Portraying, classifying and understanding the emerging landscapes in the post-industrial city

Abstract

This paper examines landscape transformations in the post-industrial city. It attempts to portray, classify and understand the emerging landscapes in terms of land use patterns, urban morphology and density. It is argued that the locational trends of flourishing post-industrial economic activities, along with the development of new urban governance strategies, tend to rearrange the landscapes of the post-modern city. The inner city is dominated by an eclectic clustering of economic activities: high level financial services, technology-intensive firms and knowledge-based institutions, and ‘creative’ urban islands and edges. Such creative islands and edges constitute ‘signifying epicentres’ which usually introduce a ‘glocalised’ landscape of built heritage and innovative design of buildings and public open spaces. Compact and dense landscapes in the inner city are combined with new landscapes of ‘diffused urbanity’ in urban fringes.