From problems in the North to the problematic North : Northern devolution through the lens of history

Current debates about Northern English cities and their role in national economic strategies cannot be read simply through the lens of contemporary politics. We therefore take the Northern Powerhouse as our starting point in a chapter which traces a long history of policy and planning discourses about the North of England. We use David Russell’s chronology of key historical moments in which Northern English cities hold a particular charge in cultural narratives of the nation to guide our analysis of contemporaneous tensions in debates about planning and governance. A focus on representations about the North of England over the course of the last two centuries reveals four interlocking themes: namely the role of London in directing debates about the North; a tension between political and spatial approaches to planning; the characterisation of cities in the North of England as intrinsically problematic places; and the continued issue of poverty in these cities

Urban climatology and urban design, a history of (non) applied science

The modern city is unquestionably a producer of weather. Its buildings emit heat, its streets channel wind and modify solar access, and its entire configuration creates a distinct, bounded island of climate difference. Urban design in the large sense has pervasive effects on the microclimate and can produce variations in values of heat, humidity, wind and rainfall that exceed the worst-case predictions associated with global warming. Yet while scientists and policy makers acknowledge the city’s role in contributing to the global carbon metabolism, awareness of its internal climate processes remains limited. Our paper tells the story of urban weather research. We revisit the developments leading to the modern construction of weather as a synoptic phenomenon and juxtapose them with the less familiar histories of environmental measurement and analysis on urban rooftops, within street canyons, under park trees. We highlight the early dominance of German science, as well as North American post-war leadership. The paper shows how the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) helped to establish urban climatology as a research niche within meteorology and physical geography, and charts the specialism’s uneven distribution within the global scientific community. Secondly, the paper studies the ambition of urban climatology to influence urban design practice. We consider various historical attempts to connect the WMO with the architecture and planning sector, and the work of individuals who made the connection such as the Olgyay brothers and Helmut Landsberg. We contrast the successful implantation of climatological expertise in the planning of certain cities (e.g. Stuttgart) with its general disregard elsewhere. The paper considers twentieth century planning history as a narrative of failure in applied science. Twenty-first century city planning seems likely to take climatology more seriously

El grupo de trabajo -Task Force- y el nuevo enfoque del urbanismo británico

Las características básicas del sistema urbanístico británico siguen respondiendo al modelo desarrollado a partir de la fundamental Town and Country Planning Act de 1947. Este modelo, de hecho, socializaba no el suelo pero si derecho a urbanizar, sentando así las bases para la flexibilidad del sistema, única en Europa, ademas deinstituir los medios para la puesta en práctica del programa de construcción de las nuevas ciudades. Este sistema, que ha alcanzado un grado notable de institucionalización y de reconocimiento público, ha permitido preservar de la urbanización importantes extensiones de suelos agrícolas y áreas naturales; también supone, hoy en dia, que una gran parte del crecimiento se dirija a la reutilización de espacios que ya han sufrido algún tipo de urbanización, frente a localizaciones nuevas. En su conjunto, el sistema británico puede evaluarse positivamente en lo referente a la gestión del suelo y a la preservación ambiental. Sin embargo, algunas críticas recientes han señalado su poca permeabilidad frente a nuevas tendencias, en la escena internacional, relacionadas con la recuperación de la morfologia urbana y la idea del espacio público tradicional