At the turning point from the "industrial age" to a "knowledge society", and in the midst of the lights and shadows of a globalised world, it is timely to indulge in a technical and political reflection on how European cities and regions may reconsider their position at different scales (European, national, regional, metropolitan or local) according to their circumstances. In this exercise we should particularly keep in mind the construction and effects of networks and infrastructures at all these scales. The final aim is to bring conclusions that can make planning more effective and socially useful.

1. Connectivity, accessibility, sustainability, cohesion, competitivity, concertation, logistics,…

2. Ports, airports, highways, roads and ways, traffic management, railway (metro, tramway, suburban, long-distance, HST), public transportation, intermodal nodes, energy generation and networks, telecommunication links, virtual networks, cellular devices, TIC, new economy, ZAL,…

• Land is a basic economic good subject to geographic and environmental restrictions; it is the single recipient for all human activities; due to its scarceness and sensitivity, it has to be optimised through a sustainable urbanisation process

• To achieve the goal of social cohesion, physical and virtual networks have to be developed to ensure everyone has access to public infrastructure benefits; planning is the main tool to bow down to the general interest, and "accessibility for all to everything" becomes perhaps the most valuable issue

• To reach reasonably good levels of competitivity and quality of life, urban life today requires easy transgression of conventional borders and finding ways for cooperation and function distribution among several municipalities

• When supplying infrastructures, the traditional hard fixing has proved unsatisfactory; soft (information / knowledge and its processing) is also needed

• Time replaces distance when measuring accessibility

Is achieving greater urbanisation density the key to accomplish sustainability requirements?

Despite the inevitable nuisances arising in the different places, in order to reach reasonably high density, planning appears to be the path to:

• Mitigate the environmental impact of urbanisation.

• Minimise the length and cost of utility connections.

• Avoid fragmentation of public spaces.

• Keep neighbourhoods alive and safe throughout the day.

• Make railway investments and operations profitable.

• Reduce car dependency.

• Maximise occupation and enjoyment of community facilities.

Today, all these emerging features are easy to realise as positive outcomes. They all derive from density, something considered controversial at the very least only a few years back. In the past century, we have seen academic schools of thought and respectable opinions defending the opposite view; from the garden city principles to zoning rationalism. Its deep influence on our present western urban society need to be opened up for deep discussion.

Time is scaled: throughout the centuries, space has tended to integrate in larger scales,

• Medieval compact inwalls,

• Industrial city extensions,

• Post-industrial transition bowed towards services: "cinematic cities" strongly based in mobility,

• Now entering a new era: "telecità"; dispersed digital cities, difficult to fix as coherent spatial units; the time arrow seems to point anyway in the direction of an urban reality that integrates progressively wider domains; lack of critical mass and lack of accessibility.

The visions of connectivity coming from different scales:

1. European level: connecting cities in a polycentric Europe

2. Regional level: connecting the cities in the Region

3. City level: connecting social groups and districts

4. Street level: connecting citizens

The crucial role of infrastructure in first range metropolitan cities should be analysed at the European level. They are compelled to reshape their position through competition and cooperation; in that respect, socio-economic aspects and their effect on mobility -of individuals and goods, but also labour, knowledge, capital, business, tourism,...- play a fundamental role

• Trans-european transport networks

• Energy networks

• Water supply across borders

• Balancing intra-community social differences and extra-community ethnic and cultural differences; community migration policies (third countries): common regulations and social infrastructure and services tied to strategic territorial developments

• We could define logistics in transport as mobility (goods and people) plus telematic services, optimised by planning; optimising has to be understood in the wide scope that allows to take in account sustainability conditions, when a community is searching for its most suitable land use pattern

• High-speed train national and transnational networks tend to reshape metropolitan scale

• What is the best way to pay for infrastructures as the role of the State diminishes?; structural deficit of railway and energy infrastructure; can liberalisation cope with this?; are these "natural monopolies"?; Are there any others?

• Patterns of management for the setting up and operation / provision of services

• Location advantages at the continental scale

• Funding of infrastructure investments by their inclusion in plans

• Partnerships: cities can work together at the same time they compete

• Non connected regions: natural parks and protected zones, rural areas and peripheries.

At the regional level, the fight against negative aspects of car mobility and considering cities vital sustainable centres of the Region are two basic considerations, again reshaping positions at this level

• Strategies to improve complex metropolitan systems at the regional level

• Social infrastructure and services related to transportation nodes planning; equal access to all kind of networks as a means to promote integration

• Security by flow segregation needs: road mobility planning

• Digital management of infrastructures: assisted connectivity through TIC; digital management to get flow regulation before collapse; toll as a tool for car and freight mobility policies (in the interurban traffic, and in the congested central towns as well); here is the place to apply soft for a better use of infrastructures; on board / on line interactive information; intelligent warning

• Growing needs for agreement among institutions of many kinds is especially needed at this level, as responsibilities are shared and unevenly distributed in a profusion of actors

• Location advantages at the regional and metropolitan scales

• Partnerships: cities can work together while competing with each other

• Regional and metropolitan leadership?

• Disconnected cities

At the city level we have to focus on the concepts of accessibility for all; social aspects; but also priority to slow modes; vitality: diversity of uses and cross-relationship

• Social infrastructures and facilities; how to cover countries which are not represented (involvement in enlargement; risk to be restrictive); new role of railway stations; immigration regulations and planning

• The role of civil institutions and interest groups.

• All stakeholders have to be represented; work to distribute intelligence in decision taking.

• Planning through consensus building.

• Searching for social and political leadership.

Finally, at the so-called street level the relevant issues are: micro-connections–at human scale- for quality and safe neighbourhoods; social aspects; leisure & vibrant cities

• Car use is irrational in old narrow streets

• Traffic in calm areas for pedestrians.

• Diversity of uses and relationships

• Commerce and residence: look for a clever coexistence

• Coordination of street works

• Urban forms and landscape: symbology, semiotics and monuments

• Design of urban objects / artefacts

• Disconnected zones: social exclusion. Ghettos.

• From the right of property to the right of access.

• Intuitive planning: how to become bold and imaginative?

• Building level: sustainable households. From home to everywhere.

April 2003

Pablo Nobell and Josep Bernis
Members of the Permanent International Working Party (PIWP)