Ambitious plan seeks to address Greek capital’s problems through zoning

When the grid for Athens was first laid out in the 1830s by Stamatis Kleanthes and Eduard Schaubert, the city was designed to be beautiful but also functional. Today it is neither, at least when viewed as a whole, since its growth was completely unplanned and virtually unregulated. Originally planned for a population of six thousand, policies that were more electoralminded than anything else have resulted in a metropolis of more than three million–or one third of the country’s population. The Greek capital has sprawled, effectively without planning, into a incohesive metropolitan complex that extends from the sea to the base–and in some cases up–the mountains that framing its basin. Even in new areas, like the Mesogeia
towns around the international airport relocated from Hellenikon, on the city’s southern coast, to Spata, the growth has been haphazard, as if sudden and unexpected when it was quite predictable.

Last July the environment ministry unveiled an ambitious plan to try to remedy the situation–the Strategic Plan for Athens and Attica 2021. The first such wide-ranging plan drawn up since 1985, the Strategic Plan for Attica 2021 aims at “structural deficits” in the city’s growth and containing its expansion. Public consultations in an accompany “Action Plan” conclude on January 16, after which the plan and its accompanying environmental assessments will be finalized as the basis for a law to be passed by parliament. (Public consultation on the plan itself concluded on November 1 and its findings are already being assessed by the environment ministry.)

The Strategic Plan is rooted in lofty and laudable concepts. Its feasibility, however, remains to be seen when the plan is adopted and transferred from paper to practice as its scope ranges from radical restructuring of the city center such as Panepistimiou street, expansion of public transport systems, and even an overhaul of agriculture and other production.

Two goals outlined by the plan have almost become cliché: promoting the city’s cultural identity (“Athens, Mediteranean capital) and emphasizing policies aimed at fostering social cohesion. Quite worrisome is that one goal is “gradually limiting unzoned construction”–a practice whose complete eradication would seem a prerequisite to implementing any strategic plan.

Many of the projects included in the Strategic Plan for Attica have been presented independently. The urban renewal of Elaionas, an industrial district within Athens, is a prime example. Officials hope that their inclusion in a broader, comprehensive plan will finally see these plans implemented. Two central themes–revitalizing the center and reorienting the capital towards its coastal zone–have been recurring themes in environment ministry presentations, leading one to conclude that there hasn’t been great progress towards achieving either. Indeed, if anything, the center has slid further into deterioration, pushing commercial activity away from downtown to suburban shopping centers on the city’s periphery. Another challenge is “localizing” the Strategic Plan’s broader goals as Attica embraces areas that lack social, economic, and even geographic homogeneity as, administratively, it includes urban settlements, industrial areas, mountains, coastal lands, farmland, undeveloped areas, and the Saronic islands and Kythera. On paper, the plan takes all these into account: but for it to succeed, its implementation needs to be even and to take into account the different needs of each area.