The Urban Project

Summarizes the experiences particularly significant to those involved in design, building, thinking and managing the urban scene.

• The authors are both established figures in the urban construction field • The book will help contractors keep projects on time and within budget

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Umbrella Project in 1991 was the most ambitious and expensive project they have ever undertaken. 1340 blue six metre umbrellas were assembled and erected throughout a narrow valley in rural Japan. 7000 yellow umbrellas were similarly prepared across the Pacific in a dry expanse of Californian land. After months of gruelling process, the two countries united as the forest of umbrellas were opened simultaneously on both continents.

Emerging Urbanity provides a critical reading of urban transformations throughout the world and in particular in Asia. Includes case studies of detailed design analysis of the largest urban developments in the Pacific Rim.

Presenting the findings of extensive research into the development of planning tools and strategies since the early 1970s, this book addresses key issues in urban development/governance and brings together a range of different national experiences. Helpfully divided into three sections, Framing Strategic Urban Projects sets out the study framework, with its social, policy and institutional contexts; uses up-to-date European case studies to highlight different planning issues, including new-urbanism, information networks and public partnerships; and finally makes good-practice recommendations. Offering a systematic comparison of a wide variety of projects and providing useful case study material of these large-scale urban projects and recommendations, this book is essential reading for planners, policy makers and students interested in how to make strategic urban projects work effectively.

Since the demise of urban renewal in the early 1970s, the politics of large-scale public investment in and around major American cities has received little scholarly attention. In MEGA-PROJECTS, Alan Altshuler and David Luberoff analyze the unprecedented wave of large-scale (mega-) public investments that occurred in American cities during the 1950s and 1960s; the social upheavals they triggered, which derailed large numbers of projects during the late 1960s and early 1970s; and the political impulses that have shaped a new generation of urban mega-projects in the decades since. They also appraise the most important consequences of policy shifts over this half-century and draw out common themes from the rich variety of programmatic and project developments that they chronicle. The authors integrate narratives of national as well as state and local policymaking, and of mobilization by (mainly local) project advocates, with a profound examination of how well leading theories of urban politics explain the observed realities. The specific cases they analyze include a wide mix of transportation and downtown revitalization projects, drawn from numerous regions—most notably Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Portland, and Seattle. While their original research focuses on highway, airport, and rail transit programs and projects, they draw as well on the work of others to analyze the politics of public investment in urban renewal, downtown retailing, convention centers, and professional sports facilities. In comparing their findings with leading theories of urban and American politics, Altshuler and Luberoff arrive at some surprising findings about which perform best and also reveal some important gaps in the literature as a whole. In a concluding chapter, they examine the potential effects of new fiscal pressures, business mobilization to relax environmental constraints, and security concerns in the wake of September 11. And they make clear their own views about how best to achieve a balance between developmental, environmental, and democratic values in public investment decisionmaking. Integrating fifty years of urban development history with leading theories of urban and American politics, MEGA-PROJECTS provides significant new insights into urban and intergovernmental politics.

This publication looks at the ideas underlying Diploma Unit 4's approach to urbanism.