RETHINKING SANTANDER

He College of Geographers In its objective of lending its collaboration to citizens in order to improve the public management of the territory with the search and definition of management models for urban transformations in the appropriate conditions of economic, social and environmental development, it has been collaborating in the different stages of processing of the PGOU of Santander through various observations that, although it is true we believe have not been estimated as we would have wished and motivated its abstention, it is also necessary to highlight other aspects that we share in other work instruments and that are developed as a complement to the PGOU: Strategic Plan, Smart Santander … From now on it will be everyone’s responsibility to determine how these instruments are implemented to build the city.

The long period of time that has been used for the processing and approval of the municipal planning of Santander is the responsibility of legislators, politicians, technicians and citizens. This long process has caused anachronisms in certain sections of the Plan that could hinder the viability of its application. It is true that in this last year, the Ministry of Environment, Land Use and Urban Planning has given a push to alleviate these agonies that have become the approvals of the different planning figures, and that thanks to the work developed by the civil servants and personnel of the Administration in collaboration with the different technical teams that work on the planning of the municipalities, it seems that the bottleneck that the Regional Commission of Urbanism and Land Use has become is being unblocked. On many occasions demonized without reason by different political groups as an alibi for their own responsibilities.

Not wanting to go into specific aspects of the content of the PGOU, because they have already been debated by other professional groups and by the PGOU itself. College of Geographers In this and other forums previously, we would like to express what we believe is the development model that the municipality of Santander should address, thinking beyond the concept of growth. That is the reason for the title of this article: “rethinking Santander” after the entry into force of the legal-administrative document, on how to conduct its management policy to create and live in a city for everyone.

Concepts such as growth, productivity, competitiveness and urbanisation, which are included in the PGOU documents when talking about local development, mark a discourse that is very market-oriented and which should, if not be corrected, at least be reviewed in contrast to other social and environmental variables. This exercise should serve to create a development model in which people are the focus of the discourse and in which all the groups involved are capable of thinking of new dynamics regarding urban planning, mobility, tourism and cultural promotion, the environment and social policies.

We believe that many of the criticisms that the College of Geographers has received for an alleged lack of courage in its approach to the General Urban Development Plan of Santander for its analysis of future perspectives in the face of the crisis have not been understood in all the dimensions previously mentioned. We continue to believe that we are immersed, now, in a structural crisis with special consequences for municipal public finances that will force us to review those approaches on which the local development of the capital was theoretically based. Technicians from different areas and municipal officials will have to work on the search for new principles that, after reflection and sharing, will lead to a new alternative territorial development model.

From the College of Geographers we are committed to collaborating in future participatory debates that contribute to developing the conceptual bases for the development of comprehensive public policies through which to activate the resources for the implementation of new development guidelines in accordance with the needs of Santander, the people who live there and its territory.

The General Plan is here. Technocratic urban planning practices have been relegated to the last century and the public dimension of urban space and its territory as a common good must prevail over mercantilist demands. Past lost opportunities such as the La Remonta area with the possibilities that could have been discussed as an area for the relocation and liberalisation of the current hospital spaces, fire fighting services and municipal urban transport service depots, should serve to analyse important future actions in the city: railway spaces around Castilla-Plaza de las Estaciones street, decommissioned port spaces, Litoral Norte park...

From now on, it is in the development and application of the PGOU that we must all work towards an alternative, sustainable and truly participatory urbanism, with a social rather than economic sense. The professional group of the College of Geographers, in the shadow of the General Plan, believes it is feasible to implement new management policies in social housing, in public spaces and transport, in pedestrian and cycle paths, in public buildings, in green spaces; policies with which it traditionally feels involved in each and every one of the facets of its design, development and administration, and which, without any doubt, it places at the service of the general interest of the citizens of Santander.

Nor should we forget the strong commitment that Santander is making to the incorporation of new technologies in urban life, which will define and modify aspects of the PGOU that are not currently fully outlined in it in its projection as a sustainable city of knowledge and productive innovation. The long tradition of geographers in the field of Geographic Information Systems as a working tool for urban and territorial planning makes us especially sensitive to this trend and increases the interest in our participation in the definition of this chapter of the agenda of urban policies that must be developed.

The territorial aspect of the Smart Cities, the impact of urban technology on the forms of occupation of urban land and its capacity to positively influence the design and planning of the city, is something new and has received little attention compared to the wide dissemination that is taking place in other aspects such as the development and deployment of hyperconnected technologies.

The use of ubiquitous technology, aided by the high connectivity of mobile devices, will undoubtedly affect the design and use of buildings, facilities and urban spaces in cities such as Santander in the near future, once computing, its applications and digital technology have gone beyond the traditional home and workplace environments to spread throughout public spaces. These impacts may not come in the short term, but Santander, as a pioneering and experimental city in the urban integration of technology, must address them by aiming to be at the forefront of this type of city.

The College of Geographers accepts this challenge and proposes a reflection with a more interdisciplinary approach that analyses the changes in citizen habits and land occupation that the adoption of a pioneering model such as smart city which Santander is betting on. Due to its future projection as a planning instrument, the PGOU must develop the objectives regarding the smart city model that Santander is pursuing and its implications at the level of land use.

Finally, the College of Geographers will remain available to all entities and elements working on the search and formulation of new instruments and expectations for the development of the city with the rethinking of local policies and with the neighbourhood movement and associationism as the axes of the design of new situations of environmentalist and participatory democracy.