New Forms of Governance:
In Barcelona, urban experts
and politicians search for new perspectives for the future city
The vision of the gigantic megalopolis is often invoked, an obscure
agglomeration of "city-states," economic centers that serve as magnets
keeping migration movements in motion worldwide. The problems arising out
of the conglomeration of huge masses of people from divergent ethnic and
religious backgrounds crowded together in a comparatively small area
already far exceed the capacities of many international big cities today.
Is the city of the future on the brink of collapse? Harald Fricke
on the second European Mayors' Conference of the Alfred Herrhausen
Society for International Dialogue, which will be taking place in
Barcelona on February 13/14 2004 in cooperation with the London School of
Economics and Political Science and the AULA Barcelona.
Aerial photography: Old Town Center of Barcelona
The blue triangle can already be seen as the plane prepares for landing.
The 200 foot-long facade of the
building complex designed by the Swiss architectural duo
Herzog & DeMeuron will be opening this year with the project
Forum 2004. From May 9 through September 26, discussions, expert panels,
and cultural events will be taking place here, united under a common
theme: what is the city's future? In the process, Barcelona hopes to
incite a kind of "Creative Olympics" that could become a model for the
development of today's metropolis: in concrete terms, Forum 2004 is
creating 56,000 new jobs, the city is counting on five million visitors
altogether, and, following the 141 day-long festival, Barcelona will have
created an attractive center in the formerly stagnant industrial harbor
area. What has already become a part of Barcelona's metropolitan reality
represents one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century to major
European cities: the metropolis is undergoing dramatic change. Due to
migration, global networking, and shifts in the forms of labor, urban
conditions have experienced a profound transformation. In the long run, a
small number of cities will grow into burgeoning centers of concentration,
while smaller and mid-sized cities will continue to
shrink. Will it be possible to influence the results of this unstoppable
process, or to at least make it more bearable for the inhabitants?
left to right: residential densitiy, retail intensity, use of public
buildings, land use
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The modern metropolis as a microcosm and an important
indicator of overall social development - the
Alfred Herrhausen Society for International Dialogue, Deutsche Bank's
socio-political think tank, recognized the significance of this concept at
an early date. Within the framework of its theme for 2004, The Partnership
Principle:
New Forms of Governance in the 21st Century, it picks up on this concept;
together with the London School of Economics and Political Science
(LSE) and the AULA Barcelona, it has
organized a conference with the mayors of major European cities.
On
February 13 and 14 2004, in advance of the Forum 2004 in Barcelona, these
mayors will be meeting together with leading experts for a second European
Mayors' Conference. Under the motto "New social patterns and policies:
social cohesion, migration and urban governance," attention will be
focused on the challenges currently facing European metropolitan centers:
how are Europe's urban centers reacting to changes in social structures?
Is there a socially acceptable form of city planning that is organized
according to the needs of its inhabitants?
Julian Rosefeldt: Oktoberfest, 1996/1999, Deutsche Bank Collection, Courtesy
Galerie Six Friedrich & Lisa Ungar
This question was already addressed at the first European Mayors' Conference
(more
here) in February 2003, which took place in London. For the first time,
sixteen mayors of major European cities met with urban sociologists and
architects to discuss possibilities for a common politics of urban
development. It already became clear at last year's conference that the
development of today's major cities will continue to determine social
problems both in Europe and around the world. This not only includes the
rapidly shifting demographic relationship between cities and states and
the explosive growth in population density in certain major cities, but
also implies the question as to how a Europe comprised of cities can be
co-governed, as well as what role public space will play in view of this
dynamic process.
Nobuyoshi Araki: Untitled from Tokyo Novelle, 1995,
Deutsche Bank Collection
At the first
Mayors' Conference,
Saskia Sassen, professor for Urban Political Economy at the LSE,
advocated a change in thinking that would regard urban space as a creative
"Glamour Zone." Sassen considers the new boom of the metropolis to be the
result of changed economic conditions, although, due to globalization and
the information technologies, its economic foundations have shifted from
concrete locations to virtualized "electronic markets." This process,
however, is only half the story, according to Sassen. "The other half is
that strategic, creative activities - whether economic, cultural, or
political, thrive on density.
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