TRENDS IN URBAN

DESIGN

For the first time in six decades, urban

designers do not have to swim against
the full force of a sub urban tide.
The flow has turned toward cities and
places that feel like cities dense,
mixed use ,walk able, and transitfriendly.
Meanwhile, new and sometimes
controversial theories about the nature
of urban design have begun to appear.
Some urban designers argue that the
range of forces acting on cities calls for
decisive large-scale action in a climate
too often marked by lengthy public

In the midst of change and debate,

the problems created by suburban
development remain.
Many cities continue to suffer from
reduced investment and population
decline,
and
new
suburban
development continues to roll across
the landscape at a rapid pace.
Significantly altering development
patterns will require a continuing and
sustained effort.

Urban revitalization and historic

preservation

Although the days of urban renewal

have passed along with the federal
funds that drove them efforts to
revitalize cities still continue.
Preserving and restoring historic
neighborhoods and main streets has
become a key focus.
In response, critics have disparaged
some revitalization efforts as
lifestyle or cappucino urbanism.
The desperate straits of many towns,
competing against suburbs that
attracted both shopping traffic and

offices often seemed to justify efforts of

commercial- area revitalization.
Once stores,businesses,and tourism
returned ,the thinking went, everything
else will follow.
In many cases, it did, with an
unforeseen result : new market rate
housing priced out with long time
residents, and new service sector jobs
rarely matched the wages of the
previous manufacturing employment.
In
other
cases,commercial-area
revitalization alone proved failure.

A NEW ROLE FOR WATER FRONTS

Departing factories opened up the nations

urban waterfronts.
For nearly four hundred years ,waterfronts
provided the backbone of the economy in
coastal cities.
Obsolete and abandoned transportation and
industrial water-fronts declined, but empty
waterfronts opened up new possibilities.
Restoration of long buried streets and
introduction of bridges and landscaped river
side walks created one of the premier urban
waterfronts, where no waterfront had existed.
Even as luxury housing , hotels, office
buildings , and festival market-places have
sprung upon urban waterfronts, industrial
uses continue.

And almost all water front cities

have both waste water treatment
facilities and oil-and-gas storage and
transfer complexes.
Urban planners and urban designers
in water front cities continue to
struggle to find the right balance
between revitalization
and the
needs of working waterfronts.
At the same time, reclaimed
waterfronts raise new issues of
public access and ownership. With
most
industrial
users
gone
,ownership of and access to the
waters
edge
have
become
contentious issues in many cities.
Urban designers have increasingly
joined this debate.

CONSENSUS BUILDING

The concepts of public participation and

consensus building are today firmly
ingrained in the urban planning process.
The public meetings also signaled a
recognition that nothing would be built on
the site without ample community input.
Unless those who will be affected
members of the general public ,neighbors
,residents are invited into the decision
making process, major projects falter.
Urban
designers
have
assumed
an
increasing
role
in
promoting
civic
engagement and consensus building.
They typically build successful plans from
the bottom up by engaging community
members, working with them to articulate a
vision of where they want to go, and
helping them to figure out how to get there.

SUSTAINABILITY AND SMART

GROWTH

Designers and planners are being asked to think about the environmental
impact of every plan and about ways to advance sustainability by
conserving energy,land,and natural resources in their work.
Interest in sustainability has propelled the smart growth movement to
new prominence.
Smart growth is not no growth or even small growth.rather ,the goal is
sensible growth that balances our need for job and economic development
with our desire to save natural environment
Environmental Protection Agency showed that the state had consumed
more land in mere decades than it had in more than 300 years since its
founding ,devouring in process hundreds of thousands of acres of forest
and farmland.
The EPA went on to point out that urban sprawl not only consumes land ,it
also depopoulates older urban centres and strains state finances.

Smart- growth advocates argue for optimizing existing infrastructure before

building anew;concentrating development instead of spreading it over
farmland and forest ;reducing traffic;and emphasising affordability and
sustainability in housing .
Many of these goals can be achieved by reversing urban decay and
revitalising older suburbs and urban centres to redevelop brownfield
(former industrial) and grayfield (stripmall) sites over building on
greenfields (previously undeveloped land).
Many urban designers have aligned themselves with this approach, which
is helping to refocus the nations energies on its older cities while creating
an entirely new class of sustainable developments in suburban and
exurban areas.

TRANSIT- ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT

Transit oriented development (TOD)- sometimes also called transit villages

reflects a clear understanding of strong connection between
transportation and landuse.
Such development offers an alternative to autodependent sub-urbanisation
:higher density,mixed use communities often higher density nodes within
existing sub urban areas- specifically planned to make transit use
convenient and walking both easy and inviting .

TRANSIT VILLAGES: Transit villages in the 21st century ;(A) Compact,mixed

use community, centered around the transit station that by design,invites
residence,workers,and shoppers to drive their cars less and ride mass
transit more.
The centrepiece of the transit village is the transit station itself and the
civic and public spaces that surround it.The transit station is what connects
village residents and workers to the rest of the region.

URBAN VILLAGES AND TNDs

Urban villages - compact , walk able , mixed-use neighborhoods or towns

maybe developed either as higher-density nodes in suburbs or as
neighborhoods in the city.
Typically , new construction , often built on Greenfield sites. Traditional
Neighborhood Developments (TNDs) are more compact than the usual
subdivision, favor walking over driving , mix uses where possible ,and
provide narrower road , few or no cul-de- sacs , and common greens and
squares.
The differences between the two areas ultimately, are relatively minor, and
urban villages on non greenfield sites have grown in popularity as a
solution to the centreless qualities of contemporary suburbia.
Urban villages are places where everything you need is within walking
distance( shops , restaurants, movies,services) including nice public
squares to relax in and meet people.

NEW URBANISM

TND and TOD are the concepts associated with New Urbanism , that
describes the application of traditional planning and design strategies as
an antidote to suburban sprawl.

NEO MODERNISM AND

POSTURBANISM

Within the last decade,as architects have returned to modernism for

aesthetic inspiration,critics have begun to criticise formally praised work of
urban design.

Emerging ideas about urbanism championed by koolhass and others

parallel the revival of the modernist aesthetic , or neomodernism, in
architectural design.
Although they do not constitute a formal movement, perse,modernist
influenced architects,urbanists and critcs decry the relentless grid patterns
and stress on context espoused by urban designers over the past twenty
years.