Lauren Andres

Differential Spaces, Power Hierarchy and Collaborative Planning: A Critique of the Role of Temporary Uses in Shaping and Making Places

Drawing upon collaborative planning theory and on the work of Lefebvre and de Certeau, this paper explores the multistage governance arrangements leading to the employment of temporary uses as an instrument for regeneration in a context of economic crisis. It contributes to a thorough understanding of the relations between the power hierarchy and the strategy/tactics developed through a more or less inclusive collaborative process from place-shaping (weak planning) to place-making (masterplanning). By decrypting the different paths that can be taken by the collaborative process, the paper demonstrates how temporary uses on differential spaces shape space from a use value point of view, influence and challenge the distribution of power and enable (temporary) occupants to acquire and sometimes sustain a position in the place-making process.

Cultural brownfields in European cities: a new mainstream object for cultural and urban policies

This paper develops the concept of ‘cultural brownfields’ and discusses how organic cultural projects developed in derelict sites have been progressively included in mainstream cultural and urban planning strategies and policies over the last 10 years. To do so the paper assesses the transformation of three mature cultural brownfields in Berlin, Marseille and Lausanne and their distinctive internal and external dynamics. It develops a typology of cultural brownfields which stresses the diverse nature of these spaces and their differential role in cultural and urban planning policies. The paper concludes by highlighting a series of policy lessons for urban planning and cultural strategies.

Alternative Initiatives, Cultural Intermediaries and Urban Regeneration: the Case of La Friche (Marseille)

This paper discusses the role played by the cultural regeneration of a tobacco factory known as La Friche in the urban renaissance of Marseille. It builds an analytical framework to decrypt the extent to which the network and strategy building, the mobilization capacity and the project-making ability was developed in the two main episodes of governance by the cultural intermediaries Système Friche Théâtre (the collective in charge of the cultural initiative). This led to the rise of La Friche as one of the key cultural facilities in Marseille within the project Euroméditerranée and in the successful application to the 2013 European Capital of Culture schemes highlighting the sustainable development of this initiative initially supposed to be temporary.

The role of ‘persistent resilience’ within everyday life and polity: households coping with marginality within the ‘Big Society’

As Europes current economic crisis continues many households are developing new coping strategies in response to the pressures of everyday life. This paper explores such practices within Birminghams Castle Vale housing estate, drawing on the increasing engagement within the social sciences with notions of resilience. This concept, originating from engineering, psychology, and disaster management, is increasingly used in urban and economic geography, and is becoming influential on state policy. This paper furthers its current usages by proposing the concept of ‘persistent resilience’, whereby households, and their networks, develop responses not just to ‘shocks’, but also to more long-term processes, such as the changing nature of employment and/or responses to constantly altering state policies. This form of resilience has significant policy relevance, as it can be seen, albeit under different names, at the heart of the British governments ‘Big Society’ project, within which communities are to be empowered to steer their development while ‘big government’ withdraws. This paper argues, however, that there is an inherent tension within such assumptions of community-led development, as they do not consider the spaces in which it takes place. As the paper demonstrates, ‘persistent resilience’ is often formed in the semiformal/informal spaces of everyday life, which, in many cases, will be destroyed by cuts to government funding to communities. Thus, the paper calls for a more nuanced, everyday understanding of resilience and the spaces within which it is formed and transmitted.

Levels of Governance and Multi-stage Policy Process of Brownfield Regeneration: A Comparison of France and Switzerland

This paper compares the multi-stage policy process of brownfield regeneration in France and in Switzerland, two decentralized although different countries that have not fully addressed the issue of brownfield regeneration at a national level. It makes a contribution in developing a framework to analyse the different stages of policy development, with regard to brownfield regeneration. It also fills a gap in comparative studies as French and Swiss contexts lack from coverage in the English speaking literature. It aims to understand why they have not shared and are still not sharing a similar path towards the inclusion of brownfield sites in national planning frameworks. Drawing on the examples of national policies implemented in England, in Germany and in the United States, the paper argues that whereas Switzerland is moving quickly to a national programme of brownfield regeneration highly anchored in an ambition of preserving natural spaces against urbanization, France is sustaining a persistent national concern for social housing estates giving flexibility and leeway to local and regional authorities as regards land-use management and brownfield regeneration.

AESOP's Thematic Groups - Part 1: French and British Planning Studies Group

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