The Transformation of Cities

The Transformation of Cities PDF

Author: David C. Thorns

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-03-14

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 140399031X

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The aim of the book is to examine the transformation of the city in the late 20th century and explore the ways in which city life is structured. The shift from modern-industrial to information/consumption-based 'post-modern' cities is traced through the text. The focus is not just on America and Europe but also explores cities in other parts of the world as city growth in the twenty first century will be predominantly outside of these regions.

Urban Transformation

Urban Transformation PDF

Author: Peter Bosselmann

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2012-09-26

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1610911490

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How do cities transform over time? And why do some cities change for the better while others deteriorate? In articulating new ways of viewing urban areas and how they develop over time, Peter Bosselmann offers a stimulating guidebook for students and professionals engaged in urban design, planning, and architecture. By looking through Bosselmann’s eyes (aided by his analysis of numerous color photos and illustrations) readers will learn to “see” cities anew. Bosselmann organizes the book around seven “activities”: comparing, observing, transforming, measuring, defining, modeling, and interpreting. He introduces readers to his way of seeing by comparing satellite-produced “maps” of the world’s twenty largest cities. With Bosselmann’s guidance, we begin to understand the key elements of urban design. Using Copenhagen, Denmark, as an example, he teaches us to observe without prejudice or bias. He demonstrates how cities transform by introducing the idea of “urban morphology” through an examination of more than a century of transformations in downtown Oakland, California. We learn how to measure quality-of-life parameters that are often considered immeasurable, including “vitality,” “livability,” and “belonging.” Utilizing the street grids of San Francisco as examples, Bosselmann explains how to define urban spaces. Modeling, he reveals, is not so much about creating models as it is about bringing others into public, democratic discussions. Finally, we find out how to interpret essential aspects of “life and place” by evaluating aerial images of the San Francisco Bay Area taken in 1962 and those taken forty-three years later. Bosselmann has a unique understanding of cities and how they “work.” His hope is that, with the fresh vision he offers, readers will be empowered to offer inventive new solutions to familiar urban problems.

Designing Urban Transformation

Designing Urban Transformation PDF

Author: Aseem Inam

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-23

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1135006393

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While designers possess the creative capabilities of shaping cities, their often-singular obsession with form and aesthetics actually reduces their effectiveness as they are at the mercy of more powerful generators of urban form. In response to this paradox, Designing Urban Transformation addresses the incredible potential of urban practice to radically change cities for the better. The book focuses on a powerful question, "What can urbanism be?" by arguing that the most significant transformations occur by fundamentally rethinking concepts, practices, and outcomes. Drawing inspiration from the philosophical movement known as Pragmatism, the book proposes three conceptual shifts for transformative urban practice: (a) beyond material objects: city as flux, (b) beyond intentions: consequences of design, and (c) beyond practice: urbanism as creative political act. Pragmatism encourages us to consider how we can make deeper and more systemic changes and how urbanism itself can be a design strategy for such transformations. To illuminate how these conceptual shifts operate in vastly different contexts through analysis of transformative urban initiatives and projects in Belo Horizonte, Boston, Cairo, Karachi, Los Angeles, New Delhi, and Paris. The book is a rare integration of theory and practice that proposes essential ways of rethinking city-design-and-building processes, while drawing critical lessons from actual examples of such processes.

Cities in Transformation

Cities in Transformation PDF

Author: Gretchen Liu

Publisher: Editions Didier Millet

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 981438514X

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The Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize is a biennial international award that honours outstanding contributions to the creation of vibrant, liveable and sustainable urban communities around the world. Awarded jointly by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and the Centre for Liveable Cities, both in Singapore, the 2012 prize went to the City of New York for its remarkable transformation in the decade since the 2001 World Trade Center attack. Cities in Transformation presents the award winners and special mentions for the 2010 and 2012 editions of the award and honours their efforts to create dynamic and sustainable urban communities. The cities featured are New York (2012 laureate) and Bilbao (2010 laureate), as well as special mentions, Ahmedabad, Brisbane, Copenhagen, Malmö, Vancouver, Melbourne, Curitiba (awarded to Jamie Lerner), Delhi (awarded to Sheila Dikshit) and Khayelitsha in Cape Town (awarded to AHT Group AG/SUN Development). Cities in Transformation includes a foreword by Lee Kuan Yew, the venerable Singapore statesman from whom the Prize is named, and insightful and fascinating chapters on each city that feature stunning photography that will give readers unique insights into the cities that are leading the way in inspired urban planning.

Urban Transformations

Urban Transformations PDF

Author: Nicholas Wise

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-06-14

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 1317229037

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Economic restructuring and demographic change have in recent years placed much strain on urban areas with the effects falling disproportionately on neighbourhoods that were previously underpinned by industry and manufacturing. This has presented policy makers and city planners with a binary choice: to resist change and stagnate or to change and attempt to keep up with the pace of global demand. This edited book tells the story of how urban transformation impacts on people’s lives and everyday interactions – to question where and to whom benefit accrues from these changes. Urban Transformations offers insight into both risk and reward as local communities and public authorities creatively address the challenge of building vital and sustainable urban environments. The authors in this edited collection argue that understanding the specifics of community, space and place is crucial to delivering insights into how, where, when, why and for whom urban areas might successfully transform. The chapters investigate urban change using a range of approaches, and case studies from the four corners of the Earth – from the United States to Iran; from the United Kingdom to Canada. The varying scales at which governance or regeneration initiatives operate, the nature and composition of urban communities, and the local or global interests of different private sector actors all raise questions for urban policy and practice. It is important to not only consider the drivers of regeneration, but its beneficiaries need to be identified. This edited volume addresses and elaborates on critical issues facing urban transformation and renewal as a basis for future discussion on strategies for ‘successful’ urban transformation.

In The Post-Urban World

In The Post-Urban World PDF

Author: Tigran Haas

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-16

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 1317372336

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Winner of the Regional Studies Association's Best Book Award 2018. In the last few decades, many global cities and towns have experienced unprecedented economic, social, and spatial structural change. Today, we find ourselves at the juncture between entering a post-urban and a post-political world, both presenting new challenges to our metropolitan regions, municipalities, and cities. Many megacities, declining regions and towns are experiencing an increase in the number of complex problems regarding internal relationships, governance, and external connections. In particular, a growing disparity exists between citizens that are socially excluded within declining physical and economic realms and those situated in thriving geographic areas. This book conveys how forces of structural change shape the urban landscape. In The Post-Urban World is divided into three main sections: Spatial Transformations and the New Geography of Cities and Regions; Urbanization, Knowledge Economies, and Social Structuration; and New Cultures in a Post-Political and Post-Resilient World. One important subject covered in this book, in addition to the spatial and economic forces that shape our regions, cities, and neighbourhoods, is the social, cultural, ecological, and psychological aspects which are also critically involved. Additionally, the urban transformation occurring throughout cities is thoroughly discussed. Written by today’s leading experts in urban studies, this book discusses subjects from different theoretical standpoints, as well as various methodological approaches and perspectives; this is alongside the challenges and new solutions for cities and regions in an interconnected world of global economies. This book is aimed at both academic researchers interested in regional development, economic geography and urban studies, as well as practitioners and policy makers in urban development.

Transformation of Cities in Central and Eastern Europe

Transformation of Cities in Central and Eastern Europe PDF

Author: F. E. Ian Hamilton

Publisher: United Nations University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 539

ISBN-13: 9280811053

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Annotation This volume is one in a series initiated by the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies on the inter-relationship between globalisation and urban transformation. It identifies and describes the inter- and intra-urban transformations of Central and Eastern European cities and considers their pre-1945 historic legacies, the socialist period, and their contemporary transition towards market oriented and democratic systems. The dramatic changes since 1989 including the collapse of Communist ideology, the break-up of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, the end of the Cold War and the impact of globalisation and European integration, have reconfigured this region and affected their re-integration into European and global networks. This book first examines the similarities and differences between significant Central and Eastern European cities, comparing the differing patterns of historical context and socialist legacies before 1990, and the impacts of internal and external forces on re-shaping these cities and their paths of transformation since 1990. It also examines the role of contemporary planning within the overall development of Central and Eastern European cities. The conclusion demonstrates the similarities and differences between Central and Eastern European cities and their re-integration into global networks.

Climate Change and Cities

Climate Change and Cities PDF

Author: Cynthia Rosenzweig

Publisher:

Published: 2018-03-29

Total Pages: 855

ISBN-13: 1316603334

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Climate Change and Cities bridges science-to-action for climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts in cities around the world.

Revitalizing City Districts

Revitalizing City Districts PDF

Author: Hebatalla Abouelfadl

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-01-16

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 331946289X

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This book explores the consequences of change in the urban form, the amalgam of the urban space and buildings and on the processes leading to planning and design. Urban form and its fabric result from a multitude of individual interests, ideas and decisions which in turn result in specific and locally diverse spatial arrangements. These processes which are shaping our built environment are embedded in and determined by different contexts of political, cultural and social-economic norms and values. Urban development and the transformation of urban structures are triggered by technological innovations, laws and taxes, new behaviors or the impact of environmental conditions as well as other factors. Based on case studies from Egypt and the Middle East, together with some cases from Germany and Turkey, this book covers a wide range of change processes focused on historic and inner city districts.