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1、 THE CITY QUARTER 8 INTRODUCTION Fundamental to sustainable development is active public participation in decisions which affect the environment. Popular involvement in the planning and management of the environment is most effective at the local level of the quarter, district or neighbourhood. It i
2、s at this scale of planning where the local resident has most knowledge and expertise (Moughtin, 2003). The resident of the neighbourhood has first- hand experience of problems faced by the family, friends and neighbours. There is, therefore, a need to support, develop and institutionalize this loca
3、l participation by creating formal political structures which empower the citizen. The development of local political structures having the power to influence decisions which affect the local environment is the route to fulfilling the ideals of sustainability. This chapter seeks to explore the forms
4、 that the city quarter may take to fulfil this political role in the sustainable city. It has been suggested that the city quarter is the main component of urban design (Gosling and Maitland, 1984). It has also been argued that clearly defined city quarters about 1.5kilometres (1mile) across will be
5、 a major preoccupation of urban designers in the coming decades (Moughtin, 2003). The scale of development in the twentieth century, but particularly after the Second World War, increased significantly both in the public and private sectors. It is now possible to consider the city quarter as a singl
6、e design problem undertaken by one developer or group of collaborating developers working with a single design team. Urban Development Corporations involved with inner city regeneration are involved with major components of the city such as the Isle of Dogs in London or the once-great docks of Liver
7、pool. While there seems broad agreement that the quarter is a legitimate subject for study by the urban designer, there is some doubt about its size and nature. This chapter will therefore, explore the historical origins of the quarter, some reasons given for structuring the city in quarters, the va
8、rious definitions of the quarter, particularly in terms of its size and its structure, and finally the chapter will end with examples of city quarters 159 developed or planned mainly in the last century and an analysis of the qualities required of a quarter in a sustainable city. THE QUARTER IN HIST
9、ORY The Roman city was divided into four quarters by its two main streets, the cardo and decumanus, which crossed at right- angles. Evidence of this quartering of the city is to be seen in many cities of Roman foundation, such as Lucca, which are still important urban centres today (see Figure 6.33)
10、. Alberti refers to many ancient authorities, including Plutarch and Solon, to whom he attributes the notion of dividing the city into areas for different groups. For example, according to Alberti: Curtius writes that Babylon was divided into a number of separate quarters. and Romulus separated knig
11、hts and patricians from plebeians; and Numa divided the plebeians according to their respective employments (Alberti, republished 1955, Book 4, Ch 5 and Book 4, Ch 1). Alberti also quotes Plato as proposing the division of the city into 12 parts: .allotting to each its particular temples and chapels
12、 (Alberti, republished 1955, Book 7, Ch 1). The classical tradition which divides the city into quarters was probably based upon the observation of the natural or unplanned cities of the Ancient World. Cities which appear to develop without the conscious intervention of man are organized into clearl
13、y defined neighbourhoods or quarters. The traditional cities of the Hausa people of Nigeria, for example, are still organized in wards (Moughtin, 1985). Each ward is associated with one of the great medieval gateways and is occupied by a group which practises a common trade. Other wards outside the
14、walls of the old cities of the Hausa are occupied by other ethnic or tribal groups. Closer to home, cities in Britain still have a jewellery quarter or lace market. In Nottingham, like other British cities, there are areas which are named, have clear boundaries and to which people belong. In Notting
15、ham, The Lacemarket, Lenton, Basford, Forest Fields, the Park and others are quarters or neighbourhoods to which people relate either as residents or outsiders. Even to the outsider, these areas are major structuring elements by which the city is understood. Such patterns of quarters, districts or n
16、eighbourhoods are common to most if not all cities and are the basis of perceptive structuring which renders the city intelligible to its citizens (Lynch, 1960). The city in the pre-motor car age developed naturally in the form of a cluster of quarters. The quarter as a major structuring element of
17、the city is not so characteristic of the modern motorized city: The motor car, indeed, not only promotes the dissolution of the city: it virtually demands it. It demands space, and its use is facilitated by dispersal. A city designed for its uninhibited use would be spacious indeed (Houghton-Evans,
18、1975). The city encircled by suburbia is now the common urban form of the developed world. Furthermore, there is widening physical separation of socio-economic groups in the modern city, a process which tends to accelerate with increasing affluence. This separation of different interest groups, thou
19、gh present in the pre-industrial city, was never as endemic as it would now appear to be in the present-day city. When socio-economic pressures stimulate, as they are now doing, this dispersed pattern of development, there is: .the tendency U R B A ND E S I G N :G R E E ND I M E N S I O N S 160 to s
20、eek simplified design structures, which is often abetted by development convenience (Gosling and Maitland, 1984). The result of these tendencies is a coarse- grained city where: .extensive areas of one thing are separated from extensive areas of another thing (Lynch, 1981). The motives, however, whi
21、ch produce a coarse-grained city with extensive areas of single land uses, unsafe centres that die at night such as Skelmersdale new town centre in Lancashire and large socially homogeneous housing estates, are powerful. These powerful motives include the preference for living near similar people wi
22、th similar interests, and the grouping of commercial activities which maximize the locational advantages of a dispersed network of roads. Constraints imposed on the poor by their unequal access to the housing market exacerbate the situation. The forces which are inhibiting the structuring of cities
23、to form fine-grained quarters are real and powerful. Since this is certainly the case, why should the city designer be seeking an alternative city of the future built on an outdated idea from the distant past? More importantly, even if an alternative to the present situation is desirable, is such an
24、 alternative future for the city anything other than a utopian dream? The movement towards sustainable development, environmental protection and the reduction of pollution engenders a new perspective for the city planning professions. The reorientation of planning and design priorities will inevitab
25、ly lead to a reshaping of the city which, of necessity, will be dependent upon energy-efficient means of transport. While the car-orientated city demands space and the use of personalized vehicles is facilitated by dispersal, the efficiency of public transport supported by walking and cycling is pro
26、moted by concentration: Just as we have seen that the automobile and the bus pull the town in contrary directions so do they require totally different primary networks (Houghton-Evans, 1975). The bus in the same way as any other form of public transport requires for its efficient and economic runnin
27、g a city where a large pool of prospective passengers live within easy walking distance of the routes: the car is more effective in a city which is dispersed with a widely spaced network of major roads. The sustainable city will give priority to the mixed street rather than the motorway and travelli
28、ng through a centre rather than bypassing it. The thought process for the design of the sustainable city is the antithesis of that for the now defunct procedures used to facilitate the car. The new design paradigm requires a return to first principles and an examination of features of the traditiona
29、l city which may, in an adapted form, be useful for greening the city. The quarter is one such component of the traditional city which deserves closer study. THE QUARTER: DEFINITION AND SIZE The quarter, district and neighbourhood are terms with different meanings for different authors. In some case
30、s the terms have been used interchangeably. Jacobs classifies neighbourhoods into three broad types: Looking at city neighbourhoods as organs of self-government, I can see evidence that only three kinds of neighbourhoods are useful: (1) the city as a whole; (2) Street Neighbourhoods; and (3) distric
31、ts of large, sub-city size, composed of one hundred T H EC I T YQ U A R T E R 161 thousand people and more in the case of the largest cities (Jacobs, 1965). Furthermore, Jacobs identifies the causes of the failure of neighbourhood planning as ultimately failures of localized self- government. Lynch
32、also recognizes the importance of a political function for the neighbourhood or district: his size for the political unit is considerably smaller than the hundred thousand suggested by Jacobs: It is in governmental units of 20000 to 40000 people that ordinary citizens can be active in politics if th
33、ey wish, feel connected to an identifiable political community, and sense some control over public affairs. (Lynch, 1981). In Chapter 4 it was suggested that the local government of the regions should be strengthened, but it is also necessary to strengthen small self-governing towns and districts wi
34、thin the urban region, so dissolving the scale of the big city into a finer political grain, and giving legitimacy to active public participation, in decisions about environmental quality. The arguments about the size of the district, quarter, and neighbourhood like those about the region are inconc
35、lusive. We have seen, in Chapter 4, that Plato suggested a figure of 5040 householders or citizens as the population necessary for political decision-making (Plato, republished 1975). Aristotle was more circumspect. He was concerned that a political unit should be big enough for its citizens to be a
36、ble to live a full life, but not so big that citizens lose personal touch with each other. For Aristotle, face-to-face contact was important so that questions of justice could be decided with the full knowledge of those involved, and so that offices could be distributed according to merit (Aristotle
37、, republished 1981). The models for both Plato and Aristotle were Athens with 40000 citizens, and the other Greek cities having 10000 citizens or less. If figures of this magnitude are thought desirable for the lowest level of government and also for the size of the quarter or district, then the phy
38、sical dimensions of the districts at Harlow designed by Gibberd, give an approximation of this component of the sustainable city of the future. The districts in Harlow comprise four neighbourhoods of between 4000 and 7000 people, so that the districts were approximately 18000 to 22000 people. There
39、is probably no ideal size for the quarter or district, particularly in existing cities. It is important that the district or coalitions of districts can act as a check to the power of the city. The other chief function is the development of city structures which enable citizens to participate fully
40、in both the administration of some city services and in decisions about the future of the city. As Alberti quite rightly stressed: .the city itself ought to be laid out differently for a tyrant, from what they are for those who enjoy and protect government as if it were a magistery voluntarily put i
41、nto their hands (Alberti, republished 1955). If Albertis statement is accepted, then it follows that the city structure for a more participatory democracy will probably be different from one structured for representative democracy which stresses centralized power in the state and in the city. COMMUN
42、ITY One of the formative ideas of the first new towns in Britain during the 1940s and early 1950s was the neighbourhood concept. Overlaying this concept was the notion of forming a community. The cooperative U R B A ND E S I G N :G R E E ND I M E N S I O N S 162 spirit which was prevalent after the
43、end of the Second World War led to a belief that this community spirit could infuse the new planning system with life. The neighbourhoods in the, then, new towns and the local authority housing estates in the suburbs were to be modelled on the old inner city working-class communities of cooperation.
44、 Middle-class families, doctors, dentists and teachers, were to live as neighbours with the families of the labourer, mechanic and factory worker and to provide the community leadership. As Gosling points out, one group of planners was concerned that: The apparent impossibility of making any technic
45、al decision about the city without thereby implying a corresponding social structure has persuaded many designers of the primacy of the social programme. Urban design is seen essentially as the attempt to find the appropriate form to sustain this programme or perhaps more actively, to reinforce or e
46、ven induce it (Gosling and Maitland, 1984). To some extent the view of planning as social engineering prevailed, or was thought to prevail, into the 1950s. There was, however, another and more mainstream view of the neighbourhood which was held by planners. This idea of the neighbourhood is much mor
47、e practical and is concerned primarily with the physical distribution of social facilities in relation to population thresholds: The neighbourhood is essentially a spontaneous grouping, and it cannot be created by the planner. All he can do is to make provision for the necessary physical needs, by d
48、esigning an area which gives the inhabitants the sense of living in one place distinct from all other places, and in which social equipment, like schools and playing fields, are conveniently placed (Gibberd, 1955). Gibberd in this passage stresses the spontaneous nature of community formation and su
49、ggests that the physical structure merely permits its development. It is not the pub, the corner shop or the chapel which created the British working-class community, but the strong family ties and the interdependence of the group in the face of financial crisis constantly present with the poor. It has long been recognized that community is not necessarily a product of place. The community of interest may draw members from the city, region or it may have a network of international contacts. The individual may, indeed, belong to several communities, includ