Book reviews

Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City. Jane M. Jacobs. London and New York, Routledge, 1996, 193 pp., £12.99 pb, ISBN 0–415–12007–1

Land for Industrial Development. David Adams, Lynne Russell & Clare Taylor‐Russell. London, E.&F.N. Spon, 1994, 289 pp., £37.50 hb, ISBN 0–419–19180–1

Urban Policy in Practice. Tim Blackman. London, Routledge, 1994, 320 pp., £14.99 pb, ISBN 0–415–09300–7

Planning, the Market and Private House‐building. G. Bramley, W. Bartlett & C. Lambert London, UCL Press, 1995, 192 pp., £11.95 pb, ISBN 1–85728–163–2

Retail Planning Policies in Western Europe. Ross Davies. London, Routledge, 1995, 304 pp., £45.00 hb, ISBN 0–415–10997–3

Transport Concepts in European Cities. Tim Pharoah & Dieter Apel. Aldershot, Avebury, 1995, 291 pp., £42.50 hb, ISBN 1–859–72094–3

Building a New Heritage: Tourism, Culture and Identity in the New Europe. G.J. Ashworth & P.J. Larkham (Eds). London, Routledge, 1994, 278 pp., hb (out of print), ISBN 0–415–07931–4

Fractal Cities: A Geometry of Form and Function. Michael Batty & Paul Longley. London, Academic Press, 1994, 394 pp., £38.00 hb, ISBN 0–124–55570–5     

Corrosion rate of ordinary and high-performance concrete subjected to chloride attack by AC impedance spectroscopy

Corrosion of reinforcing steel in concrete is studied by using AC impedance. Subjected to different conditions and chloride concentrations, a laboratory study was conducted to estimate the corrosion rate of reinforcing steel embedded in ordinary Portland concrete (OPC) and high-performance concrete (HPC).One hundred and four OPC and HPC concrete cylinders embedded with a single reinforcing steel bar were exposed to sodium chloride solution with 0%, 1%, 3% and 5% concentrations. Specimens were also subjected to pre-conditioning and drying-wetting cycles.The AC Impedance technique (IS) was used to determine the corrosion rate of the reinforced concrete cylinders. In order to interpret the AC impedance spectra, several electrical equivalent circuits were employed.This investigation aims to compare IS with commonly used corrosion assessment techniques, such as Tafel plot (TP) and linear Polarization (LP).Results confirm that data obtained from AC impedance can be used to calculate the corrosion rate of reinforcing steel. A reasonable agreement with the results of TP and LP techniques is demonstrated. It is found that the corrosion rates obtained by AC impedance technique are lower than TP by 5–20%, while results of LP are 20–30% higher than those of TP.     

Overheating in retrofitted flats: occupant practices,learning and interventions

ABSTRACT

The overheating risk in flats (apartments) retrofitted to energy-efficient standards has been identified by previous studies as one that is particularly high. With climate change and rising mean temperatures this is a growing concern. There is a need to understand the kinds of practices, learning and interventions adopted by the occupants of individual homes to try to reduce overheating, as this area is poorly understood and under-researched. This case study focuses on the impact of different home-use practices in relation to the severity of overheating in 18 flats in one tower block in northern England. Internal temperatures monitored in comparable flats show that the percentage of time spent above the expected category II threshold of thermal comfort according to BS EN 15251 can differ by over 70%. Extensive monitoring, covering a full year, including two summer periods, has identified emergent changes in heatwave practices linked with increased home-use skills and understanding among the research participants. Close analysis of design intentions versus reality has identified key physical barriers and social learning opportunities for appropriate adaptation in relation to heatwaves. Recommendations for designers and policy-makers are highlighted in relation to these factors.     

‘Fourth places’: the contemporary public settings for informal social interaction among strangers

This paper introduces ‘fourth places’ as an additional category of informal social settings alongside ‘third places’. Through extensive empirical fieldwork on where and how social interaction among strangers occurs in the public and semi-public spaces of a contemporary masterplanned neighbourhood, this paper reveals that ‘fourth places’ are closely related to ‘third places’ in terms of social and behavioural characteristics, involving a radical departure from the routines of home and work, inclusivity and social comfort. However, the activities, users, locations and spatial conditions that support them are very different. They are characterized by ‘in-betweenness’ in terms of spaces, activities, time and management, as well as a great sense of publicness. This paper will demonstrate that the latter conditions are effective in breaking the ‘placelessness’ and ‘fortress’ designs of newly designed urban public spaces and that, by doing so, they make ‘fourth places’ sociologically more open in order to bring strangers together. The recognition of these findings problematizes well-established urban design theories and redefines several spatial concepts for designing public space. Ultimately, the findings also bring optimism to urban design practice, offering new insights into how to design more lively and inclusive public spaces.     

Operational management of trunk main discolouration risk

Despite significant on-going investment, water companies continue to receive an unacceptable number of discolouration related customer contacts. In this paper, data from intensive distribution system turbidity monitoring and cluster analysis of discolouration customer contacts indicate that a significant proportion of these contacts are due to material mobilising from the trunk main system, and operational flow increases are shown to have a higher discolouration risk than burst incidents. A trunk main discolouration incident highlighting this risk is discussed, demonstrating the need for pro-active trunk main risk assessments. To identify the source of the material event flow rates were modelled using the PODDS (prediction of discolouration in distribution systems) discolouration model. Best practice pro-active management is demonstrated in a case study where the PODDS model is used to implement managed incremental flow changes on a main with known discolouration risk with no discolouration impact to customers and significant cost savings.     

Start-ups and relocations: Manufacturing plant location in Portugal

This article analyses the spatial pattern of plant start-ups and plant relocations in Portugal between 1986 and 1997. The results show that start-ups and relocations are not attracted by the same set of location characteristics. The probability of a plant start-up is more strongly related to increases in local market size and labour force qualification, lower labour costs, and a more diversified economic environment. In contrast, relocations show a greater preference for areas with better national market accessibility, availability of producer services and a larger industrial basis. Relocations are also much more strongly attracted by the provision of inter-regional motorways. The results are consistent with the assertion that firms value location attributes differently over the plant life cycle.Received: 29 January 2003, Accepted: 3 March 2004, JEL Classification: L6, R3, R4Financial support from the ESRC, grant T026271031 and grant RES-000-22-0056 is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to thank Paulo Guimarães for his invaluable assistance with the establishment data for Portugal and his helpful suggestions, and Peter Bibby for his support with GIS programming. I have also benefited from comments and suggestions by Harvey Armstrong, Max Craglia, John Henneberry, and Ricardo Mora.     

Review

THE EXPERIENCE OF NATURE: A PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE by Rachel Kaplan & Stephen Kaplan, Cambridge University Press, 1989, 337pp, £10.95 (p/b), 0-521-34939-7.

THE ECOLOGY OF URBAN HABITATS by 0. L. Gilbert, Chapman & Hall, London, 1989, 369pp, 0-412-28270-4, £35.00.

DIRECTORY FOR THE ENVIRONMENT: ORGANISATIONS IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND 1986-7, Michael J. C. Barker, ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986. Second edition, pp. xviii + 278, £18.99, PB, ISBN 0-7102-0961-4.

THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT: A SOURCEBOOK FOR THE 1990s, Gerald Dawe, ed., Birmingham: Centre for Urban Ecology, 1990, pp. 636, £55.00, PB, ISBN 0-907272-07-X.

PLANTS IN THE LANDSCAPE (2nd Edn.), by Philip L. Carpenter and Theodore D. Walker, W. H. Freeman, New York and Oxford, 1990, 401 pp., ISBN 0-7167-1808-1, £29.95 HB.

SPORTS GEOGRAPHY by John Bale, E. & F. N. Spon, 1989, 0-419-14390-4, £16.95 PB.

THE POLITICS OF PARK DESIGN: A HISTORY OF URBAN PARKS IN AMERICA by Galen Cranz, ISBN 0 262 53084 8, 347pp, London: M.I.T. Press, 1989, £11.25, P.B.     

Potential for energy saving in building transition spaces

This paper reports on an analytical investigation into the energy saving potential associated with modified comfort limits in transitional spaces in buildings. Such spaces may not require the same high level and close environmental control of more fully occupied spaces and thus a wider variation in conditions and interpretation of thermal comfort may be permitted. Estimations are made of energy saving potential based upon typical floor area proportions utilised for transition spaces of various types in office/commercial buildings. The data are combined with suggested norms for comfort expectation that have wider temperature limits than for normally occupied office zones. The method has been applied to a series of building types situated in the climate of the East Pennines area of the UK using a thermal analysis tool. The results show that useful energy savings (particularly for heating) are possible by allowing for a modest (and realistic) relaxation of prescribed comfort standards in transition spaces. Further work is now required to confirm the limits and assess energy saving in practice.