Page 204 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Fernández-Ges, Andrés.

Fig 32 and 33. Aerial views of the Urban Project in the HSR land, after the different planning modifications, in 2017.
Source: ZAV

21. Strategic urban projects

The urban actions developed in these areas of Zaragoza had similar characteristics to other
Strategic Urban Projects. These developments, named by Portas (2003) urban projects of the
“third generation” appear since the 1990s. Due to the lesser capacity of the Administration
these projects operate only in strategic areas to rely on their synergic capacity for the rest
of the city. They are also strategic because take concepts and procedures from strategic
plans. They are called strategic urban projects by Monclús (2003) and Carmona (2001, 2005)
called them “Great Urban Projects” because of his big scale. For her, they are the result of
globalization, that modifies the relationship between State and markets y gives cities more
importance the economic development.

These projects are mainly developed by public initiative. Because of the scale, the
implementation is longer than previous urban projects. They have an ambivalent relationship
with urban planning. On one hand derive from the General Master as a starting point, but
in the majority of cases operate apart from planning. Examples of this kind of projects are
the urban renewal of the Batimore port area, the urban transformation of Barcelona by the
Olympic Games or Euralille, in France. And more recently, cases such as La Confluence, in
Lyon, Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam or Hafen City in Hamburg.

202 360.revista de alta velocidad