- Permanent and Organic Planning to get urban Cohesion    201 kb by    da Costa Lobo, Manuel | clobo@civil.ist.utl.pt    Short Outline Plans are not fully successful in most countries. Through my own experience I suggest a new working method: Permanent Organic Planning, including a lot of key management devices. Abstract Large concentrated population tend to segregate social groups and to create social exclusion. Planning objectives are however asking for more cohesion. The answer must be a planning strategy to develop a better integration of territorial components. Social integration does not mean mixing people of different socio-professional levels or of different ethnic groups but avoiding their segregation and conflict through a balance between integration and privacy. Distances between settlements and size of homogeneous settlements are crucial elements to attain those objectives. It is nice to include, in city management, a program of visiting all the city quarters periodically coordinated with urban qualification investments and underlining the aim of social inclusion and get together. The first movement to start this method will be: 1st - Local organic planning-spaces delimitation, looking for a kind of space where people would feel a sense of belonging and of possession. 2nd - Regional frame delimitation, looking for a larger organic space where the local planning-space could get a clear meaning, from population to morphologic and ecologic aspects. 3rd - Subdivision of the local planning-space into smaller organic units, allowing get to a better definition of local components. 4th - Organization of citizens representants (citizens commissions) and definition of their duties and way of acting. 5th - Definition of a time-table for planning stages. Organic planning-space delimitation is a crucial step within POP method not only for the success of planning design but also for the integration of citizens participation. It is necessary to organize a communication network to reach all citizens or their groups (families, collectivities, local administration powers, NGO, public service officials and “bridge-persons”). All those social partners have to organize themselves through the principle of representation committees. The normal size of meetings will be with approximately 16 persons. Keywords Organic and permanent planning; participation; regional frame; powers delegation on decision process. Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2006: Cities between Integration and Disintegration   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper