Experience Gained from the Renewal of Old Tianjin

The urban functions of Tianjin havechanged many times since it wasestablished as a port city about 800 yearsago.It became a frontier garrison duringthe confrontation between the Song andJing dynasties.It was turned into a hubof communications when sea transporta-tion started in the Yuan Dynasty.Itbecame a prosperous port when grain wastransported through the Grand Canal to     

Consideration of the Planning for the Reconstruction of Aging and Dilapidated Houses in Beijing''''s Old Town

In the past 41 years after the foundingof the People's Repubilc, many buildings,with a total floor space of more than80,000,000 square meters, have been erected     

The Psychological Status and Value Choice Inclination of Residents in the Old City District——Analysis of and enlightenment from the survey of old districts

This article discusses the "double environment" of the old city districts from the angleof settlement consciousness by analysing the survey conducted in Wang Jia Ma Tou sec-tion of Nanshi old district in Shanghai, and provides the basis for the planning and designfor the large-scaled renewal projects in old city.     

The Modernization of Small Town and the Continuation of Historical Context

In the process of criticizing complete westernization,the traditional culture and national culture have gained theirdeserved positions.However.it is still under discussion whether or not all the traditional culture should be encouragedand whether the enhancement of national culture means the advocation of traditional culture or not.It is generally heldthat feudalism dominates the former while the latter is dominated by socialism.In the course of strengthening spiritualcivilization the encouragement of the national culture will not be simply achieved by restoring fragments of ancientways,let alone the issues of rejecting the dross and assimilating the weeding through the old to bring forth the new inthe field of carrying forward the traditional culture.The author points out,through profound study in planning,modernization is not westernization,historical context is not simply the reappearance of the past and continuation isnot carrying on as before.     

The Mersey Estuary – Back from the Dead? Solving a 150‐Year Old Problem

The Mersey Estuary has suffered a legacy of abuse and neglect since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The discharge of effluents from manufacturing processes, together with wastewater from the burgeoning centres of population, resulted in the estuary gaining the unenviable reputation of being one of the most polluted rivers in Europe.
As a result of the long-awaited remedial action which has been implemented over the last fifteen years, there is now unequivocal evidence that the water quality of the river and the biology of the system have improved significantly and will continue to do so as further planned alleviation schemes are completed.
This paper reviews the achievements which have been made at the half-way stage in the 25-year multi-billion pound 'clean-up'campaign.     

Towards Effective City Planning—The Case of Cape Town in Identifying Potential Housing Land

Vacant land in cities is an important resource as it presents opportunities for urban renewal and revitalisation and can contribute to municipal revenue. In a context of growing informality and homelessness in cities of the South, the presence of large tracts of vacant land is a sign of inefficient urban planning and a dysfunctional land market. It is therefore critical for local governments to have reliable data of the extent of vacant land parcels in cities and their potential for housing development, particularly affordable housing for the poor. This paper will detail and discuss the “Potential Housing Land Model” developed by the Cape Urban Observatory, part of the African Centre for Cities, based at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. South African cities, and in this case the city of Cape Town in particular, face huge constraints in terms of suitable, well-located and affordable land for low-cost housing development. A tool like the “Potential Housing Land Tool” is one tool which could assist decision-makers in identifying such land parcels. Besides identifying land that can potentially be used for housing; the model can also allow officials to pin-point areas that are not well-serviced. The deployment of the model on the World Wide Web makes the tool available to a range of users including municipal officials, academic researchers and organised sectors of civil society who might benefit from this kind of information. The responsible and strategic use of this model and the information it provides, can facilitate a broad-based discussion about vacant land and its potential use in the city, allowing for more transparent and participatory planning. The application of tools like the “Potential Housing Land Tool” can therefore greatly assist in improving urban governance and can contribute towards more efficient and sustainable urban planning and management systems.     

The Issue of Street Construction in the Transformation of Old City Areas in Medium-and-Small-Sized Cities

Excerpts: The rapid economic development of cities provides the material basis for the transformation of the oldcities. The reconstruction of streets is the first issue being looked at. In the past few years,experiences have beengained and problems encountered. For instance, only some sections of the streets are reconstructed, the scale and de-velopment program of reconstruction are decided without any comprehensive, conceptual planning program, Thispaper attempts to analyse the reasons and defects of the past practice and some suggestions are made on improve-ment measures. It is pointed out in particular, that the transformation of streets should be based in the need, devel-opment potential, characteristics and specific role of the cities in order to enable the streets to be reconstructed incoordination with the transformation of the cities as a whole.     

(W)Escaping the Challenges of the City: a Critique of Cape Town’s Proposed Satellite Town

Much of the current planning discourse has come to reject master planned ‘new cities’ as both unrealistic and undesirable. However, with growing urbanisation challenges in the Global South, master planned cities, suburbs and communities have come back on the agenda driven by both public and private interests. This paper explores the WesCape Development (WD), a proposed satellite suburb to be located north-west of Cape Town, South Africa. Situating the WD in a longer lineage of utopian and new city planning approaches, I argue that the proposal is deeply flawed. Rather than being the solution to the urban ills facing Cape Town, it is an ‘anti-urban’ strategy which supports suburbanisation and assumes a particular and problematic urban growth scenario. It relies on ‘environmentally deterministic’ assumptions and depoliticised and deinstitutionalised designs. Ultimately, it tries to escape, rather than confront, the operational, political and social challenges of the city leading to the devaluation of planning instruments and citizenship engagement. The WD highlights the importance and power of radical and utopian thinking as well as the necessity of grounding and situating these impulses in the specificities and complexities of the city.     

Re—Development of Old City Center

Everything in the universe undcrgoes metabolism. Buildings andcities are no exception. So city renovation is irresistihle. Modern so-ciety kas bestowed nowaday cities with characteristics, missions andfunctions that differ from old ones. The re--development of old cityis inevitable whether you Iike it or not, and that of the old city cen-tral block is of particular signincance.Every oId city fOrms its own central block during the develop-ment process. For instance, Wuhan in Hubei Province has fOrmed itscentral block, with Zhongshan Road as the trunk street, includingareas from the Yiyuan Road in the east to the Wusheng Road in thewest. Such a fact is undeniable:Althouth old city expands its urban occupation by constructing ahost of new cities and districts in its surrounding area, its centralarea remains unchanged and the atmosphere there becomes strongerwith the lapse of time.. The planners and administrators of the city have made great effOrts to create necessary conditions, hoping that inhahitants in     

Images of the Future from the Past： The Metabolists and the Utopian Planning of the 1960s

During the 1960s, many changes reshaped the economy, the society and the arts. The Cold War, the Space Race, the construction of a new middle class in most western societies led by the postwar economic prosperity with unprecedented urban growth followed by severe environmental problems fostered the design of spectacular urban utopian cities and mega-architectures. In those years, Japan was the source of highly influential bold and visionary urban and architectural ideas which relied on advanced technology. These ideas were conceived on the thought that cities could be seen as gigantic but impermanent entities able to transform itself according to an organic process of adaptation of its elementary components. This paper briefly revisits and critically discusses the legacy of the iconic mega-strnctural projects of Japanese Metabolist Movement and other visionary architects and planners of the 1960s, such as Paolo Soleri, Buckminster Fuller, Archigram. It attempts to enlighten the continuity with contemporary innovative and experimental urban models and ideas for the society and the city of the future, such as the Smart Cities, Eco-Cities, Green Urbanism, whose design is led by concerns related to climate change, the necessity of energy efficiency, the improvement of urban landscape and the valorization of depleted natural resources.     

Reframing the ‘gap market’: lessons and implications from Cape Town’s gap market housing initiative

In South Africa, households which earn too much to qualify for South Africa’s impressive capital subsidy programme and too little to access mortgage finance are referred to as the gap market. As the gap continues to grow, address is of increasing policy priority, a focus of local and national efforts. However, this paper argues that the gap market has been misunderstood and inappropriately framed in South African housing policy discourse. The case study of the City of Cape Town’s ‘Sale of Serviced Erven for GAP Market Purposes’ demonstrates the assumption that the gap market is a functional housing submarket which can be targeted uniformly. This paper argues that the gap market is instead a derivative of South Africa’s housing policy history and premised on the problematic ‘ownership imperative’. While the gap market is a useful conceptual tool to be understood within its historic trajectory, it should be discarded from policy design processes and replaced with more useful categories driven by analysis of the households and dynamics which comprise the market. This argument is relevant for all countries which seek to address gaps in their housing markets.     

National Stadium——The Main Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games

The new National Stadium is located on a gentle risc in the centre of the Olympic complex. It is conceived as a large collective vessel. An undulating composition of high and low elevations moderates the bulk of the vessel and gives it a dramatic sweeping form. The stadiums appearance is pure structure. Facade and structure are identical.The structural elements mutually support each other and converge into a grid-like fortnation-almost like a bird‘s nest with its interwoven twigs.     

Performing the Primitive in the Postcolony: Nyoni’s Kraal in Cape Town

The production of particular spaces for tourist consumption of the “exotic” other involves the performance of particular conceptualizations of people and places that recreates theatrical versions of the primitive. Through analysis of one such space—Nyoni’s Kraal in Cape Town—we contend that both hosts and visitors are complicit in the construction of these spaces and imaginaries. To this end, practices of social and spatial policing as well as performativity and representations of cultural constructs of an “authentic Africa” are deployed in the projection of a specific form of constructed, “benign” multiculturalism. We contend that such practices reproduce a mythical idyll of Africa for consumption that recreates—rather than questions—colonial power structures, and therefore remain imbued with the inequitable and uncertain outcomes of modernity.

Renovation and Dispersion of the Old City in Shanghai

The principle of urban renovation should be based on general planning,and the aim of it isto guide the implementation of general planning to achieve its goals.Since a city is a massive or-ganic compound system,renovation of its various ports inevitably influence,constrain,or pro-mote the general planning and lead to different results.Planners should make great efforts in guiding the renovation to a right way(a sound-circle instead of the foolish shift of the problemswhile dealing with the city's problems).Planning should not only study on the construction but al-so on the feasibility,and the relevant regulations and management measures leading to success ofimplementation.Only in this way can the planning be effective and become the guide for renova-tion of the city's old areas.Dealing with renovation of old urban buildings,this article makes aprobe into the possibility of solving housing problems by the means of private funding withsubsidization from the Government.Having achieved some experience on this,the author wouldlike to share and discuss with readers through this article.