Urban Redevelopment Plans Research Articles

Sesto San Giovanni Public Space Strategy to Unforeseen Emergencies after Covid-19 Experience

Abstract This paper explores the multifaceted impact of Covid-19 on Sesto San Giovanni, in the Milan metropolitan area. It analyzes the challenges faced by local businesses and how the city responded with extraordinary measures for public spaces, revitalizing commercial sectors, and adopting new coping mechanisms. The pandemic underscored the strategic importance of public spaces and commercial activities as vital infrastructures for societal well-being and resilience. Integrating outdoor amenities like dehors and parklets into urban redevelopment plans has boosted economic vitality and social cohesion, creating a vibrant and interconnected urban environment.

Assessing Satellite Data’s Role in Substituting Ground Measurements for Urban Surfaces Characterization: A Step towards UHI Mitigation

Urban surfaces play a crucial role in shaping the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect by absorbing and retaining significant solar radiation. This paper explores the potential of high-resolution satellite imagery as an alternative method for characterizing urban surfaces to support UHI mitigation strategies in urban redevelopment plans. We utilized Landsat images spanning the past 40 years to analyze trends in Land Surface Temperature (LST). Additionally, WorldView-3 (WV3) imagery was acquired for surface characterization, and the results were compared with ground truth measurements using the ASD FieldSpec 4 spectroradiometer. Our findings revealed a strong correlation between satellite-derived surface reflectance and ground truth measurements across various urban surfaces, with Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) values ranging from 0.01 to 0.14. Optimal characterization was observed for surfaces such as bituminous membranes and parking with cobblestones (RMSE < 0.03), although higher RMSE values were noted for tiled roofs, likely due to aging effects. Regarding surface albedo, the differences between satellite-derived data and ground measurements consistently remained below 12% for all surfaces, with the lowest values observed in high heat-absorbing surfaces like bituminous membranes. Despite challenges on certain surfaces, our study highlights the reliability of satellite-derived data for urban surface characterization, thus providing valuable support for UHI mitigation efforts.

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.

Exploring Carbon Neutral Potential in Urban Densification: A Precinct Perspective and Scenario Analysis

Decarbonising the urban built environment for reaching carbon neutrality is high on the agenda for many cities undergoing rapid expansion and densification. As an important urban form, precincts have been increasingly focused on as the context for urban redevelopment planning and at the forefront for trialling carbon reduction measures. However, due to interplays between the built forms and the occupancy, the carbon performance of a precinct is significantly affected by morphological variations, demographical changes, and renewable energy system deployment. Despite much research on the development of low-carbon precincts, there is limited analysis on aggregated effects of population growth, building energy efficiency, renewable energy penetration, and carbon reduction targets in relation to precinct carbon signature and carbon neutral potential for precinct redevelopment and decarbonisation planning. In this paper, an integrated carbon assessment model, including overall precinct carbon emissions and carbon offset contributed by precinct-scale renewable energy harvesting, is developed and applied to examine the lifecycle carbon signature of urban precincts. Using a case study on a residential precinct redevelopment, scenario analysis is employed to explore opportunities for decarbonising densification development and the carbon neutral potential. Results from scenario analysis indicate that redevelopment of buildings with higher-rated energy efficiency and increase of renewable energy penetration can have a long term positive impact on the carbon performance of urban precincts. Meanwhile, demographical factors in precinct evolution also have a strong influence on a precinct’s carbon neutral potential. Whilst population size exerts upward pressure on total carbon emissions, changes in family types and associated consumption behaviour, such as travelling, can make positive contributions to carbon reduction. The analysis also highlights the significance of embodied carbon to the total carbon signature and the carbon reduction potential of a precinct during densification, reinforcing the notion that “develop with less” is as important as carbon offsetting measures for decarbonising the precinct toward carbon neutrality.

Navigating Ethnic Hierarchies in Community-Academic Partnerships: A Case Study on Koreatown Community Politics

Based on the experiences of a Koreatown scholar, the executive director of a Koreatown nonprofit, and a longtime resident student, the article advocates for greater attention to the complex and dynamic power structures of ethnic enclaves in community-academic partnerships. We discuss the changing landscapes of Koreatown as the global nexus of the Pacific Rim economy, the city of Los Angeles’s urban redevelopment plans, and growing diversity and inequality. Programs that aim to engage effectively with ethnic communities must reassess how knowledge is produced and conveyed, how we structure partnerships within stratified communities, and how to grow from issue-based partnerships to broader communities of interest.

Transformaciones urbanas post desastre en Valparaíso. Estado y planes de reconstrucción

Valparaíso ha experimentado transformaciones urbanas a partir de los desastres naturales. Ejemplo de esto es lo ocurrido después del terremoto de 1906, que llevó a la implementación de un plan urbano en el marco de la reconstrucción de la zona de El Almendral y del Plan de Reconstrucción y Rehabilitación, ideado para dar respuesta al incendio de 2014. El artículo compara los lineamientos del Estado chileno que fundamentan las transformaciones para dar cuenta de sus impactos en la ciudad y en sus habitantes.

A Multicriteria Planning Framework to Locate and Select Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) in Consolidated Urban Areas

The implementation of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) is increasing due to their advantages, which transcend runoff control. As a result, it is important to find the appropriate SUDS locations to maximize the benefits for the watershed. This study develops a multiscale methodology for consolidated urban areas that allows the analysis of environmental, social, and economic aspects of SUDS implementation according to multiple objectives (i.e., runoff management, water quality improvements, and amenity generation). This methodology includes three scales: (a) citywide, (b) local, and (c) microscale. The citywide scale involves the definition of objectives through workshops with the participation of the main stakeholders, and the development of spatial analyses to identify (1) priority urban drainage sub-catchments: areas that need intervention, and (2) strategic urban drainage sub-catchments: zones with the opportunity to integrate SUDS due the presence of natural elements or future urban redevelopment plans. At a local scale, prospective areas are analyzed to establish the potential of SUDS implementation. Microscale comprises the use of the results from the previous scales to identify the best SUDS placement. In the latter scale, the SUDS types and treatment trains are selected. The methodology was applied to the city of Bogotá (Colombia) with a population of nearly seven million inhabitants living in an area of approximately 400 km2. Results include: (a) The identification of priority urban drainage sub-catchments, where the implementation of SUDS could bring greater benefits; (b) the determination of strategic urban drainage sub-catchments considering Bogotá’s future urban redevelopment plans, and green and blue-green corridors; and (c) the evaluation of SUDS suitability for public and private areas. We found that the most suitable SUDS types for public areas in Bogotá are tree boxes, cisterns, bioretention zones, green swales, extended dry detention basins, and infiltration trenches, while for private residential areas they are rain barrels, tree boxes, green roofs, and green swales.

Institutional uncertainty, fragmented urbanization and spatial lock-in of the peri-urban area of China: A case of industrial land redevelopment in Panyu

Institutional arrangements can exert significant impact on land use and the spatial pattern for a region. Since the reform opening, the Pearl River Delta (PRD) area of China has witnessed an explosive amount of bottom-up rural industrialization. This situation has given rise to a fragmented urbanized landscape in peri-urban areas. In 2009 the Guangdong government initiated a comprehensive urban and rural redevelopment plan known as the Three-Renewal Policy. This paper begins with an analysis of the double-track land system and their impact on fragmented urbanization in peri-urban areas. Taking a typical peri-urban area such as the Panyu district of Guangzhou as a case study, this paper demonstrates the industrial land redevelopment practice created by the Three-Renewal Policy. The paper argues that the existing fragmented land use pattern in Panyu has been somewhat locked in, and the redevelopment of rural industrial land has been difficult due to historical institutional uncertainty and path dependency. The uncertainty caused by volatile redevelopment policies, absence of trust between local government and villagers, long-time reliance of villages on land leasing income, and high transaction costs to achieve consensus among villages serve as key barriers to redevelopment. These problems have led to a prolonged redevelopment process and low participation of villages. The results suggest that further institutional change and more collaboration among various parties are necessary to overcome the current barriers of spatial lock-in to push forward the redevelopment of collective industrial land.

Community participation in urban road infrastructure redevelopment: Indian scenario

Urbanisation is an international phenomenon and intrinsically linked with the development of a country. For successful and sustainable urban redevelopment planning and implementation, participation of the local community needs to be strategically planned, as its members have an existing usage pattern of the infrastructure and surrounding areas and can be categorised as an important group of stakeholders. Urban road projects traverse a larger area and affect diverse and multiple groups in the community. In India, the practice of community participation for urban redevelopment projects is still at a nascent stage. Research discussed in this paper adopts a case study approach to understand the dynamics of effective community participation for road redevelopment projects in an Indian context. The paper discusses global research in this area and adoption of community participation in case studies of two urban road redevelopment projects in India. The findings show that the structure of public consultation and the parameters to be considered are different for urban road projects planned for core urbanised areas and peri-urban areas. After due consideration of these parameters, community participation should be strategically planned and implemented by the promoters of these projects.

Property rights, urban land markets and the contradictions of redevelopment in centrally located informal settlements in Bogotá, Colombia, and Buenos Aires, Argentina

ABSTRACTFollowing rapid urban growth over the past four decades, informal settlements originally located in peripheral areas of large Latin American cities are now occupying increasingly valuable land in the central city. As a result, these communities are facing intense redevelopment pressures with important implications for housing accessibility. Although this situation is common in the region, central city redevelopment assumes a variety of forms depending on shifting approaches to land titling under different urban governance regimes, resulting in variegated, formal, and informal land markets. This comparative historical case study of Bogotá, Colombia, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, suggests that urban redevelopment planning has drawn on two contrasting discourses of property rights: one privileging private market approaches based in the economic theory of Libertarianism; the other favouring state authority and redistribution building on the ethics of Utilitarianism. In both Bogotá and Buenos Aires, however, de facto land-titling policies have shifted between the principles of Libertarianism and Utilitarianism under different political regimes, and neither market- nor state-oriented approaches have served to safeguard low-income residents’ access to housing. Instead, the shifting influence of each discourse has structured formal and informal land markets in ways that complicate long-standing debates surrounding land titling in informal settlements.

Sisyphean Dilemmas of Development: Contrasting Urban Infrastructure and Fiscal Policy Trends in Maputo, Mozambique

AbstractIn sub‐Saharan African (SSA) cities like Maputo, land commodification is predictably fueled by plans for aspirational infrastructure serving elites. What is rather more peculiar, however, is the way in which the promotion of some fiscal policy reforms can also inadvertently support land commodification and the uneven development it (re)produces. This article describes how efforts to host both democratic fiscal reforms (via localized exercises like participatory budgeting) and to tap into international capital circuits to stir economic development (via aspirational infrastructure and urban redevelopment plans) can produce a Sisyphean dilemma. While gains in ordinary infrastructure investments (e.g. wells, water pumps) were achieved democratically in Maputo's KaTembe district with the participatory budget, these material (and political) improvements have been rendered irrelevant by better funded aspirational infrastructure projects for KaTembe (e.g. bridges, high‐rise residential buildings, tourist facilities) supported by more opaque decisions made by the national government without residential input. Given the wide embrace of participatory budgeting in contexts of weak democracy across SSA cities and elsewhere, Maputo's experience serves as a timely alert of the risks run when this popular exercise is prematurely promoted, especially when wider‐scaled property tax reforms could better redress uneven and undemocratic urban development.

Niterói's central area urban redevelopment project: planning to achieve sustainable mobility in metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract The planning of sustainable urban mobility has recently become a top priority on the political agenda in Brazil. In 2012, Federal Government established the National Policy on Urban Mobility, determining that municipalities must prepare Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP). In this context, the integration of land-use and transport is expected to be an essential part of sustainable mobility in Brazil. This paper discusses the urban redevelopment plan for Niteroi's central areal, which seeks to integrate land use and transport policies by creating a transit-oriented neighbourhood around a ferry station. The central area is within the ferry catchment area, which represents structural transport access through the metropolitan area. This also represents a shift in the existing urban growth model and an attempt to create economic conditions, that use value capture and market-based instruments, to finance and to foster urban redevelopment in the region that faces population and economic decay.

Enacting immanent potentialities:Tcheb‐tchibstrategies at the centre of the urban fringe in Nouakchott, Mauritania

The urban fringe areas of Nouakchott, the capital city of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, have become virtual epicentres of informal property speculation, as the state‐owned land that people illegally inhabit becomes an increasingly valuable commodity in the wake of urban redevelopment plans and vast infrastructural development projects. By applying ingenious ‘poaching’ strategies based on anticipation, the marginalized, impoverished people inhabiting these areas appropriate and manipulate space in order to survive. In their attempt to counter the state's technologies of governance through what is commonly known astcheb‐tchib, a form of creative improvisation, they become a driving force in the dynamic and contested reconfigurations of the urban landscape. Based on extended ethnographic fieldwork focusing on the strategies of former nomads who are now sedentarized on the urban fringe, this article conceives large‐scale urban renewal as a dynamic process that generates an emergent space of immanent potentiality that the urban poor attempt to strategically appropriate and enact to make the most of a potentially destructive process.

Contemporary Architecture in Tirana during the Transition Period

AIM: Tirana is a city that in transition period has been changed and transformed both architecturally and in its urban form.MATERIAL AND METHODS: Unavoidable changes in urban rush: from unregulated spontaneous development and without infrastructure it has gone through the urban redevelopment planning and architectural projects.RESULTS: Actually some of the most famous European studios, from Bolles+Wilson to MVRDV, AtenaStudio, Bjarke Ingels, Archaea Studio, Grimshaw, Daniel Libeskind are facing Tirana capital that has claimed the international architectural culture’s attention.CONCLUSION: This article draws a view of contemporary architecture produced by domestic and international architects and planners in a city looking through the new century with a will of renewal throw contemporary planning and architecture.

De barrio-problema a barrio de moda: gentrificación comercial en Russa-fa, El “Soho” valenciano

Russafa neighborhood in Valencia (Spain) has become the center of one of the most ambitious urban redevelopment plans implemented by the local council in recent years. This old neighborhood of merchants and artisans, that during the 80's and 90’s experienced a long period of degradation and neglect, is today the multicultural trendy district for tourists and citizens The aim of this paper is to show the gentrification process emerged in this neighborhood, and how from the abandonment that characterized it just a decade ago, it has undergone a fast process of festivalization and economic transformation with the arrival of the “creative classes”, that so far has caused few reactions, despite being a historically active neighborhood in urban social movements. We will focus on the study of the retail sector in order to illustrate and analyze this process, using GIS and distinguishing three types of stores: traditional, immigrant and gentrifiying stores.

Adaptive reuse of traditional Chinese shophouses in government-led urban renewal projects in Hong Kong

Conservationists and government authorities acknowledge that adaptive reuse of historic buildings contributes to urban sustainability. Traditional Chinese shophouses are a major historic building typology found in the old districts of Asian cities. In Hong Kong, the few remaining shophouses are generally deteriorating and are increasingly under threat of demolition for urban renewal. However, adaptive reuse of these buildings has created many social concerns. In light of these concerns, evaluating adaptive reuse potential needs to incorporate a much broader sustainability framework than simply physical building conditions. This study examines the extent to which obsolescence, heritage value and redevelopment pressures have affected the adaptive reuse of shophouse intervention in government-led urban renewal projects. Interestingly, the results based on adaptive reuse potential find no consistent relationships among the adaptive reuse actions of eight cases in urban renewal districts of Hong Kong. Instead, the question of revitalizing shophouses is determined by whether they are within an urban renewal redevelopment plan. This study further explores the broader urban sustainability framework reflected in eight case studies of shophouse revitalization in three renewal districts. It includes a qualitative synthesis of the social, environmental, economic, and political considerations contributing to the adaptive reuse of shophouses in urban renewal.

Multiplexes, corporatised leisure and the geography of opportunity in India

abstractWhile earlier cinemas were built in response to growing urban populations during the twentieth century, the first wave of multiplexes in India were built in anticipation of future wealth. In recent years, multiplex developments have been targeting various areas identified for growth in the urban redevelopment plans now being adopted across India, anticipating a larger “consuming class” spreading beyond existing pockets of affluence and occupying suburban and satellite townships in what were until recently brown and greenfield sites. Exclusive leisure facilities such as the multiplex illustrate the growing socio-spatial segregation in Indian cities, and suggest the ways the consuming classes are transforming urban space in their own image. As such, while the significance of the multiplex to cultural perspectives in the “New India” is widely noted, they also illustrate much broader issues of the political economy of India that are almost never discussed in the same breath as cinema, including taxation and investment, environmental management and the politics of land zoning and land acquisition.

Reasons and Countermeasures of Traffic Congestion under Urban Land Redevelopment

Urban land redevelopment which is a reconstruction on a previously developed area with existing transportation facilities is an important component of city evolution. While improving land use efficiency, it can bring negative impact to transportation system, such as causing traffic congestion. Especially in China, there are many examples about redevelopment projects causing traffic congestion. For a better guidance of land redevelopment of China, it is necessary to find the reason caused traffic congestion after urban land redevelopment and provide some corresponding countermeasures. The objective of this study is not only to attract attention to the transportation during urban land redevelopment planning and management, but also to provide a way to reduce traffic congestion. In this paper, we first analyzed why traffic congestion happened after urban land redevelopment through some classical examples. We didn’t stop at the apparent reason, but do deep analysis. As a result, we uncovered the traffic congestion after redevelopment is due to inappropriate land use and transportation facilities under redevelopment, but the real cause is originated from urban and transportation planning and management. Consequently, we offered some corresponding countermeasures from three aspects: (1) before development, ingrate urban land and transportation and do a rational planning to avoid inappropriate redevelopment planning; (2) during development, improve and strengthen management and control to ensure that the redevelopment project are proper; (3) after redevelopment, implement traffic congestion management of both traffic supply and demand to relief traffic congestion.

Civilizing the City: Socialist Ruins and Urban Renewal in Central Vietnam

The shift to “market socialism” has brought rapid and profound changes to urban landscapes in Vietnam. Focusing on the fate of socialist architecture and urban design under contemporary urban redevelopment and renewal plans, this essay explores the transformation of Vinh City, capital of the province of Nghệ An, from a center of socialist utopian modernity and postwar urban recovery to a symbol of urban blight and late socialist decay. Destroyed by aerial bombing during the war with the United States, Vinh City was redesigned and rebuilt in the postwar years with East German aid, technology, and urban planning expertise. A primary focus of urban reconstruction was Quang Trung communal housing, consisting of eighteen hundred apartments and dormitories in five-story buildings that housed more than eight thousand residents, mainly workers and veterans in need of housing after the war. Since 2004, sections of Quang Trung have been demolished and replaced with a trade center and high rise condominiums. Based on ethnographic and historical research in Vietnam and Germany, the essay traces new strategies of urban governance that endeavor to reorder and redesign city space through acts of architectural destruction and reconstruction that likewise infuse capitalist logics and values, such as privatization and self-actualization, into the cityscape. Emerging geographies of neoliberalism in Vietnam are shown to be contingent upon the pathologization of socialist “ruins” and urban practices, and their eradication from the landscape of urban memory. Visual spectacles of demolition thus signify new aesthetic and economic regimes that link capitalist redevelopment and redesign to the formation of modern, prosperous, and “civilized” cities and citizens.

상해(上海) 신천지(新天地) 주거지 및 '석고문이농주택(石庫門里弄住宅)'의 재생 특성에 관한 연구

Cities developed by prosperity of industrial activities are inflated due to the rapid influx of the urban population. In the process, their structure was reorganized with overall urban redevelopment methods. As the a results from the propulsion of overall redevelopment plan, the city environment exposed uniform urban landscapes, absence of sense of place for permanent abodes and other urban problems. At the beginning of the 21st century, people with introspections on the problems focused their attention on making their places attractive using their place`s unique identity so that people could feel like to stay there for a long time. They tried to regenerate buildings and cities while still maintaining spatial and historical context of their living environment. This study looks into the regeneration of Shikumen Linong House as a fine example of such a redevelopment in order to provide with a practical resource for urban redevelopment plans in Korea. The study in the first content examines the formation processes of the city of Shanghai as the gateway of the modern China. In the second, it looks into the formation processes and characteristics of Shikumen Linong House in the Xintiandi complex between 1920 and 1930`s. In the end, it analyses spatial and formational characteristics and the applied dwelling regeneration method for the of Shikumen Linong House in the Xintiandi complex.