INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE THEME « Urban Policies and the Right to the City: viewpoints” Conference Platform In recent years, the issue of urbanization has been one of the concerns of sociologists, economists, anthropologists, geographers and planners in economic and social development. This is proved by the noticeably growing number of seminars and scientific meetings held in the Arab world at the regional as well as international level to discuss urban policies, urban life planning problems, and the future of the city and its inhabitants. This growing interest occurs in a context where 3.4 billion people on the planet now live in cities. This number went up during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Thus the world population living in urban areas increased from 50% in 2000 to 63% in 2005 and, in all likelihood, it will reach 5 billion by 2030. This means that in the future, the fundamental issues that humanity will have to face will be located basically in urban areas. This trend of urbanization, with its different manifestations and specificities and the problems resulting from it, is related to economic, social and cultural factors. Moreover, the theme of urbanization raises a series of issues relative to its history, its functions, and its key stakeholders, given the fact that the interest administered to the city is closely linked to people’s aspirations towards the use of their full rights and freedoms prerequisite to achieve harmony between the different members of the community. We have been witnessing an entirely new and unprecedented situation that the newly urbanized populations will manage their political and economic orientations set by prospective governments, bearing in mind that the city will continue to attract rural villages as it offers a plenty of opportunities, stability and wide range of services and facilities. Morocco, like other countries, has enjoyed the same dynamics. The urban population has increased from 29% in 1960 to 55% in 2004. This explosion has been the result of the natural growth of the urban population due to the migration from rural to urban areas. Urbanization, globalization or millennium urbanization Many sociologists who have studied this phenomenon have concluded that urbanization is considered as one of the manifestations of globalization and the growth of cities in the world that influences not only the traditions, lifestyles and behavior, but also the modes of thought and value systems. Moreover, other studies assert that the growth of cities is related to the phenomena of social disparities, increasing of poverty, unemployment, debauchery and crime. Thus, it has become necessary to strike a balance between population growth, material resources and to develop infrastructure in the fields of education, health, culture, and sports by revising laws and legislation relating to urban policy. The city nowadays takes a universal character. It has been extended to go beyond its functional limits of the past. Thus, according to some urban observers, the quantitative character has been added to the qualitative character residing in the exceed of the rational limits surrounding the organic city. We are indeed in the presence of millennium urbanization. The city, human achievement The city has shown from the outset that it is the embodiment of a societal mode and a combination of common actions which could be either harmonious or contradictory between the public and stakeholders. As an open space on different strategies (planning, urbanism, public policies, freedom of initiative and free competition, modes of governance, management of public services ...), the State shall decide on its strategy regardless of socio-political and cultural contradictions claiming that the city is not a physical copy of the institutional system, nor an image that corresponds to a given social model. It is also worth noting that the volume of the city, occupations and existing business within it, and the industrial and commercial administrative activities that animate all these,are not all enough to determine the characteristics of the city. The right to the city or the city of rights? In the early 50s of the last century, the housing crisis intensified in France which has become a political issue. This has prompted officials to reconsider ways to regulate urban growth from the 60s as it has not been the case for Belgium which had to face a qualitative rather than quantitative problem or Canada whose primary concern was to strike a balance between Montreal and the rest of the provinces. Since the 70s, the vision has changed and many countries have had varied experiences enriched by viewpoints highlighting new concepts such as citizen city, citizen participation, decentralization, regionalization in the management and development of local issues. These experiences are enriched by a deep intellectual debate with the participation of distinguished thinkers as Maurcie Halboek, Paul Henry, Henri Rivière and Manuel Castells, to name but a few. City: space development of social relationships The city conflates various spaces re-grouping the tolerated and the forbidden, the collective and the individual, religious and cultural, traditional and modern. This requires cooperation between the various partners, elected bodies, economic and social actors and civil society to develop a city policy by way of guaranteeing all citizens’ rights and ensuring the conditions for peace, coexistence and respect for the dignity of all. Objectives of the conference This event has the following objectives: -Open discussion on the city as an urban unit which has a functional complementarity but which cannot be reduced to the population size nor to its density or to its material and technological activities located in urban areas; -Question the issues related to the city, citizenship and development through interdependent, complementary, consistent, harmonious, and inconsistent dimensions along with civilization, legal, economic, social, cultural and religious dimensions; -Analyze the experiences of urban policies at work in several cities: Rusia, Hollando, Belgium, Spain, France, Palestina, Canda, USA, Tinisie and cities of Morocco; -Consider new alternatives to solve the problems of urban growth and the scarcity of resources to reduce the poor and overcrowded neighborhoods and solve problems of congestion, noise, substandard housing and provide employment drinking water, schools and health services: -Consider the city as a social and cultural policy, economic actor, and a space for the exercise of civil rights; -Raise a variety of questions about the city of tomorrow and its characteristics issues; -Consider the means and forms of intervention, protection and procedures for citizen participation in the management of the city through consultation, contracting and monitoring.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 05:42:55 +0000
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