Crawford and Squares

J.H. Crawford writes about the evolution of street layouts in “A Brief History of Urban Form”. He highlights how much the pattern of a street in an urban area affects the urban world in its entirety. Urban planning relies heavily on the form roads and streets take throughout a space. Crawford takes an approach to form by writing that grid-like patterns are not as exciting or fulfilling as curved, unplanned, and beaten patterns are.

Crawford also mentions a few external factors that can affect the form of streets and roads. Some of these factors include military movement, parks, and pushes from movements such as modernism. I believe the most influential factor affecting the construction and planning of roads is the presence of already existing sites. By sites I mean attractions, venues, landscape, etc.

One example of a “site” would be a plaza. Spanish cities used the plaza for multiple purposes such as markets, meeting places for emergencies, and for celebration. The entire city, including the geometric layout of roads, would be based on the location of the plaza. Plazas have now been created as the centerpiece of cities all over the world, including the United States.

Below is a link for a site titled “The World’s Best Squares”, which shows and describes some of the most useful center squares in the world. The site also offers images of other important sites like downtowns, parks, and waterfronts.

http://www.pps.org/articles/internationalsquares/

                                               

Above is a photo of a plaza in Genova, Italy. From Wikipedia

The Right to the City "Urban Advantage"

The “right to the city” concept has been put to use to varying degrees of success over the past half-century, although some countries have ignored or spurned it altogether. It must not be viewed as a new legal instrument, but instead subsumes a wide range of universally recognized human rights into a single claim for enforcement in urban areas. Many cities in the developing world devise and enforce inclusive policies that abide by national and international commitments without any explicit reference to the “right to the city.” Whether they formally endorse the “right to the city” or not, many municipal authorities are institutionally ill-equipped to make this right effective, including when it comes to coordination with national and state/provincial government. It has been applied as a theoretical, political, conceptual framework that refers to such aspects as enforcement, empowerment, participation, self-realization, self-determination, and different forms of protection of existing human rights at the city level. The "right to the city” remains a powerful vehicle for social change that warrants serious consideration. The "right to the city” should be viewed as an expression of the deep yearnings of urban dwellers to see their multiple humans’ rights become more effective in urban areas. It serves as a bulwark against the exclusionary types of development, the selective benefit sharing & marginalization and discrimination that are rampant in cities today. The "right to the city" Has evolved over the past 50 years under the influence of social groups and civil society organizations in response to the need for better opportunities for all, especially the more marginalized and underprivileged. It also provides an adequate platform for action as well as framework for human rights enforcement. The right to the city is suppose to be the ultimate urban advantage but the truth is that, large numbers of people in the developing world do not fully benefit; do not participate in decision-making, and do not enjoy effective fundamental rights and liberties. Other probable reasons for the ineffectiveness of the "right to the city" are: the lack of coordination between national, provincial and local authorities, poor provision of public spaces and related services for all residents, arbitrary conversion or grabbing of public or reserved land by powerful interests, ill-informed policymaking contributes substantially to municipal failure to integrate the four dimensions of equality in any “organic” manner, and in many parts of the world these “invisible” areas are growing faster than the “visible” ones. The invisible areas are made up of people who are poor and uneducated; migrants or from ethnic minorities; and majority female. As long as municipal authorities remain unaware of these groups and the underlying causes of their exclusion, they will remain unable to find effective ways to support them, and will fail them in a systematic way. The "right to the city" is beneficial in some ways because it is a open way to deal with the issues that people who live in urban areas have to deal with, making sure that they are able to appease everyone the most correct way possible and not leave anyone out. Because cities are so vast and so large there are many people whose needs do go unnoticed. The urban areas are controlled by those who have larger organizations within the city, who have a certain amount of money in their possession to be heard and have their opinions matter. Even though there is a large amount of those people who have money and are well educated and know the things that they need to know to have a bigger influence on the urban world, there is still another large amount of people whose economic status and educational status are not that weighty in matters that will effect a large amount of people. In a more rural area these people of lower income and educational status would be very influential because majority of the people around them would be on the same exactly level as them. Until cities realize that there are people that they have forgotten about and have no taken into account then forever will these people feel their needs will never be met living in an urban area.

The article below talks about how there is a mass forum held in Rio de Janeiro which encompasses all types of people who live in urban areas from members of national government to slum dwellers to discuss issues and work together to make better cities.

www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?cid=6490&catid=584&typeid=24&subMenuId=0

“The Urban Divide – Unequal Cities” by Unhabitat

 Recently in class we have been focusing on the Urban Divide and its vast implications on cities. With 50% of our world’s population being urban, it is imperative find a solution to this global issue. The urban division is most often recognized as a socio-economic division. However, its effects can be seen through a number of geographic and societal issues including infrastructure, public health, social, and economic factors. We have all seen it in cities. Some segments of cities are well maintained, whereas other areas are unkempt and perhaps run down, such as abandoned industrial parks. Although economic growth and urbanization go hand in hand, there is still an extreme challenge in the equitable distribution of benefits in cities.  The article, “The Urban Divide – Unequal Cities” analyzes the urban divide by utilizing the Gini Index. The Gini index is a measure of inequality in cities. It exhibits the distribution of household income or total consumption spending. A score of 0 implies that the country’s resources are perfectly distributed, maintaining perfect equality. The article illustrates the fact that nations such as India and Canada, have a much lower rate of inequality than the United States because of the many resources offered for free or at little cost.

This urban division of cities is prevalent around the world; however, there seems to be a vast movement to rectify this issue. Many cities are now regenerating abandoned or run down areas into luxury loft apartments or office spaces. However, the issue of urban division is an enormous one to tackle. It not only involves the infrastructure, but the economic, social, health, and geographic state of the entire area. It is an immense predicament that requires long term political policy implementation and community unification. The article below provides amore in depth look at the Gini index and the Lorenz curve.

http://www.squarecirclez.com/blog/the-gini-coefficient-of-wealth-distribution/4187

http://www.unhabitat.org/documents/SOWC10/R8.pdf

Week 3- Krieger's "Urban Tomography"

The article “Urban Tomography” featured in the Journal of Urban Technology by Martin H. Krieger, Moo-Ryong Ra, Jeongyeup Paek, Ramesh Govindan, and Jennifer Evans-Cowley discusses the technology and application of urban tomography. In short, urban tomography is a new use of mobile smartphones to most accurately portray city life. Many smartphone users take video at the same time, which creates a plethora of information that is then automatically archived to record places in time. These “slices” of urban life provide important research information, and can also allow community members to document their own lives. We can learn a lot from these videos, or tomograms, like what a typical perspective is of a community member in a certain area. The flows of the tomograms are also big indicators of what life is really like. Comparing different data from various areas can tell us a lot about everyday life in each area.

In a post about urban tomography by Markus Jeschaunig on the website http://www.archiable.com/201104/110408_urban_tomography.html, Jeschaunig displays his urban tomograms in an exhibit. Watching the video clip at the bottom of the site titled “Urban Tomography Graz” really helped me understand more about urban tomography. For instance, watching people walk on a concrete storefront in one of the tomograms really gives the viewer a feel for what the area is like. These clips can be used for more than just technical research- they can play a big role in helping people connect by understanding different lifestyles.

Urban tomography still has some challenges to address, such as privacy issues and the organization of such a massive amount of data. However, as discussed in the article “Urban Tomography,” this technology has come a long way. The tools have improved and become more widespread. An increasing number of people worldwide now own smartphones and these phones have the capability for higher quality videos, greater reliability, and security. Researchers in the field can gather endless amounts of useful data about urban life in a variety of areas. But most importantly, these tomograms can also share valuable information with the everyday viewer. They can foster a deeper and more widespread connection between people from all different places.

Jeschaunig, Markus. "Urban Tomography." Archiable - Platform for Architecture Students. 8 Apr. 2011. Web. 05 Feb. 2012. .

Krieger, Martin H. , Ra, Moo-Ryong , Paek, Jeongyeup , Govindan, Ramesh and Evans-Cowley, Jennifer(2010) 'Urban Tomography', Journal of Urban Technology, 17: 2, 21 — 36