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Report The
9th Megacities Lecture
Infrastructure:
The Glue Of Megacities
Professor Kingsley E. Haynes, Dean, School of Public Policy,
George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.
The 2006 Megacities Lecture took place in the headquarters of ING Real
Estate in The Hague. The lecture was introduced by professor Pieter Tordoir,
member of the board of the Megacities Founda-tion. He stressed that in
spatial planning the market and the public sphere need each other. In
this re-spect, he observed that in the Netherlands the gap between architecture
and urban planning on the one hand, and economics on the other hand, is
too big.
Next came the main ingredient - the actual lecture by professor Kingsley
E. Haynes: Infrastrsucture, the glue of megacities. The lecture was based
on the extensive text he wrote for the publication that goes with this
Megacities Lecture. He started by saying that the ‘gap’ that
professor Tordoir men-tioned is undesirable. We all must realize that
single solutions do not exist and that tensions between different perspectives
are vital.
Then he took up his original text, introducing concepts like Gottmann’s
‘megapolis’ and Gar-reau’s ‘edge city’.
He expounded the distinction between ‘hard’, ‘soft’
and ‘smart’ infrastructure and their relationship to economic
development of urban agglomerations. The economics of agglomeration encompass
advantages like diversity and variety, specialization and risk management.
On the other hand there are the ‘diseconomics’ of agglomeration
- for instance crowding, congestion and pollution. Professor Haynes completed
his lecture by emphasizing the importance of infrastructure evaluation
and good governance.
The co-review, Megacities, lands of hope and glory, was given by professor
Peter Nijkamp. He stated that large cities will continue to grow. Not
only do they capitalize on the advantages of scale, they also provide
the urban atmosphere that attracts workers and companies. Despite forecasts
in the past that companies would become ‘footloose’, geography
will continue to matter. Proximity counts.
The essential factor for the city of the future is knowledge. Therefore
the creation of a knowl-edge infrastructure is the most critical asset
a (mega)city should work on, said professor Nijkamp.
The evening was rounded off with a short discussion.
First Pieter Tordoir asked the two speakers to respond to the assumption
that from the view-points of economics the planning of megacities is neither
possible nor desirable. Professor Haynes did not agree. For him design
and government are inevitable. If it is not there, people themselves will
cre-ate it (as was shown in the Tyson area). Professor Nijkamp added that
an environment that is com-pletely uncertain is unconceivable. There will
always be a need for anchor points.
Professor Hans de Jonge questioned how to prevent that private funding
inevitably leads to social exclusion. He pointed to China, where five
percent of the population gets poorer instead of more prosperous. Kingsley
Haynes admitted that in China the development of megacities goes together
with increasing poverty; at the same time it should be noted that the
hunger is decreasing. According to professor Haynes processes of exclusion
will be difficult to handle as long as a government is authori-tarian.
Steef Buijs asked whether soft and smart infrastructure should get higher
priorities. Professor Haynes said that this depends on the environment.
In an underdeveloped region the emphasis will be on the development of
hard infrastructure. As countries develop, the soft infrastructure becomes
in-creasingly important.
At the end of the lecture Elsbeth van Hylckama-Vlieg, vice-chairman of
the Megacities Foundation, expressed her thanks to the speakers, and offered
them a book on ‘shrinking cities’.
Olof Koekenbakker
The Megacities Lecture is a coproduction of the Megacities Foundation
and NICIS (Netherlands Institute for City Innovation Studies), and is
sponsored by:
 
 
Contributions to the discussion, as well as information on the Megacities
Foundation:
Megacities Foundation
c/0 S@M stedebouw & architectuurmanagement,
Herengracht 60,
1015 BP Amsterdam
tel. 020-428 88 88
fax. 020- 428 88 80,
megacities@samnet.nl
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