Download or read book Shaping Urban Form Without Zoning written by Zhu Qian and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Houston is the only major city in North America without zoning. The growth of Houston illustrates a traditional free market philosophy in which land use zoning is seen as a violation to private property and personal liberty. This dissertation explores how the lack of zoning has an impact on land use and urban form in Houston. It is based on a theoretical framework derived from economics and public policy theories for institutional analyses of land development controls. The dissertation uses cluster analysis integrating socioeconomic factors from census data to select three case study neighborhoods, and then applies GIS to analyze their urban form spatial characteristics with spatial data from Houston Planning Department. It also uses qualitative methods such as archives and documentations for the three neighborhoods. The study investigates the change of urban form in three case study neighborhoods over two decades. It also explores how local land use policies made by both the local government and non-governmental sectors shape urban form in Houston. The study results show that despite the city's lack of zoning, local land use regulatory policies made by the municipality have significant influence on urban development. Additionally, civic and private organizations such as super neighborhoods and homeowner associations fill the gaps left by the lack of land use zoning. These two aspects contribute to land use planning and urban form of the city. Houston presents a contradiction of limited government intervention and public investments and subsidies. Land use controls by private contract and by government legislative intervention are not mutually exclusive or immutable. The study finds that it is difficult to achieve mixed race and income neighborhoods, even without zoning. Equity goals are not met in market approaches. Deed restrictions might be better at facilitating property sales and maintenance than at improving community welfare and governance. From the theoretical perspective, the study argues that a spectrum of market solutions and planning approaches at the ends are more relevant than the bipolarity view. Equity goals are not met in market approaches. For welfare and rights, public planning intervention is necessary. The market might provide physical land use diversity, but it fails to support socioeconomic diversity.
Download or read book City Rules written by Emily Talen and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-06-22 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: City Rules offers a challenge to students and professionals in urban planning, design, and policy to change the rules of city-building, using regulations to reinvigorate, rather than stifle, our communities. Emily Talen demonstrates that regulations are a primary detriment to the creation of a desirable urban form. While many contemporary codes encourage sprawl and even urban blight, that hasn't always been the case-and it shouldn't be in the future. Talen provides a visually rich history, showing how certain eras used rules to produce beautiful, walkable, and sustainable communities, while others created just the opposite. She makes complex regulations understandable, demystifying city rules like zoning and illustrating how written codes translate into real-world consequences. Most importantly, Talen proposes changes to these rules that will actually enhance communities' freedom to develop unique spaces.
Download or read book Achieving Sustainable Urban Form written by Elizabeth Burton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Achieving Sustainable Urban Form represents a major advance in the sustainable development debate. It presents research which defines elements of sustainable urban form - density, size, configuration, detailed design and quality - from macro to micro scale. Case studies from Europe, the USA and Australia are used to illustrate good practice within the fields of planning, urban design and architecture.
Download or read book Order without Design written by Alain Bertaud and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-08-06 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument that operational urban planning can be improved by the application of the tools of urban economics to the design of regulations and infrastructure. Urban planning is a craft learned through practice. Planners make rapid decisions that have an immediate impact on the ground—the width of streets, the minimum size of land parcels, the heights of buildings. The language they use to describe their objectives is qualitative—“sustainable,” “livable,” “resilient”—often with no link to measurable outcomes. Urban economics, on the other hand, is a quantitative science, based on theories, models, and empirical evidence largely developed in academic settings. In this book, the eminent urban planner Alain Bertaud argues that applying the theories of urban economics to the practice of urban planning would greatly improve both the productivity of cities and the welfare of urban citizens. Bertaud explains that markets provide the indispensable mechanism for cities’ development. He cites the experience of cities without markets for land or labor in pre-reform China and Russia; this “urban planners’ dream” created inefficiencies and waste. Drawing on five decades of urban planning experience in forty cities around the world, Bertaud links cities’ productivity to the size of their labor markets; argues that the design of infrastructure and markets can complement each other; examines the spatial distribution of land prices and densities; stresses the importance of mobility and affordability; and critiques the land use regulations in a number of cities that aim at redesigning existing cities instead of just trying to alleviate clear negative externalities. Bertaud concludes by describing the new role that joint teams of urban planners and economists could play to improve the way cities are managed.
Download or read book Rethinking Environmental Justice in Sustainable Cities written by Heather E. Campbell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the study of environmental policy and justice becomes increasingly significant in today’s global climate, standard statistical approaches to gathering data have become less helpful at generating new insights and possibilities. None of the conventional frameworks easily allow for the empirical modeling of the interactions of all the actors involved, or for the emergence of outcomes unintended by the actors. The existing frameworks account for the "what," but not for the "why." Heather E. Campbell, Yushim Kim, and Adam Eckerd bring an innovative perspective to environmental justice research. Their approach adjusts the narrower questions often asked in the study of environmental justice, expanding to broader investigations of how and why environmental inequities occur. Using agent-based modeling (ABM), they study the interactions and interdependencies among different agents such as firms, residents, and government institutions. Through simulation, the authors test underlying assumptions in environmental justice and discover ways to modify existing theories to better explain why environmental injustice occurs. Furthermore, they use ABM to generate empirically testable hypotheses, which they employ to check if their simulated findings are supported in the real world using real data. The pioneering research on environmental justice in this text will have effects on the field of environmental policy as a whole. For social science and policy researchers, this book explores how to employ new and experimental methods of inquiry on challenging social problems, and for the field of environmental justice, the authors demonstrate how ABM helps illuminate the complex social and policy interactions that lead to both environmental justice and injustice.
Download or read book Regulating Place written by Eran Ben-Joseph and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Spatial Modeling and Assessment of Urban Form written by Biswajeet Pradhan and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-05-08 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the application of Geospatial data, Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) technologies in analysis and modeling of urban growth process, and its pattern, with special focus on sprawl and compact form of urban development. The book explains these two kinds of urban forms (sprawl and compact urban development) in detail regarding their advantages, disadvantages, indicators, assessment, modeling, implementation and their relationship with urban sustainability. It confirms that the proposed modeling approaches, geospatial data and GIS are very practical for identifying urban growth, land use change patterns and their general trends in future. The analyses and modeling approaches presented in this book can be employed to guide the identification and measurements of the changes and growth likely to happen in urban areas. In addition, this book can be helpful for town planning and development in order to design urban areas in a compact form and eventually sustainable manner.
Download or read book Transforming Distressed Global Communities written by Fritz Wagner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-09 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of our global cities are distressed and facing a host of issues: economic collapse in the face of rising expectations, social disintegration and civil unrest, and ecological degradation and the threats associated with climate change, including more frequent and more severe natural disasters. Our long-held assumptions about man and nature and how they interact are defunct. We realize now that we can no longer continue to build without addressing the long-term impacts of our actions and their spillovers. Energy and natural resources are finite. The way we configure economies has come into question. In the developed world, especially in the United States, infrastructure and the notions that underpin it are outdated. Meanwhile, the developing world is experiencing major, rapid transformations in lifestyles and economies that are affecting billions of people and requiring a whole new way of planning human settlements. Cities are the key to our future; they represent the most effective vehicle for positive advancements in the human condition and environmental change. This volume argues for the need to redesign and re-plan our cities in holistic ways that reflect our new understanding and relate to their diversity and multi-dimensionality. Presenting a range of case studies from around the world, this volume examines how these distressed cities are dealing with these issues in planning for their future. Alongside these empirical chapters are philosophical essays that consider the future of distressed cities. Bringing together a team of leading scholars, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations, private consulting firms, international organizations and foundations, and policy officials, this volume provides a unique and comprehensive overview on how to transform distressed communities into more livable places.
Download or read book Handbook on Inequality and the Environment written by Michael A. Long and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-01 with total page 667 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative Handbook provides a comprehensive treatment of the complex relationship between inequality and the environment and illustrates the myriad ways in which they intersect. Featuring over 30 contributions from leading experts in the field, it explores the ways in which inequality impacts three of the most pressing contemporary environmental issues: climate change, natural resource extraction, and food insecurity.
Download or read book The Rules that Shape Urban Form written by Donald L. Elliott and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report looks at six ways cities have adopted "form-based" zoning tools and the results that followed. Case studies describe the pros, cons, and consequences of form-based zoning regulations in Austin, Texas; Mooresville, North Carolina; Denver; Arlington, Virginia; Livermore, California; and Miami. Interviews with planners in each community give real-world perspectives on choosing, implementing, and evaluating form controls. The report also looks at the planning challenges of housing affordability, carbon emissions, aging populations, and preservation.
Download or read book Zoned Out written by Tom Angotti and published by New Village Press. This book was released on 2023-04-25 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gentrification and displacement of low-income communities of color are major issues in New York City and the city’s zoning policies are a major cause. Race matters but the city ignores it when shaping land use and housing policies. The city promises “affordable housing” that is not truly affordable. Zoned Out! shows how this has played in Williamsburg, Harlem and Chinatown, neighborhoods facing massive displacement of people of color. It looks at ways the city can address inequalities, promote authentic community-based planning and develop housing in the public domain. Tom Angotti and Sylvia Morse frame the revised edition of this seminal work with a tribute to the late urbanist and architect Michael Sorkin and his progressive and revolutionary approaches to cities as well as a new preface about changes in city policy since Mayor Bill de Blasio left office and what rights citizens need to defend. The book includes a foreword by the late, distinguished urban planning educator Peter Marcuse and individual chapters by community activist Philip DePaola, housing policy analyst Samuel Stein, and both the editors.
Download or read book Arbitrary Lines written by M. Nolan Gray and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2022-06-21 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if scrapping one flawed policy could bring US cities closer to addressing debilitating housing shortages, stunted growth and innovation, persistent racial and economic segregation, and car-dependent development? It’s time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. With lively explanations and stories, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary—if not sufficient—condition for building more affordable, vibrant, equitable, and sustainable cities. The arbitrary lines of zoning maps across the country have come to dictate where Americans may live and work, forcing cities into a pattern of growth that is segregated and sprawling. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Reform is in the air, with cities and states across the country critically reevaluating zoning. In cities as diverse as Minneapolis, Fayetteville, and Hartford, the key pillars of zoning are under fire, with apartment bans being scrapped, minimum lot sizes dropping, and off-street parking requirements disappearing altogether. Some American cities—including Houston, America’s fourth-largest city—already make land-use planning work without zoning. In Arbitrary Lines, Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common confusions and myths about how American cities regulate growth and examining the major contemporary critiques of zoning. Gray sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city. Despite mounting interest, no single book has pulled these threads together for a popular audience. In Arbitrary Lines, Gray fills this gap by showing how zoning has failed to address even our most basic concerns about urban growth over the past century, and how we can think about a new way of planning a more affordable, prosperous, equitable, and sustainable American city.
Download or read book Shaping the City written by Rodolphe El-Khoury and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking on the key issues in urban design, Shaping the City examines the critical ideas that have driven these themes and debates through a study of particular cities at important periods in their development. As well as retaining crucial discussions about cities such as Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Brasilia at particular moments in their history that exemplified the problems and themes at hand like the mega-city, the post-colonial city and New Urbanism, in this new edition the editors have introduced new case studies critical to any study of contemporary urbanism – China, Dubai, Tijuana and the wider issues of informal cities in the Global South. The book serves as both a textbook for classes in urban design, planning and theory and is also attractive to the increasing interest in urbanism by scholars in other fields. Shaping the City provides an essential overview of the range and variety of urbanisms and urban issues that are critical to an understanding of contemporary urbanism.
Download or read book Urban Design for an Urban Century written by Lance Jay Brown and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive introduction to urban design, from a historical overview and basic principles to practical design concepts and strategies. It discusses the demographic, environmental, economic, and social issues that influence the decision-making and implementation processes of urban design. The Second Edition has been fully revised to include thorough coverage of sustainability issues and to integrate new case studies into the core concepts discussed.
Download or read book Arbitrary Lines written by M. Nolan Gray and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2022-06-21 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. With lively explanations, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary--if not sufficient--condition for building more affordable, vibrant, equitable, and sustainable cities. Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common misconceptions about how American cities regulate growth and examining four contemporary critiques of zoning (its role in increasing housing costs, restricting growth in our most productive cities, institutionalizing racial and economic segregation, and mandating sprawl). He sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city. Arbitrary Lines is an invitation to rethink the rules that will continue to shape American life--where we may live or work, who we may encounter, how we may travel. If the task seems daunting, the good news is that we have nowhere to go but up
Download or read book Zoning written by Elliott Sclar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-06 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zoning is at once a key technical competency of urban planning practice and a highly politicized regulatory tool. How this contradiction between the technical and political is resolved has wide-reaching implications for urban equity and sustainability, two key concerns of urban planning. Moving beyond critiques of zoning as a regulatory hindrance to local affordability or merely the rulebook that guides urban land use, this textbook takes an institutional approach to zoning, positioning its practice within the larger political, social, and economic conflicts that shape local access for diverse groups across urban space. Foregrounding the historical-institutional setting in which zoning is embedded allows planners to more deeply engage with the equity and sustainability issues related to zoning practice. By approaching zoning from a social science and planning perspective, this text engages students of urban planning, policy, and design with several key questions relevant to the realities of zoning and land regulation they encounter in practice. Why has the practice of zoning evolved as it has? How do social and economic institutions shape zoning in contemporary practice? How does zoning relate to the other competencies of planning, such as housing and transport? Where and why has zoning, an act of physical land use regulation, replaced social planning? These questions, grounded in examples and cases, will prompt readers to think critically about the potential and limitations of zoning. By reforging the important links between zoning practice and the concerns of the urban planning profession, this text provides a new framework for considering zoning in the 21st century and beyond.
Download or read book U S Emergency Management in the 21st Century written by Claire B. Rubin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-06 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: U.S. Emergency Management in the 21st Century: From Disaster to Catastrophe explores a critical issue in American public policy: Are the current public sector emergency management systems sufficient to handle future disasters given the environmental and social changes underway? In this timely book, Claire B. Rubin and Susan L. Cutter focus on disaster recovery efforts, community resilience, and public policy issues of related to recent disasters and what they portend for the future. Beginning with the external societal forces influencing shifts in policy and practice, the next six chapters provide in-depth accounts of recent disasters— the Joplin, Tuscaloosa-Birmingham, and Moore tornadoes, Hurricanes Sandy, Harvey, Irma, Maria, and the California wildfires. The book concludes with a chapter on loss accounting and a summary chapter on what has gone right, what has gone wrong, and why the federal government may no longer be a reliable partner in emergency management. Accessible and clearly written by authorities in a wide-range of related fields with local experiences, this book offers a rich array of case studies and describes their significance in shifting emergency management policy and practice, in the United States during the past decade. Through a careful blending of contextual analysis and practical information, this book is essential reading for students, an interested public, and professionals alike.
