New Urbanism

Può la densità essere lo strumento analitico di interpretazione dei fenomeni urbani e contemporaneamente un parametro progettuale di prefigurazione dello spazio architettonico? La densità nelle sue diverse accezioni e unità di misura, costituisce un nodo di grande rilevanza per l'interpretazione dei fenomeni urbani e degli spazi architettonici. Incoraggia una riconciliazione dello sguardo quantitativo con quello mirato alla lettura qualitativa, riavvicina discipline disgraziatamente disgiunte nell'attuale pratica, suggerisce mezzi e stili di vita che sono alla base del nostro habitat. Ciò che infatti ha da sempre caratterizzato la città non è solo la sua dimensione ed il numero degli abitanti, ma un secondo fattore fondamentale: la densità appunto, o meglio un valore di densità minimo in grado di produrre divisione del lavoro, varietà di funzioni e attività, complessità della struttura sociale. L'architettura progetta distanze oltrechè volumi, la densità ne è quindi un parametro centrale; l'urbanistica e la progettazione urbana, utilizzando il calcolo della densità come livello minimo di pianificazione, dovranno tendere a configurare in futuro le città, influenzandone gli aspetti non solo numerici, ma anche tipologici, morfologici e spaziali. Riscattato dalla computistica, il fattore densità, si trasforma allora in una variabile urbana in grado di definire la forma attuale della città, divenendone strumento di misurazione e di progetto.

One of the enduring origin myths of America is the idea of the New England village. As a symbol of how to make place, the story of New England represents the story of the nation, with the former being smoothed over and whitewashed to relieve the tensions of the latter. The mythology of New England reveals the necessity of fabricating heritage as a means to convey truth — the world, not as it is, but as it should be. It is the process of constructing America as a cultural landscape, and its relation to the enduring ideal of the New England village, from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries, that this article addresses.

A hipszter urbanizáció leglátványosabb megjelenési formája, a háztömbről háztömbre nyíló alternatív bárok, kávézók, művészeti galériák, közösségi terek, újhullámos éttermek, azaz a hipszter infrastruktúra kialakulása. A hipszturbanizáció (hipsturbanism) összefügg ugyan a dzsentrifikációval, mégis egy szellemiségében, demográfiájában, anyagi léptékeiben eltérő folyamatot takar, amelynek központjában az önazonosság keresése, az egyéni önkifejezés, a trendérzék megmutatása és a városi élet új reneszánsza iránti igény áll. A „jó élet” definíciója a jelenkori fiatal felnőtt generáció körében a birtoklás, tulajdonlás felől az élmények fogyasztása és a helyi közösséghez való tartozás irányába tolódik el, ami egy alapvető társadalmi és korszellembeli átalakulás első jele lehet.

The nexus between energy and climate is inevitably one of humanity’s largest challenges, which will, in the future, require a radical turnabout in the ways we produce and consume energy. Even today, over one billion people lack any form of modern energy services. The 2.6 billion expected population increases by the year 2050 will add an even further strain on energy and ecological system efficiency [1].

Emerging economies and developing countries are set to potentially face the greatest challenges in the energy transition ahead due to their growing energy demand, with much of their energy production still being based on fossil fuels. Urbanization is a key component which drives dense population concentration toward cities, thus emphasizing the urban dimension in this context. In Europe, cities are home to nearly 80% of the population, resulting the mass production of 75% of all CO2 emissions [2] .The urban scale has often been majorly neglected in the debate of energy consumption and climate change [3], A large number of renewable energy technologies, in particular, solar energy would be well suited to the built environment. Nevertheless, due to a lack of power infrastructures such as grids and latter, concerns regarding the position of practical restrictions and how far options can be pursued are raised. [4]

Cities are currently home to more than 53% of the human population and are growing; their existence depends on energy development, and their demands are concentrated in buildings, transport, industrial processes or other means of infrastructure. The residents of cities import a large amount of materials that are transformed through process that cause relative or critical impacts at the global or regional scale. In urban areas, between 71% and 86% of greenhouse has emissions are the results of energy demand,
surpassing world energy needs by three quarters.

It is widely accepted that energy generation within city boundaries can bring about an abundance of advantages, including the increase in efficiency due to the reduction of energy transmission losses. Nevertheless, future expectations of global energy demands are such that by the mid-twenty-first century, more than 80% of the population will reside in urban areas, and energy and material requirements will increase.

Cities comprise of less than 3% of the Earth’s surface, leading to the implication of a high population concentration and entailing of an enormous amount of economic activity and material accumulation, requiring large amount of energy and materials.This demand has a great impact on the environment. The high concentration of housing generally leads to poor quality of life due to side effects such as noise, reduction of privacy, pollution or traffic congestion. In addition, the discovery of new oil fields and the improvement in energy efficiency has postponed a reform at the global level that would limit the use of non-renewable resources, despite the fact that the currently available technology can lead to an energy revolution. Without this ‘energy revolution’, the Global urbanization rends demand revisions of urban energy policies.

The UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015. Member countries committed to fulfill targets related to energy use, the creation of infrastructure and city maintenance under a sustainable development
approach. This commitment seeks to make cities more resilient with climate change, simultaneously promoting the economy and decreasing poverty. At the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), which occurred
in October 2016 in the city of Quito, Ecuador, the need to promote energy efficiency and the use of non-polluting energy efficiency at the urban level was proposed.

When the integration of active solar technologies is taken into account early in the design process, it is more likely to lead to more attractive solutions. Amongst all possible sources of renewable energy available in the urban context, such as wind, geothermal
and solar energy, the latter is potentially the most popular and has been studied extensively at great lengths. [5]

In order to further aid urban planners and architects in their design process, a broad set of guidelines must be developed. This paper serves to address both dimensions through a parametric study: solar resource assessment and the system integration of solar
energy in developing a methodology of urban modeling for evaluation of solar renewable potential of cities, based upon on their urban morphology. By this, the study will attempt to quantify the role of solar energy as a renewable energy source in various urban
settings.

The growth of the city and the urban reconfigurations have contributed to the redistribution and evolution of social and social practices in the urban public space in mass housing quarters, research on inhabited persons in the Constantine public space must therefore contribute to an upstream reflection on the process question of the modes of production, and downstream on changes in daily practices of the social groups that make and live the city. Confronting public policies and social intentions contained in the desired project participates in generating knowledge on the complex question of inhabiting it, and interactions between spaces designed-products and is received-delivered by users. This research is attempting to take a fresh look at nature's relationship between spatial reconfigurations and new socio-spatial practices in urban public spaces in mass housing quarters, considered as articulated and meaningful symbolic systems. It is a question of observing and understanding these two processes, and interpreting practices of appropriation and use of public spaces, with a particular interest given to the mode of inhabiting, with a view to optimal and adequate anticipation of the use by the planners, and designer in order to reduce the gap between designed and lived space.

This paper argues that significantly more sustainable and communal neighborhoods could be more common in North America if development practices addressed the barriers posed by sociotechnical obduracy and the inevitable limitations of expertise through expanded opportunities for experimentation. In reconceptualizing the problems faced by alternative urbanisms through the lens of science and technology studies (STS), I explore how the intelligent trial and error (ITE) framework for governing emerging technologies could be extended to partially address the barriers of obduracy, uncertainty and complexity when pursuing alternative urban designs. An examination of how Baugruppen: cooperative building groups, were integrated into the planning process of Quartier Vauban, Freiburg is used to illustrate both the potentials and a concrete application of an ITE-like approach. I then discuss some of the barriers to an ITE model of urban planning in North America and recommend further research at the intersection of urban studies and STS.

We often think of cities as major drivers of economic development and growth. Big cities expand our access to infrastructure like public transit and public education. They allow for more efficient distribution of social services such as government assistance and health care. Cities create large markets for business, and can attract international investment and tourism from around the world. They are hubs of non-agricultural, high-paying professional jobs like banking, law, and engineering. Diversity and face-to-face interactions can lead to new ideas and cross-cultural collaborations. Conventional wisdom holds that cities are good for the economy.
Indeed, the link between a country’s level of urbanization and the size of its gross domestic product (GDP) is well established.

Le matériel présenté dans cette publication est un résultat du projet RUROS – Rediscovering the Urban Realm
and Open Spaces – coordonné par le CRES, Département des bâtiments (http://alpha.cres.gr/ruros/) .
Editeur : Dr Marialena Nikolopoulou. coordinatrice du projet
Centre for Renewable Energy Sources, Department of Buildings

New Urbanism has been described as the most important architectural movement in the United States since Modernism. It embraces the  concept of environmental affordance, the belief that the built environment can inform attitudes and behaviors. New urban practitioners are critical of much of twentieth-century urban design that propelled large-scale post-World War I suburban sprawl, and Modernist architecture. Drawing on prewar urban planning, new urbanists argue that by recreating walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods with civic architecture and green spaces, social, economic, environmental, historical preservationist, and democratic benefits will ensue. New Urbanism has been variously defined as romanticizing and reactionary, utopian, neoliberal, postmodern, as well as an antidote to postmodernism. Beyond the United States new urban developments are found from Europe, to Asia and the Pacific, Canada and Australia, South America, and Africa.

This study tried to analyze and develop the multiple nuclei model principles in a city located in another geographical location with entirely diverse spatial, demographical, and social-economic structures. The type of this study is fundamental basic or pure research and accompanied by fieldwork, examination, and comparison. Analyzing the multiple-nuclei model considering motorized private transport, regardless of the geographical location and social-economic difference in this study, by practicing the Smart Growth theory principles, tried to enhance the efficiency of land uses concerning the spatial distribution of activities, facilities, and limitations. The collected quantitative and qualitative data types included geo data, development plans, scientific papers, and books. For analyzing the geodata and land use map used the Moskito GIS and Arc GIS software. Private carbased mobility created a multiple-nuclei structure of land use development in this city. It is one of the main factors that have escalated the city's physical growth horizontally. Mixed-use, compact development, high-rise building, increasing transportation options, improving public services and facilities for all families are the main strategies to control sprawl growth, reduce consumption of valuable agricultural lands, reduce environmental degradation, and realize a sustainable form of urban development in this city.

Głównym celem współczesnych rozwiązań w zakresie zarządzania miastami jest podnoszenie jakości życia społeczności lokalnej. Coraz większą uwagę zwraca się na aspekty związane ze zrównoważonym rozwojem miejskim, polegającym na zastosowaniu innowacyjnych rozwiązań proekologicznych, których celem jest zmniejszenie negatywnego oddziaływania ośrodków miejskich na środowisko naturalne. Przykładem miasta, które w pełni realizuje strategię zrównoważonego rozwoju, jest stolica Austrii - Wiedeń. Rozwiązania zawarte w dokumentach strategicznych miasta mogą stanowić inspirację dla innych metropolii, w szczególności miast partnerskich, między innymi Krakowa oraz Warszawy. Celem artykułu jest wyłonienie cech charakterystycznych na przykładzie Wiednia oraz analiza możliwości implementacji dobrych praktyk wypracowanych w Wiedniu przez miasta partnerskie Wiednia w Polsce.

This exploration of Songdo centers around the framework of sustainability’s connection to globalization, modernity, and image. This paper is structured to explore Songdo as whole built environment, specific architecture in the city, and Songdo in a global context. The first section of this paper will examine Songdo’s urban design as a whole, acknowledging that a planned sustainable city is a unique and unprecedented built environment. Through analysis of the space and Songdo’s marketing, this section will expose the implications that come with Songdo’s sustainable design. The next section will analyze specific architecture in Songdo to explore the relationship between Songdo’s Korean identity and its desired international image. Finally, the paper will reflect on the effect of sustainability and globalization on new planned cities

Africa is certainly not only a continent of small villages in the jungle and savannah. Its level of diverse urbanization and global network of mobility is advancing rapidly, while African metropolitan regions, cities and towns are among the fastest growing in the world. The need for academic literature in order to understand urbanization and the network of mobility are desperately required for Cities. The research/ book project is initiated as a result of the above need and too further seek understanding of current discourse on Resilient Cities. The aim of the research is to answer four questions:
1. What types of urban form (morphology) and spatial structure of place-making could be established?
2. Could diversity and quality of public space be presented?
3. How do the urban form (morphology) and spatial structure types, public space
diversity Respond to the Charter Principles?
4. How do they compare if an Analysis of the Structural Resilience theory, Salat and Bourdic’s (2012)1, would be applied?

For publication see:
https://dom-publishers.com/products/africa-drawn

Para explorar a relação entre determinados aspectos da produção recente do espaço urbano da cidade de Pelotas-RS e o discurso utilizado para a legitimação e comercialização dos produtos do seu mercado imobiliário, esta pesquisa desenvolve, inicialmente, uma contextualização histórica da produção capitalista das cidades, dos seus agentes produtores, da formação da sociedade brasileira e caracterização de sua cultura. Em nível local, a contextualização histórica contempla a origem, desenvolvimento do núcleo urbano pelotense, bem como a evolução na construção de seu aparato regulatório. Este estudo também apresenta uma análise de dois projetos de parcelamento do solo licenciados pela Prefeitura Municipal de Pelotas, são os loteamentos Quartier e Parque Una, seu entorno, parâmetros de projeto, processo de licenciamento e sua relação com o discurso utilizado por parte de seu aparato publicitário. Através da disciplina da Análise de Discurso esta pesquisa busca discutir a forma com que o mercado imobiliário legitima esses produtos, descobrindo seu (s) sujeito (s) discursivo (s), as condições de produção desses discursos e o objetivo por trás da linguagem utilizada, das imagens publicitárias e formato de parcelamento do solo escolhido pelo mercado. Nesta busca a pesquisa discute as principais contradições entre projeto, produtos ofertados e discurso utilizado para sua legitimação, além dos efeitos provocados pelos seus sentidos na população do seu entorno, no seu público-alvo e na relação com o Poder Público Municipal. Percebendo os novos produtos imobiliários como ideias fora do lugar que desprezam os lugares fora das ideias, caracterizando-se assim, como uma “nova modalidade de parcelamento do solo”, ou seja, condomínio urbanístico com uso misto do solo e formas de segregação e controle de acesso diferentes dos muros.

Els camins, i especialment els antics camins tradicionals i amb ferm de terra, han estat habitualment absents de la planificació i la gestió municipal, més enllà de les necessitats puntuals de la mobilitat motoritzada. Això és especialment evident a les perifèries de les ciutats, on les necessitats fonamentals de la mobilitat motoritzada ha estat assumida majoritàriament per les carreteres i els vials moderns asfaltats. De fet, els camins han rebut una consideració equiparable a la marginalitat que ha caracteritzat aquests espais.

Els transcendentals canvis que de manera inapel·lable comporta l’emergència climàtica, exigeix respostes urgents per a la seva mitigació i adaptació. Això ha de comportar canvis substancials —fins i tot dràstics— en la gestió de les ciutats. En aquest context, les perifèries adquiriran noves funcions i una nova rellevància en aspectes com la mobilitat alternativa, la salut, l’educació, la cultura i el lleure.

La gestió d’aquests espais i les seves noves funcions exigirà una especial atenció als camins, a la defensa del patrimoni viari públic, a la seva senyalització, manteniment i, també, a la seva gestió cultural. Paradoxalment, tot i la seva humilitat, els camins poden arribar a adquirir un pes destacat en la gestió de les ciutats del futur, enteses com organismes que s’estenen més enllà dels carrers, tal com, de fet, ha estat sempre si exceptuem el breu parèntesi històric que es correspon a l’ús dels combustibles fòssils i el vehicle privat.

The new urbanism (NU) is a vision of planning and urban design emerged in 1993, which finds its basis in the design of traditional communities. This trend has had various criticisms and replicas, which were reviewed in relation to urban sprawl, transportation, re-densifying, mix of uses of land, design, gentrification, pedestrianization and safety, which were analyzed in the neighborhood of Santa Barbara in Toluca, Mexico. This area was chosen for being traditional and forming part of the historical center of the city, which even though it was not designed under the guidelines of the NU, it has the quality of traditional, from which the NU would theoretically has taken its essence. The objective of this analysis is to establish whether the NU has the essence of a traditional Mexican neighborhood, as well as to check if the criticisms of the NU are informed when applied to a space belonging to a Mexican historic center that has been abandoned by problems of insecurity and degradation. The general conclusion is that the traditional neighborhoods have provided design elements to the NU, which will refute some of the criticisms, however, proposals for NU in neighborhoods of historic centers have to be based on the community, the architecture and existing urbanism, since these elements are those that give the identity.

How do we define quality in urban open spaces? What are people looking for? What makes them spend time outdoors? In this paper, I try to answers these questions by studying the open spaces of two neighborhoods in Colorado. Open space quality has been assessed based on people’s perceptions (qualitative) and on sustainability parameters (quantitative). To study people’s experiences, I have conducted surveys in Prospect, Longmont and in Holiday, Boulder. Then, I have analyzed some sustainability aspects of a few comparable locations in the two neighborhoods.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, planners, architects, designers, and academics assembled ideas for new developments in response to the suburbanization, increase in private automobile use, and lack of diversity in communities in the decades following World War II. The resulting philosophy, New Urbanism, became the most influential urban design movement to emerge from the latter part of the twentieth century. The purpose of this research is to describe the use of the principles of New Urbanism in the comprehensive plans of large Texas cities. This study analyzes the content of the comprehensive plans of large Texas cities to describe the extent to which New Urbanism has shaped city planning. The research found that New Urbanism significantly influences the planning of large Texas cities. Half of the plans (six) studied contain all of the principles of New Urbanism, showing the profound impact made by New Urbanism on the cities’ planning doctrine. Only oneLfourth (three) of the plans studied contain less than half of the principles of New Urbanism. Since all three of these plans were adopted prior to the rise of New Urbanism, the prevalence of New Urbanism in the other plans studied suggests that these plans will add principles of New Urbanism in future updates.

The New Urbanism has invigorated city planning history by invoking the tradition of American civic design to solve the conundrum of suburban sprawl. Studies have documented the similarities between the works of pioneer planner John Nolen and Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, but the ethic connecting past and present remains vague. This research presents the origins of the garden city ethic John Nolen introduced to the United States and its potential to foster a sustainable planning system capable of enlivening American civic culture.

„SALONSKI STAN” U BEOGRADU IZMEĐU DVA SVETSKA RATA
Đorđe Alfirević, Sanja Simonović Alfirević

ARHITEKTURA KAO TEKST: STUDIJA SLUČAJA SEDAMSTO HILJADA STUBOVA
Tatjana Dadić Dinulović

ELEMENTI REGIONALNE ARHITEKTURE U DELU ARHITEKTE IVANA ANTIĆA
Dijana Milašinović Marić

TRANSPONOVANJE EVROPSKE DIREKTIVE O PROCENI UTICAJA PLANOVA I PROGRAMA NA ŽIVOTNU SREDINU U PLANIRANJU U SRBIJI
Boško Josimović, Nebojša Stefanović, Ljubiša Bezbradica

MONITORING IMPLEMENTACIJE STRATEGIJE RAZVOJA - PRIMER PANČEVA
Mihailo  Mikavica, Ratka Čolić

PIONIRSKI GRADOVI U POST-JUGOSLOVENSKOM KONTEKSTU
Sonja  Jankov

SAVREMENI TRENUTAK ARHITEKTURE STANOVANJA NA GLOBALNOM NIVOU- HOUSING 15 Vladana Petrović, Aleksandar Keković, Nataša Petković-Grozdanović, Mirko Stanimirović, Marjan Petrović

STAMBENA ARHITEKTURA I KULTURA STANOVANJA U KASNOJ ANTICI NA TERITORIJI SRBIJE / nagrađena doktorska disertacija Aleksandra Mirić
Nađa Kurtović-Folić

IDEJNI PROJEKAT STAMBENOG KOMPLEKSA U NIŠU / nagrađeni master rad Miloš Stamenković
Goran Jovanović

ULOGA I ZNAČAJ PLANIRANJA INFRASTRUKTURE U RAZVOJU PLANINSKOG TURIZMA U
SRBIJI / nagrađena doktorska disertacija Dejan Đorđević
Velimir Šećerov

PROBLEMI PLANIRANJA NACIONALNIH PARKOVA NA PRIMERU NACIONALNOG PARKA FRUŠKA GORA / Tijana Đorđević
Dejan Filipović

NAGRADA RANKO RADOVIĆ ZA 2016.
Konstantin T. Petrović

IN MEMORIAM - ARHITEKTA DARKO MARUŠIĆ (1940-2017)
Branislav Mitrović

IN MEMORIAM - ARHITEKTA DARKO MARUŠIĆ (1940-2017)
Igor Marić

IN MEMORIAM - SLOBODAN MITROVIĆ (1934-2017)
Dragiša Dabić, Branislav Božović Denis, Saša Milijić

Original publication by Christopher Alexander in the April and May 1965 issues of Architectural Forum. Extracted from US Modernist archive PDF (AF ceased publication in 1965). Other versions, including the one edited/amended in 1966 for Design and the one used in Thackara, J. ed., 1988, Design After Modernism: Beyond the Object, while fine, lack the feel of the original, with its larger photos, broader typesets, hand-drawn diagrams, and the now aged print.

This article explores the ways in which architecture, landscape design, and site planning helped maintain racial segregation in housing in Atlanta, Georgia, between the 1960s and 1990s. Under Jim Crow, apartment complexes in Atlanta hewed to national design norms. By the late 1960s, however, racial tension, rioting, and passage of the Fair Housing Act led to proliferation of the architecture of enclosure: design that helped code communities as white through pastoral symbolism and heavy, obscuring landscaping. The concept, which appeared to a lesser degree in other U.S. housing markets, was introduced to Atlanta at Riverbend (1966-1972), a swinging-singles complex developed in part by Dallas's Trammell Crow with a site plan by California's Lawrence Halprin & Associates. The practice was generalized in the 1970s and 1980s by Post Properties, which became one of the region's largest builders.

This research, conducted by the author when a Senior Researcher at Newcastle University, UK, was funded by a UK governance organisation to help them assess, integrate and improve their understanding of the governed population.

ABSTRACT: Governance organisations have been urged to develop more holistic evidence-based approaches with partners to better deal with issues affecting the governed population. This presupposes an understanding of the population, yet there has been little research work addressing how governance organisations come to understand their governed population, nor how this understanding can be improved upon within such organisations.

This case study examined in-depth how understanding of a governed population was developed within one UK local governance organisation and it explored how such understanding might be developed and improved through more holistic and evidence-based organisational learning within the organisation and its governance partnerships.

The research methodology involved placement within the governance organisation, participant observations on several projects and innovative initiatives, observations within, across, and outside the organisation, and also interviews with varied key stakeholders.

The study examined:

- stakeholder engagement and networks
- current and varied understandings of the population
- mechanisms actually used for developing understandings
- the influence of context on organisational learning

and analysed these to arrive at a recommendations to improve organisational understanding of the governed population.

In the case studied, significant strengths were found: including innovative past learning trials for development, extensive ongoing networking activities, and many varied and accumulating quantitative datasets available across partnerships.

However, entrenched organisational approaches and practices constrained the development of holistic evidence-based understanding, for instance: the absence of systematic maintained collective learning processes; weak recording and forgetting of understandings; methodological exclusion of stakeholders from the development of understanding; the relative neglect of qualitative data, explanations, investigations, interpretations, and reflexivity; and also implicit organisational acceptance of such limitations and low aspirations.

Nonetheless, untapped opportunities existed to enable change including: latent practitioner knowledge and innovative management champions, the desire for improvement and raised aspirations within learning networks, and the development potential of alterative learning approaches.

It was concluded that more holistic evidence-based understanding was possible, but required new learning approaches beyond those then in use in both local government or academia.   

Recommendations are made to utilise and develop improved organisational learning approaches trialed and reported in the case study.

It is argued that the case study findings, conclusions, and recommendations may be applicable to other similar local governance organisations and partnerships that seek to better understand local populations, services and interventions.

The work was also submitted for, and awarded, an MPhil (at Newcastle University, supervised by Prof. Patsy Healy)

Across suburban America, hundreds of shopping malls have become vacant and indebted hulks. Demographics and economics, from the decline of the city fringe to the rise of online shopping, has finished them off. The website deadmalls.com documents and memorializes more than 400 derelict American malls. More are set to join the list.

Many are failing despite significant state subsidies. A local government report found that in the St Louis metro area alone, $4.6 billion has been spent in the last 20 years subsidizing chain stores and malls, which are seen as flagships of regional development. Despite that investment, jobs growth and taxable sales have remained flat in St Louis, and two-thirds of its local governments are in fiscal stress. What is now in question, then, is not only the future of the mall, but the future of the mall as a development paradigm.

Urban planners, academics and real estate analysts are starting to think about what comes next: about the future structure of regional towns and suburbs – and the future of public space – after the malls have gone.

Toronto's Rivertowne (formerly Don Mount Court) is Canada's first fully completed experiment with redeveloping post-war public housing developments into newly built mixed-income neighbourhoods (a combination of public housing and private condominiums). Originally built at the end of Toronto's urban renewal era, Don Mount Court consisted of 232 public housing units until the City's public housing authority decided to tear the buildings down in 2003. Five years later, former residents, along with newcomers, moved into rows of townhouses under its new name, Rivertowne. Proponents of this project believed this would transform an isolated, stigmatized environment into a thriving and integrated community. This thesis explores redevelopment as a mechanism that has profound and intricate impacts on space, place-identity and social dynamics between residents. Drawing on interviews with residents, I argue that the way proponents envision redevelopment is overly idealistic and overshadows a number of problems produced by the project.

Since the early 20th century various planning movements have been developed. It would be useful to trace the evolution of these movements to see how their underlying principles have changed and how successful they have been in addressing the requirements of sustainable development. Literature on five selected movements is reviewed. These are, namely, Garden City, Neighborhood Unit, Modernism, Neo-traditionalism, and Eco-urbanism. Results show that evolution of neighborhood planning is characterized by the progressive inclusion of different dimensions of the sustainability concept. However, there are still many difficulties in terms of translating the rhetoric into action.

This is a short essay regarding the use of urban morphology as a technique in urban design, especially noting the effects of Townscape and New Urbanism. It argues for greater awareness of morphology in form-based codes, especially awareness of the theory of transformation of places over time as well as particularity of formal urban history in a given place.

Many books about Burning Man begin with a caveat. Their authors write that Burning Man cannot be described, that its whole is incomprehensible to anyone, even to those who have attended the event. They say Burning Man can’t really be written about, and that what they are offering is dangerously incomplete. And yet, these authors do go on to write and produce books, and clearly some do want to offer a comprehensive overview. There is richness in the tension between the desire to communicate what Burning Man is and the sense that it is impossible to do so. This tension is perhaps what inspires so many people, an increasing number of people, to try to capture it – it is so hard to describe and yet so worthy of description. There must be something extraordinary about it, after all, since almost 70,000 people decided to spend a week at Burning Man in 2013. This book swerves away from these preoccupations to celebrate an aspect of the event that generates so much of its energy: stories.

Purpose. The purpose of this preliminary research is to explore if demographics affect participants’ attitude towards the characteristics of New Urbanism. Methodology. To achieve this purpose, the literature will be reviewed to establish the central characteristics of New Urban communities. Based on the findings of the literature, a survey will be administered to gauge the attitudes of the author’s “friends” and their “friends” on Facebook to determine their attitudes towards the characteristics of New Urbanism and to record their demographics. Finally, those attitudes and demographics will be complied to establish if demographics affect the subjects’ attitude towards the characteristics of New Urbanism. Results. Overall, the exploratory research indicates that demographics play a trivial role in the participants’ attitude towards the characteristics of New Urbanism. Conclusion. The initial results indicate that demographics for this non-random sampling do not affect how a participant values the characteristics of a New Urban community. A scientific study should be conducted to see if these preliminary results represent the population or if different conclusions can be made.

In recent years, there has been an increase in well-meaning policy makers, city planners, and urban designers pursuing such laudable goals as historic preservation, green design, vibrant streets, and convenient access to transit. However, it is not always clear how effective these initiatives have been in achieving their goals and having a larger impact on the city.  The research project examines two innovative initiatives in order to assess their impact in terms of TOD design and the workability of a TOD project. The study highlights what aspects of TOD design guidelines were most effective and why, the strengths and weaknesses of Rio Vista West, and suggests approaches that urban designers and planners can adopt in formulating public policies and designing projects.

Along the past half-century, suburban sprawl has created a new spatial geography which diverse authors have called the extensive city, the fragmented city, the formless city, or the city without model. An outstanding characteristic of the extensive city is its lack of formal coherence and functional efficiency. The shortcomings of this type of urban development have been noted from a variety of perspectives. Environmentalists worry about the extensive loss of natural and rural land, the steep increases in carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions derived from traffic, and an over reliance on fossil fuels. Sociologists point to the loss of long-established social networks, the erosion of the public sphere, and the rise of social ghettos in fragmented residential areas isolated from nearby communities. Urban planners and policymakers struggle to manage an increasingly complex mosaic of disjointed land-uses, over-extended infrastructures, and erratic investments of public and private capital. And all those who experience the dysfunctions of living in the extended city—from regular traffic congestion in daily trips to work, to social isolation, to the poor quality of urban environments—complain about the associated stress and distress. In light of these problematic aspects of contemporary urban development, an increasing number of planners, policymakers, architects, designers, and developers are examining the potential of alternative models of placemaking to counter some of the worst consequences of what has been—in spite of the existence of plans and other development control mechanisms—a rather unregulated process of urban sprawl...

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This Series focuses on the entire spectrum of human settlements-from rural to urban, in different regions of the world, with questions such as: What factors cause and guide the process of change in human settlements from rural to urban in character, from hamlets and villages to towns, cities and megacities? Is this process different across time and space, how and why? Is there a future for rural life? Is it possible or not to have industrial development in rural settlements, and how? Why does 'urban shrinkage' occur? Are the rural areas urbanizing or is that urban areas are undergoing 'ruralisation' (in form of underserviced slums)? What are the challenges faced by 'mega urban regions', and how they can be/are being addressed? What drives economic dynamism in human settlements? Is the urban-based economic growth paradigm the only answer to the quest for sustainable development, or is there an urgent need to balance between economic growth on one hand and ecosystem restoration and conservation on the other-for the future sustainability of human habitats? How and what new technology is helping to achieve sustainable development in human settlements? What sort of changes in the current planning, management and governance of human settlements are needed to face the changing environment including the climate and increasing disaster risks? What is the uniqueness of the new 'socio-cultural spaces' that emerge in human settlements, and how they change over time? As rural settlements become urban, are the new 'urban spaces' resulting in the loss of rural life and 'socio-cultural spaces'? What is leading the preservation of rural 'socio-cultural spaces' within the urbanizing world, and how? What is the emerging nature of the rural-urban interface, and what factors influence it? What are the emerging perspectives that help understand the human-environment-culture complex through the study of human settlements and the related ecosystems, and how do they transform our understanding of cultural landscapes and 'waterscapes' in the 21st Century? What else is and/or likely to be new vis-à-vis human settlements-now and in the future? The Series, therefore, welcomes contributions with fresh cognitive perspectives to understand the new and emerging realities of the 21st Century human settlements. Such perspectives will include a multidisciplinary analysis, constituting of the demographic, spatio-economic, environmental, technological, and planning, management and governance lenses.

In 2004, the city of Tel Aviv initiated an urban renewal project based on New Urbanist design principles for one of its most central sites, the former Palestinian village of Summayl. This sample is an excerpt from my MA thesis, which studied the plans for the project and examined the application of New Urbanism to Israel. My work is concerned with the New Urbanist ideal of diversity and the way it confronts the unique spatial reality of Israeli space. The question that underlines my thesis is, Does the New Urbanist plan allow for viability of Other Space.

This paper investigates the contemporary afterlife of Satyajit Ray’s protagonist sleuth, Prodosh C. Mitter (Feluda) and the new media space he now inhabits. This paper sets off from the debate in this journal around Feluda’s cultural and socio-economic status, his origins, his intentions, his relation to labour, work and leisure, discourses emerging in the wake of Feluda’s fiftieth anniversary. I take the very event and its commemorative objects as the site to think through Feluda’s legacy. I work through Sandip Ray’s Double Feluda, the Feluda film released to mark the occasion, the new Feluda addatimes web series and the innumerable graphic novels, online text applications and audiobooks circulating in their wake. The contemporary I show also produces an undercurrent of nostalgia: a retro-fetish for older media forms in which Feluda is ensconced. The rest of the paper as it pans out takes mobility and migration as spectral but operative functions in Feluda’s universe. Feluda now inhabits a trans-medial universe and different urban regimes, both of which introduce intense affects of speed and travel – moving towards an action-hero status that is radically different from his earlier intellectual and rational demeanour. I thereby trace Feluda’s reinvention from a Nehruvian socialist imaginary into the corporatized action hero: his suave image connected now to a global neo-liberal aesthetic. This global, rootless cosmopolitanism triggers in its stead a constant search for identity, an exhumation of Feluda’s undead Bangal pasts.

New urbanism is an urban design movement to create pedestrian-oriented settlements that also advance social equity and mitigate the environmental impacts of development. Proponents of the movement have suggested it offers a model of sustainable development. This paper investigates this claim by discussing the implications of empirical research on new urbanism for the ways in which the movement contributes to sustainability. The paper uses the concepts of environmental and social sustainability to frame the discussion. The paper traces the origin of new urbanism and the evolution of its interest in sustainable development. Review of scholarly research on new urbanism in practice shows the movement supports in limited ways both environmental and social sustainability. Moreover, this research also shows that some forms of new urbanism development unintentionally counteract environmental sustainability goals while other forms fail to achieve social sustainability goals. Citing the diverse ways in which new urbanism is put into practice, the paper concludes by considering how understanding the heterogeneity of new urbanism as it exists in the world will impart greater clarity to further analysis of the ways in which the movement actually contributes to sustainable development. Environmental and Social Dimensions of Sustainability New Urbanism (NU) is a movement to reduce sprawl and improve societal well-being through changes in the built environment that produce compact, socially diverse, and pedestrian-oriented settlements. Proponents of the movement have claimed it is a model of sustainable urban development (Congress for the New Urbanism 2008). I evaluate this claim by discussing how the practice of NU relates to sustainable development goals. I argue that urban development under the banner of NU takes steps both toward and away from sustainability. I develop this argument in three parts. I first consider the origins and expansion of the NU movement and find that there is emphasis on environmental over social sustainability goals. I then review literature on the metropolitan geography of NU and find that NU has contributed to both urban infill and peripheral development. I discuss research on the latter instance of NU development, which finds that some environmental sustainability goals are supported on technological grounds while other goals are not. Finally, I discuss literature on the ways residents of compact NU settlements interact with their built environment and neighbors, which shows that NU is associated with sustainable behaviors, such as walking and social interaction. However, these associations appear to apply only to a select set of development contexts into which NU has been deployed. Outside of socially homogeneous contexts, NU does not appear to foster behavior conducive to social sustainability goals. Noting some limitations to these findings, I conclude by identifying an approach future research can use to advance analysis of NU and sustainability. Before I discuss the origins of NU, I first define the concepts of environmental and social sustainability. The Bruntland Report's definition of sustainable development serves as a useful point of departure for discussion of New Urbanism and sustainability. 1 Brundtland situates the process of development in a context of human–environment interdependencies such that