Young Planning Professionals’ Workshop
NINGBO, CHINA, 26-30 August 2019

Children-friendly Urban Planning

Introduction

ISOCARP is proud to announce a Young Planning Professionals’ workshop (YPP) in Ningbo, China, between 26 and 30 August 2019. The YPP Program is a crucial component of ISOCARP’s dedication to promote and enhance the planning profession and commitment to facilitate knowledge for better cities with the young generations. The programme has been leading for over two decades to provide young planning professionals an opportunity to work in a multi-cultural setting, share their experiences on real-life planning problems, and exchange ideas and learn from each other as well as from senior colleagues. The Ningbo YPP workshop will be organised in collaboration with the United National International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the China Urban Planning Society (UPSC), and undertaken by Ningbo Bureau of Nature Resources and Planning (NBNRP), the Ningbo Urban Planning & Design Institute (NBPI) and the ISOCARP Institute, Centre for Urban Excellence.

Theme of the Workshop

The theme of the Ningbo YPP workshop is ‘Child-responsive Urban Planning’. Since 2018, ISOCARP has cooperated with United National International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to promote the process of child-friendly urbanization, aiming at drawing attention to the needs of children in urban planning and enabling children worldwide to have a healthy, safe, inclusive and green life in vibrant, fair and friendly cities. These efforts also help to complete the agenda proposed by the United Nations Development Programme: ‘Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’. As starting point and planning reference, the workshop will consider UNICEF’s publication ‘Shaping urbanization for Children, a handbook on child-responsive urban planning’.

Venue – Ningbo

Ningbo, as one of the representatives of liveable cities along the Southeast coast, has been awarded “China’s Most Happy City” nine times by 2018. It has reached a high level of economic strength, with a city image of environment of development and people’s livelihood security. In the long run, to reach further improvement in the liveability of the city and residents‘ sense of happiness, the promotion and development of a child-friendly city is an important part of Ningbo’s future urban vision. Child-friendly cities not only can effectively improve children’s quality of life in cities, support the most disadvantaged children in having access to basic services and a safe, clean environment, but they also attract all generations. In this perspective, promoting a child-responsive Ningbo definitively means promoting an innovative and inclusive city for all.

Case study area – Mingdong Community

Mingdong Community was built in 1996, and is precisely located in the north of Mingan Road, west of Zhongxing road, south of Tongtu road and east of Zhaohui Road. There are 56 residential buildings, 170 households and 550 residents in this community. Zhaohui Experimental Primary School is located in the northeast corner of the community, which is the largest primary school for children of migrant workers in the city as well as a cultural centre and civic school in the community. Minglou Park, covering an area of 6830 square metres, is the cultural square of the community. The total site covers 17.59 hectare and the structural area has 120000 square metres. The area and its surrounding include also other services, such as Zhaohui Experimental Primary School, Tianlun time shopping mall, Tianlun Art park, Jialefu Supermarket, Shuguang middle school, a sport centre and other facilities, bringing huge convenience to the community.

The main reason why Mingdong has been selected as case study area of the workshop lies on the strong presence of children of low- and middle-income families, as well as of migrant workers inside the community. Despite the presence of facilities for children in the neighbourhood, there is an urgency to care of their needs and improve the quality of their daily practices inside the community. In addition, two other elements make the case study area more challenging and relevant: on one side, the community itself has already developed a transformation plan, which will be taken into account in the design phase of the workshop; on the other side, Mingdong presents features that make it a typical and representative neighbourhood of Ningbo, increasing the interest about which kind of child-friendly planning solutions could be adopted inside the city.

Required tasks and expected results

The assignment of the workshop will regard three different tasks:

Urban situation analysis: compare with children-friendly community in other cities; sum up the main concept and vision of children-friendly community; analyse and assess the buildings and streets on the site; analyse the usage of commercial service facilities around and in the site; survey the current living condition of children in Mingdong Community; provide planning assistance to the residents and undertake site analysis and mapping with children and communities.

Spatial design: develop the planning options for children-friendly communities; come up with smart strategies for micro-space transformation of children-friendly community; elaborate a layout of a small place in Mingdong Community, based on input of children and their community. This participatory process is crucial during the design phase of the workshop.

Influence assessment: assess the entry points for neighbourhood-wide change and transformation of the community, in and around the site; give some advice and suggestions for children friendly community; provide recommendations on city-wide scale.

It is expected that the workshop will be concluded with a preliminary presentation to local officials and other interested parties (if relevant). As a result, a final report of the workshop will be present in an advanced forum in Ningbo, meanwhile, it will also be presented at the 55th ISOCARP World Planning Congress, Jakarta-Bogor, Indonesia, 9-13 September 2019. The final results also have the opportunity to be introduced at the Annual National Planning Conference (ANPC) in Chongqing, 19-21 October 2019. All the results and efforts will be disseminated on the official websites and publications of ISOCARP.

Contribution and expenses

A travel allowance of 500€/person will be provided for the six international participants.
Lodging and boarding (including dinners and local transportation) will be provided and covered by the Local Organising Partners. Best team will be awarded by 1000 Euro in terms of outstanding contributions.

Eligibility and application

Candidates complying with above criteria have to submit the online Application Form. The call for international participants is open to Young Planning Professionals – professionals or Masters/Doctorate students in Planning, Urban Design, Policy Development, Geography, Architecture, Social and Political Sciences, or another related discipline. It is intended that the workshop will gather 6 International YPPs (together with 12 Chinese young planners), who are not older than 35 years and who offer a keen interest in the topic of the workshop.

 

Click here to open the Call. The deadline to submit application was on 21th July 2019 (10.00 pm UTC).

For more information about Young Planning Professionals’ Programme, visit the relative page on ISOCARP website.