The practice of urbanism has evolved throughout the history parallel to the relevant economical activities. The city, by definition is a permanent human settlement, and the activities of humans have shaped the planning and the construction of these settlements throughout different eras. If these eras are to be categorised under three titles, the leading economic activity would be providing the names. The agricultural era, the industrial and the informational.

Our urban civilisation of today, seems to have alienated us from the nature. We have to make journeys inside our urban environment in order to access pieces of natural land, that are enclosed with fences in our concrete habitat. For long years, the conviction was that the urban society does not make part of the natural processes. The only solution for the individual to “turn back to his roots” was to leave his urban environment to discover the “wilderness” of the unspoiled land. Today’s ideological shift on understanding man’s presence in nature, helped designers to develop new solutions on how to design the post industrial city. Man, therefore his activities, are indeed part of the natural processes. Therefore, how do we integrate the complex living systems of the ecology into our contemporary urban culture?

In the agricultural era, there was a clear distinction between the man-constructed land and the natural, where the human tamed nature existed mainly in the rural for the sole purpose of fulfilling the demand for the cultivation of agricultural goods. Inside the walled city, the congested fabric of the chaotic settlement models prevented the possibility to develop an urban experience that is in contact with the ecosystem. The urban Roman house typologies dating back to the second century CE, were mainly closed on four sides creating an inner courtyard, rigidly separating the human living space and the piece of natural land.

Moving on to a century of industrialisation, the clear boundaries of the cities disappear, where cities become nodes of mass production. In the age of a machine technology that abuses and pollutes the natural resources, unregulated laissez-faire policies on growth, production and consumption creates a worker based economical model, rapidly expanding the unhealthy environment of the industrial city to its natural surroundings. As the fruit of such experiences on the concepts of technology and the growing urban industrial culture, the epoch’s environmentalists ended up demonising technology, writers, artists, and philosophers ended up valuing untouched nature as an escape from the polluted industrial city.

In the 19th century United States, an influential body of thought called “wilderness” arises. Across the American public, this valuing of unspoiled nature, brought by the wilderness thinking, has affected the era’s art, literature, philosophy and clearly, architecture and design. This cultural dualism and the appreciation of the unspoiled land, had a crucial effect on the work of the era’s landscape architect.

“In contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape…

as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where

man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

Wilderness Act 1969

Frederic Law Olmsted, commonly referred to as the founding father American landscape architecture, instead of valuing the extra-urban uncorrupted nature as an escape, he suggested to make nature accessible to the urban citizen. Olmsted, and his work, have been tremendously expedient for the acceptance of this emerging discipline and its differentiation from gardening. Through the design of Central Park, in which the idea of “designing the nature” stems, the necessity and the importance of the landscape architect is commonly accepted and his objectives are defined. While bringing the nature inside the city, provoked a new urban experience, the only advantage of this experience compared to the ones of the early wilderness thinkers, was that the journey from the urban to the nature is shortened, yet the relationship not redefined. Throughout the Olmstedian landscape architecture ideology, the dominant idea is to create a “natural oasis” in the middle of the city, which still aimed to be an escape from the undesired urban condition. Regarding his practice, it would not be unexpected after long years of inveterate wilderness thinking, the aim is to hide the constructed character of the landscape. The critic in this sense, is that an imitated pastoral vocabulary tries to bring the “wilderness” to the urban, but fails at creating an alternative contact between the long separated ideas of the manmade and the natural.

“The dystopia of the megalopolis is already an irreversible historical fact,” states Frampton, underlining the progress from a nature abuser form of technology to an environmentally conscious one. United Nations projects that by 2050 86% of the developed world will be living in urban environments. Therefore, the circumstance is the inevitable expansion of the cities as a global network of human activity hubs. Moving on from a “…worker based economical model to an entrepreneur based one” as Guallart states, the post-industrial city becomes the reflection of the age of technology and information. The environmentally-cognisant costumer, directs the market and the technological achievements, in the search of their eco-friendly and sustainable substrates. With the public conscious becoming increasingly acceptable of the remedial potential of the technology in healing the nature, it is about time that the urbanism of the post industrial city, to plan and construct with nature. By the emergence of landscape urbanism, the fundamental practices of the planning of the contemporary city, is defended to strategically function through time, if they can integrate the living systems and the constructed – through the medium of landscape.

Corner states that “The debate is not only concerned with bringing landscape into cities but also with the expansion of cities into the surrounding landscape.” Bringing into attention, the context and the condition in which the idea of working with the landscape has been developed. Waldheim puts this area of focus as the “ex-urban middle,” where he gives the definition “between the traditional city centre and greenfield suburb beyond.” The absence of the industrial activities in this ex-urban middle, results as abandonment, in which cities like Detroit, striking vistas of the nature taking over the man constructed, underlines the importance of landscape in redesigning the post-industrial city. Opposed to the primary ideas of the destruction of the unused West High Line of New York, the approach via landscape urbanism, is to value the ex-industrial site as heritage and blend their strong constructed character with the twenty first century notions of what it means to live with nature. The transformation of the unused West High Line of New York into the distinctive High Line Park of today, is possibly one of the most suitable examples to revise the theory of landscape urbanism. Hard surfaces mixing and melting into the soil proposes an elevated ecological journey inside the concrete, blending of the constructed character with the natural one. The quality of the space, points out the opportunity of an unused infrastructural construction to be transformed into an alternate public space, which provides a new urban experience that is integrated with the natural. It would not be misleading to say that, this contact of the man constructed and the nature, in the context of the ex-industrial – or the ex-urban, is somehow a reflection and a celebration of our passage from an ecologically polluted, industry based urban civilisation into an eco-responsible, information based one.

Through this new possibility of planning our cities by building profound human-nature contacts, the perception of the urban park that we visit in our daily lives, transume into an enclosed floral zoo that we visit, but then leave to turn back to the reality of our low eco-quality built environment. The urban park of the industrial city provided for the needs for the era, created an oasis-like escape from the intensity of the urban condition. The modernist planning of the 20th century models rigidly allocated the diverse activities of the city, trying to functionalise the urban land by hierarchic categorisation – just as in the idea of an enclosed nature available for the citizen only on the specific lots of the city. Landscape in this point, thrives to be the recoverer of the failing plans and the integrator of the urban culture to the nature.

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Sources:

Corner, James. “Terra Fluxus.” The Landscape Urbanism Reader. 2006 ed. N.p.: Princeton UP, n.d. 13-33. Print.

Waldheim, Charles. “Landscape as Urbanism.” The Landscape Urbanism Reader. 2006 ed. NY: Princeton UP, n.d. 37-51. Print.

Guallart, Vicente. The Self-sufficient City. New York: Actar, 2014. Print.

http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/

http://www.iep.utm.edu/am-wild/

Image:

http://www.nycgovparks.org/photo_gallery/full_size/14432.jpg

economics paper

Gujarat will soon have more people living in cities than in villages for the first time in history. It is known as “The Urbanized State of India”. Per capita GDP is almost twice the national average, and Gujarat has the fastest growing economy in the country.

This rapid urbanization and industrialization have had some adverse impacts on quality of life and the environment. Inconsistent regulatory measures and enforcement have resulted in haphazard growth, and unplanned urban development. This has led to poor air and water quality, inadequate wastewater management, intermittent energy supplies, and degradation of ecosystems and habitats. Rapid expansion of electricity generation, mostly using coal, has increased greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to localized pollution problems and wider climate change.

The state government is conscious of the need to act on climate change, and is the only Indian state with a Climate Change Department. It has been proactive in promoting renewable energy projects as a means of meeting demand, without adding significantly to emissions. In 2009, Gujarat became the first state to announce a comprehensive solar energy policy, capitalizing on the second largest amount of solar radiation of all India’s states, with an average 300 sunny days per year, providing up to 6kWh/m²/day.3

A holistic approach to sustainability is essential, to integrate the potential of individual solutions. Master planning is the overarching tool that addresses the needs of multiple communities with appropriate solutions, to significantly improve the quality of urban life. It extends beyond cities’ physical layout and development, to include energy and water supply, transport systems, as well as working and living conditions. Successful master planning will optimize urban centers, and reduce their total ecological footprint. It will also plan and provide for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) housing as part of the overall urban development strategy. The Government of India defines EWS as the category of people below a set income threshold. Holistically integrating sustainability into urban planning is key to addressing the challenges of increasing urbanization and industrialization, which will further strain the sustainability of Gujarat’s cities.

Urban planning issues

Planning provides the framework for all energy and water management, but there are specific urban planning issues to address in Gujarat. Unplanned and informal urban development is prominent in Gujarat; for example, unplanned settlements to accommodate migrant workers rapidly have emerged near Amroli, Uttraran, and Mota Varacha, north of Surat municipality.

Three specific challenges were the focus for the UII’s planning inputs:

• Master planning challenges – macro-level planning, that sets an overall strategy to create a cohesive vision for future growth. Issues include integration of land use and infrastructure development, coordination of transport systems, resource conservation and environmentally-sensitive urban design.
• Infrastructure planning challenges – urban development often takes place without core infrastructure improvements, exerting additional pressure on existing systems. This results in chaotic development patterns and environmental hazards adversely affecting the long-term quality of urbanized areas.
• Professional and technical capacity challenges – a lack of urban planning professionals is a major concern, affecting successful development and administration of planning policies and actions. The planning process is further hampered by a lack of integrated city information databases. Data is not currently standardized, and is only available haphazardly.

Energy issues

Gujarat has the second highest per capita electrical consumption in India, and demand will increase with growing urbanization, industrialization and improved standards of living. Energy conservation and efficiency improvement programs are therefore essential to minimize emissions, as well as to contain the growth in energy demand.

The UII’s discussions with the four cities revealed that their awareness and perceived impact on energy efficiency is focused on municipal buildings, street lights, and pumping water and sewage. However, energy use in non-municipal buildings offers many opportunities for improvement, and will be increasingly important as the cities expand. Discussions therefore identified energy efficiency in buildings as the key issue on which private sector input can stimulate transformation, beginning with awareness of its importance, and including financing models for energy conservation.

The UII identified three broad challenges requiring solutions:

• Regulatory challenges – current regulations, or their enforcement, provides an insufficiently strong framework for energy efficiency in the cities and their buildings.
• Lack of knowledge and skills – the current level of knowledge about energy efficiency solutions is limited in depth and breadth among the many stakeholders involved in energy efficiency. A lack of awareness, understanding and skills inhibits implementation of energy efficiency solutions.
• Implementation challenges – barriers exist to implementing energy efficiency projects, even where the potential is well understood. Financial barriers are particularly significant because incentives tend to be split between owners, occupiers and other stakeholders, and the first cost of investment is a deterrent to action.

Wastewater issues

Existing water infrastructure in cities such as Ahmedabad and Rajkot struggles to cope with the load resulting from unprecedented growth. Storm water accumulates in some low-lying areas, or is channeled into sewage systems, even in water-deficient areas of the state. The quality of wastewater generated in the cities is another significant issue, with serious pollution problems in industrialized zones, such as Hazira, near Surat.

The UII identified three major barriers to successful wastewater management in Gujarat cities:

• Infrastructure capacity – the potential varies from city to city. Ahmedabad and Surat can segregate runoffs, and use that resource to recharge groundwater. In Rajkot, lack of a perennial water source and permeable soils require an alternative approach.
• Quality of treated water – in Ahmedabad, industrial effluent is channeled into the domestic system, complicating the process, and exerting pressure on existing infrastructure. The presence of industries within residential areas has an adverse effect on wastewater quality, especially in Surat, where industries release effluents into the domestic wastewater networks and natural streams.
• Economic viability – the financial responsibility for wastewater treatment systems generally lies with the public authorities. However, for whomever is responsible, the success and failure of the economic models used in various projects are not always adequately evaluated to help develop efficient wastewater management systems elsewhere.

There are a few proposed solutions to these issues.

Master planning solutions.

Solution  – Sustainability/smart growth pilot project

A pilot project for a specific area may include a town planning scheme, a redevelopment area, or transit-oriented development, and should apply the best practices in sustainable development and smart growth. The main project features will include:

• A mix of various land uses, such as residential, retail, public uses, and recreational facilities
• Integrated infrastructure and transport systems and a wide range of transport options
• An array of housing opportunities and choices incorporating sustainable building design
• Preservation of open spaces and environmentally sensitive areas
• Smarter and green infrastructure, incorporating solar-oriented design, energy efficiency, water conservation, native plants for landscaping, reduction and recycling of waste
• Community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions
• Planning and provision for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) housing

Solution  – Master planning scope integration and long-term plan

A long-term master plan will identify sustainable urban growth patterns as a basis for developing adequate infrastructure for expected population and industrial growth. The plan will integrate sectoral plans for land use, transport, infrastructure, and environmental planning at regional, state and city level. It will build a bridge between cities’ current 5-year to 10-year planning work, and the longer 20-year to 50-year plans.

The master plan will be based on a consistent statement of goals, objectives, policies and programs. It will take an integrated approach to land use/zoning, transport/circulation, infrastructure, and natural resources. This will ensure that urban development starts with the expansion and upgrading of infrastructure and public services.

Solution  – Integrated mobility plan

An integrated mobility plan will provide long-term solutions that integrate regional, state, and city transport networks, and provide sustainable choices for businesses and citizens.

Gujarat’s cities would benefit from strengthening and extending existing transport networks and establishing connections within and among different transport modes. The plan will be coordinated at regional, state, and city level.

A key priority is providing cheap, accessible and efficient public transport systems, aiming for approximately 60% of residents using public transport, compared to only 15-18% in Ahmedabad currently4. The plan will examine encouraging public transport through tax incentives, employer transport benefits and similar programs.

The existing road network also needs to be improved, to enhance accessibility, and provide multiple options for efficient mobility. Provision for bicycling and walking will also be included.

The plans will aim to integrate the different modes, with easy, convenient linkages. For example, feeder buses transporting passengers from high intensity use areas such as high density residential or business centres, will help to increase the use of Metro Rail and BRT.

Solution  – Comprehensive parks and open space plan

A comprehensive plan in each city for parks and open spaces will support healthy urban living, and provide habitats for plants and wildlife. Well-designed public open spaces are particularly important for high-density areas in Gujarat’s cities. Areas need to be identified for preservation as open spaces when new development occurs.

A parks and open space plan will determine the per capita norms for green space, bearing in mind the World Health Organization recommendation for 9 square meters per citizen. The plan will envisage a network of publicly accessible open spaces along riverfronts, woodlands, and other special natural habitats, providing recreational facilities, street landscape corridors, and open space buffer areas at city, community, and neighbourhood levels. It will seek to promote sustainable practices such as urban forestry and urban agriculture to plant, maintain, and preserve trees and vegetation and promote better access to fresh and nutritious food.

Energy efficiency solutions

Solution – Building rating system

Mandatory compliance with the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) for new buildings, and a mandatory rating system for all non-residential buildings above a minimum size, will enforce higher energy efficiency standards.

A rating system categorizes buildings according to their level of energy efficiency, and can cover broader environmental and sustainability issues as well. India’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) has introduced the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC), which is a foundation for many building rating programs and assessments.

Using a rating or labeling system supports transparency, and can stimulate energy efficiency action. It can also be the basis for additional policy initiatives, ranging from building regulations to financial measures, and can encourage capacity building among all those involved in building energy use. Cities can make regular auditing a requirement, so that buildings are re-evaluated from time to time to ensure that actual performance is maintained at the appropriate level.

Retrofitting

Full retrofitting of major buildings, based on a requirement to meet ECBC guidelines, will improve energy efficiency of existing properties. While a full building renovation will have the most impact, replacement of equipment or components can also save energy.

Building owners may perform full energy audits to determine the most effective improvements. Audits should target whole building considerations to avoid piecemeal approaches, such as replacing cooling systems without considering lighting and associated elements.

Solution  – Energy awareness campaign

A wide-ranging public awareness and action campaign will provide long-term underpinning for other solutions. It will create an energy-aware mindset among business and residential consumers that would discourage a high-energy culture.

Business owners need to be informed about the financial benefits of operating with greater energy efficiency, and the increased worker benefits of a healthier and more productive workplace. Citizens need to be encouraged to use energy wisely, as individual behavior is a critical element in most energy-saving solutions.

Advertising and other communications, including social media, could build on existing e-governance infrastructure, including the Gujarat Bank of Wisdom, that provides an open forum for suggestions and advice 6. A campaign could also build on the existing Bal Urja Raksha Dal (BURD) school campaign, so that children take the message back home to motivate their parents.

References

1. McKinsey Global Institute (April 2010) – India’s urban awakening: Building inclusive cities, sustaining economic growth

2. Available from: www.censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/paper2/data_files/India2/Table_2_PR_Cities_1Lakh_and_Above.pdf

3. Gujarat Energy Development Agency (2012)

4. Gujarat Plus News, Ahmedabad (August 30, 2001) – Survey suggestions to overcome traffic problems

5. Ramanathan Swati, India Urban Space (IUSP) Foundation Publication (2011) – Where are the Urban Planners?

6. Available from: www.indg.in/e-governance/ict-initiatives-in-states-uts/e-governance/ict-initiatives-in-states-uts/e-governance-in-gujarat/view?set_language=en

Aterro do Flamengo,  Rio de Janeiro – Brazil.
Designed by Lota de Macedo Soares; Urban and architectural project: Affonso Reidy, Sergio Bernardes and Jorge Moreira; Landscape design: Roberto Burle Marx.

World Cup 2014

In 2007 when FIFA announced that the 2014 World Cup would be hosted in Brazil, it seems to be like a great opportunity for investments and improvements such as bigger airports, improvement on public transportation, and more secure and accessible stadiums. But things did not happened this way.

At first, any Brazilian was exited with the Word Cup, all we could hear on the streets was about the delay of the works (of those ones that they started), the expectation on violent protests and how the government could use the money in more important issues as health and education.

It is not fair say that Brazil failed, but we lost a great opportunity. If by one side, the 2013 protest put in question the urban problems, in other the frustration with the unfinished infrastructure works exposed problems that are directly related to our profession: the failure of the contracting model and the lack of project.

Analyzing the issue of contracting, is possible to notice that we have historically two hiring models in architecture: one absolutely subjective, sponsorship; and another absolutely objective, quantitative worksheet.

The first one has your roots in our tradition of Fine Arts. The king, the pope or the governor chooses his favorite architect and order him to work. The criterion of choice? The simple fact that this architect I the best known, everybody knows that. Our patron Oscar Niemeyer, used and abused this form of hiring throughout his career, it is quite impossible find a competition won by Niemeyer (the second place in the competition for the Brazilian Pavilion in New York, 1938, is what comes closest).

In the case of the World Cup, the “public knowledge” was used in almost in stages, with no even one competition. Half of the 8 billion spent in the 12 stadiums came from state government (direct investment), the other half of federal loans. In other words, each governor with pen and checkbook on hand, called his favorite architect.

The second contracting model has its origins on the polytechnic tradition. Since here the aesthetic is less important, the building is transformed into quantitative materials and services, and the winner is the one that present the lowest price to the worksheet. The process that should be absolutely objective and rational stumbles into the problem that a design is hardly the same as another design even though its quantitative are very similar. Is like buy a car: the choice at the lowest price that works well for new cars is a disaster for used cars. We hired million cubic meters of concrete and thousands of square meters of terrain, but the urban design remains weak and mediocre.

Unfortunately, there is nothing in the Brazilian current bidding model that guarantees the quality of the architecture. Even when mounted on technical and price equations, the technique comes as project execution certificates. If such projects are good or bad, does not matter to the law whether attended or not the program, and generated or not a better city.

The World Cup did not leave a big legacy to the cities, but at least served as a catalyst for a debate that Brazil need to have urgently. For example: what if instead of giving coefficient of utilization as incentive for hotels we did the same with social housing in city centers? How much would it cost and what would be the impact on both the quality of life of the centers abandoned during the night and in the reduction of dislocations? And if the BNDES (National development bank) rather than lend to lend administrators stadiums consortia, with the same subsidized interest rates and longer terms, to reform abandoned buildings in urban center? What if instead of  PAC-Cup (Growth Acceleration Program) had one PAC-Urban Waters for renaturation of streams and transforming their flooded margins linear parks?

The World Cup has attracted global attention to Brazil, emphasizing the domestic problems, and I hope that it also create an opportunity to rethink our priorities and rethink the institutions and processes necessary to achieve these priorities.

UIA 2020 Rio

Some good results for architecture and urban designers can be seen through the innumerous works that continue to happen in Brazil after the Word Cup, especially in cities that will receive another events such as Rio with the Olympic Games and now the 27^th World Congress of Architects (UIA) in 2020, where almost 15 hundred architects and urban planners will get together to discuss the about the future of the cities upon the theme “All the Worlds. Just One World. Architecture 21”.

This event show that Brazil started to think about the diversity of urban question. The 21 century World is an urban World, and the problems that Brazil have now reproduce in many other urbanized cities. With a period of six years to prepare for the event, the expectation of the IAB (Institute of Brazilian Architects) is to bring big names in architecture to discuss the problem of predatory expansion of cities. The Rio de Janeiro goes through a current moment of transformation that with the rescue of a rich historical past, projects a future development. Rio has unique features: it is a metropolis, framed by lush nature and a diverse architecture, has great social challenges.

Cities become metropolises very quickly and Rio exemplifies several mistakes and successes. This exchange of information with other countries is important to discuss ways to improve the lives of people in the city

Themes such as nature preservation and urban grow certainly will be discuss, cities become metropolises very quickly and Rio exemplifies several mistakes and successes. This exchange of information with other countries is important to discuss ways to improve the lives of people in the city. Also the favelas is an issue that matters a lot to the third world, reflect how humans are building your space, since it cannot be absorbed by market mechanisms.

Education cannot be left out, the formation of architects and professionals whose disciplines are articulated to architecture and urban planning, as geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, should be analyzed, after all, we and our partners are the most responsible in this fight for quality of life in cities for all.

Mega sporting events have become an urbanization trend that affects the urban equilibrium and the sustainability of their economies, especially considering their impacts and complexity in organization and delivery. By reviewing the literature on the features of such events and, drawing particular examples from the recent Olympic Games in Athens 20014, we can identify the nature and extent of their impacts on the host country and its community. The former can range from political, social, economical, physical and cultural and can be negative as well as positive. Even though the prospect of economic growth is the driving force behind bids for hosting the Olympic Games or other Mega sporting events, the legacies that follow their hosting are difficult to quantify, prone to political interpretation and multifaceted.

In recent years, the Olympic Games have developed into one of the most significant mega-international sporting events. The increasing number of cities bidding to host the Olympics and the increasing funds invested in Olympic bids indicate that local leaders perceive the securing of such an event as an opportunity to improve economic and social aspects of a city or region through the accumulated investment triggered by staging the Games. As a result, in the course of the past two decades there has been increased interest on the impact of the Olympics on the socio-economic and political life of the host city, region and country. The Olympic Games are therefore examined in relation to other mega-sporting events, such as the football World Cup and world championships but also in relation to commercial and cultural events, such as Expos and festivals, since it has been claimed that regardless of their character, events such as the aforementioned generate similar dynamics for the host cities or regions.

Mega events are defined as events of spatial, temporal and thematic concentration of city policy with regards to one marketing project and can be cultural (Expo, Shanghai 2010), political (World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg 2002) or sporting (Olympic Games, Athens 2004). They are large-scale competitions, which have a great appeal, bring a broad interest and ensure international significance to the hosting cities and countries. The motivations of hosting such events, beyond the significant economic investments, are image- building driven. Most cities use these events as an instrument of image-building, in the context of competition among them, in order to position themselves as global cities, or even more as global economies. In such a way, they transport an image of an “event-city” (Bittner, 2001) and in some cases, such as in the case of cities in the Global South, they intend to symbolize their way out of the underdeveloped category (FIFA World Cup, Brazil 2014), regardless of the numerous threats that come along with hosting such events. Other motivations that are usually considered when hosting mega events are the opportunities of legitimizing several urban policies. Local politics concentrate on the development of short-term projects, which displays a development dynamic and delivery competency to citizens. In that manner, they seek to legitimize in the long run the intended planning politics.

However, the threats of hosting mega events, such as the Olympic Games, are several and multifaceted and in most cases they disturb the socioeconomic sustainability not only in a local scale, but also in a global one. In most cases, organizing such events triggers a downward spiral, as in general costs exceed benefits; “providing festivals when people need bread is a dubious use of public resources” (Andranovich et al 2001). The economic growth and investments as well as new job opportunities, are to a great extend temporary. Moreover, mega events are the cause of many evictions and relocations (e.g. Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Athens 2004, London 2012), in order to show a slum free image to the world. Thus, mega events reinforce numerous socioeconomic inequalities, such as fragmentation, exclusion of specific communities, informalities and precarious housing. In addition to this, investing in politics of big events, leads to selective implementation of short-term urban projects that lack appropriate speculation and coordination. As a result, the new host city developments and infrastructures are related to the visitor class, due to time pressure which results in prioritization of projects for image-building rather than for citizens. All in all, the phenomenon of “Disneyfication of cities” (Roost, 2000) is vastly witnessed, as the urban policies are being “festivalized”; public space is eliminated due to the fact that urban design is being subject to consumption and leisure.

The Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, was not a different case. From the late 1990s until 2010, Athens was completely transformed from an economic, as well as an urban point of view. “Olympic Athens” was the result of the Olympic projects along with other massive infrastructural projects that took place in the same period. The major projects that were realized during those years; the new Venizelos Athens International Airport by Hochtief Construction Company, the new 65 km Attiki Odos toll highway, the new Metrolines and a new Tram line, the new archaeological park which joined the dispersed major archaeological sites of Attica, various sports venues along with the Olumpic Park landmark by Santiago Calatrava, transformed Athens into a modern, diffused metrolopitan area. Apart from the sports venues, other new large scale objects of consumption and culture appeared in the periphery of the Olympic infrastructures- several shopping malls, the new Benaki Museum and the new Acropolis Museum by Bernard Tschumi. The high employment rates that followed the former construction projects, together with the banners, urban art installations and happenings heralding the unique event generated an atmosphere of optimism in which citizens intermingled in a new spirit of communality. This served to cover the problems and tensions arising from an increasing and uncontrolled influx of immigrants, which made the Athenian identity more obscure than ever before.

Olympic Athens marked the beginning of a new diffused urban landscape in Athens and the wider Attica region. Large scale interventions and ruptures in the form of a new dense network infrastructure were superimposed on the homogeneous, ever-expanding layer of the Athenian polykatoikias. This was an initial step towards an infrastructural city, one based on networks and not on architecture and urban design. The new mobility provided by the various networks and the easy credit offered by the banks that operated within a growing and rather uncontrolled economy, quickly led to the development of a consumer culture. In the years following the Olympic Games of 2004, new, ever-larger places of consumption sprang up on large plots of relatively cheap land along or near the networks on the edge of the city, or along the city-center axes linking Athens to the sea, replacing the small to medium scale neighborhood retail and leisure businesses. During the post-Olympic years, the state’s interest in the public spaces inherited from the Games quickly faded. The vast Olympic Park, the Hellenikon site and the Faliron Waterfront zone, are particularly inaccessible and abandoned; city center public spaces shared the same fate. The neglect was compounded by the rapid and uncontrolled influx of illegal immigrants, which smuggled across Greece’s extensive coastline, a border practically impossible to police. The immigrant population landed straight onto the city’s squares and streets, making these spaces increasingly dirty and rough, places of peddling, homelessness, drug-dealing and prostitution. Thus, public space was eliminated and extensively interiorized in the private retail buildings that were dispersed in the Attica region.

The new consumerist culture which was established by the easy bank loans during that period, seemed untouched by the ominous signs regarding the future of the global economy sent by the collapse of the Lehman Brothers in the fall of 2008. A year later, however, the revealing of the Greek debt crisis signaled the burst of the Greek economy bubble and led to the country’s affiliation to the EU-IMF rescue mechanism. The rapid deterioration of all financial data, especially the dramatic rise of unemployment and the shrinking of the population’s consumption capacity, as well as the state’s continuing inability to control the unceasing  immigration influx, accelerated the decline of city center public space and led to a sharp increase of crime and petty crime , while the repeated demonstrations against the applied austerity measures led to recurring clashes with the police  and the severe destruction of buildings and public spaces. In this new landscape of economic recession, the new city, a hybrid of the modernist Athens and the post-Olympic heterogeneous infrastructural city based on  the recent mobility networks, the phenomena of   fragmentation, spatial segregation and socioeconomic inequalities among the Athenian citizens, extend beyond all imagination, especially compared to the expectations that were cultivated during the Olympic Games period.

There was a global economic crisis in 1929 as a consequence Wall Street Crash. It affected newly founded Turkish Republic as it did rest of the world. Private companies and capitals were weak in power. The industrial development was held by the state. State owned factories were built in throughout Turkey and railroad network to connect them were expanded. Despite the limited resources of the period, the transportation network of Istanbul was growing also, until they asked a French urban planner called Henry Prost to make a new urban plan for Istanbul. Henry Prost planned to turn pedestrian oriented city into a more car oriented one. The States which just got out from the WW2 was also supporting this urban plan with financial aid. Eventually all of the tram network were replaced by motorways. During this transformation many of the historic buildings-some of them even dating back from Byzantine times-were wiped off from the world. Industrialisation had a huge impact on working class. The mechanisation of agriculture throughout the country left the farmers without work. In the meantime, Istanbul was packed with private factories. People who used to be farmers couldn’t function in this set up. So they became the cheep labor for these factories. There was a silent agreement between social classes. Neither the state nor the bosses of factories provided housing for the labourers. Instead of this, they were letting the workers to invade empty lots and build their home there illegally. In 1973 the first bridge on the Bosphorus which connects the Asian and European side was opened. This led illegal settlements to flourish more than ever. Motorway traffic went up 6 times in 15 years.

In the 70s, Turkish government adapted Latin American Economic Model, in other words a model called Neoliberalism. Public services were privatised, all of the savings and gains were sold to private investors. Municipality budgets were increased drastically. The state authorised a special law for the owners of the illegal houses. If the shanties were converted into apartments, the state would accept them as legal. This law shift the existing classes. Lower class labourers became the middle class, who own the apartments for the newly coming immigrants from the eastern Turkey. In 1988 second bridge on Bosphorus was opened. This reinforced even more the motorisation of the city. This time not only illegal houses were emerging but also gated communities and shopping malls for the rich were invading the last forest areas of the city.

1990s for Istanbul was about competing “global cities”. Neoliberalism model widened the income gap between the rich and the poor. The industry moved to the outskirts of the city to explore cheap labor there. Thus, turning the city into a consumer heaven, inhabited by only service sector workers. In the beginning of 2000s Istanbul was officially being marketed to foreign and local investors. The state’s housing administration and the municipalities were provided with special laws which enabled them to sell the abandoned industrial areas, public schools, hospitals and lower class labourer neighbourhoods to domestic and foreign capital owners. The workers were pushed out to isolated islands of poverty in the periphery of the city and they became the service workers of the new “global city”.

With the 3rd bridge on the Bosphorus which is currently under construction and other future bridges, Istanbul will turn into an ever expanding city without any limits, lacking of water reservoirs, forests or any public common spaces.

Istanbul’s story is not a unique one. In China Hangzhou, Portugal-Lisbon citizens had to suffer from the same causes. They’re all fast growing cities which want to be a “global city”. Large amount of shopping malls, international banks, large investments, concentrated wealth are all futures which are common for these cities. However these so called “developments” are happening all for a cost. New forces of investments are pushing away the very own people who built the city centre, from the city centre to periphery. People are expulsed with force from towns they lived for hundreds of years. Can you plan a “global city” ? Can a “global city” be planned separate from all of the country ? There you find the starting point of all the problems. Only Istanbul is invested, only Istanbul is developed.

Ayazma is a small neighbourhood in Istanbul, mostly a shantytown. Even though it is small, it is a living example of global neoliberal policies. With Ayazma example, we see how cities become a place for economic speculations, how land become something with material value. This area without any infrastructure and state services at the periphery of the city, turned valuable after the olympic stadium was built. Before it was too far from site, neglected. Suddenly it became valuable and the inhabitants are forced to migrate. The area is planned to be turned into luxurious gated community housing area. The whole transformation of the area is based on architectural drawings that claim to make things “better”. However it is not enough. All human beings have right to shelter, although it is not clear in our constitution. So as a result, politicians and capital owners can manipulate this gap in the system however they want, avoiding people’s right to access healthy environment, education, transportation and privacy. Many of the children of the victims of urban renewal projects can no longer attend to school because of the demolitions. They don’t have anywhere to call home or any money, so children work to bring more money to their family. The problem is basic. It lies on the simple economic actions of the state. All of the production, industry is concentrated in metropolitan city of Istanbul. The factories and the large farms opened in the first decades of republic throughout the country are now abandoned. There are so many fertile lands to grow sugar, tobacco, sunflower etc which now stay idle. If there were jobs in Anatolia, if there were factories there, why would people leave their hometown behind and come to Istanbul with maximum wage of 200 Euros ?

Global actors look for a place to invest, they look for a land; because they can do things easier in Turkey than they do in their countries because of their democratic processes. This enables them to make mega investments, drastic construction executions. Can you build a hotel in Central Park ? They did in Istanbul. A city needs to breath. A city needs rain water to meet with soil. We think in Turkey, building underground parking under green parks is a sign of high civilisation level. We think bulldozing natural greenery and erecting huge concrete blocks instead and putting plants on their balconies is a sign of advancement. We build houses in natural forest areas and making artificial lakes from the underground water. We live in concrete Faraday cages. Sooner to later this city will eat up its inhabitants.

I would like to talk about more on the social housing model which our state adopted. Since the WW2, the model of capitalistic accumulation was based on mass production and mass consumption. This growth engine functioned for several decades and lead to European welfare states. In order to limit the costs of labor force and to provide housing for them, “mass housing construction” was invented. This mass housing was only composed of residential areas. They were all isolated and separate from other aspects of life such as leisure, consumption etc. This model was criticised in Europe in 70s. Because it led to inhumane dwelling conditions without any social interaction space provided. That’s why we cannot solve the shantytown issues like the one in Ayazma-Istanbul, by rapidly constructed, poor quality buildings. Because shantytowns are not an urban issue but rather a social problem. However this is what is proposed or more likely imposed on eviction victims. They are expulsed because of the urban renewal projects and forced to live in basic tenement buildings which are concentrated concrete blocks, far from their jobs (which they earn money just enough to live day by day), isolated and without any social interaction space. We know from the history of the cities, this model failed a long time ago. Today these kinds of social housings are bombed down. Undoubtedly within 20 years these social housings built in Istanbul will generate serious problems and they are going to be bombed down as well for a high economic and social price. This model divides Istanbul based on economical classes. They take the poor from the city centre under the act of “urban renewal projects”, rich people settle to city centre and the poor is forced to live in the outskirts of the city, far from site. So the policies divides the rich and the poor further apart not only socially but also physically. Now it is almost impossible in Istanbul to see different economic/social classes to interact in public sphere. The state’s acts divided people as “us” and “them”. People now are afraid of their maids. This is risky in terms of peace in the city and coexistence of different cultures and classes.  City is also for the poor. City must provide habitation for all.

Now what is left ? The ecological, population and economic levels have been surpassed. Where will this lead us ? Obviously to chaos… This system clearly is not working. The cost for the humanity is too much. The rich’s income level is getting higher with this system and this is good.  But more important is the distribution of that income level. Because in fact level of advancement is measured by the latter concept. However it seems that the state won’t change this model in near future. So the citizens have to protect their own living spaces. We create our own cities. But in turn these spaces we create also create us. So we have to build cities what we aspire to be as humans.

Apparently, Moscow is expanding. On June 17, 2011 Dmitry Medvedev proposed to expand Moscow’s borders and to create a new Moscow federal district (Al-Jazerra 2011). Shortly after, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that the city’s territory would be expanded by more than two
times (by 144,000 hectares or 356,000 acres). In August 2011, a draft proposal for Moscow’s expanded borders was released, and in January of
2012 the contestants announced of an international competition to propose
a development concept for the new federal district (Al Jazerra 2011). This decision – in essence, an attempt to find a tabula rasa to build a ‘new city’ – is declared publically to be aimed at easing the dependency on the core of central Moscow (relieving the center of the city) by creating new financial and moving governmental functions in the new territory as incentives for the development of workplaces.

Although in the past Moscow has expanded to its infrastructural boundaries radially (firstly from the Boulevard Ring to MKAD ring road in 1961), the new administrative region of Moscow city will not expand to the next ring road (the CKAD; currently under construction); nor have the authorities proposed to merge Moscow City with Moscow Region. Instead,new boundaries were drawn to new borders to the southwest of the existing Moscow City territory. According to the Moscow City Government website, the southern and southwestern outskirts were chosen in part because they comprise “a relatively weakly urbanised sector of the Moscow region” (Moscow City Government 2011), counting some 250,000 people. Essentially, the redrawn borders were

More than 50% of the population lives now in cities, this number is expected to rise to two thirds by the year of 2050 according to UN-Habitat project. Cities has an important role in the recognition of sustainable development since the majority of the world’s economic activity is concentrate in urban areas. Each city designs its spaces, buildings and infrastructures in a certain pattern that shapes its urban life and its economic activities. These patterns that the developing cities follow affects the world’s economies, energy use and climate change. Developing green economies at the city scale requires the implementation of sustainable patterns for urban development and supportive city planning. New approaches is essential to be integrated in the urbanization process.
One of the significant approaches that a city can adapt to develop green economies is to create patterns in its land that can provide large green patches and more sustainable urban development. Landscape ecologies always search and analyze the patterns that can give optimal results for both people and natural systems. Richard Forman explained in his book “Land Mosaic”1995 landscape ecologies principles. He stated the two patterns of the urban growth that results favorable sustainable approach.
The ‘satellite cities’ and ‘compact concentric zone’ models of development are the patterns that gives an optimal result. Generally these patterns has a greater number of large patches and areas of green spaces for ecosystems.

Satellite cities is an approach that is being adapted in many developing cites to build a sustainable landscape ecology. In India, the government agreed to develop 35 new satellite townships that will have approximately million – plus population along Gurgaon and Noida. The plan of the city is to provide the accommodation of at least 40% of India’s population in 2012 in Urban India. The intention of implementing such a pattern is to create cities with adequate economic actives that are linked to the major cities around them forming a continuous participation of urban development and activities.
The other pattern explored by Richard Forman that can attain also an optimal result of green urban development, ‘compact concentric zone’, represents a model in which the city is divided in a set of concentric circles expanding from the downtown to the suburbs. Transportation routes and a hierarchy of nodes connects the population center. This model is presented by Burgess in 1925, it was formed from his observations of a number of Americas Cities.
Other patterns of urban growth that leads to less optimal results is the urban sprawl. Urban sprawls represents the spatial expansion of the urbanized areas of a city through time. This model frequently creates communities with heavy automobile usage resulting GHG emissions and infrastructure costs. It is one of the least attractive designs because it conserve fewer patches of land for ecosystems. It mainly occurs in wealthy market economies with rapid population growth where rich people tend to move to big lots on the outskirts of the cities and they will travel by car every day. This will cause environmental and economic drawbacks for city. It will cause extreme traffic in the main transportation nodes and in some cases like the city of Cairo, the settlements resulting from the urban sprawl is disturbing the agriculture land. At present 81 percent of informal units in Greater Cairo sit on privately owned agricultural land. Since 1982 the Government has sought to redirect urban growth out of the Nile Valley into satellite commu¬nities on the adjacent desert area. To this end the Government has prohibited the conversion of private agricultural land to urban uses while investing heavily in housing and infrastructure in desert areas. These measures have been partly success¬ful in meeting goals. Between 1995 and 2007, for example, developers urbanized 110 km2 of desert land, but at the same time 55 km2 of dwindling agri¬cultural lands were urbanized as well. Furthermore, development on desert land brings its own share of challenges, including the sustainable provision of potable water. (UN-Habitat 2010c).
Another pattern that creates undesirable economic activities is the uncontrolled development along transportation corridors. This pattern is very common in all the world, it contributes to a high number of traffic fatalities that arises every year, and most of them take place in low-and middle income countries. This kind of pattern disturbs the natural ecology of land, such as the waterway and it also increases the risk of natural disasters such as the landslides and floods.
Selecting a pattern that will be the ground in which the urban growth will follow is very vital to achieve a sustainable economic. Fortunately, with proper urban planning we can preserve the ecosystem and create a sustainable development while accommodating population and economic growth.
Another pattern that can be adapted to achieve a sustainable economy is the development of compact cities and preplanned extensions of urban areas. This approach provides relatively high residential density with mixed land uses. It is established on an efficient public transport system and has an urban layout which encourages walking and cycling, low energy consumption and reduced pollution. Compact cities also encourages the input sharing and knowledge spillovers. Besides that compact cities yield economic savings in constructing and operating infrastructure and in the urban services. In addition that, compact cities has a lower consumption of energy and emission of greenhouse gases compared to sprawling cities.One of the reason for this difference is the amount of traffic distance in the sprawling cities.
To obtain a sustainable development it is preferred that the growth of the compact cities happens around the public transportation network to minimize the emission of greenhouse gases and to reduce the use of private vehicles.
Significant challenges remain to achiev¬ing green economic development in the cities, including, firstly, a set of hurdles related to governance. Few sub-national authorities correspond to the natural economic boundaries of a city. Within an urban region, officials may establish specialized agencies either to address a specific environmental issue such as air pollution or to promote economic development. If cities are to continue to benefit from agglomeration advantages in the face of planetary crises, it is the responsibility of all city stakeholders to work together to pursue these goals as a matter of urgency.

http://mirror.unhabitat.org/documents/SOAC10/SOAC-PR1-en.pdf

https://books.google.es/books?id=PN-gBxsW3q4C&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=%28UN-Habitat+2010c%29+cairo&source=bl&ots=dXsCyjaMf4&sig=VlCTqZbi_1CShWl_YuJGlJD1apo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JuuTVMnYI4Xiau6wguAH&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://books.google.es/books?id=WkiJEquhzG4C&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=urban+patterns+for+sustainable+development&source=bl&ots=r–vtNVAb4&sig=NjhJSPs9Z6LNv6LaeL4XkO1LFgg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=b–TVMX_HIqxaei_gegE&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=urban%20patterns%20for%20sustainable%20development&f=false