PERSPECTIVES ON THE HUD “510” REHABILITATION DEMONSTRATION*

The 510 Demonstration program in New York City is designed to reveal if the rehabilitation of vacant buildings under the Section 8 HUD program, coupled with the moderate rehabilitation and conversion to cooperatives of substantially occupied “sibling” buildings, can create a strong sense of occupant control and social cohesion. It does so without the necessity of displacing the residents in the buildings. Three City neighborhoods in varying stages of decline, comprising some 400 dwelling units, have been selected. Furthermore, a novel fiscal approach leverages City CDBG funds with a portion of the developers' tax shelter proceeds from “gut” rehabs together with a loan from a local bank to cover the cost of moderately rehabilitating the cooperative buildings. By combining “gut” with moderate rehabilitation, the total number of redeveloped units is increased fifty percent, from 400 to 600. The success of the Demonstration depends to a large measure on the capability of Special Purpose Organizations, comprised of developers and community organizations, to effectively coordinate the various fiscal, administrative and social components of the program.     

THE “ENTREPRENEURIAL STATE” IN “CREATIVE INDUSTRY CLUSTER” DEVELOPMENT IN SHANGHAI

ABSTRACT: Literature on China's urban development discusses the nature and role of the local state. A set of concepts have been proposed, such as the “entrepreneurial state” (ES) and “local developmental state,” and an ongoing debate attempts to ascertain whether the state is “entrepreneurial” in nature. This article uses a newly emerged urban phenomenon, chuangyi chanye jiju qu (CCJQs) or “creative industry clusters,” in which the central government is not involved, to explore the nature of local governments, their role in urban development, and the ways in which they perform this role. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are used. The findings of this research reveal a strong revenue‐oriented nature of local governments, highlighting the “entrepreneurial state” as an important dimension in their character: they transform spontaneously emerged urban cultural spaces into a new mechanism generating revenues for both urban growth and their own economic benefit. Local governments promote CCJQ development with place promotion strategies, and they are directly involved in CCJQ‐related businesses as market players rather than as independent bodies that effectively control and regulate the CCJQ market through policies and regulations. Further, this article reveals a “public–public” coalition as an important mechanism for local state participation.     

Der Schiefe Turm von Pisa – eine unendliche Geschichte – Die Stadt – Der Platz – Der Turm

The Leaning Tower of Pisa – a never ending story: The town – the plaza – the tower. Pisa – it's fascinating: the rise, the power and finally the fall of this most important Republic of the Mediterranean from the 11^th to the 13^th century. The ensemble of the Cathedral District from the high Middle Ages “Piazza dei Miracoli” was intended to demonstrate ecclesiastic and secularized power. The more and more tilting Leaning Tower gained touristic fame. In the 20^th century, on the verge of collapsing, experts gathered in soon forming commissions and looked for possibilities to recover the Tower. After long discussions they agreed on a method of reconstruction, that – now successfully accomplished – seems to provide for stability for the next 200 years.     

Rissbreitenberechnung bei “Kombibewehrung”

Crack Width Limitation for Combined Reinforcement In recent years, steel fibre concrete has more and more found a wide spread application in structural engineering. This applies to building members made from steel fibre concrete or in combination with normal re‐bar reinforcement (combined reinforcement). In this context the question of crack width limitation very often has to be answered, and the interaction of the steel fibres with the rebars has to be observed. Some design rules are available in the relevant literature, whereas the design rules for a combined reinforcement use the basics of DIN 1045‐1. This paper deals with the applicability of these design proposals for a combined reinforcement, based on research results and some characteristics in the design consideration of the post‐cracking tensile strength of steel fibre concrete will be given.     

Der Arbeitskreis “Punktgestützte Verglasungen” im FKG

The working group “point fittings” of FKG. A working group within the FKG deals with glass under local stress caused by point fittings and concentrated loads. At the moment there are two major issues: glass under shear bearing loads and calculation of regular point fixed glass. The first item is relevant for the innovative use of glass as a load bearing part of the structure. The second item is about finding a save concept of verifying FE models and calculating the common point fitted glass to support the making of a standard practise for Engineering and Design of point‐fixed glass.     

“SCENOGRAPHIC” AND “COSMETIC” PLANNING: GLOBALIZATION AND TERRITORIAL RESTRUCTURING IN BUENOS AIRES

ABSTRACT: The aim of the present article is to provide an account of the ways in which the impact exerted by globalizing forces on the territorial structure of the city of Buenos Aires has been mediated by local planning processes. After a brief review of the main trends and critiques found in the academic literature, the author examines how the territorial transformations that have taken place in Buenos Aires over the past fifteen years may not be simplistically related to—or blamed on—global pressures. It is argued that the determinacy imposed by long‐term historical tendencies, together with specific territorial planning arrangements characteristic of the Argentine planning system, have played a major role in the production of Buenos Aires' territorial structuring over the past fifteen years.     

Some practical aspects of the “biocarbon process”

In the presence of granular activated carbon the aerobic decomposition of organic compounds is facilitated (Koppe et al., 1974a,b). As could be shown by many laboratory tests several effects are given. First of all the faster adaptation of the bacteria has to be mentioned which is most important with substances which are difficult to be degraded like pentaerythrite. Additionally the degradation efficiency of the activated sludge process will be increased and equalized by granular activated carbon. Finally the effect of low temperatures can be compensated by the presence of granular activated carbon. With domestic wastewater for instance full nitrification could be obtained at a temperature of 4°C.Adsorption of organic compounds cannot be the explanation because the effect could be observed during several months whereas the calculated adsorption capacity had to be exhausted after two days. True causes are that specialized bacteria are retained in the pores and niches of the activated carbon in the lag-phase, that micro-organisms find area to grow in the log-phase (approximately 100 m²/m³ with 1 kg m⁻³ granular activated carbon) and that the enrichment of some exoenzymes at the activated carbon occurs (compare Figs. 1 and 2; and Müller & Sekoulov, 1975; Lue-Hing et al., 1976; Larsson et al., 1976; Rincke & Wolters, 1970). Since micro-organisms and activated carbon intimately react, this modification of the activated sludge process was called “biocarbon process” which has to be distinguished from the process with powdered activated carbon (de Walle & Chian, 1977).After completion of the laboratory tests, full-scale tests were started. In full-scale tests several difficulties had to be overcome. In some cases it was difficult to avoid the sedimentation of the granular activated carbon in the aeration tanks. Another task was the separation of the carbon from the surplus activated sludge. Finally it was of interest to determine how much carbon is lost by wet abrasion to be able to make a feasibility calculation. The full-scale tests have been performed in two wastewater treatment plants of the Ruhrverband: Nordenau and Günne.     

Municipalities and the “new” internationalism: Cautionary notes from Canada

This study attempts to assess the impact of municipal internationalism for cities and towns involved in more comprehensive types of global interchange. Focusing on two Canadian-sponsored linkages — involving the cities of Lethbridge (Alberta) and Ica (Peru), and Toronto (Ontario) and São Paulo (Brazil), respectively — the study supports the findings of earlier research which reveals that intensive municipal exchange can pay real dividends to the participants involved. At the same time, however, closer examination of exchange dynamics in each case shows that the process can also produce certain unintended — and negative — consequences not previously identified in the literature. These, in turn, appear to affect not only the quality of specific projects, but the continued vitality of the exchange process itself — thus limiting the overall benefits of the phenomenon.     

CANADIAN URBAN POLITICS: ANOTHER “BLACK HOLE”?

ABSTRACT: This article supplements and enriches Judd's and Sapotichne, Jones, and Wolfe's controversial diagnosis of a disjuncture between “mainstream” political science and the study of urban politics in the United States by suggesting that Canadian urban political science scholarship is equally isolated. Yet for the most part, the underlying causes of this predicament differ greatly from the U.S. experience. We offer three interpretations—one institutional, one epistemological, and one ontological—to explain the marginality of Canadian urban political science in relation to both mainstream Canadian political science and American urban politics. First, the growth of Canadian urban political science has been inhibited not because there are too few interested scholars, but rather because interested faculty are so thinly dispersed across the country's academic institutions. Second, unlike the American experience, the historical development of Canadian political science as a discipline has led it to focus on national‐level issues at the expense of local and urban politics. Finally, Canadian cities have developed differently from American cities in important respects, again leading Canadian scholars to privilege the national over the local.     

The “Landscape must become the law”—or should it?

The idea that society ought to be governed by the “law of landscape” must be seen in the context of the process by which the idea of landscape merged with that of nature in the course of the Renaissance and Enlightenment. In order to comprehend how these ideas morphed into the idea that “nature must become the law” as propounded by IFLA this history is traced. Through the linkages of “natural” social ideals with what was seen to be a “natural” style of landscape gardening, reforms sought to promote what often was seen to be a more just and economically, socially and physically sustainable form of society. This was an inherently conservative approach. It is shown how the ideas of landscape that developed from the Enlightenment to the period of land embellishment took a diabolical turn during the era of National Socialism in Germany. The idea of rooted-in-the-soil native plants as the ideal constituent of a German “landscape” continued among landscape architects and landscape planners after the liberation from National Socialism. Though somewhat diluted in the course of the second half of the twentieth century it re-emerged in a kind of renaissance in late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries under the terms “ecological planning” and the “nature garden”. Another source of these ideas lies particularly with the thinking of “anthroposophists”. The passage of a current legal landscape document, The European Landscape Convention, the heritage of the idea that “landscape must become the law” has gained new pertinence.     

Environmental aesthetic design Identifying and achieving desired environmental effects, particularly “image” and “atmosphere”

Environmental aesthetic design is the process of determining aesthetic aspects of an environment still to be built. Aesthetic matters weigh heavily in the world of design and in the decisions of building designers, particularly architects. Yet, apart from its use within the specialized literature, the word aesthetic may mean whatever the user chooses it to mean. For the purposes of this paper an aesthetic effect of an environment is assumed to be a particular subjective quality that a designer may wish to give to, and a subjective response experienced by those who use, that environment. The paper proposes a simple procedure by which designers may establish aesthetic programmes (or briefs) for the “atmospheres” of environments and achieve their desired effects. The same procedure may be used to create a desired “image”.     

Instandsetzung einer “müden” Straßenbrücke mit orthotroper Fahrbahn

Repair of a “tired” road bridge with orthotropic deck. The proneness to fatigue of steel bridges with an orthotropic deck appears in many damages because of the increasing traffic of heavy vehicles. On the example of an aggrieved highway‐bridge the specific weak points and the executed damage analysis will be shown. The gained knowledge leaded to the development of different alternatives of repair and to the presented repair concept. To improve the global characteristics of the structure additional supports will be built, for the local strengthening a reinforced concrete slab will be built as composite structure with the existing steel deck.     

Usages of the “cultural landscape” concept in Norwegian and Nordic landscape administration

This paper summarizes the results of an analysis of differing usages of the concept of “cultural landscape” and related concepts in Norwegian and Nordic government policy and applied research documents. The analysis indicates how inconsistent or unclear use of concepts can hinder interdisciplinary and intersectorial communication. The role of rhetoric, the changing usage of concepts over time and different value loadings for similar concepts are exemplified. Confusion arises partly because previously separate academic discourses, based on separate but overlapping sets of values, have come together in a common discourse promoted by the application of research to government policy. The principal participants in this discourse are agricultural interests, nature conservation interests, cultural heritage interests and local planning interests.     

The emergence of city-regions and their implications for contemporary spatial governance: Evidence from Ghana

Over the years, urbanization has triggered complex spatial processes, such as the evolution of city-regions that defy traditional administrative regional boundaries. However, despite the growing body of research on city-regions, the evolution of this phenomenon and its implications for contemporary spatial governance remains a huge gap in urban planning literature, while approaches to their delineation have largely been restricted to commuting patterns data and approximations. This research examines the emergence of city-regions and their implications for contemporary spatial governance using Ghana as an illustrative case. In the process, inspired by Tobler's first law of geography and the concept of distance decay, the study engages a unique methodological approach that uses spatial mapping of rural-urban population continuum, transportation network, built-up patterns and GIS techniques for the delineation of city-region. The research finds a gap between the rapidly emerging spatial structure of Accra and the operational governance framework, as there is no provision in the latter for the planning and management of the evolving city-region which, territorially, spans multiple administrative regions. At the local context, while making the lagging spatial governance system more responsive to the dynamically evolving spatial structure, it is imperative that urban policy recognises city-regions, such as the Accra City Region (ACR), and their diverse opportunities; plan for them through joint development planning boards; and foster natural coordination even among local planning authorities across different administrative regions. At the global scale, the research practically illustrates that alternative methodologies based on spatial mapping and GIS techniques could provide useful insights into the study of city-regions.     

“Rio+10”, sustainability science and Landscape Ecology

The ‘sustainability debate’ has had a profound influence on contemporary Landscape Ecology. This paper explores the implications of the second global summit for the research agendas that developed after the Rio Summit (1992), and argues that although the Declaration from Johannesburg 2002 restates the earlier summit concerns, the messages it sends to the research community are subtly different to those a decade earlier. The growing body of literature, which identifies the need for a new kind of sustainability science, is reviewed, and its relevance to Landscape Ecology is discussed. Although recent commentators have argued for a more transdisciplinary approach to Landscape Ecology that appears to meet the requirements of this new science we still lack ways of taking this forward. The paper concludes by proposing a new paradigm for Landscape Ecology based on the concept of ecosystem goods and services, or natural capital. It is argued that in the decade since the Rio Summit, a key focus of the future research agenda for the discipline should be an exploration of the ‘sustainability choice space’ defined by the interaction of biophysical limits and social and economic values at the landscape-scale. The paper provides a conceptual model (the tongue model) that describes how biophysical and socio-economic constraints can be combined in sustainability planning.     

Die “Highlight Munich Business Towers” in München – Tragwerksplanung und statische Nachweise

The Highlight Munich Business Towers in Munich. The Highlight Munich Business Towers are located in the northeast of Munich, where highway A 9 from Nuremberg is connected to the middle ring road, just a few miles from Munich’s Olympia Center. The buildings are part of the ‘Industrial Park Munich‐Schwabing’, which thus becomes even more attractive, not least because the buildings will have an ideal connection to the city centre by a new subway station. The project goes back to an architectural competition in the year 2000. The planning team of architects Murphy/Jahn, structural engineers Werner Sobek Ingenieure und climate engineers Transsolar was victorious against strong international competitors and managed the project until its completion. The building project is a special landmark in the history of highrise structures in Germany because it does completely without the concrete cores that are commonly used to stiffen a building. The resulting transparency is unique. The idea of transparency and dematerialisation lying behind the design was consequently applied to all parts of the structure and to all components, like elevators and bridges connecting the two buildings. Especially these totally glazed bridges at a height of up to 240 feet will certainly make a lasting impression on visitors.     

The stabilization of “dissolved” iron in freshwaters

Laboratory experiments have been conducted to see what substances are capable of holding iron at a concentration of about 1 ppm in a “dissolved” form (i.e. will pass through a 0.45 μm pore size filter) in oxygenated water. The results show that reagents capable of doing this include humic and tannic acids, surfactants such as sodium dodecyl sulphate and sodium dodecylbenzene sulphonate, and the inorganic ions silicate and phosphate. In contrast, the synthetic polymer polyvinylpyrrollidone and the simple ions Cl⁻, HCO₃⁻, SO₄⁻ and NO₃⁻ showed no ability to stabilise iron. The efficiency of phosphate at keeping iron in the “dissolved” state was found to decrease in the presence of cations, particularly divalent ones, but increased with rise in water pH in the range 6–11.It seems unlikely that much of the stabilization observed for any of the reagents tested is due to their forming complexes with the iron. A much more likely explanation is that the substances for which positive results were obtained are able to stabilize fine colloidal iron particles and inhibit them from forming larger aggregates.     

The Houston Growth Coalition In “Boom” and “Bust”

ABSTRACT: Although growth machine theory emphasizes the coalition's tactics and organization, it neglects adjustment to changing economic conditions. This article explores the changes in the strategy and organization of Houston's growth coalition during the peak growth of the 1970s and the decline of the 1980s. During the boom, the coalition focused not on additional growth but on easing the city's infrastructure problems. The coalition underwent several major changes during decline as it struggled to compete aggressively with other cities for various enterprises and to devise strategies for diversifying the economy. A growth coalition has the opportunity to establish the economic basis for future growth when the city's dominant industries reach maturity and decline.     

Entry restrictions and expenditure effects in the local government market

Recent statutory developments in U.S. local government law have placed more comprehensive administrative procedures and constraints upon those individuals wishing to alter their form of local government. What effect, if any, have these “reforms” had upon the performance of local government; has government become more efficient in providing goods as one body of literature seems to suggest, or has local government become more monopolistic as a result of reduced competition as other strands of thought suggest? By examining the budgetary behavior of local governments under alternative institutional structures, this paper examines these alternative perspectives. The empirical evidence suggests that entry barriers significantly alter the performance of local governments and allow existing units of government to cartelize the market.     

“Die Raupe” – eine bewegliche Brückenkonstruktion

Für einen Brückenwettbewerb in Wien wurde ein Konzept einer beweglichen Brücke in Form eines Fischbauchträgers entwickelt, das neben seiner strengen Funktionalität und der materiellen Effizienz über einen innovativen Hebemechanismus verfügt. Die Idee des Hebevorgangs basiert auf einer Verkürzung des Trägeruntergurts durch Seile und zwei zwischengeschalteten hydraulischen Zylindern. Die Anhebung der Brücke zur Freihaltung des geforderten Lichtraumprofils erfolgt asymmetrisch, was ein raupenähnliches Verkrümmen zur Folge hat. Des Weiteren wurde die Deckplatte dahingehend optimiert, dass unter Verwendung hochfester Stähle die große Verformung über das elastische Werkstoffverhalten aufgenommen und so auf wartungsintensive Gelenke verzichtet werden kann. Durch das gewählte statische System mit dem applizierten Hebemechanismus kann die Einleitung großer Horizontalkräfte in den Boden vermieden und dadurch die Kosten deutlich gesenkt werden. Das Konzept wurde für eine Spannweite von ca. 60 m entwickelt, kann jedoch auch für andere Spannweiten adaptiert und so vielerorts eingesetzt werden. “The Caterpillar” – A moving bridge structure. For a design competition for a bridge in Vienna, a concept for a moving bridge in the form of a lenticular girder was developed which, in addition to its strict functionality and material efficiency, features an innovative lifting mechanism. The lifting principle is based on shortening the lower chord of the girder with the help of cables and two intermediate hydraulic cylinders. In order to create the required clearance profile, the bridge is lifted asymmetrically, which results in a deformation of the shape which is reminiscent of a caterpillar. In addition, the upper deck was designed using hightensile steel so that the considerable deformation could be absorbed by the elasticity of the material, which means that maintenance‐intensive hinges could be omitted. This structural system with its lifting mechanism makes it possible to significantly lower costs as there are no large horizontal forces to be transferred to the ground. The concept was developed for a span of approx. 60 m but can also be adapted to spans of different sizes and is therefore suitable for many situations.