Town Planning Policies Research Articles

Urban growth, policy and planning of public space

Under the pressure of the urbanizing tsunami, town planning and urban policies in Spain have given a residual treatment to public spaces in recent urban development. This work proposes a brief but comprehensive sociological analysis about social and morphological traits of public spaces – like paradigmatic social space – in order to show the city's irreplaceable role in citizen socialization processes. The network of streets and places, the city in this sense, make up the scenes of man's sociability. In this perspective, planning ought to be geared towards and for the city and redeem a civic impetus that pursues developing the whole instead of subjecting it.

Development pressure and retail planning: a study of 20-year change in Cardiff, UK

This article describes and explains changes in the retail landscape of a major British city over the last 20 years. It thus serves to continue the survey of change initiated in 1989 with a comparative analysis of the retail structures of Cardiff (UK) and Charlotte (USA). The changes reviewed in the present study are shown to exemplify broad trends in UK retailing, as well as the growing influences of town planning and urban regeneration policies.

The Right to Live in the City: Some Thoughts and Suggestions on Town Planning's Contribution in the United Kingdom

From the 1940s to the early 1970s there was a dominating and pervasive set of town planning policies and practices that instigated and promoted decentralization and dispersal from Britain's major cities. These policies and practices were partially reversed in the mid-1970s but were never comprehensively repudiated. Nor were adequate measures put in place to try to ensure that people and economic and other organizations wanting to stay in the cities in reasonable conditions were able to do so. Town planning definitions and policies are offered to this end and some discussion of the theoretical and practical issues involved is entered into.

Ideology and public health elements of human settlement policies in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper employs town planning policies to suggest that ideology and not objective science or a genuine desire to promote development is at the root of development policies in African countries. It identifies and discusses four ideologies: indigenous elitism (pre-colonial era – 1884); European racism (colonial era, 1884–1960s); modernism (1960–1980s); and globalism (1990s–present); that have been at the root of public health elements of town planning in Africa since the pre-colonial era. With the exception of indigenous elitism, all the ideologies are alien to Africa. The problems associated with ideology as the basis of development policy are magnified when the ideology is of the imported variety than when it is native. Planners in Africa are advised to either ‘Africanize’ received health elements of planning policies—that is, endow such policies with relevant attributes of African culture—or adopt only those policies that already possess such attributes.

Australian Public Housing and the Diverse Histories of Social Mix

In Australia, the concept of social mix has strong currency in contemporary public housing estate regeneration policy, where balancing social mix is attached to addressing social and behavioral issues on the postwar public housing estates. However, contemporary debates about social mix tend to ignore the finding that interest in social mix is by no means new. Attention to social mix has informed Australian new town planning and housing policy since the post—World War II years, although the origins of the concept can be seen earlier in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. The focus of this article is on examining the relevance of the concept of social mix through history by drawing on South Australian housing policy and the Salisbury North housing estate as a specific case study of social mix in practice. The aim is to show how the concept of social mix is constructed differently over time and how it has been adapted to the present situation of dealing with concentrations of impoverished residents on public housing estates. The article draws on context, practice, and texts as important variables that help to constitute the meaning of social mix.

Anti‐urban ideologies and planning in France and Switzerland: Jean‐François Gravier and Armin Meili

Jean‐François Gravier and Armin Meili were two leading pioneers of planning in France and Switzerland. Gravier was the famous author of Paris et le désert français, first published in 1947; Meili was the author of the first national conception of planning in Switzerland and was very active in planning policy in the 1940s. Each has deeply influenced the implementation of planning policy in his country and both have constructed their theories around a criticism of the city: Paris for Gravier; big cities, in general, for Meili. This paper first describes the recurrent critiques of the city in the thoughts of these authors. From sterility to unhealthiness, they combine moral and physical criticisms. Although they belong to different countries and different political cultures, their thoughts take root in surprisingly common backgrounds based on the strength of ruralism and the political context of fascism. Finally, an analysis of their similar propositions concerning town and country planning policies is offered. The lessons of Gravier and Meili are based on different myths which the article will attempt to analyse.

Tracking ethno-cultural differences: the Lagos steam tramway, 1902–1933

The Lagos steam tramway project (1902–1933) is examined against the background of British colonial town-planning policy in early twentieth-century Nigeria, with reference to the effects of its layout and services on Lagos's street morphology and ethnic tapestry. Drawing on contemporary evidence regarding colonial plans as well as local physical and social circumstances, the article shows that the tramline was used by the British colonial authorities to reinforce a pre-existent informal residential segregation in Lagos between the indigenous and the expatriate populations. By examining both social and morphological structures in order to understand the political and ethno-cultural implications of the tram, this article contributes to the recently growing literature on the history of European modes of planning outside Europe. In this literature, interdisciplinary in its character, sub-Saharan Africa has relatively limited representation.

Macroeconomic factors of growth of Russian cities and town planning policy objectives

This paper was prepared for the 70th birthday of Oleg Sergeevich Pchelintsev, but he did not live to see it in print. For memorials of O.S. Pchelintsev, see www.demoscope.ru Nos 243–244 of April 17–30, 2006. The paper analyzes the channels and ways by which macroeconomic policy impacts the development of urban settlement and individual groups of cities. Its findings are used to validate new directions and measures of urban policy

El significado del medio ambiente sonoro en el entorno urbano

Though sound is an essential part of the meaning and experience of the different places where people live their lives, it is nonetheless the neglected variable in town planning and design policies. The result is that cities expand with no thought for their urban soundscapes. This situation may have arisen because sound environment is currently assimilated to noise and pollution, and the level of sound taken as the main factor determining its value, with no or little regard for the subjective aspects involved in its perception and appreciation. Taking this as its starting point, the present paper seeks to demonstrate, in the light of the results of a qualitative interdisciplinary study on the sound environment of several cities, that sound is something more than noise, and can serve as an important means of communication and relationship with the environment. likewise, it shows how the criteria used to evaluate sound in a given space depend not only on its level but also, and even more importantly, on the information it conveys, the context in which it is perceived and the cultural and social significance that people themselves ascribe to it.

Nuovi elementi di Storia Urbana nel regno di Sardegna: dalla fondazione di Bonaria al popolamento catalano di Castel di Cagliari

During the war against Pisa for the dominion of Sardinian Kingdom, the Catalans established their first settlement on the island in a site until then uninhabited, originally a military camp called Bonaria. It developed rapidly and very soon had a dense population of inhabitants, emigrants from the Kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon. Alfonso's plan, heir to the Aragonese throne, was to reinforce the anti-Pisan function of Bonaria, in order to provoque an economic crisis and a subsequent withdrawal of the enemies from Castel di Cagliari. According to sources, it is possible to reconstruct the evolution of the town-planning policy of Bonaire until the conquest of Castel di Cagliari, when Alfonso decided to populate the pisan castrum and accompanied this project with a program to boost the economic activity in the port of Lapola, through a privilege system; indeed within the Catalans Castel di Cagliari carried out a mainly defensive-political and commercial role. The research offers also a new contribution of the Sardinian urban history; in fact, it analyses the project of Lapola's foundation and the systematic catalanization of life standards.

Exploring the Role of CCTV Surveillance Systems in Town Centre Management

Within the UK the past three decades have witnessed dramatic and continuing changes in the geography of retail provision. During this period the traditional supremacy of town and city centres at the top of the retail hierarchy has been increasingly successfully challenged by the development and diversification of out‐of‐town and edge of town shopping facilities. This ‘out of town exodus’ (Schiller, 1987) can be traced from the food superstores opened by grocery retailers from the late 1960's onwards through the development of retail warehouses, retail parks and regional shopping centres (Guy, 1994) to a more recent ‘fourth wave’ (Fernie, 1995) which include warehouse clubs, factory outlet centres and airport retailing. The cumulative effects of these developments are seen to pose a major challenge to retail businesses in town and city centres and perhaps more fundamentally to the centres themselves. The traditional spirit of the UK's town and country planning policies, first established some fifty years ago, was to positively support retail activity in town and city centres and to restrict out of town retail development (Guy, 1994). However, from the early 1980's onwards, such policies had only a limited effect in stemming the tide of retail decentralisation and they often seemed to be honoured more in the breach than in the observance.

La renaissance des cités : la première guerre mondiale et le discours sur la ville à Paris

The First World War marks an important moment in the genesis and recognition of a discourse promoting town planning, which integrates the reasoning that had started to appear in 1915 about the post-war reconstruction of devastated towns. In drawing up a plan of an ideal town which would provide a rationed urban framework for the productivity of the immediate post-war period, it also shows, a clear wish for social reform. The interaction between social reform and town planning policies is quite obvious in the case of Paris, where the conflict - which marks the beginning of a period of crisis in the management of urban populations - led the local authorities that, since the post-war period had been open to the language of reform, to play a pivotal role in the implementation of a major social policy.

Renouveau démographique et disparités géographiques dans la région Midi-Pyrénées

Demographic revival and geographical disparities in the Midi-Pyrénées region. Since 1954, the Midi-Pyrénées region's demographic revival has highly been beneficial to the Greater Toulouse area wich is clearly dominating the urban hierarchy. These disparities result more from an intricate process, in wich are involved interregional migrations, than from a mere resettlement of population from the region to its capital city. The growing gap between Toulouse and all the rest of the Midi-Pyrénées region is keeping pace with a leading trend of periurbanization which contributes to the emergence of a widespread residential area all around Toulouse including all the nearest medium-sized towns. The present statistical and administrative bounds do not allow to take properly into account the metropolitan area as part of the town and territory planning policies.

L'organisation commerciale dans l'unité d'Aix-Marseille (The configuration of the commercial pattern on the scale of the urban unity of Aix-Marseille)

Abstract. - The configuration of the commercial pattern on the scale of the urban unity of Aix-Marseille, shows an imbalance between the suburban and the periphéric borders of the two agglomerations ; the latter are overequiped with hypermarkets and their commercial hypercenters appear relatively to stagnate. The dichotomy of localizations which derives from recent changes in the distribution systems, reflects a logic of profitability prospected by great commercial firms on the most attractive places for customers. It deletes the bearing of town planning policies. Such delocalization trends caracterizing commercial creations correspond to a general loosening movement of town activities ; they reopen the debate on the perception of centrality.

非マンション系区分所有建物の特性

Mansion is defined as condominium that contains more than five dweling units and is owned each owner. But mansion has never been defined from viewpoint of stock, and so many buildings deviating from original definition have come into existence. So we explicate real state of such buildings, and examine their roll for town planning and housing policy. Results are summarized as follows. 1. Buildings of devided ownership are mostly very small scale and locate in wider range in comparison with mansion. 2. Average scale of each devision is various and dwelling unit is as wide as 2 〜 3 units of mansion. 3. Devided form is complicated and unsuitable for distribution. 4. Owner mostly use building for himself, and ownership and residence unify.

Planning and Technology Development Policy in Victoria

This paper explores the hypothesis that there is a spatial dimension to technology innovation and the creation of new knowledge-intensive industry. In doing this it draws on the work carried out on the designated technology precincts in Victoria and looks at the role of town planning and other policy initiatives in heightening the potential development of technology industries and the increased use of innovation across all industries.

Technique urbanistique et fiction opérationnelle

Technique urbanistique et fiction opérationnelle

Exode urbain et occupation sociale dans la Randstad Holland

Abstract. - A massive migration from the largest cities towards agglomerations of lesser sizes has been observed in the Netherlands since the sixties ; but in opposition with the process which dan be witnessed in Paris for instance, this exodus is chiefly the fact of social strata with higher incomes. Nowadays then, old people, poor families, and unmarried people, among whom numerous immigrants, are living in the older parts of the cities. The new pattern of the settlement is accompanied by a sharp social segregation, according to the quality of the natural environment, the types of housing, the distance and the accessibility of the high level employments, and the public utilities. The town-planning policy of the Randstad aims at altering this evolution, but until now its efficiency has proved rather low.

The Present Housing Policies in South Australia: Some Social and Economic Consequences

A description and review of the present housing policies in South Australia are given. Critical comment is made on the scope of the present policies, the adequacy of provision of housing and its distribution among the various social and income groups. The discussion covers the activities of the South Australian Housing Trust, the functioning of the private sector market, the role of the Commonwealth Government, and some of the town planning policies in South Australia. It is argued that the present objectives of housing policy should be reviewed urgently as many of them are inadequate in relation to some rapidly changing social and economic circumstances.

Town Planning and Financial Policy

Town Planning and Financial Policy