How to plan and develop cities?

According to Jussi Kulonpalo, a general current trend in European urbanization tends to lead from centrally lead planning to development of urbanity in partnerships with private, usually commercial actors. In Helsinki this inclusion of private enterprises into urban development is something new.

Such is the case also in China, Shanghai. Earlier a European style city in its outlook, Shanghai was largely neglected in the Mao era. Only since the 1980s has it deliberately been turned into a foci for economical activities for China. This has been made possible by legislative measures but also by investment both from the central government and from foreign investors.

In order to attract enterprises to Shanghai, special economic zones (SEZs) have been founded outside the old city centre, especially in the Pudong area with some place-specific legislation in order to make them attractive environments for the companies. However, according to Weiping Wu, the faster-than-expect congestion of financial activities and people, aided by deliberate policy actions have lead to environmental and populational hazards, while the general standard of living conditions have increased only incrementally in the old part of the town.

While in China the recent stake of urbanization has been conducted in partnership between municipalities and private enterprises, in Mozambique both parties have been lagging. Since the death of president Machel, the political system has been drifting into decentralization. During the Portuguese colonial regime there was some qualified local albeit colonial administration; now in the absence of operative legal system, much of the local economical activities are informal and local administratives in fact often corrupted.

While in China the financial injection needed for urban development has come mainly from business enterprises and foreign investors, according to Jenkins, in Mozambique the main contributor have been the World Bank and various UN developmental programs. These have addressed only partly the developmental issues they were meant to address.
Housing is one of the most pressing issues in urban growth. Not only provision of housing is enough but it has to adequate. In order to provide plots for housing, in Maputo most of the previously privately owned land has been bought by the municipality. However, when the land management is lacking and corruptive, very little progress have actually occurred for the living conditions of the vast majority, while the select few have gained.

When the land resources for building are insufficient, it is always possible to build upwards. Such had happened in Singapore, aided by rigorous governmental attempts to acquire land for housing and to provide adequate apartments as incentives for housing the workers of business enterprises. The strong contribution to public housing is for attracting business enterprises by providing the workers with quality appartments; public housing is not necessarily social housing, as its image is usually understood here in Helsinki.