Neighborhood Transformation Research Articles

The Implication of Studentification To Community’s Physical And Social Economicaspects In Tembalang Higher Education Area

Abstract. Studentification is a neighbourhood changes caused by the students’ presence in the permanent settlement then influence the area; students accomodation supply and community’s social economic aspects. This research revealed the influence of studentification in Tembalang higher education area to the physical and social economic aspects. Qualitative research method was used to explain more about the studentification influence and the Tembalang development trend. Interview conducted to some key figures in the community such as Lurah, community leaders, and students to find out their perception regarding the neighbourhood transformation. Based on analysis, it showed that studentification emerged since the Pleburan campus moved to Tembalang campus which students accomodation demand increased significantly. Moreover, the studentification influences seen from the increasing of land price, land use conversion, and students’ life style that affected the community’s job-shifting. However, the development of Tembalang higher education area still on the track based on the guidance and spatial pattern structure recommendation of Semarang Spatial Plan 2011-2030.

Managing change: Seattle’s 21st century urban renaissance

ABSTRACTEvolution of the urban planning and historic preservation disciplines has resulted in an “uneasy alliance” in practice, one further complicated by the back-to-the-city movement and increased development pressure in older urban neighbourhoods. In Seattle, as in other U.S. cities, the pace, intensity and scale of redevelopment has caused dramatic spatial and social transformations. Although research has shown that older built fabric provides economic and social benefit for cities, neither regulations created by planners for guiding redevelopment nor strategies created by preservationists for retaining urban heritage have been successful in reconciling these different, yet interconnected, sets of values. We engage three Seattle neighbourhood case studies to clarify and evaluate policies, programs and strategies used by planners and preservationists for reimagining neighbourhood transformations. This work suggests a need for more creative, integrative collaboration between the two fields to simultaneously engage – and reconcile – social and economic tensions caused by urban redevelopment.

“People first”: Factors that promote or inhibit community transformation

ABSTRACTResidents are key assets in community change. Despite this, little is known about residents’ perspectives regarding factors that facilitate or inhibit successful planning for neighborhood transformation. We conducted focus groups with residents of a low-wealth community involved with a neighborhood planning initiative and examined a planning document to elicit lived experience perspectives. Using Colaizzi’s approach to phenomenology, the following themes emerged: (1) trust; (2) resident-driven transformation; (3) sense of community and cohesion; (4) engagement and collective action; and (5) openness to transformation. Attending to the factors identified by neighborhood residents can inform community development planning and practice.

Contradictions of the Climate‐Friendly City: New Perspectives on Eco‐Gentrification and Housing Justice

AbstractAs local governments and corporations promote ‘climate friendliness’, and a low‐carbon lifestyle becomes increasingly desirable, more middle‐ and upper‐income urban residents are choosing to live near public transit, on bike‐ and pedestrian‐friendly streets, and in higher‐density mixed‐use areas. This rejection of classical forms of suburbanization has, in part, increased property values in neighborhoods offering these amenities, displacing lower‐income, often non‐white, residents. Increased prevalence of creative and technology workers appears to accelerate this trend. We argue that a significant and understudied socio‐environmental contradiction also occurs where the actual environmental outcomes of neighborhood transformation may not be what we expect. New research on greenhouse gas emissions shows that more affluent residents have much larger carbon footprints because of their consumption, even when reductions in transportation or building energy emissions are included. We describe an area in Seattle, Washington, the location of Amazon's headquarters, experiencing this contradiction and show a distinct convergence of city investments in low‐carbon infrastructure, significant rises in housing prices and decreases in lower‐income and non‐white residents. We conclude with a discussion of a range of issues that require more attention by scholars interested in housing justice and/or urban sustainability.

A Case Study of Local Community Development and Citizen Participation in Cuba: A Comprehensive Neighbourhood Transformation Approach

The comprehensive neighbourhood transformation approach of planning in the Havana Historian's Office is a case study of local community development in the capital of Cuba. The study is justified by its relevance and timeliness of the issues found in community development and its implications in people and place wellbeing, especially in the most disadvantaged sectors of Cuban society. It seeks to analyse the improvement of life conditions in achieving social inclusion, citizen participation in community. A theoretical analysis of community development and local development within a community capital approach is provided. The experiences of the comprehensive neighbourhood transformation workshops constitute an important contribution to the local/community development process. The use of endogenous resources for managing human, social, political, natural and cultural capital ensures sustainable community development and innovative methodologies for community planning.

“The Ghetto is a Gold Mine”: The Racialized Temporality of Betterment

AbstractGentrification makes trash a discursive and material index of degeneration, mobilizing projects to “clean” and “better” neighborhoods and people. This ethnographic article explores how trash's movements and labor reveal the spatialized and temporalized racial histories of neighborhood transformation in the historically black neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy), Brooklyn and the gentrified town of Norfolk, Virginia. Foregrounding the objects and people whose value(s) are called into question as the context around them changes, I draw on two key interlocutors whose scavenging is conditioned by the “betterment”—community revitalization and “clean up”—programs that seek to displace them. As Sal “saves” Bed-Stuy by directing the flow of the dismembered ghetto, Superfly redirects coffee shop ephemera to black barbershops. By attending to how trash moves, Sal's and Superfly's labor make visible the material conditions of gentrification and point to how race and time are spatialized under racial capitalism.

Neighborhood-scale urban form typologies of large metropolitan areas: Observations on Istanbul, Cairo, and Tehran

The micro-level urban morphology of large cities in the Middle East and North Africa and southeastern Europe has not been thoroughly investigated, and its transformation during the past decades has remained less-studied. Hence, this study is meant to partially explain urban morphology of Istanbul, Cairo, and Tehran, three megacities of the region by focusing on the historical neighborhood typologies of the past century. The overall aim of this study is to address the feedbacks of historical urban transformations during the past 100 or 150 years to some important aspects of livability like mobility and social interactions. The objectives are to define the typologies of neighborhoods in the three cities and how they have changed over time, to clarify if the neighborhood-level urban form of the three cities have transformed in a similar fashion, and to address the differences between the cities. The variables of this study were population density, centrality, formation and location of facilities, and configuration of street networks, which were tested by T and Chi-square methods in a representative sample of 259 neighborhoods randomly selected from the case-study cities. The results of statistical hypothesis testing reveal a similarity of neighborhood transformations in the cities in terms of population density. Considerable similarities were found in case of historical changes in centrality (the centeredness of neighborhood amenities), location of neighborhood facilities, and street networks; however, the three cities have general similarities in trends, with potentially similar results for urban mobility. The most important identified planning, political, and societal trends that transformed the neighborhood morphologies were top-down interventions in the 1930s and 1940s, socioeconomic and lifestyle changes in the 1970s because of a jump in oil prices, Iran's 1979 revolution, the Iran-Iraq War for Tehran, internal migration triggered by industrialization, mass and formal housing production for Istanbul, and European inspiration in urban planning in the late 19th century, adoption of socialist ideologies in the 1960s, and the capitalist approach to urban planning in recent years for Cairo.

In the shadow of the urban regeneration megaproject: Urban transitions in downtown Łódź, Poland

Abstract The Nowe Centrum Łodzi project that was completed in 2007 in Łódź, Poland is one of the biggest contemporary large-scale urban (re)development projects in Europe and the largest project of this type in Central Europe. The principal goals of the mega-project in question include the regeneration of degraded post-industrial and post-railway land in the city centre of Łódź and the enhancement of competitiveness and the metropolitan position of the city. The authors seek to identify spatial and functional changes at a mezo-scale, i.e. in the so-called immediate neighbourhood of the urban regeneration megaproject (URMP), which have accompanied the implementation of the Nowe Centrum Łodzi project over the years 2013–2016. The other aim was to classify urban areas neighbouring the URMP based on features of spatial and functional transformation identified in these areas. The studies allowed the researchers to identify three categories of urban area in the immediate neighbourhood of the URMP which revealed differences in spatial and functional transformations. We indicated that the transformation of the immediate neighbourhood of the URMP involved not only the local authorities responsible for the overall improvement of the quality of public space but also other users, inter alia, residents, local urban activists, the business community, public institutions, and NGOs, that in most cases complemented efforts initiated by the Municipality. From the methodological point of view the authors use a case study including desk research, an urban planning inventory, and direct observation.

Gentrification and the Vulnerability of Betawi Community

Betawi community is the local community in Jakarta, residing in the city since the 17th century. Yet, since 1970s their number has declined significantly, and now it only remains 20% of the Jakarta total population. They have been displaced by several government urban development projects, and have moved to peripheral kampongs. Moreover, the displacement of this local community was triggered by gentrification due to the presence of middle-income class (gentrifiers), who come to Jakarta as professional workers, and further demand housing. Gentrifiers prefer to stay in the inner-city kampongs to save transportation cost even though the kampongs are not equipped proper infrastructures. Then, the gentrifiers renovate the house and shape the physical appearance of the neighbourhood differently. This has made the land price surge, and the competition to occupy house increase. Also, the standard of living has gone up. Many local communities could not adapt with the situation and consequently sold the house to get money; most of them consist of uneducated and unskilled informal workers, who can be included as poor-class. Living in kampongs, which are considered as informal settlements, the community do not get any government assistance to improve the neighbourhood quality; hence, the neighbourhood improvement only relis on the gentrifiers. As a result, the displacement continues to occur. Consequently, the Betawi community becomes the most vulnerable in the gentrification process, and are very sensitive to the neighbourhood transformation. Using a case-study research, his paper tries to reveal the relation between the gentrification process in the inner-city kampong and the Betawi community as the vulnerable community. This research focused on Kampong Kramat Asem, Matraman district as densely a populated district in DKI Jakarta Province. Furthermore, field observation and interview were conducted to the local community and gentrifiers to find out the community sensitivity factors and to picture the physical neighbourhood transformation. Moreover, an analysis of population trends was required to figure out displacement process.

Healthy life community garden: food and neighborhood transformation

The Fairmont community faces many challenges. Poverty and crime are common in the community, as are food scarcity, obesity and diabetes. The Healthy Life Community Garden (HLCG) was established to address these issues. The garden has 21 raised beds, 557 m2 of open gardens, fruit trees and a welcoming community area. In addition to producing fresh food, the garden serves as a focal point for Extension educational programing and provides a safe location for community activities and social interaction. HLCG draws visitors from both within and outside the neighborhood and has helped solidify a broad coalition of city organizations with commercial and social interests in the area. Interest in the historic Rosenwald School, next to the garden fostered the Fairmont African-American Oral History Project, which records the oral histories of residents who participated in the Griffin Civil Rights Movement. HLCG generated interest in community assets and needs. The revitalization of Fairmont neighborhood parks and the Rosenwald School was added to the list of projects included in a sales tax proposal. The proposal was passed in the November 2015 election.

Urban sustainability assessment of neighborhoods in Lombardy

The paper presents a contextualized system useful in the decision-making of Public Administrators for analysis and actions concerning urban sustainability and for monitoring neighborhood transformation processes. The system is developed with an approach made up by Inputs (available data from standards and laws and state-of-the-art), Controls (i.e. technical skills of Public Administrators) and Mechanisms (know-how and software used) which implement Outputs, the main elements of the system: Sustainability indicators, Benchmarks and Scores. The set of indicators chosen allows to consider many aspects of environmental sustainability as Resource Consumption (Energy, Materials, Water, Soil) and Environmental Impacts (Pollutant Emissions, Wastes and Vulnerability). The objective parameters of the indicators are based on a benchmarking activity in relation to the Lombardy context and in order to provide reachable target performance. Finally, a baseline of weighted scores of indicators is proposed to allow to reach a final overall score of sustainability of the neighborhood.

Urban morphology and local citizens in China's historic neighborhoods: A case study of the Stele Forest Neighborhood in Xi'an

This paper analyzes the role of local citizens in the morphological transformation of China's urban historic neighborhoods. With a focus on ordinary neighborhood properties, this research explores how local citizens have consumed different types of properties, and critically investigates socio-spatial problems that arise from such consumptions. By the case of the Stele Forest Neighborhood in Xi'an, the study argues that both the local state and local citizens recognize heritage resources as an important source of profit and that the competition for exchange values between the two has contributed to historic neighborhood physical patterns. Local citizens' resistance against and dissent from local government's conservation policies are manifested through passive bargains and tolerated illegalities, and are eventually reflected in their neighborhood morphological forms. Morphological pattern-related decision-making and subsequent actions in China's neoliberal urban setting are no longer monopolized by the local state, but shared by the local state and non-state actors.

"This house belong to me, now": The "Slumming" and "Gentrification" of Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn as Experienced and Foretold by Paule Marshall's <i>Brown Girl, Brownstones</i>

In addition to personal, national, and/or global anxieties, Paule Marshall’s novel, Brown Girl, Brownstones speaks most eloquently of local anxieties experienced throughout the twentieth century and even to this day in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. This essay argues that Marshall’s novel provides a rare glimpse into the invention, development, and repeated transformation of this important neighborhood in Black history. Not often read as a novel of material conditions, Brown Girl, Brownstones contains the story of a neighborhood that serves as a space of representation for an ever-evolving population, each with its own socio-cultural baggage. We see through Marshall’s eye, and that of her female protagonists Silla and Selina Boyce, the last vestiges of the first rendition of Bedford Stuyvesant as a space of representation marking the social, political and economic dominance of the affluent Irish first inhabiting the ornate brownstones that line the newly gridded streets of former farmland, protected by the firewall of restricted covenants that by 1939 come tumbling down. We experience through Silla and Selina Boyce one of the first examples of “white flight,” as the neighborhood transforms into a space representing aspirational Barbadians, who, despite New Deal “redlining,” band together to form their own Garveyite financial associations, allowing them to “buy house” and turn the brownstones of Bedford Stuyvesant into sites of entrepreneurial profit through the creation of Single Room Occupancy hotels, which in yet another turn contributes to profound disinvestment and the building of massive post-War housing “projects” for the poor on bulldozed blocks. Virtually 100% Black during the second half of the twentieth century, Bedford Stuyvesant becomes one of New York’s most prevalent representations of the “ghetto”—rife with crime, abandoned buildings, shuttered businesses, and poor schools—despite the best efforts of committed residents and community activists. And finally, we witness the recent undoing of Silla and her compatriots’ SROs by white gentrifiers, corporations, and hedge funds, who spend great sums to return these brownstones to single or two-family status, and even greater sums on gut renovations, reaping in the process massive profits, and returning Bedford Stuyvesant to a space representing once again the social, political, and economic dominance of whiteness.

Expressing community through freedom market and visual connections

ABSTRACTBuilding on a long-term university/community research partnership, this article examines how different ways of conceptualizing, interpreting, and producing murals impacted how an urban community saw itself. Using a participatory action research design, university researchers worked alongside community researchers to ethnographically document the transformation. Findings indicate that the mural project constructed pathways for building relationships and community in ways that made neighborhood transformation possible. The mural project embodied this transformative goal by providing a space where people gathered with shared attention to talk and to envision how their lives and their community could be different.

Urban Morphology, Environmental Performances, and Energy Use:Neighborhood transformation in Rio de Janeiro via IMM

Nowadays the environmental ramifications of urban development have become crystal clear. Subsequently, the main headline is how one should implement practical methods to tackle urban growth and environmental issues simultaneously. How should one integrate urbanization and the issue of saving natural resources? How design strategies could contribute to climate mitigation and emission reduction? Is urban morphology correlated with these issues? And eventually, how can the urban transformation be performed, retrofitted and monitored in order to achieve a more sustainable result? A strictly sectorial approach could result in neglecting mutual dependencies of these demands. Conversely, an integrated approach can help to sharpen a better comprehension of the different performances of different urban assessment. IMM®, Integrated Modification Methodology, is a multi-stage, iterative process, applied to urban complex systems, for improving the metabolism of the city as well as its energy performance. The method has been depicted through prior publications by the authors; hence, the current paper solely focuses on one stage of the multi-stage IMM method. Due to the fact that the majority of predicted urban growth will occur in megacities of developing countries, totalling 5% of the earth population, the article presents a case study Janeiro using the IMM method to propose urban improvements on the megacity of Rio de Janeiro.

Cultural facilities and urban development: WIELS contemporary art centre and the transformation of a working-class neighbourhood

The opening in 2007 of the first contemporary art centre in Brussels in the lower part of the municipality of Forest, which is characterised by an industrial urban fabric and socioeconomic insecurity, seems to have marked a new era for this neighbourhood. WIELS defines itself as “an international laboratory for the creation and diffusion of contemporary art”. Using a typology based on international literature, the objective of the study is to confront the rationale behind the creation of this cultural institution with the social and spatial transformations which have taken place in the neighbourhood since its establishment. In this article, we attempt to understand how WIELS contributes to urban development through culture. By combining different qualitative methods, it is clear that although WIELS was initially caught in a conflict between property income and openness towards its neighbourhood, certain tangible and discursive elements might prompt us to consider WIELS as one of the components in the formation of a new creative metropolitan centrality.

Ciudad de México, quince años de desarrollo urbano intensivo: la gentrificación percibida

Fifteen years of intensive urban development have given rise to exclusive and exclusionary urban landscapes in the central areas of Mexico City. Obsolete industrial districts, derelict urban land and relatively abandoned and well-connected middle and lower-class neighborhoods –which have been regarded by authorities as “run-down areas” – are some of the areas that have benefited the most from public and private investment. This paper explores the perception of local residents, caputured in an extensive survey conducted with more than 3,000 inhabitants in August 2014 from 10 central areas, about the transformation and gentrification of their neighbourhoods –which have been subject to real estate pressure. This research: a) describes the theoretical references and methodological strategies developed throughout the research, b) analyzes the intensive urban development and the increase in investment, presence of international real estate firms and public megaprojects; and c) studies the perception of dwellers about the transformation and gentrification of neighborhoods after a decade and a half of “sustainable” urban development, which has led to the reinforcement of historical socio-spatial inequality in central urban areas and the transformation of the urban and social landscape as the result of the emergence of exclusive central neighborhoods.

Attaining SDG11: can sustainability assessment tools be used for improved transformation of neighbourhoods in historic city centers?

In coping with rapid urbanization resulting from increased urban growth, limited resources, and the threat of natural and man‐made disasters, cities are being pressured to change. The United Nations created goals to address these issues, drafting the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. Goal 11 of the SDGs addresses issues pertaining to urban development, and focuses on attaining safe, inclusive, resilient and sustainable cities. In order to monitor progress regarding SDG 11, there is a need for globally‐identified and comparable indicators. The City Prosperity Index (CPI) has been recognized as a valuable tool in evaluating the social, economic and physical aspects of cities. However, the CPI is not sufficient in itself in translating information obtained through evaluation into information relevant to policy‐making and planning at the neighbourhood level. Positive urban change can be achieved through improvements made to neighbourhoods, as the core units of cities. Many countries have developed several tools to assess neighbourhoods, applying various indicators to guide the planning process, in an effort to attain sustainability. Many Turkish cities are experiencing the negative effects of rapid urbanization. Within the scope of this study, three neighbourhoods in the historic urban core of Bursa in Turkey have been assessed through Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Neighbourhood Pattern and Design (LEED‐NPD) under LEED Neighbourhood Development (LEED‐ND). By analyzing the existing conditions, this study aims to present the strengths and weaknesses of the case study area and establish a documental and informational base, in order to respond with a plan at the neighbourhood level.

From urban renewal to urban regeneration: Classification criteria for urban interventions. Turin 1995–2015: evolution of planning tools and approaches

European cities have been affected by urban regeneration interventions in the last few decades, spanning a variety of different types and with different outcomes. This paper describes and analyses possible classification criteria for urban regeneration interventions in order to reach a better understanding of urban regeneration policies and their consequences. A review of the literature on urban regeneration classification criteria reveals that urban regeneration interventions have gradually shifted from being place oriented to being people oriented. In view of this, this paper presents a paradigmatic case study of urban regeneration. The urban transformation of the city of Turin, in northern Italy, from 1995 to 2015 clearly shows the existence of three generations of neighbourhood transformations. The first generation involved mainly physical improvement operations in the area of Spina 2. The second was characterised by social and economic support, as in the regeneration of the historic neighbourhood of San Salvario. Finally, the third generation presented an integrated approach, as in the management of the Urban II programme for the area of Mirafiori Nord, leading to a more contemporary, holistic approach.

Culture-led neighbourhood transformations beyond the revitalisation/gentrification dichotomy

In the past 30 years, culture has been used as a means for revitalising neighbourhoods and branding the urban economy. Often, culture-led urban policies have had undesirable consequences in terms of rising rents, displacement of former residents and changes in the economic and retail landscape, i.e. gentrification. However, this process is not univocal, and displacement may not occur while disrupting community life. In this paper we explore the changes that have occurred in San Francisco, a working-class neighbourhood of Bilbao where the attraction of cultural industries has been used to revitalise the area and change the city image. We employ a framework that considers the built form, the cultural cluster organisation and the socioeconomic and demographic changes and we rely on different sources of evidence, including neighbourhood level socioeconomic data, personal interviews and a participatory evaluation, to capture the edges of this complex phenomenon. Our analysis suggests a less deterministic and more complex characterisation of culture-led neighbourhood transformations beyond the revitalisation/gentrification discourses, since conflicts may be driven not by economic transformations and social class replacement, but by the symbolic representation of space and the ‘right to the neighbourhood’.