On the dual nature of intra-urban borders: The case of a Romani neighborhood in Istanbul

This essay questions the nature of intra-urban borders from a politico-ethical point of view. Namely: to what extent are intra-urban borders acceptable at a time of proliferating discourses about a borderless world, and open cities? We discuss this through a case study of Sulukule – a historic neighborhood home to a millennium old Roma community located within the historic city center of Istanbul – in the context of the urban renewal project launched by the local municipality. The often cited “humanitarian” pretext for the renewal project is “incorporating” the Sulukule’s poor Roma community into the city and tearing down the borders demarcating their ghetto. Eventually, this discourse of incorporation served to instigate a rapid episode of gentrification in the area. Offering a critical perspective on the municipality’s renewal project, and through a discussion of the often conflicting premises of the discourses of the “right to the city” and the “group right to difference,” this essay argues that intra-urban borders are “undecided” separators and calls for policy tools that are responsive to the enabling aspects of bordering processes.     

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For the celebration of Berlin's 750th anniversary in 1987, only two years before the unexpected fall of the Berlin Wall, the socialist regime in the German Democratic Republic remodeled some of the long-despised late-19th-century tenement neighborhoods and fitted them out with the insignia of historic everyday life. Simultaneously, it approved the construction of a number of representative architectural ensembles using different historic styles.This paper analyzes the evolution of this new historic city in the context of two particular locations, the neo-historical development Nikolaiviertel and the tenement district Prenzlauer Berg. It argues that the construction of the historic city was, on the one hand, an intellectual endeavor within a cultural context that cut across political and ideological boundaries and, on the other hand, the strategy of a regime that found itself under increasing economic and political pressure. It further argues that in designing the historic city East German architects, planners, and politicians adapted an international cultural development within the narrow framework of the socialist state and anticipated many aspects of urban planning that emerged after German reunification. Promoting an unspecific notion of “the past,” they initiated a renaissance of once neglected neighborhoods, which after reunification became prime locations for upmarket housing and retail. Construction policy before and after reunification therefore has to be seen as a continuous development, despite the fact that after the end of the socialist regime planners and architects from the former East were largely excluded from the decision-making process. Despite the different political and economic system in the GDR, East Berlin design politics during the 1980s paralleled approaches in the West, where real and imagined urban history was increasingly commodified and marketed to local elites and tourists.     

Berlin,Moscow, Warsaw: a century of sibling rivalry expressed in urban form

The troubled, historical relationship between Russia, Poland and Germany is revealed in their struggles for dominance over borderland territories. Berlin, Moscow and Warsaw boast scars left by dynastic wars and cultural skirmishes between these nations before 1914. The final Partition of Poland (1795), making Warsaw the third largest city in the Russian empire, and its destruction in 1944–5, epitomise their deadly rivalry. WWI was a watershed: Imperialism and the belle époque in architecture were replaced by socialism and modernism; the urban working class demanded security against a system founded on the ‘callous cash nexus’. This socialist phase was, like its predecessor, memorialised in monuments and statues, buildings, architecture and urban design. The fall of the Berlin Wall symbolised the opening of the era of choice, quintessentially expressed in the Mallification of public spaces. The concomitant of choice is risk, whose antidote may not be sought in class-based actions but in pre-socialist, nationalist narratives.     

Living and health conditions of selected cities in India: Setting priorities for the National Urban Health Mission

The concept of “healthy city” promotes the physical, mental, social, and environmental well-being of people who live and work in urban areas. Fostering sustainably healthy cities is the prime objective of the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) in India. However, attaining this goal requires establishing priorities, key concerns, strategies and guidelines for action. This paper aims to assist policymakers by providing critical insights into the health and living conditions in selected major cities in India, with special emphasis on slums. This paper presents evidence that many of India’s major cities face significant deficits in the provision of basic amenities, including shelter, safe drinking water, improved sanitation and electricity. Demographic and health conditions in these cities lag far behind the goals set forth in national policies almost a decade ago. Despite the apparent proximity of city dwellers to urban health facilities, less than one third of the urbanites in India utilize government health facilities.     

大事件与城市建筑

大事件（主要指人为的社会性事件）对城市发展影响不仅体现城市的建筑与景观方面,也体现在城市的文化,生活等方面。今天,城市管理者越来越注意讲求城市特色、竞争力和城市的文化身份、推进城市经济发展,而大事件恰好可为实现上述目标提供机会。     

Globalization and the production of city image in Guangzhou’s metro station advertisements

The process of globalization has already become one of the dominant contexts in which cities adjust and reshape their economic, social, political and cultural structures. Moreover, the influences of globalization operate not only upon urban economic restructuring but also upon the symbolic production of the city image. In line with globalization and urban entrepreneurialism, the meanings of cultural elements are produced and circulated to symbolically represent values and the identity of the city itself. In this paper, we discuss how the image of a “globalizing Guangzhou” is produced through the symbolic meanings of the metro station advertisements in Guangzhou, China. We argue that this special process of cultural production reflects the city’s intensifying involvement in the globalization process. The principal discovery of our research is that the globalization process has profoundly shaped the representational meanings of metro advertisements and has thus helped shape the image of a Chinese city that actively participates in globalization. To achieve this result, we performed a content analysis and qualitative interpretation of some of the most important meanings conveyed by the city’s advertisement designs.     

Local state and administrative urbanization in post-reform China: A case study of Hebi City,Henan Province

China’s rapid growth over the last three decades has attracted much academic attention. In the post-reform era, economic growth has been paralleled by rapid urbanization. China’s urbanization experience has been shaped heavily by the state through national urban policies as well as through local administrative means. Much has been written about large Chinese cities in the more developed coastal regions, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but little is known about the process of city-making in medium-sized and small Chinese cities, especially those in the less developed central and western regions of the country. This paper sheds light on the processes of urban transformation in Hebi, a medium-sized inland city in Henan Province, emphasizing the critical role that the local state has played in city-making, the mechanisms and processes of change, and the resultant impacts on the city. As a mining city, Hebi has been threatened by depleting natural resources. To invigorate the city, a new city center has been built to attract new enterprises. Through intensive interviews and fieldwork conducted in 2007 and 2008, we examine what the city government of Hebi has done to turn the newly constructed urban space into a new administrative and economic center of the city. With the establishment of new enterprises, the local economy has been diversified, although coal continues to be a major component of Hebi’s economy. The role of the local state in the production and development of the new urban space is direct and forceful. As local state policies on urban development have been implemented by strong administrative means, we conceptualize the contemporary Chinese model of urbanization as “administrative urbanization”. One problem with this kind of state-dominated urbanization and city-making is that the needs of the people are not fully considered, and it is unclear who the major beneficiaries are. More case studies are needed to determine how economic and political forces are driving China’s land-based urban development, the extent to which local states are understood as entrepreneurial, profit-seeking and pro-growth, the relationship between the local state and other stake-holders in local urban development, and who has benefited from administrative urbanization.     

Measuring the influence of the greening design of the building environment on the urban real estate market in Taiwan

To address the worsening problems of global warming and the urban heat island effect, ecological cities and building environment greening are being promoted in population-dense urban areas domestically and abroad. For example, the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism announced the CASBEE-HI (Heat Island) assessment system in 2008 as a response to worsening urban warming and urban heat island effects. The Ministry implemented “Building Space Greening Plans” in Tokyo, Osaka, and other cities, enforcing by law the effective reduction of urban temperatures and improving urban living environments and alleviating the threat of urban ecological disasters. Therefore, this study integrates Taiwan domestic and foreign building space greening design, derived greening benefits, implementation promotion methods, and greening design policies as measurement constructs to examine the mutual influence between different constructs and to analyze the degree of influence on the urban real estate market.     

Fountains as urban furniture in historical urban structure and usage culture: Erzurum city case

Urban street furniture are the structural elements that vary depending on cultural features of countries or cities. These elements have a very important role in the view of adding a meaning to “city identify” and faciliting of the “society life”. The historical fountains as a street furniture widespread in Turkey. This historical street fountains do not exist anywhere except from Turkey.     

City profile: Berlin

Berlin is a German city and federal state, situated in the heart of Europe. It has been the capital city since 1991, and is the largest city in the country with around 3.4 million inhabitants. This profile explains Berlin’s historical development and emphasizes changes which took place during the 20th century (the Weimar period in the 1920s, followed by the Nazi takeover in 1933 and the city’s destruction during World War II, then the division of the city into West Berlin and East Berlin, until its final reunification in 1990 after the Wall fell down). After reunification, Berlin experienced a new period of urban redevelopment in which many new buildings were constructed. This profile also outlines some recent positive changes in terms of Berlin’s economic growth and its transformation into the capital of innovative new companies in the digital, culture and media industries.     

Rethinking dichotomization: A critical perspective on the use of “hard” and “soft” in project management research

This paper elaborates on the categorization – dichotomization – between “hard” and “soft” in project management research. This categorization is becoming more increasingly used in project management research for example by stating that some projects are “hard”, while other projects are “soft”, that some project skills are “hard”, while other project skills are “soft” etc. The aim is to discuss this dichotomization as an example of hierarchization – a power struggle between opposites – within project management research and literature and acknowledge the effects for project management research and practice of unreflective upholding of this dichotomy. We provide a critical review and discussion of stage-gate models as an example of “hard” project management approaches, and agile methods as an example of “soft” approaches to project management and acknowledge that in project management practice, it seems as if “hard” and “soft” approaches are most often combined. Hence, this dichotomy seems to be upheld by the research community while practitioners show a more holistic perspective to project management.     

Dialectical urbanism: Tactical instruments in urban design education

For the last decade, the Advanced Architectural Research Studio at the Department of Architecture, Middle East Technical University of Ankara, has concentrated its efforts on different cities in order to question their underlying problems, from social to physical; and to search for alternative urban design solutions. Relied on the premises of the theory of dialectical urbanism, two terms, “context” and “programme,” have been revisited in order to decipher the complexity of alternative urbanizations, in which architectural transformation processes have come under question using such themes as border, memory, accessibility or interface. In this respect, this article forms part of this scholarly investigation with which the theme, “hybrid” has been utilised to overcome the spatial shortcomings of a specific town in the Balkans – Pogradeç. Combining insights from sociological and political realities of the context, it introduces a critique of the transmission model of design education, which renders studio works as passive abstract practices removed from social and cultural realities. This critical pedagogy not only challenges the limiting framework of contemporary architectural education but also calls back the creative political formations developed during the foundational years of the school.     

Determination of bioclimatic comfort in three different land uses in the city of Erzurum,Turkey

This study was carried out to determine the human bioclimatic conditions in rural, urban and urban forest areas in the conditions of the city of Erzurum, where an extreme continental climate type prevails. Data were obtained over a 10-month period and human bioclimatic conditions in these three different land-use types were evaluated using human bioclimatic indices, suitable for the data obtained. In the study, thermohygrometric index (THI), which assesses air temperature and relative humidity, and “beer garden days” index, which uses the days when temperature at 21:00 is over 20 °C, were used. While in these three areas “hot” and “comfort” ranges were determined to be 10% of the period, the number of “beer garden” days was only 20 days in rural, 15 days in urban forest and 18 days in urban areas of Erzurum. Consequently, it has been determined that the most suitable area for the human comfort in the conditions of Erzurum is in the urban area which is followed by the urban forest and the rural areas, both for each observation time and across the whole period.     

Recent urban development in Gijón (Spain). Historic aerial photography as a tool for sustainability assessment of the process

The digital collection of historic aerial photography, held by the Department of Geography at the University of Oviedo, has proved to be an important resource when analyzing the processes of urban development. Imagery helps us identify the different pieces of urban fabric in their context, and furthermore, to understand how the process of change unfolds. Photo interpretation techniques are used in order to detect the spatial pattern of the new urban developments.Gijón, in Spain, is a very good example of a Southern European city. Generally, these cities tend to be denser than those in Northern Europe or even in North America. Even today the outskirts in South European cities are not synonyms of low-density residential zones. The built-up area in Gijón has increased over the past decade; as a result, several examples of new urban developments are available today, from densification and suburban infill to urban regeneration policies. The new districts Nuevo Roces and Viesques are pointed out to explain the relationship between urban form and social sustainability. Physical factors such as compact building forms, cycling lanes, surrounding green areas and walkable neighborhoods are complemented by other aspects like social housing, public transport connections and urban design with mixed land use in order to achieve socially-compatible urban areas.To sum up, our proposal involves the use of historic aerial photography with the purpose of gaining effective knowledge on new urban developments in Gijón.     

What makes a great city great? An American perspective

This article takes up the question of what makes a great city great? It begins by using historical examples to extrapolate and define city greatness. The concept is synthesized in a simple formulation of the “4Cs”; with each “C” respectively standing for currency, cosmopolitanism, concentration and charisma. Currency conveys the unique attributes of a city’s fundamental values and its ability to form, lead or dictate the temper of the times. Cosmopolitanism entails an ability to embrace international, multicultural or polyethnic features. Concentration is defined by demographic density and productive mass. Charisma is based on a magical appeal that generates mass enthusiasm, admiration or reverence. Four American cities (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco) are examined through a sequence of thumbnail sketches. These sketches are complemented by data that measure the standing of each city relative to each of the 4Cs The article concludes with a discussion of how a city (Chicago) can find a niche for asserting greatness, whether a “post modern city” (Los Angeles) can be a model for future greatness and the limitations of reaching for greatness.     

Social movements and urban energy policy: Assessing contexts,agency and outcomes of remunicipalisation processes in Hamburg and Berlin

This paper assesses the influence of social movements as actors in urban energy politics. Presenting two case studies of remunicipalisation processes in the German cities Hamburg and Berlin, a framework is developed to discuss policy contexts, the agency of these movements, as well as the policy outcome in each city. A short comparison shows that agency is based on context features such as legal frameworks and social movement and policy traditions, while policy outcomes are considered the result of agency. Contextual circumstances must be considered if utility and urban energy policies are to be successfully transferred to other settings.     

Berlin and Warsaw: in search of a new role in the European urban system

After 1989, the cities of Central and Eastern Europe were engaged in an inter-urban competition, a process characteristic of the urban scene since the beginning of European integration. Being a topic of great interest to researchers, a large body of literature has accumulated on the observed role of capital cities in the region as well as on their potential role in the future. Several researchers have focused on the position as well as the interdependence of Berlin and Warsaw—two urban nodes in what is hypothesized as a future West–East development trajectory (see Domański, 1999). The present paper deals with the emergence and development of metropolitan functions in these two cities. It is based on a comparative research project, which involved a series of structured, in-depth interviews with planners and policy-makers in Germany and Poland conducted by the author during the period 2001–2003. The paper discusses the development factors and their contributions to the metropolitan potential of Berlin and Warsaw. The identification of these factors is a starting point for determining the future position and rank of these two capital cities in the European urban system. The analysis is complemented by a comparison of trends in the employment structure of Berlin and Warsaw during the period 1994–2002. The results allow the author to evaluate some hypotheses posed in strategic planning documents concerning Berlin and Warsaw.

PUSHING THE URBAN FRONTIER: TEMPORARY USES OF SPACE,CITY MARKETING,AND THE CREATIVE CITY DISCOURSE IN 2000s BERLIN

ABSTRACT: In spite of the amount of urban development that followed the Fall of the Wall, Berlin's urban landscape has remained filled with a large amount of “voids” and disused sites, which have gradually been occupied by various individuals, groups, or entrepreneurs for “temporary” or “interim” uses (such as urban beach bars). This paper analyzes how, and why, such temporary uses of space have been harnessed in recent economic and urban development policies and in the official city marketing discourse in Berlin post‐2000, in the context of the discursive and policy shift toward the promotion of Berlin as a “creative city.” The gradual process of enlistment of new forms of cultural and social expression by policy‐makers and real estate developers for urban development and place marketing purposes has put pressure on the very existence and experimental nature of “temporary uses” and “interim spaces.” These have consequently been going through various trajectories of displacement, transformation, commodification, resistance, or disappearance, and in particular cases have become the focus of intense local conflicts.     

Environmental study of the impact of greenery in an institutional campus in the tropics

Urban environment quality is worsening every year. It is a fact that the urban air temperature is gradually rising in all cities and some effective measures are needed to mitigate it. Planting of vegetation is one of the main strategies to mitigate the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Large urban parks can extend positive effects to the surrounding built environment. National University of Singapore (NUS) complex can be considered as a “city” on a smaller scale. The greenery along Kent Ridge Road seems like a “rural” area, with a cooler ambient temperature. Some methodologies were employed in this study, such as satellite image, field measurement and computer simulations. The satellite image was used to identify the “hot” and “cool” spots in NUS environment. Field measurement was used to get the real temperature distribution across the campus and finally, computer simulation was used to predict some scenarios of different conditions. The result shows that buildings near or surrounded by greenery have lower ambient temperature than the ones away from the greenery and it is an effective way to lower the ambient temperature. The TAS simulation results also show that a rooftop garden has the potential of cooling energy savings for NUS buildings.     

The urban nature of agriculture: Bidirectional trends between city and countryside

The paper presents a wide range of images, contexts and issues related to contemporary forms of urban–rural interface. The urban and rural environments come in contact in various ways, generating patterns with hybrid identities which can be read both on a regional scale (in those cases where cities merge to form megapolitan conurbations), on an urban scale (suburbs of the cities), on a settlement scale (city quarters, farmyards and farmsteads), and even with regards to single buildings. This creates manifold diversified configurations of interface spaces, showing seemingly opposite trends. This work focuses on these bidirectional trends, which are discussed by means of a selection of different concepts, images, projects and experiences, within the international context. On the one hand, an increasing number of projects insert what is commonly associated with the idea of countryside into the cities: urban agriculture, mainly located in periurban open spaces, but in some cases even within the built system through various forms of integration with the building envelope, in line with a growing sensitivity about the need to conceive ways of virtuous relationship between food production, consumption and environment. On the other hand, town planning in many cases “ejects” the spaces for business and leisure, locating shopping malls, entertainment and (agri)tourism centres within the countryside. Moreover, typical rural spaces and activities (farms, farm holidays, wine farms, etc.) often refer to urban styles, due to poor design attention, or rather to marketing strategies aimed at enhancing the farm image. Thus, settlements located in rural areas show markedly increasing urban characteristics, with regards to their built environment, open spaces, and outdoor furniture. Whilst many scholars and designers have focused on reinterpreting the agricultural functions when these are inserted in urban architecture and built areas, further interdisciplinary work is needed to analyse how urban functions can be brought into the countryside and improve the quality of rural settlements.