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Revitalising Historic Urban Quarters

Revitalizing historic urban quarters Economic challenge of historic urban quarters Re-evaluation of the qualities of historic urban quarters Tourism and culture-led revitalization Housing-led revitalization Revitalizing industrial and commercial quarters Design in historic urban quarters Towards the successful revitalization of historic urban quarters Bibliography Index.

Supporting Ethnic Minority Business: A Review of Business Support for Ethnic Minorities in City Challenge Areas

In England, the use of targeted training and employment initiatives directed at particular localities, particular sectors of the local economy or particular social groups characterised both mainstream urban regeneration initiatives of the early and mid-1990s, such as Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs), and special urban regeneration initiatives, such as City Challenge and the Single Regeneration Budget Challenge Fund (SRBCF). This paper focuses specifically on business support for ethnic minority groups in City Challenge areas.

Beyond 'fortress' and 'panoptic' cities—towards a safer urban public realm

In this paper we present a perspective on approaches to enhancing the feeling of safety in the urban public realm. Many planning and urban design responses to concerns about a lack of safety in city centres seem often to have led to the ‘fortress’ city and/or the ‘panoptic’ city. These are repressive and oppressive, socially divisive and exclusive, and deny the citys inhabitants a richer urban experience. We suggest more positive ways of making city centres feel safer. We start by discussing the concept of the urban public realm, then briefly review crime and incivilities, and outline the spectres of the fortress city and the panoptic city. In the remainder of the paper we discuss positive strategies for safer city centres. By doing so, we seek to offer a resistance to the tendencies towards fortress and panoptic cities. The paper is aimed primarily at those concerned with the design and management of the urban public realm, such as local authorities, planners, urban designers, and city-centre managers. There is also a wider audience that includes retailers, city-centre property owners, the police, and others with interests in the city centre. Although many of the issues have universal applicability, the focus here is on English provincial cities.

The Fortress, the panoptic, the regulatory and the animated: planning and urban design approaches to safer city centres

Abstract This paper discusses planning and urban design approaches to making city centres feel safer. Planning and urban design inter alia contribute to the creation of the city‐centre landscape and are intimately concerned with the design and management of public space. Perceptions and feelings of personal safety are prerequisites for a vital and viable city centre; if a city centre is not perceived to be safe, those with choice will choose not to use it, making it less safe for those with fewer choices. This paper therefore identifies and outlines four planning and urban design approaches to making city centres feel safer: the fortress, the panoptic, the regulatory and the animated.

Planning in Turkey: The contrasting planning cultures of Istanbul and Ankara

Abstract This paper examines contrasting planning cultures in Turkey based on the observation of a more architectural conception of planning and a more managerial conception of planning. The intention of this paper is to explore the credibility of this observation, although it is recognised that it is one that will only be fully justified through further empirical work. The differing conceptions are apparent in the planning cultures of the two major cities of Turkey where planners are approaching outwardly similar problems in significantly different ways. Istanbul is following a traditional masterplan-led approach, heavily dependant on improving the environmental and visual qualities but one that remains relatively oblivious of dynamic economic and social impacts. Ankara is pursuing an approach that seeks to understand the dynamic forces of change and to direct them towards more beneficial ends. It is suggested that the differing cultures have arisen as a result of professional backgrounds, education and the approach to practice. To examine these issues, this paper looks at the development of the Turkish planning system, the development of planning education and the planning profession to provide a background to the contrasting planning cultures and practices in Istanbul and Ankara.

Safer Cities for Women

This chapter is based on the findings of the Home Office Safer Cities Projects and a series of interactive meetings organised by the authors at the University of Nottingham, bringing together women’s groups and planning officers. The first objective was to make those responsible for transport and land-use planning aware of how seriously women’s use of town centres and access to work and leisure was affected by the fear of attack. The second objective was to explore with women’s groups their response to some of the planning remedies that are being proposed to make the environment less conducive to crime or to insulate women from their effects.

People and Urban Renaissance

Britain’s recent Urban Task Force (1999b) report Towards an Urban Renaissance states that “successful urban regeneration is design led” (p. 49). It argues that promoting sustainable lifestyles and social inclusion in our towns and cities depends on the design of the physical environment, while acknowledging that design alone will not be sufficient. It is possible to argue that English cities and towns have suffered more than their continental counterparts as a result of modernist planning decisions after World War II through the relentless implementation of zoning policies. Hence it is appropriate that we reappraise the principles that guide our policies. What little city centre housing there was in English cities was extinct by 1970, and many of the city centre streets were lost to urban motorways, inner ring roads, and other modernist interventions. However, it could be argued that English cities—with the exception of London and the wonderful Bath—did not have well established urban traditions of civic design. As a result of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, most Victorian city fathers did not have the same commitment that the city fathers of Bath and London had in earlier periods. Industrial growth cities of Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, Birmingham, Newcastle, and others were content to have a handful of civic buildings and a handsome high street, leaving the housing to the developers and their pattern books. Hence, when German bombs wiped out the city centre of Coventry, the post–World War II city administration was happy to build a shopping precinct rather than the city centre, thereby erasing the previous street pattern and the rest of the centre land uses. Coventry acted as the model for new town centres. The shopping precinct of the 1950s was followed by enclosed shopping malls of the 1960s and 1970s, which further robbed the remaining city streets of their vitality in a number of cities. Although successful as retail areas, in terms of footfall and revenues, the monolithic structures served by large, often unsafe car parks did not provide the shopper with the rich experience of continental city centres with squares and cafes. The public realm was replaced by large privatised retail areas. It would not be wrong to note that English cities never attempted a “City Beautiful” approach. We are now realising that as cities compete, they need to be attractive and have a range of well designed public realms starting from the front door, to the street, to the square to attract people and businesses and be successful. Hence, after the recent IRA bomb explosion, Manchester has created streets and squares where the monolithic shopping mall used to exist. Birmingham, with its much acclaimed Urban Design Strategy, has brought streets back into use, created squares and quarters, and is in the process of dismantling its inner-ring road, which was a very good venue for motor racing. English cities are fighting back through design and other measures to win back the customers they lost to out of town shopping malls in the 1980s and early 1990s. The Urban Task Force Report correctly recognises that the city centres need more than shoppers and leisure visitors; they need residents to make them safe, vibrant areas, and this can be achieved if people can be persuaded that central/inner cities are attractive places in which to live and work. This is the challenge. The report is also correct in arguing that the projected increase of 3.8 million households over a 25-year period provides a unique opportunity to revitalise our towns and cities. However, will the English choose to live in the cities? And if they are willing to live in the cities, what kind of housing and what kind of urban environment are they looking for? The findings of a study commissioned by the Urban Task Force (1999a) and published in February 1999—But Would You Live There? Shaping Attitudes to Urban Living— shaped some of the policies of the report. The conclusions of this study indicate that we are dealing with a sophisticated consumer, open to argument but clearly risk averse. The implicit assumption of the report based on this study is that if we get it right, people will come (back) to the cities; therefore, we must create safe and pleasant cities and market them properly to sophisticated consumers. However, our own research (Oc et al., 2000), funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, studying attitudes of residents in the greater Nottingham, Leicester, and Birmingham areas clearly indicates that a significant majority will not consider living in the inner city. Therefore there is evidence to suggest that city living as opposed to suburban living is a niche market in England, albeit a growing one. An encouraging finding of our research is that a great majority of those living in or near city centres are content and TANER OC