The New Urbanism Movement: the Case of Sweden

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The New Urbanism Movement: the Case of Sweden Blekinge Tekniska Högskola International Master’s Programme in European Spatial Planning 2004/2005 The New Urbanism movement: the case of Sweden Author: Alina - Mihaela Stefan ABSTRACT The city is the core of our civilisation. The interest in city grew tremendous in the last two – three decades. The thesis is an introduction to the New Urbanism movement. The aim of the thesis is to analyse the relation between New Urbanism and the European Urbanism movement. The thesis also analyses the factors that are considered to lead to this growing interest in city. Car dependence, change in labour conditions, change of household structure are just some of the factors that influence the urban life. It also tries to answer to the question if the new urbanist city is a desirable living form. The new urbanism movement and the European urbanism have as main goals to rediscover the lost city and give it back to people. To analyse the way the principles of the neo-traditionalist movements are applied in practice I analyse the case of Sweden, focusing on four cases: Lomma Harbour, Välle Broar and Biskopshagen in Växjö and Jakriborg, as the main study case. I have made a field study in Jakriborg, where I have conducted interviews with local inhabitants. The aim of the study is to see if the main thesis of New Urbanism, that through design a sense of community can be created, is valid or not. Keywords: city, new urbanism, the Charter of New Urbanism, The Garden City, Region, the neighbourhood, the street, Le Corbusier, Modernism, The Charter of European Urbanism, neo- traditionalism, sense of community, Jakriborg, ESDP, European Union. ACKNOWLEDGMENT I want to thank everybody that helped me in realising this thesis. My special thanks are going to Louise Nyström and Lars Emmelin for their support and advice. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................5 1.1. THE SUBJECT OF THE STUDY .................................................................................................5 1.2. THE PURPOSE AND THE PROBLEM OF THE STUDY..................................................................6 1.3. THE PLAN OF THE STUDY ......................................................................................................7 1.4. DELIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY .............................................................................................7 1.5. METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS.................................................................................................8 2. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE CONCEPT OF CITY .................................9 2.1. INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................9 2.2. THE URBAN ECOLOGY PARADIGM ........................................................................................10 2.3. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY PARADIGM..................................................................................12 3. THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF NEW URBANISM.........................................................13 3.1. THE GARDEN CITY ..............................................................................................................13 3.2. THE CITY IN THE REGION ....................................................................................................15 3.3. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD STRATEGY ......................................................................................16 3.4. LE CORBUSIER AND THE MODERNISTS .................................................................................17 3.5. THE USES OF THE CITY.........................................................................................................19 3.6. URBAN RENAISSANCE .........................................................................................................21 4. NEW URBANISM...................................................................................................................22 4.1. WHAT IS NEW URBANISM?..................................................................................................22 4.2. THE EFFECTS OF CAR DEPENDENCE......................................................................................23 4.3. LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY..................................................................................................25 4.4. THE PRINCIPLES OF NEW URBANISM...................................................................................30 4.5. THE REGION: METROPOLIS, CITY AND TOWN .....................................................................33 4.6. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD, THE DISTRICT AND THE CORRIDOR ..................................................35 4.7. THE STREET, THE BLOCK AND THE BUILDING.......................................................................36 4.8. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY ...........................................................38 4.9. CONCLUDING REMARKS: FROM MODERNISM TO POST-MODERNISM ...................................39 5. NEW URBANISM IN EUROPE ...........................................................................................41 5.1. LÉON KRIER AND THE MOVEMENT FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE EUROPEAN CITY ...41 5.2. URBAN VILLAGES................................................................................................................43 5.3. THE CONGRESS OF EUROPEAN URBANISM ..........................................................................43 6. THE EUROPEAN UNION POLICY ....................................................................................46 6.1. THE GREEN PAPER ON URBAN ENVIRONMENT ....................................................................46 6.2. THE EUROPEAN SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVE (ESDP) .........................................46 7. NEW URBANISM IN SWEDEN...........................................................................................49 7.1. THE SWEDISH URBAN AGENDA...........................................................................................49 7.2. LOMMA HARBOUR...............................................................................................................49 7.3. VÄLLE BROAR.....................................................................................................................51 7.4. BISKOPSHAGEN ...................................................................................................................52 7.5. GENERAL COMMENTS ON LOMMA, VÄLLE BROAR AND BISKOPSHAGEN .............................53 8. JAKRIBORG: A STUDY CASE ...........................................................................................55 8.1. DESCRIPTION.......................................................................................................................55 3 8.2. METHODOLOGY...................................................................................................................59 8.3. ANALYSIS............................................................................................................................63 8.4. JAKRIBORG’S INTEGRATION IN HJÄRUP ...............................................................................66 9. SUMMARY..............................................................................................................................67 ANNEXES....................................................................................................................................67 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................74 4 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. The Subject of the Study Over the last fifty-sixty years, cities and towns have been under great transformation, from compact forms with an identifiable centre and bearers of history and culture, into amorphous urban areas, sprawled, without borders and loosing their cultural identity and functions. The city became less defined by its physically borders with the development of suburbia and huge areas with detached houses. The cities are the core of our civilisation. Every city tells a story. Every street, house or village tells a story. It tells the story of a bygone past, of people that have been and that are. It tells whom we are and how we want to be treated. The city provides the framework for social life. A well-planned street, park or square brings people together, gives them the opportunity for social encounters, which can also have an economical benefit. A beautiful and friendly city brings people out securing the urban life. The city is in a constant process of development and change, same as people. People’s actions have an impact on cities and cities have an impact on people. The surrounding environment, built or natural, have always been influencing people’s lives. As M. Castells is saying, we live in a world that is characterised by ”spaces of flows”. Therefore, in the globalized world the cities and towns are important for our cultural identity. The national borders are not defining our identity anymore. In a global world, the city became the one that is defining us, that is forming our identity and tells the others who we are. The national borders loose their meaning for the outside world. The place becomes the bearer of meaning. Different unions and common markets make it easier to pass the border. Transport and telecommunications give the possibility to travel everywhere, even by sitting in front of the TV or computer. In
Recommended publications
  • 1 Title: Suburban Verticalisation in London: Regeneration, Intra-Urban
    Title: Suburban Verticalisation in London: regeneration, intra-urban inequality and social harm Abstract: With the rapid and large scaled expansion of new developments of high rise flats, London’s outer boroughs are seeing a suburban growth not seen since the 1930s. The objective of this mass verticalization are similar to the suburbanisation that occurred in the inter-war period in aiming to provide housing to a growing urban population. However behind the demographic imperative, other economic, socio-cultural and political processes come into play as they did in the past. Considering spatial, social and material transformations, the paper is concerned with a combination of factors, actors, structures and processes in this initial analysis of the new vertical suburbs of London. With this combined perspective, the analysis contributes to critical debates in criminology that are expanding to issues of social harm and social exclusion in the capitalist city. In this paper, I interrogate the fact that an increase of the housing stock only partially addresses the housing crisis in London as the problem of the provision of social housing is becoming increasingly limited under tight budget constraints and a financial structure that relies on and facilitates the involvement of the private sector in the delivery and management of housing. I also question the promises of regeneration solutions through new-build gentrification which have proved ineffective in other urban contexts and should be examined further in the context of London suburbs where the scale of construction is unprecedented and comes to exacerbate inequalities that have long been overlooked when the focus has been on inner boroughs and their gentrification.
    [Show full text]
  • Early 'Urban America'
    CCAPA AICP Exam Presentation Planning History, Theory, and Other Stuff Donald J. Poland, PhD, AICP Senior VP & Managing Director, Urban Planning Goman+York Property Advisors, LLC www.gomanyork.com East Hartford, CT 06108 860-655-6897 [email protected] A Few Words of Advice • Repetitive study over key items is best. • Test yourself. • Know when to stop. • Learn how to think like the test writers (and APA). • Know the code of ethics. • Scout out the test location before hand. What is Planning? A Painless Intro to Planning Theory • Rational Method = comprehensive planning – Myerson and Banfield • Incremental (muddling through) = win little battles that hopefully add up to something – Charles Lindblom • Transactive = social development/constituency building • Advocacy = applying social justice – Sherry Arnstein’s Ladder of Public Participation – Paul Davidoff – advocacy planning American Planning before 1800 • European Traditions – New England, New Amsterdam, & the village tradition – Tidewater and the ‘Town Acts’ – The Carolinas/Georgia and the Renaissance Style – L’Enfant, Washington D.C., & Baroque Style (1791) • Planning was Architectural • Planning was plotting street layouts • There wasn’t much of it… The 1800’s and Planning Issues • The ‘frontier’ is more distant & less appealing • Massive immigration • Industrialization & Urbanization • Problems of the Industrial City – Poverty, pollution, overcrowding, disease, unrest • Planning comes to the rescue – NYC as epicenter – Central Park 1853 – 1857 (Olmsted & Vaux) – Tenement Laws Planning Prior to WWI • Public Awareness of the Problems – Jacob Riis • ‘How the Other Half Lives’ (1890) • Exposed the deplorable conditions of tenement house life in New York City – Upton Sinclair • ‘The Jungle’ (1905) – William Booth • The Salvation Army (1891) • Solutions – Zoning and the Public Health Movement – New Towns, Garden Cities, and Streetcar Suburbs – The City Beautiful and City Planning Public Health Movement • Cities as unhealthy places – ‘The Great Stink’, Cholera, Tuberculosis, Alcoholism….
    [Show full text]
  • Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor Retail Action Plan
    ROSSLYN-BALLSTON CORRIDOR RETAIL ACTION PLAN Strategies and Recommendations for Retail Attraction and Retention Arlington County, Virginia Adopted by the Arlington County Board on May 19, 2001. Retail Action Plan Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor RETAIL ACTION PLAN Arlington County, Virginia i Retail Action Plan Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor Table of Contents Preface......................................................................... v Executive Summary ....................................................... vii Action Plan ............................................................. vii Introduction.................................................................. 1 Definitions......................................................................... 3 Retail Categories................................................................ 5 County Overview........................................................ 7 Guiding Principles for Retail Strategy Development ........................................... 12 Rosslyn ..................................................................... 19 Courthouse................................................................ 27 Clarendon.................................................................. 33 Virginia Square........................................................... 41 Ballston ..................................................................... 47 Urban Design Principles and Guidelines ........................ 57 General Principles .............................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Urbanistica N. 146 April-June 2011
    Urbanistica n. 146 April-June 2011 Distribution by www.planum.net Index and english translation of the articles Paolo Avarello The plan is dead, long live the plan edited by Gianfranco Gorelli Urban regeneration: fundamental strategy of the new structural Plan of Prato Paolo Maria Vannucchi The ‘factory town’: a problematic reality Michela Brachi, Pamela Bracciotti, Massimo Fabbri The project (pre)view Riccardo Pecorario The path from structure Plan to urban design edited by Carla Ferrari A structural plan for a ‘City of the wine’: the Ps of the Municipality of Bomporto Projects and implementation Raffaella Radoccia Co-planning Pto in the Val Pescara Mariangela Virno Temporal policies in the Abruzzo Region Stefano Stabilini, Roberto Zedda Chronographic analysis of the Urban systems. The case of Pescara edited by Simone Ombuen The geographical digital information in the planning ‘knowledge frameworks’ Simone Ombuen The european implementation of the Inspire directive and the Plan4all project Flavio Camerata, Simone Ombuen, Interoperability and spatial planners: a proposal for a land use Franco Vico ‘data model’ Flavio Camerata, Simone Ombuen What is a land use data model? Giuseppe De Marco Interoperability and metadata catalogues Stefano Magaudda Relationships among regional planning laws, ‘knowledge fra- meworks’ and Territorial information systems in Italy Gaia Caramellino Towards a national Plan. Shaping cuban planning during the fifties Profiles and practices Rosario Pavia Waterfrontstory Carlos Smaniotto Costa, Monica Bocci Brasilia, the city of the future is 50 years old. The urban design and the challenges of the Brazilian national capital Michele Talia To research of one impossible balance Antonella Radicchi On the sonic image of the city Marco Barbieri Urban grapes.
    [Show full text]
  • BUILDING from SCRATCH: New Cities, Privatized Urbanism and the Spatial Restructuring of Johannesburg After Apartheid
    INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH 471 DOI:10.1111/1468-2427.12180 — BUILDING FROM SCRATCH: New Cities, Privatized Urbanism and the Spatial Restructuring of Johannesburg after Apartheid claire w. herbert and martin j. murray Abstract By the start of the twenty-first century, the once dominant historical downtown core of Johannesburg had lost its privileged status as the center of business and commercial activities, the metropolitan landscape having been restructured into an assemblage of sprawling, rival edge cities. Real estate developers have recently unveiled ambitious plans to build two completely new cities from scratch: Waterfall City and Lanseria Airport City ( formerly called Cradle City) are master-planned, holistically designed ‘satellite cities’ built on vacant land. While incorporating features found in earlier city-building efforts, these two new self-contained, privately-managed cities operate outside the administrative reach of public authority and thus exemplify the global trend toward privatized urbanism. Waterfall City, located on land that has been owned by the same extended family for nearly 100 years, is spearheaded by a single corporate entity. Lanseria Airport City/Cradle City is a planned ‘aerotropolis’ surrounding the existing Lanseria airport at the northwest corner of the Johannesburg metropole. These two new private cities differ from earlier large-scale urban projects because everything from basic infrastructure (including utilities, sewerage, and the installation and maintenance of roadways),
    [Show full text]
  • Garden Cities Located in What Now Are the Suburbs of Berlin
    focus | 2009 | volume VI 53 GAR D EN CITIES: LESSONS FROM GERMANY Kar L ECKE R T Karl Eckert is a senior at Ebenezer Howard’s lessons and the Garden City movement spread throughout Europe the BCRP program, City between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. In this article, Karl Eckert and Regional Planning Department, Cal Poly. discusses the origins of the movement and the translation of the concept to Germany. During a recent trip, he visited and studied tSiemensstadt and Britz, two garden cities located in what now are the suburbs of Berlin. In reading the book Cities of Tomorrow by Sir Peter Hall, one comes to realize the profession of planning is a relatively new field of expertise. Modern day city planning stems from the early 1900’s when the societies of the developing world were dealing with the menace of the urban slum, a new phenomenon spurred by industrial forces and a rise in migratory populations to major city centers for employment. Developing ideas that would counter-attack this dire urban condition would soon define and establish what is known today as city planning. Life in the Slums Peter Hall’s Cities of Tomorrow elaborates on how, during the period of 1880 to 1920, major cities such as London, Berlin, Paris and New York experienced complications with slum populations. These cities exhibited high concentrations of poor residents within areas defined by the lack of physical maintenance, crowded conditions, disregard for sanitation, and general social decline. Andrew Figure 1 Mearns, a pamphlet writer of the time, described the slums of London with clarity: The Siemens factory, which was the main employment outlet “Few who read these pages have any conception of what these pestilential human rookeries for those living in are, where tens of thousands are crowded together amidst horrors which call to mind what we Seimensstadt.
    [Show full text]
  • 2010 CNU Charter Awards Book
    TENTH ANNIVERSARY CONGRESS FOR THE NEW URBANISM CHARTER 0 1 0 CNUAWARD S 2 It is with great pleasure that we present the results of the first CNU JACKY GRIMSHAW Charter Awards Program…The , Vice-President of Policy, Center for Neighborhood Technology, Chicago, Illinois; diversity of architectural design ELIZABETH MOULE , Principal, Moule Polyzoides approaches demonstrates that it Architects & Urbanists, Pasadena, California; is possible to seamlessly link new PAUL MURRAIN , Urban Designer and INTBAU Visiting development to its surroundings Professor at the University of Greenwich, London, in many ways. England; JOE DISTEFANO , Principal, Calthorpe Ray Gindroz, Jury Chair 2001 Associates, Berkeley, California: MAGGIE CONNOR , Principal, Urban Design Associates, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; VINCE GRAHAM , JURY CHAIR , Founder, I’On Group, Charleston, South Carolina; DANA BEACH , Executive Director, Coastal Conservation League, Charleston, South Carolina 2010 MARKS THE TENTH YEAR OF THE CHARTER AWARDS. I had the honor of chairing a jury which included CNU Founders and current board members, veterans of past juries, and young designers new to the task. Members ably represented This year’s Charter Awards provide Given the growing alertness to reassuring evidence that these prin - TENTH ANNIVERSARY the community of competence which is the Congress for the New Urbanism. Bringing global climate change, our incipient ciples are widely understood and holistic knowledge and a passion for excellence, we met through a winter tempest in post-peak-oil era, and the turbulent economic times, we expanded our serving as the foundation for excel - CONGRESS FOR THE NEW URBANISM Charleston to review just under 100 projects. Submittals were down from recent years, lent work…The scope of the projects judging criteria, seeking…glimpses that received awards demonstrates but what we lacked in quantity was more than made up for in quality and sophistica - of a more sensible future, looking to that the New Urbanism goes well tion.
    [Show full text]
  • Spatial Planning Guidelines During COVID-19
    Spatial Planning Guidelines during COVID-19 September 2020 1 Historically, pandemics such as the plague and Spanish flu have altered the way cities are planned leading to adaptions in building codes which are still under effect today. Many cities like Paris, New York and Rio de Janeiro have been redesigned to incorporate higher hygiene standards with improved sanitation facilities. Buildings have also been modified to include better light and ventilation. Cities are at the epi-centre of the COVID-19 pandemic which has a much higher transmission rate compared to previous pandemics. Measures to control COVID-19 transmission have included physical distancing, but this is often difficult to implement in cities founded on the principles of density, proximity and social interactions. This current pandemic is challenging planning principles mistakenly confusing density with overcrowding as an accelerator for the spread of COVID-19. There is no evidence, however, that relates higher density with higher transmission, rather it is overcrowding and the lack of access to services that is making certain populations more vulnerable and at a higher risk of contracting the virus. The COVID-19 pandemic is reaffirming the spatial inequalities manifested in the form of slums/informal settlements. It is also exposing the latent inadequacies like insufficient public space or limited access to healthcare– even within formal and well-organized cities – that have been exacerbating problems which have become impediments to achieving good quality urban life. Strategies guiding urban form impact health, economy and environmental sustainability and should aim to build resilience across all these dimensions. Planning processes informing regional and city plans must incorporate measures that enhance public health.
    [Show full text]
  • From the Garden City Movement Onwards
    From the Garden City Movement Onwards Utopianism in British Garden Cities Rick William Moerman Department of Human Geography Examiner: Mads Barbesgaard SGEM08 Supervisor: Anders Lund Hansen Spring 2020 2 Abstract With the publication of Garden Cities of To-Morrow in 1898, Ebenezer Howard gave the go-ahead to the Garden City Movement. Howard’s concept of the garden city arose from his anti-capitalist critiques. Many industrial cities in the United Kingdom were facing urbanization problems, leading to the working class living in terrible circumstances in the suburban areas. This process caused a poor quality of life, housing shortages, polluted air and water and a lack of access to nature. At the same time, the countryside lacked career opportunities and a lack of (cultural) amusement. Howard proposed the garden city as a new alternative to both ways of living. A garden city would have a green character and a blooming cultural life. Surrounding greenbelts and enough job opportunities would make the city self-sustainable. The reactions to Howard’s utopian ideas were mainly positive, leading to the construction of two garden cities in the United Kingdom. Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City were located close to London and offered a way of living as proposed by Howard. These projects were considered successful, leading to the establishment of the related New Town Movement. This movement eventually led to the creation of 28 new and self-sustaining towns all over the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, the two original garden cities had developed into rich commuter towns which had become too expansive for the working class population.
    [Show full text]
  • Spatial and Environmental Planning of Sustainable Regional Development in Serbia
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by RAUmPlan - Repository of Architecture; Urbanism and Planning SPATIUM International Review UDK 711.2(497.11) ; 502.131.1:711.2(497.11) No. 21, December 2009, p. 39-52 Review paper SPATIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING OF SUSTAINABLE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN SERBIA Marija Maksin-Mićić1, University Singidunum, Faculty of tourism and hospitality management, Belgrade, Serbia Saša Milijić, Institute of Architecture and Urban & Spatial Planning of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia Marina Nenković-Riznić, Institute of Architecture and Urban & Spatial Planning of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia The paper analyses the planning framework for sustainable territorial and regional development. The spatial and environmental planning should play the key role in coordination and integration of different planning grounds in achieving the sustainable regional development. The paper discusses the spatial planning capacity to offer the integral view of the sustainable territorial development. The brief review of tendencies in new spatial planning and regional policy has been given. The focus is on the concept of balanced polycentric development of European Union. The guiding principles of spatial planning in regard of planning system reform in European countries have been pointed out. The changes in paradigm of regional policy, and the tasks of European regional spatial planning have been discussed. In Serbia problems occur in regard with the lack of coordinating sectoral planning with spatial and environmental planning. Partly the problem lies in the legal grounds, namely in non codification of laws and unregulated horizontal and vertical coordination at all levels of governance. The possibilities for the implementation of spatial planning principles and concepts of European Union sustainable territorial and regional development have been analized on the case of three regional spatial plans of eastern and southeastern regions in Serbia.
    [Show full text]
  • Dual-Agent Simulation Model of the Residential
    Dual-agent simulation model of the residential development process : an institutional approach to explaining the spatial patterns of residential developments in France, England and the Netherlands Stephan Kamps To cite this version: Stephan Kamps. Dual-agent simulation model of the residential development process : an institutional approach to explaining the spatial patterns of residential developments in France, England and the Netherlands. Geography. Université de Franche-Comté, 2013. English. NNT : 2013BESA1010. tel-01287178 HAL Id: tel-01287178 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01287178 Submitted on 11 Mar 2016 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. !!"#$ %&! ' $% ! !%" ( "%)% )%*% !+% "#% ' ) ) $% %$%" ) %!$ , ! " -% % #$ %&'( ) *+ , -. / 0 %(("%. # ) . 1 -/ 0 % #$ 2&'( #$") #3 ) . %42 %""% , # ) . %42 / 0 /# % # 2&'(/ 4 0 Aan mijn ouders Bedankt voor jullie enorme steun en toewijding, ik hou van jullie! ii Acknowledgements I am very happy to have finished my thesis, of which the report before you is the physical evidence. The coming about and the successful termination of my thesis has not been possible without quite a few people, whom I personally would like to thank. First of all, I would like to thank Lena Sanders, for accepting to be the president of the jury at my defence.
    [Show full text]
  • 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).
    [Show full text]