Organisch

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One response to “Organisch”

1. 

   Federico

   7 juli 2014

   Title: Organic is the opposite of Mechanic!
   Thank you to Zef Hemel for the possibility (see here http://www.zefhemel.nl/?p=6485) to further develop and discuss my work on his own blog and on the blog of the urban planning group. I hope this comment might make clear both my ideas and the work I have done. I can be schematic in the response to his critique, and I am sorry that he might be also bothered (i.e. ‘stoorde’ in his article) by the answers. The definition that I give of ‘organic peripheral development’ has to be first understood within the overall work and in comparison with the types of cross-border and isolated developments of Paris. Organic is any way suggesting any negative meaning. The negative reference point of organic would be ‘mechanic’, which is in my view negative in all senses. The fact that it is ill-defined, with uncertain outcomes and no unitary agenda it is indeed in my opinion the best condition to have a truly qualitative development. Uncertainty in post-modern planning is therefore to be embraced and not avoided. Unclear it is the best condition for experimentation and emerging innovation. I wonder whether Zef Hemels looks for clarity, mechanicism, definition, activation of government and market as main players (instead of civic-society for example), and certain outcomes. Certainty of outcomes might even be obsolete at the end of any projects, many years after the formulation of outcomes. Pro-active market actors might be useful to achieve governmental goals but it might turn into ‘lobbyism’ and ‘opportunism’ as we see in countries where ‘proactiveness’ is an exclusive property of the market. The periphery of Amsterdam can and should be undefined because of its experimentation potential. Here my second point on the political ‘alignment’ between agendas and growth strategies. The ‘political’ is in my view the complementary check and balance of the ‘technical’. Searching for certainty through ‘technicism’ would lead to lack of pluralism and a likely increase exclusivity. I claim that the north can be a space for experimentation but this experimentation should not be led by technocracy (which means combining and defining an ideal and solid direction of development in the area) but rather by a generally agreed idea (call it vision) on the quality of the place. Yes, Amsterdam has a structuurvisie, but in my research I indirectly demonstrated that the structuurvisie is not yet helping in addressing fundamental dilemmas of regulation, investments and interventions, especially in the mixed area of harbor and city, of harbor and nature. Last point: piecemeal is indeed just a ‘organizational technique’ to achieve a long term (very well defined) vision that because of stalemate could not be implemented directly and unitarily. Piecemeal is in no way the same of organic. Considering them synonymous would empty the good value of organic into some sort of refashioned technocratic planning.
   This post is an answer to a recent comment published by Zef Hemel here: http://www.zefhemel.nl/?p=6485 and it regards the content of this article http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14649357.2013.820340#.U7qHKldRaSo included within this PhD thesis http://dare.uva.nl/record/480483 . Zef Hemel was one of the commissioners at the PhD defense and this opinions follow the discussion that toke place at the Aknietenkapel on Friday. The rather funny picture used by Zef Hemel is published within my personal (in Italian) blog where I discuss about Italian and European politics http://the-social-mirror.com/

   Federico Savini