Ali Madanipour

Why Are the Design and Development of Public Spaces Significant for Cities

Much of the recent interest in urban design has focused on the creation and management of public spaces of cities. My aim in this paper is to explore the nature and role of public space and its significance for cities today. I look at how the promotion of public space is, on the one hand, a concern for social and functional integration in response to social and spatial segregation of cities and the privatization of public space and, on the other hand, a vehicle of marketing localities and consuming places, all leading to multiple representations and meanings. I argue that it is important that the development of urban public space, as part of a larger, often despatialized public sphere, addresses these tensions and contributes to the emergence of an urbanism which promotes social integration and tolerance.

Roles and Challenges of Urban Design

This paper provides an analysis of the rising significance of urban design and the challenges it is facing. It places urban design in the wider context of the urban development process, and of the growing importance of cities in the global economy. By adopting a dynamic and multi-dimensional perspective, the paper looks at this process from the viewpoints of producers, regulators and users of the built environment. Urban design is found to make major contributions for each of these groups, which explains its rising but contested significance; being integrated into the mainstream of the development process has generated new challenges for urban design.

Marginal public spaces in European cities

The main public spaces in European cities are the focus of much attention, whereas marginal public spaces are places of neglect and decline. The concentration of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups...

Building Localized Interactions Between Universities and Cities Through University Spatial Development

Universities are important players in the global development of knowledge economy, alongside being significant contributors to the economic development of their host cities. They are both significant knowledge enterprises and the suppliers of the human and intellectual capital on which the knowledge-based economy depends. What seems under-explored is how deliberative partnerships between universities and city authorities can develop around projects of mutual benefit, especially based on campus development. In this paper, with the help of five case studies (QUT, MIT, Harvard, Twente and Newcastle universities), we investigate how the spatial development of universities can be one of the main meeting points between the city and university and how it can be used for stimulating economic development and managing growth. These cases show that university—city collaborative initiatives focused on the university properties represent a desire to produce creative and competitive new urban spaces, which reinforce the position of the university and the city in global economy. They also show that these developments need to be jointly managed to avoid undesirable impacts on either side.

Urban Design and Dilemmas of Space

My aim in this paper is to find an understanding of the concept of space which could be used in urban design, but which could also be shared by others with an interest in space. Social scientists, geographers, architects, urban planners, and designers use the term space in their academic and professional involvement with the city. But when they meet each other their discourse seems to be handicapped partly because of a difference in their usage and understanding of the concept of space. I will argue that to arrive at a common platform in which a meaningful communication can become possible, we need to confront such fragmentation by moving towards a more unified concept of space. I will argue for a concept of space which would refer to our objective, physical space with its social and psychological dimensions, a dynamic conception which accommodates at the same time constant change and embeddedness, and that can only be understood in monitoring the way space is being made and remade, at the intersection of the development processes and everyday life.

Designing the city of reason : foundations and frameworks

1. Introduction Part 1: Foundations 2. City of Temples 3. City of Mechanical Clocks 4. City of Machines 5. City of Sights and Sounds 6. City of People Part 2: Frameworks 7. Keeping Time 8. Measuring Space 9. Assigning Value 10. Providing Accounts 11. Connecting Actions 12. City of Reason

Concepts of poverty and social exclusion in Europe

This paper provides a critical analysis of the concepts of poverty and social exclusion in three parts. First, it examines the relationship between poverty and social exclusion, a distinction that has been the subject of analysis, debate and controversy. Second, the concepts of poverty and social exclusion as used in the European policy discourse are analysed, and how changes in terminology, links to the economic growth agenda, and emphasis on employment as a response can be noticed. The recognition of the ‘territorial dimension’ of poverty and social exclusion has been an increasingly important feature of EU discourse and actions. Third, the paper explores the inherent territoriality of poverty and social exclusion, which has paved the way for localised spatial responses. The authors argue that economic concerns have triggered a continuous tendency to narrow down the focus of definition and action, in order to offer clarity of scope to researchers and policy makers, but that such narrowing could also undermine our ability to address a complex multi-dimensional process. In particular, prioritising economic dimensions to the neglect of the other aspects of social exclusion is problematic in dealing with major social problems.

Connectivity and contingency in planning

The article argues that a defining feature of planning is its efforts at making, formalizing and expanding connections between events, functions and institutions. In the context of contingency, diversity and uncertainty that characterizes complex urban societies, spatial planning is an instrumental formal process that seeks to shape and manage the future of spatial conditions and relations. The planning process involves setting up a series of temporal, spatial and institutional connections, which, it is argued, have been subject to rupture, shrinkage and fragmentation, and so they are themselves contingent, and frequently limited to being symbolic rather than substantive connections, turning planning into a speculative process. To meet the future challenges, planners need to rethink these connections.

The limits of scientific planning: Doxiadis and the Tehran Action Plan

Tehran after the Second World War experienced a modernization drive and rapid population growth. In 1972, the Greek planner, Constantinos Doxiadis, who had already undertaken major housing and planning projects in Iran, was invited to prepare an action plan for the city, to guide the future investment for easing the city’s problems. Doxiadis saw cities as nightmares, but advocated that a holistic scientific analysis and a naturalist approach to urban growth management could address their problems. In applying his ideas to Tehran, however, the limits of his ideas of scientific planning became evident, not only through contextual pressures, such as lack of time and data, but also through the planning consultant’s approach, in which commercial considerations and the application of readymade solutions could shape the outcome. Rather than working with the context, Doxiadis followed the modernist tenet of breaking with the past, proposing the creation of West Tehran, an alternative to the city where all future growth should take place on a utopian basis. The radical nature of his proposals, his death, and a turbulent revolution aborted the impact of his action plan on Tehran, while faith in modernist scientific planning was widely being abandoned.

Researching Space, Transgressing Epistemic Boundaries

Abstract Innovation may be triggered by crossing the lines that delineate the fields of spatial knowledge and practice. Transgressing epistemic boundaries could bring about the possibility of new approaches to researching and transforming space. This paper identifies three interrelated types of epistemic boundary, and critically explores how they may be crossed. Set by definitions of the disciplinary subject matter, concepts, and practices, these boundaries may be crossed, respectively, through relational ontology, meta-disciplinary paradigms, and dialogic practices. These crossings, however, have problems of their own. Epistemic practices are both cognitive and social, and need to be addressed through dynamic and democratic multiplicity.