THE FUTURE OF URBAN QUALITY

IN EUROPE:

Towards a New European

Urban Systems

Concept and Strategy

by Franco Archibugi

Planning Studies Centre - 1998

[also available in Italian]

The results of a research study carried out for the European Commission under the direction of:

FRANCO ARCHIBUGI

With the participation of:

ROBERTO CAMAGNI, ROBERTA CAPELLO, ANNALISA CICERCHIA, PHILIP COOKE, MARTIN DAVIES, HELGE DELION, MARTIN FRIEND, ELEONORE IRMEN, JOSEPH KING, NATHANIEL LICHFIELD, CHRISTINE MOISSINAC, MARGIT MOLDER, KARL PETER SCHON, THIERRY VILMIN, and others

As members of the teams of:

Alphaville, Paris

Bundesforschungsanstalt fur Landeskunde und Raumordnung, Bonn

Centre for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Cardiff

Centro per gli Studi Economici, Milan

Dalia and Nathaniel Lichfield Associates, London

Planning Studies Centre, Rome

This book was born as a research report for the European Commission developing a meta-disciplinary approach to planning. The research was carried out by the Planning Studies Centre, a research institution founded in 1963 in Rome.

As will be explained more fully in Chapter 1, the research was done within the framework of a programme targeted to developing insights into the future of urban organisation and city planning in Europe.

These insights have been gained through the analysis of the issues of land use and the organisation of urban land in four European countries: France, Germany, Great Britain and Italy. These countries occupy a crucial and meaningful part of the European Union territory.

The research and analysis of these issues have been carried out with the help of the following group of research institutions from the four countries:

- France - Alphaville, a research team strongly engaged in French urban research, promoted by the Delegation à la ville of the French government;

- Germany - a special team of the Bundesforshungsanstalt fur Landeskunde und Raumordnung (BfLR), a historic federal institution in the field of regional analysis and spatial planning;

- Great Britain - a mixed contribution by Dalia & Nathaniel Lichfield Associates (DNLA), a well known consulting team in the field of integrated planning (headed by Nathaniel Lichfield, Emeritus Professor of University College, London), and the Centre for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (CASS) of the University of Wales (directed by Philip Cooke);

- Italy - a team from the Planning Studies Centre (PSC) in Rome in co-operation with the Centro per gli Studi Economici (CSE) of Milan (directed by Roberto Camagni).

The present volume contains only the “general” report of the above mentioned research (written by myself as the co-ordinator of the research), and not the “national” reports written by each of the institutions participating in the research (although it would also be desirable for these national reports to find an autonomous publication, given their special interest). It should be pointed out, however, that even the national reports (in their content, analysis, and procedure) have been based on a rigid scheme that comes from the research proposal itself, submitted to the European Commission by the Planning Studies Centre. In other words, the research was strongly "targeted" in its objectives and its method.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 THE RESEARCH GOALS AND GENERAL FRAMEWORK

1. Introduction: The Programme Goals

2. A Critical Aspect of the Approach to the City Action RDT Programme: Their Interdependence

CHAPTER 2 THE RESEARCH SUBJECTS, APPROACHES, AND OPERATIONS

1.The Main Problems and Challenges to Be Faced

1.1 The Emergent Problems from the Conflict of Different Objectives of Urban Development

1.2 The Problems of the Urban Environment

1.3 The Role of the City-Effect

1.4 Larger Cities and Medium and Small Sized Cities

2. The Approach to the Objectives of an Urban Policy

2.1 The Two Objectives of Any Urban Policy: City Effect and Liveability

2.2 The Interdependency Between the Two Policies

2.3 The Typical Strategy for the Great Cities (LC Type)

2.4 The Typical Strategy for Medium and Small Sized cities (SMC Type)

3. Dossier of Parameters for the Urban Policy

3.1 The Need to Provide the Two Strategies (of the Urban Policy) with Greater Cognitive Instruments

3.2 The Necessary Cognitive Instruments Postulated

3.3 The Suggested Approach: To Search for the Optimal Centrality

4. The Content and Procedures of the Main Operations Carried Out by the Research

4.1 The First Research Operation: To Select Urban Indicators

4.2 The Second Research Operation: Empirical Verification of the Selected Urban Indicators

4.3 The Third Research Operation: Definition of the Operational Framework of the Urban Policy

CHAPTER 3 SPECIFYING THE CONTENTS OF OPTIMAL CENTRALITY

1. The Definition of the Contents of the Optimal Centrality and of Their Constituting Parameters

1.1 The Demographic Component

1.2 Frequency of Use of Superior Urban Services

1.3 The Accessibility to Superior Urban Services

1.4 Sufficient Public Spaces

1.5 A Mix of Fundamental Spatial Functions

1.6 Urban Structure and Morphology

1.7 The Communications Network

2. The Expected Results in Terms of Articulation of Optimal Centralities in the Four Countries Studied

2.1 Examination of the Urban Framework Situations

2.2 Distribute in the Territory a Reorganisation of the Centralities

2.3 Strategy of Urban Transport to Be Adopted in Each of the Urban Systems Designed

3. The Optimal Centrality as a Guideline for a New Urban Policy

CHAPTER 4 SPECIFYING THE CONCEPT OF DECISION STRUCTURED APPROACH

1. The Determinant Factors of "Optimal Centrality"

2. Descriptive vs. Decision-Structured Approach

3. Focus and Generalisations

4. The European City and Its Problems as Reference

CHAPTER 5 SPECIFYING THE CONCEPT OF URBAN SYSTEM

1. The Systemic Approach to the City

2. The Pitfalls of a "Systemic Approach" to the City

3. The Appropriate Spatial Unit of Evaluation and Planning

4. A Pragmatic Approach to the Urban System Concept

CHAPTER 6 THE SEARCH FOR THE INDICATORS

1. The Process of Indicator Building: City Effect

2. The Process of Indicator Building: Overload

3. The Relevant Phenomena for the Definition of City Effect and Overload Indicators

3.1 City Effect

3.2 Overload Effects

3.3 Other Relevant Phenomena for City Effect

3.4 Other Relevant Phenomena for Overload Effect

4. The Debate on Optimal Centrality

5. Towards a "Core List" of City Effect and Overload Indicators

CHAPTER7

LIFESTYLES, STANDARDS, AND PLANNING

1. Planning and the Change of Lifestyles

2. Standards

CHAPTER 8 MEASURING THE QUALITY OF URBAN LIFE IN A SAMPLE OF EUROPEAN CITIES

1. France

1.1 The Cities

1.2 Methodology

1.3 Summary Results

2. Germany

2.1 The Cities

2.2 Methodology

2.3 Summary Results

3. Italy

3.1 The Cities

3.2 Methodology

3.3 Summary Results

4. United Kingdom

4.1 The Cities

4.2 Methodology

4.3 Summary Results

CHAPTER 9 MEASURING THE QUALITY OF URBAN LIFE:

SOME ECONOMETRIC AND STATISTICAL APPROACHES

1. A French Study

1.1 Methodology

1.2 Analysis of the French Data

1.3 Conclusions of the French Study

2. A German Study

2.1 Methodology

2.2 The Significance of the Influence of Urban Scale on City Effect and Urban Load Indicators

2.3 Generalisation of City Effect and Urban Load

2.4 Conclusions of the German Study

3. An Italian Study

3.1 Methodology

3.2 Analysis of the Italian Data

3.3 Conclusions of the Italian Study

4. Conclusions

CHAPTER 10 TOWARDS A LIST OF OPTIMAL CENTRALITY INDICATORS

1. France

1.1 Indicator Elaboration

2. Germany

2.1 City Effect Indices

2.2 Urban Load Indices

2.3 Selected City Effect Indicators

2.4 Selected Urban Load Indicators

2.5 Indicator Elaboration

3. Italy

3.1 City Effect Indicators

3.2 Urban Overload Indicators

3.3 Indicator Elaboration

4. United Kingdom

4.1 Indicator Elaboration

4.2 City Effect Indicators

4.3 Overload Indicators

5. City Effect and urban overloading: a proposed list of indicators and standards

CHAPTER 11 GENERAL LINES OF A EUROPEAN URBAN SYSTEMS POLICY

1. The Theory of Town Planning as a Foundation of Urban Systems Policy

2. The Presuppositions and Significance of a National and European Urban Systems Policy

3. Converging Uniform Criteria and Goals of Urban Systems Policy

4. National Experiences in the Direction of the Constitution of a "Framework of Territorial Reference"

CHAPTER 12 THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE MODERN CITY (URBAN SYSTEM)

1. The Definition of the Requirements of the City

2. Size Requirements

3. Internal Accessibility Requirements

4. Economic Integration and Pluralism of Activities

5. Ecological Equilibrium Requirements

6. The Perceptible (Aesthetic or Historical-Cultural) Image

7. The Nature and Quality of "Superior" Urban Services

CHAPTER 13 A PROPOSED TYPOLOGY FOR THE NEW URBAN SYSTEMS

1. Taxonomy of the Urban Systems as Support to the Work of Identification and Proposal

2. The "Structure" of Urban Systems

3. The "Form" of Urban Systems

4. The "Quality" of the Urban Systems

5. Typology According to Plan Strategy

6. The Strategy as Interdependency

CHAPTER 14 A TENTATIVE SCENARIO OF SPATIAL REORGANISATION

(BY URBAN SYSTEM) IN THE FOUR COUNTRIES STUDIED

1. Premise: Meaning and Limits of the Formulated Scenario of Urban Reorganisation

2. The Structural and Morphological Diversity of the Urban Framework Inherited from the Past in the Four Countries Studied

3 The Proposed Territorial Reorganisation in Its Historical National Context

3.1 The French Case

3.2 The British Case

3.3 The German Case

3.4 The Italian Case

4. The Scenario of Urban Territorial Reorganisation

4.1 The French Scenario

4.2 The German Scenario

4.3 The British Scenario

4.4 The Italian Scenario

CHAPTER 15 THE STRATEGIES FOR THE CREATION OF NEW URBAN SYSTEMS

1. Appropriate Strategies for each Urban System Typology

2. The Strategy of Polarisation

3. The Strategy of Depolarisation

4. The Strategy of Rationalisation

5. The Character of Interdependency of the Strategies

CHAPTER 16 THE IMPLEMENTATION POLICIES OF THE URBAN SYSTEMS

1. The Implementation Policies and Traditional Town Planning

2. Guidelines for Implementation Policies of Urban Systems

3. The Promotion of the Urban Image and Identity

4. The Satisfaction of the Needs for "Superior" Urban Services

5. The Rational Location of New Residences and Building Structures

6. The Creation of "System" Urban Transport

CHAPTER 17 THE FUNCTIONAL COMPONENTS FOR THE PLANNING OF THE NEW URBAN SYSTEMS

1. Functions and "Parts" of the Territory

2. Area and Delimitation

3. "Free" Areas and "Intensive" Areas

3.1 The "Intensive" Area

3.2 The "Free" Area

4. The "Load-bearing" Axis" and its "Halo"

5. The "Supporting Directrices"

6. The "Centralities" and the "Services" Nuclei

7. Special Sub-systemic Structures (of Environmental or Historical-Cultural or Mixed Recovery)

CHAPTER 18 CRITERIA AND STRATEGIC GUIDELINES FOR A DESIGN OF URBAN TRANSPORT

AT THE SCALE OF EACH URBAN SYSTEM

1. The Relationship "Land Use/Transport and the Urban Systems

2. Criteria and Standards of a System Urban Transport Policy

3. The Design of an "Aimed Infrastructure" for the System Urban Transport

4. Other Design Criteria for the Urban Transport System of the System

5. The Logical Organisation of the Policy-Oriented Scenarios of the Relationship Land Use/Transportation at an Inter-Systemic Scale