Urban Renaissance Research Articles

Development of Post-Industrial Heritage Landscape Design Based on Visual Cognitive Schema Theory: A Case Study of the Shou Gang Industrial Cultural Heritage Site

Post-industrial landscapes serve as crucial markers of industrial cultural heritage. This study focuses on the urban environmental form design of post-industrial civilization. Facing challenges posed by the incompatibility of traditional industrial lands with modern society, the urban renaissance of post-industrial landscapes emerges as a pivotal topic. This article defines the concepts of visual cognition, the cognitive schema, and the post-industrial landscape from the perspective of environmental psychology through literature research, case studies, and on-site investigation methods. It elaborates on the design process of the Shou Gang Industrial Cultural Heritage Site. This study shows how to create a living space that has both historical memory and meets modern needs through steps such as extracting core elements, constructing spatial schema, and promoting scene integration. The study found that, by extracting and integrating the four key visual cognitive elements of humans, objects, paths, and event, a dynamic and interactive living space schema—scene relationship—can be constructed. Finally, by summarizing the overall consciousness of the visual cognitive schema, it further emphasizes the importance of paying attention to the harmony and unity of people, behavior, and environment in the design process and realizing the sustainable utilization and development of space.

Quality function deployment approach to urban ecological public art design centred on resident needs

To improve the quality management of urban ecological public art design and the service centered on residents’ needs. Our study introduces a new Quality Function Deployment (QFD)decision-making model called Kano-FAHP-QFD, which applies to urban ecological public art design. Specifically, a new QFD framework is proposed, combining the Kano model and Fuzzy AHP (FAHP). This paper well explains the importance of ranking urban residents’ needs and the impacts of the new framework in defining the quality management of urban ecological public art design and the satisfaction of urban residents, while using the framework as a set of prioritized strategies in urban renewal to guide the design and planning of urban ecological public art. The author combined these three approaches to more accurately capture and address their respective issues and thus better understand the residents’ needs for urban ecological public art design. In essence, this study investigates how urban ecological public art can be designed and planned in urban renewal through a novel QFD algorithm for urban ecological public art design, with application case validation. Thus, the method keeps the satisfaction of urban residents in line with the positioning and strategies of urban ecological public art design, which is dedicated to enhancing urban vitality, promoting urban renaissance, and sustainable development. It also provides new research ideas for the development of urban ecological public art design in the future.

TRANSFORMING MEDELLÍN: ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN DESIGN AS AGENTS OF SOCIAL CHANGE

This article examines the transformative impact of Sergio Fajardo’s mayoral administration (2003–2007) in Medellín, Colombia, focusing on architecture and urban design projects that have promoted equity. Central to this urban renaissance was the Proyecto Urbano Integral (PUI) Nororiental, which revitalized informal settlements in the city’s northeastern zone. The initiative leveraged financing from Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM), a city-owned utility company, ensuring sustainable investment in public works without reliance on international loans. This financial model enabled the redistribution of funds to Medellín’s poorest neighborhoods, fostering transparency and combating corruption. Key to this urban strategy was the involvement of the Empresa de Desarrollo Urbano (EDU) which implemented the PUI with an intersectional planning approach combining public transit, education, culture, recreation, health, and safety initiatives. The PUI emphasized community participation through “Imaginary Workshops” promoting ownership and engagement among residents. The PUI Nororiental, enhanced by the Metrocable transit system and associated public spaces, has successfully integrated isolated neighborhoods while reducing violence and fostering social cohesion. Despite critiques of high costs, this article argues that quality public spaces and civic buildings promote community pride and destigmatization. Medellín’s “social urbanism” serves as a model for addressing inequity in Latin America and the broader Global South, demonstrating how architecture and urban design can drive social change.

Emotional economies of pleasure among the gentry of eighteenth-century England

ABSTRACT This article analyses familial cultures and exchanges of pleasure among 11 eighteenth-century gentry families. The research is based on a substantial collection of family correspondence and identifies emotion words within these letters to understand familial conversations about pleasure and the various purposes that pleasure was put to. Here pleasure is problematised and studied as an emotion. There are three main arguments. Firstly, the letters reveal a previously hidden world of family pleasure, connected to but in some ways remote from the public and sensory pleasures of the urban renaissance that most previous studies have focused on. The letters reveal an emotional economy of pleasure, where feelings materialised as currencies underlying the building and breaking of family relationships. Secondly, pleasure was not a singular or solitary feeling, but rather operated in affective clusters with other emotions such as anxiety and surprise. Finally, pleasure and displeasure were vital in keeping good order among the gentry and between the gentry and their subordinates, within inheritance systems and family dynamics where inequality and an unequal distribution of resources were part of everyday life.

Arrive and retreat: London’s ultra-prime apartment blocks as dark urban renaissance

The expansion of an archipelago of residential blocks across London’s West End has created an urban renaissance of sorts, but it is a rebirth that has targeted the expanded ranks of the global super-rich, yielding a visibly luxurious, often vacant residential remaking, rather than the aspirations for a diverse, vibrant and open urbanism envisaged some years ago for the city. New luxury apartment blocks offer high levels of privacy, security and the seamless integration of bodies and vehicles into underground or enclosed entry points. These ‘ultraland’ blocks are less places of conviviality and encounter, offering instead a kind of dark space urbanism that facilitates a partial social engagement with local environs by barely present owners. Combining an analysis of the planning applications for these developments with extensive street observation in London’s West End we discuss the social and spatial integration of these developments. We argue that a key effect is one of social ‘reduction’—the sense of null spaces that absorb bodies, furnishings and cars in ways that are the antithesis of earlier ambitions for socially vital and democratic urban spaces. We discuss the significance of these changes for contemporary life in the city more broadly.

Living in public rental housing is healthier than private rental housing a 9-year cohort study from Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study

Housing tenure is an important aspect to determine health. However, even though renters tend to have more socioeconomic disadvantages than homeowners, mortality risk between private and public renters compared with homeowners remains unclear. Japanese public rented housing, such as the Urban Renaissance Agency, has been developed for supplying an adequate living environment since 1950s. This study aimed to examine the mortality risk among older Japanese residents living in private and public rented houses compared with those living in owner-occupied houses using 9-year follow-up data. This study drew upon a 9-year follow-up of participants in the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study, a population-based cohort study of Japanese independent adults aged ≥ 65 years. Mortality from 2010 to 2019 was analyzed for 44,007 respondents. Housing tenure was defined by a questionnaire. Cox regression models were used for calculating the hazard ratio for mortality. Bonferroni correction was used to account for multiple testing between rental houses. Overall, 10,638 deaths occurred during the follow-up period. Compared with housing owners, all rental housing groups had a significantly higher risk of mortality. Among renters, participants who lived in public rental housing had the lowest risk of mortality even after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, health status, social status, and environmental status. Multiple testing among renters with Bonferroni correction showed that public renters had 0.80 times (95% CI 0.72–0.89) lower mortality risk than private renters. Although Japanese older adults living in public rental housing had a higher mortality risk than homeowners, this risk was lower than that among private renters. A positive neighborhood environment based on well-planned urban development may have contributed to this result. The results suggest that planned urban development lowers the risk of mortality in older renters in Japan.

Cities alive: Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander, and the roots of Urban Renaissance

Cities alive: Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander, and the roots of Urban Renaissance

MICHAEL W. MEHAFFY - Cities Alive. Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander, and the Roots of Urban Renaissance

Michael W. MehaffyCities Alive. Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander, and the Roots of Urban RenaissancePortland, Oregon (USA): Sutasis Press, 2017. 288 pp. Tapa blanda. Idioma: inglés. 19 €ISBN: 978-9463864046

The effects of housing providers' diversity and tenure conversion on social mix

In many countries, achieving social mixing through a mix of housing tenures became a central strategy in socially inclusive urban renaissance initiatives. While several studies have explored the relationship between tenure and social mix, they often treat social and affordable housing as a homogeneous segment, neglecting the diversity of housing providers and their individualized housing allocation strategies. There is limited understanding of the role of diverse housing providers in creating social mix. This paper aims to address this gap by examining how the presence of different types of social and affordable housing providers impacts the level of social mix and the changes in social mix resulting from tenure conversions in the housing stock owned by different providers. Using population census data in 1988 and 2002 from Warsaw, Poland, from two periods characterized by different housing policies and tenures, the paper argues that social mix was primarily associated with a combination of housing tenures and property ownership, but only in 2002. The findings suggest that limitations on tenure conversions are necessary to achieve long-term social mix. In addition, there is a need for affordable housing providers to diversify and specialize in addressing changing housing needs and dynamic housing aspirations.

A New Working Class: The Legacies of Public-Sector Employment in the Civil Rights Movement

A New Working Class: The Legacies of Public-Sector Employment in the Civil Rights Movement

The life and death of the ‘Baron mall’: The shifting politics of urban regeneration in Valparaiso

The waterfront regeneration of Valparaiso in Chile has been the expression of significant institutional efforts aimed at reaching the so-called urban renaissance of the port-city, seeking to overcome the sustained symptoms of urban decay and economic underperformance. Over the years, a locally born idea became a controversial proposal led by the central government: A privately developed commercial project, named Puerto Baron (Baron Port). This article explores spatialized political struggles both underpinning and undermining this project, from institutional and elite interests pushing its realization to social actions triggering its end. In Valparaiso political and economic forces coalesced across different scales in their attempt to materialize a project that transfers globalized spatial imaginaries with tangled territorialized politics that exceed the limits of the city. Although state-led entrepreneurialism sets the waterfront regeneration agenda, interdependencies with networks of elites and local government were key to sustaining the project. In opposition, social movement strategies of scale jumping help to contest and influence the project’s delay. The case highlights the fragile nature of governing coalitions in Valparaiso as a shift in municipal power, which brought an alignment towards grassroots actors, ended the rather flawed regeneration project of Baron Port. The paper shows how unbounded spatial politics become highly permeated by interests at different scales, though still dependent on national centralized actions and definitions.

The landscape and evolution of urban planning science

The science of urban planning has drawn on a wide range of disciplines and research perspectives. This makes it challenging to define the boundaries and directions of the field. Here, nearly 100,000 articles on urban planning are analysed to objectively determine divisions, temporal trends and influential references and actors of urban planning. In terms of the structural composition, four broad divisions are identified: (1) governance and policy, (2) economics and markets, (3) housing and (4) built and natural environment. In terms of the temporal evolution, the earliest trends were related to “welfare economics”, “agglomeration economies”, “urban economics”, and “urban growth machine”. During the 1980s and 1990s, the focus moved towards “regional policy and development”, “social welfare”, and “urban renaissance”. This trend continued during the 2000s and 2010s, heading to “urban morphology”, “participatory planning”, “urban sociology”, “global cities”, and “political economy”. The field has recently headed towards areas of “resilience”, “smart cities” and “urban green space”. These transitions have been derivative, and the paradigm shifts have been very gradual. Another key observation is a notable increase in author connectivity and international collaboration. The results provide objective insights into how the science of urban planning has historically transitioned and where it is headed.

Ecomuseum model for a bottom-up heritage management. The Ecomuseo Casilino Ad Duas Lauros Case

Ecomuseums are a way to strengthen the social role of cultural institutions, as they work for the community, and with the community. Capacity building and participatory heritage management are promoted by ecomuseums and allow local community to be the protagonist in the narration of the territory, giving it its real voice (Corsane et al., 2009). Avoiding the process of musealization, and the crystallization of the territory (Tessarolo &Ruy, 2020), ecomuseums are a way to promote and discover the living heritage. This paper aims to demonstrate the work of Ecomuseo Casilino ad Duas Lauros in Rome, in the heritage preservation and enhancement of the district. This urban ecomuseum links many headquarters, and in each one has a Comunità di Cura (Community of Care), that is composed by heritage ambassadors and collaborate with the Ecomuseum. The methodology for finding and safeguarding the heritage, developed by the Casilino, is participatory and balanced between local community and the ecomuseum scientific committee. This contribution will illustrate some of the ecomuseums’ initiatives in bottom-up heritage management collected in field research. Furthermore, it will present how the role of this ecomuseum can be an alternative for avoiding city musealization, through the promoting of the (living) heritage. Keywords: participatory heritage management; community training; ecomuseums; urban renaissance; capacity building.

'Make No Little Plans' The Incomplete but Continuing Renaissance of Liverpool

Liverpool is an endlessly fascinating, challenging city. It has a grip on people's imaginations in a way few other cities do – nationally or internationally. During the past century the city went from the second city of the greatest empire the world had ever seen into a post imperial period of economic decline and political despair. But it has emerged Phoenix-like as one of the most signi ficant examples of urban renaissance in the UK. Its story has many lessons for the external world. This paper examines this continuing if incomplete renaissance of Liverpool. It assesses the economic decline that caused its physical, social, and political fragmentation during the 1970s and the many plans since then seeking to revive and reconnect it. It charts the city's fall in the 1980s, its gradual normalization in the 1990s, its extraordinary success as a European city in the first part of this century and its eff orts to remain ambitious in an age of austerity. It identi fies the key drivers of change, in particular local, national, and European regeneration initiatives and plans. It asks what needs to be done to continue the renaissance in terms of productivity, place, and people. It examines the current risks to the city in the light of the impact of Brexit, COVID, the loss of UNESCO World Heritage Status as well as its recent political crises and the imposition of Government Commissioners. A key message from the Liverpool story for governments and other cities is that renaissance is possible even in the most diffi cult circumstances, and that public resources, commitment, and planning have a large part to play.

Replanning the central area of Wakefield, West Yorkshire: culture and regeneration, 1990–2021

ABSTRACT Towns and cities in the industrial and former coal mining areas of England have often struggled to cope with economic restructuring. This article offers a near contemporary history of the central area of one such city, where culture has become a key device for promoting development and regeneration. Three episodes of policy are distinguished: from 1990 to about 2011, the emergence of a twin-track economic strategy that combined out-of-town business parks with the remodelling of the central area partly on ‘Urban Renaissance’ principles: from 2011 onwards, continued city centre decline when previous investments had little economic impact; and after about 2020, a process of re-orientation; and as part of this, a reinvigorated attempt to rebrand the city, albeit within the continuing framework of the twin-track strategy. A reflexive methodology is used to construct the narrative. That methodology enables a joint consideration of discourse and economic realities, showing how place, branding, and planning come together in representational logics that generate both supportive and counter narratives.

Incorporation of urban differences in Tokyo, Mexico City, and Los Angeles

Reinvestment and intensification are common processes in many urban areas across the world. These transformations are often analyzed with concepts such as ‘urban regeneration’, ‘urban renaissance’, or ‘gentrification’. However, in analyzing Shimokitazawa (Tokyo), Centro Histórico (Mexico City), and Downtown Los Angeles, we realized that these concepts do not fully grasp the qualitative changes of everyday life and the contradictory character of the urbanization processes we observed. They do not take into consideration the far-reaching effects of these processes, and particularly do not address the underlying key question: how is urban value produced? Therefore, we have chosen a different analytical entry point to these transformations, by focusing on the production, reproduction, and incorporation of the intrinsic qualities of the urban. We found Lefebvre’s concept of ‘urban differences’ and Williams’ concept of ‘incorporation’ particularly useful for analyzing our empirical results. In this contribution, we compare the ‘incorporation of urban differences’ in the three case study areas and offer this concept for further discussions and applications.

A Study on Incubation Facilities as a Public Contribution to Special Urban Renaissance Districts

A Study on Incubation Facilities as a Public Contribution to Special Urban Renaissance Districts

Reflections on the post-Covid city

Abstract What will COVID-19 and the shift to remote work do to the cities of the world? The temporary disruptions have been enormous and remain enormous as of the late summer of 2022. Offices remain vacant in many large cities. Within the US, the pandemic sped up the longer-term movement of people and firms to the sunbelt. Looking forward, there seem to be two possible scenarios, depending on the pandemic events of the future. If COVID-19 is only the first of a wave of deadly global disease events, then the urban renaissance that began thirty years ago could end. If COVID-19 is a one-off pandemic, then the impact of disease and telecommuting on urban life will be more limited. The enduring demand of people to enjoy urban amenities, and the value of learning face-to-face should enable cities to survive this shock. The stark gap between these two scenarios highlights the importance of global investments in public health that can reduce the risk of future pandemics.

Social and digital vulnerabilities: The role of participatory processes in the reconfiguration of urban and digital space

In the Italian context, political and social participation in the urban dimension has experienced innovations to broaden the inclusion of citizens in public choices relating to citylife and to urban renovation. Participation found in the city a relevant space to experiment with innovation in the relationship between institutions and citizens, many initiatives advanced and developed over the years have had a powerful lever in technology: participatory budgets, consultations, public-private-non-profit partnerships. In other cases, specifically in peripheral realities, urban innovation has turned out to be detached from digital infrastructures and has benefited, rather, from the social infrastructures in the area. Civic committees, community foundations, collaboration agreements between citizens and authorities, and local community development experiences developed in peripheral contexts. Regenerating urban spaces is a political objective proposed with increasing emphasis by institutional bodies at the various levels of governance. Environmental, economic, social and urban planning intersect and overlap and often projects related to urban planning “on paper” prevail over issues related to urban communities “on territories”. Without adequate processes of participation and subjectivity of citizens living in urban contexts, no model of “urban renaissance” appears fully deployed, resulting in participatory processes that—at best—only allow for access logics in a neoliberal perspective. Through a qualitative methodology, the paper aims at presenting and investigating six case studies in major Italian cities (Rome, Naples, Milan, Turin, Florence, Reggio Calabria), in which democratic innovation and experimentation in civic engagement spread from the digital capital of citizens and the social organizations of the peripheral territory, with its specificities and its problems. In particular, the objective of the paper is to discuss and problematise the processes of participation involving and featuring vulnerable people within the reconfiguration of urban and digital spaces. Following Sutton and Kemp's approach, we consider the relationship between urban spaces and marginal communities as central to a one-to-one relationship, fostering processes of urban inclusion. Combining participatory processes in liminal marginalized communities with an institutional push toward holistic urban regeneration may develop opportunities for active citizenship, overcoming the neoliberal paradigm of the city.

Sustainability Performance of European Smart Cities: A Novel DEA Approach with Double Frontiers

Sustainability is the crux of urban renaissance. Imbibed with utopian technological planning, understanding the convergence between smart development and sustainable practices for city development is necessary. Smart cities have succeeded in bringing high standards of living to its residents. This article evaluates the long-term sustainability performance of 35 leading European smart cities over time from 2015 till 2020 to understand on how these cities address sustainability to make the concept of smart sustainable cities more actionable. A novel Double-Frontier Slack Based Measure Data Envelopment Analysis (DFSBM-DEA) model considering undesirable factors in the technology set is proposed for the assessment. An integrated relative sustainability performance assessment model considering both the optimistic and pessimistic viewpoint simultaneously, in terms of interval efficiency is used to determine the most efficient smart city under 6 various dimensions of sustainable development. These key dimensions include; Energy and Environmental Resource, Governance and Institution, Economic dynamism, Social cohesion and solidarity, Climate Change and, Safety and Security. A productivity progress assessment from a double frontier perspective using a modified Malmquist-DEA model is then used to capture the response of each smart city in terms of their productivity growth towards achieving sustainable development. Results show Dublin (ranked 1st) as the most smart and sustainable European city under all the proposed dimensions of sustainable development from the double-frontier perspective. Along with Dublin lies Oslo, Zurich and Amsterdam as the cities with high aggregate sustainability performance. The results also revealed significant difference in the productivity progress values from the optimistic and pessimistic viewpoint, thus exemplifying the significance for the proposed aggregate productivity progress measurement model. The findings of the present study contribute to knowledge and practice for smart city modellers, decision makers and urban planners, by aiding methodological clarity in assessing sustainable capacity of cities from a double frontier perspective and, in particular, by drawing attention to underlying assumptions about the role of sustainability in smart city development. This research stands as a breakthrough in the field of relative sustainability assessment using non-parametric approaches and a benchmark for global smart cities to shape their development in light of sustainability.