What can Spatial Planners do to create the 'Connected City'? A Gendered Reading of the Charters of Athens

摘要

The New Charter of Athens presents a vision and a framework for implementation but does not provide clear fields of action or instruments. The idea of the functional city, with its separation of functions, is replaced in the New Charter by the goal of integration, implying new mixtures of land-use. Planning guidelines and regulations, so far based on the functional separation of the First Charter, have not been sufficiently adjusted to this change. Yet spatial planners need new instruments, as the planning goals have changed dramatically. In this paper we analyse how far today's planning instruments are still based on the principles of the First Charter's functional city concept. We explore the New Charter to see which instruments are proposed or needed as a consequence. Signalling a vacuum for planners who want to implement the New Charter's goals, we will argue that some of the new, experimental approaches to spatial development produced by gender mainstreaming could respond to this vacuum. Finally we evaluate the spatial synthesis of the New Charter, proposing an alternative guiding principle that applies 'connectivity' to the reconciliation of domestic and paid labour, and provides new guidelines for the professional planners role.