The University of Lleida develops a model to screen urban spaces from all over the world

Lleida (ACN).- 50 cities from all over the world already have their own “radiography”. It is the “Base Plan”, a project developed by the University of Lleida; a single map of the city will show its current physical state, as well as the strategic aspects of its urban areas. Base Plan will also enable the identification of the city's main needs for the next 10 years. The project is an initiative launched in 2008 by the UNESCO Chair on Intermediate Cities and World Urbanisation. It aims to become the model used by the United Nations agency working on town planning: UN Habitat. It would analyse urban populations of more than 10,000 inhabitants. The project will be presented at the 24^th World Congress of Architecture, which will be held in Tokyo in September.

In order to finish defining the last methodological aspects and to share the field work undergone on several cities participating in the projects, some 50 international experts on town planning from all over the world are participating this Friday July 15^th in an International Workshop on Base Plan in Intermediate Cities at the University of Lleida. Some of the cities already studied are Tangiers (Morocco), Nouakchott (Mauritania), Oran (Algeria), Banepa (Nepal), or Haifa (Israel).

Base Plan is structured in six main areas: setting the limits of urban areas (consolidated, extension and reserve), free spaces and green zones, connectivity (roads and transports, among others), equipment and basic services, compactness (population concentration in concrete spots and the interconnection among these areas), and zone identification (which diagnoses the points where reforms or urban transformations are needed). This data will enable the prioritisation of projects within a 10-year framework. The tool is therefore useful to ease the study of the intermediate cities.

If UN Habitat finally adopts the tool as a model, the objective is to have 178 new Base Plans in the next three years. On Saturday, several speakers having participated in Lleida’s workshop will meet in Barcelona with the Director of UN Habitat, Joan Clos. The project is coordinated by the University of Lleida’s UNESCO Chair on Intermediate Cities. The project’s objective is to become a world reference tool for the 150,000 intermediate cities in the world (those having more than 10,000 inhabitants).