Comprehensive planning in Japanese large cities

Comprehensive planning has been a key activity of local governments in Japan. This paper discusses the history of the comprehensive planning concept and argues that the purpose of comprehensive planning in large Japanese cities (dai-toshi) differs from that in Western cities. Specifically, Japanese comprehensive plans reflect Japan’s distinctive planning and political culture, such as the country’s history of granting gradually increased local autonomy to its cities under the Local Government Act, and the implementation of top-down plans prepared and implemented by powerful mayors and bureaucracies. Since year 2000 comprehensive plans for Japanese large cities have begun to change due to lower rates of economic growth, population stability, and ageing, alongside the challenges of introducing more efficiency and effectiveness into the planning process.     

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DECISIONMAKING IN A FRAGMENTED POLITY: Convention Center Expansion in Kansas City

ABSTRACT: Amid recent discussions of the shaping of economic development policies by urban governing regimes, little has been said about how these policies are made in cities which lack an effective governing coalition. This paper examines the planning of a major convention center expansion in Kansas City, Missouri, a city with a crumbling governing regime. That planning process does not conform to the work of Peterson or to Stone's model of regime policymaking where economic development policymaking is accomplished with ease. It conforms instead to a hyperpluralistic model wherein social production becomes a difficult and expensive proposition, requiring the building of a coalition on each issue anew. These findings may have broad relevance because many US cities appear to operate without effective governing coalitions.     

Planning for sustainable mobility in transition cities: Cycling losses and hopes of revival in Novi Sad,Serbia

The intensive urbanization and broader-scale motorization of cities in political and economic transition call for new research on how the political and socio-economic context of the transition has shaped sustainable mobility planning. Much remains to be learned on how changes to the political and economic landscape of transition cities have affected the development and consolidation of sustainable mobility planning and how municipal stakeholders involved in sustainable mobility planning respond to the changing nature of transitional cities — including market liberalization, economic growth, development pressures, and political restructuring. By using the case study of Novi Sad, Serbia, this paper examines a transition city with a long tradition of cycling infrastructure planning now facing frictions and setbacks with regards to sustaining and strengthening the cycling culture and infrastructure. Our findings reveal that the economic growth and the new regulations that accompanied the transition in the 1990s negatively impacted bicycling parking facilities and bicycling safety. The political transition also introduced a new planning practice and institutional arrangement that did not comprehensively consider daily cyclists' needs, yet recently allowed for new civic participation and adjustments to flagship cycling projects.     

IKEA and Small City Development in Sweden: Planning Myths,Realities, and Unsustainable Mobilities

This article analyses how urban authorities manage goals of sustainable development in decentralized planning contexts when faced with economic growth opportunities offered by a powerful development actor. This challenge is described and analysed in a comparative case study of how two Swedish cities handled the issue of new IKEA stores in decision-making and planning. The analysis centres on how power relations affected planning and decision-making, and is complemented by an evaluation of the choices and actions of the two municipalities in sustainable mobility terms, and an indication of the potential environmental consequences of the decisions. The results show how the two municipalities locked their cities into car-dependent development paths by accepting IKEA's retail concept, due to perceived fierce competition for retail trade between neighbouring cities, and a belief that IKEA development would boost economic growth. The municipalities conducted considerable parts of the planning processes under secrecy, which constrained criticism of the IKEA developments, and left environmental and traffic impacts not fully assessed or debated. The cases show how, while attempting to put in place strategies for sustainable urban development, the municipalities handled difficult choices in ways which compromised their own and wider environmental goals for economic gains.     

Do Industrial Preservation Policies Protect and Promote Urban Industrial Activity?

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: In recent years, several major cities have implemented industrial preservation policies to attract and retain industrial uses after facing acute pressures to rezone often centrally located industrial land to “higher and better” uses. Minimal research to date, however, has examined how effective industrial preservation policies have been at protecting and promoting urban industrial activity. In this study, we ask how New York City’s (NY) Industrial Business Zone (IBZ) program affected four measures of urban industrial activity—industrial business registrations, industrial employment, industrial building permits, and industrial land—in IBZs in New York City. We benchmark our results against a comparison group established using propensity score matching. We find that the IBZ program had a significant impact on retaining industrial land in IBZs but that it did not have a significant impact on promoting new industrial business registrations, employment, or building permits in IBZs.

Takeaway for practice: Our research provides evidence of how various measures of urban industrial activity change following the designation of an industrial preservation policy. This research suggests that industrial preservation policies can be an effective tool to stem urban industrial land losses in cities facing land use conversion pressures, but that such policies need to create more robust linkages with economic development planning objectives. In the interest of continuing to protect middle-class industrial job opportunities in central cities, planners and practitioners should consider how to strengthen ties between physical land use planning and economic development planning.     

20世纪80年代后中小城市空间发展分析——以湖北省大冶市为例

相对于中国大城市从解放初期就开始的整体规划发展,长久以来,中小城市的现代空间发展长期处于自由的无规划的发展状态。直到80年代开始,随着中国改革开放以后经济的快速发展,中小城市的空间形态也发生了巨大的变化。尤其是相对经济实力较强的中小城市,为了使城市空间的发展更加适应经济空间的发展,也逐步进行着对城市空间整体规划发展的思考。该文以鄂东南地区的资源型中小城市——大冶市为研究对象,分析其从1980年至2010年的30年间城市空间形态的发展演变,以及这段时期内三次城市总体规划对其城市空间发展作用,归纳了中小城市空间形态的演变规律以及主要的影响因素。     

Liveable Cities in Japan: Population Ageing and Decline as Vectors of Change

The challenge of creating liveable cities is emerging as a major policy priority around the world. Globalization, the emerging network society, increasing mobility, and the environmental, economic, health and social imperatives to create more sustainable and liveable cities have combined to increase pressures, primarily on local governments and actors to reinvigorate urban governance, urban planning and urban design. One essential aspect of this project is the improvement and vitalization of urban spaces. In this regard, Japan has significant challenges, stemming from its distinctive history of urban space management, its low proportion of public space in cities, and its aging and imminently shrinking population. At the same time, however, Japan has important opportunities and strengths stemming from its legacies of urban built form, the exceptional vigour of its place-based communities, and its rapidly aging and imminently shrinking population. This paper explores some of the opportunities and challenges facing attempts to build more liveable cities in Japan.     

Cognitive Closure in Urban Planning

Communicative planning literature has for a number of years discussed how to prevent social closure and how to improve access to planning processes for all parties interested in urban planning. The norms and measures discussed have to some degree been institutionalized into planning laws and been implemented in professional practice. In this article we examine how cognitive closure mechanisms work parallel with social and economic closure mechanisms, often reinforcing them, in three Norwegian cities. The article also discusses the democratic implications of these cognitive closure mechanisms, related to representation, inclusion, and accountability.     

特大城市低碳空间策略的经验借鉴——以伦敦、东京、纽约为例

城市已经成为气候变化应对的核心。近年来,全球范围内特大城市纷纷展开行动,在气候变化应对中发挥主导作用。论文选取伦敦、东京、纽约作为案例,从区域的视角审视它们通过空间规划减缓气候变化、建设低碳城市的经验。论文认为构建轨道交通为主体的公共交通网络、推动多层次的低碳空间策略、偏重能源、建筑和交通的减排领域、运用情景分析等新的规划编制研究方法、建立部门协调为核心的政策实施机制形成了三座案例城市低碳发展策略的主要特色,并从空间战略、近期实施、政府治理、规划体系等方面对我国特大城市低碳发展提出了建议。     

Shaken,shrinking, hot,impoverished and informal: Emerging research agendas in planning

This is the second of two special issues in Progress in Planning exploring emerging research agendas in planning. It brings together scholars from diverse schools working on new areas of research and application in urban design and planning. Emergent research agendas include both novel areas of research and important shifts in the direction of a research area. The challenge for planning schools is to reflect critically on these changes and develop long-term research agendas that can better position our field in society and academia, and provide a basis from which to assess our academic programmes. The chapters in this issue display the different scales and fields of planning, including planning for: disaster recovery; climate change, especially opportunities for mitigation; shrinking cities in the First World; and rapidly urbanising informal and impoverished cities in the global South. At the same time, the chapters identify research areas that respond to major social and environmental changes. Olshansky and Chang highlight the increasing losses from catastrophic disasters, and address the need for disaster recovery planning. Wheeler, Randolph and London focus on climate change, and, noting the urgency of action now, their research agenda emphasises opportunities for planners to develop research and policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Hollander, Pallagst, Schwarz and Popper look at increasing economic and population trends in many First World cities that result in city ‘shrinkage’. They present new opportunities for improving cities’ green space networks and natural features, and for research. The trebling of urban population in African cities by 2050, in conditions of poverty and informality, is the major trend driving Parnell, Pietriese and Watson's chapter. They present an agenda for new planning theories and for supporting empirical research to address the actual conditions of African cities.     

当前日本的历史城市保护——以茨城县樱川市真壁町为例

近年来,日本普遍意识到城市规划在保护城市历史环境上的重要性。然而,保护的对象是“大量的”、“熟悉的”、“普遍的”的历史城市。我们在试图保护这样的历史城市时,必须对该城市现存的各种历史资源及积累的历史经历进行评价。     

Santo Domingo: City profile of the Caribbean's metropolis

As the oldest city of the New World, Santo Domingo has undergone major institutional, political, economic and urban restructuring in five centuries of urban history. This city profile article investigates first the historical urban development of the city and then scrutinizes contemporary urban policies and projects that respond to challenges of rapid growth, inequality, and vulnerability to climate change. The article highlights how centralized policies initiated by divergent political regimes have resulted in a segregated city where Presidents used urban space to leave their legacies without adhering to planning mechanisms. The article also uncovers how rapid growth and absence of urban planning have produced two city making approaches, the “formal” and the “informal” cities converging parallel to each other. Furthermore, as the capital city of a Small Island Developing State, Santo Domingo's recent urban policies are embedded in global frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement; in this line, inequality and climate change vulnerabilities continue to be the city's main challenges in the 21rst century.     

大型博览会建设中生态环境的可持续发展--2005年日本爱知世博会的规划与建设

从2005年日本爱知世博会选址的争论与变迁、与自然和睦相处的会场规划布局、环境低负荷的公共交通系统、世博会的生态环境策略等方面,探讨大型博览会建设中生态环境可持续发展的理念,也揭示了之所以称爱知世博会为环境世博会的原因。     

古城墙历史文化遗址保护开发和利用研究——以海南省儋州市中和镇古城墙遗址公园设计为例

随着人们对历史文化遗产的关注,对其进行保护和更新这一敏感话题更是日益受到重视,但是从观念上重视到有效保护之间还有相当长的路要走,尤其是一些经济基础较差的城市,面临的问题更多,保护更新难度更大。怎样有效的保护和利用历史文化遗产,成为越来越受到关注的话题。     

Neighborhood-scale urban form typologies of large metropolitan areas: Observations on Istanbul,Cairo, and Tehran

The micro-level urban morphology of large cities in the Middle East and North Africa and southeastern Europe has not been thoroughly investigated, and its transformation during the past decades has remained less-studied. Hence, this study is meant to partially explain urban morphology of Istanbul, Cairo, and Tehran, three megacities of the region by focusing on the historical neighborhood typologies of the past century. The overall aim of this study is to address the feedbacks of historical urban transformations during the past 100 or 150 years to some important aspects of livability like mobility and social interactions. The objectives are to define the typologies of neighborhoods in the three cities and how they have changed over time, to clarify if the neighborhood-level urban form of the three cities have transformed in a similar fashion, and to address the differences between the cities. The variables of this study were population density, centrality, formation and location of facilities, and configuration of street networks, which were tested by T and Chi-square methods in a representative sample of 259 neighborhoods randomly selected from the case-study cities. The results of statistical hypothesis testing reveal a similarity of neighborhood transformations in the cities in terms of population density. Considerable similarities were found in case of historical changes in centrality (the centeredness of neighborhood amenities), location of neighborhood facilities, and street networks; however, the three cities have general similarities in trends, with potentially similar results for urban mobility. The most important identified planning, political, and societal trends that transformed the neighborhood morphologies were top-down interventions in the 1930s and 1940s, socioeconomic and lifestyle changes in the 1970s because of a jump in oil prices, Iran's 1979 revolution, the Iran-Iraq War for Tehran, internal migration triggered by industrialization, mass and formal housing production for Istanbul, and European inspiration in urban planning in the late 19th century, adoption of socialist ideologies in the 1960s, and the capitalist approach to urban planning in recent years for Cairo.     

Planning history research in China: past,present, and future

Chinese planning history research has gradually developed out of architectural and construction history. Its main foci have been the periodization of planning practice and the long-term evolution in the form of modern cities. So far, there has been little work on the main body of practice, planning procedure, implementation, and effectiveness. The authors argue that it is time to shift the approach of planning history and explore how it can best contribute at a practical level to the theory and practice of planning in China.     

A Trail Across Time: American Environmental Planning From City Beautiful to Sustainability

Problem: It would be useful to identify and connect the major ideas of American environmental planning from the late 19th century up to today, to show its evolution over time and anticipate its potential future direction.

Purpose: I aim to tie together the major ideas of American environmental planning, showing how they have evolved, and suggest what additional changes will be required to progress further toward sustainability.

Methods: I review the literature, defining five time periods that are useful for understanding and analyzing environmental planning successes and shortcomings.

Results and conclusions: Environmental planning has its roots in the physical design of cities and the tension between conserving natural resources for human use and protecting wilderness. In the 1920s, regional environmental planning emerged. Federal environmental impact statements were first required in the 1970s, along with efforts to clean up and prevent pollution. A backlash against government command and control began in the 1980s, leading governments to use incentives to address environmental problems. The current era makes sustainability the goal, tying together the ideas and practices of the previous eras and blending regulation and financial incentives to address national and global environmental problems, such as climate change. To reduce carbon footprints and increase water and energy conservation in the face of significant population growth in the United States will require making environmental planning a political priority, with the goals of curbing sprawling land development, and changing lifestyles and business practices.

Takeaway for practice: Environmental planning ideas have been around for the past century and underlie the currently popular concept of planning for sustainability. However, environmental planning has been only modestly effective at influencing business practices and lifestyles. To change this, federal and local governments will have to lead by example, pursuing environmental sustainability as seriously as they pursue economic growth.

Research support: None.     

集合世界智慧的上海世博会园区规划

上海世博会园区规划从策划到实施经历了四个阶段:概念性城市设计研究、申博国际方案征集与综合、办博国际方案征集与综合、日本爱知世博会考察与方案调整.在全球化背景下,像世博会园区规划这样的大型城市规划项目是一种循环的、信息集成的过程,是应对国际竞争的规划.     

城市河滨地区景观规划设计方法探讨

城市河滨地区是城市景观环境建设及改造整治的重点地段。作者针对目前我国一些城市河滨地区规划设计中的问题，通过对日本秋田县《横手川周边地区景观规划》这一实例的深入分析，从而给我们的工作带来一些重要的启示。     

精明收缩理念下城市空置问题的规划响应与启示——基于德国、美国和日本的比较

受金融危机冲击与产业经济转型的影响,我国部分城市出现了以人口减少为标志的城市收缩现象。如何处理和应对由于城市收缩引发的空置问题是当前空间规划和城市治理值得研究的课题。精明收缩提倡的"更小的用地范围内、更少的人口规模"的规划理念已经引起学界的广泛关注,但由于制度背景和规划文化的差异,不同国家所采取的政策态度与应对策略存在显著区别。本文通过梳理德国、美国和日本典型收缩城市形成的背景与动因,结合关键时间节点,分析这三个国家在应对城市空置问题的态度和演变,重点讨论不同政治文化背景下政府、社会组织、市场、公众等角色的作用。本研究有助于厘清精明收缩理念在我国城市规划领域的适用性,并为我国城市如何合理应对人口收缩下的城市空置问题提供经验启示。