Seeking Urban Transformation

Seeking Urban Transformation. Alternative Urban Futures in Zimbabwe tells the stories of ordinary people’s struggles to remake urban centres. It interrogates and highlights the principle conditions in which urban transformation takes place. The main catalysts of the transformation are social movements and planning institutions. Social movements pool resources and skills, acquire land, install infrastructure and build houses. Planning institutions change policies, regulations and traditions to embrace and support a new form of urban development driven by grassroots movements. Besides providing a comprehensive analysis of planning and housing in Zimbabwe, there is a specific focus on three urban centres of Harare, Chitungwiza and Epworth. In metropolitan Harare, the books examines new housing and infrastructure series to the predominantly urban poor population; vital roles played by the urban poor in urban development and the adoption by planning institutions of grassroots-centered, urban-planning approaches. The book draws from three case studies and in-depth interviews from diverse urban shapers i.e. representatives and members of social movements, urban planners, engineers, surveyors, policy makers, politicians, civil society workers and students to generate a varied selection of insights and experiences. Based on the Zimbabwean experience, the book illustrates how actions and power of ordinary people contributes to the transformation of African cities.

Seeking Urban Transformation. Alternative Urban Futures in Zimbabwe tells the stories of ordinary peoples struggles to remake urban centres. It interrogates and highlights the principle conditions in which urban transformation takes place. The main catalysts of the transformation are social movements and planning institutions. Social movements pool resources and skills, acquire land, install infrastructure and build houses. Planning institutions change policies, regulations and traditions to embrace and support a new form of urban development driven by grassroots movements. Besides providing a comprehensive analysis of planning and housing in Zimbabwe, there is a specific focus on three urban centres of Harare, Chitungwiza and Epworth. In metropolitan Harare, the books examines new housing and infrastructure series to the predominantly urban poor population; vital roles played by the urban poor in urban development and the adoption by planning institutions of grassroots-centered, urban-planning approaches. The book draws from three case studies and in-depth interviews from diverse urban shapers i.e. representatives and members of social movements, urban planners, engineers, surveyors, policy makers, politicians, civil society workers and students to generate a varied selection of insights and experiences. Based on the Zimbabwean experience, the book illustrates how actions and power of ordinary people contributes to the transformation of African cities.

Cities affect every person's life, yet across the traditional divides of class, age, gender and political affiliation, armies of people are united in their dislike of the transformations that cities have undergone in recent times. The physical form of the urban environment is not a designer add-on to 'real' social issues; it is a central aspect of the social world. Yet in many people's experience, the cumulative impacts of recent urban development have created widely un-loved urban places. To work towards better-loved urban environments, we need to understand how current problems have arisen and identify practical action to address them. Urban Transformations examines the crucial issues relating to how cities are formed, how people use these urban environments and how cities can be transformed into better places. Exploring the links between the concrete physicality of the built environment and the complex social, economic, political and cultural processes through which the physical urban form is produced and consumed, Ian Bentley proposes a framework of ideas to provoke and develop current debate and new forms of practice.

Cities continue to be at the forefront of culture. Now that over half of the global population lives in cities we're confronted with the reality of not only living in urbanized areas, but understanding them, loving them, and planting churches there. IJUT Volume 4 examines urban church planting and the nuances of that topic around the world. Whether we're exploring planting in gentrifying neighborhoods in Washington DC or Brooklyn, New York, learning about case studies of church planting in cities like Colombo, Sri Lanka and Singapore, IJUT Volume 4 gives you a well-rounded framework and perspective for this topic.The journal is broken down into three sections: Featured Articles, Case Studies, and Book Reviews.Contributors: Lisa Hoff (Ontario, California), Matthew Watson (Washington DC), Lloyd Chia (Portland), Stephen Stallard (Brooklyn), Linda Bergquist (San Francisco), Frank Rudolph Stirk (Vancouver, British Columbia), Kevin Baggett (Panama City), Michael Crane (SE Asia), Scott Carter (SE Asia), Lori Adams-Brown (Singapore), Bryce McFarland (South Asia), Matthew Brichetto (New Orleans), Kurt Holiday (Johannesburg), Sean Benesh (Portland).The International Journal of Urban Transformation (IJUT) is a bi-annual academic journal dedicated to a scholarly investigation and research, and analysis of urban issues and trends affecting best practices in urban missiology and applicable in the areas of the world, not least among the urban poor. As such, this journal is a forum for the exchange of ideas and research between urban missiologists and practitioners who are interested in advancing the kingdom of God.

Profound transformations in residential practices are emerging in Europe as well as throughout the urban world. They can be observed in the unfolding diversity of residential architecture and spatially restructured cities. The complexity of urban and societal processes behind these changes requires new research approaches in order to fully grasp the significant changes in citizens lifestyles, their residential preferences, capacities and future opportunities for implementing resilient residential practices. The international case studies in this book examine why ways of residing have changed as well as the meaning and the significance of the social, economic, political, cultural and symbolic contexts. The volume brings together an interdisciplinary range of perspectives to reflect specifically upon the dynamic exchange between evolving ways of residing and professional practices in the fields of architecture and design, planning, policy-making, facilities management, property and market. In doing so, it provides a resourceful basis for further inquiries seeking an understanding of ways of residing in transformation as a reflection of diversifying residential cultures. This book will offer insights of interest to academics, policy-makers and professionals as well as students of urban studies, sociology, architecture, housing, planning, business and economics, engineering and facilities management.

"[This book] evolved from a debate-platform, the Holcim Forum for Sustainable Construction on Urban Transformation, which took place in 2007 at Tongji University in Shanghai, China. For three days more 250 professionals from over 40 countries - architects, urban planners, engineers, scholars, representatives from business and governments - met in working groups and for panel sessions to discuss the challenges cities face today in respect to urban change."--Foreword (p. 10).

The global increase in the number of slums calls for policies which improve the conditions of the urban poor, sustainably. This volume provides an extensive overview of current housing policies in Asia, Africa and Latin America and presents the facts and trends of recent housing policies. The chapters provide ideas and tools for pro-poor interventions with respect to the provision of land for housing, building materials, labour, participation and finance. The book looks at the role of the various stakeholders involved in such interventions, including national and local governments, private sector organisations, NGOs and Community-based Organisations.

From Yellowstone to the Great Smoky Mountains, America's national parks are sprawling tracts of serenity, most of them carved out of public land for recreation and preservation around the turn of the last century. America has changed dramatically since then, and so has its conceptions of what parkland ought to be. In this book, one of our premier environmental historians looks at the new phenomenon of urban parks, focusing on San Francisco's Golden Gate National Recreation Area as a prototype for the twenty-first century. Cobbled together from public and private lands in a politically charged arena, the GGNRA represents a new direction for parks as it highlights the long-standing tension within the National Park Service between preservation and recreation. Long a center of conservation, the Bay Area was well positioned for such an innovative concept. Writing with insight and wit, Rothman reveals the many complex challenges that local leaders, politicians, and the NPS faced as they attempted to administer sites in this area. He tells how Representative Phillip Burton guided a comprehensive bill through Congress to establish the park and how he and others expanded the acreage of the GGNRA, redefined its mission to the public, forged an identity for interconnected parks, and struggled against formidable odds to obtain the San Francisco Presidio and convert it into a national park. Engagingly written, The New Urban Park offers a balanced examination of grassroots politics and its effect on municipal, state, and federal policy. While most national parks dominate the economies of their regions, GGNRA was from the start tied to the multifaceted needs of its public and political constituents-including neighborhood, ethnic, and labor interests as well as the usual supporters from the conservation movement. As a national recreation area, GGNRA helped redefine that category in the public mind. By the dawn of the new century, it had already become one of the premier national park areas in terms of visitation. Now as public lands become increasingly scarce, GGNRA may well represent the future of national parks in America. Rothman shows that this model works, and his book will be an invaluable resource for planning tomorrow's parks.