Table Of ContentUrban Villages and the
Making of Communities
Edited by Peter Neal
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2003 by Spon Press
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Spon Press
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Spon Press is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
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© 2003 Selection, editorial matter and case studies: The Prince’s
Foundation; individual chapters: the contributors
© 2003 Foreword, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Urban Villages and the making of communities/edited by Peter Neal.
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. City planning. 2. Community Development, Urban. I. Neal, Peter,
1963
HT166.U7457 2003
307.1′216–dc21
ISBN 0-203-40277-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-40933-7 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-32124-7 (hb)
ISBN 0-415-26273-9 (pb)
Contents
Foreword HRH The Prince of Wales v
Notes on contributors vii
Acknowledgements xii
Illustration acknowledgements xiv
Introduction
An urban village primer 2
Peter Neal
Authentic urbanism and the Jane Jacobs legacy 25
Roberta Brandes Gratz
Part One The context for urban villages
Introduction 45
1 Smart growth on two continents 48
Peter Hall
2 Planning for sustainable communities 71
David Lock
3 Emerging digital neighbourhoods 95
William J.Mitchell
Part Two Design principles for urban villages
Introduction 119
4 Neighbourhood design in practice 122
Andrés Duany
5 Connectivity and movement 149
David Taylor
6 The social dynamic 175
Ken Worpole
iv
Part Three Implementing urban villages
Mike Hollingsworth, Ben Denton and Chris Brown
Introduction 194
7 Project identification 197
8 Project procurement 221
9 Project management 259
Afterword 280
David Lunts
Part Four A compendium of case studies
Introduction 289
Urban retrofit and infill
1 The Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham 291
2 Little Germany, Bradford 297
3 Temple Bar, Dublin 303
4 King-Spadina, Toronto 310
Urban renewal and brownfield
5 The Pearl District, Portland 316
6 Crown Street, Glasgow 322
7 Bo01 Housing Expo, Malmö 330
8 Llandarcy South Wales 336
Urban extension and greenfield
9 Upton, Northampton 341
10 Poundbury, Dorset 347
11 Kirchsteigfeld, Potsdam 353
12 Newington, Sydney 359
References 365
Index 375
ST. JAMES’S PALACE
Many have been inspired by the notion of the village in the city, not least by
the example of London, with its numerous historic settlements, each congealing
over time into a single metropolis, yet retaining a distinctive sense of locality and
place. It was this characteristic—and the desire to see a revival of the principles
behind it in relation to our built environment—which led me, some fifteen years
ago, to start persuading people to think in terms of an urban village. This was an
oxymoron I suppose, but a concept that nevertheless conjures a vision of
neighbourhood, of conviviality and character, within an urban environment on a
far broader scale than the rural village. It is a notion with a universal appeal,
reflected in terms like quartier in France, or neighbourhood in the United States,
suggesting a timeless and human scale to urban development, a form of urban
planning that has a fresh relevance in the modern world.
The original Urban Villages Forum, a group of planning, architectural and
property experts that we brought together, took this idea and examined how it
may offer clues for a new generation of urban planners. In a series of visits
which I initiated and sometimes led, they began to look carefully at some of the
outstanding examples of historic urbanism—in places like London’s
Clerkenwell, Edinburgh’s New Town, Charleston, South Carolina and parts of
Paris. The group, under the chairmanship of Trevor Osborne, produced a book,
entitled ‘Urban Villages’ published in 1992, that I’m afraid was greeted by many
professionals as well-intentioned, but rather naïve! Yet the years since its
publication have challenged some of the sceptics and, indeed, have brought the
term urban village into common use. I am pleased to see that the concept now
even enjoys favour in many official planning policies. The original Urban
Villages Forum has developed into a highly regarded projects team, and a
network of practitioners, that spans the United Kingdom and beyond. The Forum
is now incorporated within my own charitable Prince’s Foundation where it
works with national, regional and local organisations to bring about examples of
the urban village in practical projects, some of which are featured in the pages that
follow.
This welcome renewal of interest in many of the features of the urban village,
has particularly focused on the need for more mixed developments, for a more
vi
efficient use of land and on the need for the imaginative regeneration of many
areas of urban dereliction and blight. On greenfield sites, too, there has also been
a keen interest in using the urban village as a model for the sensitive and
sustainable extension of historic towns where development pressure cannot be
met on brownfield sites alone. My own efforts, on land owned by the Duchy of
Cornwall at Poundbury, on the edge of Dorchester, have proved that it is
perfectly possible, both technically and commercially, once again to build places
that can stand proudly alongside some of the finest historic settlements; places
that will not become blots on either our landscapes or townscapes, and where
factories and shops can be happily interspersed with homes for rent and sale,
along streets that are shared by pedestrians and vehicles. And, of course, it is
important to remember that one of the most crucial, underlying features of the
urban village is that it is designed with the pedestrian, not the car, as the primary
priority.
This new book brings together some of the keenest minds and most creative
practitioners to explore both the theory of the urban village and its practical
application. I am extremely pleased that it is able to include contributions not
just from the United Kingdom, but also from the United States where the New
Urbanism’ is so successfully showing how the principles behind the urban
village can help prevent sprawl and regenerate neglected cities. My thanks go to
all the contributors.
I am also very grateful to Spon Press, the publishers of this collection, and to
Clear Channel Communications who have generously sponsored the book. I
hope that it serves to stimulate not just discussion, but also practical project work
that can help to establish the wholesale revival in traditional, or sustainable,
urbanism that is so desperately overdue if we are to design urban habitats fit for
the future.
Notes on contributors
Peter Neal
Peter Neal is a landscape architect and urban designer specializing in urban
regeneration and the public realm. Initially trained at Manchester University,
he completed a Master’s degree in Landscape Planning and Ecology at
Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He has worked with several
design consultancies, including The ROMA Design Group in San Francisco
and EDAW in London. He completed work on this book as part of a research
post with The Prince’s Foundation in which he looked at best practice in
mixed-use urban development and regeneration. He currently manages the
Enabling and Delivery Team of Cabe Space, part of the Commission for
Architecture and the Built Environment.
Roberta Brandes Gratz
Roberta Brandes Gratz is an award-winning journalist and urban critic,
lecturer and author of The Living City: Thinking Small in a Big Way, and
Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for Downtown. She is an international
lecturer on urban development issues and former award-winning reporter for
the New York Post. In 2001, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund published her
report, A Frog, A Wooden House, A Stream and A Trail: Ten Years of
Community Revitalization in Central Europe, which she is now converting
into a full-length book. She is a native and resident of New York City and her
articles have appeared in numerous publications including the Wall Street
Journal, New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Tikkun, Planning Magazine,
New York Newsday, the Daily News and the Planning Commissioners Journal.
She was a member of the New York Governor’s and Mayor’s Task Force on
Planning Manhattan’s West Side Highway and Waterfront. She founded the
Eldridge Street Project to restore the first synagogue on Manhattan’s Lower
East Side built by East European Jews and has been appointed by Mayor
Bloomberg as one of 11 commissioners on the NYC Landmarks Preservation
Commission.
Peter Hall
Peter Hall is Professor of Planning at the Bartlett School of Architecture and
Planning, University College London, and Director of the Institute of
viii
Community Studies. From 1991 to 1994 he was Special Adviser on Strategic
Planning to the Secretary of State for the Environment. In 1998–99 he was a
member of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Urban Task Force. He received his
Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Cambridge and has taught
at the London School of Economics, served as Dean of the Faculty of Urban
and Regional Studies, University of Reading (1968–88) and was Professor
Emeritus of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at
Berkeley (1980– 92). He is author or editor of more than 30 books on urban
and regional planning and related topics. He has received the Founder’s Medal
of the Royal Geographical Society for distinction in research, is an honorary
member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and was knighted in 1998 for
services to the Town and Country Planning Association.
David Lock
David Lock is chairman and managing director of David Lock Associates Ltd,
a practice of planners and urban designers in Milton Keynes and Melbourne,
Australia. He is also chairman of DLA Architects Practice Ltd and a director of
Integrated Transport Planning Ltd and of Rapid Transport International Plc.
He was Chief Planning Adviser (half-time) to the Department of the
Environment from 1994 to 1997, and is Visiting Professor in the Centre of
Planning Studies at Reading University’s School of Business. He is chairman
of the Town and Country Planning Association and chair of the environmental
education charity City Discovery based in Milton Keynes. He also acts as an
expert adviser on regional planning and transport strategies in Northern
Ireland.
William J.Mitchell
William J.Mitchell is Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences,
Head of the Media Arts and Sciences Program and Dean of the School of
Architecture and Planning at MIT. He teaches courses and conducts research
in design theory, computer applications in architecture and urban design, and
imaging and image synthesis. A Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of
Architects, he has taught previously at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design
and at UCLA. His publications include City of Bits, E-topia, and the
forthcoming Me ++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City, all published by
the MIT Press. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects
and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Andrés Duany
Andrés Duany is a principal of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., a leading
organization in the New Urbanism that seeks to end suburban sprawl and
urban disinvestment. DPZ first received recognition as the designers of
Seaside, Florida, and have since completed designs for over 200 new towns,
regional plans and community revitalization projects. Andrés Duany received
his undergraduate degree in architecture and urban planning from Princeton
University and studied for a year at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris before
ix
completing a Master’s degree in architecture from the Yale School of
Architecture. He has received honorary doctorates from Rollins College and
the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the Brandeis Award for
Architecture, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Medal of Architecture from the
University of Virginia and the Vincent Scully Award from the National
Building Museum. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and
a founder and a member of the board of directors of the Congress for the New
Urbanism.
David Taylor
David Taylor is a partner of Alan Baxter & Associates. He leads project work
on urban design, transport and movement, with a particular interest in
advancing the creative engineering and holistic approach that the practice
brings to projects. He has led the authorship of many publications on urban
design, including Places, Streets and Movement, a companion guide to Design
Bulletin 32, which was the first guide published as part of the government’s
integrated transport campaign. Its aim is to promote developments in which
the design and layout encourage people to walk, cycle or travel by public
transport rather than use the car. Paving the Way, published in 2002 by the
Commission for Architecture in the Built Environment, highlights the
impediments to achieving successful streetscapes in urban environments and
sets out 12 action points for the future. David Taylor’s team has also
contributed the engineering aspect to The Urban Design Compendium and
Better Places to Live. The principles established within this work on strategic
guidance are taken through to the many projects that the practice is dealing
with in the UK and Europe.
Ken Worpole
Ken Worpole is one of Britain’s most influential writers on urban and social
policy, and the author of many seminal books and reports. He has travelled
and lectured extensively in Europe and Australia. In 1999 he was awarded an
honorary doctorate by Middlesex University for his work on social policy. He
has worked as an independent researcher and writer and has been principally
associated with two leading research and policy think tanks in the UK,
Comedia and Demos. He is particularly interested in issues associated with the
quality of contemporary urban life, new forms of civil society, and the
planning and design of urban landscapes and institutions that support more
convivial forms of democracy. In 2001 he was appointed to the UK
Government’s Urban Green Spaces Task Force. His most recent books include
Here Comes the Sun: architecture and public space in 20th century European
culture (Reaktion Books, 2001) and Last Landscapes: the architecture of the
cemetery in the West (Reaktion Books 2003).
Mike Hollingsworth
Mike Hollingsworth is planning director in the Land Development and Legal
Services Division of the Welsh Development Agency (WDA), which works in
