides in with his daddy. It is alien territory 
where different people live and move about, generally poor 
people, but often dangerous, as well. He is used to the 
annoyance of those guys at intersections who always want 
to wash the windshield. You have to give them something 
because they’re poor, but you have to be careful because 
they’ll rob you if they can. He is used to giving loose change 
to the guys who watch your parked car while you’re at a 
restaurant. And so on.
This dual city is part of this youngster’s normal life. He/
she was raised in it and is prepared (educated) to live in it.
It is this motorized elite, brought up in this “normal” 
environment, who will be the people governing the city in 
the future. They are fully prepared to live, and carry on 
their lives, behind high walls and electric fences. They are 
fully educated to function in a dual city. Human beings are 
malleable, they can adapt to anything, even concentration 
camps. With consequences, of course!
Everything in a city educates. Nothing that happens in a 
city is neutral, educationally-speaking. That is how a city 
of closed urban development educates the children of the 
broad minorities (easily reaching 10% in large cities) who 
will, without a doubt, govern the city in the future.
That being the case, we might ask ourselves, given this 
educating backdrop, whether there is a real chance that 
this urban duality could change. Is there a possibility of 
a city with something like equal opportunities? Are there 
possibilities of breaking this nasty segregationist spiral 
when it is considered normal in the minds of those who will 
be making the public decisions?
We should give thought and attention to how the children 
of our urban elite are educated. They will be holding the 
reins of government in the future.  
1 L  The following ideas, while applicable to many cities in the Western world, 
are particularly so to Latin American cities. This author will not attempt to 
voice an opinion on cities with which he is not sufficiently familiar
2 The indices of car ownership in Europe tend to be well above 500 vehicles 
per 1,000 inhabitants which translates into as many, or more, private vehicles 
as individuals with drivers licenses. Hence, the term vehicle “saturation.” The 
average number of car owners in Latin America ranges between 100 and 150 
per 1,000 inhabitants; needless to say, these numbers vary, not only among 
different countries, but also between large urban areas and lower-income 
regions.
3 Without a doubt, urban public transportation policies vary radically from 
one side of the Atlantic to the other. 
4 It would not be accurate to speak of the “motorized social class” since 
there are car owners of every stripe and category. I will loosely use the term 
“motorized elite” to refer to the social segment of the population that own 
private vehicles. 
5 A concept of the city that, the famous concentric rings notwithstanding, 
reminds us of the unfortunate “urban ecology” model developed by Park & 
Burgess in Chicago in the 1920s.
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200932 MONOGRAPH
Updating Plan
ning and 
Management 
Tools: New 
Government P
olicies. The C
ity 
of Rosario’s E
xperience
Mirta Levin
Architect, Sec
retary of Plan
ning for the Ci
ty of Rosario
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 33MONOGRAPH
CITY EXPERIENCE
Urban Plan, Strategic Plan and Municipal 
Decentralization and Modernization 
Program
The history of urban development in Rosario has been 
shaped by successive urban plans leading to a series 
of specifi c changes that, over the course of time, have 
sparked intense studies and debate with regard to the 
urban question. 
In the 1990s, a period of relative stability set in that 
opened the way for signifi cant private, and especially, 
public investments to be made in the Rosario Metropolitan 
Area. That was the start of a coordinated and positive 
relationship between urban planning activity and the local 
administration.
The development of new highly participatory and 
local urban techniques and programs led to a sort of 
“institutional technology,” that could be defi ned as a 
planning system involving different types of instruments 
and the interaction and interrelation among them. This 
planning system, able to incorporate strategic goals, 
sectorial policies and concrete urban projects, then 
became a platform for governing and decision-making for 
the joint transformation of the city.
Currently, the 2007-2017 Urban Plan—understood to be a 
strategy for physical change in coordination with the city’s 
overall development—comprises major structural projects 
that serve as a guideline for a series of smaller-scale urban 
projects in selected areas. In addition, it becomes a vehicle 
for the initiation of programs and concrete actions related 
to housing, services and facilities, roadways and public 
transportation, special uses and green space.
These structural projects have the vital potential to 
recover the city administration’s key role regarding both 
physical and regulatory actions on an urban or territorial 
scale, and the management of those efforts, thus 
investing the local authority with true and real autonomy. 
The described contents encompass the “general plan,” 
while the urban plans that shape concrete changes in a 
given part of the city comprise the “special plans,” that 
can inclusively link specifi c spatial and architectural 
specifi cations with the city administration’s social and 
cultural policies and programs.
The tie between urban planning and government is 
established through the development of a large collective 
project known today as the Rosario Metropolitan Strategic 
Plan (PERM+10), in which main objectives and lines of 
action are defi ned within the framework of a coordinated 
effort involving the public administration and private 
social and economic sectors. In a broad sense, putting this 
instrument into effect should be understood as a “citizen 
contract” with special focus on developing forms of public 
cooperation among the different levels and jurisdictions 
(State – Province – Municipality and the relationship among 
townships in the Metropolitan Area) and between the 
public and private sector, through the establishment and 
management of joint programs. 
The Rosario (Argentina) government’s Municipal Decentralization and 
Modernization Program, in operation since 1995, entails generating 
a new and more effi cient form of governing, closing the gap between 
community problems and the administration. It is a participatory 
management tool that gives citizens access to solutions and includes 
them in the process of urban transformation. 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200934 MONOGRAPH
The 2007-2017 Urban Plan for the City of Rosario, is the 
counterpart, in terms of the city’s physical structure, of 
the Strategic Plan’s underlying objectives and guidelines. 
The technical/institutional relationship between the Urban 
Plan and the Strategic Plan is a dialectical and dynamic 
one, feeding into and from the proposals and projects 
comprising the city’s new spatial strategy.
The “District Plans,” positioned between the overall 
General Plan and specifi c plans or special projects are an 
intermediate working instrument of the Urban Plan. These 
plans set out the basic guidelines and list of priority works 
to be carried out in different areas of the city in keeping 
with the spatial organization specifi ed by the Municipal 
Decentralization and Modernization Program.
This municipal program, in operation since 1995, entails 
generating a new and more effi cient form of governing, 
closing the gap between community problems and the 
administration; it is a participatory management tool that 
offers citizens access to solutions and, in addition, includes 
them in the process of urban transformation. 
Decentralization acts as a reorganization policy, both 
administratively-speaking and in terms of municipal duties 
and services, and operates through centers located in each 
of six districts, throughout the city. 
The aim of this “new institutional technology,” presenting 
itself as a participatory urban management network, is 
to offer an urban management model that encourages 
citizen participation and introduces new mechanisms for 
administrative control and more open decision-making 
processes, in an effort to construct a sustainable and 
balanced “collective city project.”
Planning and Citizen Participation
Within the framework of the Municipal Decentralization 
and Modernization program, urban planning and 
strategy is put to the test in each district in the citizen 
participation processes tied in with the Participatory 
Budget.
The District Plan is a technical/urban planning instrument 
of vital importance in legitimizing the concept of 
participation in government decisions. This is because it 
is the instrument that has most direct contact with the 
territory itself and with people’s demands, making clear 
the need for consensus in decision making with regard 
to the city’s physical transformation. The District Plan is 
the instrument that—in keeping with the guidelines of the 
General Plan regarding the city’s structure and how land 
is classifi ed for development—specifi es what a particular 
transformation plan will consist of in a given district of the 
city. It is faced with the challenge of coordinating and tying 
in the strategic perspective established in the Urban Plan, 
with the specifi c and detailed perspective added by the 
Urban Development Areas in their day-to-day work with 
the Participatory Budget Councils, social organizations, 
representatives of different political organizations, and 
citizens in general, and, in addition, serves as a support to 
the Strategic Plan by constructing a consensus base in the 
territory in question.
Today we can see proof in our city of more mature 
planning in terms of coordination between the strategic 
vision for the city and metropolitan area, and local 
demands; and in coordination at all decision-making 
levels, both within the city government and with citizens 
and actors from political and cultural spheres and from 
the city’s intermediary organizations. The inclusion of 
the population in the design and management process 
has been an important element, going beyond mere 
opinion—and verbal consultation—based participation to 
creating actively committed work spaces. In this regard, the 
Commission on Public Spaces in the Southeast District and 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 35MONOGRAPH
the work with La Ciudad de los Niños (The City of Children) 
have been particularly important.
Public Space-Related Policy in the City of 
Rosario
Through the above-described policies and instruments, the 
action taken with regard to the construction of public space 
in the City of Rosario represents one of the most important 
means of promoting urban transformation.
Though the city has an active planning history dating 
back to the mid-1900s, more attention was paid to the 
subject of public space after 19931. As a result of the land 
management process which unfolded in the country with 
the privatization of the railroads, leading cities reclaimed 
the national government land no longer used by the 
railroads, for use in creating public spaces. Since then 
the land-management question has been a strong and 
constant focus of attention together with the planning 
of new areas of urban development and the respective 
projects for each one. One of the most important results 
of this process has been opening the city to the river by 
creating a new urban front, made possible thanks to a 
diffi cult, yet wise, decision made in the 1960s: moving 
the port from the north end to the south end of the city. 
The task is not complete; there is valuable land situated 
outside the riverfront which has yet to be incorporated in 
the project.
Listing and Quantifi cation of Existing Public 
Spaces2
The city of Rosario covers a total surface area of 178.69 
km2, of which 117 km2 is developed. The city is organized in 
a checkerboard of 6,306 blocks and 16,657 street blocks, 
85% of which are paved. Green spaces occupy 9,370,000 
m2 (9.37 km2), or 5.3% of the total land area; of this, 
7,500,000 m2 are City-maintained spaces. It is estimated 
that, at present, the urban green space represents 
approximately 10.4 m2 per inhabitant, unevenly distributed 
among the different districts, with greater concentration 
in the Northeast (43 % of the total), Central (21 %) and 
Northern (18 %)  districts and a marked difference with 
respect to the Southern (5 %), Southeastern (6 %) and 
Western (7%) districts. These percentages of green areas 
are divided between parks (15%), squares (12%), fl owerbeds 
(4%) and other spaces such as traffi c circles, slopes, 
entrances to the city, etc. (33 %).
These fi gures refl ect the need to incorporate land 
earmarked as green areas, basically in the districts most 
lacking in such spaces, and to increase the amount of 
green space in parks and squares, mainly on a local or 
neighborhood scale. It is also important to make better use 
of these spaces with projects designed to upgrade each of 
these areas and best adapt them for their use. This is not 
about a policy based solely on quantity, but must address 
quality as well.
New Directions for Public Space Planning
The effects of the urban renovation of the riverside project 
are more visible every day through ongoing additions 
to the work that emphasize the clear premises behind 
this action: the reaffi rmation of the essentially public 
purpose of this land through the construction of a series 
of parks, squares and observation points facing the river; 
limiting commercial areas to a minimum; and creating an 
uninterrupted along the river’s edge extending the length 
of 11 of the 17 kilometers comprising the entire riverbank 
area.
The project is indeed important as is its implementation; 
however, we can also add that today the strategy of 
incorporating public spaces is built upon the development 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200936 MONOGRAPH
of projects in an integrated manner, with the aim of 
correcting the above-mentioned defi ciencies.
City decentralization has placed increased emphasis on 
observing and understanding the things that take place 
in cities on different levels, with a clear concern with 
changing the situation in the most needy areas that suffer 
exclusion and general deterioration. With that intention in 
mind, we have come up with some concrete goals towards 
which to redirect this transformation: 
 progressively increase the size of open public spaces 
in cities until exceeding the 12 m2 per inhabitant fi gure 
recommended by the World Health Organization; 
 correct the situation of imbalance among different 
sections of the city by providing districts with new 
recreational areas for their inhabitants;
 remedy situations of deterioration and/or abandonment 
of certain public spaces through upgrading the most 
important public spaces in the neighborhoods; 
 preserve the landscape conditions, particularly those 
directly identifi ed with Rosario’s image, combining 
public spaces with landscape and topographical 
elements; 
 ensure the public use and care of sites with exceptional 
landscape features, by improving accessibility and 
maintenance of the spots with panoramic views and 
controlling the incidence of visual obstructions; 
 develop actions (contact and joint agreements with 
neighboring townships and public and private actors) 
geared towards creating new city parks and a series of 
metropolitan area and regional parks;
 consider the possibility of turning the different non-
harbor sections of the Paraná coastline into park 
districts, park-lined arteries or reserve areas, as best 
seen fi t; making the banks of the Ludueña and Saladillo 
streams and the Ibarlucea and Salvat canals, park 
districts and/or reserves and the entrance roads to the 
city, as park-lined arteries; 
 establish a specifi c set of urban guidelines to protect the 
natural features of the hills in the northern and southern 
areas of the city; 
 and lastly, adopt a criterion for selecting signage, 
lighting and urban furniture elements that, together with 
treatment of the sidewalks and bicycle paths will present 
one single image of the parks, boulevards and entrances 
to the city.
Planning Public Space on Different Scales
The proposed changes for the city will be carried out 
through the implementation of new regulatory instruments 
for urban projects that are coordinated efforts and provide 
a larger context for the development of the most specifi c 
operations. These instruments promote projects on 
different scales: the Rosario Urban Plan, on a general level; 
the Master Plans and District Plans/Participatory Budget, 
on an intermediate level; and the Special Plans and Detailed 
Plans, on a specifi c level.
In addition to the steps taken with public entities to 
acquire land for public spaces, the city has redoubled its 
efforts in this regard, placing a great deal of emphasis on 
public and private developments.
With the development of the Special Plans in strategic 
areas, Urban Development Agreements were signed 
with property owners and/or developers, that set the 
parameters for implementing the plan. If the result 
surpassed the parameters in the area in question, economic 
compensations were established—going beyond the usual 
requirements of the Urban Planning Ordinance—and 
applied to acquiring land or constructing roadways, public 
spaces and/or public housing. In some cases these projects 
are carried out by the urban planner; in other cases the 
resources are deposited in a recently-created fund to 
that effect. Various projects–that make use of sizeable 
land areas for use as public spaces–have been developed 
and approved through applying the Special Plans and/or 
Detailed Plans in cooperation with public entities or private 
actors. 
Conclusion
The City of Rosario—as an educating city, and in 
accordance with the Preamble to the Charter of Educating 
Cities—has its own personality and an active relationship 
with its surroundings, with the other urban centers in 
the country and with cities in other countries. It has 
learned from other experiences through the constant 
exchange and sharing of activities, events and programs 
that are, today, in different stages of development. Along 
with carrying out the traditional functions of a city 
(economic, social, political and service provision) it has 
simultaneously placed emphasis on the tasks of training, 
promotion and development of all of its inhabitants, 
fi rst and foremost children and young people, with the 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 37MONOGRAPH
1 The Public Administration (on October 27, 1993) requested the transfer 
of State-owned land to the Municipality and to public entities, within the 
framework of National Law Nº 24.146 and Reglamentary Decree Nº 776/93 
(establishing that the National Executive Power must place at the disposal 
of, or transfer to, Provinces, Municipalities and Townships those properties 
that are no longer necessary in meeting national needs). 
2 Source: General Directorate of the Municipality of Rosario.
3 In the North and Center of the city there are numerous riverside projects; 
in the Northeastern area, 36% of the surface is taken up by the Bosque de 
los Constituyentes forest area, occupying 270 hectares.
aim of being a city for people of all ages and differing 
capabilities. Lastly, we can state that, without question, 
the city has, in recent years, promoted public policies—
such as decentralization and the creation of public 
spaces—that have played signifi cant roles in the city’s 
development and the improvement of quality of life of its 
inhabitants. 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  NOVIEMBRE 2008 38 MONOGRAPH
Civic-mindedn
ess 
and Mobility
Ole Thorson
Civil Engineer,
 mobility cons
ultant and Pre
sident of the I
nternational 
Federation of 
Pedestrians
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 39MONOGRAPH
A single person may have different views on the use of public space, depending on his/her interests, needs 
in any given moment and sense of public responsibility. 
But a set of minimum demands must be met as regards 
security and the surroundings in order to protect the most 
vulnerable users of public space. A pedestrian who wishes 
to take a stroll has different expectations regarding the 
surroundings than a person walking from his or her offi ce 
to attend a meeting nearby. And if that person decides to 
take the bus, the needs change accordingly (not to mention 
deciding to go by car).
In Denmark, where I am from, people largely choose 
non-motorized means of moving about—particularly in 
urban areas—with walking being the most popular choice. 
In Catalonia and Barcelona, 46% of the population 
moves around by non-motorized means. For the most 
part, urban areas are not designed with this majority in 
mind, particularly in three regards: many sidewalks are 
too narrow to allow two people to cross paths without 
getting in each other’s way; there are numerous obstacles 
on sidewalks, including cars that remain parked there for 
hours on end; and, fi nally, vehicle/pedestrian movement 
at intersections has yet to be resolved in a civic-minded 
fashion. 
Pedestrian Crossings
Painting pedestrian crossings on the road is not an 
adequate safety measure. There are drivers who don’t 
respect the shared space, and run over pedestrians, 
seriously injuring or killing them. And there is an additional 
problem to these crossings which is often overlooked, and 
that is that pedestrians need to follow a fairly straight path, 
which affects where the crossings are located within the 
urban space. 
Some drivers consider the road to be theirs alone, and the 
speed limits optional. They are in a hurry and so everything 
in their path becomes an obstacle. We live in societies that 
reward those who arrive fi rst and that is an attitude we 
must work to change. We must yield the right of way to 
others. 
A city must consider the pedestrian’s needs, fi rst and 
foremost. Every urban project should consider the 
estimated number of pedestrians as well as bus passengers. 
An effective plan cannot be put into place without taking 
those numbers into account. Likewise, I would suggest 
that a street plan begin with the street facade, calculating 
sidewalk space in accordance with the motto, “Think about 
the Pedestrian.”
Priorities
The successive green waves of traffi c lights give drivers a 
sense of open road that can easily translate into a heavy 
foot on the accelerator. At intersections, it is important to 
limit how far in the distance the drivers can see, because if 
they see a very long street ahead it is more diffi cult to keep 
them from speeding along it. 
The design of the city and its public space should not only 
refl ect the considerations of urban planners and specialists 
in traffi c circulation but also include a dialogue among the 
individuals affected, taking into account their responses to 
the visual and visceral stimuli.
Road safety, speed control and a sensitivity to others 
should take priority over the wishes of those moving about 
by motorized means. Every day hundreds of individuals are 
injured in traffi c accidents in cities. Every traffi c-related 
accident causes physical and psychological suffering, and 
we must work together to put an end to those unnecessary 
injuries and death.  
When drawing up a city mobility plan, it is important to consider all of 
the individuals affected, the space they need and the risks they run. 
The risks must be minimized. Users have the right to a danger-free 
space, without excessive noise and with breathable air.  Achieving this 
balance, with the clear idea that road space is not intended for vehicle 
parking, would be the fi rst step in creating more civic-minded city 
mobility. Citizens would feel more comfortable and attended to in this 
shared space.
ARTICLE
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200940 MONOGRAPH
A fi rst step towards heightened civic-mindedness in 
questions of city mobility is to convey the importance of 
calm driving demeanor. Drivers must understand that they 
don’t take priority over others, even on the road and, at the 
same time, speeds should not be permitted to vary among 
drivers sharing the same space. This requires a change in 
mentality. It should be made clear that at intersections, 
bus stops and other crosswalks, pedestrians, bus and tram 
passengers and cyclists take priority over motorcycles, cars 
and other vehicles.
Apart from serving as transport arteries for drivers, 
streets serve three basic purposes:
 To guarantee that pedestrians, cyclists, users of the 
public transport systems (bus, tram, etc.) and vehicle 
drivers and passengers can travel the streets in 
sustainable and safe conditions.
 To guarantee safety at street crossings, particularly for 
pedestrians, and to assure that the crossing distance fall 
within recommended parameters (maximum distance of 
100 meters). 
 To set aside spaces where pedestrians can stop and rest, 
chat with others, enjoy the sun, etc. 
External Factors
Another consideration in city mobility is the role of 
external factors, or collateral effects, on the current 
system in operation. Just moving around consumes 
40% of our society’s total energy expenditure and 
almost that entire percentage is attributable to private 
vehicles and trucks. This energy is converted into 
poisonous emissions (infl uencing climate change 
and causing illnesses), high noise levels and deaths 
and injuries. The two main causes of mobility-related 
deaths are traffi c accidents and inhalation of poisonous 
substances.
The World Health Organization reports that more deaths 
are caused by car emission-related illnesses than by traffi c 
accidents. A society that professes to support civic values 
and human rights should not allow for that to be the 
case. The argument that a healthy economy requires this 
accelerated pace and that those deaths are the price to 
be paid for progress, is simply unacceptable. A driver may 
believe that he has the right to kill himself by speeding but 
in defending that right, he is overlooking the people that 
he could take with him. If we do not begin to place more 
value on life and on people’s future, if we don’t give higher 
priority to the safety of individuals than to the importance 
of time and economic interests, civic-mindedness and 
coexistence will have no place in our society.
We talk more about climate change and possible future 
disaster (and, obviously, those are subjects that need 
addressing) than we do about the disastrous situation we 
are experiencing here and now of the thousands of deaths 
that occur annually as a result of thoughtless and careless 
mobility.
Shared Spaces
Public space (the street) is a scarce commodity. Few city 
arteries have space for wide sidewalks, bus and bike lanes, 
green spaces and pedestrian paths with resting places. 
As a result, on many streets, space must be shared for 
different uses. This is only a feasible, safe and sustainable 
solution if speed limits are put into effect in this space. This 
leads us to the recommendation of adjusting public space 
to primarily meet the needs of individuals rather than 
machines. 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 41MONOGRAPH
The following are minimum requirements for a city based 
on civic-minded mobility:
 Sidewalk space is for pedestrians who have the right of 
way at street crossings.
 Most city streets are considered local, with a maximum 
speed limit of 30 Km/hr. This would mean greater risk 
control for drivers and cyclists and safer pedestrian 
crossings. Civic-minded mobility is achieved by taking 
into account the needs of others using the public space. 
When the situation calls for it, one must slow down and 
yield the right of way. 
 Crossings on the remaining streets, with 50 Km/hr. speed 
limits, require traffi c lights guaranteeing the safety 
of pedestrians and cyclists. The distance between the 
opposite curbs at a crossing should not exceed 100-150 
meters. 
 Parking on the street does not exist as a right. Each 
vehicle owner should have access to a garage both at the 
point of origin and at the destination of the journey.
When drawing up a city mobility plan, it is important to 
consider all of the individuals affected, the space they need 
and the risks they run. The risks must be minimized. Users 
have the right to a danger-free space, without excessive 
noise and with breathable air.  Achieving this balance (with 
the clear idea that road space is not intended for vehicle 
parking) would be the fi rst step in creating more civic-
minded city mobility. Citizens would feel more comfortable 
and attended to in this shared space. 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200942 MONOGRAPH
Bicycles in 
San Sebastian
Odón Elorza
Mayor of San Sebastian
CITY EXPERIENCE
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 43MONOGRAPH
The appearance of bicycles on the streets of San Sebastian did not happen on a mere whim, nor as an 
improvised “quick-fix,” but rather is part of a city model, 
reconsidered for the 21st century in the city’s Documento del 
Plan General de Ordenación Urbana (General Urban Plan), 
approved in 1995. 
Bicycles have long been used in many European cities and 
are a sign of civic culture and a commitment to sustainable 
mobility and respect for the currently threatened 
environment. In San Sebastian we aim to see bicycles used 
habitually, not only as a more humane and ecological means 
of transportation, but also as a healthy leisure activity. 
Following the development of the Pedestrian Plan we saw 
the need, in the year 2000, for another plan to encourage 
bicycle use. Through these two Plans, the local Donostia-San 
Sebastian government has created a network of bidegorris 
(bike-lanes). Nonetheless, the plan had to be rigorous and 
coherent, and any adjustments in the use of public roadways 
required citizen agreements. Thus, the subject had to be 
put forward for clear and participatory public debate that 
included presenting future plans for expanding the network. 
The fact that more than 12,000 people use bicycles on 
a daily basis in San Sebastian is evidence of the need to 
continue encouraging its use. Our city must leave behind 
that time when private cars were kings of the road and 
bicycles were relegated to Sunday rides or bike races. Today 
bicycles have become a means of transportation and, thanks 
to positive citizen response, within less than 10 years we will 
be at the same level of other sustainable cities of Central 
Europe where bicycles play an important role.
Nevertheless, our aim should also be to reduce, through 
this effort, the number of private cars and motorcycles on 
the road and their negative impacts: noise, greenhouse 
gas emissions and non-renewable energy consumption. 
Something would be missing in our efforts to encourage 
bicycle use, if they only served to reduce the number of 
people using public transportation. 
Over the past 8 years we have created bicycle lanes and 
other initiatives to encourage regular bicycle use, and today 
4% of the traffic is bike traffic, but that is not enough. In 
the course of this process controversy has arisen over 
putting bike lanes on certain boulevards and streets in San 
Sebastian and thus eliminating a car lane (for example, 
along the Playa de la Concha beachfront), or eliminating 
parking spaces to make space for bike paths. In other cases, 
the bike lanes go hand in hand with pedestrian areas.
But having learned from past criticism/experience, the 
local Donostia-San Sebastian government wants to continue 
earmarking money in the annual budget to continue 
developing the bicycle Master Plan in order to complete the 
bike-lane network in  downtown San Sebastian and the flat 
neighborhoods of the city and steadily progress towards the 
A large network of bicycle lanes has been created over the 
past 8 years in San Sebastian, Spain, together with various 
city initiatives encouraging regular bicycle use as both 
a more humane and ecological means of transport and a 
healthy leisure activity. 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200944 MONOGRAPH
neighborhoods in the higher areas of town, with the goal of 
reaching a 7% bike-traffic rate in 2009. 
In order to reach this goal we have moved into the 2nd 
phase of the Plan, following a participatory consultation 
process through the Mobility Advisory Council. I would like 
to point out the following aspects of the Plan: 
 Extend the current 27 km. bicycle-lane network to 55 
km. in three years. To do so will cost Ð8.4 million over 
four years. This effort is in keeping with the Donostia-
San Sebastian Government’s commitment to sustainable 
mobility and the battle against climate change.
 Encourage the use of both bicycles and motorized traffic 
on the roads, with unidirectional bike lanes on one side. 
Here I am referring to not heavily-trafficked roadways. 
 Extend the network and its connections to different 
neighborhoods throughout the city.
 Increase the number of bicycle parking places, 
specifically designed for city needs, especially in bus 
or train transfer stations, on the university campus, at 
beaches, cultural and sports venues, the city’s main 
boulevard, etc.
 Carry out campaigns to encourage bicycle use 
throughout the year, including autumn and winter.
 Put into effect a bicycle rental service both for people 
living in, and visiting, the city, with rental sites in strategic 
locations.
 Expand the ID and robbery-prevention system by 
engraving a numeric code on the bicycle frame. We will 
also look into the idea of requiring a small license plate.
 In the neighborhoods located in the higher areas of the 
city, we need to expand bus service that allows for bicycle 
transport, as well as putting elevators in certain key spots 
for easier bicycle accessibility.
There has been recent concern about irresponsible 
behavior on the part of certain cyclists towards pedestrians 
(riding too fast in spaces shared by bike-riders and 
pedestrians, not respecting pedestrian right of way, riding 
on the sidewalk, etc.). We must work to keep that sort 
of behavior from spreading and giving bicycles a bad 
name, and thus have developed a campaign encouraging 
caution and courteous biking habits. That, together with 
the necessary patrolling by the City Police who must fine 
cyclists for irresponsible conduct, particularly putting 
pedestrians at risk by riding on sidewalks.
In conclusion, I would like to describe three unique projects 
associated with bicycle use in San Sebastian:
1. Turning two out-of-service EuskoTren (Basque Train 
System) tunnels into a 2.1 km. bicycle path connecting the 
Amara and Ibaeta neighborhoods. This is a star European 
project, to be carried out immediately, that will involve 
adapting the two tunnels to this new purpose, including 
lighting and surveillance cameras. The project will cost Ð2.7 
million.
2. Completion of construction of the pedestrian promenade 
and bicycle lane along the riverside, that will connect 
Loyola and Riberas neighborhoods with the city center. It 
is a dream project. The aim is to connect another 18,000 
people to the city’s already-existing bicycle network. But 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 45MONOGRAPH
within 6 years— as a result of projected residential areas 
in Txomin and Antondegi—30,000 residents will benefit 
from this plan that is tied in with the Urumea wetland park 
project and the project to turn the present Martutene-
Loyola road into an urban artery.
3. Turning San Marcial street into a pedestrian walkway 
with a bike path. This choice seems wise, given that it is 
a busy commercial street where vehicular traffic can be 
easily eliminated, allowing for a convenient bicycle path 
connection to existing bike lanes on Paseo de los Fueros 
and Easo street, that is, between the river and the Concha 
beach. This not only offers increased bicycle mobility, 
but also addresses the problem of cyclists riding on the 
sidewalk along Avenida de la Libertad.
If we look at the distance we have come, the goals reached 
and the projects planned for the coming years, I can say 
that—in these times of battling CO2 emissions and climate 
change—the San Sebastian government has made a wise 
choice. More space will be allotted for bicycles and there will 
be more people in the city riding them, as is fitting for this 
means of transportation that is ideal for the 21st century 
and for people of all ages and social conditions. Donostia, 
too, will be a vanguard city in terms of its sustainable 
transportation policy, aimed towards greater social 
cohesion.
In this regard, it is the cities that can offer the most in 
the fight against climate change, in coordination with the 
strategic work and planning of the Spanish government, and 
EU and UN authorities. San Sebastian has just completed 
a difficult job, starting in its own backyard: developing 
a strategy against climate change that includes more 
than 200 actions concerned with sustainable mobility, 
energy efficiency, comprehensive garbage treatment 
and environmentally-friendly urban policies that include 
bioclimatic architecture, new parks that act as carbon drains 
and efficient water management. 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  NOVIEMBRE 2008 46 MONOGRAPH
Urban Plannin
g of Education
al 
Facilities as t
he Infrastruct
ure 
of the Knowle
dge City
Pedro Barrán
Architect with
 a Master’s de
gree in Urban 
and Regional D
evelopment, te
acher and rese
archer 
at the Univers
idad de la Rep
ública (Urugua
y) and Project
 Architect for 
the “Uruguaya
n Public 
School Suppor
t Project.”  
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 47MONOGRAPH
An Innovative, Inclusive and Social Infrastructure
This new century fi nds us undergoing processes of change 
that require a rethinking of educating facilities and 
their interaction with the city. We are experiencing the 
emergence of the information society and, economically-
speaking, we are seeing that knowledge is what produces 
most added value, thus requiring that education extend to 
all periods of life and that educational institutions make 
adjustments in terms of content. But education should 
not just assure the means of fi nding one’s place in this 
new society, but must also encourage the building of 
citizen awareness by instilling values of equality and social 
integration and embracing the concept of cultural diversity. 
The schools, universities and all of the social, sports and 
cultural infrastructures that fall under the aegis of urban 
planning are foundations for social cohesion and platforms 
for creative action. Thus, urban planning must focus on 
proximity to citizens and their needs, on being functional 
and on creating networks. In this article we will look at how 
urban planning and educational planning work together to 
confront current challenges.
Educational Planning in the Cities
The relationship between demographic information and 
the educational system has long been a subject of study, 
but until the post-war period the importance of geographic 
data was underestimated. In the 1960s, UNESCO proposed 
school mapping as an instrument through which to 
analyze the educational system and its integration in the 
territory.1 Nevertheless, this method often resulted in rigid, 
centralized planning that bypassed the involvement of 
other actors that were not associated with the State.
Numerous educating agents exist in a city: families; 
sports and community associations; non-governmental 
organizations; communications media; unions; and 
sometimes even companies and political parties. In order 
to encourage the fullest use of available educational and 
cultural resources, we must facilitate access to all of them 
and manage the networks that link them.
Cities today are considered to be complicated and 
ever-changing systems. This means recognizing the 
uncertainty and complexity of the territorial processes 
and the multiple choices of action by the different actors. 
Planning should be fl exible and easily brought in step with 
interactive instruments, and public management should 
be coherent and transparent. The State must take the lead 
in formulating strategies that are compatible with other 
development criteria (industrial, environment, tourism) and 
are negotiated and shared by the different actors. These 
strategies generate responsibilities and social learning for 
all actors involved. 
The City of Montevideo (Uruguay) as a Case in 
Point
In the fi rst half of the 20th century, Uruguay was under 
democratic rule, enjoyed certain economic prosperity, had 
a broad middle class and provided free, secular education.2 
The educational system was almost exclusively public with 
a very centralized administration. Universalized access to 
Primary Education was achieved through schools evenly 
distributed throughout Montevideo. Nevertheless, in the 
1960s, the country entered a period of crisis, the economy 
came to a standstill and a military dictatorship ensued 
(1973-85). During those years the urban dynamics tore 
apart the social and territorial fabric of the city and a new 
phenomenon took hold: child poverty.3 
It wasn’t until the 1990s that the social, urban and 
educational deterioration began to turn around. 
Educational authorities promoted partial reforms, trying 
to extend and improve the quality of the educational cycle, 
yet relegating educators to the role of mere recipients of 
policies developed by the political authorities. There was 
ARTICLE
It is my belief that in order to achieve the goal 
of a truly creative and educating city that is 
not exclusive, urban planning must promote the 
development of facilities networks, making them 
more accessible and interactive with other educating 
agents in the city.
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200948 MONOGRAPH
near-universal access to Primary (4 and 5 years of age) 
and Secondary (12 to 14 years) education. The victory 
of the political left in 2004 signifi cantly changed social 
policies. While the educational system remained very 
centralized, educational policies began to be more open to 
participation, particularly after the 2006 National Debate 
on Education).4
Moving Towards a Cultured, Integrated and Diverse 
City
Certain territorial processes continue dividing the city. 
Firstly, privately-managed projects (shopping centers, 
service companies) have created new hubs of activity on 
the eastern coast, catering to the middle and upper income 
population. This is the area where private education has a 
relatively broader base. Secondly, there has been internal 
migration of poorer segments of the population to informal 
areas in the city outskirts, despite the lack of services and 
facilities there. Public policies aim to redirect this informal 
occupation in areas adjacent to the formal city, where all of 
the infrastructures are in place and where there has been a 
decrease in population.5 
What are the educational policies that can adequately 
address these processes of exclusion? While the debate 
continues between wide-reaching and focused policies, 
plans for public school construction are centered 
primarily on the formal city outskirts, encouraging social 
reintegration. Everyone has the right to attend and 
graduate from Primary School, however the differences in 
achievement levels and the high percentage of students 
repeating courses, is cause for concern. As a result, 
Escuelas de Tiempo Completo6 (Full-Schedule Schools: 
seven hours of class and three meals) have been developed 
in these adverse contexts. The aim is to improve conditions 
of fairness through this focused educational effort of 
positive discrimination.  In addition, non-mandatory 
secondary school-level education is free, as are advanced 
studies, though these schools are not reaching all of the 
potential students.7 Because of a likely growing demand for 
secondary school education, more schools are being built 
to meet this need.
I believe that there must be improved coordination 
between the local administration (Montevideo City 
Council) and the National Public Education Administration, 
to develop an urban strategy that shapes community 
identities and local centers. The different educational and 
cultural facilities can then take on the role of urban hubs, of 
points of access that provide a sense of identity (symbolic) 
and of social inclusion (belonging). In addition, they offer 
the added value of quality and beauty in the architectural 
and urban design of the buildings and community spaces. 
Improving the Connection Among Social Networks
The historical downtown areas, and the intermediate 
areas of the city are fairly stable in terms of both building 
and population dynamics. Generally, the educational 
infrastructure in these consolidated areas is good and 
abundant and the school buildings reaffi rm neighborhood 
identities. There, the focus is on management, in order to 
step up exchanges and encourage network building. 
Traditionally, educating spaces have been places where 
relationships and common interests stimulate integrative 
processes. Programs such as Strengthening School, Family 
and Community Ties8 and Social Intervention Projects aim to 
The different educational and cultural 
facilities can then take on the role of urban 
hubs, of points of access that provide a sense 
of identity (symbolic) and of social inclusion 
(belonging). In addition, they offer the added 
value of quality and beauty in the architectural 
and urban design of the buildings and community 
spaces.
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 49MONOGRAPH
promote family participation in the school and to coordinate 
the different educating agents in the neighborhood, while 
Educational Improvement Projects9 are addressed towards 
school decentralization. In addition, I believe that the social 
use of educating spaces should be regulated, allowing them 
to be used for non-formal educational and community 
activities.
 
Reviving Culture and Fostering Innovation
Budgets for public programs targeted to science, 
technology and innovation are increasing. Emphasis 
is being placed on research and cooperation activities 
between the educational system and production, with a 
focus on technological parks11 and company incubators.  
Finally, perhaps the most ambitious project currently 
underway is the Proyecto CEIBAL,12 that aims to 
democratize IT resources and provide each child and 
teacher in the Public Schools with a laptop computer 
designed for their needs and with wireless connection 
among them and to the Internet. But we must not only 
guarantee this access, but also provide the necessary 
education so that everyone can competently use these 
technologies in a creative, autonomous and discriminating 
manner. These new interactive virtual spaces complement 
and enrich the physical public spaces and, thus, must be 
taken into consideration in planning the network of public 
spaces.
In short, it is my belief that in order to achieve the goal 
of a truly creative and educating city that is not exclusive, 
urban planning must promote the development of facilities 
networks, making them more accessible and interactive 
with other educating agents in the city.  
Bibliography
 Barrán, Pedro; Interacciones entre las prácticas proyectuales y las 
ideas educativas en el Uruguay moderno y contemporáneo; CSIC/
Farq/UdelaR, Montevideo, 2008.
 Gerencia de Investigación y Evaluación; Panorama de la Educación 
en el Uruguay. Una década de transformaciones 1992-2004; ANEP/
CODICEN, Montevideo, 2005.
 Gómez-Granell and Vila (coord.); La ciudad como proyecto educativo; 
Octaedro, Barcelona, 2001.
 International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO; School 
Mapping and Micro-planning in Education; France, 1985.
 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Uruguay; 
Desarrollo Humano en Uruguay 2005. Uruguay hacia una estrategia 
de desarrollo basada en el conocimiento; UNDP Uruguay, Montevideo, 
2005.
 Unidad Central de Planifi cación Municipal; Plan Montevideo de 
Ordenamiento Territorial (1998-2005); Intendencia Municipal de 
Montevideo, Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional; 
Montevideo, 1997. Updated in 2006. 
See: http://www.montevideo.gub.uy/pot/
1 Fue This was put into practice in France, starting in 1963. See: Hallak, 
Jacques, Institut International de Planification de L’Education; La mise en 
place de politiques éducatives: rôle et méthodologie de la carte scolaire; Les 
presses de L’Unesco, Belgique, 1976.
2 As of 1877, primary education is free and mandatory, and has been secular 
since 1907. Secondary and advanced schooling have been free since 1916 and 
as of 1967, the first three years of secondary education are mandatory.
3 Observing poverty rates by age groups, there is a much higher prevalence 
of poverty among children and adolescents than among the rest of the popu-
lation. Almost half of the children surveyed come from poor homes. 
4 http://www.debateducativo.edu.uy
5 See: Program for the Integration of Irregular Settlements (PIAI). 
http://www.piai.gub.uy
6 http://www.mecaep.edu.uy/pfisica/index.html  A fewer number have also 
been set up in middle-income areas in order to avoid the stigma of “schools 
for the poor.”
7 This has more to do with the draw of the labor market and dropping out of 
school, than with a lack of infrastructure.
8 http://www.mecaep.edu.uy//hprincipal.aspx?1,30,70,0,0,0
9 http://www.cep.edu.uy/CEP/MemoriaProyectos/MecaepPME/PME.htm
10 Cerro Industrial and Technological Park and the Pando Technology Pole.
11 Industrial Academic Center for Computer Technology, Ingenio.
12 Educational Connection Project of Basic Information for On-Line 
Learning. http://www.ceibal.edu.uy/. In 2008 the program was in place 
everywhere in the country except in the capital city of Montevideo, where 
it will be put in operation in 2009. The idea comes from the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology (MIT). See: One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) 
www.laptop.org
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200950 MONOGRAPH
CITY EXPERIENCE
Citizen Participation and 
Environmental Recovery:
Belo Horizonte’s Drenurbs 
Program
The Belo Horizonte (Brazil) City Council’s Drenurbs Program 
aims to reverse the deterioration of the water channels that 
remain in their original beds and reincorporate them into 
the urban landscape. This is being carried out through the 
Environmental Education and Social Mobilization Plans.
Ricardo de Miranda Aroeira
Coordinator of the Drenurbs Program
Valdete Lima Bontempo
Environmental Education Specialist
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 51MONOGRAPH
In considering the current relationship between urban space and the people who live within it, we are inevitably 
led to the subject of citizen participation in defining public 
policies, in accordance with the principles put forth in the 
1988 Constitution that addressed demands of the people 
and marked the start of a new phase in collective social 
action in Brazil. Since then, the planning of public policies 
that address the challenges of the management of urban 
space in building a city that is a space reflecting social 
justice and quality of life, is no longer solely a responsibility 
of the State. 
Given that the inhabitants of a city use public spaces 
in different ways and that these spaces reflect multiple 
interests and meanings, the actions and programs 
developed by the public authorities should involve the 
participation of those people who will benefit from or be 
affected by the programs, in their different phases. In this 
case, the State’s role also becomes one of galvanizing:
“…the synergy between the social actors and the spaces 
of cooperation, mobilizing potential existing resources 
in society, and considering their participation as 
essential in these joint actions, multiplies the chances 
of success. To ignore the growing importance of the 
involvement of social organizations in social policies is 
to play into the inefficient logic of fragmentation, lack 
of coordination, superimposition and the isolation of the 
actions.” (Fonseca and Diniz, 2002, p.26, translated from 
Portuguese)
Within this context, and through the Belo Horizonte 
Drenurbs Environmental Recovery Program, the 
Environmental Education and Social Mobilization Plans 
were developed. Through this program, the Belo Horizonte 
City Council aims to reverse the deterioration of the 
water channels that remain in their original beds through 
integrated treatment of the environmental and health 
problems in the different water basins, in order to clean 
them up and reincorporate them into the urban landscape. 
The Drenurbs Program was designed to be carried out in 
different phases and was structured in accordance with the 
City’s financial and operative capabilities. This program will 
serve to decontaminate 140 kilometers of water channels, 
that includes 73 streams of 47 water basins, accounting for 
20% of the full extension and 30% of the streams in their 
original beds, that is to say, not channeled. The program 
embraces a total land area of 177 Km2 (approximately 51% 
of the total city area) and will affect 1,011,000 inhabitants, 
or close to 45% of the city’s population.
The program is in its first phase of operation. This consists 
of several operations, about to be completed in the basins/
sub-basins of the 1º de Maio, Nossa Senhora da Piedade and 
Baleares streams, as well as the Bonsucceso and Engenho 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200952 MONOGRAPH
Nogueira basins where the work has just been put up for 
tender.
The consolidation and continuity of the program depends 
on citizen understanding of, and participation in, this new 
concept of water treatment, that discards channeling as the 
only solution for urban drainage. In this regard, one of the 
Drenurbs project’s main premises is people’s participation 
in its development and their involvement in all of its 
phases. Likewise, a priority of the program is to establish 
the foundation for shared management1 of the created and/
or revitalized spaces.
This brings the educating process to the fore in the 
context of the program, with its aim of appropriating 
public spaces and encouraging autonomy and citizen 
action from a socio-environmental perspective, through 
the development of a liberating and committed collective 
environmental education.
In order to develop the educational aspect, the first 
step was to carry out a Diagnosis of Socio-environmental 
Perception, identifying, from the people’s points of view, 
the pros and cons of preserving the streams and the basins 
and sub-basins in question. Upon completion of all of the 
action taken in each sub-basin, new studies were performed 
to assess the changes. 
The next step was to set up the Drenurbs Commissions, 
made up of representatives from the population at large, 
from public services and from social, economic and political 
forces in the area and also from the school population. 
The Commissions are a very important element in the 
educating process since they manage the environmental 
questions and issues in the communities where these 
basins are located.
The Drenurbs Commissions actively participate in drawing 
up the Local Environmental Education Plans (PLEAs), 
basing them on the results of the Socio-environmental 
Perception Diagnoses. The goal of the PLEAs activities is to 
find a solution to, or minimize, the diagnosed problems, and 
focus on the positive aspects and available resources in the 
water basins; all of that resulting from a joint analysis of 
the periodic diagnostic reports. Local institutions are also 
invited to join the working group.
Drawing up the PLEAs is a two-step process. First a list 
of the problems is compiled, based on the information 
provided through the Socio-environmental Perception 
Diagnosis. In this step various proposals and actions are 
put forward for resolving the issues in question. The second 
step involves defining the public objectives of the actions 
to be taken and the individuals, organizations and entities 
cooperating in each one, and then coming up with a final 
proposal for the activity.
It is important to note that environmental education is 
not only tied in with ecological questions but also with 
the political dimension of the educating process, implying 
training or changes in individual and social values that 
are important in achieving fairer and more egalitarian 
relationships. The planned works and improvements 
provide an opportunity to examine the interaction between 
people and the environment, as well as a chance to 
empower the local community. 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 53MONOGRAPH
In terms of interaction with the environment, it is 
necessary to examine and work on people’s perception of 
their space, since this is the perspective from which they 
act and express their values and attitudes. Therefore, it 
is necessary to understand people’s relationship with the 
environmental conditions created by and for them, in a 
situation where the educating process is not simply about 
presenting solutions to environmental problems. (Machado, 
2008). 
In terms of developing actions that contribute to 
empowering the local population, we work on creating a 
social network2, through the coordination of the sectorial 
policies developed by different local government areas, 
particularly services such as education, health, city 
clearing, social services and sports, thus ensuring the 
multidimensional aspect of environmental education in 
public policy. In addition, we encourage cooperation with 
NGOs and private sector organizations that are active in 
the area. 
In this regard, considering the cultural diversity and the 
interests of the actors affected, it is the State’s role to 
unify the actions for the consolidation of this network, in 
order to avoid the risk of a one-off or fragmented action in 
a particular area in which the program is operating.
In a preliminary analysis of the process of putting the 
educating aspect of the Drenurbs Program into action, 
it was clear that the evaluation of the local needs and 
the cross-sector aspect were essential to engaging the 
inhabitants of these areas in the periodic activities of 
the Local Environmental Education Plans. The strategy 
for consolidating this process is the active participation 
of Commission members in the management of the 
revitalized areas, taking into consideration the differing 
perspectives of the actors involved in the appropriation 
of the common space in question, and thus fostering the 
continuity of the actions that have been developed and 
carried out. 
1 The concept of shared management refers to the joint definitions and 
actions agreed upon between the public authorities and the local population 
for the use and appropriation of the created or revived spaces, especially in 
the riverside parks. 
2 Here we understand the concept of network to mean “a space where 
different social actors come together to coordinate their efforts—each 
incomplete—towards defined goals, that is, to strengthen resources with, and 
for, the general public.” (Amorim and Fonseca, 1999, p. 17, translated from 
Portuguese)
Bibliography
 AMORIM, Margarete; FONSECA, Maria Tereza N.M. “Família e 
História.” Série Tudo Haver, Belo Horizonte: PBH/AMEPPE, no. 2, 
1999.
 FONSECA, Maria Tereza N.M; DINIZ, Silvana Garcia M.  “Trabalhando 
em rede nas políticas sociais.” Revista Pensar BH/Política Social, no. 
3, 2002.
 MACHADO, L.M.C.P. “A Percepção do meio ambiente como suporte 
para a educação ambiental”, UNESP, São Paulo.
 http://www.ib.usp.br/limnologia/Perspectivas 
 BELO HORIZONTE CITY COUNCIL. Municipal Secretary for Urban 
Policy. DRENURBS Program, 2005.
 http://www.pbh.gov.br/urbanismo e obras/Programa Drenurbs. 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  NOVIEMBRE 2008 54 MONOGRAPH
The Right to t
he City: 
How to Better
 Promote 
Inclusive Citie
s at an 
International 
Level
Brigitte Colin
Architect. Pro
gram Specialis
t in the Intern
ational Migrat
ions and 
Multiculturalis
m Section; Arc
hitecture and 
Cities; Division
 of Social 
Sciences, Rese
arch and Polic
y, UNESCO.
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 55MONOGRAPH
While the rapid social transformations we are seeing in cities today generate innovation and progress, 
they also bring with them social and spatial segregation 
between the rich and the poor and between “legal” 
and “illegal” cities, exacerbating social divisions within 
societies. Throughout history cities have been regarded 
as cradles of civilization. It is important to recreate the 
conditions that will restore to the metropolises of today 
their role as centres of cultural infl uence and democracy. 
There is increasing pressure throughout the world to 
enable municipal authorities to contribute to local and 
global sustainable development in an age when the 
responsibilities of cities are rapidly expanding due to 
globalization. 
Presented in terms of a socially sustainable urban 
paradigm, the “Right to the City” could be defi ned as the 
promotion of equal access for all urban dwellers to the 
city’s potential benefi ts, their democratic participation 
in decision-making processes, and the fulfi lment of their 
fundamental rights, responsibilities and freedoms. 
How can we empower people by passing on responsibility 
to multiple actors in the decision-making process 
and enabling them to carry out decisions? For United 
Nations bodies like UNESCO, UN HABITAT and UNDESA 
(Department of Economic and Social Affairs), the Right 
to the City concept is another way of saying “Inclusive 
Cities,” where growth and equity are promoted through 
empowering all inhabitants—regardless of their economic 
level, gender, race, ethnicity or religion—to fully participate 
in the opportunities that cities have to offer.
At the UN-level, a rights-based approach to development 
is now included in the Millennium Development Goals, 
focusing particularly on promoting sustainable urban 
development and with a commitment to poverty reduction 
and to the effective participation of traditionally 
disenfranchised and marginalized groups, in urban 
environmental policy, planning and management. For 
over a decade, UNESCO has studied cities as arenas for 
rapid social change: building the 21st century democratic 
city, a space for cooperation and citizenship in action; 
humanizing the city and proclaiming solidarity a 
fundamental element of democracy and human rights. 
“Urban Policies and the Right to the City”—a project 
launched in March 2005 by UN HABITAT and UNESCO with 
the support of the International Association of Educating 
Cities (IAEC) and, as of February 2008, UNDESA— is one 
of the very fi rst steps taken, at the UN level, towards 
forging consensus among key actors, and local authorities 
in particular, on the constituting elements of public policy 
and legislation that combine urban development with 
social equity and justice. 
Without question, an educating city is one in which the 
construction of urban space provides the foundation for 
citizenship. Thus, all of the city spaces, together with 
its facilities, public services and institutions serve as 
resources that expand and promote citizens’ potential and 
contribute to the quality of urban life, particularly for the 
more underprivileged citizens. An inclusive city, therefore, 
combines the diverse, but complementary, elements 
of education and urban development, key elements to 
building the Right to the City. This idea was one of the 
focuses of an International Seminar organized by UNESCO 
in November 2008, during the latest World Urban Forum in 
China: “Building up Education towards Sustainable Urban 
Development.”
The main objective of the project is to promote 
“inclusive cities” and is primarily addressed to mayors, 
municipalities, professionals, international NGOs focused 
on cities and city dwellers. The intention is to promote 
an international research project that identifi es best 
ARTICLE
Through the research project “Urban Policies and the Right to 
the City,” UNESCO and UN HABITAT are working to promote 
equal access for all urban dwellers to the city’s potential benefi ts, 
their democratic participation in decision-making processes and 
the fulfi lment of their fundamental rights, responsibilities and 
freedoms. 
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200956 MONOGRAPH
practices with regard to: laws and urban planning; inter-
religious municipal councils; municipal charters on citizens’ 
rights and responsibilities; the participation of women in 
urban management; and spatial and social inclusion of 
migrants in cities. All of these areas are included in the 
UN HABITAT campaign on urban governance as well as 
in UNESCO’s strategy on human rights and its Universal 
Declaration on Cultural Diversity. The project aims to come 
up with guidelines for the creation of more inclusive cities, 
drawing from the results of various research meetings, 
and in accordance with the UN Copenhagen Social Summit 
declaration of 1995 to build inclusive societies. 
Key questions were raised in the international debates 
regarding the project that have taken place since March 
2005:
 Whose rights? Residents/ non-residents/ stakeholders? 
 How do we promote a new concept of urban citizenship/ 
corporate citizenship/ individual citizenship/ community 
citizenship?
 Rights and responsibilities: the Local governments’ role 
and duties, and the question of reciprocity. How can 
existing normative tools be systematized, and how can 
we achieve widespread understanding of the Right to the 
City concept at the international level?
 How can we link Millennium Development Goals and 
the rights-based approach to the development of urban 
policies?
In the work sessions, experts specifi cally examined 
appropriate ways of addressing a broad range of subjects: 
inter-religious issues; questions of local context; political 
disposition, and bottom-up vs. top-down approaches; 
the critical balance between social cohesion and 
competitiveness; “Urban Policies and Citizenship;” the 
necessary transition from a needs-based approach to 
a rights-based approach in urban development and 
planning; the rights and integration of urban indigenous 
communities; local participatory democracy; bridging the 
gap between declared rights and reality, and municipalities 
putting Charters provisions into effect; the need for 
greater policy and advocacy focus; and civil society’s role 
in generating awareness. 
With an eye towards producing in-depth studies on these 
topics, two UNESCO chairs were created; one in 2007, 
at the École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l’État in 
Lyon (France) regarding “Urban Policies and Citizenship” 
and under the direction of Professor Bernard Jouve; 
and the other in 2008 at Venice University, titled “Social 
and Spatial Inclusion of Migrants: Urban Policies and 
Practices.” In addition, at the 4th Session of the World 
Urban Forum in Nanjing (China) in November 2008, 
UNESCO and UN HABITAT distributed a joint guide on 
“Historic Districts for All: A Social and Human Approach 
for Sustainable Urban Revitalization,” in Chinese, English 
and French. The Spanish version, produced by the Sevilla 
Global Foundation, will be available on the UNESCO 
website in 2009.
During the course of these international debates 
on “Urban Policies and the Right to the City,” various 
normative tools and best practices have been presented at 
all levels:
At a local level, The Montreal Charter of Rights and 
Responsibilities, enacted by the City Council as a by-law, 
sets forth the rights and responsibilities of citizens as a 
guide to fostering closer ties among them and improving 
the quality of life in that city to the benefi t of all. The 
Charter addresses social and economic rights, including 
the right to housing and to emergency shelter.  
At a national level, The City Statute of Brazil, established 
in 2001 as a new legal-urban order focuses on the right 
to housing, the city and the social function of property, 
and urban land management planning and is also an 
instrument for territorial inclusion strategies. The Statute 
embraces a set of principles that refl ect a specifi c concept 
of the city and of urban planning and management, and 
presents a series of instruments for achieving the desired 
aims. It is the defi nition of the “city that we want” in every 
city’s Master Plans that will determine what instruments 
are used (or not) and how they are applied. 
At a regional level, the European Charter for the 
Safeguarding of Human Rights in the City, ratifi ed by 
more than 200 European cities, argues that municipal 
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 57MONOGRAPH
charters are needed, given that State authorities are not 
accessible to many citizens, and that city offi cials have 
the advantage of being much closer to their citizens. The 
scope of the Charter includes fundamental rights—civil, 
political, economic and social—that are acknowledged in 
other international and regional instruments, such as The 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European 
Convention on Human Rights. 
Another example at the regional level, the Aberdeen 
Agenda: Commonwealth Principles for Good Practice and 
Local Democracy and Good Governance, sets out 12 core 
principles for local democracy and good governance in 
the Commonwealth. It serves as a basis for the design of 
training modules for elected councillors, to be developed 
by a multi-disciplinary team from the Commonwealth. 
The modules are now exploring practical solutions to 
create robust structures as well as tools to improve local 
accountability and decision-making, and include suggested 
initiatives and projects that support local democracy 
within the community.
At an International level, the Charter 
of Educating Cities (IAEC) addresses 
educating cities as a broad concept: the 
city is, in and of itself, a school, offering 
countless possibilities for city dwellers to 
participate in, and help shape, their city; 
to exercise their citizenship; and to take 
full advantage of all the city has to offer. 
UN HABITAT’s and UNESCO’s joint 
public debates have opened the way for 
refl ection on the potential relationship 
between the implementation of inclusive, socially 
sustainable urban policies and the concept of the 
“Right to the City.” The members of the different 
panels have taken part in this process with two 
aims in mind: fi rst, to present the success stories 
of various initiatives and strategies in which good 
governance and participatory planning have been 
put into practice in a range of cities around the 
globe; and, secondly, to introduce a series of 
municipal or international instruments, in various 
stages of development, that address the issue of 
human rights in cities. A fi rst step towards making 
these ideas more widely heard is the book “Urban Policies 
and the Right to the City,” published in October 20081, 
by Professor Alison Brown from Cardiff University and 
Professor Annali Kristiansen from the Danish Institute of 
Human Rights. 
This joint research project has led to a proposal by the 
City of Porto Alegre to create an international “Inclusive 
City Award” based on the parameters and criteria set out 
in the UN HABITAT/ UNESCO project. In February 2008, 
this proposal was offi cially put forth during Porto Alegre’s 
World Conference on the Development of Cities, by Mr. 
Jose Fogaça, Mayor of this city. This right-based approach 
to urban management and development will be a focus of 
the forthcoming UN HABITAT World Urban Forum in Rio de 
Janeiro, Brazil, in 2010. 
1  The text will be on line at www.unesco.org/shs/urban in early 2009.
CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION  200958 MONOGRAPH
Rennes and 
Time-manage
ment 
in the City
Jocelyne Bou
geard 
Deputy Mayor,
 Time Manage
ment in the Ci
ty 
Danièle Touch
ard 
Head of the Ti
me Use Office
2009  CITY, URBAN PLANNING AND EDUCATION 59MONOGRAPH
Changes in life style have brought with them alterations in rhythms and 
time factors in people’s lives, that are often in confl ict or diffi cult to 
reconcile. The aim of the Time Use Offi ce in Rennes, France, created in 
2002, is to work towards resolving these time confl icts through fostering 
equal opportunities. Among the actions taken, was the decision to house 
multiple services in one single large building so that users of these 
services can avoid traveling to different points in the city to resolve their 
questions, thus not only saving time, but facilitating access to their 
rights.
CITY EXPERIENCE
For years, elected political officials thought of urban planning in terms of the ordering of space. 
Starting in 2000, changes in lifestyle—urban planning 
and development; increased life expectancy and higher 
education levels; growing physical and digital mobility; 
widespread incorporation of women in the working world; 
diversification in the organization of work; and changes in 
the family structure—have brought with them alterations 
in rhythms and time factors in people’s lives, that are 
often in conflict or difficult to reconcile. Thus, government 
administrations have taken certain steps related to the 
question of time management, that have gradually made 
their way into public policy as a whole. 
This movement, strong in Europe, took shape in France 
through the work of the agency for Territorial Organization 
and Local Economic Developmental (DATAR) with the 
publication of a parliamentary report on “Time of Cities”1 
presented in June 2001 by the then Mayor of Rennes, 
Edmond Hervé. Following the example of Italian, Spanish 
and German cities, the report promoted the creation 
of time offices in French cities with populations of over 
20,000 inhabitants.
Rennes, a city with a population of 210,500 and located 
in the center of an area of 37 municipalities and 395,000 
inhabitants, boasts a rich administrative and university 
tradition (60,000 students). During the 1960s, the city was 
a hub of automobile industry activity and from the 80s on 
enjoyed the economic boom tied in with new technologies, 
and the world of computer and networks. Equal opportunity 
has always been a focus of municipal action in this city.
In March 2002, in accordance with the conclusions 
presented in the above-mentioned parliamentary report, a 
time-use office was set up in the city of Rennes, as a part 
of the European “Equal” program, and with the brief of 
fighting discrimination and fostering more efficient time 
use. The office’s activities focus on:
  examining life styles, needs and limitations with regard to 
time use by city dwellers;
 organizing local coordination on these questions, 
in cooperation with the Rennes area and regional 
development boards, in order to find solutions;
 working on time-related issues with representatives 
from the political and service spheres and entities from 
different sectors.
 encouraging improvement in some services and the 
creation of others;
 heightening awareness of the issue on the part of 
individuals who work with time management and the 
population in general; 
 exchanging good practices with other territories.
All of the above, with two principal aims in mind:
 Gender equality. 
 Equal opportunities and quality of life.
Time-related Policies: A Women’s Concern
In Rennes, as in Italy and Spain, women—active members 
of the work force and the most affected in terms of 
time factors—were the first to bring to the fore concerns 
regarding the time question.
The steps taken have focused on work, the primary 
element in time regulation and, in the first stage, within 
the context of the city administration—the third-largest 
generator of jobs in the region—through a process of 
equalizing conditions between men and women. Time 
planning and management and work rhythms were 
reconsidered through a study of users’ needs, workers’ 
goals and service capabilities. Following an initial 
experimental period, all of the services were 
reorganized.
In addition, the cleaning service, a work sector 
90% staffed by women, was also restructured. The 
reorganization process led to a review of work schedules 
and job restructuring. Working conditions for this job 
(part time, split shifts, scattered workplace locations) 
created numerous difficulties. These conditions resulted 
in high turnover and absenteeism, connected to low job 
satisfaction and the split shifts, making it difficult for 
workers to access personal services and creating problems 
on the home front.
After a period of study and experimentation, the work of 
the entire City Hall cleaning staff was reorganized.
This restructuring addressed the following: schedules of 
7:30 to 15:30 (with a lunch break from 11 to 12) and 10:45 
to 18:45 (with a lunch break from 13:45 to 14:45); working 
conditions: working in pairs (improved sense of well-being, 
better security and space maintenance) and grouping jobs 
geographically in order to economize on travel time; status 
and the professional job track: creation of full time jobs 
with the possibility of promotion (technical staff, service 
coordinators); benefits derived from the status on territorial 
agents (new rights), and worker training programs for 
professional advancement. 
The results have been very positive. The cleaning 
personnel and other employees are very satisfied with the 
changes. Specifically, the members of the cleaning staff 
are pleased with their new work schedules, with being able 
to work full time and with questions of security, mutual 
assistance and pair work. City Hall, in turn, has benefited 
from a lower absentee rate (below 40%), increased 
personnel motivation, and a higher quality of service.
These steps were able to be taken by the City Hall, thanks 
to a strong political and administrative effort and a process 
that was collective, participatory, transversal, experimental 
and explanatory.
Also, the City Hall has created or supported initiatives 
connected with the work environment. For instance, in one 
area of activity an inter-company, inter-city day care center 
has been set up with expanded hours and a 24-hour home 
day care service offered by professional childcare workers. 
Numerous leisure-related activities have been developed 
in downtown Rennes, in the neighborhoods and in the heart 
of work districts. Some examples are: Happy Hour from 
6 to 8 p.m. in the Opera district, with available childcare 
1 Hervé, Edmond, “Temps des villes”, available on line at http://www.ville.
gouv.fr/pdf/dossiers/temps/rapport.pdf
service provided; the “Midday Concerts” of classical music; 
the “Mid-days at the Museum,” etc. These activities are 
appreciated by people who “use” the city, whether they live 
in Rennes or not.
Equal Opportunities and Quality of Life are Issues 
that Concern all Sectors
Though time is not always equal, it can nonetheless be a 
tool with which to fight against that inequality. The steps 
taken in support of the cleaning personnel are proof of 
that.
A city is conceived and reordered to favor equality, with 
time an ever-present element. The freedom to move 
around, in whatever mode, is valued. So, a way was found to 
interconnect the different transport modes: the High Speed 
Train (TGV), the trans-regional trains (TER), the city and 
provincial bus lines, cars, bicycles and pedestrian streets. 
Considering that the underground metro serves 100,000 
passengers a day, the city decided to issue combined 
train-bus-metro tickets. Likewise, the operating hours for 
the public transport system are constantly being adjusted 
to meet the transportation needs of children, students, 
young people, working people, the elderly and handicapped 
people, day and night, in and outside of school hours, in the 
neighborhoods and in the different townships.
Access to basic rights and services is facilitated 
architecturally. Services provided by the city, the province, 
the General Council, the Caisse d’Allocations Familiales 
(French social services) have been regrouped in one 
physical space under the umbrella of the Espaces Sociaux 
Communs (Common Social Spaces) set up in the different 
neighborhoods. These centers save people time by 
eliminating the need to move around to different places in 
the city for different services, thus facilitating access to, 
and ensuring quality control of, those services and, at the 
same time, becoming centers of coexistence and education. 
In short, a center where parents and children join forces to 
meet the needs of the youngest children. Currently, three 
important cultural institutions (the library, the science 
space and the Brittany Museum) have joined together in 
one spot, Champs Libres, with extended hours open to the 
public, including Sundays. The spaces are being renovated 
for multiple activities targeted to different groups 
throughout the day and in the evenings. 
In short, all of the city’s actions have been examined from 
the perspective of time, and always following the same 
method: analysis of uses and needs, coordination of the 
actors, improvement of services, and heightening of public 
awareness of the issue. 

International Association of 
Educating Cities (IAEC) 
C/Avinyó 15, 4th floor 
08002 Barcelona (Spain)
Project Coordinator:  
Josep Maria Llop Torné
Technical Support:  
Mª Ángeles Cabeza Santano
© Published by:  
AICE
© Interviews and Articles:  
The authors 
© Translations: 
Ita Roberts
© Photographs: 
Cover: 
Alicia Gómez
Barcelona: 
Image and Editorial 
Production, City of Barcelona,
Ole Thorson 
Alicia Gómez
Belo Horizonte:
Belo Horizonte City Hall 
Beijing and Delhi: 
Alain Marinos 
Brigitte Colin 
Bogotá:
Corporación Visionarios por 
Colombia- Corpovisionarios
Curitiba: 
Urban Research and Planning 
Institute, City of Curitiba 
Instituto Jaime Lerner
Rennes: 
Dominique Levasseur
Rosario:
Department of Urban Planning, 
City of Rosario
Santiago de Compostela: 
Manuel P. Rúa
Denís Estévez 
Santiago de Compostela 
City Hall
San Sebastián:
San Sebastian City Hall
Uruguay: 
Pedro Barrán
Other cities:
Josep Centelles 
© Design: 
Estudio Villuendas + Gómez
Layout and printing by: 
Image and Editorial 
Production, City of Barcelona 
Copyright deposit:  
B-18.019-2009
ISSN:
2013-4053