New Towns-In Town and Future Urban Growth: Some Preliminary Assessments

Prospects ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 573-598
Author(s):  
Judith Martin
Keyword(s):  
Urban Growth ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
Half Century ◽  
New Towns ◽  
Urban Status ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
The Future ◽  
American Cities ◽  
The City

For over A half-century America has been an urban nation. However, a significant upsurge of concern for the cities has generally not accompanied the increasing acknowledgment of the country's urban status. In large measure, any serious governmental concern for American cities has been halfhearted. Attempts have been made to confront the problems of the nation's cities. Planners, enlightened city officials, and others have faced the intrinsic difficulty of bringing together thousands, and often millions, of individuals in a single municipal unit sometimes with limited success; but more often such attempts have been well-intentioned failures. Americans have yet to develop a consistent or coherent approach either to current urban dilemmas or to the future roles we envision for our cities. Though there are a multitude of regulations for almost every aspect of urban life, the phenomenon called “the city” continues to be as problematic for us today as it was for earlier generations of urban dwellers.

scholarly journals Urban Growth, Real Estate Development and Indigenous Property: Simulating the Expansion Process in the City of Temuco, Chile

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Francisco Maturana ◽  
Mauricio Morales ◽  
Fernando Peña-Cortés ◽  
Marco A. Peña ◽  
Carlos Vielma
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Urban Growth ◽  
Urban Expansion ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Objective Evaluation ◽  
Real Estate Development ◽  
Territorial Planning ◽  
The Future ◽  
Urban Scenario ◽  
The City

Urbanization is spreading across the world and beyond metropolitan areas. Medium-sized cities have also undergone processes of accelerated urban expansion, especially in Latin America, thanks to scant regulation or a complete lack thereof. Thus, understanding urban growth in the past and simulating it in the future has become a tool to raise its visibility and challenge territorial planners. In this work, we use Markov chains, cellular automata, multi-criteria multi-objective evaluation, and the determination of land use/land cover (LULC) to model the urban growth of the city of Temuco, Chile, a paradigmatic case because it has experienced powerful growth, where real estate development pressures coexist with a high natural value and the presence of indigenous communities. The urban scenario is determined for the years 2033 and 2049 based on the spatial patterns between 1985 and 2017, where the model shows the trend of expansion toward the northeast and significant development in the western sector of the city, making them two potential centers of expansion and conflict in the future given the heavy pressure on lands that are indigenous property and have a high natural value, aspects that need to be incorporated into future territorial planning instruments.

The Central Business District in American Cities

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Remus
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Central Business District ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Land Values ◽  
White Families ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Business District ◽  
American Cities ◽  
The City

The central business district, often referred to as the “downtown,” was the economic nucleus of the American city in the 19th and 20th centuries. It stood at the core of urban commercial life, if not always the geographic center of the metropolis. Here was where the greatest number of offices, banks, stores, and service institutions were concentrated—and where land values and building heights reached their peaks. The central business district was also the most easily accessible point in a city, the place where public transit lines intersected and brought together masses of commuters from outlying as well as nearby neighborhoods. In the downtown, laborers, capitalists, shoppers, and tourists mingled together on bustling streets and sidewalks. Not all occupants enjoyed equal influence in the central business district. Still, as historian Jon C. Teaford explained in his classic study of American cities, the downtown was “the one bit of turf common to all,” the space where “the diverse ethnic, economic, and social strains of urban life were bound together, working, spending, speculating, and investing.” The central business district was not a static place. Boundaries shifted, expanding and contracting as the city grew and the economy evolved. So too did the primary land uses. Initially a multifunctional space where retail, wholesale, manufacturing, and financial institutions crowded together, the central business district became increasingly segmented along commercial lines in the 19th century. By the early 20th century, rising real estate prices and traffic congestion drove most manufacturing and processing operations to the periphery. Remaining behind in the city center were the bulk of the nation’s offices, stores, and service institutions. As suburban growth accelerated in the mid-20th century, many of these businesses also vacated the downtown, following the flow of middle-class, white families. Competition with the suburbs drained the central business district of much of its commercial vitality in the second half of the 20th century. It also inspired a variety of downtown revitalization schemes that tended to reinforce inequalities of race and class.

Even governmentality begins as an image

Focaal ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 (61) ◽  
pp. 61-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Baxstrom
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Virtual Object ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Virtual Objects ◽  
Effective Manner ◽  
Contemporary Life ◽  
Highly Effective ◽  
The Future ◽  
The City

This article considers the complexity of contemporary urban life in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, through an analysis of planning and the plan itself as a thing in this environment of multiplicity. It argues that the plan functions as a vehicle for action in the present that does not require a singular vision of the future in order to succeed. Plans in the context of governance and urban development gesture to “the future,” but this gesture does not require “a future” in order to function in a highly effective manner. The evidence presented indicates that the primary effectiveness of the plan largely relates to its status as a virtual object in the present. Such virtual objects (plans) bind subjects to the conditions of the present within the desires and limits asserted by the institutions seeking to dominate contemporary life in the city, but this domination is never absolute, singular, or complete.

scholarly journals Interview with Associate Professor of Rijeka University Iva Rinčić

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 242-247
Author(s):  
Hanna Hubenko ◽  
Iva Rinčić
Keyword(s):  
Associate Professor ◽  
Biomedical Ethics ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Local People ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
Urban Bioethics ◽  
The Future ◽  
The City ◽  
Living Creature

Interview with associate professor Iva Rincic feels like meeting a close-minded person on a very long journey. Meet and feel that you are “on the same page”. What is urban bioethics? How is it different from bioethics in general?  What is this “Project on Bioethical Urban Life Standards: The City as the Basis for Ethics Life”? – are the main points laid down in the conversation. So, during the interview, you will find out that despite the fact that bioethics is perceived as a modern version of biomedical ethics, originally it covers a much wider area of ​​interest. Bioethics implies moral obligations of people not only to each other, but also to everything living (animals and plants) (F. Jahr (1926)). This is the science of survival (V. R. Potter (1971)). If we see bioethics in this way, then urban life is necessary as a (bio) ethical object, purpose and scope, and "the city as a living creature that is constantly growing and transforming." Within the framework of the project the main goal is to create a list of urban bioethics standards. In order to activate the mechanism of urban bioethics, Iva talks about such valuable characteristics of local people as Responsibility, Committment, Awareness, Trust, Belonging. The project “European Bioethics in Action” fed into the list of bioethical standards. Iva Rincic also presented a list of 97 standards that determine relationships between animals, plants, people and environment. Further this list will be simplified for residents of the city. Iva wants all citizens to be included in these lists. She is also sure that this is the only way to have a rather bright tool to achieve bioethical city in the future.

The Townscape Movement and the Politics of Post-War Urbanism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Divya Subramanian
Keyword(s):  
Urban Life ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Jane Jacobs ◽  
New Towns ◽  
Human Scale ◽  
Architectural Review ◽  
Post War ◽  
Planning Culture ◽  
British Planning ◽  
The City

Abstract This article examines the political and aesthetic significance of the Townscape movement, an architectural and planning movement that emerged in the 1940s and advocated for urban density, individuality, and vibrant street life. Townscape’s vernacular, human-scale vision of urban life was a significant strand in post-war planning culture, one that existed alongside the archetypal forms of social democratic planning, from new towns to tower blocks. By examining the writings of key Townscape figures associated with the Architectural Review, this article argues that Townscape engaged with the tensions at the heart of the post-war social democratic project—individualism versus community, debates over expertise and authority, and responses to the culture of affluence. In doing so, it contributes to a broader urban historiography on the post-war ‘return to the city’, showing how post-war urbanism, usually depicted as an American phenomenon centred around the figure of Jane Jacobs, had its counterpart in a uniquely British planning movement.

Walkers in the Street: American Writers and the Modern City

Prospects ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 281-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Cowan
Keyword(s):  
Urban Life ◽  
Modern City ◽  
Physical Mobility ◽  
Cultural Goals ◽  
And Control ◽  
American Cities ◽  
The City

Walking in the city is as old as cities themselves. Most of the world's urban inhabitants have usually gotten around on foot and, consequently, have mainly experienced their cities as pedestrians. What Constantinos Doxiadis notes of classical Greek cities has been true of most urban life until well into the industrial era: “Man was compelled to walk through a whole complex of buildings and live within them in order to achieve his end.” This end has traditionally included not merely physical mobility but also social and cultural goals; as one urban historian recently observed, traditional streets “tend to act both literally and metaphorically as exterior rooms in the city. They function as places as well as links.” The street is, as sociologist Robert Gutman suggests, “a social, a political, and a psychological fact. … No matter what the image of the street, it has always included a set of assumptions about who should own and control it, who would live on it and use it, the purposes for which it was built, and the activities appropriate to it.” Walking in the city has thus been from the start a complex human act, no less so in American cities than elsewhere.

scholarly journals Urbanization and climate change impacts on future urban flood risk in Can Tho city, Vietnam

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 10781-10824 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. T. L. Huong ◽  
A. Pathirana
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Urban Growth ◽  
Flood Risk ◽  
Extreme Rainfall ◽  
Urban Runoff ◽  
World City ◽  
The Future ◽  
Urban Heat ◽  
The City

Abstract. Urban development increases flood risk in cities due to local changes in hydrological and hydrometeorological conditions that increase flood hazard, and also to urban concentrations that increase the vulnerability. The relationship between the increasing urban runoff and flooding due to increased imperviousness better perceived than that between the cyclic impact of urban growth and the urban rainfall via microclimatic changes. The large-scale, global impacts due to climate variability and change could compound these risks. We present the case of a typical third world city – Can Tho (the biggest city in Mekong River Delta, Vietnam) – faced with multiple future challenges, namely: (i) climate change-driven sea-level rise and tidal effect, (ii) increase river runoff due to climate change, (iii) increased urban runoff driven by imperviousness, and (iv) enhancement of extreme rainfall due to urban growth-driven micro-climatic change (urban heat islands). A set of model simulations were used to assess the future impact of the combination of these influences. Urban growth of the city was projected up to year 2100 based on historical growth patterns, using a land-use simulation model (Dinamica-EGO). A dynamic limited-area atmospheric model (WRF), coupled with a detailed land-surface model with vegetation parameterization (Noah LSM), was employed in controlled numerical experiments to estimate the anticipated changes in extreme rainfall patterns due to urban heat island effect. Finally, a 1-D/2-D coupled urban-drainage/flooding model (SWMM-Brezo) was used to simulate storm-sewer surcharge and surface inundation to establish the increase in the flood risk resulting from the changes. The results show that, if the city develops as predicted, the maximum of inundation depth and area in Can Tho will increase by about 20%. The impact of climate change on inundation is more serious than that of urbanization. The worse case may occur if the sea level rises 100 cm and the flow from upstream happen in the high-development scenarios. The relative contribution of causes of flooding are significantly different at various locations; therefore, detailed research on adaptation are necessary for the future investments to be effective.

Return to the City of Quartz: Excavating the Future 20 Years On

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-87
Author(s):  
Alexander R. Tarr
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Urban Geography ◽  
Historical Materialist ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
The Future ◽  
Mike Davis ◽  
American Cities ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

This paper revisits Mike Davis’ seminal City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles twenty years after it was originally published. It argues that the book continues to provide an indispensable model for left, politically engaged forms of urban research. The paper criticizes the apocalyptic readings of City of Quartz that have multiplied over time and instead suggests that Davis be read for his emphasis on an urban dialectic—the constant and ongoing struggles over urban form, politics and culture that shape the geographies of Los Angeles to this day. To this end, the paper looks to the city's more recent history, especially current battles being fought over the future of downtown L.A., to illustrate how we might continue to use Davis’ framework for critical analyses of urban power. At the same time, the paper addresses inadequacies of what has been called the “L.A. School” and its singularly postmodern approach to urban questions that fail to provide coherent understanding of the material realities of modern American cities. It argues that something like an L.A. School can be more properly grounded in the historical-materialist, even socialist, forms of writing and thinking developed in works like City of Quartz and much of the critical urban geography that came in its footsteps. Ultimately the paper is a call for scholarship on Los Angeles to be deeply engaged with both the concrete and abstract dimensions of a place, not for the sake of theory alone, but to further radical praxis in Los Angeles and all American cities.

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