The Urban Village

Suburb, Slum, Urban Village examines the relationship between image and reality for one city neighbourhood – Toronto’s Parkdale. Carolyn Whitzman tracks Parkdale’s story across three eras: its early decades as a politically independent suburb of the industrial city; its half-century of ostensible decline toward becoming a slum; and a post-industrial period of transformation into a revitalized urban village. This book also shows how Parkdale’s image influenced planning policy for the neighbourhood, even when the prevailing image of Parkdale had little to do with the actual social conditions there. Whitzman demonstrates that this misunderstanding of social conditions had discriminatory effects. For example, even while Parkdale’s reputation as a gentrified area grew in the post-sixties era, the overall health and income of the neighbourhood’s residents was in fact decreasing, and the area attracted media coverage as a “dumping ground” for psychiatric outpatients. Parkdale’s changing image thus stood in stark contrast to its real social conditions. Nevertheless, this image became a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it contributed to increasingly skewed planning practices for Parkdale in the late twentieth century. This rich and detailed history of a neighbourhood’s actual conditions, imaginary connotations, and planning policies will appeal to scholars and students in urban studies, planning, and geography, as well as to general readers interested in Toronto and Parkdale’s urban history.

A practical manifesto for how cities can respond to the pressures of globalization

This book addresses the mystery and diversity of urbanization in China, especially with regard to urban villages. The “village in the city” is a unique social phenomenon in the process of Chinese urbanization. A local village society composed of deep-rooted social networks linked by blood, geography, folk beliefs, and folk customs is the outcome of a complex social process, which is accompanied by changes in property rights, restructuring of social networks, and conflicting benefits and values. The end of the village is the epitome of social transformation, and for China as a whole, this change may take a very long time to complete. This book includes various examples of and stories on urban villages, offering readers a wealth of insights into the phenomenon and its significance.

Most studies of eighteenth-century community life in America have focused on New England, and in many respects the New England town has become a model for our understanding of communities throughout the United States during this period. In this study of a mid-Atlantic town, Stephanie Grauman Wolf describes a very different way of organizing society, indicating that the New England model may prove atypical. In addition, her analysis suggests the origins of twentieth-century social patterns in eighteenth-century life. Germantown, Pennsylvania, was chosen for study because it was a small urban center characterized by an ethnically and religiously mixed population of high mobility. The author uses quantitative analysis and sample case study to examine all aspects of the community. She finds that heterogeneity and mobility had a marked effect on urban development--on landholding, occupation, life style, and related areas; community organization for the control of government and church affairs; and the structure and demographic development of the: family. Her work represents an important advance not only in our understanding of eighteenth-century American society, but also in the ways in which we investigate it.

This book documents both the roots of the Urban Village movement and its application in contemporary society. A series of essays by eminent practitioners offers particular urban perspectives.

WINNER of the Architectural Book of the Year Award 2023, Monograph (Building) Category. The story of the building of an iconic mid-century housing estate, that is often seen as the model for housing architecture. Fully illustrated with commissioned photography of the interiors and exteriors, archive images and newly commissioned writing by leading architectural historians, plus interviews with people on the estate to capture their story. Following World War II, the population in the City of London plummeted, and with a duty to provide housing for those working in the area – such as nurses, policemen and doctors – the City Corporation commissioned architect Geoffry Powell in 1952 to design the Golden Lane Estate. Powell invited Christoph Bon and Jo Chamberlin to join him in developing a detailed design for the Estate. They would later become Chamberlin, Powell & Bon, working on world-renowned projects such as the Barbican Estate and the University of Leeds. Golden Lane Estate, now Grade II and Grade II* listed is often cited as being a model estate. With its high level of detailing, use of materials, colour, its humane scale, thoughtfulness of space, light, communal spaces, leisure facilities and integrated shops, it is exemplary, particularly for social housing. It was deemed as a success from the off and remains popular today, with many original tenants and/or their families still choosing to live there. What sets the estate apart is the sense of community and neighbourliness which is promoted by the architecture and design.