Multifunctional Intensive Land Use â A Practitioner's Guide

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MILUnet 3 rd Draft Practitioners Guide MILUNET MILUnet is a network dedicated to the generation, collection, exchange and transfer of knowledge on the subject of Multifunctional Intensive Land Use (MILU) as a means to realise more sustainable (urban) development in Europe. MILUnet is the successor of the working party on MILU of the IFHP, International Federation for Housing and Planning. Members of MILUnet are European cities and leading European research institutions. The lead partner in the network is HABIFORUM, a public organisation in the Netherlands focussing on innovative multifunctional intensive land use. The International Institute for the Urban Environment (IIUE) assists Habiforum as secretariat to the network. MILUnet is a European network, co-funded by the INTERREG IIIC programme of the European Union. Page 4 of 15
MILUnet 3 rd Draft Practitioners Guide BACKGROUND: WHY MILU? Cities are the multifunctional centres of European society today. Simultaneously they are the motor of our national economies and home to around 80% of the population. Our urban areas are concentrations and mixtures of all kinds of people, industries, and services: home and workplace, centre of learning and industrial estate, medical centre and recreational facility, transport hub and cultural magnet. But not only in Europe are cities dominant. All over the world the trend towards urbanisation is increasing (see Table 1). More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities and the urban population worldwide grows by more than 160,000 every day. In developing countries, where population growth is at its strongest, urbanisation is by all forecasts set to continue. Table 1: World population and urbanisation trends. Source: UNDP. Total population (millions) (1999) Avg. pop. growth rate % (1995-2000) % Urban (1995) World total 5,978.4 1.3 45 2.5 More-developed regions * 1,185.2 0.3 75 0.7 Less-developed regions ** 4,793.2 1.6 38 3.3 Least-developed countries *** 629.6 2.4 22 5.2 Urban growth rate % (1995-2000) * More-developed regions: North America, Japan, Europe and Australia-New Zealand. ** Less-developed regions: Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia (excluding Japan), Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. *** Least developed countries according to standard United Nations designation. The challenge we face at the beginning of the 21 st century is to channel this seemingly unstoppable urban growth into sustainable urban development. With the current global population forecast to increase by approximately 50% to around nine billion in 2050, and everyone seeking to improve their standard of living, the pressure on our natural resources will increase enormously. Demand for water, energy and raw materials will grow. Demand for access to all kinds of services will rise, bringing with it a demand for increased mobility. Waste generation per capita will rise in parallel with or exceeding economic growth. Social tensions will rise as different groups struggle to claim what they view as their rightful place in the urban framework. Cities, as centres of population and the economy are thus faced with enormous challenges. City planning to meet the sustainability challenge How cities plan and use their land for (re)development can make a major contribution to meeting this sustainability challenge. For example, planners can choose for the more American style of city where development is based around the car. The result of this ‘Los Angeles model’ is urban sprawl, an outward city expansion of low-density, single-use structures and single-use areas. Whilst perhaps the easy option in the short-term, such expansion stretches the ability of our cities to function as coherent communities. Distances between homes and services are increased making motorised traffic essential. However, due to the lack of density inherent in this style of urban development, public transport cannot be an efficient or attractive option, Page 5 of 15
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Multifunctional Intensive Land Use â A Practitioner's Guide