The city and the grid : building beauty at large scale

The enduring popularity of “A City is not a Tree” (Alexander, 1965) for scholars in different areas of knowledge does not seem to give signs of receding. Quite on the contrary, a quick search on Google Scholar reveals that its annual rate of citations in the past five years is about 3.5 times that of the overall period since its first publication in 1965. In this paper Alexander proposes a focus on the complex nature of cities that, along the same line of Jacobs’ chapter 22 of “Death and Life”, entitled “The kind of problem a city is” (Jacobs, 1961), challenges to the hart the conventional approach to urban planning and design; this challenge is all the more relevant today, when the call for a profound renovation of the foundations of the discipline comes not just by planning scholars, but also governmental and educational bodies (Bothwell, 2004; Farrell, 2014; U.N., 2015; U.N.HABITAT, 2009). The urgency of this problem is obvious in an age characterized by both unprecedented urbanization, predominantly involving the poorest parts of human population in the weakest planning systems (U.N.DESA, 2014), and the unprecedented impact of human activities on the fundamental forces of nature (Steffen, Broadgate, Deutsch, Gaffney, & Ludwig, 2015). In the light of our failure in the post-WWII urbanization of the Global North, the question is simple: can we planners help at all with that of the Global South, which occurs far faster and at higher scale? How can we become part of the solution, rather than the problem? In a rapidly urbanizing world, patronizing a niche cannot suffice; we need a new mainstream, one that works

Optimizing urban structure: toward an integrated new urbanist model - urban nuclei and the geometry of streets: the 'emergent neighborhoods' model

A controversy remains among planners and urban designers about the proper location of the non-residential core (nucleus) of a neighborhood in relation to thoroughfares. One school of thought suggests that the nucleus should be located along the busiest thoroughfares; a second school holds that it must be some distance away from them - which, because of their disruptiveness, should form the edge of the neighborhood; and a third school proposes that it should be somewhere between the two as an 'eccentric nucleus'. The three schools may be overlooking the underlying variables that govern this problem under different conditions, and so we propose a model for establishing the best location and distribution of urban nuclei as these conditions vary. This requires firstly, a redefinition of the 'neighborhood' as distinguished from a 'pedestrian shed'. We argue that a 'neighborhood' can either emerge within a 'sanctuary area' between thoroughfares, or span across both 'sanctuary areas' and thoroughfares, if the latter are properly designed; a 'pedestrian shed', by contrast, can overlap with neighborhoods and with other pedestrian sheds. We propose a '400 meter rule', a surprisingly small maximum spacing of main thoroughfares that empirical observation shows that traditional, pedestrian-governed urban fabric has always tended to obey, for reasons that are likely to have to do with the self-organizing logic of pedestrian movement and social activity. In so doing, we advance a more fine-grained, permeable, potentially lower-carbon model and illustrate its advantages with several historic and modern examples

The global spatial properties of neighbourhood parks and boulevards in the Tel-Aviv Metropolitan area (Israel)

This poster addresses the following preliminary goals: Determining the parks and boulevards size that should be included in the definition of “neighbourhood parks.”; Dividing the global spatial properties into categories from which a representative sample can be selected for further investigation

Investigating the Correlation between Transportation Social Need and Accessibility: the Case of Catania

Abstract The development of cities and transportation systems of the last few years made possible to expand the range of individuals, giving them the opportunity to locate their residence far away from the places where they carry out daily activities. The ability to make long journeys has become more and more an essential condition to access opportunities of the territory. This necessity can be connected to transportation social need, which scholars define both in terms of people requiring a public transportation service and number of trips they would make if they had minimal limitations on their mobility; accessibility refers to the ease of reaching goods, services, activities and destinations, which together are called opportunities. This research presents the application of a measure of transportation social need and accessibility for the city of Catania, in Italy. The measure of transportation social need, based on transportation and social disadvantage indicators, has been carried out with reference to Italian national statistical institute zonation of the city. A zonal accessibility measure, considering both private and public transportation and evaluating the ease of reaching desired destinations, have been calculated and an analysis of correlation among transportation social need measure and accessibility measures has been carried out in order to verify the strength of relation between them. Due to the high resolution level of the spatial analysis, manipulation of data and computation of indicators and measures was supported by a GIS approach. Three different public transport scenarios have been analyzed by performing a relative accessibility loss computation showing that improvements in public transport service lead to general improvements in relative accessibility loss

Which standards for public open space? A new conception for the 21st century city

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Which standards for public open space? A new conception for the 21st century city

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Begin boulevard in Tel Aviv – from a suburban highway to an urban boulevard

This paper describes how Tel Aviv’s Central Business District (CBD) is centered around Begin Road. By 2020, this area is expected to increase 50% in employment and 40% in housing. Initial proposals for Begin Road sought to meet the increased demand for travel by increasing road capacity. In response, the Israel Ministry of transport mandated an alternative design, which would give priority to public transit and pedestrians. The requirements of the alternative plan were: create a street with positive and clear urban identity, provide accessibility and safety for pedestrians and bicycles, give real priority for public transportation, allow through-traffic and provide access to street frontages, including short term parking. Five alternatives were developed by the planning team. All of them were different versions of the “multi-way boulevard”. The “multi-way boulevard” creates a clear separation between a slow moving “pedestrian realm”, and fast movement in the “through-traffic realm.” A multi-disciplinary evaluation process, involving professionals from several disciplines, was used to select two alternatives for further study. Evaluators first ranked the different road uses. Then each design was evaluated to provide a score on the overall integration and performance for the road design. Despite differences in priority schemes given to bus transit, both of the preferred alternatives provide a good balance between through traffic, vehicular access to adjacent uses, public transportation, and pedestrian and bicycle movement. They also create a strong, memorable street attractive to its users, which will encourage new development in the area

Which standards for public open space? A new conception for the 21st century city

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Making liveable and sustainable major urban streets: the case of Begin Road in Tel-Aviv – Jaffa

This paper discusses the struggle to create a new major urban street that will help liveability and sustainability in the city of Tel-Aviv. Begin Road used to be a major inter-urban road linking the center of Tel-Aviv with its eastern and northern suburbs. With the construction of the Ayalon Freeway, the new suburban rail system sharing the same corridor, and the planned light rail subway that will run underneath it, Begin Road is undergoing a process of change. It is being transformed into the future main street of the Tel-Aviv CBD. This paper discusses the functions of major urban streets, the detrimental effects of modern traffic engineering practices and the need to revive these streets. This theoretical background guided the design of alternatives for Begin Road. Each alternative has its merits and drawbacks with regard to creating complex major streets and a functioning pedestrian realm. The paper also discusses some of the problems of creating such streets in the current regulatory and professional context