1st Edition

New Urbanism Life, Work, and Space in the New Downtown

Edited By Peter Dirksmeier, Ilse Helbrecht Copyright 2012
    208 Pages
    by Routledge

    202 Pages
    by Routledge

    The advent of the 21st century marks the unfolding of a new urbanism, of a new urban fabric in the making. Bringing together a range of leading scholars from a wide range of disciplines, this edited collection examines innovative urban redevelopment projects around Europe and North America which are at the forefront of this new urbanism and which are here termed 'New Downtowns'. It introduces this term and concept and addresses major questions such as: What does a sustained urbanity for the 21st century look like? Which strategies do politicians and planners deploy to create new synergies between planning for the public good and private interest? Can market forces be co-opted for collective interests? Does the imagination of a European city continue to inspire new urbanism within and beyond Europe? And can a future urbanity for the 21st century be planned at all? In particular, it focuses on Hamburg's HafenCity", which, at around 155 hectares, is one of the most prominent city centre development projects in Europe and will increase the size of Hamburg's city centre by 40 percent. The project HafenCity serves as a starting point for a conceptually wide ranging debate on the character, shape, function and meaning of New Downtowns.

    Chapter 1 New Downtowns: A New Form of Centrality and Urbanity in World Society, Ilse Helbrecht, Peter Dirksmeier; Chapter 2 Planning Urbanity – A Contradiction in Terms?, Loretta Lees; Chapter 3 Public Spaces for the 21st Century, Jan Gehl; Chapter 4 Waterfront Redevelopment: Global Processes and Local Contingencies in Vancouver’s False Creek, David Ley; Chapter 5 Planning for Creativity: The Transformation of the Amsterdam Eastern Docklands, Robert Kloosterman; Chapter 6 From the Old Downtown to the New Downtown: The Case of the South Boston Waterfront, Susanne Heeg; Chapter 7 Grasping, Creating and Commercialising Trends, Styles and ‘Zeitgeist’: The Role of Urbanity with Regard to Working in Flexible, Specialised Project Networks as Illustrated by the Media Industry, Ivo Mossig; Chapter 8 Major Town Planning Projects in Urban Renaissance: Structuring Property Sales for Future Urbanity?, Maike Dziomba; Chapter 9 Neighbourliness in the City Centre: Reality and Potential in the Case of the Hamburg HafenCity, Ingrid Breckner, Marcus Menzl; Chapter 10 Assessment of the Effects of the Built Environment for the Organisation of Social Processes, Thomas Perry; Chapter 11 Can Urbanity be Planned? Comments on the Development of Public Spaces in the HafenCity of Hamburg, Claus-C. Wiegandt; Chapter 12 The Virtue of Diversity, Rolf Lindner;

    Biography

    Ilse Helbrecht is Professor for Human Geography at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany and Peter Dirksmeier is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany

    Book prize: Shortlisted for the Urban Design Group 2013 book of the year prize. 'New Urbanism is an interesting, thought-provoking book which poses serious questions about the type of urban form or urbanity taking place in 21st century cities.' Urban Design