City Renewal Research Articles

New Scenes with Old Memories in Tokyo and Changed Scenes with no Memories in Fu Zhou

The construction of the cities in China is under rapid development. Large-scale construction and renewal cut off the trace of city history - our cities are losing memories, whereas the city renewal of Bunkyo Ward in Tokyo post-War is in “transition in harmony with natural and historic surroundings", which can bring happy memories to people everywhere. This paper collected historic photos of the main streets, views and spots in Bunkyo Ward in the last 50 years, and take many new photos at the same place. In comparison with old views, we can still see some sparse and existent vestiges, misty archaic rhyme through the new building and the view. Which in contrast, in the Central 817 Road in Fuzhou. From the comparison between present and past since the 1980s, we can figure out: the urbanization in modification process treated the old city in another attitude which leads to another results: Changed Scenes with No Memories.

공동주거단지 개발에 따른 주변지역 거주자의 근린의식 특성에 관한 연구 - 광주광역시 사례를 중심으로 -

This study aims to examine the characteristics of the changes in residents' perception of neighborhood and sense of neighborhood according to the residential structural changes caused by city renewal projects such as old urban large redevelopment. Research findings benefits of the residential environment changes after the development are environment improvement, convenient traffic, leisure activity increase, and green area increase, whereas their drawbacks are encroachment of sunshine and view, However, with the regard to the relationship with neighbors, paired-sample t-test results showed there were no statistically significant differences between before and after the development. It appeared to be that the community residential complex development did not influence the relationship with neighbors. ANOVA was used to examine the differences in the neighborhood perception among age categories. The results showed that there were no differences between age groups but when there were changes in their life cycle, residents showed differences in their neighborhood perception among age groups. The neighborhood perception was measured on 5-point Likert Scale in four factors of intimacy, participation, reliability, and group identity. The perception decreased somewhat after the development and the group identity, especially, showed a significant difference (p<.001). This was considered to be caused by a sense of incongruity due to the influx of different social-economic groups.

The Oslo Museum Puzzle. Reflections on the relation between culture and economy

The decision has been made to relocate several cultural institutions in Oslo, without any existing plans for the old premises. In this article, the supportive arguments are analysed against the backdrop of the critical voices. The critics want to preserve the old buildings because they are embedded in the nation’s collective memory and have value as history. The supporters of the plans argue that the new buildings are bricks in a bigger city renewal project and shall generate synergetic effects beyond just functioning as cultural institutions. Critical discourse analysis is used eclectically as a methodological framework with a specific focus on what structural patterns of social change the arguments imply. The conclusion is that economy’s entry into the cultural sphere may be a threat to the cultural heritage.

A City's Renewal Animated by Entrepreneurial Spirit

philosophical depth and lightly-worn grace still awe me when I revisit my wellthumbed copies of The Moviegoer and The Last Gentleman. He had a theory, which he liked to expound over bourbon and hog’s head cheese, that people are at their happiest when a hurricane is about to hit. When you’re mired in the everydayness of ordinary life, he explained, you’re likely to be afflicted by what he called “the malaise,” a free-floating despair associated with the feeling that you’re not a part of the world or connected to the people in it. You are alienated, detached. But not when a hurricane is about to hit! Everyone is focused, connected, engaged. We know what we’re supposed to do, and we do it! It’s only after the waters recede and the earth begins to heal that the malaise and alienation creep back in. But I think Dr. Percy may have had it wrong, at least with regard to Hurricane Katrina. Katrina has created the exception to Percy’s theory: this time the malaise has not settled in again, and the everydayness of life as we knew it in New Orleans never re-formed. Five years after the storm, many in the New Orleans community look back at Katrina as the point where we realized our purpose in this world. We learned how to join together, about the nature of community, and how to play a role in something larger than ourselves. I suspect that even 50 years from now, those of us who are still around will continue to see Katrina this way. A few days after the storm, Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco asked me to serve as vice chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. Although surprised by the offer, I accepted, and flew from my home in Washington, D.C., to Baton Rouge to survey the damage with a team the governor had assembled. We flew by helicopter over a city still flooded, and I could see my childhood home submerged under ten feet of water. I realized then that New Orleans might never come back, that it might be the end for the city where I grew up. Within a few weeks, people did start to come back. It should come as no surprise to those bred in New Orleans that restaurant owners were among the first group of intrepid entrepreneurs to return, bringing with them their particular

A Risk Evaluation of Urban Redevelopment Procedures

Under the scheme of Japanese City Renewal Law (JCRL), the cost of urban redevelopment projects is financed by revenues from selling reserved floors secured beforehand in a redeveloped building. The outcome of whether the reserved floor can be sold is unforeseeable, so entities for redevelopment are faced with risks in project financing. Defining the risks for the entities as a probability of loss and formalizing the urban redevelopment process as a game theoretic model, this paper aims to demonstrate that we can evaluate the actual risks entities will bear in a project by showing a hypothetical numerical example. The game theoretic model for urban redevelopment procedures was first constructed by Imanishi, Saito and Tanaka[1]. They attempted to evaluate what risks would be transferred from the Urban Renaissance (UR) Agency, a government entity for redevelopment authorized by JCRL, to the private sector if UR employed a new contract scheme under which UR delegates the disposition of the reserved floor to the constructor that makes a contract with UR to construct the redeveloped building. The model was formalized as a two-stage auction implemented by the entity for redevelopment. The first auction is carried out as a sealed bid lowest price auction to choose a constructor for the redeveloped building, and the second stage chooses a buyer for the reserved floor as a sealed bid highest price auction. They theoretically derive the risk born by the entity for redevelopment from the hypothetical case when true preference distributions for buyers and constructors are uniform distributions. While their derivation is innovative, they have derived the result for just one of four possible cases. In this paper we demonstrate derivations for all four cases to complete the risk calculation.JEL Classification: D44, D82, O22, R51

Urban Regeneration for Sustainable Development: The Role of Sustainable Housing?

This article examines the extent to which a number of urban regeneration approaches involve sustainable housing. Specifically, it assesses the potential of eco-neighbourhoods, urban villages and new urbanism to contribute to sustainable regeneration. The article highlights the advantages and disadvantages of each approach from a sustainable housing perspective and, in particular, evaluates the extent to which the environmental and social aspects are addressed in each. It concludes that both aspects are frequently neglected in regeneration programmes and that this is likely to result in unsustainable urban renewal in many cities.

Partnerships for Demolition: The Governance of Urban Renewal in East Germany's Shrinking Cities

AbstractRecent discussions of urban governance have emphasized a trend towards the ‘entrepreneurialization’ of local politics. This model has been intensively discussed and well documented. However, although this concept has been well tested in economically prosperous locations, less attention has been paid to the situation in marginalized regions characterized by a weak economy and a declining population. Taking eastern Germany as an example of a socio‐economic context marked by deindustrialization and population decline, the article discusses three main aspects of local governance arrangements under such conditions. First ‘coping with decline’ has become a more important issue in local politics than ‘entrepreneurial’ growth‐strategies. Second, successful public–private coalition‐building is severely complicated. Third, local politics are more dependent on resources from the national government than on private investment, lending greater significance to the national level and resulting in ‘grant coalitions’ rather than ‘growth coalitions’. The article focuses on these different experiences and discusses their implications for the analysis of urban governance.Résumé De récentes discussions sur la gouvernance urbaine ont mis en évidence une tendance ‘entrepreneuriale’ de la politique locale. Ce modèle a été largement analysé et documenté. Toutefois, même si ce concept a été mis à l'épreuve sur des sites d'économie prospère, on s'est moins intéresséà la situation dans des régions marginalisées caractérisées par une économie faible et une population en déclin. Prenant l'Allemagne de l'Est comme exemple de contexte socio‐économique marqué par la désindustrialisation et le déclin démographique, l'article y examine trois grands aspects des dispositifs de gouvernance locale. Premièrement, ‘gérer le déclin’ est devenu une priorité de la politique locale plus prégnante que les stratégies de croissance ‘entrepreneuriales’. Deuxièmement, les coalitions public‐privé performantes sont extrêmement difficiles à constituer. Troisièmement, la politique locale dépend davantage des ressources gouvernementales nationales que de l'investissement privé, ce qui confère une prédominance au niveau national et génère des ‘coalitions de subventionnement’ au lieu de ‘coalitions de croissance’. En s'intéressant à ces différentes expériences, l'article examine leurs implications dans l'analyse de la gouvernance urbaine.

New Orleans Architecture: Building Renewal

This essay on the architecture of New Orleans looks at certain features of the city? architectural icons, vernacular structures, and nature?and some conflicts they have provoked in the city's renewal of its built fabric. I have structured the essay as a sequence of vignettes, a composition that reflects the fragmentary nature of the city as it reshapes itself in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Government policy and wireless city networks: A comparative analysis of motivations, goals, services and their relation to network structure

Wireless City Networks are a recent, but growing phenomenon. In the United States hundreds of cities are looking into the possibility of rolling out Wi-Fi or WiMax based networks over substantial parts of the city. The underlying rationale is that wireless city networks are cheap and flexible alternatives for fixed broadband networks. Cities more and more see broadband Internet access as a necessary and therefore public utility to be provided to their communities at affordable prices or even free of charge. The deployment of wireless city networks is however more than just infrastructure provision. Initiatives are linked to broader city policies related to digital divide, city renewal, stimulation of innovation, stimulation of tourism, strengthening the economic fabric of the city, etc . In this article we will argue that explicit and implicit goals are directly linked to the coverage and topology of networks, the technology used, price and service modalities, etc. Furthermore we will argue that the differences in context between the US and Europe explain the different infrastructural trajectories taken. Overall and on the basis of empirical findings we caution for the overoptimistic view that Wi-Fi-based wireless city networks are an equal alternative for providing broadband access. There are both financial and technological uncertainties, which could have a serious impact on the performance of these initiatives.

Collaborative partnerships and urban change management

PurposeThis article aims to consider the benefits of collaboration in programming the delivery of complex regeneration strategies, focusing on the renewal of Manchester city centre following its terrorist bombing. Set within the wider discourse on the nature of partnerships, it situates the city centre renewal process within Manchester's locally‐grounded development agenda, focusing in particular on programme management achievements.Design/methodology/approachThe article uses a qualitative approach to look at the institutional basis for collaborative action, and the management structures put in place to deliver the renewal programme over a five‐year period of concentrated activity.FindingsIn the renewal of Manchester city centre a common purpose was found within the partnership approach. Such an approach appeared to be driven by inter‐urban competition for public and private investment.Research limitations/implicationsImplications for organizational capacity and for master plan delivery were noted, and with the approach taken to performance management and the accommodation of risk, and the delivery of a forward strategy to ensure the completion of the rebuilding programme.Practical implicationsThe findings have had practical implications with a number of other cities pursuing like‐minded strategies based on the Manchester experience.Originality/valueThe article adds further knowledge to our understanding of renewal and regeneration in major cities.

Belső-erzsébetvárosi rehabilitáció

Belső-Erzsébetvárosban az utóbbi néhány évben olyan nagyarányú építkezés kezdődött, mely a foghíjak, és lebontható házak számát figyelembe véve a negyed arculatának teljes átalakulását hozhatja magával. Tanulmányunk megvizsgálja az itt élők státuszának utóbbi évekbeli változását, a jelenleg itt lakók rehabilitációval kapcsolatos elképzeléseit, véleményét, azt, hogy hogyan élik meg az évek óta ígérgetett megújítást és annak elmaradását. A vizsgálathoz az 1990-es és a 2001-es népszámlálás és egy 2005-ös survey adatait használjuk fel. Azt mutatjuk be, hogy milyen folyamatok következményeként válik elkerülhetetlenné a dzsentrifikáció, milyen érdekek vonulnak fel e mellett, és melyek azok, amelyek háttérbe szorulnak.

経年化した郊外団地の実態とその賦活に関する問題整理 : 「団地お断り」時代につくられた東京都町田市の公団・公社住宅を中心に

経年化した郊外団地の実態とその賦活に関する問題整理 : 「団地お断り」時代につくられた東京都町田市の公団・公社住宅を中心に

Housing associations, the creation of communities and power relations

Drawing in particular on Nikolas Rose's writings on governmentality, this paper considers how housing associations' objective of creating and maintaining communities has structured both their own practices, and their relationships with local authorities. Using historical materials from the 1930s to the present, it argues that the discourse of community has now become a focus for asserting the independence of the housing association sector from control by the state. It begins by examining the period from the 1930s to 1960, when the marginal role of housing associations left them relatively free to define their own concepts of ‘community’, though with some contestation around the power of local authorities to nominate tenants. It then examines the 1960s and 1970s, when the increasing importance of the association sector in inner city renewal began a shift of emphasis towards providing housing on the basis of need. The paper moves on to consider the impact of rising homelessness in the 1980s, which led to the problematisation of housing association activity. The 1993 Page Report focused associations on their dependence on local authority definitions of housing need. It produced a ‘paradigm shift’ in the sector. Associations sought independence from local authority perceptions of housing need, moving towards policies of building communities that offered security to associations, lenders and occupiers

Urban Deindustrialization and Local Public Policy: Industrial Renewal in Philadelphia, 1953–1976

In an obscure footnote to his groundbreaking study of deindustrialization in Detroit, Thomas J. Sugrue notes that “the history of industrial renewal in postwar American cities is still largely unwritten.” A review of the historiography of the postwar city confirms this statement. Historians have carefully explored the problems of low-income housing provision, red lining, and urban racial conflict, as well as the destructive consequences of federally subsidized highway construction, urban renewal, and suburbanization. With only limited exceptions, however, few scholars have examined the history of local policy strategies that addressed the disappearance of urban manufacturing jobs.

The Inner city: a handbook for renewal

This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the rebuilding of America's urban areas. Beginning with an introduction into the condition of our nation's metropolitan cities and their urban problems, as they exist today, the book also discusses some 14 different practical tools available for public officials to use for inner city renewal. Sixteen case studies have been included to show real-life examples of the efforts of public officials to revitalize their inner city commercial areas and residential neighborhoods. This valuable tool for city planners, business people, and private citizens provides critical thinking about how our urban economic development programs are, and should be, designed and conducted.

SEEKING CLOSURE: CONFLICT RESOLUTION, LAND RESTITUTION, AND INNER CITY REDEVELOPMENTS IN ‘DISTRICT SIX’ CAPE TOWN

ABSTRACT District Six, an early inner city electoral ward of Cape Town is an exemplar of the history of planning theory and praxis in South Africa. It reflects changes in social and political relations, public and private values, planning policies and the role of the state. It epitomises how social and physical planning impacted fundamentally upon the lives and experiences of a disempowered community and it has come to symbolize the struggle of formerly disenfranchised populations to establish themselves within the social fabric of the city. It is also an exemplar of the problem of inner city renewal in the context of nationwide decentralization of commercial and office functions. The history of District Six is traced and changing approaches to planning are identified. The primary focus is upon the social engineering of ‘Grand Apartheid’, resettlement of a ‘coloured’ community with its attendant social consequences and upon developments following the accession to power of South Africa's first democratically elected government. A decision to restore the land to its original occupants under the Land Restitution Act provided the opportunity for a comprehensive low-income and inner city renewal planning exercise, a statutory requirement of which was extensive public participation. This has generated intense social conflict which has yet to be resolved. These issues and their implications for the structure and functioning of the city are discussed.

Urban renewal in East African port cities: Mombasa's Old Town waterfront

The urban waterfront redevelopment diaspora, formerly confined to advanced countries, is starting to impact upon coastal settlements in former colonial territories. In diverse contexts ranging from postcolonialism and globalization to cultural revival and tourism development, developing countries are seeking to revive their historic port cities. This paper reports on the experience of Mombasa, Kenya, where waterfront redevelopment is a problematic element in the conservation of the historic urban core, and relates local issues to wider policies, relevant literature and experience elsewhere.

Suburbs' Growing Problems May Lead to Cities' Salvation

ABSTRACT It has been said that there must be a breakdown before there can be a breakthrough. If true, America's suburbs might lead the way toward city renewal. Because problems know no boundaries, suburbs are now facing what cities have known for decades. Growth and change eventually cause pain. The author, with insight from a political thinker and worker, suggests that this might bring suburbs and cities together in a joint partnership.

&lt;I&gt;Falahak, Inshallah&lt;/I&gt; (Flowering-God's Will): the struggle of the labouring poor, and a vision, strategy and programme for tenant-led &lt;I&gt;basti&lt;/I&gt; and city renewal

&lt;I&gt;Falahak, Inshallah&lt;/I&gt; (Flowering-God's Will): the struggle of the labouring poor, and a vision, strategy and programme for tenant-led &lt;I&gt;basti&lt;/I&gt; and city renewal

Falahak, Inshallah (Flowering-God's Will): the struggle of the labouring poor, and a vision, strategy and programme for tenant-led bastiand city renewal

This paper describes a new programme to assist tenants living in the bastis (low-income settlements) in Howrah. After this introductory section, Section II describes the development of low-income rental accommodation in the city including the establishment of the thika tenancy system in Calcutta. Despite legislation to improve the situation of tenants, living conditions remain very poor. Section III summarizes government responses, first through legislation and then through settlement upgrading programmes. These responses, however, did not secure improvements in living conditions. A new programme, the Calcutta Environmental Management Strategy and Action Plan (CEMSAP) has provided a new opportunity to look afresh at the needs of the city and its low-income residents. This programme has benefitted from being able to draw on several decades of innovative thinking and experience in urban development. The final section describes the local environment in one settlement where 80 per cent of the residents are tenants, and discusses the plans and activities to strengthen local representative groups and make interim improvements in living conditions. However, these improvements are recognized as being inadequate. The legislation has resulted in the tenants being virtual owners within the settlement and the authors end the paper by describing recent plans for more substantive improvements.