5 - 75-90-3: Who is Our City?
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Áine Ryan, Programme Manager of ANCB The Metropolitan Laboratory began her introduction with the observation that migration was a very topical issue with many recent events in Berlin focused on the subject. She noted that these discussions usually advocate on behalf of the migrant but explained that this Design and Politics discussion intended to begin at the source of migration as a contemporary issue – urbanisation – and to advocate on behalf of the city: what can migration offer the city? She pointed out that on the surface it appeared that migration can only make the city greater, but cautioned that each city has its own unique experience with migration and that these are extremely diverse. She concluded with the related observation that the experience of migrants is also diverse – for different groups in any one city, and for each of these groups in each city – and that this variety of experience must also be kept in mind.
Mekonnen Mesghena, Head of Migration and Diversity Department at the Heinrich Boell Stiftung, began his introduction with the assertion that urbanisation is a process of choice and that people generally choose to live in cities for a variety of reasons: for a better perspective, for education, for healthcare, for employment opportunities, for political engagement, etc. In addition, he observed that migrants tend to congregate in cities and that as a result there is often conflict among groups and between groups and host communities. He noted that the issue of exclusion is critical when immigrants congregate – people may share space in the city but wide gaps between social classes may exist in terms of access to opportunities. Consequently, migrants can pose a challenge to those who make and govern cities to develop the means to bridge potential exclusion and help migrants to become full stakeholders in the city.
PODIUM PRESENTATIONS
Henk Ovink
Henk Ovink began his presentation with the assertion that design and politics need to engage with content and the issues that are really at stake. He stressed that we need to counter the growing disconnect between what is really going on and the way we deal with it and observed that we tend to address issues in an abstract and generic sense. He suggested that design can help us to think about future possibilities and to visualise solutions to critical issues. He showed a slide of Cornelius Van Eesteren at work in which he is wearing a white lab coat and noting that urban design was considered an empirical science in the 1930s. He also highlighted that the park they were designing was formulated to generate employment in the context of economic adversity – that this was a time in which design was inherently political. He stressed the need to look forward, particularly given that the world is predicted to soon be 75% urban, with 90% of global income generated on just 3% of the world’s surface. He concluded his presentation with several questions: Who is making cities grow? How do they live together? How do we make the city not just a collection of individuals?
Barbara John
Barbara John, Professor of Ethnology at the Humboldt University Berlin, began her presentation with the statistic that 1 in 4 residents of Berlin have an immigration background. She further observed that the largest migrant group in Berlin comes from Russia and the second largest from Turkey. She continued with the assertion that the majority population in the city determines what’s going on until the day when the political class recognises that a minority population will one day become the majority. She proposed that the three most critical issues around migration in Berlin are religious and cultural diversity, housing, and education. Regarding housing, she noted that while migrants first inhabited the inner city vacated by those moving to the suburbs this process has now reversed, with the gentrification of inner city neighbourhoods and the relocation of migrants to the suburbs. She observed that these processes have served to inhibit the development of diversity in the inner city. On the topic of education she explained that programs to accommodate migrants began with extra classes and quotas but that there is now a shift towards all day schools and a revision of the old streaming system. She noted that these changes are relatively recent and reflect that the education system has only now begun to acknowledge and address the issue of migration. Regarding religious and cultural diversity, she expressed the opinion that the law in Berlin banning the headscarf for those in public service represents an effort to protect the public service from diversity. And she concluded her presentation with the assertion that the minority or migrant community requires assistance in order to fully enjoy the benefits of urban life.
Michael Künzel
Michael Künzel, Head of Land Use Planning and Urban Concepts Unit at the Berlin Senate for Urban Development, began his presentation with the assertion that the primary objective must be to keep opportunities open for everyone. He observed that while it is difficult to accept diversity it is critical that integration must be linked to the possibility of success. He characterised the city as a place of voids, a perpetually unfinished project but lamented the opportunity for urban adventure and the extreme reduction in the risk of violence in the contemporary urban context. He acknowledged the rise of the network city and explained that this has led to the development of more evenly-distributed diversity as opposed to the trade-specific population congregations of the past. He stressed the need to encourage communication to facilitate development and equal opportunity in the dispersed city. In response to this final point, Henk Ovink suggested that a change in education might be required if the design professions are to shift from the creation of beauty to the facilitation of communication and the creation of opportunity and investment.
Martin Rein-Cano
Martin Rein-Cano, founding partner of Topotek 1 Landscape Architecture, began his presentation with the assertion that beauty is required for the seduction that good design must enact. He proposed that beauty and content are united and that the element of seduction required is culture-specific. He noted that the European tradition always favours the emancipation of the oppressed and asserted that design is always political. Regarding integration he described it as usually imposed from the top-down, from the outside to the inside, which views migrants purely as an oppressed group but most often demands that they be the ones to adapt, to change. He then described the Topotek 1 project for a park in Copenhagen that seeks to integrate working-class Danes with all migrant groups. The outlined the design strategy of this park as one allowing the foreign to be visible, to create a productive sense of dislocation and a multiplicity of identities.
Olv Klijn
Olv Klijn, founding partner FABRIC Architecture and Urbanism, began his presentation with the statement that he would focus on the ‘how’ of spatial integration. He described Fabric’s aim to connect the macro and the micro and a top-down agenda with bottom-up desires. He asserted that in Amsterdam prosperity corresponds to immigration and cited old Amsterdam as an example of how to unite the macro and the micro through a clear street hierarchy and a close proximity between elites and newcomers. He then described Fabric’s Amsterdam west project which sought to introduce finer grain elements and a hierarchy of green spaces into a large-scale urban fabric. He concluded with a description of Sao Paulo – including the fact that it accounts for 10% of Brazil’s population but 17% of its GDP on only 0.009% of its developed area – and described to its urban fabric, which incorporates a dense mix of scales and uses within a clear hierarchy of streets and spaces. Henk Ovink then asked if the urban fabric of Sao Paulo had proven itself capable of accommodating social as well as physical diversity and whether it was planned or just emerged through a combination of other forces. Olv Klijn explained that Sao Paulo is the result of a very few planning rules or regulations and Henk Ovink responded with the observation that this laissez faire approach could also be strategic rather than merely neglectful.
Ratna Omidvar
Ratna Omidvar, President of the Maytree Foundation in Toronto, began her presentation with a statement in favour of the term ‘inclusion’ rather than integration or assimilation. She noted that inclusion is an inevitable process but that the issue is how long it takes and asserted that it must in every case become faster. She went on to describe European cities as places to walk, cycle and get lost and highlighted how Toronto diverges from this model. She described initiatives in Toronto to experiment with mixed use zoning and cited an open-air oven in a park used as a gathering place by members of several cultures as an example of how new expressions for diversity must be found. She also noted that Toronto is currently building more cricket pitches than baseball diamonds. On the subject of public space she focused on use and asserted that communications technologies are leading to growing social isolation. She offered the library as an example of an institution expanding its role as a civic space and noted that schools are also catching up in this regard. But she cautioned that Toronto has a long way to go politically – there is still no member of a visible minority on the city council – and described how she is establishing a school for political engagement in the city. She concluded her presentation with a discussion of the importance of symbols and illustrated this with the facts that Muslims refer to the CN Tower as the ‘local minaret’ and that the city recently won the right to host the Bollywood Film Awards. She also asserted that it was important for diversity to become a visible aspect of the civic infrastructure through the wearing of traditional dress by, for example, members of the police and the judiciary.
DISCUSSION SUMMARY
There were seven primary threads to the discussions that followed the podium presentations:
- regarding the need for rules or guiding principles vs. the need to accommodate the un-planned and the unexpected – it was agreed that a critical balance must be achieved in the city if it is to function efficiently and remain a place of diversity and a source of creative energy and there was a related discussion of whether a new, more flexible model of the masterplan could embody this goal and provide the appropriate mechanism for its implementation
- regarding the potential for the wiki-city or wiki-design processes in the city there was much discussion of these as potential methods to formulate adaptable and responsive instruments for planning that balances the input of experts with the desires of the wider public
- regarding the importance of language in discussions around migration it was agreed that the discussion needs to move beyond ‘assimilation’ and ‘integration’ – terms that isolate migration as a ‘problem’ from other related issues [e.g. other forms of social exclusion such as physical and mental disability, gender discrimination, and economic inequality] and put the onus on migrants to adapt to a dominant host culture – to talk more about ‘inclusion’ and ‘access to opportunity’ – terms that allow a broader, more complex conversation and implicate all of society in the need to increase tolerance and fairness
- it was agreed that a mix of physical forms and uses in the city is not a direct route to social diversity but it was also agreed that the opposite, rigidly ordered form of city can act as a barrier to diversity; that this type of city perhaps provides the best chance for accommodation of diversity; that the physically diverse city can perhaps best reflect extreme urban growth and change; and that this city form might also facilitate the emergence of meaningful diversity through the prevention of any single dominant symbolic reading of the city
- it was agreed that the steps towards the successful city-making, regarding diversity or any issue, must involve [1] clear intentions, [2] a responsive plan, [3] effective instruments for implementation and [4] strategic investment to make things happen and that intentions must carry through subsequent stages and guide the entire process
- it was agreed that there is a generally a disconnect between political structures and the level at which migration issues must be addressed given that the legal and policy framework that governs migration exists at the national level and it is most often cities that are required to implement policy to deal with its effects and consequences
- and finally, it was agreed that any discussion around migration needs to be clear about its terms and subjects given, for example, that migration within cities is also a significant issue which can relate to intra-city movements of second-generation migrants and cycles of disadvantage and gentrification that affect all citizens; that a wide diversity of experience exists among migrants ranging from that of the poor and undocumented to the highly-skilled and -educated; and that it was also pointed out that migration is not always directly connected with ethnicity
PODIUM DISCUSSION
Henk Ovink began the discussion with a reference to Ratna Omidvar’s anecdote regarding the CN Tower and asked whether as a strategy for inclusivity it might be possible to intentionally design physical elements of the city as a sponge to accommodate multiple identities. He continued to explain that this is both a design and a political question. Ratna Omidvar responded that design sometimes over-manages things and loses accidental beauty. She stated that she is not such a proponent of rules to manage design because these have tended to stifle Toronto and forced people out to the suburbs.
Henk Ovink then asked if this means in some cases design can prevent excellence through rules and regulations. Martin-Rein Cano agreed and added that what we want is civilised accident and safe conflict. He asserted that urbanity is defined by civilised conflict – that we like the danger of the city but need to frame the accident to make it bearable. Ratna Omidvar expressed the opinion that, like in India, innovation and creativity comes out of chaos and speculated that perhaps Canada needs to be a bit more like India.
Henk Ovink contended that the problems with the over-designed and under-designed are known but asked if there is an optimum delicate balance. He wondered if design can be this subtle and this open to uncertainty. Olv Klijn asserted that the European city could definitely use more Indian chaos but noted that it is difficult to step outside the conventional European planning agenda. He also added that if society is to have meaningful symbols we can’t just rely on chaos and coincidence – designers are required to make these things work. He also stressed the importance of not just overt symbols but also shared stories supported by a wide variety of people.
Henk Ovink then asked if this means a shift for the designer from a product delivered to the creator of a process. Olv Klijn cautioned that process can also be a problem when it takes over and becomes and end unto itself and suggested that it might be more helpful to say that the designer must create systems that have to perform regarding to their intentions.
Henk Ovink then shifted the discussion to a consideration of Berlin and asked Michael Künzel to comment on how the city attempts to achieve urban quality. Michael Künzel responded with another note of caution. He observed that there is an inherent problem with making plans for the city: they are always out of date as soon as they are implemented because the pace of urban change is too rapid. He advised that this fact requires urban plans to be open to renewal and redevelopment and revision during their life.
When Henk Ovink asked if fruitful urban chaos requires a base upon which to grow, Martin-Rein Cano replied that design is not opposed to chaos and that the designer must act as something like a doctor prescribing a dose of chaos or order precisely calibrated according to the specifics of each place and its needs. Henk Ovink then asked how the designer can get into this doctor-like frame of mind and Martin-Rein Cano asserted that this requires analysis and information and the engagement of all the senses and also stressed the importance of informed intuition as a short cut to knowledge.
In response to a question regarding who is required from the side of the city in this process,
Martin-Rein Cano contended that this is difficult as politics tends to defend its already-held positions and the plan already in place.
Barbara John then expressed the opinion that Germans regularly commit crimes against chaos in their obsession for order and cited the example of the Marzahn World Garden. She asserted that this desire for order is also a fear of heterogeneity and that inclusion is difficult for a strictly ordered society. Christine Hentschel, Post-Doctoral Fellow and Urban Sociologist at the Humboldt University, then agreed that there is a need for order but also to that Berlin makes efforts to maintain and celebrate urban voids as spaces for experimentation. She contended that this must be taken seriously, that places for experimentation should be set aside for disorder and beauty and she cited Tempelhof as Berlin’s ur-void. Regarding the topic at hand she further suggested that this strategy of holding space to see what emerges can also facilitate the development of an inclusive society.
Henk Ovink then asked if architecture should form a specific part of the migration discussion and Barbara John agreed and noted that at the most basic level, architecture can develop housing typologies to accommodate relatively large migrant families.
Henk Ovink then looked for models for how design can address these large issues. Michael Künzel contended that design professionals need to solicit and learn from the opinions of as many people directly affected as possible. He added that the process of city-making should involve information gathering and plan-making but also a discussion and debate and mechanisms for the plan to respond and change and to be continually revised and updated.
On the subject of a new adaptive planning process in Berlin, Martin-Rein Cano called for a rejection of large-scale planning in favour of more specific, small-scale initiatives. He added that Berlin is a good place for unfinished-ness and the mix of chaos and order as all its large-scale plans have productively failed, leaving diversity of fragments.
Ratna Omidvar then returned to the subject of order vs. chaos and noted that there is a difference between order and rigidity and she stated that while order is required for design and the achievement of beauty, rigidity is problematic for the city. She cited the example of difficulties in Toronto integrating multigenerational living with a rigid planning model. She added that inflexible safety regulations often strangle innovation in the city. Asked by Henk Ovink if adaptiveness is required in planning she stated that what is needed is responsiveness. She speculated that wiki-type collaborative design could assist design to fulfil its mandate to serve the needs of the people. Olv Klijn agreed that wiki-design could be helpful, especially in specific architectural contexts like housing, but expressed scepticism about wiki-cities. And Martin-Rein Cano vehemently disagreed with the idea of wiki-design. He characterised it as ‘design-by-committee’ resulting in mediocrity and advocated in favour of a large role for design professionals in the pursuit of excellence.
Henk Ovink suggested that while experts, politicians and designers are necessary for the wiki-city it is also necessary to allow surprise and the unknown into the process. Mekonnen Mesghena then re-directed the discussion away from creative chaos and symbolism towards other more practical issues. What about exclusion? People move around to get the best for their family but noted that this can create deprived areas. What about political instruments to bring balance and resources to underprivileged areas? What about the resources required for this, to build schools, create access to healthcare, to achieve security? Eric Frijters stressed the need to design the right commissions for architects and urban designers and contended that the place to start is asking people, companies and investors what they want and need. He observed that cycles of city development sometimes leave openings behind and that it might be best to leave these areas open and to see what happens rather than imposing plans on them. Olv Klijn advocated for a change in design education that would see it move away from a rigid process from analysis to fixed solution to become more of an open process for testing determined by knowledge of and input from those for whom we are designing.
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS FROM INVITED PEERS AND THE AUDIENCE
Henk Ovink then summarised the discussion thus far and noted that we need quality, symbols, stories and shared values and that to achieve this we need all voices to be heard in a development process where design is defined by engagement. He also advocated for testing in design as a profession and in design education.
Matthias Boettger of raumtaktik and the DAZ Berlin speculated that how we deal with diversity might help us more generally to deal with things like accommodating unknowns in the future. He called for humble, adaptable design not just the imposition of fixed solutions and warned that chaos can also lead to exclusion.
Daniela Patti of the Department for Urbanism, Transport, Environment and Information Society at the Central European Institute of Technology noted that a physical typological mix or formal diversity in the architecture of the city don’t necessarily create a social or economic mix. She advised that we need to recognise the great diversity among migrants [e.g. Europeans, the undocumented, those from non-European cultures, etc.] and to be aware that their needs are also very diverse.
Henk Ovink then asked how the city can deal effectively with the increasing number of migrants. How can the city hear the voice and address the needs of migrants? Can the city accommodate everyone? In response, Ratna Omidvar warned that these are very difficult questions whose answers often depend not on the city but on national politics. She made reference to Arrival City by Doug Saunders and observed that every type of migrant stimulates the economy and growth. But she also noted that politics determines the rights of migrants and refugees and their treatment is uneven depending on the relevant jurisdiction. She also noted that she prefers the term ‘undocumented’ to ‘illegal aliens.’ She described some examples of political leadership at the city level in the USA as evidence that it is possible to overcome jurisdictional problems between a national legal framework and municipal action. Henk Ovink noted that city-level examples indicate the potential for learning through exchange of city experiences.
The discussion then turned to the issue of inclusion and access to opportunity. Mekonnen Mesghena called for instruments for inclusion so that people can feel part of the process.
But then Barbara John challenged the connection between design and migration and observed that even the majority or native populations aren’t engaged with city-making. She asserted that the city itself often changes to accommodate the needs of its inhabitants in the absence of design. Henk Ovink insisted that because the city grows and changes the designer needs to reflect this even if there isn’t a direct connection between diversity and design. He added that we need new models for design in the face of accelerating change and that we need to learn from the failures of the past. Martin-Rein Cano contended that accidents of design are often those that create beauty and cited the influence of WWII and the Berlin Wall on the city. He added that in the future the influence of the city is going to grow at the expense of that of the nation-state.
Ratna Omidvar then stated that she agrees with Mekonnen Mesghena that to aspire to inclusiveness isn’t enough. She outlined four steps towards the successful city-making, regarding diversity or any issue. She stated this it must involve clear intentions, a responsive plan, effective instruments for implementation and strategic investment to make things happen. Henk Ovink then added that the intentions must carry through subsequent stages and guide the entire process.
ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
Henk Ovink began the round table discussion with an outline of the format for the Design and Politics Series and a summary of the evening’s discussion thus far. He reiterated the point that while the connection between design and migration can at times seem tenuous, cities are changing and migration is driving this change so design needs to consider how to respond. And he then advocated for the value of city-making and expressed the opinion that the contemporary city is the most efficient model in human history – 75% of the world’s population live in cities, producing 90% of the its GDP on just 3% of its usable land area.
Then, in the context of a discussion of Sao Paulo instigated by Eric Frijters, it was agreed that a mix of physical forms and uses in the city is not a direct route to social diversity but it was also agreed that the opposite, rigidly ordered form of city can act as a barrier to diversity; that this type of city perhaps provides the best chance for accommodation of diversity; that the physically diverse city can perhaps best reflect extreme urban growth and change; and that this city form might also facilitate the emergence of meaningful diversity through the prevention of any single dominant symbolic reading of the city.
Henk Ovink then asked if there was any city or society that isn’t made up largely of migrants or some sort. Related to this question, Aine Ryan of Aedes/ANCB asked if the critical issue is migration or social exclusion. She noted that in Berlin it is interesting how the public realm is dominated by certain groups or classes. It was noted that intra-city movement of people is also a serious issue. Aine Ryan observed that 40% of the Berlin population is transient and Michael Künzel confirmed that between 30 and 40% of the Berlin population moves in the course of a single year and he asserted that this can be as problematic as inward or outward migration in terms of raising rents and creating challenges for city-making decisions.
Ratna Omidvar then expressed the opinion that the single greatest indicator of inclusion is intermarriage. She noted that this is up in Canada and that her children and grandchildren are all ‘mongrelised’ in mixed-ethnicity families. She then called for ‘mongrelised design’ to accommodate diversity.
There was then a discussion of migrant housing in Berlin since WWII. Mekonnen Mesghena noted that when migrants first came to Berlin they occupied the city centre because it was vacant. He noted that in Berlin we have inner-city migrant communities but the housing condition is poor as opposed to countries like Sweden or France in which social housing is of higher quality but located on the periphery. It was noted that Sweden ranks first on the Migrant Integration Policy Index [MIPEX] but this was explained by the fact that the ranking grades policy not the reality on the ground. Michael Künzel explained that the first Turkish immigrants to Berlin came from poor areas of rural Turkey so even war-ruined houses were palaces compared to where they came from and that at the same time Germans were fed up with 19th century housing and left the centre for new peripheral housing areas.
Barbara John then observed that this trend is now reversing, with inner-city areas becoming fashionable and being re-occupied by Germans with migrants priced out. Michael Künzel agreed but described how better-off Turks are also now electing to move to the suburbs. And he also noted that we now have migrants from Kazakhstan who are happy to occupy industrial housing estates from the 1970s and 80s on the periphery of Berlin that are becoming vacant because this housing is still much better that what they are used to at home. Henk Ovink suggested that these intra-city shifts can create distinct neighbourhoods with strong identities but also warned that social exclusion can result. Martin-Rein Cano speculated that it would take forceful housing policies to counteract the segregation created by the liberalised housing market.
Daniela Patti then pointed out that the discussion we have around migration depends on what type of migrant we’re talking about – that there is a wide diversity of experience among migrants based on ethnicity, economic status, degree of education, etc. – and she insisted that design should define strategies for specific groups.
Daniela Patti also noted the jurisdictional conflict between national immigration policy and the requirement for the consequences of migration to be addressed at the municipal level. And Mekonnen Mesghena cautioned that we must be aware that the public discourse is always changing. He cited the example of a significant emigrant population in Berlin who say first we were the Turks, then we became the immigrants, and now we are the Muslims.
Henk Ovink insisted on a role for design in city-making. And he contended that if all cities are indeed migrant cities we should try to learn from urban experience everywhere. He then concluded the discussion with a consideration of the role of design in the migration issue. He expressed the opinion that design should concentrate on making beautiful, distinctive and inclusive places rather than trying to make city specifically to accommodate migrant groups. He insisted that the primary goal of design must be quality. He then thanked the participants and brought the discussion to a close.
