The Globalization Free Choice course is designed as a platform for the co-evaluation of the diverse metropolitan responses to the Global City model and its associated metropolisation spatial model. Running since 2000, this course has been followed by more than 360 students, many from rapidly developing countries, cities, and regions (e.g. Beijing, Jakarta, New Delhi, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong in 2019 alone). The case studies are defined by complex conditions, such as sectoral planning, large socio-economic asymmetries, and environmental decay.
The course is based on an evolutionary bi-directional knowledge transfer, where the students form groups to evaluate the metropolitan challenges of the selected region. This evaluation is later presented to key regional actors and researchers in the selected location, so as to co-evaluate the process. This opens up a plethora of diverse local questions for models of metropolisation, revealing local particularities that are further considered by the students so as to propose a series of new in situ development opportunities to counteract the main negative externalities on social, economic, and environmental systems. This leads to the second round of co-evaluation where the scale is elevated to the municipal level. Proposals are then presented and discussed with key municipal actors, including territorial managers and inhabitants. The students then develop a planning and design framework to counteract negative local conditions and re-define the metropolitan model. The final presentation is then translated into local languages for its final review by selected interest-ed actors.
This methodology facilitates desk-based analysis and highlights clear ways of redefining this through the active inclusion of local stakeholders, facilitating an understanding of local planning frameworks, its main scopes, and its diverse perceptions, which validates this analysis and guides it toward more diverse, operational, and locally specific design and planning proposals.
Text written by Diego Sepulveda