Redevelopment Plans Research Articles

Drifting in China’s porcelain capital: self-realization and alternative-seeking of the self-employed craft workers in Jingdezhen

Following the decline and closure of government factories in Jingdezhen, the Chinese capital of porcelain, a recent wave of migrant self-employed craft workers known as “Jing drifters” (jingpiao 景漂) has faced a dilemma: whether to follow independent craft practices and remain vulnerable, or hire workers, automate some steps, and cut corners to make more money. Recent government-led redevelopment plans in Jingdezhen are introducing spatial reconfigurations and a new regulation of the manufacturing process. Residents have diverse opinions on these government-led plans and show that these changes have exacerbated the instability in the work of the self-employed craft workers. Drawing on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and diaries, I also report a changing social dynamic in response to these transformations, which takes place where the individual craft workers, the local craft community, the state-endorsed enterprise capitalists, and the state meet. By contextualizing the individual craft workers in such a changing context as well as in their craft communities where a self-reliant and carefree lifestyle narrative is prevalent, I find that the self-employed craft workers can be self-reliant, self-organized, and mutually supportive despite the vulnerability and instability in their work and in the industry and city. This suggests the possibility of a self-sufficient alternative lifestyle that parallels that of the Chinese neo-liberal consumerist society and of the state-led renaissance narrative about Jingdezhen.

Immigrant Birds

Immigrant Birds

Shadow Stadia and the Circular Economy

Most attention on stadium or arena-anchored development projects is placed on the scope and construction of the new sports facility, while less emphasis is on the facility left behind, which we describe as shadow stadia. Some shadow stadia are repurposed for mixed use development, others are demolished but have delayed redevelopment plans, while some remain abandoned and empty for years after the professional sports team or event is no longer present in the facility. The environmental impacts of shadow stadia are not fully understood, as limited research exists on how the immediate neighborhood anchored by pre-existing venues cope in the shadows of these new development plans and the loss of a sport venue and its events. Green strategies such as the circular economy may extend the lifecycle of existing sport faciltiies. To contribute to this discussion further, this perspective article will first discuss current advances in the academic literature on the circular economy. Second, it will present a comprehensive categorization of shadow stadia globally and future opportunities on integrating circularity into best practices. By doing so, this perspective article highlights several areas of future investigation that should be considered and planned for when major league sports teams and city leaders move their team and build new facilities.

Urban Climate Justice, Human Health, and Citizen Science in Nairobi’s Informal Settlements

Urban informal settlements or slums are among the most vulnerable places to climate-change-related health risks. Yet, little data exist documenting environmental and human health vulnerabilities in slums or how to move research to action. Citizen science, where residents co-define research objectives with professionals, collect and analyze data, and help translate findings into ameliorative actions, can help fill data gaps and contribute to more locally relevant climate justice interventions. This paper highlights a citizen-science, climate justice planning process in the Mukuru informal settlement of Nairobi, Kenya. We describe how residents, non-governmental organizations and academics partnered to co-create data-gathering processes and generated evidence to inform an integrated, climate justice strategy called the Mukuru Special Planning Area, Integrated Development Plan. The citizen science processes revealed that <1% of residents had access to a private in-home toilet, and 37% lacked regular access to safe and affordable drinking water. We found that 42% of households were subject to regular flooding, 39% reported fair or poor health, and 40% reported a child in the household was stunted. These and other data were used in a community planning process where thousands of residents co-designed improvement and climate change adaptation strategies, such as flood mitigation, formalizing roads and pathways with drainage, and a water and sanitation infrastructure plan for all. We describe the participatory processes used by citizen scientists to generate data and move evidence into immediate actions to protect human health and a draft a long-range, climate justice strategy. The processes used to create the Mukuru Special Planning Area redevelopment plan suggest that participatory, citizen-led urban science can inform local efforts for health equity and global goals of climate justice.

Myths and imaginaries in architectural competitions

ABSTRACT This paper presents an analysis of computer renderings of urban spaces created for architectural competitions to promote the Fjord City redevelopment plan for the waterfront in downtown Oslo, Norway. The renderings are assessed with compositional and semiotic analyses. Drawing from Lefebvre's theory of the production of space and literature on landscape, this paper argues that the renderings submitted to architectural competitions promote the ‘myth of the attractive city’, which is one way of viewing urban spaces. The conclusion highlights the relevance of the analysis and findings to urban theory and practitioners.

Hanoi’s Built Materiality and the Scales of Anthropology

Hanoi’s ‘collective housing quarters’ (KTTs) are a living legacy of its socialist past. Since the 2000s the state has set out radical redevelopment plans to transform KTTs into new buildings, but these have largely failed. What are the possible explanations for this failure? KTTs have gradually transformed in their material forms through self-built modifications initiated by residents. Such material property of KTTs bears on the pathway of redevelopment, but official discourses are silent about this. In this article I show how KTTs as things have the capacity to transform anthropological thinking. The material property of KTTs as a citywide phenomenon affords a particular scale of analysis, with which we can imagine humans as participants in the material world instead of viewing materialities as participants in society.

Assessment of Waterfront Office Redevelopment Plan on Optimal Building Arrangements with Rooftop Photovoltaics: A Case Study for Shinagawa, Tokyo

Designing waterfront redevelopment generally focuses on attractiveness, leisure, and beauty, resulting in various types of building and block shapes with limited considerations on environmental aspects. However, increasing climate change impacts necessitate these buildings to be sustainable, resilient, and zero CO2 emissions. By producing five scenarios (plus existing buildings) with constant floor areas, we investigated how buildings and district forms with building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) affect energy consumption and production, self-sufficiency, CO2 emission, and energy costs in the context of waterfront redevelopment in Tokyo. From estimated hourly electricity demands of the buildings, techno-economic analyses were conducted for rooftop PV systems for 2018 and 2030 with declining costs of rooftop PV systems. We found that environmental building designs with rooftop PV system are increasingly economical in Tokyo with CO2 emission reduction of 2–9% that depends on rooftop sizes. Payback periods drop from 14 years in 2018 to 6 years in 2030. Toward net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050, immediate actions are necessary to install rooftop PVs on existing and new buildings with energy efficiency improvements by construction industry and building owners. To facilitate such actions, national and local governments need to adopt appropriate policies.

Latin Elephant: On language, translations and connections in an urban ethnic migrant movement

Latin Elephant is a London-based charity that works with migrant and ethnic groups in processes of urban change, and which has had a critical role in articulating the voices of traders threatened by displacement in the context of the Elephant and Castle redevelopment plans over the last decade. In this Lexicon Conversation, members of Latin Elephant discuss with RHJ the different ways in which language, vocabularies, solidarity, memory and translation have played out in their work in South London, both in relation to the use of English vis-a-vis other native languages, but also in terms of the technical language of planning in relation to intersectional urban struggles on the ground.

How the combined use of non-negotiable and negotiable developer obligations affects land value capture: Evidence from market-oriented urban redevelopment in China

The combined use of non-negotiable (N-NDOs) and negotiable developer obligations (NDOs) has become a principal instrument for land value capture in most countries. In this circumstance, this study seeks to examine how the combined use of NDOs and N-NDOs affects the practical results of land value capture within the context of market-oriented urban redevelopment in China. The ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation and two spatial regression models (SLM and SEM) are applied to parcel-level data samples of all redevelopment projects in Shenzhen, China, for evaluating the practical results of DOs. The outcomes suggest that, in some ways, the combined use of NDOs and N-NDOs leaves room for market players/applicants and the local government to negotiate DOs and other development possibilities. Compared with old factory owners as the applicant, the portion of DOs is higher if developers are the applicant. The applicants who contribute more DOs will strive for a higher floor area ratio bonus, especially when developers act as the applicant. In addition, redevelopment projects located in less developed regions are required to contribute more DOs than those in highly urbanized areas. Our research findings also demonstrate that, in other ways, negotiation disappears, and obligations are charged through non-negotiable statutory urban redevelopment planning. Specifically, projects redeveloped for residential use contribute more DOs than those for industrial use. Moreover, redevelopment projects in higher density zones must contribute more portions of DOs than those in lower density zones. This study provides valuable guidance for policy makers and practitioners to pursue well-designed and properly regulated DOs in urban redevelopment and ultimately achieve sustainable public infrastructure financing.

Urban law and the expulsion of authenticity: Preservation of the TWA terminal in the JFK Airport Redevelopment Plan

AbstractThe key issue addressed in this article is authenticity, which is a criterion that is no longer limited to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s world heritage domain. This article draws from one of the most interesting public projects in the United States – the John F. Kennedy (JFK) Terminal 5/6 Redevelopment Plan, which was part of the larger JFK master plan. The project’s Trans World Airlines (TWA) terminal, which is the only landmarked terminal and remnant of the original JFK airport plan, raised concerns. In 2001, the debate started off with keeping the terminal building active for aviation use and experiences. Nonetheless, the terminal was reimagined into a luxury hotel in 2019. This article unveils the micro-politics in the redevelopment plan and examines the authenticity of the TWA terminal and how it was (re)constructed. In doing so, the article sheds light on urban law and the decision-making process. Moreover, it discusses the tangible and intangible consequences of the prevailing speculative logic in the law.

Prototypical Resilience Projects for Postdisaster Recovery Planning: From Theory to Action

Rebuilding communities requires an actionable approach to explicitly translate the concept of resilience into postdisaster recovery planning. Through clustering analysis using project titles and project summary, 940 resilience projects are grouped into infrastructure prototypes, economic development prototypes, housing prototypes, and environmental prototypes among the Hurricane Matthew Resilient Redevelopment Plans. This research evaluated the characteristics of all prototypes based on the robustness-rapidity-inclusiveness framework. It also assessed the economic and environmental impacts, community involvement, and governance of identified prototypes. By posing a series of questions for practitioners, this research is a starting point for practitioners to build resilience in postdisaster recovery planning.

Emergence of mobilization challenger in the field: An anti-redevelopment movement of Rumah Susun Klender in East Jakarta

This article aims to analyze the emergence of challengers of mobilization in the case of a movement against the redevelopment plan of Rumah Susun Klender in East Jakarta using a field theory approach. Mobilization issues around housing in Indonesia are not new, but it is still dominated by evictions issues. Therefore, the Rumah Susun Klender case can be considered unique. Using the case study method, data were obtained through several observation techniques, such as document study and indepth interviews with 10 informants. The results of the analysis reveal that the transformation of people resistance into the emergence of Paguyuban Tandingan (rival organization) as challenger of mobilization is not merely caused by redevelopment plans. Indeed, it was generated by an initial contention (internal dynamics) that occurred between the residents and the Association of Apartment Owners and Occupants (P3SRS). The residents who are anti-redevelopment was consolidated by, and joined with, the rival organization to take over P3SRS’ authority as a governance unit to achieve one goal: cancelling the redevelopment plan.

Hell-Hole of the Brazos into Model Company Town: Architecture and Urban Space in Texas’s Sugar Land

Sugar Land flourished as a model company town for the Imperial Sugar Company, the first sugar refinery in Texas and the oldest extant business in the state. But before it became in the 1920s one of the “best planned and equipped communities” in Texas for its size, Sugar Land had been called the “hell-hole of the Brazos,” defined by its dependence on convict labor and its identity as a segregated community. The latter continued even after the improvements of the early twentieth century. In its heyday, Sugar Land demonstrated industrial features and residential characteristics like other sugar towns in South America, the Caribbean, and the United States. Now considered “one of the fastest growing cities in America,” Sugar Land has lost its historic identity and is easily mistaken as one of Houston’s suburbs. Its industrial core, closed in 2002, and included in the National Registry in 2017, has been on the cusp of several redevelopment plans. This study of Sugar Land focuses on how sugar production and changing attitudes towards the work force were central to the generation of housing and urban form for white, African American, and Hispanic workers.

Review: Greening the Black Urban Regime: The Culture and Commerce of Sustainability in Detroit, by Alesia Montgomery

Review: <i>Greening the Black Urban Regime: The Culture and Commerce of Sustainability in Detroit</i>, by Alesia Montgomery

Constraints to development: The case of Dharavi

Dharavi, once known as the largest slum in Asia, has been up for redevelopment since early 2000s, however till date the state has made little progress. The ethnographic focus of this essay identifies factors that contribute to slum’s persistent existence, namely migration and social stigma. The projected images and their symbolic representations, such as of Mumbai as a global and modern city, and slums as the lowest layer of the society, are embedded in Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP), while at the same time are the very reasons that hinder redevelopment plans and reinforce migration and social stigma.The latter is embedded in the term ‘slum’ itself, and plays a crucial role in the inability to market Dharavi effectively to potential investors. Using theoretical frameworks I will connect those issues to the discourse of modernity, globalization and urbanization, while retaining the focus on the specificities that are particular to Mumbai and India.

Contentious memories: History and urban redevelopment in Bogotá, Colombia

ABSTRACT In 2004, the city of Bogotá designated the historic working-class neighborhood of Las Aguas an “Urban Renovation Zone.” Subsequently, in 2012 the Universidad de los Andes proposed a massive redevelopment plan called Progresa Fenicia, with city approval. Redevelopment is imminent and residents’ responses have been diverse. In an effort to contribute to the literature that seeks to enrich and nuance our understanding of urban renewal processes and gentrification, this article explores the subjective experiences of long-term residents and the role of history and memory in such processes. Our analysis is based on participant observation and 31 oral histories from long-term residents of the small urban area designated for intervention. Through them, we seek to illuminate how residents understand their personal experience of the transformation of the neighborhood, and their part in urban renewal processes that extend into the past but also the future. We emphasize the agency of long-term residents, arguing that the past and memory play a significant role in how people define place, position themselves vis-à-vis urban interventions, and shape their experiences of urban redevelopment beyond monetary issues, class displacement, physical landscape, and housing policy.

Rising oceans, flooded towns: How Georgia coastline communities are readying to recover despite a changing climate

Climate change is posing a significant threat to the coastal counties of Georgia. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources and Hagerty Consulting have recognised this threat and are facilitating a nine-year project aimed at developing a disaster recovery and redevelopment plan for the state’s coastal communities, and providing state-wide technical assistance. This paper provides an overview of this planning initiative and summarises the many insights into the pre-disaster recovery and resilience planning process gained from this project.

Conditions and Consequences of ELULU Improvement: Environmental Justice Lessons from San Francisco, CA

Existing locally unwanted land uses (ELULUs) are disproportionately located in low-income communities of color. As ELULUs fall into disrepair, can planners redevelop them in ways that advance environmental justice and, if so, how? Through a case study of a San Francisco ELULU redevelopment planning process, this article highlights the central role of community-based organizing in generating policy changes that promoted certain environmental justice outcomes. A reconceptualization of the agency-neighborhood relationship was key. Findings also identify the obduracy of infrastructure and directed redress as central planning considerations and tensions.

The Politics of Redevelopment Planning in Tysons and Outcomes 10 Years Later

Following the allocation of funds for a new line on the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s Metrorail system, the Board of Supervisors in Fairfax County, Virginia, undertook redevelopment planning for its Tysons area. The redevelopment plan was the first of its kind. The board adopted a comprehensive plan that established the objective of transforming Tysons from highway-oriented suburban office park development into a walkable, mixed-use area. The redevelopment effort has received extensive attention for its goal to turn a highly car-oriented area into walkable, transit-oriented development. But what is perhaps more notable about the Tysons redevelopment planning effort is its objective to allow extensive multifamily housing construction in a wealthy suburban community. So far, more progress has been made toward the goal of housing construction than walkability.

Changes in Human Well‐being in the Final Phase of Conflict: Evidence from Northern Uganda

AbstractArmed conflict devastated Northern Uganda for almost two decades and caused enormous losses of life and human well‐being. Rebuilding a society requires massive resources, which can cause a heavy economic burden especially in low‐income countries. Understanding changes in well‐being before the start of redevelopment plans can reduce the misallocation of resources. This study estimates changes in well‐being in the final phase of conflict. The result shows that the incidence of self‐reported illness drops significantly by 9.1 per cent and food consumption per capita increases by 37.1 per cent. The utilisation of health care shifts 13.7 per cent of visits to private from public when people choose formal providers. © 2020 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.