Landscape Democracy 2015 Working Group E - Case Study 1

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Please add the title of your case study here, adjust the map coordinates (lat + lng) and replace the moa image with a characteristic image of your site

Place name	Connection between linkeroever and Antwerp
Location	Antwerp
Country	Belgium
Author(s)	Julian Kerremans

Rationale: Why have you chosen this case for the landscape and democracy seminar?

This essay will handle about the "BAM-tracé" in Antwerp in Belgium. this is an idea that the government and designers are working on to create a connection between “Linkeroever” and the centre of Antwerp. It is nessecary to create this so that Antwerp will be much better accessible, less trafic jams, …. . they plan to put these roads into tunnels so they can create more public spaces with parks.

But not everyone agrees with this plan and so there are several organisations that try to make clear to the government that not everyone is happy with this new development because it would create more noise disturbance, lots of fine dust, lots of traffic in a place where it is very nice and quiet ,…… These organisations are collecting signatures and looking support from the people so they can try to stop this project from going into the construction phase.

The reason why I choos for this subject is because it is a well know subject in Belgium. It intrests me to understand more the situation what is going wrong in this project and to think about a possible solution.

Representation of your observations

• you are basically free to use one or a mix of different presentation techniques
• possibilities are: analytical drawings, graphical representations, collages, video clips, comic/graphic novel, written essay/visual essay
• please add any visual material to the gallery, videos can be placed below, you may add text as you like

• Observations
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  The 7 concepts regarding the Bam-Tracé in Antwerp.

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  case representation

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  The Meccanoplan as an alternatif for the Bam-Tracé. This plan is sujested by an organisation called 'Ademloos'.

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  Video: This little video gives you an idea about the Meccano project that the protest groups propose to do this in Antwerp with the big highway going arround the centre of Antwerp. Putting the highway under the ground and creating parks above it. This is proposed by the protest group called 'Ademloos' (translated 'Breathless'). video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2q00EdODUs

Reflection

What are the major challenges for changing the situation?

In this situation one of the major challenges are that the designers and politicians want to make a connection with the highway and the centre of Antwerp. The concepts they have made all start from this big highway ( the and will go through a very quiet and peaceful area. They want to create a connection made of 19 lanes. this will create lots of noise, nature disturbance,..... This case isn't communicated with the people. When they found out about the plans of the city and the politicians the people started to organise to protest against these plans. the people who are against it even found a better solution like they did in Spain. The problem in this situation is that there is bad to none communication from politicians, designers and city towards the citizens of Antwerp. This creates stress on both sides and a bad relationship, also a bad image for this project.

What could be a starting point for democractically-based change?

• Please add approx. 150 words for each questions

When I read through all these documents there seems to be not, to almost no communication between the politicians, designers,.... and the people. The people aren't involved in this process. Communication between the politicians, designers, developers and the people are very important for a good understanding. With good communication between the different parties that are involved in this they might exchange/share ideas with each other. By doing this then we are all together working on the future and creating a better, more advanced and democratic project. Also there should be more transparency in what the government undertakes with this project. They don't show anything about it towards the citizens except for the results. A good idea for improving the communication is that the designers and politicians organise information moments for the citizens. With this information, if possible, it would be interesting to let the people participated by organising active design moments, where people can share ideas, put the focus on important elements,....

Stakeholder Mapping

Create a visual representation of the stakeholder groups that are involved in your case. Try to cover the following aspects in your representation: Power (high, medium, low) / Support (positive, neutral, negative)/ Influence (high or low)/ Need (strong, medium, weak)+ also map the relationships between the stakeholder groups

• Stakeholder Map
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  Stakeholder Map

• Explanation stakeholder Map
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  Diagram

Change Scenario

Look at the various methods and tools available and think how they can be applied creatively. Think about the needs of different stakeholder groups - you may need a methodical mix to address them all. Visualize a scenario illustrating how these methods/tools can be applied within an imagined time frame

• Change Scenario
• 

  Change Scenario

Cross cutting theme

Identify a cross-cutting theme/topic between the cases of your group and write a short reflection on it (approx. 150 words)

A cross cutting theme for almost all the projects within our group is the fact that there is to little or no communication with the citizens. Because of the lack of communication with the people, opposition arises. This gives the project and all the people working on this project a bad image. communication is one of the most important tools. There are lots of different forms of communication possible to use, but instead in these projects they use non of it.

Also the lack of transparancy with the government and all other people involved in this project. For example in my case, they decide to create a new trafic route through the north of Antwerp without communicating with the people/citizens of Antwerp and nearby. The government tries to keep the citizens not involved in the project which isn't appriciated by the citizens. When such things happen within a big project that will have influence on the environment, the area where people live, the city,... then it is the perfect moment for the press to try to catch as much information as possible to communicate this with the people so they can go into action if they think it is nessecary to do so. this situation is what happened in most of the cases of our group. Protest groups arose because they disagreed with the plans of the government/entrepreneurs in their area. The reason of these protest groups means that the government hasn't done his home work correctly. this means that they didn't look enough in the future, made a wrong estimation on the impact it might have, that they didn't care about the people living there, they forgot about the meaning of this place for the people living there...

Concluding reflections

Reflect on your case and your change model. Potentials? Limitations? (approx. 150 words)

This was an interesting project to use for my case study. It is a project that came quiet often on the news, which influenced the votes during the political elections. It is a complicated project to analyse because it has been going since 1993. What they want to trealize with this project has positive and maybe some not so positive sides to it. the positive thing is that the trafic will go smoother, less trafic jams, less time to spend on the road to go to work,... The other not so good side is that because of this new connection this will be a magnet to more trafic. If you look on the map of Antwerp then you can see it is a perfect connaction for a big part of Flanders to go The Netherlands via this new road. Als for the industry, there will be more transport via this connection.

Another positive thing is that around antwerp will be a closed cirkel of highway. This improves the connection with the rest of Flanders, with the Antwerp Harbour, the centre of Antwerp and the Netherlands.

What the designers and politicians seem to overlook is that this project will cute some free open green space in pieces, there will be so much noise in a nowadays quite peaceful area, lots of fine dust from the cars, that is why the protest arose when they heard about this project.

I think this project hase it's advantages and disadvantages/negative effects. The designers, investers, politicians, thinkers, .... need to think about it and see if the advantages waight up to the disadvantages/negative effects.

References

* Please make sure that you give proper references of all external resources used.

* Do not use images of which you do not hold the copyright.

* Please add internet links to other resources if necessary.

Image of Bam-Tracé: https://www.google.be/search?q=bam+trac%C3%A9&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAsbaJoKzJAhWHWRoKHQBPDXYQ_AUIBygB&biw=1920&bih=969#imgrc=VLVicw4Fztn3GM%3A Image Macco-plan http://www.ademloos.be/sites/default/files/Groene_Vesten_0.jpg Information: http://archief.ademloos.be/nieuws/nieuwe-petitie-tegen-bam-trac%C3%A9-0 http://www.hln.be/regio/nieuws-uit-antwerpen/actiegroepen-vragen-vernietiging-plan-bam-trace-a2393841/ http://atv.be/nieuws/vlaamse-regering-blijft-bij-bam-trace-oosterweel-9318 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2q00EdODUs http://www.ademloos.be/meccano

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