Form Of Urban Development Research Articles

Institutional change and diversity in the transfer of land development rights in China: The case of Chengdu

Rapid urbanisation in China has led to a substantial decrease in agricultural land. To address this unsustainable form of urban development, the Chinese government has implemented the ‘Linkage’ Policy ( Zengjian Guagou), which requires any increase in new urban land by local governments to be compensated for with an equivalent amount of new arable land. This paper examines the institutional changes and the implications for China’s land production and development arising from this mechanism of transferring land development rights from the rural to the urban sectors. Using Chengdu as a case study, our research concludes that this institutional mechanism has conferred commodified and tradeable development rights on rural land, leading to the emergence and direct involvement of new players in village land consolidation, resettlement of affected villagers and, indirectly, in the supply of new urban land. Process efficiency has been improved with the local governments, developers and village collectives capitalising on their niches in village improvement projects. The conventional state-led model of land production is enriched with bottom-up market initiatives, and villagers have more choices to realise their land property rights under the dual land market. Land use efficiency has been enhanced by the reallocation of construction land potential. However, infringements of villagers’ interests and negative impacts on balanced regional development under this policy were also found.

Rethinking the Impact of Urban Form in Sustainable Urban Planning Policy

This paper examines how urban form affects the sustainable development of cities. It look at the case of Brussels, a city and a region with a very distinctive position in Belgium and in Europe, where public and political institutions have developed together detailed management plans to ensure the responsible management of the city in environment, social and economic terms. The paper first examines the concept of urban form and its constituent features. It then analyses two main questions: How can urban form indicators be integrated in decision-making process for sustainable urban planning? What urban development priorities are in place in Brussels-Capital Region and how do they impact the urban form development of the city? By proposing an analysis on the notion of urban form in Brussels-Capital Region, this paper intends to equip designers and decision makers with a better overview the type of city environmental strategies that can be deployed in the early stages of urban development projects. Keywords: Urban form, Density, Polycentric, Brussels-Capital Region, Policy development

Changing Coal Mining Brownfields into Green Infrastructure Based on Ecological Potential Assessment in Xuzhou, Eastern China

It is widely recognized that brownfield regeneration to green space is a sustainable form of urban development. However, it is essential to choose those brownfields that have the greatest potential to be integrated into urban green infrastructure (GI). This paper addresses how to quantitatively assess the ecological potential of coal mining brownfields at the city level, and looks at how these brownfields can be best adapted to enhance the GI system. Taking Xuzhou as an example, an ecological potential assessment method for brownfield regeneration to green space is established considering both its ecological importance and the capacity of maintaining GI connectivity. The results show that more than half of the coal mining brownfields have relatively higher ecological importance values, and only four patches play an important role in maintaining GI connectivity. The final ecological potential values of brownfield regeneration to green space are obtained by overlaying the values of ecological importance and the capacity values of maintaining GI connectivity. Then, all the brownfields are divided into five groups according to their ecological potential values, which are significantly different in each group. Around 51.35% of the brownfields have a high or very high potential for restoration to GI, which are distributed in the southeastern part of the western mining area and the central part of the eastern mining area. The presented method can assist reclamation scientists and urban planners in decision making based on quantitative analysis.

Land-use, transport and vehicle technology futures: An air pollution assessment of policy combinations for the Cambridge Sub-Region of the UK

This paper reports on an investigation of the impact on air-quality of combinations of urban form development scenarios and vehicle fleet technology changes. The scenarios combine policies affecting urban land-use plans within the Cambridge Sub-Region of the UK, alongside technological changes within the projected vehicle fleet. Broadly, the scenarios consist of the ‘Trend’ for urban form policy and vehicle technology and the urban form policy options of ‘Planned expansion’, ‘Market-led development’ and ‘Urban compaction’, each combined with form-appropriate technological scenarios addressing the uptake of current, and future, technologies in the vehicle fleet. The framework developed for environmental assessment is described, from land-use transport interaction, through traffic assignment and emissions modelling, through to dispersion calculations.The urban form-vehicle technology combinations have been assessed in terms of overall vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT), greenhouse gas (CO2) emissions, and local air quality (NOx, NO2, PM, HC). Results are presented for 2021 and show that overall network emissions change from −13% (Compaction) to +8% (Market-led) relative to the Trend, but effects on emissions in individual districts (NOx) may much greater, −40% to +50%. Annual mean concentrations of NO2 at the street level may vary by −7 to 8 μg/m3. The use of electric vehicles in the ‘Urban compaction’ scenario aids mitigation of air quality issues in the city centre. The results are discussed with respect to the feasibility of scenario implementation, current approaches to planning, and trends in vehicle technology. Limitations of the modelling framework are also identified, and future developments outlined.

Contesting brandscapes in Hong Kong: Exploring youth activist experiences of the contemporary consumerist landscape

Since the 2000s, Hong Kong has become inundated with retail centres, such that the territory is now known as ‘Mall City’, a condition now problematised by youth activists in the city. This article is interested in why these youths take issue with this form of urban development. By tracing the emergence of the contemporary consumerist landscape from the colonial era to the present, it is shown that the current manifestation and characteristics of Hong Kong’s brandscapes are the product of unequal power dynamics between the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government, estate developers and the Hong Kong citizenry in shaping the city. By bringing youth activist voices to the forefront through the use of ethnographic data, the discussion then examines youth activist accounts detailing the experiential dimensions of living in this consumerist landscape, noting the feelings of alienation and exploitation circulating within the vernacular domains of Hong Kong society. The article concludes by reviewing the different ways these youths have attempted to reconfigure their relationship with this brandscape, and thus challenge the control the HKSAR government and estate developers have over Hong Kong urban space.

Spatial Analysis Using Temporal Point Clouds in Advanced GIS: Methods for Ground Elevation Extraction in Slant Areas and Building Classifications

Deriving 3D urban development patterns is necessary for urban planners to control the future directions of 3D urban growth considering the availability of infrastructure or being prepared for fundamental infrastructure. Urban metrics have been used so far for quantification of landscape and land-use change. However, these studies focus on the horizontal development of urban form. Therefore, questions remain about 3D growth patterns. Both 3D data and appropriate 3D metrics are fundamentally required for vertical development pattern extraction. Airborne light detection and ranging (Lidar) as an advanced remote-sensing technology provides 3D data required for such studies. Processing of airborne lidar to extract buildings’ heights above a footprint is a major task and current automatic algorithms fail to extract such information on vast urban areas especially in hilly sites. This research focuses on proposing new methods of extraction of ground points in hilly urban areas using autocorrelation-based algorithms. The ground points then would be used for digital elevation model generation and elimination of ground elevation from classified buildings points elevation. Technical novelties in our experimentation lie in choosing a different window direction and also contour lines for the slant area, and applying moving windows and iterating non-ground extraction. The results are validated through calculation of skewness and kurtosis values. The results show that changing the shape of windows and their direction to be narrow long squares parallel to the ground contour lines, respectively, improves the results of classification in slant areas. Four parameters, namely window size, window shape, window direction and cell size are empirically chosen in order to improve initial digital elevation model (DEM) creation, enhancement of the initial DEM, classification of non-ground points and final creation of a normalised digital surface model (NDSM). The results of these enhanced algorithms are robust for generating reliable DEMs and separation of ground and non-ground points in slant urban scenes as evidenced by the results of skewness and kurtosis. Offering the possibility of monitoring urban growth over time with higher accuracy and more reliable information, this work could contribute in drawing the future directions of 3D urban growth for a smarter urban growth in the Smart Cities paradigm.

Physical activity-related health and economic benefits of building walkable neighbourhoods: a modelled comparison between brownfield and greenfield developments

BackgroundA consensus is emerging in the literature that urban form can impact health by either facilitating or deterring physical activity (PA). However, there is a lack of evidence measuring population health and the economic benefits relating to alternative urban forms. We examined the issue of housing people within two distinct types of urban development forms: a medium-density brownfield development in an established area with existing amenities (e.g. daily living destinations, transit), and a low-density suburban greenfield development. We predicted the health and economic benefits of a brownfield development compared with a greenfield development through their influence on PA.MethodsWe combined a new Walkability Planning Support System (Walkability PSS) with a quantitative health impact assessment model. We used the Walkability PSS to estimate the probability of residents’ transport walking, based on their exposure to urban form in the brownfield and greenfield developments. We developed the underlying algorithms of the Walkability PSS using multi-level multivariate logistic regression analysis based on self-reported data for transport walking from the Victorian Integrated Survey of Transport and Activity 2009–10 and objectively measured urban form in the developments. We derived the difference in transport walking minutes per week based on the probability of transport walking in each of the developments and the average transport walking time per week among those who reported any transport walking. We then used the well-established method of the proportional multi-cohort multi-state life table model to translate the difference in transport walking minutes per week into health and economic benefits.ResultsIf adult residents living in the greenfield neighbourhood were instead exposed to the urban development form observed in a brownfield neighbourhood, the incidence and mortality of physical inactivity-related chronic diseases would decrease. Over the life course of the exposed population (21,000), we estimated 1600 health-adjusted life years gained and economic benefits of A$94 million.DiscussionOur findings indicate that planning policies that create walkable neighbourhoods with access to shops, services and public transport will lead to substantial health and economic benefits associated with reduced incidence of physical inactivity related diseases and premature death.

Can the commons be temporary? The role of transitional commoning in post-quake Christchurch

ABSTRACTIn recent work on commons and commoning, scholars have argued that we might delink the practice of commoning from property ownership, while paying attention to modes of governance that enable long-term commons to emerge and be sustained. Yet commoning can also occur as a temporary practice, in between and around other forms of use. In this article we reflect on the transitional commoning practices and projects enabled by the Christchurch post-earthquake organisation Life in Vacant Spaces, which emerged to connect and mediate between landowners of vacant inner city demolition sites and temporary creative or entrepreneurial users. While these commons are often framed as transitional or temporary, we argue they have ongoing reverberations changing how people and local government in Christchurch approach common use. Using the cases of the physical space of the Victoria Street site “The Commons” and the virtual space of the Life in Vacant Spaces website, we show how temporary commoning projects can create and sustain the conditions of possibility required for nurturing commoner subjectivities. Thus despite their impermanence, temporary commoning projects provide a useful counter to more dominant forms of urban development and planning premised on property ownership and “permanent” timeframes, in that just as the physical space of the city being opened to commoning possibilities, so too are the expectations and dispositions of the city’s inhabitants, planners, and developers.

Territories -in- between

Territories -in- between

From Dispersed Urban Areas to Territories- in-between

The dissertation began with the observation that there is an increasing body of literature suggesting that the conventional idea of a gradual transition in spatial structure from urban to rural does not properly reflect contemporary patterns of urban development and their potential for sustainable development. Furthermore, it was argued that large parts of the urbanised areas of Europe are dispersed and that these are neglected in urban and spatial planning policies. Such areas tend to be labelled simply as sprawl, though there is little evidence about whether such dispersed development is more or less sustainable than other forms of urban development. Moreover, evidence points in the direction that large amounts of dispersed urban development ask for different planning instruments which reflect the complexity and network structure of theses specific settlement patterns. At the turn of the millennium and across Europe, concepts describing dispersed urban areas, like Zwischenstadt, città diffusa or tussenland gained some attention. They share an understanding of design and planning for the territory based on seeing the ‘urban landscape as a large interlocking system rather than as a set of discrete cities surrounded by countryside’ (Bruegmann, 2005). Nevertheless, none of the concepts influenced mainstream planning policy beyond a few individual plans and projects. To summarise, there is a limited understanding of the nature of dispersed urban development, uncertainty about how the sustainability of such areas can be assessed, and few policy instruments that would achieve any sustainability potential they offer. The dissertation sets out to contribute to an improved understanding of these issues by answering the following three research questions. 1. What spatial structures characterise dispersed urban areas in Europe? 2. Which morphological and functional structures of dispersed urban areas offer the potential for more sustainable development? If so, how can this potential be mapped and measured to inform regional planning and design? 3. Are there similarities and dissimilarities concerning potentials of dispersed urban areas in different locations, planning cultures, topographies and histories?

Advancing Manufacturing?: Blinkered Visions in U.S. and Australian Urban Policy

ABSTRACTAdvocates argue that urban manufacturing holds potential to promote locally distinctive enterprises, quality employment and more socially-inclusive forms of urban development. However, little is known how urban policy actually supports manufacturing. This paper documents the policy response to urban manufacturing in the U.S. and Australia. We determine how policy documents conceptualise manufacturing and define goals and strategy around land use, business development and workforce development. The analysis demonstrates that manufacturing policy is situated between entrenched visions of deindustrialisation and emerging notions of a renewed, advanced manufacturing sector and that most cities struggle to address the inherent challenges of this condition.

Public land policy and urban planning in Greece: Diachronic continuities and abrupt reversals in a context of crisis

Land ownership determines fundamental interests, prescribing a framework of alliances and oppositions around its development and use. The public sector constitutes one of the main categories of large landowners, although this type of ownership takes more than one form, due to the wide variety of public sector bodies holding property. Public land management became one of the focuses of austerity policies in many European countries after the burst of economic crisis in 2008–2009, externally imposed in those countries that went through bailout programmes. In Greece, the history of land policy shows that a fundamental objective of state policy was the distribution and liquidation of public land, a policy that contributed to the formation of an extensive system of small land ownership. From 2010 onwards, a plethora of formal legislation sought to accelerate development procedures for the remaining large-scale public property, as a background resource to attract large-scale, so-called “strategic”, investments. This paper explores the critical characteristics and outcomes of the reforms to transform public land policy, identifying the interactions with urban planning, before and during the economic crisis. Taking a longer temporal view, the paper highlights the entrenched relationships existing between public land policy, urban planning and property development processes and their significance in the diachronic continuities often concealed in major policy reversals and reforms. It argues that ultimately there is a lack of a coherent and sustainable public property valorisation policy, being deprived of any institutional innovation for new forms of urban development, as well as of social acceptance.

Exploring Transformative Place-Making within the Comprehensive Spatial Governance of Toronto

Place-making is often seen as a more community-friendly means of developing urban space, as opposed to market-oriented, property-led forms of urban development. However, broadly perceived as the adjustment of spaces in line with the needs of people, place-making is criticised as being ill-defined and failing to consider the wider context in which any place-making effort is inevitably embedded. This paper establishes a connection between wider structuring forces, particularly those connected to neoliberal shifts in spatial planning and governance, and looks at “place-making” from a governance point of view. Efforts that combine social and spatial elements to address the needs of diverse communities in two areas in Toronto are showcased: one commercially viable for and one unattractive to private property development. The comparative analysis reveals the opportunities and limitations of these efforts, particularly in terms of their ability to transform existing spatial governance arrangements and the connected capacity to influence beyond the micro-scale.

Examining the governance of emerging urban regions in Vietnam: the case of the Red River Delta

ABSTRACTThis essay investigates the process of urbanization in the Red River Delta (RRD) of Vietnam and critically assesses its governance. Focusing on recent periurban dynamics, it shows that the rapidly increasing scale of urbanization in the delta along with new forms of urban development and modes of real estate investment have contributed to outstrip Vietnam’s established planning approach. The analysis contrasts the country’s current socio-economic and spatial planning systems with everyday urbanization and governing practices that have emerged in parallel to it. The preeminent role of these practices, conceptualized as ‘actually existing urbanisms,’ is illustrated through a discussion of periurban land redevelopments conducted by business-state coalitions. The paper concludes by calling for a better understanding of the role played by such alternate regimes, not only in shaping the RRD’s urban growth, but also in constraining avenues to adapt its governance in the face of increasing urban scale and complexity.

Procesos de urbanización y artificialización del suelo en las aglomeraciones urbanas españolas (1987-2011)

The objective of this work was to qualitatively and quantitatively analyse the urbanisation process that took place in Spain’s urban agglomerations between 1987 and 2011. To do this, we used Corine Land Cover (1987, 2000, 2005 and 2011) as our main data source and obtained more detailed information from Sistema de Informacion sobre Ocupacion del Suelo de Espana (SIOSE, in its 2011 version). In quantitative terms, it was possible to note a major expansion in the artificial surface area in all of the agglomerations studied, an 84% increase between 1987 and 2011; this tendency was particularly intense during the period corresponding to the property boom. Qualitatively, it is important to highlight several of the results obtained. Firstly, there was the increase in low-density residential spaces, which grew in importance in comparison to more compact residential uses. Even so, it was the non-residential uses that increased most, with them passing from 27% of the artificial surfaces in 1987 to 42% in 2011. Secondly, it should be noted that, in general, the medium-sized agglomerations grew relatively more than the largest ones, while the peripheral municipalities located within the agglomerations were the main protagonists in processes involving land artificialisation. This confirmed a change in model of urbanisation towards a more extensive and dispersed form of urban development.

Urban heritages: How history and housing finance matter to housing form and homeownership rates

Contemporary Western cities are not uniform, but display a variety of different housing forms and tenures, both between and within countries. We distinguish three general city types in this paper: low-rise, single-family dwelling cities where owner-occupation is the most prevalent tenure form; multi-dwelling building cities where tenants comprise the majority; and multi-dwelling building cities where owner-occupation is the principal tenure form. We argue that historical developments beginning in the 19th century are crucial to understanding this diversity in urban form and tenure composition across Western cities. Our path-dependent argument is twofold. First, we claim that different housing finance institutions engendered different forms of urban development during the late 19th century and had helped to establish the difference between single-family dwelling cities and multi-dwelling building cities by 1914. Second, rather than stemming from countries’ welfare systems or ‘variety of capitalism’, we argue that these historical distinctions have a significant and enduring impact on today’s urban housing forms and tenures. Our argument is supported by a unique collection of data of 1095 historical cities across 27 countries.

Smart and sustainable? Five tensions in the visions and practices of the smart-sustainable city in Europe and North America

Smart cities are increasingly advocated by governments and the private sector as the primary means to deliver urban sustainability. Particularly in Europe and North America, the smart city is envisioned as a place where digital technologies are deployed to ‘solve’ urban sustainability problems. Such visions have been broadly critiqued in the urban studies literature for reflecting techno-utopian, neoliberal approaches to urban development that exert corporate control over cities, but there has been little empirical verification of these critiques. More recently, a disparate and interdisciplinary body of literature has emerged documenting the impacts of smart city initiatives in practice. This paper provides a state-of-the-art, empirically informed analysis of smart-sustainability, which considers established critiques of smart city policy and visions alongside the increasing body of evidence concerning the actual experiences of smart city initiatives. Through a systematic review of the smart city literature pertaining to Europe and North America, we identify and test five tensions between the smart city and the goals of sustainable urban development. These tensions involve: (1) reinforcing neoliberal economic growth; (2) focusing on more affluent populations; (3) disempowering and marginalising citizens; (4) neglecting environmental protection; and, (5) failing to challenge prevailing consumerist cultures. On the basis of these findings we propose how digital technologists, urban developers, municipalities and citizens might address these tensions. A key finding is that the potential to empower and include citizens represents the key to unlocking forms of smart-sustainable urban development that emphasise environmental protection and social equity, rather than merely reinforcing neoliberal forms of urban development.

A Transgressive Approach Towards Agritectural Space – The Idea of Agricultural-Urban Use Settlements

AbstractThe article aims at presenting the phenomenon of transgression of the modern urban space through the formation of new spatial units defining the city in relation to its productive sphere. Due to the gradual departure from the notion of an enclosed city to one that is open and connected to the form of the surrounding countryside, the problem of defining a new notion of modern urban-rural space emerged. One of the first manifestations of this phenomenon is the emergence of new forms of housing that combine urban features with food production. Analysis of examples such as EVA-Laxmeer in Culemborg, Agromere in Almere, Cannery in Davis, Detroit and Philadelphia allowed for the verification of architectural and planning concepts related to urban values as a form of urban development of new agricultural forms. These phenomena can be understood both as a process of tearing the compact tissue of a city or, in the case of a less orthodox approach towards the built environment, as a process of network layering towards self-sufficiency of various structural, functional, energy-related and food production related characters within the unfavourable external conditions.

Image-design discourses of identity as unique resources of the quality of environment and means of increasing investment attractiveness of the city

The paper is devoted to the study of urban identity and image-design as unique resources of the quality of environment, and actual means of increasing competitive advantages of the city and its investment attractiveness. The work includes identification of criteria of the qualities of environment, and peculiarities of the Russian comfort urban environment programs, analysis of specifics of regional identity and possibilities of design in the formation of creative authentic environment of the cities, as well as elaboration of the initiative projects for the city, regional images and codes of environment, forms of urban development and the author design. The project works of the "Irkutsk trade axis" / "Irkutsk quarters” not only create comfortable environment but suggest a concept of transformation of these territories into investment attractive “places”, combining possible commercial profit with the needs of the city and tasks of the modern life in the unique milieu of the historical city.

Towards a genealogy of urban shopping: types, adaptations and resilience

ABSTRACTThis typological account of the urban morphology of shopping presents a diagrammatic genealogy of urban retail types from traditional markets, streets and plazas through various adaptations and mutations into the contemporary shopping mall and power centre. This genealogy shows an increased car-dependency, privatized and centralized control, and disintegration from urban life. Many cities have been transformed by contemporary retail types that are less walkable, equitable, productive and resilient than those from which they were derived. The challenge lies in the invention of new retail types with potential for re-integration into more resilient forms of urban development.