New Urban Research Articles

Deindywiduacja jako pragnienie miejskiej tożsamości. O znaczeniu uczestnictwa w wielkich miejskich wydarzeniach kulturalnych na przykładzie ceremonii otwarcia Europejskiej Stolicy Kultury (ESK Wrocław 2016)

The aim of the article is to discuss the crisis of urban-related identity of people of Wroclaw which is consists in rejection of current narrative on the city “Wroclaw – the meeting place” and in unsuccessful search for a new urban story. An event which highlighted the enigmatic identity was “Awakening” – the opening ceremony of ECoC 2016. What is visible in the description of the event as well as in the accounts of the participants are identity-related aspirations and rejection of elements of identity which are no longer accepted. Since the presented analysis is inspired by a one-time cultural mega event (and not a cyclic event, such as a festival), the identity of people of Wroclaw is rather practical than reflexive and participation in the event produced a strong feeling of embarrassment the concept adopted for the analysis is deindividuation. Deindividuation is a process of an occasional and short term resemblance of individuals who are usually very different. The act of resemblance leaves a strong mark in the social memory of the event. The empirical basis for the article is data collected in CAWI survey (January 17–26th 2016, N = 2372), focus group interviews (conducted on January 29th 2016) and content analysis of open questions in the CAWI survey (N = 317).

Power and Place-Naming: The Struggle for a New Urban Order in Midtown, 1870–1970

Power and Place-Naming: The Struggle for a New Urban Order in Midtown, 1870–1970

The New Urbanist Principle of Quality of Life for Urban Regeneration

Abstract Quality of life (QOL) is a crucial but complex concept, determined by the insights of multiple disciplines. This paper applies the holistic approach to planning known as New Urbanism (NU) to the analysis of QOL, and argues that this movement should no longer be thought of simply as dedicated to halting urban sprawl, but also as providing guiding principles for the process of urban regeneration within the city. The study therefore aims to verify the relationship between NU principles and QOL, from the perspective of urban regeneration. A comparative study is made of two strategic zones in Roubaix (France) and Lodz (Poland). These serve as physical models in which spatial elements crucial for NU are analyzed. Ways of improving QOL through the application of NU guidelines for urban regeneration are also elaborated. The conclusions have possible practical applications, especially in the case of the site in Poland, Green Polesie, where urban regulations are still being elaborated and the whole process of urban regeneration is only just underway.

Neoliberalización urbana: nuevas tendencias en la producción de suelo urbano en la ciudad de Córdoba, Argentina (2008-2018)

Como manifestación del proceso de urbanización contemporáneo, han surgido en Latinoamérica novedosas formas de producción del espacio urbano, que implican también nuevas relaciones entre la gestión y los agentes que lo producen. La creciente utilización de instrumentos de gestión urbana registrada en la región, implementándose tanto a nivel nacional como también a nivel de los gobiernos locales –tal es el caso de Argentina–, ha generado nuevos procesos urbanos presentando signos de cambios estructurales en la gestión pública que merecen ser discutidos. En el presente ensayo se intenta exponer un factor clave en el proceso de urbanización que se viene llevando a cabo en los últimos años en la ciudad de Córdoba, Argentina, específicamente a través del uso y operativización de convenios urbanísticos. En este caso, la institucionalización en la gestión local de acuerdos público-privados se propone como instrumento aislado, que mediante excepciones normativas permite la producción de suelo urbano en la periferia de la ciudad. La alianza explícita entre el gobierno local y el desarrollismo inmobiliario demuestra la profundización del proceso de mercantilización del suelo urbano y un claro apoyo a la lógica expansiva de la ciudad, que exhibe la funcionalidad de la concertación público-privada como garante de un urbanismo neoliberal.

"Conflict "and "Integration":"New Urban Literature"in the Perspective of "Intergeneration

"Conflict "and "Integration":"New Urban Literature"in the Perspective of "Intergeneration

Privately owned parks in New Urbanist communities: A study of environmental privilege, equity, and inclusion

ABSTRACTPrivately owned parks and public spaces (POPS) are increasingly common in New Urbanist (NU) communities. POPS raise concerns related to environmental privilege, equity, and inclusion; however, no investigation has fully analyzed whether POPS in NU communities cause these same concerns. This is particularly problematic because of NU’s recognition as a sustainable planning paradigm and because NU proponents seek to establish mixed-income and ethnically diverse communities. Thus, this study examines how these 3 concerns about POPS play out in NU developments. In addition, it analyzes how municipal policies and real estate processes contribute to establishing POPS in NU communities. We find that concerns about environmental privilege, equity, and inclusion are well founded, and that reliance on POPS provides significant advantages for developers, residents, and municipalities alike, mostly because of cost savings and notions of exclusivity.

From pre-oil settlement to post-oil hub : the urban transformation of Doha

Since oil production commenced in the middle of the 20th century Qatar's capital Doha witnessed a rapid urbanisation period. Today, new development strategies, which have been implemented to diversify Qatar's economy, have led to a new urban transformation process with the vision to establish Doha as hub within global networks. Economic transformation processes in Qatar have always caused new structures within its society, which in turn affected urban developments. After decades of urbanisation based on the export of oil, the introduction of a hub vision at the end of the 1990s marked a new process that has been rethinking urbanism in Qatar. Although current developments have attracted worldwide attention, there has been rather little scientific reflection as to how current urbanism in the Gulf should be understood in relation to its past and projected future. Therefore, this paper seeks to investigate the various factors impacting Doha's urban environment during economic transformation processes. Each economc transformation has had a large impact on the structure of the city’s society as well as its built environment. The curren transformation process can still be considered at its beginning. In order to understand the impact of contemporary economic diversification strategies, the city’s past urbanisation stages and their spatial development factors had to be analysed. All in all four distinct phases of urbanism can be distinguished in the case of Doha: The pre-oil settlement, the modernisation period, the oil city and the globalised hub.

Toponymy and the City, the Past and the Future

The article reviews and analyses the concepts of toponymy, basing on the exchange of ideas between the members of the Toponymy Council and the Editorial Board of the journal. The names of the new urban entities of Irkutsk are proposed.

The birth of new urban refugee’s community -Focusing on the process of forming Topophilia in 「House of pierrot」-

The birth of new urban refugee’s community -Focusing on the process of forming Topophilia in 「House of pierrot」-

Book Review: Ipsita Chatterjee, Displacement, Revolution, and the New Urban Condition: Theories and Case Studies

Ipsita Chatterjee, Displacement, Revolution, and the New Urban Condition: Theories and Case Studies, New Delhi, SAGE Publications, 2014, 180 pp., ₹645, ISBN-10: 8132116607, ISBN-13: 978-8132116608.

Ecological wisdom in the new urban era

The 21st century is increasingly referred to as the urban era. By 2050, two thirds of humanity will squeeze into congested urban environments. More than 90% of this urban growth will come from Asia and Africa, with three countries - India, China and Nigeria - accounting for 37% of the increase (United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, New York, 2014). By 2050, estimations indicate that India will add as many as 404 million people to its burgeoning cities and towns. Of the world's ten largest cities, three are located in India - Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Three of the world's ten fastest growing cities are in India as well - Ghaziabad, Surat and Faridabad.

Tracing New Urbanism’s Suburban Intervention in Minneapolis–St. Paul

New Urbanism (NU) is an urban planning movement that aims to curtail suburban sprawl. Critics argue that NU actually contributes to sprawl. However, such claims overlook the diverse ways in which NU is implemented. This article contributes to the study of suburban development by examining two different types of NU projects in suburban Minneapolis–St. Paul and comparing these with a control case. Using surveys of the projects’ built environments and residents’ travel behavior and attitudes toward neighbors, the article finds that the NU projects break away from the physical and functional dimensions of sprawl, yet reproduce the social dimensions.

Environmental Reviews and Case Studies: Heritage Dispatches from the American Approaches of Hell: Public Housing, Historic Preservation, and Environmental Impact Analysis

In the late 20th century history of American historic preservation, public or social/council housing occupies a unique space. For over 20 years, American policy in this area, representing an investment of billions of taxpayer dollars, has been dominated by high-profile efforts to “transform” the downtowns of major American cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, and Houston by demolishing public housing projects that were located in the city outskirts when originally built. These efforts have engendered significant debates about historic preservation at every level of government and have produced federal policy decisions on the part of the United States (US) Departments of Housing and Urban Development and the Interior, which have facilitated the demolition of hundreds of thousands of units of public housing in America, which in most cases has not been replaced on a one-for-one basis and which is no longer affordable for the poor or near-poor. In the majority of cases, the National Park Service has supported extensive demolition of historic public housing projects, or at best, only token preservation of them. The role of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has never listed a public housing project in its annual list of “endangered” historic sites, has, at best, been to remain organizationally silent and, at worst, to partner with organizations such as the US Green Building Council and the Congress for the New Urbanism, organizations that would not exist in their present form without the use of public housing as a petri dish for their condescending neoliberal conceptions about how other people, particularly poor people, ought to live.

Bootstrap New Urbanism: Design, Race and Redevelopment in Milwaukee by Joseph A. Rodriguez (review)

Bootstrap New Urbanism: Design, Race and Redevelopment in Milwaukee by Joseph A. Rodriguez (review)

The built environment determinants of activity participation and walking near the workplace

Investigating the built environment determinants of commuting behaviors to and from the workplace has long been of interest to travel behavior researchers. Specific attention has centered on examination of how smart growth policies encourage both trip-chaining and active travel. Yet, limited research has investigated the impact of the built environment on activity participation and pedestrian travel once the worker has arrived at his/her workplace. A research omission that exists despite the prospect that built environment densification and diversification within employment districts may encounter less opposition from the local community and commuter. Our study investigates these identified gaps by analyzing how the built environment near an individual’s workplace as well as personal, household, and tour-related attributes relate to work-based sub-tour activity participation and walking for activity fulfillment. A bivariate selection model estimated the workplace built environment determinants of work-based sub-tour participation and the likelihood to initiate travel for these sub-tour activities on foot. Findings from this Portland, Oregon study revealed that design and diversity features predicted work-based sub-tour participation; while, the decision to walk to start a sub-tour was strongly associated with a workplace built environment characterized by a traditional neighborhood design and increased residential density.

On the orientation of two Roman towns in the Rhine area

The aim of the present paper is to extend the archeoastronomical study sample on the orientation of Roman cities to the analysis of a number of cases in the Rhine area. The starting point is a study of the orientation of Augusta Treverorum (present day Trier; Goethert, 2003). Goethert assumed that the orientation of the decumanus maximus was towards sunrise at the autumn equinox, on September 23rd as the dies natalis of the city. This event would deliberately coincide with the anniversary of the birth of Augustus, and would have determined the establishment and orientation of the new urban layout. However, our in situ measurements of the orientation of the urban network at several sites of the Roman town rule out this hypothesis. We find an orientation that is more in line with those documented for other Roman cities and camps elsewhere in the Roman provinces (Gonzalez-Garcia et al., 2014; Rodriguez-Anton et al., 2016). Moreover, measurements made in the Lenus Mars temple indicate a recurrent phenomenon of cultural hybridization. Here the temple, located outside the city walls on the west bank of the river Moselle, combines a possibly Celtic orientation with Roman symbolic beliefs. In reality, the alleged orientation towards the dies natalis of Augustus is verified for Cologne. There are a number of circumstances that make this choice logical for a city that was initially planned as the capital of the Augustan province of Germania and the seat of an ara of imperial worship.

About cultural-psychological sources of neotraditionalism in the East: power and taboo

Работа выполнена при финансовой поддержке РНФ в рамках проекта № 14-18-02785 «Неотрадиционализм: архаический синдром и конструирование новой социальности в контексте процессов глобализации».

Crossing Over: Sustainability, New Urbanism, and Gentrification in Austin, Texas

Crossing Over: Sustainability, New Urbanism, and Gentrification in Austin, Texas

The Care of Place : Contesting New Urbanism in Postauthoritarian Taiwan

The Care of Place : Contesting New Urbanism in Postauthoritarian Taiwan

Is there diversity in the New Urbanism? Analyzing the demographic characteristics of New Urbanist neighborhoods in the United States

The New Urbanism (NU) planning movement aspires to create socially diverse neighborhoods. It is unclear, however, whether this movement lives up to its aspirations in practice. In an effort to systematically examine this aspect of the movement, this paper analyzes age, family type, income, and race data of 70 NU neighborhoods in the United States. The paper uses a diversity index to compare the NU neighborhoods with control sites. Findings show that NU neighborhoods have lower racial diversity, but may have higher income diversity. Consideration of variations within the way NU is implemented reveals that the low racial diversity is associated with a single approach, but higher income diversity is associated with all variants. This paper argues that NU generates places that are more socially diverse than what is described in the literature and uses two case studies to explore the ways in which diversity is produced and its relation to gentrification.