IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v9y2020i4p98-d337908.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Bottom-Up and Top-Down Participatory Approach to Planning and Designing Local Urban Development: Evidence from an Urban University Center

Author

Listed:
  • Teodoro Semeraro

    (University of Salento, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, Ecotekne, Prov. le Lecce Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy)

  • Zaccarelli Nicola

    (European Commission – DG-Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Energy, Transport and Climate, Westerduinweg, 3, NL-1755 LE Petten, The Netherlands)

  • Alejandro Lara

    (University of Concepción Department of architecture Victor Lamas 1290, Chile)

  • Francesco Sergi Cucinelli

    (Francesco Sergi Cucinelli, Intercultural linguistic Mediator: Via Cavalielli Dell’ordine di Vittorio Veneto, 43, 73100. Lecce, Italy)

  • Roberta Aretano

    (Environmental consultant, Via San Leucio 15, 72100 Brindisi, Italy)

Abstract

The urban area is characterized by different urban ecosystems that interact with different institutional levels, including different stakeholders and decision-makers, such as public administrations and governments. This can create many institutional conflicts in planning and designing the urban space. It would arguably be ideal for an urban area to be planned like a socio-ecological system where the urban ecosystem and institutional levels interact with each other in a multi-scale analysis. This work embraces a planning process that aims at being applied to a multi-institutional level approach that is able to match different visions and stakeholders' needs, combining bottom-up and top-down participation approaches. At the urban scale, the use of this approach is sometimes criticized because it appears to increase conflicts between the different stakeholders. Starting from a case study in the Municipality of Lecce, South Italy, we apply a top-down and bottom-up participation approach to overcome conflicts at the institutional levels in the use of the urban space in the Plan of the Urban University Center. The bottom-up participation action analyzes the vision of people that frequent the urban context. After that, we share this vision in direct comparison with decision-makers to develop the planning and design solutions. The final result is a draft of the hypothetical Plan of the Urban University Center. In this way, the bottom-up and top-down approaches are useful to match the need of the community that uses the area with the vision of urban space development of decision-makers, reducing the conflicts that can arise between different institutional levels. In this study, it also emerges that the urban question is not green areas vs. new buildings, but it is important to focus on the social use of the space to develop human well-being. With the right transition of information and knowledge between different institutional levels, the bottom-up and top-down approaches help develop an operative effective transdisciplinary urban plan and design. Therefore, public participation with bottom-up and top-down approaches is not a tool to obtain maximum consensus, but mainly a moment of confrontation to better address social issues in urban planning and design.

Suggested Citation

  • Teodoro Semeraro & Zaccarelli Nicola & Alejandro Lara & Francesco Sergi Cucinelli & Roberta Aretano, 2020. "A Bottom-Up and Top-Down Participatory Approach to Planning and Designing Local Urban Development: Evidence from an Urban University Center," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-25, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:9:y:2020:i:4:p:98-:d:337908
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/4/98/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/9/4/98/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giuseppe Maggiore & Teodoro Semeraro & Roberta Aretano & Luigi De Bellis & Andrea Luvisi, 2019. "GIS Analysis of Land-Use Change in Threatened Landscapes by Xylella fastidiosa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-24, January.
    2. Justin B. Hollander & Jeremy Németh, 2011. "The bounds of smart decline: a foundational theory for planning shrinking cities," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 349-367, June.
    3. Zhongqiong Qu & Yiming Lu & Zhiqiu Jiang & Ellen Bassett & Tao Tan, 2018. "A Psychological Approach to ‘Public Perception’ of Land-Use Planning: A Case Study of Jiangsu Province, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-20, August.
    4. Timms, Paul, 2011. "Urban transport policy transfer: "bottom-up" and "top-down" perspectives," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 513-521, May.
    5. Leanne Seeliger & Ivan Turok, 2013. "Towards Sustainable Cities: Extending Resilience with Insights from Vulnerability and Transition Theory," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(5), pages 1-21, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Teodoro Semeraro & Aurelia Scarano & Riccardo Buccolieri & Angelo Santino & Eeva Aarrevaara, 2021. "Planning of Urban Green Spaces: An Ecological Perspective on Human Benefits," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-26, January.
    2. Alessio Russo & Giuseppe T. Cirella, 2021. "Urban Ecosystem Services: New Findings for Landscape Architects, Urban Planners, and Policymakers," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-5, January.
    3. Teodoro Semeraro & Elisa Gatto & Riccardo Buccolieri & Valentina Catanzaro & Luigi De Bellis & Lorenzo Cotrozzi & Giacomo Lorenzini & Marzia Vergine & Andrea Luvisi, 2021. "How Ecosystem Services Can Strengthen the Regeneration Policies for Monumental Olive Groves Destroyed by Xylella fastidiosa Bacterium in a Peri-Urban Area," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-22, August.
    4. Jue Wang & Yi Yang & Huan Huang & Fan Wang, 2022. "Stakeholder Management in Government-Led Urban Regeneration: A Case Study of the Eastern Suburbs in Chengdu, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-17, April.
    5. Alejandro Lara & Felipe Bucci & Cristobal Palma & Juan Munizaga & Victor Montre-Águila, 2021. "Development, urban planning and political decisions. A triad that built territories at risk," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 109(2), pages 1935-1957, November.
    6. Teodoro Semeraro & Roberta Aretano & Amilcare Barca & Alessandro Pomes & Cecilia Del Giudice & Elisa Gatto & Marcello Lenucci & Riccardo Buccolieri & Rohinton Emmanuel & Zhi Gao & Alessandra Scognamig, 2020. "A Conceptual Framework to Design Green Infrastructure: Ecosystem Services as an Opportunity for Creating Shared Value in Ground Photovoltaic Systems," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-28, July.
    7. Teodoro Semeraro & Benedetta Radicchio & Pietro Medagli & Stefano Arzeni & Alessio Turco & Davide Geneletti, 2020. "Integration of Ecosystem Services in Strategic Environmental Assessment of a Peri-Urban Development Plan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-25, December.
    8. Teodoro Semeraro & Alessio Turco & Stefano Arzeni & Giuseppe La Gioia & Roberta D’Armento & Riccardo Taurino & Pietro Medagli, 2021. "Habitat Restoration: An Applicative Approach to “Biodiversity Heritage Relicts” in Social-Ecological Systems," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-23, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Prener, Chris & Braswell, Taylor & Monti, Daniel J., 2018. "St. Louis's "Urban Prairie": Vacant Land and the Potential for Revitalization," SocArXiv bc7eh, Center for Open Science.
    2. Donghyun Kim & Up Lim, 2016. "Urban Resilience in Climate Change Adaptation: A Conceptual Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-17, April.
    3. Ruiying Liu, 2022. "Long-Term Development Perspectives in the Slow Crisis of Shrinkage: Strategies of Coping and Exiting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-30, August.
    4. Iwona Kantor-Pietraga, 2021. "Does One Decade of Urban Policy for the Shrinking City Make Visible Progress in Urban Re-Urbanization? A Case Study of Bytom, Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-17, April.
    5. Teodoro Semeraro & Roberta Aretano & Amilcare Barca & Alessandro Pomes & Cecilia Del Giudice & Elisa Gatto & Marcello Lenucci & Riccardo Buccolieri & Rohinton Emmanuel & Zhi Gao & Alessandra Scognamig, 2020. "A Conceptual Framework to Design Green Infrastructure: Ecosystem Services as an Opportunity for Creating Shared Value in Ground Photovoltaic Systems," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-28, July.
    6. Shangkun Yu & Ruili Wang & Xuejie Zhang & Yi Miao & Chengxin Wang, 2023. "Spatiotemporal Evolution of Urban Shrinkage and Its Impact on Urban Resilience in Three Provinces of Northeast China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-22, July.
    7. Bin Du & Ying Wang & Jiaxin He & Wai Li & Xiaohong Chen, 2021. "Spatio-Temporal Characteristics and Obstacle Factors of the Urban-Rural Integration of China’s Shrinking Cities in the Context of Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-16, April.
    8. Roemer, Kelli F. & Haggerty, Julia H., 2021. "Coal communities and the U.S. energy transition: A policy corridors assessment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    9. Yifan Yang & S. Thomas Ng & Frank J. Xu & Martin Skitmore & Shenghua Zhou, 2019. "Towards Resilient Civil Infrastructure Asset Management: An Information Elicitation and Analytical Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-24, August.
    10. Mohammed Abdul-Rahman & Mayowa I. Adegoriola & Wilson Kodwo McWilson & Oluwole Soyinka & Yusuf A. Adenle, 2023. "Novel Use of Social Media Big Data and Artificial Intelligence for Community Resilience Assessment (CRA) in University Towns," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-30, January.
    11. Han Li & Long Li & Longqian Chen & Xisheng Zhou & Yifan Cui & Yunqiang Liu & Weiqiang Liu, 2019. "Mapping and Characterizing Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Impervious Surfaces Using Landsat Images: A Case Study of Xuzhou, East China from 1995 to 2018," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-22, February.
    12. Alejandro Lara & Felipe Bucci & Cristobal Palma & Juan Munizaga & Victor Montre-Águila, 2021. "Development, urban planning and political decisions. A triad that built territories at risk," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 109(2), pages 1935-1957, November.
    13. Min Wang & Shuqi Yang & Huajie Gao & Kahaer Abudu, 2021. "The Characteristics, Influencing Factors, and Push-Pull Mechanism of Shrinking Counties: A Case Study of Shandong Province, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-22, February.
    14. Zhenshan Yang, 2019. "Sustainability of Urban Development with Population Decline in Different Policy Scenarios: A Case Study of Northeast China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-17, November.
    15. Maria Isabel Sánchez-Hernández & Manuel Aguilar-Yuste & Juan José Maldonado-Briegas & Jesús Seco-González & Cristina Barriuso-Iglesias & Maria Mercedes Galán-Ladero, 2020. "Modelling Municipal Social Responsibility: A Pilot Study in the Region of Extremadura (Spain)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-15, August.
    16. Fang Liu & Weilun Sun & Ge Peng, 2022. "Demographic Spatialization Simulation under the Active “Organic Decentralization Population” Policy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-21, October.
    17. Gonçalves, L.A.P.J. & Ribeiro, P.J.G., 2020. "Resilience of urban transportation systems. Concept, characteristics, and methods," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    18. Lindholm, Maria & Behrends, Sönke, 2012. "Challenges in urban freight transport planning – a review in the Baltic Sea Region," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 129-136.
    19. Jaekyung Lee & Galen Newman & Yunmi Park, 2018. "A Comparison of Vacancy Dynamics between Growing and Shrinking Cities Using the Land Transformation Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-17, May.
    20. Yuanping Wang & Mu Lin & Jingxin Gao & Zhaoyin Zhou, 2021. "Fading Attraction of the Shrinking City: An Empirical Study from an Urban Resource Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-19, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:9:y:2020:i:4:p:98-:d:337908. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.