New Urban Research Articles

Identity, Flexibility and Sustainability for the new Social Housing

Pubblica (lit. Public Residential Construction), undergone over the last sixty years in Italy, have brought about new lines of thought with regard to places to live. The high cost of renewal and re-functionalization of the E.R.P. areas, the absence of services, which have transformed them into dormitory suburbs, have led us to rethink new urban environments as places possessing a sense of identity, in which to provide communal services and spaces for neighborly relations. Moreover, the social, economic and political dynamics of the last few years have modified not only life styles, but also the typology of householder, ever more sensitive to the quality of product and environmental issues. This contribution discusses several principles as a point of departure for a new Social Housing.

Territoires des taxis-motos à Lomé : de la pratique quotidienne à la recomposition des espaces urbains et des liens sociaux

Face a l’etalement urbain et a l’inexistence des transports publics a Lome, les vingt dernieres annees ont vu se developper les taxis-motos qui jouent aujourd’hui un role important dans le transport urbain. L’objectif de cet article n’est pas de faire une analyse geographique et economique de la mobilite urbaine mais plutot de decrire les territoires quotidiens des conducteurs de taxis-motos et d’apporter un eclairage sociologique sur la recomposition des liens sociaux induits par ce nouveau mode de transport. Partant de la typologie des conducteurs et des trois logiques de localisation des tetes de lignes qui ont fortement recompose l’espace urbain, nous montrons comment les differentes corporations et les syndicats sont des lieux quotidiens de socialisation et de communion entre conducteurs des taxis-motos. Si les rapports entre les conducteurs et les usagers sont conviviaux, c’est plutot un lien conflictuel qui existe entre conducteurs et acteurs publics a cause des policiers et des agents du service des impots qui les traquent. Amenes, de par leurs activites journalieres, a circuler dans tous les quartiers et a rencontrer beaucoup de personnes, les conducteurs taxis-motos sont consideres comme de bons vecteurs d’informations et sont souvent sollicites par les associations, les ONG et surtout les partis politiques pour participer a diverses caravanes, campagnes de sensibilisation et campagnes electorales.

The issue of redundant places of worship

Full text, with notes, of the paper presented at the International Conference “ Holy places and religious institutions. Comparative legal and religious approaches – Italy/Balkans, Israel/Palestine Israel”, organized by LUMSA University (Rome) and the Catholic America – Columbus School of Law (Washington) in Rome, LUMSA, December 10-11, 2008: Dec. 10th session on the subject of “Holy places and religious property in Italy ”. It will be published in the conference proceedings. Translated from Italian by Paola Bernardini. INDEX: 1. The issue of redundant places of worship in Europe - 2. Canonical perspectives - 2.1. The regulations according to the Code of Canon Law - 2.2. General criteria for change in churches’ deployment. The Guidelines of the Episcopal Conference of Italy (CEI) about the cultural goods of the Church in Italy (1992) - 2.3. The documents of other episcopates (Germany and Switzerland) – 3. The phenomenon of churches’ desertion in some countries - 3.1. France - 3.2. Quebec (Canada) - 3.3. United States of America - 4. The situation in Italy - 4.1. Ownership of the churches - 4.2. Financial aspects - 4.3. Legal protection of the destination bond - 4.4. Churches as cultural heritage - 4.5. Fiscal considerations - 4.6. The recent CEI Directive (2005) - 5. Concluding remarks. Abstract: Nowadays one of the major issues concerning ecclesiastical, or religious, property in Europe, as elsewhere, consists of deciding what to do with redundant churches and places of worship of traditional Christian denominations, all of which have lost their original use, either due to a formal decision of the ecclesiastical authorities or to simple closure to the public. This might have been caused by a series of events, like a significant decrease in the church attendance, limited public resources, new urban planning projects and the fall in religious vocation. For these places there is either the prospect of a new use, or a slow process of decay which can ultimately end up in a sale, or demolition. This problem is faced today with singular urgency in Europe, where it determines an increased risk of decay of much of the historical-artistic heritage, together with the abandonment of the countryside and mountain locations and a progressive desertion of historical town centres. Consequently, the issue concerns not only the religious community but also the civil authorities and public opinion, more and more sensitive to the protection of cultural heritage and the historical memory of local communities. This paper examines many aspects of the issue in some countries (Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France, Quebec, the United States), comparing the different legal frameworks and the documents of some national episcopal assemblies on the subject, especially about the change in the use of churches. Finally it concentrates on the situation in Italy, where the legal framework on this subject is strictly connected with the system of church-state relations, making some concluding remarks about future prospects and possible solutions to some of the more serious aspects of the issue.

Reviving China: Urban Reconstruction in Nanchang and the Guomindang National Revival Movement, 1932–37

This paper, the first examination of the urban reconstruction of Nanchang, headquarters of the New Life Movement during a period of “National Revival” from 1932–37, presents a fresh understanding of the Guomindang (GMD) New Life Movement. By framing the Nanchang urban reconstruction as an integral program of the New Life Movement, it challenges the established wisdom of the Movement's mere focus on disciplining Chinese population without any agenda to materially transform Chinese life. By examining GMD engineering efforts to construct public infrastructure, this essay testifies to the Movement's concrete impact on urban residents. In doing so, it offers a new conceptualization of the New Life Movement as a distinctive moment of Chinese modernity during a process of constructing new urban space in China's interior cities. This paper also brings to light the ignored connection between the New Life Movement and the historical and ideological context of the GMD National Revival Movement. As the GMD leaders believed, a “new Nanchang” would regenerate a stable national culture and identity as a critique of capitalist modernization. By calling attention to the logic of overcoming modernity, the paper resituates the New Life Movement into cultural revival movements worldwide.

The Expressway Teardown Movement in American Cities

At least two dozen American cities have discussed or planned removals or teardowns of inner-city elevated expressways, and a few cities have already done so. In the 1970s, Boston, New York City, and Portland, Oregon initiated such teardowns, each with a different replacement: Boston began replacing its elevated Central Artery with a system of tunnels, later known as the Big Dig; New York replaced its West Side Highway with a street-level boulevard; and Portland bulldozed its Harbor Drive to make way for a waterfront park. Now, many cities are re-evaluating past highway policy that pushed elevated interstate highways through central cities, with consequent severe damage to housing, businesses, and neighborhoods. The teardown movement is high on the agenda of the Congress for the New Urbanism, now headed by John Norquist. A former Mayor of Milwaukee, Norquist pioneered the twenty-first century expressway teardown in an effort to eliminate an unneeded eyesore and spur downtown economic development. This article surveys the debate over teardown policy in several cities. It also analyzes the movement generally, suggesting that the main thrust is to compensate for past decisions that damaged central cities, but that the movement poses no threat to the heavily used urban expressways that millions of drivers rely on every day. Many teardown advocates have also promoted greater investment in mass transit and light rail.

Characteristics, mechanism, and spatiality of neo-migrants' homeplace-based communities in China: A case study of Hubei Village, Guangzhou

Against the backdrop of rapid urbanization,homeplace-based communities accommodating rural migrants from the same origin areas have proliferated in China's metropolitan cities.This phenomenon has attracted a wide range of political concern and media attention.However,little scholarly attention has been devoted to such rural migrant enclaves from the perspective of the social space,and to what extent and in what way 'the power of place' imposes influences upon the migration process and the labor-market process of rural migrants remain poorly understood.Based on field study and qualitative method,this paper aims to probe into the evolution process,basic characteristics,formation mechanism,and spatiality of Hubei Village,a homeplace-based community located in the city of Guangzhou,in the context of rapid urbanization.Our findings reveal that Hubei Village in general has become specialized in economic structure,homogeneous in sub-ethnic composition,and diversified in social stratum since the advent of the reform and opening up,and that abundant production networks and recruitment channels embedded with native space connections engender this community an enclave of key social and cultural distinction from surrounding areas.Our results suggest that Hubei Village plays a key role in accumulating and retaining all kinds of sub-ethnic elements,e.g.capital,labor force,and identity.Specifically,Hubei Village provides a place for the circuit of Hubei migrants' economic capital,for upward mobility of hubei labor migrants,and for integration of Hubei migrants into the host society of detonation cities.Our results further indicate that Hubei Village is a product of interrelated and interwoven forces at varied geographical scales,including market,institutional,and regional-level factors on a macro scale,factors related to urban expansion and infrastructure development on a meso scale,and factors related to competitive edges of Hubei garment factories,entrepreneurial spirit of Hubei migrants,and active response of local community on a micro scale.Based on our empirical study,we make a conclusive remark that homeplace-based communities,as new urban social spaces facilitated by grass-root efforts,make great contributions to the integration of neo-migrants in China's metropolitan cities.Therefore,governments should be cautious to carry out the wholesale demolition of homeplace-based communities,and should reconsider existing redevelopment policies toward urbanized villages.

Planning for a Temporary-to-Permanent Housing Solution in Post-Katrina Mississippi: The Story of the Mississippi Cottage

Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, the Mississippi Governor's Commission for Recovery, Rebuilding, and Renewal collaborated with the Congress for the New Urbanism to generate rebuilding proposals for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. One of the ideas generated from this partnership was the Katrina Cottage—a small home that could serve as an alternative to the FEMA Trailer. The State of Mississippi participated in the Pilot Alternative Temporary Housing (PATH) program, which was funded by the U.S. Congress. This study examines how local governments and residents responded to the Mississippi Cottage Program. This study finds that while the Mississippi Cottage program did provide citizens with needed housing following Hurricane Katrina, there are significant policy and implementation challenges that should be addressed before future disasters. The paper concludes by offering recommendations on how communities across can prepare to provide temporary housing in their communities.

Sustainable Principles of the New Urbanism. Prerequisites for "Green" Building

Sustainable Principles of the New Urbanism. Prerequisites for "Green" Building

China's Emerging Cities: The Making of New Urbanism – By Fulong Wu

A review of the book China's Emerging Cities: The Making of New Urbanism, by Fulong Wu is presented.

Urban sprawl and water stress with respect to changing landscape: Study from Lucknow, India

Lucknow is the capital city of India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. Urban growth currently is largely on par with other cities of similar size, and is anticipated to be slightly faster in the immediate future. The better economic prospect has lead to an increase in the urban population of the city during last few years. It has lead to large-scale urban sprawl and the inherent distinctiveness of hydrological environment is being neglected in urban planning. With the expansion of the urban sprawl and the increasing population, there has been a surmounting pressure on a) natural and built drainage systems b) surface/subsurface hydrological storage units, of Lucknow. The anthropogenic factors have also contributed to the presence of heavy metals in the hydrological units of the city. Upto now the regeneration of water by nature kept the surface and subsurface water ecosystem pure, satisfying the urban and peri-urban requirements. But during last few years, increasing demands from new urban extensions as well as intense agriculture and irrigation practices in surrounding rural areas have stressed the hydrological cycle considerably, raising questions over the sustainability of the water resources in the city. This paper attempts to highlight some important environmental criteria and propose methodology to achieve it, during the design of master plan with a focus on surface and subsurface water integrity of Lucknow building upon city’s natural and built environments. Changes in land use and land cover are estimated with respect to urban sprawl from year 1973 and 2005 based upon Survey of India toposheets and satellite data of IRS -1D LISS III PAN Sharpened. Drainage network map is overlaid with land use patterns drawing implications on water environment. Key words: Urban sprawl, water, master plan, land use, drainage.

Comparer les performances des villes. Le Programme des indicateurs pour les villes du monde de la Banque mondiale

Résumé Le retour des villes dans la géopolitique mondiale est aujourd’hui à l’origine d’un paradoxe. Si les manageurs des villes nourrissent l’ambition d’incarner l’avant-garde du progrès économique et social et rêvent d’un nouveau pilotage rationnel de leur action, les chiffres concernant leurs villes manquent. C’est ainsi que la Banque mondiale s’est engagée dans diverses initiatives visant à promouvoir le développement de statistiques concernant les villes. Parmi elles, le projet d’indicateurs pour les villes du monde, le Global City Indicators Program (GCIP), ayant vocation à produire un parangonnage ( benchmarking ) mondial des villes, fait l’objet de cet article.

ECONOMY, ENVIRONMENT, CULTURE: GLOBAL DREAMS BY TWO ASIAN CITIES

Global cities have been characterized as networked nodes, with multiple and intensive global flows of people, goods, services, ideas, and images. These often share more in common, and identify more with other such cities than with urban hinterlands in their own countries. Given the myriad external linkages and orientation, this paper will argue that some Asian cities progress is not only aimed at economic and social emancipation, which are only tools to attain global city status. It will particularly examine the cultural production of new urban spaces due to economic growth, and compare between two Asian cities of Hong Kong and Singapore.

SENSE OF COMMUNITY AND RESIDENTIAL SPACE: CONTEXTUALIZING NEW URBANISM WITHIN A BROADER THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This study engages the planning and urban design literature as well as social theory to develop a nuanced understanding of issues related to neighborhood form and sense of community. The study analyzes the meaning of community from economic, social, and cultural perspectives. It contextualizes the New Urbanism use of physical design as a subtext for community within a broader theoretical context. The study revisits the New Urbanism design principle regarding the interface between the private and public realm and its relationship to the idea of place and social attachment. While questioning the relevance of the New Urbanism planning agenda to U.S. metropolitan formations, the study discussions underline the value of its design formula for the social life of residential neighborhoods. The multidisciplinary approach of this study unravels some of the confusion over sociospatial dialectics in general, and community and built environment in particular. It opens the door for further cross-disciplinary research aimed at understanding and potentially optimizing the relationship between people and their built environments.

Evaluating New Urbanist Plans in Post-Katrina Mississippi

Immediately following Hurricane Katrina, the Mississippi Governor's Commission for Recovery, Rebuilding and Renewal partnered with the Congress for the New Urbanism to provide teams of planners and designers to work with communities along the coast in preparing rebuilding plans. Following a week-long charrette in October 2005, each coastal community was provided with a rebuilding plan that was intended to be based on the principles of New Urbanism. The initial plans have been followed up with further long-range planning. Two years after Katrina, this paper examines the degree to which New Urbanism has been incorporated into the long-range comprehensive, master and other rebuilding plans developed in the communities along the coast in Harrison County, Mississippi. This study finds that New Urbanist principles were integrated into some community plans, but were largely absent from others. In those that do incorporate the principles, the realities of post-Katrina planning created serious challenges to the feasibility of implementing New Urbanist plans. While the goals of the New Urbanist consultants were to create better communities and regions, these good intentions have primarily failed on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In many cases, communities felt dissatisfied with their design-based plans because they were not appropriate for the time and place of post-Katrina Mississippi. The paper concludes by offering suggestions on how communities can improve their plans relative to integrating the principles of New Urbanism that can help rebuild better communities, while balancing community priorities for rebuilding.

Conference Report: Bridging the Divide: Celebrating the City The Fourth ACSP/AESOP Joint Congress, Chicago, 2008

'Make no little plans,' said Daniel Burnham, the celebrated maker of the Plan of Chicago, 1909, because 'they have no magic to stir man's1 blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work ?'. The fourth joint ACSP and AESOP Congress in Chicago took Burnham's advice to heart. With 1124 participants from over 40 countries, the Chicago Joint Congress broke all previous records to become the largest gathering ever of planning scholars in the United States and Europe. It had been 17 years since the two associations held their first joint congress in Oxford in 1991, followed by further joint meetings in Toronto (1996) and Leuven (2003). The joint congresses have provided not only a forum for intellectual exchanges in the field of planning, but also an opportunity for better understanding of the working practices and institutional traditions of the two associations. They have proved to be an effective way of bridging the divides and celebrating diversity. Chicago: the city Chicago offered a magnificent place for celebrating the city and experiencing the lasting legacy of an influential plan. The city is home of the well-known 1909 Chicago Plan by Burnham and Bennett, the 1893 World 's Columbian Exposition, important twentieth-century architecture, a dramatic mayor-led city greening programme, the acclaimed Millennium Park, the American Planning Association, the Congress for New Urbanism, summer festivals and diverse neighbourhoods. The contrast between a downtown sky-line, to match any in the world, with the vast Lake Michigan was a startling urban experience as well as being a stunning example of new city planning and adventurous urban design. The level of architectural and planning awareness in the city was astonishing, with tourist boat trips dedicated to architectural excursions. The congress venue was the colossal Marriott Downtown hotel, located on Magnificent Mile - a one-mile boulevard lined up with some of the best architectural heritage of Chicago and representing the legacy of the Chicago Plan. Chicago: the host The Congress host was the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA) based at the University of Illinois at Chicago. UIC is a large, public, comprehensive research university with 25,000 students located on the edge of Chicago's vibrant downtown - the famous Loop. It has an explicit 'Great Cities Commitment' which is led by CUPPA. Its Urban Planning and Policy Department is the largest graduate planning programme in the United States with more than 200 students and a distinguished faculty. The congress theme The conference theme, 'bridging the divide: celebrating the city', focused attentions on the mediating role of cities. Many cities around the world remain divided and contested. The ways in which they are structured and managed sometimes play a role in reproducing identities that promote racial, ethnic, religious or territorial conflicts. A key question arising from the congress theme was: how could innovative approaches to planning and governance help to bridge these divides? Hence, the congress invited papers and debate which reflected on the nature of these divides and the role that cities play in spanning them, through, for example, place-shaping, infrastructure development, governance, fostering of bridging social capital, capacity building, promoting environmental justice, reducing health disparities, and creating mechanisms for conflict resolution. The metaphor of 'bridge building' also captured the spirit of the ongoing relationships between ACSP and AESOP, and between them and the wider community of planners across the globe. The latter has been particularly strengthened after the World Planning Schools Congress in Shanghai in 2001, which led to creation of the Global Planning Education Network (GPEAN). So, the congress theme was a call to build bridges in scholarship by sharing international perspectives and experiences on the role of cities in mediating conflict. …

“ALGORITHMIC SUSTAINABLE DESIGN: THE FUTURE OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY”, A SERIES OF 12 LECTURES BY NIKOS A. SALINGAROS.

Professor Nikos A. Salingaros, a practicing Urbanist and Architectural Theorist, presents a powerful series of compelling hour-long lectures that apply cutting-edge mathematical techniques to architectural design. This breakthrough lecture series seeks to explain the foundations of architectural form using scientific concepts from hierarchical scaling to memes. Dr. Salingaros has applied the most exciting scientific developments of the past decade, such as fractals, complexity theory, evolutionary biology, and artificial intelligence to produce a series of lectures explaining in great detail the mathematical and scientific basis behind structure, and how structures affect the way in which human beings interact with the built environment. The twelve lectures were integrated to relate topics such as algorithmic processes, cellular automata, Sierpinski carpets, harmony-seeking computations, generative codes, and New Urbanist codes. The lectures were transmitted live via streaming video to participating institutions throughout the world, and have now been made freely available.

O território e a paisagem: a formação da rede de cidades no norte do Paraná e a construção da forma urbana

A Companhia de Terras Norte do Paraná foi responsável pela colonização de uma grande área nesse estado. De modo a atender a seus interesses econômicos - a venda de glebas rurais destinadas ao plantio de café - e de acordo com seu plano geral de ocupação desse território inexplorado, a companhia projetou e implantou uma rede de mais de 60 cidades entre os anos de 1930 e 1960. Este artigo analisa a formação dessa rede urbana e os projetos das cidades novas que foram pautados por dois critérios gerais: situar-se no espigão e posicionar-se junto da linha férrea recém-construída. Nessa análise, atenta-se para os elementos básicos que ajudaram a definir cada nova forma urbana: a conformação urbana e a gênese de cada traçado, com sua particular relação com o sítio natural e os assentamentos vizinhos; a posição dos edifícios institucionais no tecido urbano; o desenho das vias e sua hierarquia; a forma e a localização dos espaços públicos e das praças; o formato das quadras e dos lotes. A ocupação dessa área e a construção de uma nova paisagem estruturada pelo planejamento regional e pela fundação de uma rede de cidades demonstram a visão que tinha a empresa do papel da cidade e do campo na vida urbana da região.

Sustaining Active-Living Communities over the Decades: Lessons from a 1930s Greenbelt Town

Greendale, Wisconsin, was intentionally created with many of the design and planning principles that active-living advocates promote today. This case study examines the processes behind sustaining these particular planning and design principles over time in light of economic and regional challenges that have faced not just Greendale but most town centers over the last fifty years. Despite these challenges, the walkable nature of Greendale's center remains strong today, in terms of both activity and community identity. While many circumstances are specific to this particular town, useful lessons can be drawn for those new urbanist (NU) communities being developed in greenfields and suburbs today, many of which are strikingly similar to Greendale - relatively small, low density, and located within metropolitan areas. Greendale's success resulted from (1) attending to the retail/commercial product mix; (2) attracting nonresidents to use the community's retail and public space; and (3) capitalizing on community investment not simply from residents' organizing efforts but, more important in this case, from corporate community involvement by a Greendale business firm whose interests and values coincided with those of the community.

New Urbanism, Social Equity, and the Challenge of Post-Katrina Rebuilding in Mississippi

In October 2005, the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) was enlisted to produce rebuilding plans for eleven towns along the Mississippi Gulf Coast that had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The plans they produced are microcosms of New Urbanist social doctrine: an accessible public realm, neighborhoods that are socially diverse, and walkable access to life's daily needs—design principles that are essentially aimed at promoting social equity. This article examines the rhetoric and reality of the social equity goals of the New Urbanist plans for the Mississippi Gulf Coast region. While social equity goals are both implicitly and explicitly stated and visualized throughout the plans, the realization of social equity goals will require more than physical designs. Without the policy, institutional, programmatic, and process requirements that go along with the New Urbanists' physical design proposals, the designs may lose their connection to social equity goals. Given the intensity of development pressure in the region, realization of social equity goals may require an unprecedented level of effort and commitment.

The Forgotten Project in New Urbanism

The Forgotten Project in New Urbanism