The Urban Village: a Real Or Imagined Contribution to Sustainable Development?
The Urban Village: A Real or Imagined Contribution to Sustainable Development? Mike Biddulph, Bridget Franklin and Malcolm Tait Department of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University July 2002 The research upon which this report is based was kindly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). 1 Background A number of development concepts have emerged which claim that, if achieved, they would deliver more sustainable urban environments. Specifically these concepts seek to transcend typical patterns of development, and instead capture and promote a different vision. Such concepts include the compact city (Jenks et al, 1996), the polycentric city (Frey, 1999), the urban quarter (Krier, 1998), the sustainable urban neighbourhood (Rudlin and Falk, 1999), the urban village (Aldous, 1997), the eco-village (Barton, 1999), and the millennium village (DETR, 2000). Gaining acceptance for these concepts and translating them into practice has, however, proved more difficult, and the only one which has resulted in any significant number of built examples is the urban village. Despite the proliferation of developments under the urban village rubric, little academic research has been conducted into the phenomenon. The main exception is the work of Thompson-Fawcett (1996, 1998a, 1998b, 2000), who has investigated the background and philosophy of both the urban village and of the similar New Urbanism or Traditional Neighbourhood Development (TND) movement in the US. Her empirical work in the UK is limited to two case studies, the location of one of which is also the subject of a less critical paper by McArthur (2000). Both Thompson-Fawcett and commentators on the TND argue that the thinking behind the respective concepts is utopian, nostalgic, and deterministic, as well as based on a flawed premise about contemporary constructions of community (Audirac and Shermyen, 1994, Thompson-Fawcett, 1996, Southworth, 1997).
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