Professor Jan Gehl

Tuesday 11 September 2007

Jan Gehl

For over 40 years internationally renowned Danish architect Jan Gehl's career has focused on improving the quality of urban life, especially for pedestrians.

Jan discusses how his research on public spaces and public life has been applied successfully in cities across Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Australia. He will also share his observations on the ways we can make Sydney a truly great pedestrian city.

Trading places A few weeks ago, I checked out the latest monument to Los Angeles' newfound urbanity: the Getty Oil Building at the intersection of Wilshire and Western. The 23-story Modernist structure, designed by Claude Beelman and built in the early 1960s, has been converted into condominiums. Across the street is the Wiltern Theater, and Koreatown stores and restaurants are a block or two away. A Red Line station catty-corner to the Getty building gives a condo resident access to Universal City, Hollywood and downtown. The building, rechristened "The Mercury" by its developer, represents the epitome of car-free urban living.

If you can afford it. The condos cost about $700 a square foot, meaning a nice two-bedroom condo -- with windows on two sides and great views -- runs about $1 million.

A few evenings later, I found myself in the cramped living room of a single-family home in a suburb of Ventura, one of about 180 houses built a decade ago for buyers with annual incomes of about $50,000. Because the original development was federally subsidized, the homeowners can sell their house only at a restricted sales price of $300,000 to $400,000, which is 20% to 40% below the market price.

The cap on the selling price, the homeowners told me, has brought some changes to their neighborhood. It allows the working poor to afford these houses by teaming up to buy them. Realtors say four, five, even six people are listed on mortgage titles to qualify for financing. Seven, eight, nine cars are parked in the driveways and on the streets in front of the houses.

What's going on here? For a century, people in Southern California moved to the suburbs as they got richer, leaving the more "urban" parts of town to poor people. Now that pattern has reversed itself. Affluent people are leaving the suburbs to live in the city, while the working poor -- people who have jobs but don't earn enough to exceed the poverty line -- are doubling and tripling up in the suburbs to buy houses.

The migration of the affluent to the inner city has gradually increased in the last three years. According to a study by the Downtown Center Business Improvement District, the household median income of downtown residents with a least one earner was about $99,600 a year in 2006, roughly $28,000 higher than that of Beverly Hills. Nearly half of those surveyed reported annual income of $100,000 to above $250,000.

Law Pedaled To Rein In Sidewalk Bikers

By DAVID POMERANTZ
Special to the Sun
July 24, 2007

For years, community leaders in the Upper East and West sides have been complaining about deliverymen who ride bicycles on sidewalks, run red lights, and generally menace pedestrians.

"The cyclists hit people left and right and just keep on going," the president of the 20th Police Precinct community council on the Upper West Side, Sam Katz, said. Ms. Katz and other leaders are counting on a new law that takes effect Thursday to help address the problem. The law, passed in March, requires restaurant managers to provide their deliverymen with safety equipment such as helmets, bells, and headlights. It also obliges restaurant managers to hang up posters — written in both English and the language spoken by the deliverymen — outlining the rules of the road for cyclists.

Deliverymen on bicycles irk residents on the Upper West Side so much that they are the no. 1 complaint heard by the 20th Precinct there, Lieutenant Biagio Carbone said.

What is Walk Score?

Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc.
How It Works

Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Check out how Walk Score doesn't work.
What does my score mean?

Your Walk Score is a number between 0 and 100. The walkability of an address depends on how far you are comfortable walking-after all, everything is within walking distance if you have the time. Here are general guidelines for interpreting your score:

* 90 - 100 = Walkers' Paradise: Most errands can be accomplished on foot and many people get by without owning a car.
* 70 - 90 = Very Walkable: It's possible to get by without owning a car.
* 50 - 70 = Some Walkable Locations: Some stores and amenities are within walking distance, but many everyday trips still require a car.
* 25 - 50 = Not Walkable: Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands, driving is a must.
* 0 - 25 = Driving Only: Virtually no neighborhood destinations within walking range. You can walk from your house to your car!

How it Works

Walk Score^TM uses a patent-pending algorithm to calculate the walkability of an address based on:

* The distance to walkable locations near an address.
* Calculating a score for each of these locations.
* Combining these scores into one easy to read Walk Score.

Read more about what makes a neighborhood walkable. We'd love to hear your feedback. Send us a suggestion!

 

Space and the Measurement of Income Segregation

CASEY J. DAWKINS
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 255-272, May 2007

Abstract:
This paper proposes a new spatial ordering index that that can be used to quantify the dependence of a given pattern of income segregation on the spatial arrangement of neighborhoods. Unlike other spatial measures of income segregation proposed in the literature, the spatial ordering index is less sensitive to the presence of outliers, satisfies the principle of transfers, and is flexible enough to quantify a variety of spatial patterns of segregation. The index can be interpreted in terms of the ratio of two covariances. Properties of the proposed measure are demonstrated using an example from the city of Baltimore, Maryland.

Accepted Paper Series

Suggested Citation

Dawkins, Casey J., "Space and the Measurement of Income Segregation" (2006-07). Journal of Regional Science, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 255-272, May 2007 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=981558 or DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9787.2007.00508.x

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 26, No. 4, 404-414 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X06298820

© 2007 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Exploring Changes in Income Clustering and Centralization during the 1990s
Casey J. Dawkins

Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech, Virginia Center for Housing Research

This article employs a new "spatial ordering index" to describe and explain changes in the degree of income clustering and centralization within U.S. metropolitan areas during the 1990s. The results suggest that while the spatial pattern of household income became more decentralized and less clustered during the 1990s, the patterns established as of 1990 were highly persistent over the decade. Factors associated with metropolitan area size and growth affected changes in both the degree of centralization and the degree of clustering. Although traditional determinants of suburbanization were associated with increases in income decentralization during the 1990s, densely developed cities with an increase in the percentage of white residents saw increases in income centralization during the decade. Furthermore, changes in the patterns observed were shaped by various policy influences, including the number of Low Income Housing Tax Credit units, urban containment policies, and the degree of local government fragmentation.

Key Words: economic segregation • spatial analysis • metropolitan governance • urban containment • growth management

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol. 26, No. 4, 435-449 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X06297860
© 2007 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning

The Sustainable Communities Experiment in the United States
Insights from Three Federal-Level Initiatives
Carla Chifos

School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati

This paper documents and analyzes a portion of the U.S. government's attempt to adopt the concept of sustainability after 1992. Numerous case studies of individual sustainable community development projects exist, although almost no literature describes the coordinated federal-level effort to create and implement a sustainable development policy from 1993 to 2000. Case studies of three prominent federal-level sustainable community programs are developed from twenty guided interviews and existing government documents. The analysis of these three cases reveals serious attempts to translate sustainability into federal programs and changes in agency cultures despite institutional barriers. Although the primary outcome of these efforts was a stronger framework for facilitation of planning at the federal level, it still remains unclear why planners were not more involved in this process.

Key Words: sustainable communities • federal policy • sustainable development • Clinton-Gore administration • President's Council on Sustainable Development

background

On November 16th, 2005, REBAR opened eyes worldwide by transforming a metered parking spot into a park. Locating a site that was underserved by public outdoor space, we installed a small, temporary park that provided nature, seating, and shade. By our calculations, we provided 24,000 square-foot-minutes of public open space that afternoon. See the video!

Since the initial PARK(ing) project was created we've been contacted by people worldwide. What began as a simple, playful idea has become a lively and visible symbol of the desire to reprogram the street and increase public open space in cities all over the planet.

In 2006, with support from The Trust for Public Land, we built upon this groundswell of interest and created an international event. PARK(ing) Day 2006 brought artists, designers, and activists together to create 47 PARKs in 13 Cities worldwide, including New York, London, and Rio de Janeiro. See our PARK(ing) Day 2006 page and the video!

In 2007, we will show how our temporary PARKs can become permanent new urban places and connect people with ways to transform their entire city's streetscape for a sustainable future.

Join artists, designers, and activists around the world who are peacefully demonstrating how to reduce congestion, clean the air, save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve urban neighborhoods.

Perpetual Motion Introduction

Mobility has always been the crux of where and how we live. Our cities, town, suburbs-even our houses-are largely the way they are because of transportation's demands on the environment. Given Dwell's interest in looking at domestic life through the lens of design, it seems fitting that we should explore the past, present, and future of transportation in the United States-country whose very existence and evolving fabric is based on its citizens' innate desire to keep on moving.

To tackle such a mammoth undertaking, we enlisted the help of intrepid adventurer and award-winning author Robert Sullivan. Amicably accepting the assignment, Sullivan agreed that the field research should be conducted in four parts-East, Midwest, West, and Southwest.

July 16, 2007
Paris Journal
A New French Revolution's Creed: Let Them Ride Bikes
By KATRIN BENNHOLD

PARIS, July 15 - About a dozen sweaty people pedaled bicycles up the Champs-Élysées on Sunday toward the Arc de Triomphe, as onlookers cheered.

These were not the leading riders of the Tour de France racing toward the finish line, but American tourists testing this city's new communal bike program.

"I'm never taking the subway again," said a beaming Justin Hill, 47, a real estate broker from Santa Barbara, Calif.

More than 10,600 of the hefty gray bicycles became available for modest rental prices on Sunday at 750 self-service docking stations that provide access in eight languages. The number is to grow to 20,600 by the end of the year.

The program, Vélib (for "vélo," bicycle, and "liberté," freedom), is the latest in a string of European efforts to reduce the number of cars in city centers and give people incentives to choose more eco-friendly modes of transport.

"This is about revolutionizing urban culture," said Pierre Aidenbaum, mayor of Paris's trendy third district, which opened 15 docking stations on Sunday. "For a long time cars were associated with freedom of movement and flexibility. What we want to show people is that in many ways bicycles fulfill this role much more today."

Users can rent a bike online or at any of the stations, using a credit or debit card and leave them at any other station.

The Transportationist: a weblog by David Levinson at the Nexus of Networks, Economics, and Urban Systems

The Spontaneous City
Essay on planning policies favoring more/less planning and the relationship with land use and transportation. Focuses on "Spontaneous develoment" and "Spontaneous action."

Title: Theories of urban politics / edited by David Judge, Gerry Stoker and Harold Wolman.
Physical Description: ix, 310 p. ; 24 cm.
Publisher/ Date: London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications, 1995

LC Subjects: Municipal government.
Sociology, Urban.
Material Type: Book

Call Number: JS78 .T46 1995

Title The Political Economy of Urban Regimes: A Comparative Perspective
Author Kantor, Paul; Savitch, H. V.; Haddock, Serena Vicari
Affiliation Fordham University [Kantor]; University of Louisville [Savitch]; University of Pavia (Italy) [Haddock]
Source Urban Affairs Review, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 348-377, January 1997

Abstract
The authors suggest how regime politics is influenced in systematic ways by particular kinds of bargaining environments. They describe a theoretical framework designed to examine the interplay of local democratic development, market environments, and intergovernmental networks on regime dynamics in eight cities in Western Europe and the United States since the 1970s. The authors explain how structural forces influence critical aspects of local regimes, particularly their governing coalitions, means of public-private coordination, and prevailing policy agendas on economic development.

Collaboratively. Creating. Toronto. June 23 + 24, 2007

Open source. Open space. Open art. Open doors. Open questions. Open City?

Open Cities Toronto 2007 is a weekend-long web of conversation and celebration that asks: how do we collaboratively add more open to the urban landscape we share? What happens when people working on open source, public space, open content, mash up art, and open business work together? How do we make Toronto a magnet for people playing with the open meme?

You are invited to discuss, dance, debate, and download Toronto's potential to become an epicentre and an example of a community that thrives on openness. We've all chosen to live here for a reason - let's figure out how we can combine our talents to build a city-wide community of openness.

Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 10, No. 2, 103-112 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/095624789801000201
© 1998 Environment and Urbanization
Sustainability is not enough
Peter Marcuse

Division of Urban Planning, School of Architecture and Planning, Avery Hall, Columbia University, NewYork 10027, New York; fax: (1) 212 864 0410; pm35@columbia.edu

This paper critically reviews the concept of sustainability, especially as it has come to be applied outside of environmental goals. It suggests "sustainability" should not be considered as a goal for a housing or urban programme - many bad programmes are sustainable - but as a constraint whose absence may limit the usefulness of a good programme. It also discusses how the promotion of "sustainability" may simply encourage the sustaining of the unjust status quo and how the attempt to suggest that everyone has common interests in "sustainable urban development" masks very real conflicts of interest.

 

Mega-cities, mega-problems
Billions in the developing world are shifting from rural to urban areas, bringing poverty to dangerous new levels.
By Nicolas P. Retsinas, NICOLAS P. RETSINAS is the director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University and chairman of the board of directors for Habitat for Humanity International.
February 28, 2007

THE WORLD HAS reached a point of hyper-urbanization: 2007 marks the first year when more than half the global population is "urban," not "rural." Indeed, this is the era of the "mega-city" - metropolises of 10 million-plus. In 1950, only Tokyo and New York met that threshold. Today there are 20 mega-cities, including Mexico City, Karachi, Manila, Dhaka, Lagos, Jakarta and Chongqing.

This type of drastic population shift isn't without precedent. During the Industrial Revolution, concentrations of people in U.S. and European cities were part and parcel of a factory economy. But that economic and technological progress came with a price - decades of fetid slums, horrific child mortality, raging epidemic disease. This time around, with cities 10 times bigger and demand for workers uncertain, the costs could be exponentially larger.

In general, an optimist might cheer urbanization as a sign of modernization; Residents of developed countries are much more likely to live in cities than their counterparts in still-developing nations (74% vs. 43%). The city, after all, is the hub of culture, a magnet that draws artists, writers, musicians - the place where creative spirits create. Great cities have ballet troupes, opera companies, orchestras. The city is, likewise, the hub of industry, generating the bulk of most countries' gross domestic product. Most important, the city is the hub of ideas. The mingling of people spurs the intellectual innovation that fuels thriving societies, at least in the developed world.

The Politics of Play is a collaborative workshop inviting artists, sociologists, designers, game designers, urban planners... PEOPLE to come together in an expedition. The purpose of this journey is to foster collaborative networks in the city through the medium of play.
The workshop will take the form of an exchange and collective learning experience divided into 3 parts; research, experimentation and implementation.

Play can offer a common ground for people to meet and exchange.
Almost everyone can play a game. The term "playing around" infers impermanence or a format for a deferred stance on an issue which offers up a way to let down ones guard. Often times this provides a sense of freedom that cannot be found in a sanctioned panel discussion, meeting or class room. Far more than humor, there is the play of ideas, the playfulness of free experimentation, the playfulness of free association and the play of paradigm shifting that are as common to scientific experiment as to pranks.

The Politics of Play is a workshop conceived by Amy Franceschini and Myriel Milicevic. The workshop serves as a plaform for research; sociological, urban studies, and game theory. The workshop was premiered at Mal au Pixel in Paris in April 2006.

The Next American City 

PHILADELPHIA: Gambling on Philadelphia's Future: Can Casinos Fit into a Big City Downtown?
by Joanne Aitken, Harris Steinberg, and Elise Vider

August 7, 2006
New Take on Public Housing: Destroying It to Save It
By FERNANDA SANTOS

Brooklyn's Trojan Horse
What's wrong with the buildings Frank Gehry wants to put in my neighborhood?
By Jonathan Lethem
Posted Monday, June 19, 2006, at 12:14 PM ET

Less Housing for Residents of Average Pay, Report Says
By JANNY SCOTT
Published: June 16, 2006

The report, to be released today, for the first time puts hard numbers on a cost squeeze that has intensified with the real estate boom. The researchers found that the number of apartments affordable to households earning about $32,000 a year, or 80 percent of the median household income in the city, has dropped by 205,000 in just three years.

June 14, 2006
Square Feet
In Major Projects, Agreeing Not to Disagree
By TERRY PRISTIN

...

In New York, however, some critics are wondering if this trend is threatening to distort the planning process. They say the danger is that local groups will agree not to oppose the projects in exchange for favors that may be unrelated to the project's impact on the neighborhood.

...

A 'consensus' eminent-domain plan in N.J.
Critics said the compromise proposal would not go far enough to curtail abuse. Builders and municipalities lauded the bill, which a sponsor expects will pass.
By Elisa Ung
Inquirer Trenton Bureau
TRENTON - After a four-month review of how the most densely populated state allows the seizure of land for private redevelopment, key Democratic lawmakers are working on legislation that would tighten the criteria for exercising eminent domain and require more public notification.  Builders and the New Jersey State League of Municipalities cheered the proposal, while property owners, Republicans, and the state's public advocate said it did not go far enough to curb eminent-domain abuse.  "The real question is: What will this do to stop the abuse taking place now? And the answer is: Nothing," said Bill Potter, a Princeton lawyer who heads the Coalition Against Eminent Domain Abuse.  ...