New Towns Symposium

Morning Session

On the 6th of September 2006 TU Berlin hosted an international symposium addressing the question whether New Towns are a concept for the sustainable development of Megacity regions. Several international experts, academics and practitioners likewise, from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Egypt were invited to the one-day Symposium in order to explore the main research question of the "Young Cities" Project. The event encompassed an inauguration, a main session in the morning and one in the afternoon summed up by a conclusion of the presentations in the early evening » programme. The audience was formed by the members of the Project consortium of both the German and the Iranian sides. Due to the highly interesting panel of experts the symposium was shortly opened for additional external guests especially from the regional scientific community. The Symposium took place in the TU Berlin Senate Hall in the university's main building. The Symposium is regarded as highly successful for the work of the Young Cities Project by the Project's coordinators. The course and the results of the Symposium shall be documented and published shortly.

Opening and Welcome by Prof Schaefer and Prof Heidarinejad

Prof Schäfer, Dean of TU Berlin Faculty VI and German Project coordinator, and Prof Heidarinejad, President of BHRC, Tehran, the Iranian lead partner of the Project, welcomed the attending speakers along with the audience. After a presentation by Prof Schäfer about the Project "Young Cities - New Towns in Iran" in context of the BMBF programme "Research for Sustainable Development of the Megacities of Tomorrow" Prof Heidarinejad welcomed the attending scholars and introduced the Building and Housing Research Center (BHRC). After demonstrating the current demographic, technological and environmental conditions of Iran, Prof Heidarinejad pointed out the role of the Iranian New Towns programme and simultaneously emphasised the importance of the mutual Young Cities research project.

Key note speech by Dr Sudarskis

After the opening, Dr Michel Sudarskis, Secretary General of INTA (International Association for Urban Development, formerly International New Towns Association), the Hague,the Netherlands, gave the key note lecture "Do New Towns matter?". Dr Sudarskis impressively emphasised that most European New Towns were developed under special legislative and administrative arrangements. He pointed out that these basic economic, social, and demographic conditions changed over the last decades on the one hand and that most of the European New Towns became mature on the other hand. Hence, Dr Sudarskis emphasised the need for an adaptation of the existing New Towns to this framework and explained why innovation should be the key driver for a sustainable adaptation of the European New Towns.

Dr Simmonds, Oxford Brooks University, UK

Following the keynote speech the contributions of the morning session explored the effects and the success of the New Towns strategy on a regional level presenting the cases of London and Cairo. Dr. Roger Simmonds, professor at the Joint Centre of Urban Design, Oxford Brookes University, UK, and editor of the influential book "Global City Regions", analysed the development of the London Megacity region in the 20th and 21st centuries. Comparing London's development and the New Towns approach to the Paris case in historic perspective, Prof Simmonds highlighted the impact of transport infrastructure on the development of Megacity Regions. Based on these findings, Prof Simmonds explored the changing role of today's New Towns in the London region, stressing the strong analogies of the sustainable Growth Area strategy of today and the New Towns movement of the 1950s and 1960s).

Jim Bennett, ippr London

Jim Bennett, senior research fellow at the UK think tank, London-based Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), presented his comprehensive findings of a study on English New Towns "From New Towns to Growth Areas: learning from the past" (» PDF download) conducted for the British government. Mr Bennett emphasised the lessons learned on New Towns in various dimensions (such as employment, delivery, commercial and social development, urban design etc.) and set these findings in correlation to the current Growth Area strategy of the British government. Based on this comparison he drew conclusions regarding the required modifications of the Growth Areas programme and pinpointed important indicators for the sustainable development of new settlements.

Dr Salheen, Ain Shams University

After a well-deserved coffee break Dr Mohamed Salheen of Ain Shams University Cairo, Egypt, member of the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport in Cairo, explored the development of the Megacity region of Cairo and showed strategies of growth management of the region. Dr Salheen showed why the concept of building New Towns is closely bound to the development of Cairo within the last 150 years and why and how the growth of Cairo was heavily influenced by the development of infrastructure. Emphasising the political changes of the 20th century, Dr Salheen explored the expansion of Cairo into the desert resulting in the construction of New Towns. Presenting this New Towns programme, its strengths and its failures, Dr Salheen highlighted the importance of economic development concepts for New Towns.

Dr Dienel, TU Berlin

Reacting to the cases of London and Cairo, Dr Hans-Liudger Dienel, Director of the TU Berlin Centre for Technology and Society, made an intervention stimulating the panel discussion with the speakers. Dr Dienel primarily emphasised the importantance of investigating and addressing the target groups of single New Towns. The discussion that followed Dr Dienel's intervention identified key aspects for a successful decongestion of Megacity regions such as the issue of transport infrastructure, integrated planning approaches and the design of sustainable economic development concepts for the New Towns. The contributions made within the morning session clearly indicated that New Towns do matter, since they are planned and built in large quantities, especially in fast growing economies. Moreover it became clear that New Towns can play a role for the decongestion of Megacity regions, provided that the planning and construction of new settlements builds on the lessons learned and indicated above.

Afternoon Session

Peter Gotsch, GLORA

After lunch Peter Gotsch's contribution "Privately developed New Towns in the 21st Century - Challenges, Potentials and Research Agendas" formed the transition from governmentally planned New Towns in the morning session to privately developed New Towns exploring the case of Navi Mumbai, India. Peter Gotsch, head of the Laboratory for Planning in a Global Context (GLORA), Universität Karsruhe, and editor of "Trialog - Journal for Planning and Building in the Third World" examined the historical and theoretical context of New Towns in general and set out the motives for the "new" New Towns in the South. Explaining this by the example of Navi Mumbai, Mr Gotsch impressively showed today's relevance of New Towns and subsequently defined a research agenda.

Markus Dettling , Kees Christiaanse Architects and Planners

Following up the hypothesis of the "new" New Towns of the south, Markus Dettling, architect and planner at Kees Christiaanse Architects and Planners, Rotterdam, the Nether-lands, presented Synia, a new city in and between metropoles. Mr Dettling, former project manager at the practice of Fink+Jocher, Munich, was heavily involved in the planning of this New Town in China. By explaining the long-term process of planning Synia he stressed the fact that new integrative planning approaches for New Towns need to be developed, especially considering the feature of flexibility. Presenting the approach of the 'macrocity' and the 'microcity', Mr Dettling showed major planning principles which meet the objective of flexibility.

Thomas Gusenburger, Neumann Gusenburger Office for Landscape Architecture

Turning the focus on the Middle East and North Africa region, Thomas Gusenburger, co-founder and owner of Neumann Gusenburger Office for Landscape Architecture, Berlin, presented the project Khalifa City in the United Arab Emirates. The planning of Khalifa City has been conducted by the Neumann Gusenburger practice for six years. After pointing out local planning principles and local cultural values, Mr Gusenburger explained the unorthodox planning scheme for Khalifa City, focussing on the importance of adequate landscape design for housing schemes in the arid region of the U.A.E. Listening to Mr Gusenburger's remarks, it became clear that the specific social and economic conditions are leading to New Town concepts, which totally differ from the ones implemented in southeast Asia.

Mahmoud Mirian, INTDC

Following Mr Gusenburger, S. Mahmoud Mirian, Chairman of the New Towns Development Corporation, Tehran, Iran, and partner within the "Young Cities" Project, gave a brief outline of the New Towns strategy implanted in Iran. After depicting the basic demographic and social conditions, with a focus on the rural-urban migration patterns in Iran, Mr Mirian introduced two groups of New Towns built in Iran: the first group aimed at decongestion of the fast growing urban agglomerations, the second group mainly intended as industrial locations.

Prof Pahl-Weber and Prof Berten dicussion and conclusion

Prof Peter Berten of the Unit for Architectural Design and Building Theory, TU Berlin, did the intervention of the afternoon session indicating that flexibility is the most important aspect in planning successful New Towns in order to adapt to today's fast changing economic, social and demographic environment. After Prof Berten's statement, Prof Pahl-Weber of the Unit for Urban Renewal at TU Berlin presented first conclusions of the symposium opening the final discussion. She pointed out that New Towns are on the political and hence the scientific agenda again, on the one hand regarding the development of a new generation of New Towns and on the other hand regarding the re-development of existing New Towns. Prof Pahl-Weber underlined that the main reason of New Town development - population growth coupled with massive rural-urban migration - should be seen with care due to rapidly changing demographic patterns.

The subsequent panel discussion showed that all speakers agreed that the main challenge for the mostly formal planned New Towns is to become a "normal", lively town also shaped by informal structures contributing to the residents' identification with "their" town. Therefore, a central challenge in planning New Towns seems to be whether informality in New Towns can be "planned" or - at least - what the general conditions should be in order to foster these structures. The symposium proofed that one crucial component seems to be to implement flexible planning approaches. Due to these major challenges, all participants emphasised the importance of a long-term scientific observation and evaluation of the planning and construction of New Towns in order to support the sustainable development of new settlements.