Spatial form and spatial restructuring are key concerns of all the papers in this issue: at the macro-scale, the transformation of metropolitan structure; at the intra-urban level, the configuration and transition of social space; and at a finer scale, the architectural representation of mega-projects. Following the editors’ introduction three papers consider the transition of governance in Chinese cities. The next two papers describe changes in the built environment, namely spatial restructuring and the transformation of city-regions. Then two papers deal with social space and the changing living environment of various social groups. Finally, two papers focus on the representation of the built environment and the implications of urban form for sustainability.

 

As the editors conclude, while the papers here illustrate profound market re-orientation in China, they do not suggest a definitive trajectory towards the retreat of the state. In fact, Chinese cities depict a very complex picture of re-orientation towards the market while strengthening state regulation in urban processes. It will be interesting to see how the Chinese built environment evolves in the era of neoliberalization.

 

• The Transition of Chinese Cities 
  Fulong Wu and Duanfang Lu
• Designing to Govern: Space and Power in Two Wuhan Communities 
  David Bray
• Regional Cooperation in the Pan-Pearl River Delta: A Formulaic Aspiration or a New Imagination? 
  Anthony G.O. Yeh and Xu Jiang
• Kunshan Model: Learning from Taiwanese Investors 
  Shiuh-shen Chien and Litao Zhao
• Spatial Restructuring in Urban China amid Globalization and Economic Reform: The Case of Guangzhou
  Lachang Lu and Linda Mccarthy
• From Suburbia to Post-Suburbia in China? Aspects of the Transformation of the Beijing and Shanghai Global City Regions
  Fulong Wu and Nicholas Phelps
• From Homogenous to Heterogeneous: The Transformation of Beijing’s Socio-Spatial Structure
  Jian Feng, Fulong Wu and John Logan
• Rural Migrants, Urban Migrants and Local Workers in Shanghai: Segmented or Competitive Labour Markets?
  Yu Chen and Caroline Hoy
• Architecture as Branding: Mega Project Developments in Beijing
  Xuefei Ren
• Shanghai’s Rapid Urbanization: How Sustainable?
  Rebecca L.H. Chiu
• Publication Review

 

This issue provides a snapshot of European rail at the start of 2009, while detecting the main changes which took place over the last two decades. It then examines the scope for improving the position of passenger and freight railways in European transport and the role that railways can play in delivering current European transport policies. In the current transportation policy arena the challenges for European railways are enormous but so are the opportunities, both of these are highlighted in this special issue, the papers each examining different perspectives.

 

• The Prospects for European Railways: Is the Second Railway Age Still Here or Yet to Begin?
  Moshe Givoni and Torben Holvad
• Trends in European Railways over the Last Two Decades
  John Preston
• Review of Railway Policy Reforms in Europe
  Torben Holvad
• Rail Privatization and Competitive Tendering in Europe
  Gunnar Alexandersson
• Magic Carpets and Seamless Webs: Opportunities and Constraints for High-Speed Trains in Europe
  Peter Hall
• Are Railways ‘Climate Friendly’?
  Moshe Givoni, Christian Brand and Paul Watkiss
• Opening the Market in the Rail Freight Sector
  Stane Božičnik
• The Impact of Railway Station Development on Urban Dynamics: A Review of the Amsterdam South Axis Project
  Frank Bruinsma
• Improving the Quality of the Door-to-Door Rail Journey: A Customer-Oriented Approach
  Martij N Brons and Piet Rietveld
• East European Rail: The State of the Network
  Katalin Tánczos and György Bessenyei
• Publication Reviews

Reflecting the differing approaches across Western and Eastern Europe, the contributors to this issue of Built Environment explore the pathways towards creative and/or knowledge cities and discuss the implications for such cities in terms of social inclusion and planning policies – issues which are of critical importance in the face of world economic recession.

 

• Can We Plan the Creative Knowledge City? Perspectives from Western and Eastern Europe
  Caroline Chapain and Peter Lee
• Rethinking the Knowledge-Based Economy
  Chris Collinge and Adreene Staines
• Creative and Knowledge Cities: Development Paths and Policies from a European Perspective
  Sako Musterd and Olga Gritsai
• Becoming a Creative City: The Role of Policy in the Case of Sofi a
  Evgenii Dainov
• Becoming a Knowledge City: The Example of Toulouse
  Elisabeth Peyroux, Michel Grossett i and Denis Eckert
• The Emergence of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area as an International Hub of the Knowledge Industries
  Mari Vaatt Ovaara
• The Barcelona Metropolitan Region: From Non-Existence to Fame
  Montserrat Pareja-Eastaway
• Creative Cities in England: Researching Realities and Images
  Caroline Chapain and Roberta Comunian
• ‘Complexcities’: Locational Choices of Creative Knowledge Workers
  Julie Brown and Michał Męczyński
• Knowledge-Based Economy and Related Educational Issues: The Case of Birmingham
  John Gibney, Alex Burfi tt and Alan Murie
• The Creative Economy and Social Sustainability: Planning for Opportunity and Growth
  Peter Lee, Alex Burfi tt and Andrew Tice
• Deepening Social Divisions and the Discourse of Knowledge and Creativity across the Cities of Europe
  Chris Collinge and Sako Musterd

Sustainable communities are those which are safe and secure, and where people want to live. Minimizing carbon emissions is crucial, but not at the expense of preventing crime and the fear of crime. In this issue of Built Environment Rachel Armitage and Lorraine Gamman and their contributors introduce the issues of sustainability and crime reduction and ask whether there are tensions between the aims of the two agendas 

– sustainability and security – or can the two be mutually reinforcing.

 

• Security via Sustainability: A New Look
  Rachel Armitage, University of Huddersfield and Lorraine Gamman, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London
• An Overarching Framework for Sustainability 
  Deborah Fox, Surrey County Council
• Reconciling Security with Sustainability: The Challenge for Eco-Homes 
  Rachel Armitage and Leanne Monchuk, University of Huddersfield
• Crime Prevention, the Planning System, and Sustainable Development: Addressing Policy Challenges in English Practice
  Ted Kitchen, Sheffield Hallam University
• Accessibility, Urban Design and the Whole Journey Environment
  Graeme Evans, London Metropolitan University
• Manipulating Permeability as a Process for Controlling Crime: Balancing Security and Sustainability in Local Contexts
  Paul Cozens and Terence Love, Curtin University, Perth
• SafeGrowth: Moving Forward in Neighbourhood Development 
  Gregory Saville, Alternation Consulting and University of Calgary
• Less is More: What Design Against Crime Can Contribute to Sustainability 
  Lorraine Gamman and Adam Thorpe, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design

The combination of climate change and increasing flood risks poses new challenges and new conditions for spatial planning in both urban and rural areas. Concentrating on delta areas, this issue examines the effects of rising water levels (sea, lake and river) and discusses a broad range of adaptive measures available to mitigate these effects.

 

• Climate Change, Flood Risk and Spatial Planning
  Hugo Priemus and Piet Rietveld
• Reinventing the Dutch Delta: Complexity and Conflicts
  Han Meyer
• Adaptation to Climate Change: A Framework for Analysis with Examples from the Netherlands
  Pier Vellinga, Natasha Marinova and Jantsje M. van Loon-Steensma
• The Battle of Tokyo and Dhaka against Floods
  Bianca Stalenberg and Han Vrijling
• Evaluating Local Flood Mitigation Strategies in Texas and Florida
  Samuel D. Brody, Sarah P. Bernhardt, Sammy Zahran and Jung Eun Kang
• Planning Policy, Sustainable Drainage and Surface Water Management: A Case Study of Greater Manchester
  Iain White and Alexandra Alarcon
• Clumsy Floodplains and the Law: Towards a Responsive Land Policy for Extreme Floods
  Thomas Hartmann
• Rural Solutions for Threats to Urban Areas: The Contest over Calamity Polders
  Dik Roth and Jeroen Warner
• Floods and Residential Property Values: A Hedonic Price Analysis for the Netherlands
  Vanessa E. Daniel, Raymond J.G.M. Florax and Piet Rietveld
• Water in Residential Environments
  Tom Kauko, Roland Goetgeluk and Hugo Priemus

Advocates of the compact city highlight the benefits of its relatively high density and mixed land use: an urban form which encourages walking and cycling, provides social and cultural vitality, with facilities in easy reach of residents and supports local businesses, as there is a larger population to serve. But is the compact city a relevant concept in the predominantly urban twenty-first century? This is an underlying question which contributors to this issue address from a number of different perspectives.

 

• Revisiting the Compact City
  Nicola Dempsey 
• High Urban Densities in Developing Countries: A Sustainable Solution?
  Seema Dave
• Is there Room for Privacy in the Compact City?
  Morag Lindsay, Katie Williams and Carol Dair
• Mixed Use Trade-offs: How to Live and Work in a ‘Compact City’ Neighbourhood
  Jo Foord
• Designing a Liveable Compact City: Physical Forms of City and Social life in Urban Neighbourhoods
  Shibu Raman
• Beyond Greenfield and Brownfield: The Challenge of Regenerating Australia’s Greyfi eld Suburbs
  Peter W. Newton
• Adapting to Climate Change in the Compact City: The Suburban Challenge
  Katie Williams, Jennifer L.R. Joynt and Diane Hopkins 
• The Future of the Compact City
  Nicola Dempsey and Mike Jenks

Mega-projects are at the core of contemporary Arab town planning, and the papers in this issue of Built Environment illustrate the primacy of the urban project in the planning of large cities in the Arab World over the last twenty years. That said, is there an ‘Arab’ way of creating big projects? Can we highlight Arab specificities in the manner of implementation of such urban actions, or indeed within the eight countries – Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon and Syria – discussed by the contributors to this issue?

 

• Arab Mega-Projects: Between the Dubai Effect, Global Crisis, Social Mobilization and a Sustainable Shift
  Pierre-Arnaud Barthel
• Urban Highways as an Embodiment of Mega and Elite Projects: A New Realm of Conflicts and Claims in Three Middle Eastern Capital Cities
  Agnès Deboulet
• Property Investments and Master Projects in Damascus: Urban and Town-Planning Metamorphosis
  Valérie Clerc and Armand Hurault 
• Tanger-Med and Casa-Marina, Prestige Projects in Morocco: New Capitalist Frameworks and Local Context
  Pierre-Arnaud Barthel and Sabine Planel
• A Glimpse of Dubai in Khartoum and Nouakchott : Prestige Urban Projects on the Margins of the Arab World
  Armelle Choplin and Alice Franck
• The Development of the Bay of Algiers: Rethinking the City through Contemporary Paradigms
  Madani Safar Zitoun
• Major Urban Projects and the People Affected: The Case of Casablanca’s Avenue Royale
  Isabelle Berry-Chikhaoui
• Reactions ‘From Below’ to Big Urban Projects: the Case of Rabat
  Hicham Mouloudi
• Exception as the Rule: High-End Developments in Neoliberal Beirut
  Marieke Krij nen and Mona Fawaz

Delivering good quality, cost-effective public transport has been largely unrealized in the vast majority of the world’s urban areas. A reasonably affordable technology that provided quality customer experience seemed beyond the reach of transport planners until a small group of innovative policy and design professionals in a relatively unknown Brazilian city reinvented the sector.

 

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) was created to deliver metro-like capacity and quality but at an affordable price. This issue of Built Environment traces both the history of and the current trends in BRT across the globe, providing a regional perspective on progress and challenges.

 

• Bus Rapid Transit: A Public Transport Renaissance 
  Lloyd Wright
• Curitiba: The Cradle of Bus Rapid Transit 
  Luis Antonio Lindau, Dario Hidalgo and Daniela Facchini
• BRT in Latin America – High Capacity and Performance, Rapid Implementation, Low Cost 
  Dario Hidalgo and Aileen Carrigan
• Bus Rapid Transit in the United States 
  William Vincent
• The European Bus with a High Level of Service (BHLS): Concept and Practice 
  Odile Heddebaut, Brendan Finn, Sébastien Rabuel and François Rambaud
• Africa: Transforming Paratransit into Bus Rapid Transit 
  Annie Weinstock and Aimee Gauthier
• Bus Rapid Transit in Australasia: An Update on Progress
  Graham Currie and Alexa Delbosc
• BRT’s Influence on Public Transport Improvements in Indonesian Cities
  John Ernst and Heru Sutomo
• Bus Rapid Transit Projects in Indian Cities: A Status Report 
  Geetam Tiwari and Deepty Jain
• Bus Rapid Transit in China 
  Karl Fjellstrom

At the heart of much new planning policy directed towards creating healthy and sustainably urban areas are two modes of transport – walking and cycling. With contributions from the UK, US, Australia and mainland Europe, this issue focuses on walking and cycling from a broad perspective. It considers what we need to know about these ‘active transport’ modes to understand their importance; the evidence for what works and how much change might be possible and over what timescales; and the benefi ts from such change.

 

• The Role of Walking and Cycling in Advancing Healthy and Sustainable Urban Areas 
  Miles Tight and Moshe Givoni
• Walking and Cycling for Healthy Cities
  John Pucher and Ralph Buehler
• Tackling Obesity by Urban Planning? Recent Research and a European Case Study: Some Evidence and Perspectives
  Clotilde Minster
• Promoting Walking and Bicycling: Assessing the Evidence to Assist Planners
  Ann Forsyth and Kevin Krizek
• Shaping the City for Walking and Cycling: A Case Study of Lancaster
  Colin Pooley, Dave Horton, Griet Scheldeman and Richard Harrison
• Walkability, Social Inclusion and Social Isolation and Street Redesign
  Carmel Boyce
• The Journey and the Destination Matt er: Child-Friendly Cities and Children’s Right to the City
  Carolyn Whitzman, Megan Worthington and Dana Mizrachi
• Aesthetic Aspects of Walking and Cycling
  Paul Timms and Miles Tight
• The Health Economic Case for Infrastructure to Promote Active Travel: A Critical Review
  Jane Powell, Anja Dalton, Christian Brand and David Ogilvie
• Evaluating Active Travel: Decision-Making for the Sustainable City
  James Macmillen, Moshe Givoni and David Banister

This issue of Built Environment examines the notion of informality in cities, offering examples of cutting edge research concerning the subject. The contributors address informal urbanism in a number of ways, showing not just the subject’s versatility and diversity, but also allowing for some common themes to emerge – in spite of geographical, methodological and theoretical differences. 

 

Mahyar Arefi in his exploration of the Pinar settlement in Istanbul and Kim Dovey and Ross King in their examination of Southeast Asian informal residential formations seek an underlying order, a typology of sorts. Tom Anyamba’s interrogation of Nairobi and Gareth Doherty and Moises Silva’s exploration of one of Rio’s infamous favelas focus on socio-economic factors. Informal urbanism as a strategy for survival and assertion of an ethnic identity is a theme that unites both Petra Kuppinger’s study of an Islamic community centre in Stuttgart and Yasser Elsheshtawy’s mapping project of Abu Dhabi’s urban spaces and their use by a marginalized segment of society. Most importantly, these papers show that informal urbanism enriches the lives of city inhabitants and in many ways strengthens the liveability of cities.

 

• The Informal Turn
  Yasser Elsheshtawy
• Forms of Informality: Morphology and Visibility of Informal Settlements
  Kim Dovey and Ross King
• Formally Informal: Daily Life and the Shock of Order in a Brazilian Favela
  Gareth Doherty and Moises Lino E Silva
• Order in Informal Settlements: A Case Study of Pinar, Istanbul
  Mahyar Arefi
• Informal Urbanism in Nairobi
  Tom Anyamba
• Vibrant Mosques: Space, Planning and Informality in Germany
  Petra Kuppinger
• Informal Encounters: Mapping Abu Dhabi’s Urban Public Spaces
  Yasser Elsheshtawy
• Publication Reviews