Urban Transformation

Urban Transformation
Author: Peter Bosselmann
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2012-09-26
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1610911490

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.

Urban Revitalization

Urban Revitalization
Author: Carl Grodach
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2015-12-22
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317912020

Following decades of neglect and decline, many US cities have undergone a dramatic renaissance. From New York to Nashville and Pittsburgh to Portland governments have implemented innovative redevelopment strategies to adapt to a globally integrated, post-industrial economy and cope with declining industries, tax bases, and populations. However, despite the prominence of new amenities in revitalized neighborhoods, spectacular architectural icons, and pedestrian friendly entertainment districts, the urban comeback has been highly uneven. Even thriving cities are defined by a bifurcated population of creative class professionals and a low-wage, low-skilled workforce. Many are home to diverse and thriving immigrant communities, but also contain economically and socially segregated neighborhoods. They have transformed high-profile central city brownfields, but many disadvantaged neighborhoods continue to grapple with abandoned and environmentally contaminated sites. As urban cores boom, inner-ring suburban areas increasingly face mounting problems, while other shrinking cities continue to wrestle with long-term decline. The Great Recession brought additional challenges to planning and development professionals and community organizations alike as they work to maintain successes and respond to new problems. It is crucial that students of urban revitalization recognize these challenges, their impacts on different populations, and the implications for crafting effective and equitable revitalization policy. Urban Revitalization: Remaking Cities in a Changing World will be a guide in this learning process. This textbook will be the first to comprehensively and critically synthesize the successful approaches and pressing challenges involved in urban revitalization. The book is divided into five sections. In the introductory section, we set the stage by providing a conceptual framework to understand urban revitalization that links a political economy perspective with an appreciation of socio-cultural factors in explaining urban change. Stemming from this, we will explain the significance of revitalization and present a summary of the key debates, issues and conflicts surrounding revitalization efforts. Section II will examine the historical causes for decline in central city and inner-ring suburban areas and shrinking cities and, building from the conceptual framework, discuss theory useful to explain the factors that shape contemporary revitalization initiatives and outcomes. Section III will introduce students to the analytical techniques and key data sources for urban revitalization planning. Section IV will provide an in-depth, criticaldiscussion of contemporary urban revitalization policies, strategies, and projects. This section will offer a rich set of case studies that contextualize key themes and strategic areas across a range of contexts including the urban core, central city neighborhoods, suburban areas, and shrinking cities. Lastly, Section V concludes by reflecting on the current state of urban revitalization planning and the emerging challenges the field must face in the future. Urban Revitalization will integrate academic and policy research with professional knowledge and techniques. Its key strength will be the combination of a critical examination of best practices and innovative approaches with an overview of the methods used to understand local situations and urban revitalization processes. A unique feature will be chapter-specific case studies of contemporary urban revitalization projects and questions geared toward generatingclassroom discussion around key issues. The book will be written in an accessible style and thoughtfully organized to provide graduate and upper-level undergraduate students with a comprehensive resource that will also serve as a reference guide for professionals

Hella Town

Hella Town
Author: Mitchell Schwarzer
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2022-08-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520391535

Hella Town reveals the profound impact of transportation improvements, systemic racism, and regional competition on Oakland’s built environment. Often overshadowed by San Francisco, its larger and more glamorous twin, Oakland has a fascinating history of its own. From serving as a major transportation hub to forging a dynamic manufacturing sector, by the mid-twentieth century Oakland had become the urban center of the East Bay. Hella Town focuses on how political deals, economic schemes, and technological innovations fueled this emergence but also seeded the city’s postwar struggles. Toward the turn of the millennium, as immigration from Latin America and East Asia increased, Oakland became one of the most diverse cities in the country. The city still grapples with the consequences of uneven class- and race-based development-amid-disruption. How do past decisions about where to locate highways or public transit, urban renewal districts or civic venues, parks or shopping centers, influence how Oaklanders live today? A history of Oakland’s buildings and landscapes, its booms and its busts, provides insight into its current conditions: an influx of new residents and businesses, skyrocketing housing costs, and a lingering chasm between the haves and have-nots.

Rebuilding Urban Neighborhoods

Rebuilding Urban Neighborhoods
Author: W Dennis Keating
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 253
Release: 1999-08-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1452263418

Rebuilding Urban Neighborhoods presents a timely look at some of the most troubled neighborhoods in eight American cities: Atlanta, Camden, Chicago, Cleveland, East Saint Louis, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York City. The authors, W. Dennis Keating and Norman Krumholz, review past federal policies and early assessments of the latest federal initiative, the Empowerment Zone. They find some signs of revival even in the most distressed urban neighborhoods, but often as an overlay to persistent poverty and social problems. The case studies emphasize the important roles played by Community Development Corporations, and the book concludes with an analysis of the future prospects for distressed urban neighborhoods.

The Image of the City

The Image of the City
Author: Kevin Lynch
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 212
Release: 1964-06-15
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780262620017

The classic work on the evaluation of city form. What does the city's form actually mean to the people who live there? What can the city planner do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller? To answer these questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion—imageability—and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities. The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form. The architect, the planner, and certainly the city dweller will all want to read this book.

Getting from Here to There? Power, Politics and Urban Sustainability in North America

Getting from Here to There? Power, Politics and Urban Sustainability in North America
Author: Ernest J. Yanarella
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2016-05-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1627345809

Getting from Here to There? seeks to take the study of sustainable cities into a realm of analysis and critique that has not been seriously investigated in any explicit and systematic manner: the sphere of power and politics. Using detailed case studies of selected urban sustainability programs-some stillborn or short-lived, others celebrated, still others most promising-it focuses on the political agencies shaping them and the structural elements either impeding or facilitating efforts to build sustainable cities. To accomplish this task, the authors utilize three theories or models of urban power-growth coalition, urban regime, and neo-Gramscian hegemonic-to explore the dynamics of power and politics to better understand these cases and to derive important lessons about getting from here to there. These models offer valuable lessons for ongoing or future sustainable city programs, community or business groups, key policy makers, grassroots organizations, mayors, and urban planners involved in or contemplating moving urban sustainability projects forward, as well as students of urban politics and environmental and sustainability researchers.

Fixing Broken Cities

Fixing Broken Cities
Author: John Kromer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2009-09-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 113596713X

Through the insightful lens of an experienced practitioner, this book describes the origin, execution, and impact of urban repopulation strategies—initiatives designed to attract residents, businesses, jobs, shoppers, and visitors to places that had undergone decades of decline and abandonment. The central question throughout the strategies explored in the book is who should benefit? Who should benefit from the allocation of scarce public capital? Who should enjoy the social benefits of urban development? And who will populate redeveloped areas? Kromer provides realistic guidance about how to move forward with strategic choices that have to be made in pursuing the best opportunities available within highly disadvantaged, resource-starved urban areas. Each of the cases presents strategies that are strongly influenced by geography, economics, politics, and individual leadership, but they address key issues that are major concerns everywhere: enlivening downtowns, stabilizing and strengthening neighborhoods, eliminating industrial-age blight, and providing quality public education options.

Comeback Cities

Comeback Cities
Author: Paul Grogan
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2008-08-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0786722940

Comeback Cities shows how innovative, pragmatic tactics for ameliorating the nation's urban ills have produced results beyond anyone's expectations, reawakening America's toughest neighborhoods. In the past, big government and business working separately were unable to solve the inner city crisis. Today, a blend of public-private partnerships, grassroots nonprofit organizations, and a willingness to experiment characterize what is best among the new approaches to urban problem solving. Pragmatism, not dogma, has produced the charter-school movement and the police's new focus on "quality of life" issues. The new breed of big city mayors has welcomed business back into the city, stressed performance and results at city agencies, downplayed divisive racial politics, and cracked down on symptoms of social disorder. As a consequence, America's inner cities are becoming vital communities once again.

The Inner City

The Inner City
Author: Thomas D. Boston
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2017-07-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351480871

Michael Porter has argued that a sustainable economic base can be created in the inner city only if it has been created elsewhere: through private, for-profit, initiatives and investment based on economic self-interest and genuine competitive advantage-not through artificial inducements, charity, or government. Porter's ideas have prompted endorsement as well as criticism. More importantly, they have inspired a search for new solutions to inner city distress as well as a reassessment of current approaches. The Inner City defines a core debate in the United States over the future of a racially divided urban America. It is of inestimable importance to policy analysts, government officials, African American studies scholars, urban studies specialists, sociologists, and all those concerned with inner city revitalization.