Examples Of Urban Regeneration Research Articles

Urban Regeneration and Changes Driven by Tourism and the ‘Skopje 2014’ Project

The current paper explores the relationship between urban regeneration, tourism and culture, and offers a common approach that each of these three concepts can bring. The paper proposes and develops a new and integrated conceptual analytical framework. The analysis uses the example of the capital Skopje, which provides a suitable framework for interpreting the process. The study uses combined research methods and analysis to obtain a critical synthesis. Skopje has catalyzed a new example of urban regeneration driven by tourism and the ‘Skopje 2014’ project. The results show that, except for the old city’s core, which was generally refurbished with the ‘Skopje 2014’ project, new tourist values were also promoted in other peripheral municipalities of the city. The number, spatial concentration and nationality of foreign tourists have changed in the analyzed period. As well, the findings indicate changes in the geography and business of hotels/accommodation establishments and their increasing use in recent years. This study fits into the theoretical debate on the determinants of tourism/culture-led urban regeneration and provides appropriate theoretical contributions to literature, as well as a set of recommendations that can be useful for public sector authorities and policymakers.

Hybridisation and circulation of models in Tianjin’s former concessions

ABSTRACT The Italian and Wudadao districts in Tianjin, China, are two of the former foreign concessions established in the city during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Listed as historic sites in the late 1990s, they are now undergoing a rehabilitation process mobilised by various municipal agencies. These former concessions have become the most emblematic examples of urban regeneration and exotic heritage reutilisation in Tianjin. In this paper, we examine the preservation and rehabilitation of the former concessions from the perspective of hybridisation. In particular, we analyse the heritage trajectories of the former Italian and British concessions to identify the critical elements and forces that have shaped them. What influence did international actors have in their preservation, restoration and transformation? How did the public authorities position these districts in regard to the cultural context? How did their values and criteria evolve? What models were implemented, and how were they appropriated by local actors? We will show how this semi-colonial heritage has been integrated by the local authorities, real estate stakeholders, conservation associations and residents to produce transnational places that transcend geographies and borders.

Bridging the gap between city and water: A review of urban-river regeneration projects in France and Spain

The urban regeneration of European river spaces since the 1990s has allowed their transformation into new axes of centrality and socialization and has seen the concentration of green areas along the banks of Europe’s cities. This process has been promoted by the implementation of various projects, conducted at different scales and with varying budgets, in a range of urban-river habitats; yet, all of them seek a common goal: the exploitation of river spaces as new areas for social uses. In Western Europe, both France and Spain have implemented major projects that serve as good examples of urban regeneration. This paper identifies, classifies and analyses the main French and Spanish urban-river regeneration projects described in studies published since 1990 through a literature review and a statistical treatment of data. We identified 47 publications, referring to 12 projects in France and 14 projects in Spain, that allow us to conduct an analysis of the characteristics of this urban regeneration process. Overall, the projects are highly varied, above all in terms of their scale, the way in which they use processes of public participation to reach citizen consensus, and their implementation of environmental measures as a complement to urban regeneration. The projects with the largest budgets, as well as those targeting the largest areas for regeneration, have been made possible thanks to EU funding. In contrast, smaller budgets and interventions of shorter length and area tend to characterize the projects without EU funds. Additionally, processes of public participation have also been a key element, above all in France, and most projects with environmental rehabilitation have been carried out in Spain.

A Study on the Method of Constructing Architectural Space in Terms of Contextuality of Urban Fabric - Focused on the Examples of Urban Regeneration in Ewha·Choongsin District

A Study on the Method of Constructing Architectural Space in Terms of Contextuality of Urban Fabric - Focused on the Examples of Urban Regeneration in Ewha·Choongsin District

An Interpretation of the Urban Folly in Gwangju, South Korea Through the Lens of Contextual Novelty

Urban regeneration, which implies a certain type of change from what has previously existed, requires fundamental understandings of previous problematic ways of thinking for a meaningful change, as well as a new philosophy that is thought to support that change. This means a change in philosophy is needed to discuss ‘newness’ in urban regeneration. From this perspective, this paper explores the philosophies which shaped traditional cities as well as a philosophy that may be able to suggest changes to contemporary cities. This paper further proposes contextual novelty as necessary to pursue. This contextual novelty does not deny modern cities’ problems but embraces them and carries them into contemporary cities. Arguing for qualitative novelty, this paper argues that contextualism, which explores the complex relationships of direct and indirect contributors of a given event, can help us to understand contemporary cities’ heterogenic characteristics. In this context, this paper discusses the concept of novelty in contemporary discourse of urban regeneration by using the philosophy of contextualism. Finally a recent example of urban regeneration in the city of Gwangju, South Korea is interpreted using the concept of contextual novelty.

Integrating the inner city: the promise and perils of mixed-income public housing transformation

For many years Chicago's looming large-scale housing projects defined the city, and their demolition and redevelopment via the Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation has been perhaps the most startling change in the city's urban landscape in the last twenty years. The Plan, which reflects a broader policy effort to remake public housing in cities across the country, seeks to deconcentrate poverty by transforming high-poverty public housing complexes into mixed-income developments and thereby integrating once-isolated public housing residents into the social and economic fabric of the city. But is the Plan an ambitious example of urban regeneration or a not-so-veiled effort at gentrification? In the most thorough examination of mixed-income public housing redevelopment to date, Robert J. Chaskin and Mark L. Joseph draw on five years of field research, in-depth interviews, and volumes of data to demonstrate that while considerable progress has been made in transforming the complexes physically, the integrationist goals of the policy have not been met. They provide a highly textured investigation into what it takes to design, finance, build, and populate a mixed-income development, and they illuminate the many challenges and limitations of the policy as a solution to urban poverty. Timely and relevant, Chaskin and Joseph's findings raise concerns about the increased privatization of housing for the poor while providing a wide range of recommendations for a better way forward.

The JESSICA Initiative: An Instrument for Urban Sustainable Development. Examples of Urban Regeneration in Silesia (Poland) and Central Moravia (Czech Republic)

This article presents the practical possibilities associated with implementation of the JESSICA initiative in selected regions of Poland and the Czech Republic. i.e. in Silesia (Poland) and Central Moravia (Czech Republic). The post-socialist nature of these regions was determinative of their backwardness in terms of socio-economic development, as well as available infrastructure. Nonetheless these regions are different to a large extent, because Silesia is a typical post-industrial area, where the mining industry has been in operation for many years. After significant limitation of the scale of its economic operations, many areas and objects remain unused. They can be revitalized and then used to contribute to more sustainable socio-economic development of the region. In turn, Central Moravia represents a geographical area which has been adversely affected by the effects of the ongoing economic crisis. To some extent, Silesia suffers from similar problems as Central Moravia, but it also encounters some specific difficulties arising from its post-industrial character. For this reason, there was a necessity to properly identify opportunities to support projects financed from the JESSICA initiative in the analyzed regions, as well as to adapt the scope of these projects to the specific socio-economic conditions in the regions under investigation.

The Place and the City: Trends in the Construction of the Public Space

This paper analyses the evolution of the concept of public space in the European city in a diachronic framework, from its historical and foundational functions to the opportunity it provides to trigger regenerative strategies in socially and environmentally degraded urban contexts. The specificity of 'potentially public' spaces resides in their peripheral position inside metropolitan areas and in their episodic and fragmented character. This autonomy with respect to other typologies of free spaces appears to require the elaboration of specific analytical approaches and design models that move from the explicit recognition of the reticular structure of the territory. Examples of urban regeneration promoted in the last decade, in general supported by the European Union, open new perspectives on urban governance that are implicitly based upon the role of social inclusion in welfare and sustainability policies.

The Memorial Museum of Jewish Culture in Prague. An Example of Urban Regeneration

The theme of this paper regards the results of the main research activities carried out in the Architectural Design Laboratory. The last years of the Laboratory were dedicated to set up a research on a specific case study. The project site is the Old Town of Prague, the ancient Jewish Quarter called Josefov Ghetto with the cemetery and the synagogues and Klášter sv. Anežky České (the Convent with cloister and Church of St. Agnes of Bohemia). The project was supported by a series of analysis and investigation of cartographic, iconographic, and bibliography materials, which allowed us to investigate aspects regarding the urban history, the city and the particular context of application. This exploration about the context is compared to the potential of the place, the physical characteristics, the settlement structure's and the aesthetic characters. The analysis was related by different phases. The first phase involved a site inspection of the area for observing the main architectural buildings. This work was necessary for surveying properly the site and for investigating the current situation of the area. A second step was reserved for processing drawings, maps and three-dimensional models, which allowed us to reconstruct the context and the existing buildings. Finally, this process involved the architectural definition of the project, which integrated strategic choices of new settlement with the structural analysis and technological aspects. In any case the proposed design theme – the exhibition space – is an opportunity to consider this area in a more general reorganization and consolidation of the cultural town-centre. The project structure will take in consideration two important aspects: the relationship between the existing architectures and the water front and the strong characterization of the place, included between the oldest settlement of the city and the fortifications built in medieval times (Bromley et al. 2005). To exemplify this approach to the theme of the proposed project, it is necessary to look at the analysis of some projects. These projects have developed in different ways the issues proposed by the place, chosen as project area. These issues can be summarized as follows: the relationship with the Vltava river and its overlooking; the relationship with the existing convent and integration to the museum system of St. Agnes; the relationship with the characteristics of the site and its various urban settings; the architecture of the connections and the definition of the pathways. The importance of this method is to consider the practice of composition as a slow and careful approach, starting from the place where it takes shape, through a continuous progression to find the appropriate features of the architectural space. The space is perceived as a sensitive experience, able to stimulate the meaning and the essence of the architectural experiences. The architectural project, in this sense, becomes an important object of knowledge, and a real creative act. Our research attempts to set-up a procedure that has as main objective an experimental method to design, according to the resources of local context and focused on urban regeneration (Roberts 2000). An architectural project is a physical fact within the City, because it has a structure that makes it different from the other artistic practices (e.g. painting, sculpture, cinema, music and so on) and its responsibility is rather significant, because the project realized usually affects space and context in different way: through the physical impact; through the figurative impression; through the space suggestion. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.4.5.4831

The Roles of Gentrification in Creation of Diverse Urbanities of Tokyo

This article focuses on the role of gentrification in urban regeneration. It supports calls for a more nuanced approach to understanding of that complex phenomenon, which would include the possibility that some of its forms may represent the much needed transfusion of new and healthy energies into tired urbanities. The examples of gentrification presented in this article indicate that some of the outcomes of certain kinds of gentrification are superior to those generated by “proper”, even well considered and well theorised examples of urban regeneration. Those examples are from Tokyo, the largest and one of the fastest-changing cities in the world. The chosen locations are in the precincts of Nezu and Yanaka, where living connections with the past coexist with practices of the bustling World City, and in vibrant, commercially driven Harajuku. The article advocates locally attuned approaches to cultural sustainability, and careful balancing of gentrification with urban regulation. That may help cities remain, as de Certeau once said, the ‘most immoderate of human texts’.

Torino: i XX Giochi Olimpici e la stagione dei mega eventi

- The history of the Olympics, like that of the great World Expos, reveals a long list of successes and failures that involves no so much the athletic competitions or exhibitions as the ‘fallout' once the event closes. This is precisely the problem currently facing Turin, where the use to which the various Olympic facilities are to be put has been decided on only in part. However, Turin is an excellent example of urban regeneration having been effectively implemented for the 2006 Winter Olympics, as seen in the numerous works successfully brought to completion and in the measures taken against risks in the city centre, in the mountains and on the ski slopes. Internationally, the case of Turin is providing a peculiar case in point of just how important it is to hold such events in cities that have a lot to offer in terms of culture and tourism. It is not, therefore, merely a question of sport, but also of providing quality cultural events and making available an increasing number of new facilities to visitors. Genoa, from the ‘Colombiane' to European Capital of Culture.

Contesting the urban renaissance: journalism and the post-industrial city

ABSTRACTThis article considers national press representations of urban regeneration in UK cities, drawing on specific examples of urban regeneration in the 1990s. It examines the way in which much journalistic discourse tends to contest the notion of ‘urban renaissance’. However, in doing so, it argues that this critique is fettered by the constraints facing journalists writing about such complex processes and the contexts both within which they work and within which their work is presented. It goes on to recognise journalistic narratives as a rare example of a popular contestation of myths of the post-industrial city. The article suggests that the general messages about the significant role of the media in constructing urban narratives continues to be applicable to the situation in the early 2000s, and it argues for the inclusion of journalistic narratives in studies of the post-industrial city.

Expo ’58 and “the car as king”

Whereas it took more than forty years to complete the North-South railway junction, a scant three years was necessary to change the face of the city of Brussels completely and turn it into one of the European capitals with the highest levels of car ownership. Expo ’58 had a crucial role in accelerating this movement. After explaining the circumstances that led to the “car as king” attitude in Brussels, the author wonders about the difficulties of having Brussels embrace an urban development model less dependent on the car. According to the Brussels-Capital Region’s forecasts, the entire territory concerned by the extension of the future Regional Express Rail Network will be under the overwhelming domination of the car by 2015. The prospect of the crisis situation that this will spawn is an opportunity to be seized to turn the trend around. As we approach a new bend in the technological road, only a massive investment plan in Brussels’s mass transport and the latter’s integration in a management and information system on the appropriate functional scale (the REN area) could offset the road network development plans that marked the three decades that began with Expo ’58. Such a policy cannot be waged without thinking about road traffic and parking conditions, the external costs of travelling by car, and the latter’s contribution to financing public transport. Nor will it be possible without setting up civic participation schemes. The loss of attractiveness of urban areas that have been degraded by the colossal road infrastructure projects of the past can be combated, as shown by the examples of urban regeneration carried out in Boston and Madrid.

A review of the BURA awards for best practice in urban regeneration

The British Urban Renewal Association’s (BURA) “Best Practice” annual awards were launched in 1991 to recognise outstanding examples of urban regeneration. Since then some 46 projects have been successful and they embrace many aspects of urban regeneration. This paper provides a case study of the “Best Practice” awards which begins with an outline of the awards criteria, principally economic contribution, environmental impact, sustainability, catalysis and community benefit. A sample of award winning schemes is used to provide some illustrative flavour of the range of projects deemed to have demonstrated best practice and this is followed by a discussion of how winning projects have sought to demonstrate fulfilling the award criteria. In many cases environmental improvements have generated obvious and immediate impacts and they are vitally important in providing a platform for economic and community benefits but it is the ability to self‐sustain these benefits which may deliver the long‐term judgement on urban regeneration.

Decision making in urban regeneration plans

Decision making at local planning level is usually concerned with evaluation of alternatives and selection of a preferred action. This can be improved with the use of multicriteria (MCA) methods which provide a systematic process for trading off effects of various alternative, synthesizing, individual contributions. This paper illustrates three MCA methods for evaluating complex planning projects where multiple criteria are taken into account. These methods are applied to an example of urban regeneration. Subjective issues, such as those related to the perception of quality of life, are taken into account alongside more quantitative data. The results obtained using the three methods are considered when applied to three alternative design solutions.