garden cities, planning policy, housing policy, planning history

Sociable Cities: The 21st-Century Reinvention of the Garden City

Peter Hall and Colin Ward
04 Jun 2014

Sir Peter Hall (1932–2014) was internationally renowned for his studies on all aspects of cities and regions. He was Bartlett Professor of Planning and Regeneration at University College London and President of both the Town and Country Planning Association and the Regional Studies Association, and he produced over fifty books during his academic career which began in 1957.

Peter Hall and Colin Ward wrote Sociable Cities to celebrate the centenary of publication of Ebenezer Howard’s To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform in 1998 – an event they then marked the magnificent annotated facsimile edition of Howard’s original, long lost and very scarce, in 2003. In this revised edition of Sociable Cities, sadly now without Colin Ward, Peter Hall writes: ‘the sixteen years separating the two editions of this book seem almost like geological time. Revisiting the 1998 edition is like going back deep into ancient history’. The glad confident morning following Tony Blair’s election has been followed by political disillusionment, the fiscal crash, widespread austerity and a marked anti-planning stance on the part of the Coalition government.

But – closely following the argument of Good Cities, Better Lives: How Europe discovered the Lost Art of Urbanism (Routledge 2014), to which this book is designed as a companion – Hall argues that the central message is now even stronger: we need more planning, not less. And this planning needs to be driven by broad, high-level strategic visions – national, regional – of the kind of country we want to see.

Above all, Hall shows in the concluding chapters, Britain’s escalating housing crisis can be resolved only by a massive programme of planned decentralization from London, at least equal in scale to the great Abercrombie plan seventy years ago. He sets out a picture of great new city clusters at the periphery of South East England, sustainably self-sufficient in their daily patterns of living and working, but linked to the capital by new high-speed rail services.

This is a book that every planner, and every serious student of policy-making, will want to read. Published at a time when the political parties are preparing their policy manifestos, it is designed to make a major contribution to a national debate.

Peter Hall has produced a timely update of his book with the late Colin Ward. With Government minds turning once again to the potential of Garden Cities and Garden Suburbs, it draws on his unparalleled experience as a strategic Ministerial adviser, academic, polemicist and planning historian to set out how that potential might be maximised. And he lays down a challenge to communities and individuals understandably worried by the scale of the housing development that is coming: learn from the past, join in a coherent programme, or you risk being swamped by a tide of the very sprawl that you most fear.

Martin Crookston, Strategic Planning Consultant

Authors

Sir Peter Hall is Bartlett Professor of Planning and Regeneration at University College London and President of both the Town and Country Planning Association and the Regional Studies Association. He has produced over fifty books since the start of his academic career in 1957. He is internationally renowned for his studies on all aspects of cities and regions.

Colin Ward (1924–2010), often referred to as Britain’s most famous anarchist, wrote nearly thirty books on subjects that ranged from allotments, architecture, town planning and self-build housing, to children’s play, education, water distribution and anarchist theory.

Content

  • Part One. The First Century
    1. Howard’s Beginning
    2. Garden City: Ideal and Reality
    3. From Garden Cities to New Town
    4. Garden Cities Across the Channel
  • Part Two: Land, Life and Liberty
    5. Plotlands: The Unauthorized Version
    6. Land Settlement: The Failed Alternative
    7. Do-It-Yourself New Towns
    8. Not Counting the Nimbys
  • Part Three: The Coming Century
    9. Then and Now
    10. The Quest for Sustainability
    11. Sustainable Social Cities of Tomorrow
    12. Making It Happen

Also includes bibliography, index, illustrations and maps

June 2014 – 280 pages
Hardback 0978-0-415-73673-2 – £110.00
Paperback 0978-0-415-73674-9 – £34.99

Meet the editor

About this issue

Issue number
Volume 40 – Number 2
302 pages

Summary

This issue is dedicated to ‘Delta urbanism’, addressing the need to find special approaches and solutions for spatial planning and urban design in delta regions. The series of recent floods in urbanized delta areas shows the need for a fundamental reconsideration of urban development in delta, coastal and river plain areas.

Han Meyer is Professor of Theory and Methods of Urban Design at the Delft University of Technology. He has published a number of books dealing with the fundamentals of urbanism, the present state-of-the-art of Dutch Urbanism and on the transformation of port-cities. His present research focuses on ‘Delta-urbanism’, considering the possibility of an integrated approach of urban planning and design, hydraulic engineering and port development in delta areas.

Delta-Urbanism: New Challenges for Planning and Design in Urbanized Deltas

About this issue

Issue number
Volume 40 – Number 2
302 pages

Summary

This issue is dedicated to ‘Delta urbanism’, addressing the need to find special approaches and solutions for spatial planning and urban design in delta regions. The series of recent floods in urbanized delta areas shows the need for a fundamental reconsideration of urban development in delta, coastal and river plain areas.

This issue of Built Environment is dedicated to ‘Delta urbanism’, addressing the need to find special approaches and solutions for spatial planning and urban design in delta regions. The series of recent floods in urbanized delta areas (New Orleans 2005, Japan 2011, Bangkok 2011, New York 2012, etc.) shows the need for a fundamental reconsideration of urban development in delta, coastal and river plain areas. However, with ‘delta urbanism’ we do not mean that we should focus only on the effects of climate change and on the question of improving flood defence systems.

Deltas and coastal areas are the most urbanized and urbanizing areas worldwide; some of the world’s largest metropolises are in delta areas. Climate change, resulting in sea-level rises, larger peak discharges of rivers and increasing intensity of rainstorms will certainly have a major impact on these metropolitan areas. But climate change is not something which started recently, and it is not the only change which takes place in the urbanized world. A previous issue of Built Environment focused attention on climate change as a ‘new determinant of spatial planning’ (Priemus and Rietveld, 2009). This present issue will focus on the relations of this new determinant with other developments in urbanized deltas and tries to identify new challenges for spatial planning and urban design.

The recent and current attention to climate change and the possible impact on urbanized areas coincides with fundamental changes in urbanization and land-use patterns generally. In short, we will discuss the most important of these changes.


Land-Use Changes

Today delta regions cross the world are confronted with substantial land-use changes. A first change, related to globalization and technological progress, concerns the ports and port-related industries, which became a dominating factor in the economic and spatial development of many delta areas. Modern port and transport logistics created the need to reconsider the position and construction of these ports. De Langen (2003) and Wang et al. (2007) showed the importance of the rise of regional seaport-clusters. Until recently, many large deltas each had several seaports, which used to compete with each other. Modernization and globalization of supply chains resulted in these ports developing regional coordination and collaboration of such activities as transhipment, storage, processing and distribution of goods. The development of these new regional seaport clusters not only addresses the need for new specializations in the different ports but also the need for new interconnecting infrastructures among the ports of a regional cluster. A recent study of the Flemish-Dutch Delta (Vanelslander et al., 2011) emphasizes that the port of the future will be a continuously innovating port, dependent on and collaborating with advanced knowledge institutions. In order to be attractive to the knowledge economy, authorities in deltas should pay attention to the quality of the natural environment. The presence of interesting natural environments with wetlands and beaches and with facilities for swimming, sailing, fishing, tracking and biking, is an important trump card of regional port clusters for the future.

The processes of modernization and reorganization of ports are accompanied by new urban developments in former port and dockland areas. A great deal of academic research has been devoted to this development over the last twenty-five years or so (for instance Hoyle et al., 1988; Meyer, 1999; Desfor et al., 2011). It has become clear that the urbanization of waterfronts leads not only to an extension of the urban territory, but also to changes in the spatial and functional structures of the cities. The new waterfront developments play an important role in branding strategies designed to change the dominant image of the industrial port city to a post-industrial creative and knowledge city.

A third change regards the energy-transition, which is (or can be) related directly with the previous two mentioned changes. Many large ports are hubs of transport, processing and distribution of fossil fuels. A real energy transition might have serious consequences for the role and position of these ports. Delta regions might change their role from distribution centres of fossil fuels to production centres of new types of energy, using the natural dynamics of the delta: wind, sun, tidal energy and currents.

The fourth change concerns food production, both agriculture and fishing. The alluvial soils of delta areas are the most fertile of the world, and the delta waters are the nurseries of many species of fish and shellfish. Considered in the perspective of the world food problem, delta areas can and should play a crucial role. In the processes of spatial development in such areas, agriculture and fishing seem to be competing with urbanization, industrialization and even with nature conservation. It is important to find new approaches to agriculture in deltas, which can be combined with repair of estuarine nature. Research-experiments in this field are encouraging (Stuyt et al., 2006).

 

Building with Nature

Since the 1960s, environmentalists, nature organizations and landscape architects like Ian McHarg (1969) have emphasized the unique and precious, but also vulnerable qualities of deltas and estuaries in the worldwide ecosystems of rivers and oceans. The study by Costanza et al. (1997) of the economic value of ecosystems is scientific confirmation of the importance of deltas and estuaries. Meanwhile, organizations like the World Wildlife Fund, America’s Wetlands and the Wetland Foundation are considered important players in many deltas worldwide. The need to protect the biodiversity and especially the species which are dependent from the specific delta conditions (land-water gradients, salt-fresh water gradients) is not the only reason for paying attention to the natural environment. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, deltas, especially in the Western world, became victims of serious erosion and decay, caused by transformation of these natural systems into man-made, engineered systems. Human interventions in the river and delta systems, such as damming and channelization, caused a substantial decrease in the transport of sediment by the rivers to the deltas. Moreover, drainage resulted in land subsidence in many delta regions. Together these processes have led to serious erosion of many urbanized deltas (Saeijs, 2006; van der Meulen et al., 2007; Mulder et al., 2009). The Nile delta is an extreme example, but also the Dutch delta and the Mississippi river delta are suffering from this. The question is to what extent sediment supply and the water retention and absorption capacity of delta areas can be restored, by repairing the natural system and/or introducing artificial methods of sediment supply and new drainage technologies. ‘Building with Nature’ and ‘Working with Water’ have become new slogans in delta technology during the last decade, for instance in the report of the Dutch Delta Committee (Deltacommissie, 2008).

These slogans express a new approach to hydraulic and coastal engineering, with new collaborations between ‘traditional’ civil engineers and specialists with a more ecology or landscape oriented background.

 

Changes in Delta Management

Finally, how can these changes be managed and combined with new flood defence strategies? This question touches perhaps the most important change in delta areas. The two nations with the greatest expenditure on flood control systems in the twentieth century were the United States and the Netherlands (O’Neill, 2006). In both countries, their flood control systems were built by strong and centralized state-institutions: the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Dutch Rijkswaterstaat. In the Netherlands, flood control policy was combined with central government policy related to industrialization and urbanization of the delta (Meyer, 2009). This approach no longer fits the reality of local and regional communities and other stakeholders in the deltas of the twenty-first century. This is not just about ‘top-down’ versus ‘bottom-up’, but also about the roles and responsibilities of public authorities, private institutions and individual citizens. The Dutch delta might be considered as a benchmark of sophisticated delta management in the twentieth century. It was based on avoiding risks as much as possible, with the state having the monopoly in organizing this risk-avoiding policy. This approach ended up on a slippery slope from the end of the twentieth century, because of the increasing complexity of organizing this policy and because of an erosion of the role of the state. New concepts have been introduced such as the ‘multi-layer safety’ approach, which involves, in addition to building appropriate flood defences, more attention being given to the possibility of flooding and to evacuation. It also means moving responsibilities from central government to local authorities, private institutions and citizens (Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, 2009).

This issue of Built Environment addresses the increasing complexity (and the increasing awareness of this complexity by scientists, planners, designers and politicians) of urbanized deltas, resulting in a paradigm change regarding management and spatial planning in urban deltas. The question is pressing forward if more integrated and comprehensive approaches of planning and design in the delta are possible. The key issue is no longer to solve the ‘problem’ of climate change but to derive new strategies to save delta regions from erosion, subsidence and disastrous flooding; strategies that can also play a role in creating and supporting processes of changing land-use, as mentioned above, in desirable directions.

 

An Outline of the Issue

This issue comprises three sections. The first has an introductory character and starts with an exploration of the complexity of delta regions. Ed Dammers, Arnold Bregt, Jurian Edelenbos, Han Meyer and Bonno Pel argue that it makes sense to consider delta regions as complex systems and to make use of the insights of theories of complex systems. This delivers not only new theoretical perspectives on the spatial development of delta regions, but also new perspectives for the practice of spatial planning, design and governance. This article is a result of research by a consortium of Dutch universities, consultancy firms and research institutions, which tried to develop new perspectives for planning and design in the Dutch Southwest delta. This region became world famous because of the Delta Works, built in the second half of the twentieth century and an extreme example of top-down planning. While this type of planning has become impossible under the current societal conditions, interventions in the region are necessary in order to adapt the region to climate change and to changing economic, demographic and environmental conditions. The article ends with some suggestions for a new practice of planning, design and hydraulic engineering in this region.

The second contribution to the introductory section by Luuk Boelens focuses on the issue of the governance of delta regions. Boelens argues that ‘delta metropolitan regions’ worldwide are characterized by a history of self-organization, strongly related to the physical fragmentation of the delta territory. This history distinguishes delta regions fundamentally from ‘capital metropolitan areas’, which are characterized by a history of strongly centralized political power. Boelens underpins his theory with two different case studies: the Northwest European ‘Eurodelta’ of the rivers Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt, and the Asian Pearl River delta. Both delta regions have been confronted with attempts by strong central governments to get the region under control. However Boelens claims that the forces of self-organization in these regions are much stronger in the long term. Spatial planning in these delta regions should depart from the awareness of this tradition of self-organization.

The second section focuses on the interaction between the physical development of the delta region, the use and technical treatment by humans and the management of the delta region. In many delta regions this interaction has resulted in severe erosion, an increase in people’s exposure to hazards and serious decay of natural eco-systems. The need to develop an alternative approach is explained in the article on the Mississippi River delta and the Senegal River deltas by Richard Campanella. By describing the historic evolution of these delta regions, and especially of the management and technical interventions in there, he shows that both deltas have reached a point of a critical dilemma. Both delta regions find themselves at a crossroads of different approaches. One direction is the continuation of the policies and interventions as developed during the last century, which will lead to an acceleration of the erosion of the deltas and to an increase in their citizens’ exposure to hazards. The other direction will be a radically different approach, which means different types of technical treatment of the delta, different types of land use, and especially a different type of management and governance of the delta. The last will be the most difficult but, in the long term, the only one which creates perspectives for sustainable urban development.

The next three articles in this section build on this need for a new approach and focus on three different delta regions, which find themselves in different stages of physical growth or erosion.
Cornelia Redeker and Sameh A. Kantoush describe the disastrous situation of the Nile delta, which finds itself in an extremely vulnerable situation because of the building of large dams upstream. The lack of fresh water supply results in an increase of saltwater intrusion, while the lack of sediment disposal leads to land subsidence below mean sea level. The region is threatened both by flooding and by desertification. The Nile delta already suffers a daily land-loss of 34 hectares, and this is expected to increase in the future. The authors plead for more attention to grassroots initiatives, which might if not stop then at least slow down this dramatic process of land loss.

The Parana delta in Argentine, as described by Veronica Zagare, is an example of an opposite development. Because of the ongoing process of transport and disposal of enormous amounts of sediment (derived from the Andes), the land in this delta is still growing. The natural process of land creation means that the edge of the delta area is moving with a speed of between 500 metres to 1 kilometre a year. Several attempts have been made to cultivate the new land in the past, but without much success. Most of the delta territory still looks like a wilderness. Today, the growth of the delta area is a reason for two types of human intervention: one is the building of new urban settlements. While the metropolitan region of Buenos Aires has become very crowded, the new delta area provides opportunities for new urban development – both gated communities and shantytowns. Uncontrolled progress of this development will create problems for the discharge of water and result in serious floods. The second type of human intervention is the dredging of the main channels of the river in order to maintain the accessibility of the upstream seaports; the port of Buenos Aires is threatened by silting up, which is a reason for intensified dredging. These dredging activities lead to an increase in the vulnerability of the hinterland to storms and flooding from the sea. A fundamental reconsideration of policies concerning port development and shipping, urbanization and flood control will be necessary to prevent serious disasters in the future.

The fourth contribution in this section by Marcel Marchand, Pham Quang Dieu and Trang Le describes the difficult dilemma in which the Mekong delta finds itself. Because of an ingenious system of canals, constructed during French colonialism in the nineteenth century and related with the specific agriculture of rice growing, large parts of this delta territory are frequently flooded in a controlled way. The result is a coincidence of intense land use and continuous supply of fresh water and new sediment deposits. It means that the land rises with the same speed as the sea level. However this system is threatened by dam constructions upstream and by industrialization in the delta region itself. The question is whether this delta region will take the same path as many Western delta regions in the nineteenth and twentieth century, resulting in a future comparable with the eroding deltas of Nile, Mississippi and Rhine, or will the region be able to continue its unique way of natural land elevation?

The third section focuses on the specific patterns of land use in delta regions and on the meaning of design. The article by Peter Bosselmann and Sarah Moos explains the urban patterns as developed in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Pearl River Delta. Both delta regions show a strong tradition of developing urban patterns, which were able to deal with the specific conditions of the delta. While both regions have been confronted with explosive urban growth recently, the question is what lessons can be learned from this tradition which are relevant for today’s and tomorrow’s urban development. Bosselmann and Moos organized design projects with American and Chinese students in order to test some concepts, based upon historic typologies of delta cities.

Nikki Brand, Inge Kersten, Remon Pot and Maike Warmerdam were involved in a research by a consortium which investigated the possibility of using the need to enforce the Dutch coastline as a means of improving the spatial quality and accessibility of the coast. The Randstad Holland, with 6.5 million people, has a unique possibility to enhance the quality of its coastline. The use of this coast is not very intensive, mainly because the accessibility as well as the quality of most seaside resorts is rather poor. A consortium of the Dutch Delta programme, Delft University, public authorities and a dredging company investigated the possibilities of combining the task of strengthening the flood defence with a substantial improvement in the spatial quality of the Dutch coast. A process of research by design, organized in a series of workshops with experts and local stakeholders, resulted in a new vision on the coast, which will be adopted by the new Dutch delta programme.

While the second section starts with the contribution of Campanella on the Mississippi river delta, the third section ends also with the same delta region. The article by David Waggonner, Nanco Dolman, Derek Hoeferlin, Han Meyer, Pieter Schengenga, Sabien Thomaesz, Jaap van den Bout, Jaap van der Salm and Chris van der Zwet can be considered as an answer to the plea from Richard Campanella to look for another approach of the physical development of the delta. The authors participated in a large American-Dutch consortium responsible for the making the ‘Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan’, which aims to guide the Greater New Orleans metropolitan region to become ‘America’s Water City’. New Orleans already had major problems before the Katrina disaster of 2005, suffering from an economic downturn, increasing poverty and a shrinking population. Just repairing the flood defence system will not change this situation. Also in this case, design played an important role as part of a method, which combines improving water management with improving spatial quality, resulting in new economic and social perspectives. This is necessary in many urbanized delta regions. The authors claim that the process of the New Orleans plan has resulted in a method, which is also relevant for other delta cities.

 

Conclusion

The articles in this issue address a number of topics concerning urbanized deltas and climate change, which leads to the following conclusions.
First, the threats and vulnerability of flooding are not the result of climate change, but mainly of the way humans deal with the physical conditions of rivers and deltas. The decay and erosion of many delta areas, caused by human intervention, should be stopped. A fundamentally different approach is necessary.

Second, the attention to new flood defence and water management approaches should be combined and integrated with new spatial, economic and social issues. Many delta cities do not suffer only from flooding, but also from economic and social problems and poor spatial quality. The need for investment in new water management systems provides a unique opportunity to combine different goals with these investments.
Third, design can play a powerful role as part of a research method, aiming to discover new possibilities for combinations of new types of flood defence, water management and new spatial and functional features. Urbanized delta regions might become the most interesting testing laboratories to develop methods with new balances of science, engineering and design.

 

REFERENCES

Costanza, R., d’Arge, R., Groot, R., Farber, S., Grasso, M., Hannon, B., Limburg, K., Naeem, S., O’Neill, R., Paruelo, J., Raskin, R., Sutton, P. and van den Belt, M. (1997) The value of the world’s ecosystem cervices and natural capital. Nature, 387, pp. 253–260.
De Langen, P. (2003) The Performance of Seaport Clusters. A Framework to Analyse Cluster Performance and an Application to the Seaport Cluster in Durban, Rotterdam and the Lower Mississippi. Rotterdam: Erasmus Research Institute of Management.
DeltaCommissee (2008) Working Together with Water. Findings of the Deltacommissee. The Hague: Ministry of Infrastructures.
Desfor, G., Laidley, J., Stevens, Q. and Schubert, D. (2011) Transforming Urban Waterfronts. Fixity and Flow. London: Routledge
Hoyle, B.S., Pinder, D.A. and Husain, M.S. (1988) Revitalizing the Waterfront. International Dimensions of Dockland Redevelopment. London: Belhaven Press.
McHarg, I. (1969) Design with Nature. New York: Natural History Press.
Meyer, H. (1999) City and Port. Transformation of Port Cities. London, Barcelona, New York, Rotterdam. Utrecht: International Books.
Meyer, H. (2009) Reinventing the Dutch Delta: complexity and conflicts. Built Environment, 28(4), pp. 432–451.
Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment (2009) Nationaal Waterplan 2009–2015. The Hague: Rijskoverheid. Available at: http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten-en-publicaties/rapporten/2009/12/....
Mulder, J., van der Spek, A. and Van der Meulen, M. (2009) Coastal zones and climate change: a sediment perspective on adaptation, in McKee Smith, J. (ed.) Coastal Engineering 2008: Proceedings 31st International Conference Coastal Engineering. Singapore: World Scientific, pp. 4053–4064.
O’Neill, K. (2006) Rivers by Design. State Power and the Origins of U.S. Flood Control. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Priemus, H. and Rietveld, P. (2009) Climate change, flood risk and spatial planning. Built Environment, 28(4), pp. 425–431.
Saeijs, H.L.F. (2006) Turning the Tide. Essays on Dutch Ways with Water. Delft: VSSD
Stuyt, L., Van Bakel, P., Kroes, J., Bos, E., van der Elst, B., Pronk, B., Rijk, P, Clevering, O., Dekking, A., van der Voort, M., de Wolf, M. and Brandenburg W. (2006) Transitie en toekomst van de deltalandbouw. Alterra-rapport 1132, Wageningen: Alterra.
Van der Meulen, M., van der Spek, A., de Lange, G., Gruijters, S., van Gessel, S., Nguyen, B., Maljers, M., Schokker, J., Mulder, J. and van de Krogt, R. (2007) Regional sediment deficits in the Dutch lowlands: implications for long-term land-use options. Journal of Soils and Sediments, 7(1), pp. 9–16.
Vanelslander, T., Kuipers, B., Hintjens, J., and Van der Horst, M. (2011) Ruimtelijk-economische en logistieke analyse: De Vlaams-Nederlandse Delta in 2040. Antwerp/Rotterdam: University of Antwerp/Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Wang, J., Olivier, D., Noteboom, T. and Slack, B. (2007) Ports, Cities and Global Supply Chains. Aldershot: Ashgate.

deltas, urbanisation

Delta Urbanism: New Challenges for Planning and Design in Urbanized Deltas

About this issue

Issue number
302 pages

Summary

This issue is dedicated to ‘Delta urbanism’, addressing the need to find special approaches and solutions for spatial planning and urban design in delta regions. The series of recent floods in urbanized delta areas shows the need for a fundamental reconsideration of urban development in delta, coastal and river plain areas. 

Editor: Han Meyer
29 May 2014

This issue of Built Environment is dedicated to ‘Delta urbanism’, addressing the need to find special approaches and solutions for spatial planning and urban design in delta regions. The series of recent floods in urbanized delta areas (New Orleans 2005, Japan 2011, Bangkok 2011, New York 2012, etc.) shows the need for a fundamental reconsideration of urban development in delta, coastal and river plain areas. However, with ‘delta urbanism’ we do not mean that we should focus only on the effects of climate change and on the question of improving flood defence systems. 

Contents

  • Delta-Urbanism: New Challenges for Planning and Design in Urbanized Deltas
    Han Meyer
  • Urbanized Deltas as Complex Adaptive Systems: Implications for Planning and Design
    Ed Dammers, Arnold K. Bregt, Jurian Edelenbos, Han Meyer and Bonno Pel
  • Delta Governance. The DNA of a Specific Kind of Urbanization
    Luuk Boelens
  • Fluidity, Rigidity, and Consequence. A Comparative Historical Geography of the Mississippi and Sénégal River Deltas and the Deltaic Urbanism of New Orleans and Saint-Louis
    Richard Campanella
  • The Nile Delta – Urbanizing on Diminishing Resources
    Cornelia Redeker and Sameh A. Kantoush
  • Dichotomous Delta: between the Natural and the Metropolitan: The Case of the Parana Delta, Argentina
    Veronica Zagare
  • Mekong delta: Living with Water, But for How Long?
    Marcel Marchand, Dieu Quang Pham and Trang Le
  • The Metropolitan Landscapes of the Pearl River Delta and the San Francisco Bay Area
    Peter Bosselmann and Sarah Moos
  • Research by Design on the Dutch Coastline: Bridging Flood Control and Spatial Quality
    Nikki Brand, Inge Kersten, Remon Pot and Maike Warmerdam
  • New Orleans after Katrina: Building America’s Water City
    David Wagonner, Nanco Dolman, Derek Hoeferlin, Han Meyer, Pieter Schengenga, Sabien Thomaesz, Jaap Van Den Bout, Jaap Van Der Salm and Chris Van Der Zwet
  • Publication Reviews

 

Crossing Boundaries: Architecture and the Influence of Other Disciplines

About this issue

Issue number

Summary

Editor: Hugh Barton
15 Apr 2014

Contents

  • Crossing Boundaries: Architecture and the Influence of Other Disciplines
    Bechir Kenzari, Yasser Elsheshtawy
  • Architecture as Media Event: Mario Sironi and the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution, 1932
    Libero Andreotti
  • The Mythical East: Architectural Metaphors in Tayeb Saleh's Season of Migration to the North
    Yasser Elsheshtawy
  • Cooking an Architectural Happy Cosmospoiesis
    Marco Frascari
  • Windows
    Bechir Kenzari
  • The Big Architectural Adventure of Giambattista Vico
    Donald Kunze
  • Building in Memento Mori: Theses on the Photography of Architecture
    Nadir Lahiji
  • Rooms and the Question of Return in Kafka's Work
    Ayad Rahmani
  • Architecture as Inspired Machine
    Albert C. Smith, Kendra Schank Smith
  • Publication Reviews
    Peter J. Larkham

 

Transport Inequalities and Poverty

About this issue

Issue number

Summary

Editor: Gabriel Dupuy
15 Apr 2014

Contents

  • Transport, Inequalities and Poverty
    Gabriel Dupuy
  • Do Travel Conditions Increase the Social Segregation Caused by Land Price? The Case of Paris Urban Area
    Francis Beaucire, Thierry Saint-Gérand
  • Differences in Accessibility to the Job Market According to Social Status and Place of Residence in the Paris Area
    Sandrine Wenglenski, Jean-Pierre Orfeuil
  • Barcelona: Accessibility Changes and Metropolitan Transformations
    Manuel Herce Vallejo
  • Mobility of the Poor in Two European Metropolises: Car Dependence Versus Locality Dependence
    Olivier Coutard, Gabriel Dupuy, Sylvie Fol
  • Social and Political Segregation of Urban Transportation: The Merits and Limitations of the Swiss Cities Model
    Vincent Kaufmann
  • Daily Mobility and Inequality: The Situation of the Poor
    Lourdes Diaz Olvera, Dominique Mignot, Christelle Paulo
  • Transport Disadvantage and Social Exclusion in Urban Scotland
    Julian Hine
  • Rural Transport and Social Exclusion: Developing a Rural Transport Typology
    David Gray
  • Publication Reviews
    Anthony Sutcliffe, John Punter, David Banister
climate change, cities, environment

Climate Change and Cities

About this issue

Issue number
For more info download the flyer
Format: PDF 79716KB

Summary

Guest editor: Darryn McEvoy
08 Apr 2014
With input from a range of academic disciplines and based on the latest scientific knowledge, this issue addresses what climate change means for the urban environment in terms of impacts, risk assessment, adaptation, and decision-making under uncertainty. Although the papers are based on the latest research in the UK, the discussions and findings presented here are intended to have wider resonance.
 

Contents

  • Climate Change and Cities
    Darryn Mcevoy
  • Climate Scenarios and Decision Making under Uncertainty
    C.M. Goodess, J. Hall, M. Best, R. Betts, L. Cabantous, P.D. Jones, C.G. Kilsby, a. Pearman and C.J. Wallace
  • A Review of Climate Change Impacts on the Built Environment
    R.L. Wilby
  • The Role of Spatial Risk Assessment in the Context of Planning for Adaptation in UK Urban Areas
    S.J. Lindley, J.F. Handley, D. Mcevoy, E. Peet and N. Theuray
  • Adaptable Urban Drainage: Addressing Change in Intensity, Occurrence and Uncertainty of Stormwater (AUDACIOUS)
    Richard Ashley, John Blanksby, Adrian Cashman, Lynne Jack, Grant Wright, John Packman, Lorna Fewtrell, Tony Poole and Cedo Maksimovic
  • Increased Temperature and Intensification of the Urban Heat Island: Implications for Human Comfort and Urban Design
    Richard Watkins, John Palmer and Maria Kolokotroni
  • Thermal Comfort: Climate Change and the Environmental Design of Buildings in the United Kingdom
    Jacob N. Hacker and Michael J. Holmes
  • Adapting Cities for Climate Change: The Role of the Green Infrastructure
    S. Gill, J. Handley, R. Ennos and S. Pauleit
  • Publication Reviews

 

density

Density

About this issue

Issue number
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Summary

Guest editors: Michael Cohen and Margarita Gutman
08 Apr 2014
This issue approaches the subject of density from diverse perspectives. Starting from its physical definition, the articles explore complementary dimensions of density such as time, language, form, intention, context, information, technology, and complexity. Each of these dimensions suggests different policy and research 
questions for professionals, academics and their students working on the built environment. Taken together they broaden the meaning(s) of density and its significance in urban analysis and discourse. Density is much more than a simple absolute quantitative parameter; it is also a powerful relational concept. 
 

Contents

  • Density: An Overview Essay
    Michael Cohen and Margarita Gutman
  • Aid, Density, and Urban Form: Anticipating Dakar
    Michael Cohen
  • Buenos Aires: Involuntary Incentives to Metropolitan Dispersal
    Fernando Diez
  • Metropolitan Cities: Territory and Governability, the Spanish Case
    Albert Arias and Jordi Borja
  • Morphology of Density
    Roberto Doberti and Liliana Giordano
  • Ubiquitous Computing, Informatization, Urban Structures and Density
    Graham Clarke and Victor Callaghan
  • The Last Days of Low-Density Living: Suburbs and the End of Oil
    Rachel Heiman
  • Proximate Distances: The Phenomenology of Density in Mumbai
    Vyjayanthi Rao
  • On the Declining Population of the Centre: A Research Note
    Shlomo Angel
  • Publication Reviews

 

heritage conservation, education

Built Heritage Conservation Education

About this issue

Issue number
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Format: PDF 244234KB

Summary

Guest editors: Jeff Cody and Kecia Fong
08 Apr 2014
The questions central to this issue of Built Environment concern conservation education and how, in facing the myriad challenges associated with conserving built heritage, practitioners and teachers can achieve the best results. Education, conservation and heritage are all contextualized by culture, therefore to be successful built heritage conservation activities must be based upon shared cultural values. Jeff Cody and Kecia Fong identify five key themes, common to all the papers in this issue:
  • The necessity of fieldwork as a part of a student’s conservation education; 
  • The importance of collaboration or partnership as a means of advancing the field of conservation; 
  • The multi- and/or interdisciplinary nature of conservation efforts; 
  • The potential disconnect between global norms and local values; 
  • The significance of community participation in the process of heritage identification and conservation

Contents

  • Built Heritage Conservation Education
    Jeff Cody and Kecia Fong
  • An International Perspective to Conservation Education
    Jukka Jokilehto
  • All Things Useful and Ornamental: A Praxis-based Model for Conservation Education 
    Frank Matero
  • Heritage Preservation Training: An Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Methodology
    Koen Van Balen
  • Training Conservation Professionals in the Middle East
    Aylin Orbasli
  • Built Heritage Conservation Education: A Reflection from Peru
    Mirna Soto Medina and Luis Villacorta Santamato
  • Conservation and Change: Questions for Conservation Education in Urban India
    Rahul Mehrotra
  • Conservation Education as a form of Community Service in Bangkok
    Yongtanit Pimonsathean
  • On-site Conservation Training in Cambodia: A Critical Survey of Activities at Angkor
    Robert Garland Thomson
  • Publication Reviews
children, young people

Children, Young People and Built Environments

About this issue

Issue number
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Format: PDF 70241KB

Summary

Guest editors: Peter Kraftl, John Horton and Faith Tucker
08 Apr 2014
The ‘place’ of children and young people in society is perhaps more visible and contested than ever before. There are unprecedented levels of public and media debate concerning young people’s behaviour, health, education and leisure time. 
 
With papers drawn from a cross-section of current research, this issue addresses the relationship between young people and built space in different socio-cultural contexts. Importantly, the contributors explore built spaces that are outside the predominant foci of research about young people and built environments: schools, houses and playgrounds. Further, several authors highlight the lack of ‘fit’ between the methods used by academics to foster young people’s participation, and those that can be effectively (and efficiently) employed by built environment professionals to the same end.
 
It is hoped that the contributors to this issue will help to develop a dialogue between social scientists and built environment scholars and professionals – a dialogue orientated towards understanding and improving young people’s interactions with built places.
 

Contents

  • Children, Young People and Built Environments
    Peter Kraftl, John Horton and Faith Tucker
  • In Search of the Child-Friendly Hospital
    Jo Birch, Penny Curtis and Allison James
  • Airports for Children: Mobility, Design and the Construction of an Airport Education
    Peter Adey
  • ‘We Change Lives in Here’: Environments for ‘Nurturing’ in UK Primary Schools
    Michelle Newman, Andree Woodcock and Philip Dunham
  • Children’s Gardens: Answering ‘the Call of the Child’?
    Sue Wake
  • Children’s Independent Movement in the Local Environment
    Roger Mackett, Belinda Brown, Yi Gong, Kay Kitazawa and James Paskins
  • Using GIS to Make Young People’s Voices Heard in Urban Planning
    Ulla Berglund and Kerstin Nordin
  • Publication Reviews
 

Pages