La incorporación de las TIC en las clases de matemáticas

Social diversity in an urban environment has appeared to be problematic in some cases. It might bring vibrancy to a city, but it could also affect the relationship between the inhabitants. As a result, friction among groups can emerge for various reasons. In a worst case scenario, this could result in violent conflicts. The events of a number of examples, such as the London riots, the Belfast upheaval, conflicts in Nigeria, and Indonesian conflicts, shows that this risk could threaten urban and rural environments in either developed or developing countries. Some examples have a clear political grounding, but a number of incidents also link to urban development issues. The previous discussion on Section 2.2. has presented the notion that violent conflicts could occur in relation to friction over natural resources, agricultural land, segregate settlement, ethnic and religious differences, imbalanced development, and so on.

In urban development discussions, planning and architecture work as the two main tools. In fact, to achieve better urban quality, the implementation of a particular development needs to have taken into consideration ‘development strategy and people’ with ‘planning’ as the third element (Parfect and Power, 1997). More specifically, urban development needs to look at at least five aspects to obtain a better quality urban system: (1) distance of ethnic groups; the proximity between different socio-cultural groups counts not only as physical, but also psychological, (2) territoriality; the state of physical and legal boundaries, (3) economic interdependency, (4) symbolism; it addresses the expression of cultural differences, and (5) centrality; it is related to the sharing of authority and power (Bollens, 2006). In other words, a good quality urban system addresses the relationship between social, physical, economic, cultural, and political practice within an urban setting. In this case, urban policy is an important strategy for shaping inter-group relationships, either towards peacef or violence.

Urban Development and Social Diversity | 28 Scott A. Bollens (2006) presents the function of an urban designer and planner and what contribution they can put towards a good urban development which addresses multiple social and ethnic groups in five movements:

1. Adapt flexibility and porosity of the urban form to allow integration of urban processes. This way, cities can enable future mixing of populations by discouraging segregation of social and ethnic groups. It could apply changes to the urban structure to deal with sensitive cultural differences. 2. The city planning should engage margin groups by encouraging public

participation during the planning process. This movement is also likely to increase equal access to public services and goods.

3. Cities should allocate sufficient opportunity for neighbourhoods to represent their cultural and historical expression within their urban neighbourhood. Provision of this expression in interface areas or boundaries between other cultural neighbourhoods will give opportunity for mixing of activities.

4. A sense of equal community in public spaces is necessary to respond to all social and ethnic groups. A good public space is one which neutrally and naturally enables inter-group interaction as well as encourages social cohesion through cross-cultural activities.

5. Finally, there is a need to link all the socio-cultural groups at an institutional level, horizontally and vertically, to bring peace and good understanding among the groups. These movements could appear in more practical areas such as public spaces, neighbourhoods, historic areas, housing, and other urban public facilities, promoting a good ‘inter-group’ life.

This idea has produced examples of urban development strategies designed to respond to social diversity issues and potential conflict. Another example from the UK, which exemplifies the importance of tackling social diversity and cohesion issues, is The Egan Review, which addressed such issues

Urban Development and Social Diversity | 29 by listing them as one of the main concerns (ODPM, 2004). The review mentions that sustainable development must involve a socio-cultural aspect related to (1) a sense of identity, (2) engagement and respect among different culture, (3) friendly neighbourhoods, (4) opportunities for social activities, (5) a sense of security from crime and anti-social behaviour, and (6) social inclusion. The main objectives of the overall agenda were to effectively deal with issues of natural resources, environment, social cohesion and inclusion and economic prosperity.

In a different context, the local authority of Johannesburg has resolved conflict and socio-economic inequality issues through post-apartheid urban policy (Bollens, 1998). Several urban redevelopment movements, designed to integrate people and places, are listed. Firstly, a densification movement changed the existing urban system by means of three objectives: to generate economic growth within existing urban space, by adopting a more compact use of space; to enable the use of housing and economy infrastructure by different ethnic groups; and to open-up segregated communities to sustainable land-use patterns. Secondly, renewal development has been done on particularly deprived urban areas. It attempted to improve housing, sanitation, public health, and the provision of social facilities. However, the movement created another problem; different forms of spatial inequality developed that were defined not by ethnicity but by economics.

In Northern Ireland, segregated societies involved continuous interaction not only political dimension but also cultural, geographical alienation, and socio-economic dimension (Murtagh et al., 2008). Conflict which then happened following the division had an emotional grounding to it; it challenged the urban planning practitioners to apply collaborative planning at city level.

The necessity of intervention on a larger level can be exemplified by a Swedish case where they opted to try to reduce segregation to scale down the conflict. By focusing only on a smaller area, the government applied a redevelopment programme to reduce poverty in some areas. That one problem was successfully removed by the new development, but the poverty

Urban Development and Social Diversity | 30 problem moved to another place in another form. It solved the problem of spatial degradation, but not the actual problem itself (Andersson, 2006).

However, the application of planning practices is not simple. When dealing with multi-cultural communities, planning practices are difficult to implement without biased policy. The example above, from Jerusalem, shows that urban policy clearly gives unequal privilege to its citizens (Bollens, 1998). Politicised urban planning appears in several forms, such as housing provision, land control, zoning regulation and transportation planning. Urban planners consciously employed subjective ideas in the implementation of their planning practice.

Those examples show that a city is a symbol of economic, cultural, religious, political, spatial differences which can lead to conflict; urban spaces became a battlefield for legitimising power differences (Boone, 2002b). When intense power clashes involved different classes or ethnic groups, the conflict could raise racial issues (Cornell and Hartman, 2007). In response to these circumstances, urban planning should act fairly (Cunningham and Byrne, 2006). Though some practice has been exercised in response to communal conflict, most of the movements take place in the context of more developed settings. Little research on such practices has been done to intentionally prevent the severe inequalities which lead to the conflicts typical of less developed countries. These kind of social cohesion concepts seem to be less successful at city level (Varshney, 2001). Varshney argued that social ethnic peace can happen on smaller scales, such as small towns or villages, by day-to- day engagement among social ethnic groups. In other words, the relationship between built environments and social cohesion is still problematic in developing countries.

Using the context of Jerusalem and Johannesburg, Bollens (2006) proposed some hints to handle the problem of cultural difference in several ways: generating flexible urban structure and form, enlarging opportunity to participate in planning to reduce horizontal inequality, being sensitive to cultural differences, encouraging public interaction in terms of space or

Urban Development and Social Diversity | 31 institutions, and distributing the practice of cohesive development into various applications. In the implementation of more practical techniques, the concept could apply the ideas into the execution of several practices such as housing and urban policy, ownership and control on property, support on local and community infrastructure, programmes on application (Murtagh et al., 2008), spatial techniques or land use, regulation and developmental planning, governmental relationships on various levels, demographic distribution, and some other urban policy movement to represent government objectives (Bollens, 1998). Sandercock (2003) suggested seven prerequisite conditions for urban policy in response to diversity issues: strong commitment to the policy by the reigning political party, a policy support system, addressing integration of day-to-day relationships, reformation of social policy approach, considering cultural differences to understand urban policy, elaborating on the new notion of citizenship, and working with a positive mindset towards integration (Sandercock, 2003).

Table 2.6. Five Themes of the Urban Planning Role in Response to Diversity Issues

Themes Strategies Techniques (examples)

Social Promoting integration into daily life; social policy;

Housing program; ownership control; community infrastructure

development; demographic distribution; public health; social facilities provision

Political Political commitment; policy support system; new

citizenship definition;

Collaborative planning; public interaction; regulation; institutional relationship; power distribution Economic Economic development Reducing poverty; distribution of

economic opportunities; economic interdependency

Cultural Cultural understanding integrated into urban policy practices; cultural sensitive planning;

Promoting multicultural events; addressing multicultural expression; maintenance group identity

Physical Conducive psychological environment

Porous urban structure, collaborative urban space; property control; spatial techniques; land use; zoning

regulation; transportation planning; manipulating group boundaries Sources: (Bollens, 2006; Murtagh et al., 2008)

Urban Development and Social Diversity | 32 To summarize, the understanding of urban planning roles designed to respond to diversity issues, which might lead to group level conflict, is presented in Table 2.6. It presents five main subcategories of the role of urban planning as a means of turning potential into a response to social diversity and conflict issues. It introduces social, political, economic, cultural, and physical strategies. For example, from a social point of view, the urban development needs to encourage the assimilation of more integrative policies into daily life. This will involve a housing programme, social infrastructure provisions at community level, a public health service and demographic distribution. From a cultural aspect, the development calls for culturally sensitive planning which addresses multi-cultural characteristics. All in all, these themes should be physically manifested. The physical development required to implement specific techniques, to ensure more collaborative urban space, is a porous urban structure, as well as fewer group boundaries. Spatial techniques such as land use and zoning regulation are used for this purpose.