How to Save Our Town Centres


Book Description

Has the Internet killed our main streets? Have our town and city centers become obsolete? This book looks beyond the empty commercial buildings and "shop local" campaigns to focus on the real issues: how the relationship between people and places is changing; how business is done and who benefits; and how the use and ownership of land affects us all. Written in an engaging and accessible style and incorporating numerous original interviews, How to Save Our Town Centres sets out a comprehensive and coherent agenda for long-term, citizen-led change. It will be vital reading for policy makers and researchers alike, and anyone interested in planning, architecture and the built environment, economic development, and community participation.




Railways, Urban Development and Town Planning in Britain: 1948–2008


Book Description

This book provides a critical overview of the relationships between planning and railway management and development during the key period in the 20th Century when the railway was in public ownership: 1948-94. It assesses the strength of the relationships when working in collaboration with the private sector. The book then focuses on the interplay between planning and railway since privatization in 1994 and points to best practice for the future in institutional structures and policy development to secure improved outcomes.




Principles of Urban Retail Planning and Development


Book Description

"...Extraordinary: Gibbs has popped the hood and taken apart the engine of commercial design and development, showing us each individual part and explaining fit, form and function." —Yaromir Steiner, Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Steiner + Associates "...the most comprehensive and expansive book ever written on the subject of Retail Real Estate Development. Gibbs is by far the most prominent advocate for reforming retail planning and development in order to return American cities to economic and physical prominence." –Stefanos Polyzoides, Moule & Polyzoides Architects & Urbanists The retail environment has evolved rapidly in the past few decades, with the retailing industry and its placement and design of "brick-and-mortar" locations changing with evolving demographics, shopping behavior, transportation options and a desire in recent years for more unique shopping environments. Written by a leading expert, this is a guide to planning for retail development for urban planners, urban designers and architects. It includes an overview of history of retail design, a look at retail and merchandising trends, and principles for current retail developments. Principles of Urban Retail Planning and Development will: Provide insight and techniques necessary for historic downtowns and new urban communities to compete with modern suburban shopping centers. Promote sustainable community building and development by making it more profitable for the shopping center industry to invest in historic cities or to develop walkable urban communities. Includes case studies of recent good examples of retail development




New Towns for the Twenty-First Century


Book Description

New towns—large, comprehensively planned developments on newly urbanized land—boast a mix of spaces that, in their ideal form, provide opportunities for all of the activities of daily life. From garden cities to science cities, new capitals to large military facilities, hundreds were built in the twentieth century and their approaches to planning and development were influential far beyond the new towns themselves. Although new towns are notoriously difficult to execute and their popularity has waxed and waned, major new town initiatives are increasing around the globe, notably in East Asia, South Asia, and Africa. New Towns for the Twenty-First Century considers the ideals behind new-town development, the practice of building them, and their outcomes. A roster of international and interdisciplinary contributors examines their design, planning, finances, management, governance, quality of life, and sustainability. Case studies provide histories of new towns in the United States, Asia, Africa, and Europe and impart lessons learned from practitioners. The volume identifies opportunities afforded by new towns for confronting future challenges related to climate change, urban population growth, affordable housing, economic development, and quality of life. Featuring inventories of classic new towns, twentieth-century new towns with populations over 30,000, and twenty-first-century new towns, the volume is a valuable resource for governments, policy makers, and real estate developers as well as planners, designers, and educators. Contributors: Sandy Apgar, Sai Balakrishnan, JaapJan Berg, Paul Buckhurst, Felipe Correa, Carl Duke, Reid Ewing, Ann Forsyth, Robert Freestone, Shikyo Fu, Pascaline Gaborit, Elie Gamburg, Alexander Garvin, David R. Godschalk, Tony Green, ChengHe Guan, Rachel Keeton, Steven Kellenberg, Kyung-Min Kim, Gene Kohn, Todd Mansfield, Robert W. Marans, Robert Nelson, Pike Oliver, Richard Peiser, Michelle Provoost, Peter G. Rowe, Jongpil Ryu, Andrew Stokols, Adam Tanaka, Jamie von Klemperer, Fulong Wu, Ying Xu, Anthony Gar-On Yeh, Chaobin Zhou.




Stevenage


Book Description

This book charts the history of Stevenage new town centre, looking at its planning, development, design influences, significance and survival. The historic market town of Stevenage was the first location to be designated for major expansion under the New Towns Act 1946, making it Britain's first post-war new town. As part of this a new town centre was planned from 1946. Informed by the ideas of figures including Gordon Stephenson and Clarence Stein, among the leading planners of their day, the detailed design of this area was undertaken in the 1950s by Stevenage Development Corporation, under Chief Architect Leonard Vincent. The shopping precinct, with surrounding car parks and bus station, was built first, begun in earnest in 1956 and officially opened in April 1959. Its design is notable: the fully pedestrian precinct is one of the earliest examples of this kind of development in Britain and on a scale unequalled in Europe at the time of its initiation. The shopping precinct, designated as a conservation area in 1988, is notable for its uniformity, integrity and level of survival. Provision was also made in the town centre for offices, community, entertainment and public buildings, which will be discussed in this book, along with expansion works undertaken in the 1960s and '70s.




What Makes a Great City


Book Description

One of Planetizen's Top Planning Books for 2017 - San Francisco Chronicle's 2016 Holiday Books Gift Guide Pick What makes a great city? City planner and architect Alexander Garvin set out to answer this question by observing cities, largely in North America and Europe, with special attention to Paris, London, New York, and Vienna. For Garvin, greatness is about what people who shape cities can do to make a city great. A great city is a dynamic, constantly changing place that residents and their leaders can reshape to satisfy their demands. Most importantly, it is about the interplay between people and public realm, and how they have interacted throughout history to create great cities. What Makes a Great City will help readers understand that any city can be changed for the better and inspire entrepreneurs, public officials, and city residents to do it themselves.




From silent screen to multi-screen


Book Description

Detailed and comprehensive, this book is the first survey of cinema exhibition in Britain from its inception until the present. Charting the development of cinema exhibition and cinema-going in Britain from the first public film screening by the Lumière Brothers’ at London’s Regent Street Polytechnic in February 1896, through to the development of the multiplex and giant megaplex cinemas, the history of cinema exhibition is placed in its wider social, cultural and economic contexts. Adopting a chronological structure, this book takes into account how changes in the structure of the film industry, especially regarding the exhibition sector, impacted upon the cinema-going experience. From silent screen to multi-screen will be valuable for social historians as well as scholars and students in film studies, media studies and cultural history.




Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers


Book Description

Vols. 39-214 (1874/75-1921/22) have a section 2 containing "Other selected papers"; issued separately, 1923-35, as the institution's Selected engineering papers.




Urban Waste and Sanitation Services for Sustainable Development


Book Description

Urban sanitation and solid waste sectors are under significant pressure in East Africa due to the lack of competent institutional capacity and the growth of the region’s urban population. This book presents and applies an original analytical approach to assess the existing socio-technical mixtures of waste and sanitation systems and to ensure wider access, increase flexibility and ecological sustainability. It shows how the problem is not the current diversity in waste and sanitation infrastructures and services and variety of types and scales of technology, of formal and informal sector involvement, and of management and ownership modes. The book focuses instead on the lack of an integrative approach to managing and upgrading of the various waste and sanitation configurations and services so as to ensure wider access, flexibility and sustainability for the low income populations who happen to be the main stakeholders. This approach, coined "Modernized Mixtures", serves as a nexus throughout the book. The empirical core addresses the waste and sanitation challenges and debates at each scale - from the micro-level (households) to the macro-level (international support) - and is based on the results of a five-year-long interdisciplinary, empirical research program. It assesses the socio-technical diversity in waste and sanitation and provides viable solutions to sanitation and waste management in East Africa. This book provides students, researchers and professional in environmental technology, sociology, management and urban planning with an integrated analytical perspective on centralized and decentralized waste and sanitation configurations and tools for improvement in the technology, policy and management of sanitation and solid waste sectors.




Urban Design: Method and Technique


Book Description

This book deals with a wide range of techniques used in the urban design process. It is invaluable for architecture, planning, landscape and surveying students and will also help professionals in the day to day practice. A method of urban design is developed which has sustainability and environmental protection at the centre of its philosophy. Previously, literature regarding the urban design method has been almost totally neglected; this book introduces the topic to the reader. A number of techniques are illustrated by example or case study. Where techniques are discussed they are located within the structure of the design process. The book develops a logical framework for a process, which includes problem definition, survey, analysis, concept generation, evaluation and implementation. It is this framework which is presented here as a discourse towards the development of an urban design method. This book is a practical guide, one that the authors themselves would have found useful as students or in the early years of their professional careers. It is organized so that each chapter provides guidance which hitherto, students and practitioners in this field have had to discover for themselves, often with some difficulty, since methods and techniques for urban design is a broad topic thinly spread in published form.