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Hatto's nine questions - a response by Pavlos Delladetsima

  1. Description of the Level and Type of City Planning

Unclear to me…The most appropriate level?

Clearly there is a European tendency towards consolidation of what we call an immediate level of planning (metropolitan or regional) and the emergence of new institutions.

2.  Evaluation of Planning

Where? …For Greece

The current situation in Greece (early 1990s) is characterized by: a highly centralized administrative planning system; a weak local government structure with disjointed and loosely defined responsibilities; an immense number of public and other institutions directly or indirectly influencing through their actions spatial development; an infinite number of new and past legislative regulations for which no attempt has ever been made towards codification and rationalization; a planning policy that has been evolved primarily from development control measures and only recently around land-use plans; the lack of financial resources and the inexistence of any rational resource allocation mechanism for planning policy. All these in combination define a “non planning situation”, which predominantly serves a long-standing informal consensus between the state, landownership and the social and economic actors (developers / engineers, professional chambers) concerning the structure of the land development model in Greece and Athens in particular. By contrast no consensus, for instance, has ever been structured around planning (involving maybe different agents), as has been the case of most countries in Europe.

3. Technical Options available to the City

The main issue here is the extent to which local and related planning institutions are able to absorb new technologies. There is obviously a gap between technological development of the country and the society as a whole and the relative weak position of local authorities.

4. Inputs to Decisions

Not clear to me.

In the case of Greece clearly a matter of budgetary constraints and day to day social and political pressures. No rational mechanism of inputs…another way to approach the matter.

5. Problems which have not been solved

In the case of Athens a major unsolved problem is the co-existence of the conventional development pattern together with new forms of investment.

This seems to be generating only the negative effects from both aspects of development. The persistent conventional pattern has been producing: a constant expansion of the self financed model; obstacles to restructuring operations and to major capital investment initiatives; a push towards property ownership; and an intensive competition for space operating against various uses and especially industry. Additionally, new investments lead to drastic shifts in land values and to unplanned increases of traffic flows and congestion problems which existing planning machinery and policy are virtually unable to deal with.

6. Value Priorities

The only hope…Extreme urban crisis which might allow for the imposition of International values …European Union might be of crucial importance here.

7. City’s Consciousness

Is there any?

8. Conceptual Solutions

9. Livable Solutions

Something like Action Areas “exceptional” policy which might drag the rest of the city…

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