As a starting point, there is the need to plan city development. Why ? Because, spontaneously, as some may say, when alone, a city does not develop in a rational way. All the individual strategies and tactics do not make a city but a mesh of strategies. If we want to integrate the communities, activities, services, infrastructure within one space, we have at some point to plan it so that it all combines harmoniously. When planning, there are some challenges to meet. First, there is always the same issue of population growth. We have to fit into a given space, which can grow along the way, an ever-increasing population, or in some cases, as seen in Detroit, USA, a decreasing population, which has to be managed just as efficiently, since a decline is an issue that must be addressed. We are here facing an issue of rather population growth. Then, it is important preserve resources: water resources, social resources... In that respect, an inclusive city should be able to preserve these. Services need not only to be developed, but also planned within a territory. Basic infrastructure, just as services, needs to be planned in the short, medium and long term: what area, what part of the city are we going to connect in priority, whether to services or infrastructure? The housing issue remains crucial: where are we going to settle all the city dwellers? Activities, jobs, since, we have seen it, migrants come mainly from the rural areas, with the hope to find a job, among others reasons. Also it is easier to find a job or a trade, than in rural areas. Then, there's an environment to preserve, the city is not hanging in the void, but is set in a geography with, most of the time, a hinterland, an immediate environment, and one of the biggest challenges regarding planning, nowadays, is to deal with the issue of the urban fringe, that is to say, the relation between the city and its immediate environment. The definition, or the definitions of planning. It is defined as a tool used to reach sustainable development. For this purpose, we develop a medium and long-term vision of the territory. We never look in the short term, when we want to rationalize the means to reach the goals. It allows us to link together the needs of infrastructure and services with the growth of the population or the need of urban sprawl with environmental protection. We are going to work within a limited area. Planning offers a coordination framework of public action and, to a lesser extent, of private action, for social and economic development. In this sense, planning is organizing human action having an impact on the territory, providing a framework to development and mitigating adverse effects. Here is the basic definition, a bit long, admittedly, of urban planning. Planning is a source of vision or ideal, or in any case, a set of goals for the future: a vision for the future. This vision, in principle, should be shared by the community. This community is going to mobilize around it, in the best of all words, because we'll see that it's not that easy. This vision must be a source of inspiration. It means that it must lead projects, give rise to other projects. It must be both ambitious and realistic. We have to, somehow, stir imagination, since it is a long term vision, it is an ideal, a goal to reach but, we have to be extremely pragmatic and realistic, and have a vision that everyone understands. One of the goals of this planning, is the good management of urban development. And this management features, in principle, prevention of or fight against poverty, acceptable living standards, well connected districts, sustainability at the social, and environmental and economic level. There is a number of criteria, that lead to good management. And the planning is here to set up this good urban management. It is one of its purposes. Another purpose, today, is the strategic planning. It's a tautology to me: it is hard to imagine, indeed, a form of planning that is not strategic. What we want to do, is to see how we are going to design not just a plan, because planning is not just about a plan; its outcome is not the mere drawing of a plan, but planning is by definition strategic, with our main goals included in it. These goals are then turned into realities on the ground, into projects, into public policies, urban policies, a string of things, but first and foremost, we have to plan the strategy for the future of cities. This entails the need to adapt to the context. This idea will keep coming up, which is natural, since we believe from the start that there isn't just one African city, but several African cities. The idea is that planning should match a specific context. Therefore there is not one type of urban planning but several. What we are trying to find out today, are the methods that we would put in place, everywhere, and that would lead us to different types planning, depending on the contexts. We are now going to take a look at the major fields included in planning. The first one being, of course, the economy. The economy, wide subject, can be dealt with in different ways: there are the very pragmatic, down-to-earth issues of land use planning, which then allows the development of an economic activity, of infrastructure, which also leads to economic development, and we could also think of a certain number of public policies which would facilitate the setting up of companies or make business environment better. We can also bank on competitiveness among cities. These are more macroeconomic issues or marketing issues. Another major field: environment. We also have several takes on it. We will not go through all of them. We will go back to these issues later on, but it ranges from ecosystem issues, agricultural issues, issues concerning the integration of the city in a more global context. We could talk about pollution issues, energy issues and energy choices which would make the best of planning. The issue of transportation: there are multiple factors as well. Individual transport, public transport, the question of transport as opposed to mobility, and finally the central issue, in most cities, addressing transport for the poorest, or mobility for the poorest. Another major field large theme is the issue of energy. Then again, we will not go through the multiple options here, but we could make an energy assessment, and the sustainable city would be, in the end, the city which consumes less energy. We also have to think of the distribution of energy. In theory, it is not evenly distributed across the territory. Finally, the financial aspects. This issue may be a little more technical but just as important as the other fields. The idea is to spend a whole week on financial issues. Financing is about resources, how to make the best of financial resources which can be derived from management plans. It means taxes, or land-use plans, but we may consider the issues of taxation as well as the issues of project creation and the public-private partnerships. The financial overlaps economics but finance is very broad. Finally, there is the issue of governance. It is most of the time at the heart of discussions. To engage in planning, we have to make sure we understand the stakeholders. Because individuals alone, when there are not integrated, cannot make any planning. Therefore, we need to understand the interactions among the different stakeholders, how decisions are made, where they are made, and who does what, so we need to know who governs what. This is the end of the first part, see you in the next video.
