Is There Such a Thing as a Post-apartheid City?

In an introductory section, this paper considers briefly the achievements and problems of urban governance in post-apartheid South Africa through an assessment of three categories: administrative reform, developmental issues and conflicts over service delivery issues. It then goes on to assess continuity and change in South African cities. Continuity is the norm in understanding urban history with change understood as a series of accretions and as a layering of features, unless major economic shifts or revolutionary political shifts are in place. Using the example of Durban, a series of changes is highlighted, which fit into what the deracialized growth path allows and encourages. The paper argues that thus far, the ANC government has shown little capacity or desire to discipline capital along the lines suggested, for instance, by the Reconstruction and Development Programme’s section on public transport. Larger changes are thus limited by the predilections and established discourses of the business world and the absence of more dynamic and structured public intervention.     

Relocating a Flood-Affected Community: Good Planning or Good Politics?

Problem, research strategy and findings: On January 10, 2011, the town of Grantham, Queensland (Australia), was inundated with a flash flood in which 12 of the town's 370 residents drowned. The overall damage bill in Queensland was AUD?2.38 billion (USD?2.4 billion) with 35 deaths, and more than three-quarters of the state was declared a flood disaster zone. In this study, we focus on the unusual and even rare decision to relocate Grantham in March 2011. The Lockyer Valley Regional Council (LVRC) acquired a 377-hectare (932-acre) site to enable a voluntary swap of equivalent-sized lots. In addition, planning regulations were set aside to streamline the relocation of a portion of the town. We review the natural hazard literature as it relates to community relocation, state and local government documents related to Grantham, and reports and newspaper articles related to the flood. We also analyze data from interviews with key stakeholders. We document the process of community relocation, assess the relocation process in Grantham against best practice, examine whether the process of community relocation can be upscaled and if the Grantham relocation is an example of good planning or good politics.

Takeaway for practice: Our study reveals two key messages for practice. Community relocation (albeit a small one) is possible, and the process can be done quickly; some Grantham residents moved into their new, relocated homes in December 2012, just 11 months after the flood. Moreover, the role of existing planning regulations can be a hindrance to quick action; political leadership, particularly at the local level, is key to implementing the relocation.     

The Project of Modernity: Can Architecture Make It?

The title of this essay suggests that architecture's relation to modernity is a complex one. What needs to be discussed is the specificity of architecture's conflict with modernity. While historical analysis theorizes socio-cultural and political phenomena, the thematic of architecture's entanglement with capitalism necessitates an argument, addressing the dialogical relationship between theory and practice. Historical analysis is one thing; mobilization of history to change the present situation is another. This much is clear from the discourse of thinkers who are associated with ‘critical theory,’ and the work of architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri, among others.

This essay attempts to read Tafuri's Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development, translated into English in 1976,¹ in the context of current critical theories and to demonstrate the relevance of his argument today. To be more specific, the intention is to approach Tafuri's text from the argument presented in the first chapter of Susan Buck-Morss's Dreamworld and Catastrophe.² The author re-writes the interaction between the early modern states and avant-garde artists in reference to space and time. Her paradigm suspends the idea of Zeitgeist and shows how space (territory) was the subject matter of an idea of progress that was imagined by both capitalist and socialist states of the 1930s. Secondly, Buck-Morss discusses the ways architecture occasionally went out-of-time in the historical cosmology, formulated by the forces of modernization that were unravelling during the early decades of the last century. Her discourse provides a system of periodization that surpasses historicism. Tafuri's vision of history also questions historicism,³ but if read in the light of Buck-Morss's discourse, one can see ideas in Tafuri which are perhaps more relevant to architecture's situation today than when they were written.     

Is Compact Growth Good for Air Quality?

Problem: Explicitly prohibited from regulating the land use planning activities of municipal and county governments by the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 131), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been forced to pursue an end-of-the-pipe approach to air quality management that has not proved successful in fully reducing ozone and fine particulate matter below health-based standards in many large U.S. cities. The persistence of these pollutants, in combination with a rapid rise in vehicle travel in recent decades, has raised concerns within the planning and public health communities about the long-term success of an air quality management program that is effectively divorced from the land use planning process.

Purpose: This work, which is part of an EPA-sponsored study titled Projecting the Impact of Land Use and Transportation on Future Air Quality (PLUTO), was intended to assess the effectiveness of compact growth in improving air quality at a geographic scale compatible with secondary pollution formation and transport and over a planning horizon sufficient to capture the longer-term benefits of regional land use change.

Methods: Future air quality is associated with alternative land development scenarios in this study through the integration of three separate and previously unrelated modeling components. These components consist of a set of standard population projection techniques, a household vehicle travel activity framework, and a mobile source emissions model (MOBILE 6) developed by the EPA.

Results and conclusions: The results of our analysis find the median elasticity of vehicle travel with respect to density change over time to be ?0.35, suggesting metropolitan areas can expect a 10% increase in population density to be associated with a 3.5% reduction in household vehicle travel and emissions. In addition, vehicle elasticities derived for urban and suburban census tracts across the 11 metro regions suggest density increments within urban zones (?0.43) to be more than twice as effective in reducing vehicle travel and emissions as density increments within suburban zones (?0.19).

Takeaway for practice: We found compactness to be associated with greater reductions in vehicle travel than in previous studies, which suggests land use change can play a measurable role in improving regional air quality over time. Importantly, we found where compact growth occurs to be critically important to determining the extent to which higher density development reduces vehicle travel and emissions. We found the densifi-cation of urban zones to be more than twice as effective in reducing vehicle miles of travel and emissions as the densification of suburban zones, suggesting compact growth to be better for air quality than historical patterns of growth when densifying urban zones is given priority over non-urban zones.     

Toward Turnkey: Architectural Opportunities or Pitfalls?

This article contrasts the dynamic, interactive building delivery processes that characterize the current practice of architecture with the traditional, professional concept of architectural practice. It concludes that the prime challenge facing architectural practice and education is the development of processes and techniques that will enhance architects' design contributions in the many and varied types of project organizations formed to address society's need for buildings.     

Building as a Game of Monumentality: Remarks on Wilhelm Holzbauer's Architecture

Austria is a small Central European country, vital both economically and culturally. Its contemporary architecture enjoys an excellent international reputation. Foreign experts repeatedly note that the great number of outstanding architects is most astonishing in comparison to the total population of the country (around 8 million). Hans Hollein,Gustav Peichl and Wilhelm Holzbauer, known collectively as the Wiener Triumvirat, count among the architects who have given Austrian architecture a strong international profile. Two     

Rudolf Steiner: Occult Crank or Architectural Mastermind?

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) saw architectural creation as a means of apprehending our place in the cosmos and his esoteric system of Anthroposophy aimed to demonstrate the correspondence between the spiritual and material worlds. Much of the literature available on Steiner tends to polarize him as either a creative genius or eccentric oddity, with architectural historians generally tending to adopt the latter view. Despite the fact that Steiner's architectural conceptions have remained marginal, the highly acclaimed works of many Anthroposophically inspired architects suggest that his gnostic perceptions may have something worthwhile to offer contemporary architecture.

     

BUILT SPACE AS BODHIMANDALA: The Architectural Meaning of a Practised Buddhism — Part 2

This paper examines single Aboriginal women and their children as a culturally defined domiciliary unit with very specific spatial needs. Case studies examine features of jilimi or single women's camps in Warlpiri-speaking Aboriginal communities of Central Australia. It will be argued that a culturally and gender-focused investigation and understanding of places and lifestyles is essential to the design of appropriate living environments.     

China's Macro-Planning Policies: Architectural Catalyst or Constraint?

China is undergoing one of the most intense and rapid processes of urbanisation in the world today. It also has one of the most centralised planning systems, which is driven by a Soviet-style, five-year plan. Edward Denison looks at the relationship between China's highly systematised planning process and the high-density, standardised form that urban development typically takes. Amidst this formal context, he locates a ‘whisper’ of change afoot for architects.     

Is fluoridation a fraud?

During the past 15 years tooth decay rates have declined markedly amongst children in many parts of the industrialised world. Over the same period, however, decay rates have increased dramatically in children in developing countries. For many years it has been claimed that water fluoridation is the most important and cost-effective method for controlling dental caries. A series of recent papers in the scientific literature have challenged the 'fluoridation hypothesis', since the decline in decay reported in the developed countries has occurred in both fluoridated and unfluoridated areas. In some countries of the developing world, tooth decay is now reaching crisis proportions, hence it is important to know whether fluoridation really can "reduce tooth decay by about 60 per cent", or if the dental profession has been promoting a 'flawed' hypothesis for more than 40 years.     

In Planning There Is No Such Thing as a “Race Neutral” Policy

Mier, through his experience in the Harold Washington administration, has helped to remind us that planning decisions more often than not result in unequal benefits. Most transportation infrastructure investment decisions, for example, provide disproportionate benefits to suburban commuters as compared to those for low-income inner city dwellers. Construction of convention centers, sports arenas, and high rise office towers also provides few long-term tangible benefits to low-income residents. Tax breaks, land write-downs and other incentives targeted toward large employers and developers seldom create new jobs for low-income people. In short, without an understanding of the differential impacts of public policy on various class and ethnic groups, what is planned in the name of “the public” seldom provides significant benefits to minorities, particularly those with limited incomes.     

Can Architecture Heal? Building as Instruments of Health

In the work of MASS Design Group, form follows facts. Mortality rates in some of the world's most deprived areas are being exacerbated by poor architectural provision, which allows disease to run rife in healthcare settings and causes medical professionals to flee. Yet thoughtful design can improve physician retention rates, encourage people to seek medical assistance, and improve their health prospects when they do – all at relatively little cost. MASS members Michael Murphy and Jeffrey Mansfield here outline projects of theirs in Rwanda, Malawi and Haiti that have made an inestimable difference to the communities they serve.     

What Is a Forecast for?

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings: The forecasts transit agencies submit in support of applications for federal New Starts funding have historically overestimated ridership, as have ridership forecasts for rail projects in several countries and contexts. Forecast accuracy for New Starts projects has improved over time. Understanding the motivations of forecasters to produce accurate or biased forecasts can help forecast users determine whether to trust new forecasts. For this study I interviewed 13 transit professionals who have helped prepare or evaluate applications for federal New Starts funds. This sample includes interviewees who have had varying levels of involvement in all 82 New Starts projects that opened between 1976 and 2016. I recruited interviewees through a snowball sampling method; my interviews focus on the interviewees’ perspectives on how New Starts project evaluation and ridership forecasting has changed over time. Interview results suggest that ridership forecasters’ motivations to produce accurate forecasts may have increased with increased transparency, increased influence on local decision making, and decreased influence on external (federal) funding.

Takeaway for practice: Planners can evaluate the likely trustworthiness of forecasts based on transparency, internal influence, and external influence. If forecast users cannot easily determine a forecast’s key inputs and assumptions, if the forecaster has been tasked with producing a forecast to justify a predetermined action, and if an unfavorable forecast would circumvent decisions by the forecaster’s immediate client, forecasts should viewed with skepticism. Planners should seek to alter conditions that may create these conflicts of interest. Forecasters seem to be willing and able to improve forecast accuracy when the demand for accurate forecasts increases.