In recent years, many countries all over Europe have witnessed a demand for a more direct form of democracy, ranging from improved clarity of information to being directly involved in decision-making procedures. Increasingly, governments are putting citizen participation at the centre of their policy objectives, striving for more transparency, to engage and empower local individuals and communities to collaborate on public projects and to encourage self-organization. This book explores the role of participatory design in keeping these participatory processes public. It addresses four specific lines of enquiry: how can the use and/or development of technologies and social media help to diversify, to coproduce, to interrupt and to document democratic design experiments? Aimed at researchers and academics in the fields of urban planning and participatory design, this book includes contributions from a range of experts across Europe including the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Spain, France, Romania, Hungary and Finland.

It is clear that the climate is changing and ecosystems are becoming severely degraded. Humans must mitigate the causes of, and adapt to, climate change and the loss of biodiversity, as the impacts of these changes become more apparent and demand urgent responses. These pressures, combined with rapid global urbanisation and population growth mean that new ways of designing, retrofitting and living in cities are critically needed. Incorporating an understanding of how the living world works and what ecosystems do into architectural and urban design is a step towards the creation and evolution of cities that are radically more sustainable and potentially regenerative. Can cities produce their own food, energy, and water? Can they be designed to regulate climate, provide habitat, cycle nutrients, and purify water, air and soil? This book examines and defines the field of biomimicry for sustainable built environment design and goes on to translate ecological knowledge into practical methodologies for architectural and urban design that can proactively respond to climate change and biodiversity loss. These methods are tested and exemplified through a series of case studies of existing cities in a variety of climates. Regenerative Urban Design and Ecosystem Biomimicry will be of great interest to students, professionals and researchers of architecture, urban design, ecology, and environmental studies, as well as those interested in the interdisciplinary study of sustainability, ecology and urbanism.

During recent years, the topic of participation has increasingly been gaining importance in Iran - in the scientific field, in practice and rhetoric. However, in current scientific literature - and especially in English literature - there is little knowledge on the conditions, legal background, perceptions, experiences and processes of citizens' participation in Iran. This book aims to shed light on the paradoxical question of participation in Iran: it is old and new, dysfunctioning and functioning, disappointing and promising. This slippery status of participation convinces scholars to suggest contradictory interpretations and understandings about the existence, functionality, and potentiality of this concept. The book therefore shows the different perspectives, interpretations, historical developments and case studies of participation in Iran, thus giving the reader a kaleidoscope view on the question of participation in Iran.

Across European cities the use of urban space is controversial and subject to diverging interests. On the one hand citizens are increasingly aware of the necessity for self-organising to reclaim green spaces. On the other hand local authorities have started to involve citizens in the governance of urban green spaces. While an increased level of citizen participation and conducive conditions for citizens' self-organisation are a desirable development per se, the risk of functionalising civil society actors by the local authority for neoliberal city development must be kept in mind. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data collected in 29 European cities from all four European geographic regions, this book examines the governance of urban green spaces and urban food production, focusing on the contribution of citizen-driven activities. Over the course of the book, Schicklinski identifies best practice examples of successful collaboration between citizens and local government. The book concludes with policy recommendations with great practical value for local governance in European cities in times of the growth-turn. This book will be of great relevance to students, scholars, and policy-makers with an interest in environmental governance, urban geography, and sustainable development.

This book investigates China's railway transformation through history, along with culture changes and urban development. The book begins by looking at the background of China and the history and growth of railway development in China through five key phases, followed by assessing the cultural changes in the railway carriage and exploring how these are linked to social equality and national provisions. The core of this book aims to analyse the Chinese urban transformation through the development of the high-speed rail (HSR) infrastructure in China. Eleven important new HSR stations in mainland China, plus the new Hong Kong West Kowloon Station, have been selected to contextually explore how HSR infrastructures have affected the development of the Chinese urban context. The selected case studies are the stations of Beijing South, Wuhan, Shanghai Hongqiao, Guangzhou South, Xi'an North, Nanjing South, Chengdu East, Tianjin West, Zhengzhou East, Hangzhou East and Hong Kong West Kowloon. All of these were built between 2008 and 2018. In these case studies, the location and the intentions and success of promoting urban development are analysed and assessed. Following this, the book further investigates the peculiarities of the new HSR stations in China in comparison with stations in Europe. An assessment framework is established to evaluate the Chinese case studies comparatively with significant cases in Europe, attending to the urban structure of the area, the architectural quality, the functional diversity and the quality of the public space generated in the surrounding area.

What is "urban"? How can it be described and contextualised? How is it used in theory and practice? Urban processes feature in key international policy and practice discourses. They are at the core of research agendas across traditional academic disciplines and emerging interdisciplinary fields. However, the concept of "the urban" remains highly contested, both as material reality and imaginary construct. The urban remains imprecisely defined. Defining the Urban is an indispensable guide for the urban transdisciplinary thinker and practitioner. Parts I and II focus on how "Academic Disciplines" and "Professional Practices," respectively, understand and engage with the urban. Included, among others, are Architecture, Ecology, Governance and Sociology. Part III, "Emerging Approaches," outlines how elements from theory and practice combine to form transdisciplinary tools and perspectives. Written by eminent experts in their respective fields, Defining the Urban provides a stepping stone for the development of a common language-a shared ontology-in the disjointed fields of urban research and practice. It is a comprehensive and accessible resource for anyone with an interest in understanding how urban scholars and practitioners can work together on this complex theme.

In the mid-1990s, the state government of Maharashtra introduced an innovative strategy of slum redevelopment in its capital city, Mumbai (Bombay). Based on demolishing existing slums and rebuilding on the same sites at a higher density, it is very distinct from the two prevalent conventional strategies with respect to slums in developing countries - slum clearance and slum upgrading. So why did the slum redevelopment strategy originate in Mumbai, and how did it do so? What were the key issues in the implementation of such a project? This critical volume responds to these questions by closely examining one particular redevelopment project over a period of twelve years: the Markandeya Cooperative Housing Society (MCHS). It analyzes the problems faced and the solutions innovated; identifies non-traditional issues often overlooked in housing improvement strategies; reveals the complexities involved in housing production for low-income groups; and combines in-depth empirical research with historical, institutional, spatial and financial perspectives to improve our understanding of complex urban development processes.

Portland is a young city founded on a river bank in a virgin forest less than 200 years ago. Shaping Portland: Anatomy of a Healthy City is about the values engendered by the place, and how those values have influenced the growing city. It examines how and why the public realm supports or obstructs the health-forward lifestyles of those who choose to live there. This book explores the values and dynamics that shaped a healthy city to enable those things. It is a case study of a recognized success - looking more closely at a recent urban infill: the Pearl District. The future roles of the planners and other design professionals in continuing to build healthy and responsive environments are suggested. The cities of the future will be those that we already inhabit, but infilled and adapted to tomorrow's needs and values. Understanding the dynamics involved is essential for those in whose hands we entrust the design of cities and urban places.

Waterfronts Revisited addresses the historical evolution of the relationship between port and city and re-examines waterfront development by looking at the urban territory and historical city in their complexity and entirety. By identifying guiding values, urban patterns and typologies, and local needs and experiences, cities can break the isolation of the harbor by reconnecting it to the urban structure; its functions, spaces and forms. Using the UNESCO recommendation for the "Historic Urban Landscape" as the guiding concept and a tool for managing urban preservation and change, this collection of essays illustrates solutions to issues of globalisation, commercialization of space and commoditisation of culture in waterfront development. Through sixteen selected case studies, Editors Heleni Porfyriou and Marichela Sepe offer planners and urban designers a broad spectrum of alternative solutions to waterfront regeneration interventions and redevelopments, addressing sustainability, regional cultural diversity, and the debate between conservation and transformation.

* Draws on emerging practices of foresight to re-examine, enrich, and expand long-standing design practices * Expands how foresight can be used to build resilience and adaptability to multiple different potential futures * Written for architects, designers, planners, developers and engineers, to rigorously think about potential futures and conceptual tools * Includes over 100 black and white illustrations

Rome was a huge city. Running it required not only public works and services but also specialised law. This innovative work traces the development of that law and system in the main areas of administration. The book incorporates and develops previous historical and topographical works by relating their findings to the Roman legal framework, building up a portrait of public administration, unusually comprehensive for the ancient world.

Energy security, rising energy prices (oil, gas, electricity), 'peak oil', environmental pollution, nuclear energy, climate change and sustainable living are hot topics across the globe. Meanwhile, abundant and perpetual wind resources offer opportunities, via recent technological developments, to provide part of the solution to address these key issues. The rapid growth of large-scale wind farm installations has now led to the generation of clean electricity for tens of millions of homes around the world. However, despite the potential to reduce the losses and costs associated with transmission and to use local wind acceleration techniques to improve energy yields, the potential for urban wind energy has yet to be realised. Although there is increasing public interest, the uptake of urban wind energy in suitable areas has been slow. This is in part due to a lack of understanding of key issues such as: available wind resources; technology integration; planning processes (include assessment of environmental impacts and public safety due to close proximity to people and property); energy consumption in buildings versus energy production from turbines; economics (including grants, subsidies, maintenance); and the effect of complex urban windscapes on performance. Urban Wind Energy attempts to illuminate these areas, addressing common concerns highlighting pitfalls, offering real world examples and providing a framework to assess viability in energy, environmental and economic terms. It is a comprehensive guide to urban wind energy for architects, engineers, planners, developers, investors, policy-makers, manufacturers and students as well as community organisations and home-owners interested in generating their own clean electricity.

The first edition of Olympic Cities, published in 2007, provided a pioneering overview of the changing relationship between cities and the modern Olympic Games. This substantially revised and enlarged third edition builds on the success of its predecessors. The first of its three parts provides overviews of the urban legacy of the four component Olympic festivals: the Summer Games; Winter Games; Cultural Olympiads; and the Paralympics. The second part comprisessystematic surveys of seven key aspects of activity involved in staging the Olympics: finance; place promotion; the creation of Olympic Villages; security; urban regeneration; tourism; and transport. The final part consists of nine chronologically arranged portraits of host cities, from 1936 to 2020, with particular emphasis on the six Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games of the twenty-first century. As controversy over the growing size and expense of the Olympics, with associated issues of accountability and legacy, continues unabated, this book's incisive and timely assessment of the Games' development and the complex agendas that host cities attach to the event will be essential reading for a wide audience. This will include not just urban and sports historians, urban geographers, event managers and planners, but also anyone with an interest in the staging of mega-events and concerned with building a better understanding of the relationship between cities, sport and culture.

This book presents the latest thinking on the benefits and dangers of higher density urban living. It offers diverse opinions and research, from a wide range of disciplines, and gives an insight into both the theoretical debate and the practical challenges surrounding the compact city. Essential reading for anyone with an interest in sustainable urban development.

Experiential Landscape offers new ways of looking at the relationship between people and the outdoor open spaces they use in their everyday lives. The book takes a holistic view of the relationship between humans and their environment, integrating experiential and spatial dimensions of the outdoors, and exploring the theory and application of environmental design disciplines, most notably landscape architecture and urban design. The book explores specific settings in which an experiential approach has been applied, setting out a vocabulary and methods of application, and offers new readings of experiential characteristics in site analysis and design. Offering readers a range of accessible mapping tools and details of what participative approaches mean in practice, this is a new, innovative and practical methodology. The book provides an invaluable resource for students, academics and practitioners and anyone seeking reflective but practical guidance on how to approach outdoor place-making or the analysis and design of everyday outdoor places.

This volume contains the most significant and still timely articles on urban economics, metropolitan and regional planning, real-estate economics and housing written by the noted urban economist Anthony Downs over the past four decades. The book has a new autobiographical introduction outlining Downs's extensive experience as a real estate and urban affairs consultant and policy analyst for hundreds of private firms and government bodies since 1959. The articles in this book set forth fundamental policy analyses concerning all of the major elements of urban policy. Written in Downs's exceptionally clear and compelling style they focus on the space-related dimensions of urban affairs, ranging from traffic congestion to telecommunications, education, and housing, with additional analyses of key aspects of real estate finance. Together, these essays form a veritable handbook of how to conduct urban policy analysis in many fields. The analysis and conclusions are directly relevant to the urban problems which are intensifying throughout the world today. This important book will be an essential companion to scholars and students of housing, urban planning, transport, regional science and real estate, it will also be useful to policymakers and government officials.

Originally published in 1987, this book presents a wide-ranging review of urban, regional, economic, and environmental planning in Canada. A comprehensive source of information on Canadian planning policies, it addresses the wide variations between Canadian provinces. While acknowledging similarities with programs and policies in the United States and Britain, the author documents the distinctively Canadian character of planning in Canada.

Among the topics addressed in the book are: the agencies of planning; on the nature of urban plans; the instruments of planning; land policies; natural resources; regional planning at the federal level; regional planning and development in Ontario; regional planning in other provinces; environmental protection; planning and people; and reflections on the nature of planning in Canada.

The author documents how governmental agencies handle problems of population growth, urban development, exploitation of natural resources, regional disparities, and many other issues that fall within the scope of urban and regional planning. But he goes beyond this to address matters of politics, law, economics, social organization. The book is pragmatic, eclectic, interpretive, and critical. It is a valuable contribution to international literature on planning in its political context.

In this picturesque exploration of Britain's constructed landscape, an array of medieval lanes, Georgian crescents and Victorian squares make an appearance, together with the people - famous, infamous and unfamiliar - who designed, built and lived in them. From Bedford Square and Portobello Road in London, through to Grey Street in Newcastle and Charlotte Square in Edinburgh, Historic Streets and Squares takes you over the doorstep of some of the country's most familiar addresses. Melanie Backe-Hansen takes us beyond the facades, delving into the evolution of ancient streets, the aspirations of builders and architects, and the extraordinary lives of past residents. She also reveals the fascinating stories of how some of our oldest and most valued crescents, lanes and avenues have survived into the twenty-first century, and the twists and turns of their journey along the way. Taken together, these fifty examples tell us much about Britain's urban development over the centuries, while also highlighting more recent attempts to preserve our architectural heritage. The history of our streets, avenues, lanes and squares reveals more than just changes to architectural style, but offers a doorway into the heritage of our nation.

This title was first published in 1986 during a recession much like that faced in recent years, which placed immense pressure on the British planning system and led to social unrest in the inner cities and in many disadvantaged areas. Within this context, Peter Ambrose outlines the features of land development and explores the circumstances of post-war planning. The central section of the book deals with the key forces at work in land development - finance, the construction industry and the local and central state - and explains how they interact. Using a number of case-studies, including the greenfield urban fringe and London's docklands, as well as examples drawn from other countries, Ambrose provides an essential background to the British planning system and the problems still faced by it today.

Our world is unquestionably one in which ubiquitous movements of people, goods, technologies, media, money, and ideas produce systems of flows. Comparing case studies from across the world, including those from Benin, the United States, India, Mali, Senegal, Japan, Haiti, and Romania, this book focuses on quotidian landscapes of mobility. Despite their seemingly familiar and innocuous appearances, these spaces exert tremendous control over our behavior and activities. By examining and mapping the politics of place and motion, this book analyzes human beings' embodied engagements with their built world and provides diverse perspectives on the ideological and political underpinnings of landscapes of mobility. In order to describe landscapes of mobility as a historically, socially, and politically constructed condition, the book is divided into three sections-objects, contacts, and flows. The first section looks at elements that constitute such landscapes, including mobile bodies, buildings, and practices across multiple geographical scales. As these variable landscapes are reconstituted under particular social, economic, ecological, and political conditions, the second section turns to the particular practices that catalyze embodied relations within and across such spaces. Finally, the last section explores how the flows of objects, bodies, interactions, and ecologies are represented, presenting a critical comparison of the means by which relations, processes, and exchanges are captured, depicted, reproduced and re-embodied.

Over the past decade or so, the wealth produced by Qatar's oil and gas exports has generated a construction development boom in its capital city of Doha and the surrounding vicinity. Since the late 1990s, the number of inhabitants has grown from less than 400,000 to more than 1.7 million today. In many respects, Doha is portrayed as an important emerging global capital in the Gulf region, which has been positioning and re-inventing itself on the map of international architecture and urbanism, with a global image of building clusters of glass office towers, as well as cultural and educational facilities. While focusing on the architectural and planning aspects of Doha's intensive urbanization, this first comprehensive examination of the city sets this within the socio-political and economic context of the wider Arabian Peninsula. 'Demystifying Doha - On Architecture and Urbanism in an Emerging City' features a comprehensive discussion on contemporary architecture and urbanism of Doha as an emerging regional metropolis. It provides a critical analysis of the evolution of architecture and urbanism as products of the contemporary global condition. Issues that pertain to emerging service hubs, decentralised urban governance, integrated urban development strategies, image-making practices, urban identity, the dialectic relations between the city and its society and sustainable urbanism are all examined to elucidate the urban evolution and the contemporary condition of Doha. 'Demystifying Doha - On Architecture and Urbanism in an Emerging City' concludes by suggesting a framework for future studies of the city as well as for investigating the future of similar cities, setting out an agenda for sustainable urban growth, while invigorating the multiple roles urban planners and architects can play in shaping this future.

This edited collection, first published in 1981, presents a discussion of the urban problems faced in the developed world, and addresses the plans and policies devised by governments to solve them. Using a number of city-based case studies, including New York, Tokyo and Glasgow, the authors present a thorough analysis of urban problems and planning in relation to varying economic, cultural and political conditions throughout the developed world. With a detailed general survey from Michael Pacione, this is a comprehensive and relevant guide, which will be of particular value to students and scholars of urban planning and geography.

When this title was first published in 1981, growing concern for the future of cities and those who inhabited them, stimulated by trends in global urbanisation, had resulted in much emphasis being placed on a problem-solving approach to the study of the city. The chapters in this edited collection, a companion to Urban Problems and Planning in the Developed World (Routledge Revivals, 2013), consider the problems and planning activities in a number of cities across the world. Varied case-studies, including Mexico City, Bogota and Shanghai, reflect the differing economic, cultural and political regimes of the modern world and ensure the continued value of this comprehensive work.