Cities Of Dispersal

Questioning the traditional boundaries between cities, suburbs, countryside and wilderness, this issue of AD explores emergent types of public space in low-density environments. It describes this new form of urbanism: decentralised, in a constant process of expansion and contraction, not homogenous or necessarily low-rise, nor guided by one mode of development, typology or pattern. While functionally and programmatically dispersed, settlements operate as a form of urbanism; the place of collective spaces within them has yet to be defined and articulated. The physical transformation of the built environment on the one hand, and the change in our notion of the public on the other - due to globalisation, privatisation and segregation - call for renewed interpretations of the nature and character of public space. The concept of public space needs to be examined: replaced, re-created or adapted to fit these conditions. What is the place of the public in this form of urbanism, and how can architecture address the notion of common, collective spaces? What is the current sociopolitical role o such spaces? How does the form and use of these spaces reflect the conception of the public as a political (or non-political) body? And can architecture regain an active role in formulating the notion of the collective? These and other issues are addressed through essays, research projects and built work by distinguished writers such as Bruce Robbins, Albert Pope and Alex Wall, and Practitioners including Zvi Hecker, Vito Acconci, MUTOPIA, Manuel de Sola-Morales, Martha Rosler and Manuel Vicente in a search for new collective architectures within the dispersed city.

As global warming advances, regions around the world are engaging in revolutionary sustainability planning - but with social equity as an afterthought. California is at the cutting edge of this movement, not only because its regulations actively reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also because its pioneering environmental regulation, market innovation, and Left Coast politics show how to blend the "three Es" of sustainability--environment, economy, and equity. Planning Sustainable Cities and Regions is the first book to explain what this grand experiment tells us about the most just path moving forward for cities and regions across the globe. The book offers chapters about neighbourhoods, the economy, and poverty, using stories from practice to help solve puzzles posed by academic research. Based on the most recent demographic and economic trends, it overturns conventional ideas about how to build more livable places and vibrant economies that offer opportunity to all. This thought-provoking book provides a framework to deal with the new inequities created by the movement for more livable - and expensive - cities, so that our best plans for sustainability are promoting more equitable development as well. This book will appeal to students of urban studies, urban planning and sustainability as well as policymakers, planning practitioners, and sustainability advocates around the world.

A discussion of the future of interdisciplinary research.

On the road to Survival City, Tom Vanderbilt maps the visible and invisible legacies of the cold war, exhuming the blueprints for the apocalypse we once envisioned and chronicling a time when we all lived at ground zero. In this road trip among ruined missile silos, atomic storage bunkers, and secret test sites, a lost battleground emerges amid the architecture of the 1950s, accompanied by Walter Cotten’s stunning photographs. Survival City looks deep into the national soul, unearthing the dreams and fears that drove us during the latter half of the twentieth century. “A crucial and dazzling book, masterful, and for me at least, intoxicating.”—Dave Eggers “A genuinely engaging book, perhaps because [Vanderbilt] is skillful at conveying his own sense of engagement to the reader.”—Los Angeles Times “A retracing of Dr. Strangelove as ordinary life.”—Greil Marcus, Bookforum

Provides theoretical and practical insights into how the new phenomenon of human rights cities contributes to global urban justice.

Professor Bird presents a synthesis of the many approaches to the study of a central featuer of modern life - the city, including its distant past and its future. He sees centrality as a mental projection on to space, and discusses the concept in relation to three types of its manifestation in spatial terms: the city as centre of a tributary region; the centres and central areas of cities themselves; and the city considered as a centre or gateway for other distant regions, often overseas. This book should do much to unravel the funamental similarities between cities of the world while recognizing the myriad variations upon a common theme. This book was first published in 1977.

This book covers all the main aspects of government policy and practice in British inner city regeneration. Chapters deal with the development of policy, agencies for regeneration, housing, social issues. The UK edxperience is compared with that of other countries, particularly the USA, and past achievements and future prospects are considered. This book was first published in 1982.