La veu de la ciutadania en el planejament urbanístic. Una reflexió sobre la conflictivitat territorial a Catalunya

Abstract

This doctoral thesis analyzes the role of urban planning and of the participation channels established during its elaboration and execution. Moreover, it reflects on the capacity and adaptation of participation channels as mechanisms to manage and resolve land-use conflicts. To reach this aim, the research has focused the attention on three main questions. First of all, the thesis covers during the last fifty years the concept of urban planning as an instrument of governance of the territory transformations. As a result, it pays attention to the type of approved plans, to the worries and themes faced and to the role undertaken by the responsible politicians and technicians in its elaboration. Secondly, the thesis explores the participation channels that are at the disposal of the citizens and that have been established in the elaboration and execution of urban planning in Catalonia. The research investigates which possibilities of participation the law has offered and which measures have been undertaken by the administration in order to answer to citizens’ demands; it does so focusing both on the structured and official processes and on spontaneous and informal initiatives. All that to consider if the urban planning methods engaged during the last decades have permitted to set up the adequate participation channels, in order that citizens can take part in the process of the city building. Starting from these two research themes, a third one is treated: the inquire of which characters the land-use conflicts present. The thesis studies, on the one hand, the factors contributing to the appearance of land-use conflicts and, on the other one, the groups taking part to them -focusing on retracing its mobilization strategies and the reasoning they build. So, the thesis analyzes how the opposition organizes itself and also the reactions adopted by promoters. Since the research assumes a theoretical formulation, to face these three objectives it has been adopted a qualitative methodology, based on talks with informants, deep structured interviews, a wide and detailed bibliographic research and the ongoing study of a full range of land-use conflicts that, even if they are not study cases, some of them accompany the work in an illustrative way.

Date of Award	9 Sept 2010
Original language	Catalan
Supervisor	Abel Albet Mas (Director)