The Urban Millennium focuses upon the spatial adaptation of cities as a factor in urbanization. Konvitz explores how the evolution of city building strategies has accompanied and facilitated other aspects of urban development. By taking a long historical perspective, he shows that cities were more easily adapted to changing circumstances before and during the industrialization. Konvitz also draws out the implications of his analysis for contemporary urban problems. He challenges many contemporary assumptions of architecture and city planning and suggests that we should learn to appreciate an approach to building which allows for the continual modification of individual structures and districts, and which places more control over the environment in the hands of the users.
Cities for the New Millennium is the outcome of a joint conference held in Salford in July 2000 by the Royal Institute of British Architects and the University of Cambridge's Department of Architecture. It tackles these questions in the light of the Urban Task Force's report about the future of Britain's cities and communities, but sets them in an international and historical context. Professionals - architects, engineers and developers as well as academics from different countries and disciplines here lavish their expertise on issues of transportation, density, land use, risk and energy saving; others present urban-scale buildings or landscapes that have been judged inspirational or inventive. This book, therefore, is not just about theories of urbanism. It reveals how co-operation and debate between different parties and professions can illuminate the creative kind of urban development we should be aiming for.
"Upon opening on July 16, 2004, Chicago's Millennium Park was hailed as one of the world's most important millennium projects. Timothy Gilfoyle's biography of this phenomenal undertaking begins over a hundred years ago - when the site of the park was still part of Lake Michigan - and takes readers right up to the present day. Drawing on the author's comprehensive understanding of Chicago history, interviews with planners, artists, and public officials; and careful documentation of the park's financing and construction, Millennium Park is a thoroughly readable and illustrated testament to the park, the city, and all those attempting to think and act on a global scale. And underlying this history are revelations about the globalization of art, the use of culture as an engine of economic expansion, and the nature of political and philanthropic power."--BOOK JACKET.
The population of cities around the world is growing at an alarming rate, and as a result the landscapes of most cities are going through enormous changes. In particular, fertile agricultural lands at the periphery of cities are being developed without consideration of holistic planning. As such, peri-urban areas, zones of transition from rural to urban land uses located between the outer limits of the urban and the rural environment are experiencing significant losses of agricultural land, increased runoff, and water quality degradation. Concurrently, the demands for water, food and energy are increasing within cities, and unless a balance is struck the liveability of these cities will soon be compromised. The current water and land use changes have serious consequences on lifestyle, environment, health and overall well-being of urban communities. This book therefore helps readers to understand the current issues and challenges and examines suitable strategies and practices to cope with current and future pressures of urbanisation and peri-urban land-use changes. The book examines a number of critical aspects in relation to the future of cities and peri-urban regions, including the suitability of policies and institutions to sustain cities into the future; impact of current trends in land use change, population increase and water demand; long term planning needs and approaches to ensure the secured future for generations ahead; and strategies to adapt the cities and land uses so that they remain viable and liveable. The readership of the book will include policy makers, urban planners, researchers, post-graduate students in urban planning and environmental and water resources management and managers in municipal councils.
In these brief and accessible case studies, Costa Rican millennial leaders draw from global solutions to address local problems, inviting students of these emerging social movements to apply similar strategies to their communities at home.
This volume investigates how the structure and use of space developed and changed in cities, and examines the role of different societal groups in shaping urbanism. Culturally and chronologically diverse case studies provide a basis to examine recent theoretical and methodological shifts in the archaeology of ancient cities. The book's primary goal is to examine how ancient cities were made by the people who lived in them. The authors argue that there is a mutually constituting relationship between urban form and the actions and interactions of a plurality of individuals, groups, and institutions, each with their own motivations and identities. Space is therefore socially produced as these agents operate in multiple spheres.
Europe became a land of cities during the last millennium. The story told in this book begins with North Sea and Mediterranean traders sailing away from Dorestad and Amalfi, and with warrior kings building castles to fortify their conquests. It tells of the dynamism of textile towns in Flanders and Ireland. While London and Hamburg flourished by reaching out to the world and once vibrant Spanish cities slid into somnlence, a Russian urban network slowly grew to rival that of the West. Later as the tide of industrialization swept over Europe, the most intense urban striving and then settled back into the merchant cities and baroque capitals of an earlier era. By tracing the large-scale precesses of social, economic, and political change within cities, as well as the evolving relationships between town and country and between city and city, the authors present an original synthsis of European urbanization within a global context. They divide their study into three time periods, making the early modern era much more than a mere transition from preindustrial to industrial economies. Through both general analyzes and incisive case studies, Hohenberg and Lees show how cities originated and what conditioned their early development and later growth. How did urban activity respond to demographic and techological changes? Did the social consequences of urban life begin degradation or inspire integration and cultural renewal? New analytical tools suggested by a systems view of urban relations yield a vivid dual picture of cities both as elements in a regional and national heirarchy of central places and also as junctions in a transnational network for the exchange of goods, information, and influence. A lucid text is supplemented by numerous maps, illustrations, figures, and tables, and by substantial bibliography. Both a general and a scholarly audience will find this book engrossing reading. Table of Contents: Introduction: Urdanization in Perspective PART I: The Preindustrial Age: eleventh to Fourteenth Centuries 1. Structure and Functions of Medieval Towns 2. Systems of Early Cities 3. The Demography of Preindustrial Cities PART II: The Industrial Age: Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries 4. Cities in the Early Modern European Economy 5. Beyond Baroque Urbanism PART III: The Industrial Age: Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries 6. Industrial and the Cities 7. Urban Growth and Urban Systems 8. The Human Consequences of Industrial Urbanization 9. The Evolution and Control of Urban Space 10. Europe's Cities in the Twentieth Century Appendix A: A Cyclical Model of an Economy Appendix B: Size Distributions and the Ranks-Size Rule Notes Bibliography Index Reviews of this book: A readable and ambitious introduction to the long history of European urbanization. --Economic History Review Reviews of this book: A trailblazing history of the transformation of Europe. --John Barkham Reviews Reviews of this book: A marvelously compendious account of a millennium of urban development, which accomplishes that most difficult of assignments, to design a work that will safely introduce the newcomer to the subject and at the same time stimulate professional colleagues to review positions. --Urban Studies
This open access book revisits the theoretical foundations of urban planning and the application of these concepts and methods in the context of Southern countries by examining several case studies from different regions of the world. For instance, the case of Koudougou, a medium-sized city in one of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso, with a population of 115.000 inhabitants, allows us to understand concretely which and how these deficiencies are translated in an African urban context. In contrast, the case of Nueve de Julio, intermediate city of 50.000 dwellers in the pampa Argentina, addresses the new forms of spatial fragmentation and social exclusion linked with agro export and crisis of the international markets. Case studies are also included for cities in Asia and Latin America. Differences and similarities between cases allow us to foresee alternative models of urban planning better adapted to tackle poverty and find efficient ways for more inclusive cities in developing and emerging countries, interacting several dimensions linked with high rates of urbanization: territorial fragmentation; environmental contamination; social disparities and exclusion, informal economy and habitat, urban governance and democracy.
What was the area of Amsterdam like, before Amsterdam actually came into being? Why are the alleys and streets in the center and in the Jordan diagonal, while straight in the canals between them? Is the Central Station in the right place? How big is Amsterdam actually? These and many other questions are addressed in this book, which is about 1000 years spatial history of Amsterdam.
