Planning the Good Community


Book Description

An examination of new urban approaches both in theory and in practice. Taking a critical look at how new urbanism has lived up to its ideals, the author asks whether new urban approaches offer a viable path to creating good communities. With examples drawn principally from North America, Europe and Japan, Planning the Good Community explores new urban approaches in a wide range of settings. It compares the movement for urban renaissance in Europe with the New Urbanism of the United States and Canada, and asks whether the concerns that drive today's planning theory - issues like power, democracy, spatial patterns and globalisation- receive adequate attention in new urban approaches. The issue of aesthetics is also raised, as the author questions whether communities must be more than just attractive in order to be good. With the benefit of twenty years' hindsight and a world-wide perspective, this book offers the reader unparalleled insight as well as a rigorous and considered critical analysis.




Great Lakes


Book Description

This edited volume while focusing on participatory governance in the Great Lakes basin of North America also gives a comparative perspective of the African Great Lakes. The book describes the actions taken at degraded locations along the Great Lakes in North America through Remedial Action Plans (RAP) and other mechanisms, with an aim to highlight the successes and failures encountered in ecosystembased regenerative approaches. The book documents these experiences including the lead taken by industry in improving environmental quality of the Great Lakes. The book concludes with lessons learnt about revitalizing the ecosystem integrity of the lakes, which can be replicated in other watersheds of the world.




Shifting Mobility


Book Description

In the face of resource depletion, environmental changes, lifestyle changes, demographic and digital adaptation, old ideologies of city building and expensive and complex automobility solutions are in freefall. These changes are creating severe friction between the old and new paradigms. This book provides new perspectives through the process of ideological disassociation and concepts of human mobility code. The basic premise of the book, human mobility is an essential component of our creativity that comes from our unconscious desire to become a part of a community. Several new concepts in the book starts with the hallmark of new discovery of human mobility code and its implications of urban mobility boundary systems to stay within safe planetary zone. A new discovery of human mobility code from comprehensive research finding prove that each individual develops a unique mobility footprint and become our mobility identity. Beyond individual hallmarks, human develops collective mobility codes through interaction with the third space on which entire mobility systems lie and are created by the fundamentals of city planning and the design process. Readers are introduced to an innovative mobility planning process and reinvention of multimodal mobility approaches based on new mobility code while formulating new concepts, practical solutions and implementation techniques, tools, policies, and processes to reinforce low-carbon mobility options while addressing social equity, environmental, and health benefits. Finally, the book arms us with knowledge to prevent the disaster of full technological enlightenment against our natural human mobility code.




Critical Perspectives on Suburban Infrastructures


Book Description

Most new urban growth takes place in the suburbs; consequently, infrastructures are in a constant state of playing catch-up, creating repeated infrastructure crises in these peripheries. However, the push to address the tensions stemming from this rapid growth also allow the suburbs to be a major source of urban innovation. Taking a critical social science perspective to identify political, economic, social, and environmental issues related to suburban infrastructures, this book highlights the similarities and differences between suburban infrastructure conditions encountered in the Global North and Global South. Adopting an international approach grounded in case studies from three continents, this book discusses infrastructure issues within different suburban and societal contexts: low-density infrastructure-rich Global North suburban areas, rapidly developing Chinese suburbs, and the deeply socially stratified suburbs of poor Global South countries. Despite stark differences between types of suburbs, there are features common to all suburban areas irrespective of their location, and similarities in the infrastructure issues confronting these different categories of suburbs.




At the End of the Shift


Book Description

Mining has played a formative role in the history of Northern Ontario. It has been one of the key generators of wealth in the area since the mid-19th century, and is also responsible for much of the urban development of Ontario's northland. The twelve papers published here came out of the second annual confernce of Northern Ontario research and development held in 1990. The papers are grouped into four sections, the early years; the era of government intervention; the present and finally the future and what can be done to maintain the commnities.







The Second City Book


Book Description

The Second City Book collects revised and updated articles from the groundbreaking City Magazine reflecting the major urban issues affecting Canada in the 1970s. A sequel to The City Book, this volume offers 22 case studies of Canadian city politics and city planning, examining the growth of suburbs, the contemporary rise in housing costs, the consequences of unchecked demolitions, and the real functioning of urban bureaucracies. Authors include John Sewell, George Baird, Desmond Morton and Kent Gerecke. The Second City Book is a vivid, eye-opening report from one of the busiest and most controversial periods in Canada's development history.




Precarious Constructions


Book Description

This sharply argued book posits that urban revitalization—making "better" city living spaces from those that have been neglected due to racist city planning and divestment—is a code word for fraught, state-managed gentrification. Vanessa A. Rosa examines the revitalization of two Toronto public housing projects, Regent Park and Lawrence Heights, and uses this evidence to analyze the challenges of racial inequality and segregation at the heart of housing systems in many cities worldwide. Instead of promoting safety and belonging, Rosa argues that revitalization too often creates more intense exclusion. But the story of these housing projects also reveals how residents pushed back on the ideals of revitalization touted by city officials and policymakers. Rosa explores urban revitalization as a window to investigate broader questions about social regulation and the ways that racism, classism, and dynamics of inclusion/exclusion are foundational to liberal democratic societies, particularly as scholars continue to debate the politics of gentrification at the local level and the politics of integration and multiculturalism at the national level.




Condoland


Book Description

Condoland casts CityPlace – a massive residential development of more than thirty condominium towers just outside Toronto’s downtown core – as a microcosm of twenty-first-century urban intensification that has transformed the city skyline beyond all recognition. Built almost entirely by a single private developer, this immense neighbourhood took decades to plan, design, and develop, but the end result lacks a sense of place and is not widely accessible to those who need homes: only a small number of its 13,000 units constitute affordable housing, and public amenities are limited. James T. White and John Punter journey through the forty-year development of Toronto’s largest residential megaproject, focusing on its urban design and architectural evolution. They also delve into the background, summarizing the tools used to shape Toronto’s built environment, and critically explore the underlying political economy of planning and real estate development in the city. Using detailed field studies, interviews, archival research, and with nearly two hundred illustrations, they reveal an alarmingly flexible approach to planning and design that is acquiescent to the demands of a rapacious development industry. Condoland raises key questions about the sustainability and long-term resilience of city planning.