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Urbanism Morphological Patterns of Urban Sprawl Territories • A. Stan

MORPHOLOGICAL PATTERNS OF URBAN SPRAWL TERRITORIES

Angelica I. STAN PhD arhitect, University of Architecture and “Ion Mincu” Bucharest, Faculty of Urbanism, Urban and Landscape Planning Department, e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract . In the context of global criticism on urban sprawl, the questions which arises are: what can we do with the expansion forms already occurred in most part of our ; can they be fully or partially integrated into the ? But first, which exactly are the common morphological features of urban expansion areas in large European cities, and (by comparison) in Romania? The urban form correlated to these „sparwl patterns” and „sprawl mechanisms” shows more then the lack of planning, but a social input in occuping the territory, related with a specific meaning of the landscape. The paper explores the relationship between the five distinct morphological patterns ways of forming in relation to spatial and landscape shapes which they generate, in the territories of sprawl, all illustrated through case studies of Bucharest.

Key words : expansion, growth, pattern, periphery, landscape

1. Context and connections decrease in density of urban areas by Between urban expansion and urban territorial spread faster than urban sprawl we often put an equal sign. First . In other words, because it’s difficult to make an exact sprawl describes the fact that cities term translation from English into other excesively grow on surface and that the languages, and second, because the more territory is artificialized at a rate much current and terrible phenomenon of higher than would impose the urban sprawl has become a star, demographic factor only. undermining the “authority” of the older concept of urban expansion. On the other hand, the term urban expansion has a slightly less negative Following the Europeean Commision, connotation. Some critics of urban sprawl Environment European Agency, Report considered urban expansion as acceptable 10/2006, urban sprawl is defined as “a as necessary to cope with increasing phenomenon of geographical expansion urban population. „Urban spatial of urban areas due to peripheral expansion results mainly from three implantation of sparse types of functions powerful forces: a growing population, (most of them residential), at the expense rising incomes, and falling commuting of large areas mainly agricultural” . Also, costs. Urban growth occurring purely in urban sprawl is correlated with a response to these fundamental forces

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cannot be faulted as socially undesirable” argumentation is investigated the (Brueckner, 2000). Besides this, for us it’s ecotonal function of the periphery-that important to notice that urban expansion which facilitates the selection of entities produce a larger morphological types of in the territorial growth and aging urban fabric than sprawl, which rests a process. It throws a new light on the monotone dynamics - “a movement of peripheries landscape understood in an populations and activities from the center innovative and prolific way, revailing its to the periphery of the city, as hybrid traits. summarized by the metaphor of volcano” (Lacour, 1996). 3. Urban dynamics and metabolism In the well-kown study of Burgess, in the Both urban expansion and urban sprawl far 1925, the growth of the city is are forms of cities’ growth, but they concerned with the definition and should not be confused with it: urban description of processes, as those of (a) growth can be achieved without expansion, (b) metabolism, and (c) necessarily increasing the urban territory, mobility (Burgess, 2008). The typical by re-densification ( infill development ) of tendency of urban growth is the existing urban fabric, peripheries expansion radially from its central renewal, or reconstruction of the city onto business district by a series of concentric itself. Furthermore, urban growth is a circles (Burgess, 2008). Far from this result of the natural urban dynamic - a theory (but without totally disprove it), phenomenon that strongly binds on the we assert that urban growth may be even demographic mobility and economic more fundamentally stated as a result of a developments in the regional context. organization and disorganization processes, as it is the anabolic and 2. Methodology katabolic process of metabolism in the First, the study revealed a needed human body. The state of metabolism of distinction between the urban growth the city may be measured by mobility, and urban expansion, since the current but the accelerated urban sprawl is now literature tends to overlap them and associated with the profound change of is overwhelmed by the mentality in the way of housing, "compact city" syndrome. How compact? consumer, transportation and recreation. compact and in what way? - here are the Areas in the city of the greatest mobility questions for which this work can foster a are found to be the last expansion future response. But for this, it is territories of the city. New urban mobility necessary to understand all forms and including huge infrastructure and multi- relationships that occur in the context of modality brings a break in the logical urban expansion and after its occurrence. chain mobility-expansion-metabolism. In The morphological and spatial patterns morphological terms at least, the are explained in connection to metabolism of such elements was never morphological mechanisms occurring in achieved and never will be able to be sprawl areas, due to different driving done with the "elegance" as it was in the forces. Also, these mechanisms are case of gare Saint Lazare in the urban discussed in correlation to the possibility fabric of Paris. The new territorial of urban metabolism to assimilate the dynamics are rather characterized by new spatial forms apeared in cities’ hybridization and „parasitism”, by peripheries. In the same context of "grafting" the new structures sometimes

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foreign into pre-existing sites. With the expansion, with the worst case in urban 90s, there is a break in peripheral sprawl phenomenon- the most criticized metabolism of all the implants (either of all, pointed for all its disastrous effects new industries, retail, residential, on the environment. highway junctions, etc.), which must deal with ever more sophisticated dynamics But, whether we admit it easly or not, and connections in the adjacent territory. much of what counts as "" Mobility does not occur after metabolism, today is in fact , and in but long before it, put it even under the first stage, it is sprawl, the dominant question. But for to assimilate which is mode in which cities have built. foreign element, any organism needs some time, patience, and therapy at a Seen through the growth of cities in the "molecular", small scale. Foreign forms of last period, reflects urban tissue are not only foreign, these differences of urban form coming unassimilated forms, but carries with it a from the different degree of new range of meanings that come to reflect a „implants” metabolism. Urban growth particular social consciousness. It can not naturally favors the appearance of metabolize what was given without various forms (sometimes foreign ones) preparation and detailed knowledge of as every age of a living organism brings this mechanisms. physical or mental updates. Moreover, not all territorial dynamics are leading to urban growth, and not all urban growth is leading to sprawl. Sprawl phenomenon seen not only in its negative sides, but as part of urban growth, including the urban development (possibly harmonious at a time) is a vision that can bring benefits in future urban planning.

4. Driving forces and morpho- mechanisms of sprawl As we mentioned, we have identified several specific mechanisms that formed emergence basis of five morphological patterns which we will later explain in this paper. They are related to the driving forces that globally lead to the outbreak phenomenon of sprawl - as economic growth, behavior changing towards living comfort (increased demand for

Fig. 1 . Intensive / extensive urban growth at the individual homes with garden), real morphological level estate speculation (and all associated financial systems), increased 3.1. Urban growth vs. expansion motorization, weakness of control in There is a partial overlap between urban urban and regional planning. Changing dynamics, urban growth and urban preferences for the consumption of

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space will affect growth and and this is housing, storage - housing), lack of possible to investigate and communication between different mathematicalally modeled (Batty et al., entities, passive co-existence between 1999). By the same authors we can talk segregated communities, completely about developing as a general epidemic disjoint between very different model (Batty et al., 1999, p.4). based on architecture and lifestyles (McKee et al., a morphological matrix of spatial 2004) . aggregation, in which development is divided into three constituent parts: Both juxtaposition, and intercalation established development (in the context bring with them another phenomenon, surrounded by other development)(...), that of parasitization , regarding the new development (which has just made urban image and the relationship the transition from undeveloped land), between morphology and and available land (Batty et al., 1999, pp. environmental factors. On the one 4). Starting from the model above, hand, it refers to that aggressive which attaches a great importance to development to an item (often natural) free land (voids) in the territory that it smothers; on the other hand, it structure, I have revealed a number of means a completely alien inoculation machanisms, manifested either into an existing context. In both cases independently or synergic, depending there are significant risks of on particular factors. and there is an alteration of the landscape on its natural qualities. The most common mechanism by which specific spatial forms appear The last among machanisms and one sprawl phenomenon is the with the strongest imprint (also the fragmentation. This means, in a first hardest metabolized) is the instance, successive sub-division of randomisation . It may include all the agricultural parcels, reducing street other mechanisms that parts of it, but hierarchy, jumps in the street its meaning is one of total fracture from connectivity (lack of collector roads), the city and the creation of enclaves or consequently leading to a discontinuity points with weak further connectivity throughout the peripheral tissue. opportunities. Known as the "leap frog" (Heim, 2001) development, it is an Poor land fragmentation is often uncontrolled development on totally accompanied, in functional terms by unprepared for urbanization land another mechanism, that of (Jenks et al., 2000) it tends to a juxtaposition : joining incompatible particular "vernacularization" through functions (housing/ industry or successive adaptations to an housing/infrastructure), overlap of unfavorable context. adverse interest (public/private), jumps in scale of the urban fabric, These re-affirmes that urban cultural "colonization" (urban values morphology is a combination of colonizes the rural world). The third particular mechanisms based on mechanism identified (illustrativ for „historical antecedents or accidents – Bucharest) is the intercalation , the initial conditions – combined with characterized by joining of mutually the generalities of the development dependent functions (agriculture - process”. (Batty et al , 1999, pp. 32).

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4.1. Ecotone and symbiosis in sprawl peripheries 5. Sprawl as process and the changes of The urban fringes, as areas directly urban limit affected by urban sprawl, often In these new areas of the recent urban denominated with the term of periphery expansion limit can not be classicaly (including the negative connotation) are conceived as border or as a founding places of confrontation, interference and element. Although the term of periphery hard-metabolism of contradictory itself etymologicaly carries the sense of elements coming from the very dynamic limit by the suffix "peri", the actual anthropic environment. From a strict meaning is rather new. Whether or not, environmental point of view, periphery the process of urban expansion and is acting as an ecotone (Stan, 2009) , as emerging peripheries had been taking in long as it’s a transition space between two discussion simultaneously with all the or more adjacent ecosystems, a region of baggage of meanings brought and used between two biological communities. The by postmodernism. It promotes (to say main characteristic of ecotones is that the briefly) a culture of fragment, where the number of species is higher, involving role of the limit is fundamentally richness, diversity and productivity for different from the previous. In the last the same area (the edge effect). decades of the 20th century, the dissolution of the center as philosophical Extrapolating this fact, and observing the concept is allied with a new landscape of urban peripheries, we understanding of the Territory as a noticed that urban, peri-urban, rural and multiplicity of unstable entities crossed by natural forms of life are co-existing and limits which can not be defined in terms fighting in a transition zone situated at the of coherence (Stan, 2009). The fluidity and limit of urban structure. Here, the edge volatility of contemporary urbanization effect is manifest by the richness of necessarily foregrounds the notion of morpho-typological spatial and limit (Gaussa, 2003). With functional patterns, by social diversity, often focused on the identification of pluralism and formal information, a problems and the articulation of composite image and a hybrid semantic. solutions, limits have historically shaped Keeping the analogy with natural various research agendas. But today, ecosystems, in ecotonal area of periphery these limits occupy an even more central occurs „the natural selection” place in contemporary intellectual phenomenon: it resists the structures discourse and assumes a multitude of considered poor, the vague land, the meanings and interpretations, having ambiguous, flexible patterns, suitable for resonance in several overlapping a variety of uses (Stan, 2009). discourses related to the city.

In this perspective, the new patterns of The limit is not compact anymore and it urban growth and the metabolism of doesn’t assure a stability; by opposite, the sprawl patterns are more geared toward new limit of the expansion areas are the idea of symbiosis; once irreconcilable acting inside of a very dynamic structure these elements are to seek for new ways (a patched pattern), and it creates interstitial of negotiation in a more environmentally spaces (called sometimes in-between friendly and open systems, accepting all spaces) - mobile, emerging and carriers of new technologies and their challenges. growth. "Any sort of multiplicity grows

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from the middle, as a blade of grass or as (urban-to-rural transect hierarchy). This a rhizome" (Deleuze and Guattari, 1980): model differs greatly from conventional placed under the sign to these new urban development (or sprawl) by models of growth, the City is looking for focusing on urban intensification, arguments for all forms of urbanity that it creating limits to urban growth, gets. encouraging mixed-use development and placing a greater focus on the role For the same authors, un-territorialization of public transportation and quality is seen as a multiplicity of limits , cuts, folds . During the early 1990s, that must be unfold and re-connected to compact city policies derived from New understand this rhizomatic growing, Urbanism current were enthusiastically horizontal and intense in its every point implemented by many planning (Derrida, 1997). authorities, particularly in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe, as 5.1. Compactness, dispersion: re-composition they were linked to the goal of and reinvention “”, Starting from 1975 and with a strong popularized by the 1987 Brundtland wave in 1990’s in Europe, the emergence Report. However, at this stage there was of urban peripheries produces a mutation limited critical analysis of whether the in the concept of limit itself: from compact city could fulfill its promises in compactness to dispersed, fractalic or delivering sustainability. As a result, a rhizomatic model. “The city of the future heated debate regarding the compact is a place where the fragments of city has dominated the urban planning something once broken are recomposed” literature since the mid 1990s, with (Rosi, 1984) and suppresion of the precis many concluding: “…it appears that boundaries of time and place is seen like intensification policies are fraught with the „dialectical processus that exists in contradictions and difficulties” memory between remembering and (Williams, 1999). Follow-up studies forgetting” (Eisenman, 1984). began to show that the predicted benefits were not happening as they After 1980’s, a new theory organized should have been, and that the claimed around the New Urbanism movement benefits of urban compaction “…are at insists that compact city is the only the very least romantic and dangerous, acceptable model for the sustainable and do not reflect the hard reality of development of cities. The limit is economic demands, environmental restored as a vehicle of order and sustainability and social expectations” hierarchy. It has a new role in spatial (Elkin et al., 1991). From another point and functional differentiation for of view, while the extensive urban obtaining the mix- use, diversity and sprawl brings formal and spatial harmony between the vehicle and hybridization, accepting an inherent pedestrian circulation. Also, with creativity and innovation as preliminary general principles such as quality of life conditions, the intensive, compact city and urban sustainability, New requires a permanent re-invention within Urbanism leads to return to the cities a restrictive morphological wide and traditional model of organization with the risk is that of iteration or formal gradual transition from high density in worthless imitation (Gordon and center to low density to periphery Richardson, 1998).

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These critiques of the compact city model north, where the have not generally advocated strongly for "offer" is richer. a return (or continuation) of urban sprawl, but rather questioned whether In this fragil limit of the city itself (in fact, intensification can deliver on its promises localities with different administrations), of a more sustainable urban future, and in zones as Iancu Nicolae str., Sos. Pipera, also whether urban compaction is Odai, the residential developments acceptable to the general public, and can emerge in violation (or ignoring) of the be feasibly implemented. The local planning regulations and this fact acceptability and feasibility issues of verifies the distance between the the bringing such a radical change to the individual (or small group) strength of urban landscape should not be those of the public policy. The result of underestimated, particularly because this confrontation is an area that seemed urban sprawl is attractive at an to illustrate „how not to do planning” or individual level. The motivation for the „no planning at all territories”. urban expansion is so located in the human brain and in the deep aspiration to be closer to and to have better and better comfort. Some studies show that “most people want to have their own homes in their own lots” (Baldassare, 1992). The lure of a large house on a large lot, with good automobile access to facilities (even if they are located a long way away) is unsurprisingly attractive at the individual level, even if unsustainable at the city or regional level. This creates an unstable contradiction where on the one hand sprawl is encouraged through its attractiveness for individual homeowners and property developers, in many cases supported by public funding of infrastructure to service the developments or mortgage subsidies to promote home-ownership; but on the other hand the resulting sprawl causes an almost endless list of problems for cities and regions as a whole, including traffic congestion, loss of productive land, increased air pollution and spiraling Fig. 2 . Synthetic illustration of urban growth infrastructure costs among others (Duany types of and limits’ metamorphosis within these. et al., 2000). Source: Stan, 2009

5.2. Space forms produced by urban expansion An example for this contradiction is even The history of cities in Europe and their Bucharest, which in the past 20 years has transformation after the Second World War experienced a population drain to confirm the metamorphose of urban limit peripheral areas and especially to the almost the same direction as it happened

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some decades before in USA: from the net, urban organism which must be kept alive closed limit specific to traditional towns, to becomes a pressing issue in the whole broken, fragmented limit characteristic for system of the built environment. the beginning of urban expansion period and finally, to the diffuse type of limit in late The actual type of limit in newest urban 1990-2000 (De Roo and Miller, 2000). sprawl areas is undoubtedly a complex one; Representing a change in the pattern of its complexity is provided a) by the urban development allowed in the last continuous multiplication of relations and hundred years, new urban forms occured in connections between different parts of the peripheral areas (sometimes unplanned periphery and between the periphery and and chaotic) are creating a dispersed the city (at the urban sistem or metropolitan mosaic, a "segregated diversity". If we level) and b) by the superposition of many admit, according to Baudrillard that "space different incongruent items, such as is the opposite of territory" (Baudrillard, obsolete items (relics – industrial frisches, 1991) and that it’s responsible for over- ex port areas, railway, agricultural traces), sizing of all structures, we found that the ultra-modern elements (large difference between two major models of infrastructural equipment, shopping urban growth are disjunctive: first, the centers, huge parking hubs, etc) and natural urban growth model is based on “past elements (parks, green belts, specialized reference" (more specific to European cities) parks, recreation, green corridors, and second, the model of "exponential” protection curtains, etc.) (Mehaffy et al ., growth directly embodies the future (more 2010). According to some other researchers characteristic to american urban on the „fringe belt” issue the characteristics development). The new landscape of this of this forms of expansion, specific to UK, un-metabolized forms in European urban include „(a) a sparse road network, with a peripheries has a tendancy to move from low incidence of radial roads (ie running monumental, geometric places, to across the fringe belt), and hence „horizontal grid”, from transcendence and constituting a barrier zone to vehicles, sens of history, to the indifferent vertical. As although, those radial roads that do exist Baudrillard observed in the american cities (being historical arterial roads leading out "there is no landscape, but a virtuality of all of the city) tend to be heavily used; (b) landscape", the neutral space becomes an large, often well-vegetated plots, frequently exponential extension and intensification of containing institutional, sometimes multicultural, multiethnic and multi-use entities 'landmark', buildings of architectural note; (Baudrillard, 1991). and (c) the fact that they form a boundary between historically and morphologically But the risk to understand in a such distinct areas” (Whitehand and Morton, dichotomic way the evolution of urban 2004).They are heterogeneous in ground expansion is too big to not be seriously plans, building forms, and land and taken into consideration. The perspective building use. Public utilities, parks, described above is criticable from the recreational areas and allotment gardens Sustainable Development point of view and are characteristic of their medley of land the economic crisis of recent years confirm uses (Whitehand and Morton, 2004). The the need to reconsider the urban periphery physical patterns of low-density expansion as eminently vulnerable places, challenging lies with the principal lines of urban growth the entire phenomenon of expansion. and means small or no control of land Peripheral metabolism of entities within an subdivision. As they results, these

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development is uncontinuous, patchy, the rampant mechanisms of real estate scattered and strung out, leaving speculation. Most of these types are agricultural enclaves with the urban limits. characteristic to cities in the suburbanization period and their main feature is the capacity This heterogeneity mentioned above is a to seize the territory, on the growth distinctive morphological element in the direction. peripheral areas, not just in UK, where it 4) the fringes type - are hanging a major overlaps with the fringe belt (which road, penetrating territory on the main surround stable urban cores), but also for directions of preexisting plotting, with the urban periphery of cities with less disordered street structure developed in orderly development. The more this dependence to agricultural forms. development is more chaotic, the more the 5) the diffuse type, mainly related with the role of individual initiative and power is development of information technology; greater and planning regulation is low, so this type embodies a diversity of „clusters” this heterogeneity in peripheral territories is – sub-urban or even rural small centres, greater. Although there are notable each of them can mutate and become differences of scale and magnitude of these centers in . specific forms of expansion in Europe, from small towns to big cities, empirically, a number of common characteristics and types of formations can be pointed out. The typology presented below is a response to similar patterns of urban growth – taking in consideration a set of criteria as: space orientation, fill/open rate, footprint, green rate, dynamics of the outer limits, and degree of discontinuity. (Fig. 3) 1) the border type, characteristic to expansion areas which encountered a strong natural or artificial element as water, forest, or railway, motorway, etc. as obstacle for development. This peripheral area often has a linear form, the “zipper” place on the extent to which the city is tangent. 2) the enclave type, expression of seeking for alternative living, implemented mainly by the contribution of high class, or, by opposite, enclaves of poor areas, rests from some unassimilated rural areas. This kind of Fig. 3. Different types of formal patterns in urban peripheral area gives another type of spatial sprawl areas, illustrating juxtaposition, forms – we call them “patches”- having an intercalation and „leapfrog” development mechanisms. Source: personal communication aspect which make them very different from the rest of the territory and being 5.3. The morphology and the (re) design of the surrounded by open, green or agricultural urban sprawl territories land. The co-existence of these morphological 3) the tentacle type ("fingers") are urban and spatial different urban forms leads to developments along roads, coupled with the idea that expansion urban areas

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seems to be a kind of "laboratory", land sustainable future.” (Williams and of experimentation, in that we distinguish Burton, 1999). the fight of the two major classes of factors: the declining / dominated items These peripheral developments appear to and the rising / dominant ones. A be important and part responsible of sustenabile urban growth is thereby a sustainability planning itself. The process which can take place in the (re)“design” of the city, at neighborhood equilibrum state between these two and community levels, has become an factors. More recent research has raised important consideration for creating important issues surrounding the successful urban environments, complexities of the urban environment, especially here, where the hybrid which may lead to urban intensification landscape claims for more complex policies having consequences far approaches. removed from the goal of more sustainable cities. The complexity of 5.4. The hybrid character of urban sprawl expansion zones claims that instead of landscapes concentrating on one particular solution, According to Richard T. T. Forman and there is a need to recognize that a Michael Godron, a landscape is a diversity of urban futures are likely to co- heterogeneous land area composed of a exist within a city and that urban cluster of interacting ecosystems that is compaction should only be seen as one repeated in similar form throughout way of achieving sustainable urban form. (Forman, 1986; Godron, 1998). Furthermore, intensification policies are Extrapolating from this ecologist point of most likely to be successful when view, useful for understanding the adapted to the existing urban landscape expansion phenomenon, the landscape of of the particular neighborhood where urban periphery is identified as a they are being implemented. To expect “composition of landscapes” marked by an the same hypothesis to improve abundance of items, some of them in sustainability in very different contradictory position, proportion and environments is rather naïve, especially scale. The intense heterogeneity of the when considering the need to implement urban expansion landscape imposes a feasible and acceptable policies for local succinct definition of hybrid. This is a residents. However, recent literature does concept term that could explain both by not propose a return to the days of urban the patches dynamics in peripheral sprawl, the negative impacts of sprawl on landscape and the patchwork structure of the cost of public services and land its configuration. Landscape patches are resources being widely accepted. Some defining the basic structure of the researches stress the complexity of the landscape and their quality influences the relationship between urban form, quality of the entire environment. The function and sustainability, with a greater landscape patchwork (mosaic) structure focus on the function of the city and how is related to the limits of these patches that affects sustainability rather than that can be situated in a continuous or a simply its form. In their book Achieving discontinuous position. The hybrid Sustainable Urban Form, Williams, Jenks landscape is a multilayer object (Gausa, and Burton claim that “…until fairly 2003), working with systems, processes, recently there was some consensus that dynamic mechanisms, linking compact urban forms offered the most information, joining and possessing them.

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Also, the hybrid character is one that is between very different elements, developing far from any purity pattern, structures, textures and patterns. In and can be understood both as urban extension areas “the landscape no compromise and composite feature longer lies before the city and the city no (Gausa, 2003). Specific investigations in longer lies within the landscape” ( Shafer, art, philosophy, architecture have 2003). concluded already that the hybrid is the common feature of current spaces and places - both meaning co-existence,trans- fusion, interconnection, ambivalence, heterogeneity. In the light of these concepts, hybridization is understood as a creative process which generates most of the actual world, a tactical strategy based on a combinatorial logic that can guarantee the presence of open, flexible, multi-face and thus, informal support.

5.5.. The impact on landscape in urban sprawl areas Moreover, between the naturalistic, cultural and the technique paradigms, far from existing a distance, it exists an interaction and a close transmutation: “natural energy inert mass materials or textures are combining with highly- sophisticated artificial materials, filiform and energy active, answering sensitive to environmental changes” (Abalos and Herreros, 2003). From their combination and mutual loans that they favor, it results a composite system in which the technological is responsible for reduction of changes, while the natural acts as an Fig. 4 . The five mechanisms described above, energy generator. illustrated by sprawl development in Bucharest, between 1999-2008. Source: personal The urban extension produces an impact communication on the existing landscape that can be understood not only in terms of Landscapes exhibit a wide variety of functional and ecological changes, but patterns that remind rural culture as also in terms of morphological changes well as , tradition, as well which are coming from the imbalance in as modernity, poetry as well as the relationship between natural and technology. manmade elements. The composite morpho-system generated by this The hybrid landscape of expansion phenomenon leads to consider the territories can be read as “parallel landscape as a spatial interplay revolving landscapes” (Vanautgaerden, 2008)

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existing next to each other, but also by re-aranging its elements and by overlap and interact. This multiple finding the networking element. landscapes are associated with the different activities and actors, with a 6. Green landscape network different role in the production of space. From a morphological perspective, this In the very distinctive claims for space, networking element could be a key to the logics are recognized as different: a approach the changing landscapes in difference that underpins the competition expansion territories; this link can be between the landscapes of living, done by using all insterstitial spaces, working, agriculture or nature, between open spaces, residual spaces, former diverse visions on the landscape, between industries and rails, unused agricultural parallel realities. land, abandoned warehouses, etc.

This new type of urban landscape cannot The linking spaces existing in expansion be assessed with the same kind of tools zones are widely understood as neutral as the “classic” urban landscape, because entities and available land resource for the new reality doesn’t correspond to development, ready to build upon. All any of the old spatial concepts. It’s the big cities of the world have developed simply useless to operate in terms of through gradual loss of green or open Lynch concepts as nodes, paths or spaces (Beatley, 2000). Many of these districts, because the new landscape cities, the most developed, are at the scenography is more complex and stage where, with an urban (and includes/ accepts the ambiguity of scale, suburban) consolidated structure, can ambiance and shapes, the target their policies to the acquisition of contaminations between elements neighboring territories in order to coming from extremes different increase the amount of green area per domains, the linear spatial inhabitant. The less developed but they intensification or mutation from an can preserve what is behind a chaotic element to another. The order is a expansion and can turn this disadvantage questionable concept related to the into an advantage. “By connecting landscape morphology in the urban isolated open space, restoring the expansion areas. The overlap of rural landscape, and upgrading ecological and footprints (as agricultural plot, rural aesthetical quality of the desolated roads, etc.) with the new urban fabric, landscape, the idea is to achieve a lasting the combination between old styles, improvement of the living and working shapes, materials and new ones environment”(Fershau, 2002). But here, generates a kind of new order, which, at the landscape quality depends in very first sight, seems to be a dis-order. To much on how these spaces are arranged understand this new order is necessary and designed, in the whole new to forget the classic principles such as coherence necessary to be re-established. hierarchy, symmetry or balance. The Undoubtedly, green space is the most new large scale spatial composition are current networking element in such a rather based on dis-junctions, dis- disparate structure, with parts that continuities, fractures, opposition. And cannot be expected to ever act together, this dis-order should be taken as a but green space connectors are transitory stage that can became an order not very easy to obtain.

22 Urbanism Morphological Patterns of Urban Sprawl Territories • A. Stan

Strategies for "green linking” should not one specific element of urban sprawl: the be regarded as an annex to the urban morphological „production” of development operations, as it peripheral areas, briefly investigating on does currently, but as an active agent of their diverse typology. The usefulness of sustainability. An important research the spatial typologies revealed is that, on direction is lead by the “green urbanism” it, can be build a strategy for intervention movement which brings up several in the most sensitive or vulnerable areas, possibilities to introduce environmental using them as a frame. On the other policies in developing cities, in order to hand, the analysis of peripheral achieve better sustainability: from landscape typology revealed its hybrid projects on transforming the former nature, related to the mosaic structure of industrial sites into parks or leisure areas, the territory. This leads to understand the to projects for greening former concept of order in different terms, related exploitation, to the European programs to the position of this specific landscape involving and stimulating green in the entire urban network. Thinking on technology (Amin, 2006). Among these, the problem of these spatial inheritance many solutions are implemented in from a period of expansion growth of peripheral areas - be it ex-agricultural cities, we believe that landscape approach areas or industrial sites, and their great of periphery, with emphasis on open and merit is the creation of a coherent green green space landscape treatment, can be a morphology. But this green morphology handy solution, sustainable and in line should be designed together with the with the population wishes. entire development program and the community awareness about the role of REFERENCES these green spaces both at micro and macro scale, at individual level as well as Abalos I., Herreros J. (2003), Hybrid technique, at social level. A very interesting example crossbred aestetics , in Cros S. (coord), Metapolis Dictionary of Advanced of a creative community –based Architecture – city , technology and society în organization is EcoStad Den Haag – part the information age, Actar, Barcelona, of the Netherlands Global Action Plan pp.294-298. Initiative, having an active role in re- Amin A. (2006), The good city , Urban Studies 43(5/6): 1009-1023. structuring not only the green system of Batty M., Xie Y., Sun Z. (1999), The dynamics of the city, but more, the mentalities; by re- urban sprawl, CASA, UCL, London banding the environmental action so that Baudrillard J. (1991), America or thinking of the the word “green” is no longer associated space. Citizenship and urbanity [in French], with activities which are the privilege of Esprit, Paris. Baldassare M. (1992), Suburban communities , the wealthy, or the pursuit of the weird Annual Review of Sociology 18: 475-494. (Beatley , 2000). Beatley T. (2000), Green Urbanism: Learning From European Cities , Island Press, Washington. 7. Conclusion Breheny M. (1997), Urban Compaction: feasible and The paper outlines the discussion of acceptable?, Cities 14(4) :209-217. Brueckner J. K. (2000), Urban Sprawl-diagnosis and peripheral areas and the polarized remedies , International Regional Science positions between the intensive Review 23(2):160-171. /extensive urban growth models, Burgess W. E. (2008), The Growth of the City: An suggesting a possible escape or Introduction to a Research Project, Urban reconciliation between the two. The 24: 16-26. Derrida J. (1997), Disemination , Ed. Univers proposed reflective analysis focuses on enciclopedic, Bucuresti.

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Received : 24 February 2013 • Revised : 25 March 2013 • Accepted : 22 April 2013

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