Social urban planning: a key element in building resilient cities

About the author

Pablo Cerezal

Writer

Pablo Cerezal is a writer, editor, scriptwriter, and lyricist with an extensive career that includes articles and reports for numerous outlets such as Ethic, FronteraD, Zenda, and La Razón (Bolivia), as well as two personal blogs on cultural topics.

In addition to his literary and journalistic work, he has led communications for various third-sector organisations in Spain and Bolivia, specialising in articles and features on corporate social responsibility and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Meet the author

Large metropolises are constantly growing and expanding their infrastructures to accommodate more citizens. Based on data from the World Bank, more than 50% of the world’s population (about 4.5 billion people) now lives in urban areas. This upward trend seems to be unstoppable, which means that urban planning processes need to speed up, but this poses significant challenges. Political agendas across the world are beginning to incorporate directives for sustainable construction that take into account not only the economic dimension of urban growth, but also social and environmental aspects.

What am I going to read in this article?

• What social urban planning is and what its benefits are
• Examples of citizen participation that transforms cities
• Sao Paulo Metro Orange Line: social urban planning underway

What is social urban planning and what are its benefits?

The methodology applied for sustainably maintaining this pace of growth and benefiting communities is called social urban planning. It is a form of urban development that puts people at the centre of the planning process, ensuring accessible public spaces, encouraging the sustainable use of resources, engaging the local community in decision-making, and ensuring a fair and equitable distribution of services. It is all about improving people’s quality of life by moving towards a sustainable future and a positive society.

“Social urban planning is a type of urban development that puts people at the centre of the planning process, ensuring accessible public spaces.”

Examples of citizen participation that transforms cities

An excellent example of community decision-making is seen in the Golburn solar farm project in Australia. In 2020, residents of Golburn got together to create a space with 4,000 solar panels that could provide clean energy to the entire community. Local groups planned the project and ended up collecting a subsidy of more than A$2 million from the state authorities. This magnificent example of community empowerment has achieved several key objectives, including reinforcing citizen participation, securing clean and affordable energy, creating jobs locally, and generating economic returns that have been reinvested in similar projects.

The New York High Line (USA) also emerged from a citizens’ action. It is a spectacular urban park built along more than 2 kilometres of what was an abandoned high rail track. In the 1990s, local authorities decided to demolish the track, but a group of neighbourhood residents got together to set up the ‘Friends of the High Line’ association. After commissioning an economic viability study, they were able to involve the mayor in the design and construction of the new park. Opened in 2009, this green space has become a community meeting place with a sustainable plant landscape right in the heart of the neighbourhood.

A project for the neighbourhood of La Pinada in Valencia (Spain) began in 2017. The initiative sets out to be the most sustainable and innovative project of its kind in the country. Designed to house 1,400 families, the standout feature of this project is that the people who will live there in the future are actively involved in its design. It currently has a school - Imagine Montessori - whose energy efficiency means that its impact on the local environment will be virtually zero. The goals for the future neighbourhood are ambitious, as they promote low-carbon mobility, minimal energy consumption, and energy management according to circular economy principles that allow the reuse of materials as well as care for biodiversity in the area. The project is a clear example of social urban planning in that it facilitates access to housing, boosts local businesses, and includes social and ethical purchasing clauses in all procurements involved in the construction phase.

Environmental protection and social well-being were the goals set to make Vancouver (Canada) one of the five cities with the highest quality of life in the world. The Greenest City 2020 Action Plan involved local authorities, organisations, companies and citizens to create a green metropolis that has significantly reduced its energy consumption and fostered self-consumption, green agriculture and recycling of organic waste by residents. Several projects are currently underway to transition the city to 100% renewable energy by 2050, renovate all buildings to achieve zero emissions by 2030, and encourage citizens to take steps to reduce their carbon footprint.

“To build a better future, social urban planning projects must also have a positive impact on the community during the implementation phase”.

Sao Paulo Metro Orange Line: social urban planning underway

To build a better future, social urban planning projects must also have a positive impact on the community during their implementation. This is the approach behind the Sao Paulo Orange Line, the largest public-private infrastructure project in Latin America. The construction of a 15-kilometre metro line connecting the centre of the Brazilian city to its northwest limit is of great benefit to the community, as an estimated 633,000 passengers will use the line every day. Once it had been awarded the construction work, ACCIONA, the company heading the project, implemented its social urban planning model, setting the target of hiring at least 12% of women. After making socioeconomic diagnoses of the areas that the metro line will serve, the company has carried out projects to promote gender equality. The aim is to provide women in vulnerable situations with professional training in different areas that will allow them to generate income. This led to the Women in construction project, which aims to promote the inclusion of women and give a higher profile to female talent in the field of construction.

In this case, the company’s CSR has gone further, with projects such as ACCIONA in Schools, which has helped young people in the peripheral areas to feel part of the future of mobility through design, photography, music and podcast workshops, and also through improvements to their school infrastructures, including small urban orchards.

On the environmental side, all construction work has incorporated actions that substantially reduce the water footprint and take advantage of the waste generated, much of which is recycled and sent to local cooperatives for processing. Finally, with some similarity to New York’s High Line, Line 6 features a landscape design that includes more than 2,000 trees.

Social urban planning is not just an alternative, but a necessity for designing resilient and sustainable cities. The participatory approach, an essential part of it, enables us to build a more just and environmentally friendly urban future from today, one that can create a positive society with a high level of well-being.