Designing for equality: Conceptualising a tool for strategic territorial planning

Abstract

The struggle for equality is fundamental to the reduction of poverty in Central America. Besides, one of the foremost goals of urban spatial planning, when implementing social policies, is to contribute to the reduction of poverty. This is done by producing a list of territorially-based actions and selecting those suitable for the implementation of social policies developed at national level. However, urban planners working with local authorities in the Region face political, managerial, financial and technical limitations for adequately conducting this task. Of particular interest to this paper are the limited options they have for technically assessing the impact that territorially-based actions have on reducing inequality, and therefore poverty.An operational methodology is proposed in this paper, as a step forward to enable planners to simulate, assess and monitor the impact of territorially-based actions on inequality, and to promote the use of evidence from statistical data when proposing, implementing and monitoring those actions. The methodology is introduced by inscribing it in the context of urban spatial planning, presenting the concepts that underpin it, describing how it is intended to work, and illustrating its use through the presentation of an empirical study. r

Applying the lessons of strategic urban planning learned in the developing world to the Netherlands: A case study of three industrial area development projects

“…crucial to develop sustainable planning solutions (Davidson, 1996;Halla, 2007;Wong et al, 2006), to create more transparency and equality (De la Espriella, 2007), and to better address community values (Choguill, 1999). It appears that there is more awareness in developing countries than in developed countries that strategic urban planning is needed and leads to more sustainable urban planning results.…”

A Technique for Small-area Poverty Analyses

“…The most widely used indicator of URS is the Index of Dissimilarity (D), which shows the number of population members that may need to be relocated to another territorial unit of the city in order to obtain a perfectly even distribution throughout the city (see Duncan and Duncan, 1955). The benefi t of using D in poverty analyses is that its calculations can be disaggregated at different geographical levels of the city (de la Espriella, 2007b).…”

Using Quality of Life Criteria to Define Urban Areas in Catalonia

“…The usual tool is spatial planning, which aims to provide users with solutions for the future, as part of the governance agenda. Its goal is to make direct improvements to the quality of life (de la Espriella 2007). It deals with elements such as roads, walkways, street lighting, electricity and piped water, all of which have physical and territorial dimensions.…”