Coping with congestion: responses to urban traffic problems in British cities c.1920–1960

This paper focuses on neglected debates about urban traffic congestion in British cities before this became an issue of major concern from the 1960s. It is argued that conflicts between motor transport (both public and private), trams, trolley buses, cyclists and pedestrians over urban space led to the progressive marginalisation of what were perceived as outdated forms of transport, and to the progressive dominance of the culture of the car. The research is based on archival and oral history data for two British cities, Manchester and Glasgow, and demonstrates the ways in which similar debates between proponents and opponents of different forms of urban transport developed in each town from the 1920s to the 1950s. It is suggested that many of these arguments have a very modern resonance, and that 21st century debates over the development of sustainable urban transport can be traced back to the 1920s.     

PERFECT REPRESENTATIONS OF SOVIET PLANNED SPACE

The article looks at mono‐industrial cities in the Baltic States during the Soviet era. In terms of economy, ethnicity and their urban appearance these heterotopic towns were outposts in the integration of the occupied European‐like territories into the Soviet Union. Thanks to the principles of planning and state‐favoured development that were applied across the Soviet Union, these towns, built for Russian speaking immigrants, stood out from the surrounding patterns of settlement that had developed naturally over time. The uranium producing town of Sillamäe in Estonia was built in secret and with lightning speed amidst the panic concerning the atom bomb immediately after the war, and provides us with a perfect model of Stalinist urban development. Stu?ka, built in the 1960s near a hydro‐electric power station in Latvia and Snie?kus, built in the 1970s next to a nuclear power station in Lithuania, were less separated from the surrounding landscape, but both provide a perfect example of Soviet modernism, which had been learned from mass‐housing in the West.     

What about effective access to cars in motorised households?

Most Canadian urban centres are facing difficulties with public transport systems. As car ownership has increased, urban areas have experienced a long‐term decrease in per capita ridership. At present, a significant proportion of riders in most cities is considered to be transit captives, which usually refers to carless individuals or members of carless households. But, what about members of motorised households without effective or real access to a car as, for instance, two‐income households with only one car? Do these ‘restricted car users’ constitute a significant, but somewhat hidden, segment of the transit market? The initial purpose of this paper was to learn more about individuals with restricted or no‐car access who live in car‐owning households: Who are they? Where do they live? Do their numbers fluctuate significantly throughout the day? More specifically, how has car access in motorised households changed in the past two decades? Sociospatial profiles of motorised household members with restricted car access are presented for 1981 and 1996. The second purpose was to analyse restricted car access in motorised households by using a multivariate model of car access for motorised households in the Québec metropolitan area. To achieve these objectives, we developed a logical typology of forms of ‘restricted car access’ based on a combination of variables, or resources, qualifying the degree of car access enjoyed by individuals at any given moment during the day: availability of a car, possession of a driver's licence and a driver at the disposal of other household members. This typology was then applied to the 1981 and 1996 origin–destination survey data obtained from the Québec Census Metropolitan Area.     

空间错位理论研究进展与方法论评述

空间错位理论是西方城市地理和城市规划研究的重要理论基础之一,自上世纪60年代提出以来引发了大量关注弱势群体居住和就业空间机会的实证研究。近年来中国城市快速空间重构背景下的职住分离现象也引起学者关注。本文首先回顾了空间错位假设的提出背景、基本假设和主要实证研究结论,重点评述了近年来美国空间错位实证研究的方法论进展及主要挑战,在此基础上探讨了空间错位理论对转型期中国城市空间重构研究的借鉴意义。     

Between Borinquen and the Barrio: Environmental Justice and New York City's Puerto Rican Community, 1969–1972

The last decade has seen an upsurge of both scholarly and popular interest in the US environmental justice movement. What is largely missing from this contemporary discussion is any sense of the historical roots of this new wave of environmental activism. This paper explores the emergence of a radical Puerto Rican organization called the Young Lords that was active in a number of US cities in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In New York City, the Young Lords successfully mobilized their community through a series of direct actions devoted to improving public services, the creation of new community spaces and the assertion of cultural identity. I examine the internal tensions within the organization as it sought to extend its role beyond community-based concerns such as sanitation and health care towards more abstract political goals, including demands for Puerto Rican independence. It is argued that the ultimate disarray of this radical phase of Latino political activism cannot be understood separately from a series of wider developments, including the gathering pace of urban decline, the marginalization of the US left and the dissolution of the New Deal era. Although the movement faded away in the 1970s, a legacy of diasporic environmentalism dedicated to the transformation of the urban environment has provided a powerful degree of political continuity with contemporary struggles for environmental and social justice.     

新时期新疆边境城镇体系构建和口岸小城镇发展

新疆所处区位条件决定了边境的稳定与发展在整个区域经济中占据重要位置。把城市化和对外开放结合起来,通过边境城镇体系的构建来密切边境城镇与腹地的联系具有积极作用。边境城镇体系通过交通轴线的连接,对不同层次、不同职能分工的核心、节点、边境城市和口岸小城镇进行空间纵深配置,从而发挥对外开放的城镇整体优势。口岸型小城镇是边境城镇体系的前沿,最具特色。在发展条件较好,规模较大的口岸可考虑直接设立建制镇。在一些自身设镇条件不足的口岸,可考虑与地方、兵团联合设镇,协调管理。     

An Empirical Enquiry into the Impact of Urban Planning Policy on Urban Growth

Recent research has stressed the need to evaluate the economic implications of urban planning policy. In this article, we present empirical evidence on the impact of this policy on the population growth of towns and cities. A simple theoretical model serves to highlight the mechanisms whereby this policy may affect urban growth. The model yields a reduced-form equation which we estimate for the towns and cities of Andalusia (Spain). The empirical model strongly supports the claim that urban planning policy considerably affects urban growth and thus, the distribution of population across space. Our results suggest that urban planning policy is contributing to the reduction of diseconomies of agglomeration in larger cities. On the negative side, we find that urban plans are subject to obsolescence, which slows down growth.     

Miami's Little Havana: Yard Shrines,Cult Religion and Landscape

The urban square has been a distinguishing characteristic of European cities for millennia. However, in the context of small towns, where the square is often the sole identifier of their physical urbanity, its role differs from that of large towns. This fact is substantial within national administrative systems that endorse desirable urban status to rural settlements endowed with urban morphology. It is also important in times of extensive EU-subsidized actions aimed at improving the quality of public space in small underresourced towns. However, many projects fail to draw from and respond to the specifics of the local context, and, by focusing on the details and disregarding the basics, they may defeat their purpose. Departing from extensive field observations in Poland, this paper puts theoretical framework and current trends in urban design into relation to various elements of a square's spatial configuration in order to arrive at degrees of their urban significance. By interpreting the fundamental values embedded in the morphology of market squares, this paper attempts to isolate the cultural archetypes that shape our perception of such places as urban. The proposed analysis could be used to meet the main goal of market square revitalization, namely to visually articulate urbanity.     

Lynch's The Image of the City after 50 Years: City Marketing Lessons from an Urban Planning Classic

Exactly half a century ago, the MIT-scholar Kevin Lynch published The Image of the City (1960). The book was agenda-setting, thanks to its original approach to the way people perceive the urban environment. Over the years, The Image of the City has become a classic among urban planners. Fifty years after its publication the study is still highly topical and relevant. In this contribution, we argue that not only urban planners, but also city marketers can learn from Lynch's most cited book. The framework Lynch devised to assess urban areas is of great use for cities that look for a distinctive image to market themselves. After a short review of the book, we explore the opportunities of the Lynchian framework for city marketing. Next we briefly discuss case examples of three European cities: the Finnish capital of Helsinki, Bielefeld in the German region of Westphalia and the old industrial city of Enschede in the Netherlands. The paper concludes by suggesting city marketers to do a “picture postcard test” to examine the link between the city's built environment and the city's marketing.     

Ethnically Diverse Transport Behaviours: An Australian Perspective

Rates of car ownership in Australia are among the highest in the world. Private cars have shaped the urban form of Australian cities and the daily routines of their residents, making it possible to fulfil geographically stretched responsibilities for work, family, and social lives. But the dominance of the private car in Australian lives and landscapes should not be confused with universality. Aggregate, population‐wide statistics of car ownership and use mask the fact that not all Australians are equally car dependent. In this paper, we report on the results of a household sustainability survey conducted in metropolitan Sydney and Wollongong. Overseas‐born persons, migrants, and (some) ethnic minority groups were found to own fewer cars – and to use them less – than their Anglo‐Australian and Australian‐born counterparts. These differences were not attributable to socio‐economic or demographic factors. Our findings, which point towards the existence of diverse cultures of transport within the Australian population, are significant for transport planning and policymaking. Given profound concerns about the environmental implications of car use, the environmentally (more) sustainable transport behaviours of ethnic minorities and migrants should be supported. A shift in research focus away from the most car‐dependent groups in Australian society may also be more widely instructive. The transport practices, experiences, and strategies of those who own and drive cars at below‐average rates may indeed contribute practical lessons to inform planning for more environmentally sustainable transport futures.     

Book Review

In the absence of Soviet statistics on commuting it is estimated that, as of the late 1960's, at least 10 million people commuted to work or study in the Soviet Union, or about 12 percent of the number of public-sector workers and students. Sample surveys have shown that commuting is found not only in the suburban zones of large cities, but also around small towns, and that it involves as many as 3 million residents of rural areas who travel to work in urban places. The maximum commuting radius in the Soviet Union appears to be about 50 km, with the number of commuters dropping off sharply beyond that limit. In terms of social composition, commuters tend to be mainly young men of relatively low skills. An assessment of commuting, from the Soviet point of view, lists both positive features, such as the fuller use of labor resources around a large urban center, and negative features, such as the unproductive loss of time involved in commuting over long distances.     

Geoffrey Holmes and the Urban World of Augustan England

Urban history as a sub-discipline within history began to emerge in Britain in the 1960s and early 1970s. Attention initially focused heavily on the 19th century, but the Tudor and early Stuart town also soon attracted attention. Academic interest in the post-restoration and 18th-century urban world emerged a little more slowly, but the closing decades of the 20th century produced a mounting volume of research on the subject. Geoffrey Holmes was one of a group of post-war historians rewriting the history of Augustan Britain and re-establishing its significance in the longer-term development of the country. Though not a specialist urban historian, Holmes saw towns playing a vital part in shaping the character of the period. His research anticipated and inspired many of the facets of the rapidly-emerging historiography on the 18th-century town, intersecting with it in three particular areas. First, in demonstrating the important role played by towns, in particular as the home of four-fifths of the seats in the house of commons, in the broader political system; second, in highlighting the position of London at the hub of the Augustan world; and third in revealing the part played by towns, and especially those who inhabited them, in promoting social change at the same time as securing long-term political stability.     

区际综合运输通道空间结构研究——以内蒙古东部地区与东北三省为例

随着《东北地区振兴规划》的实施,由内蒙古东部地区与东北三省构成的新东北经济区区际联系不断增多,双方对功能完善的综合运输系统需求日益增强。本文采用定性与定量相结合的研究方法,通过分析区际运输通道空间结构现状及客、货流未来发展特点,遵循交通运输与区域经济发展良性互动原则,提出建设6条运输通道与15个二级运输枢纽为骨架,3条运输干线为辅助的网格状区际综合运输通道空间结构,并指出在改善铁路、公路运输方式的同时,要积极开展油气及煤化工产品的管道运输,发挥多种运输方式综合优势,促进区域协调发展。     

郊区新城发展与大城市空间结构调整:松江案例

目前,我国正处在城市化快速推进阶段,为突破既有城市结构对城市发展的束缚,缓解中心城区的人口、就业、交通、环境等压力,优化城市经济结构,许多城市正在积极拓展新的发展空间,大城市地区的新城建设更是如火如荼。上海自早期的卫星城建设开始,到近期的"一城九镇",再到最近的"1966"城镇体系规划建设框架,一直试图通过郊区城镇的建设和发展来疏解中心城区的巨大压力。特别是最近10年,松江作为上海大都市郊区重要城镇的规划建设,对突破上海中心城区"一核独强"的空间结构所产生的影响在新城建设中颇具典型的意义。本文试图通过松江新城"次核"发育、松江新城的城市功能演化、松江新城人居环境建设三个方面的剖析,探讨新城建设与城市空间结构演化的互动关系,以在宏观上更好地认识和把握新城对城市发展的影响,以期对上海或国内其他大都市区郊区其他新城的建设和多中心城市空间格局的形成有所裨益。     

城镇密集区及其相关概念研究的回顾与再思考

城镇密集区是一种独特的地域空间组织形式,本文在对国内外城镇密集区概念研究进行归纳总结的基础上,从内涵与外延两方面探讨了城镇密集区和都市区、城市带、城市群、城镇体系的区别与联系。     

19世纪英国城市现代化初探

城市现代化是城市化发展的高级阶段。19世纪的英国不仅是世界上第一个城市化国家,而且率先在城市现代化方面做出新的探索。首先在城市物质环境方面进行了巨大的改革,从城市街道的规划改造,到居民住宅的建筑规范,从居民私人空间的营造,到城市公共空间的建设,使城市的物质环境有了极大的改善。其次,在城市的管理方面也进行了全面探索,使城市管理摆脱了中世纪的寡头统治,进入到民主监督与管理的时代。由此,使城市的发展在经历了第一个阶段的数量扩张后,进入到了质量的增长时期,即向城市现代化方向迈进。     

铁路与沿线地区城乡经济关系的重构——以1888-1937年间的石家庄、郑州、天津为例

在1881-1937年间的华北地区,铁路运输兴起并形成网络后,其所具有的种种优势促进了新兴城市的崛起,推动了传统城市形态的演变,加快了沿海港口城市腹地的拓展.由此,这一区域内的城乡经济关系也发生了时代变动.由于以往的城乡二元结构或三元(城市、集镇、农村,或城市、城乡边缘区、乡村)结构理论关照下的笼统分析,并未反映出城乡经济关系的多样性和复杂化,因此本文将以石家庄、郑州和天津为例,试图通过考察城乡经济关系的变动与重构,揭示区域社会由传统向近代演变的特征与一般规律.     

Recent Theoretical Paradigms in Urban Growth

The aim of this article is to present a critical view of the theoretical toolboxes developed in urban economics to explain urban city size. The article starts with the consideration that, during the 1960s and 1970s, the question of optimal city-size tended to be expressed in a misleading way. The real issue is not an “optimal city size” but an “efficient size”, which depends on the functional characteristics of the city and on the spatial organization within the urban system. Economies of scale exist up to a certain city size. However, urban development generates conditions leading to structural readjustments which lead to new economic advantages. These structural adjustments may be either sectoral transformations towards higher-order functions, or the emergence of external linkages with other cities. The article provides recent empirical evidence of the role played by urban functions and city networking in explaining urban equilibrium size. The empirical analyses reported here witness the importance of the structural adjustment of cities needed to achieve a higher equilibrium size.     

西方城市更新发展历程和政策演变

西方城市更新大致经历了"清除贫民窟-福利色彩社区更新-市场导向旧城再开发-社区综合复兴"四个发展阶段,各阶段更新政策的历史发展背景、参与对象、更新途径和更新结果各异。通过比较不同阶段城市更新特征看出,西方城市更新理论实现从形体主义规划思想向人本主义规划思想的转变,城市更新发展理念在问题导向下不断发展成熟,城市更新运作模式体现政府、私有部门和社区居民的多方参与倾向。对我国城市更新的启示包括:城市更新政策演变与城市发展过程的关系,城市更新关注对象的讨论,以及政府作用和城市更新多方参与者的利益制衡。     

关于新型城镇化进程中古镇古村落保护若干问题的思考

新的城镇化与古镇古村落的保护是一个既矛盾又要统一的大问题,也是非解决不可的大事情.本文就在现实进行时中的若干原则性问题提出看法,其目的在于确保古镇古村落在新的城镇化中的安全.