| Architecture Student Chronicles

Amsterdam Case study | The Just City

January 24, 2014January 13, 2014 by Architect

I was reading through the concept presented by Susan Fainstein “The Just City”. I found it quite interesting. Previously, I summarized her idea of Just city concept, where I mentioned that she conducted three casestudies namely New York, London and Amsterdam. She studied these cities and evaluated them in terms of three core principles namely Equality, Democracy and Diversity. She found Amsterdam as being the closest to the model of the Just City.

She recently visited Amsterdam in 2010 and the changing conditions in the city really got her worried. She poses a question in one of her recent lectures.

Can Amsterdam continue to be a just city? Can it withstand financial crisis, anti-immigrant sentiments, neo-liberal attack?

Explanation why she is concerned about Amsterdam continuing to being a Just City

In Amsterdam, one of the things that have occurred is the reduction in the flow of resources coming in from the national government. One of the arguments she makes in the book “The Just City” is that there were only two major factors that allowed Amsterdam to be so successful in attaining its goals of justice.

Public land ownership
90% of the budget in the city would come from the National government so that it could decide what it was going to with it. Also, it didn’t have tax its own citizens in order to have sufficient capital. She compares American cities to Amsterdam. American cities get relatively small part of their finance from the National government. The recent bankruptcy of Detroit was a major shock. It is hard to imagine in any western European city that National government would let a major city simply go bankrupt.

The Concept of “The Just City”

December 31, 2013December 19, 2013 by Architect

Urban Theory of Social Justice by Susan Fainstein

Susan Fainstein is a professor of urban planning at Harvard. She wanted to achieve social justice within the context of urban planning. She had a vision of creating a city where public investment and regulation would produce equitable outcomes rather than support the wealthy.

There were a lot of social theories that came round in 1970s. She says that there were excellent theories of justice but none of them talked about justice. One of the political philosophers she mentions is John Rawl. She got an opportunity to interview one of the philosophers and she asked her if the theories of social justice worked in the real world to which the philosopher replied that she was a philosopher and did not worry if the theory worked in the real world or not. So Fainstein says that she is an urban planner and would have to worry about the working of social theories in the real world.

This inspired her to come up with an urban theory of social justice. She coined the term “The Just City”. She says, the just city does not necessarily mean a good city because a good city would have many more attributes than just the three central principles proposed by her.

The three central concepts proposed by Fainstein that would constitute “The Just City” are:

Equality
Democracy
Diversity

She conducted three casestudies namely New York, London and Amsterdam and studied them in detail with respect to these three central concepts. She was of the view that New York was very close to the third principle i.e. Diversity but was distant from the first two principles namely Equality and Democracy. London had Diversity and Democracy but lacked Equality. She was of the view that Amsterdam was the closest we could possibly get to an ideal just city. She says Amsterdam was a more equal city than it is now.

Why is Transportation Planning important?

December 16, 2013December 16, 2013 by Architect

Transportation Planning

Introduction

Transportation planning’s related disciplines of land use planning, architecture, landscape design, urban economics and social policy have undergone major internal reform efforts over the past few decades but unfortunately, transport planning seems to be stuck in the 1950s mentality and believes that all the urban problems such as congestion, mobility and economic development has an engineering solution.

Sustainable Urbanism has been identified as the most important environmental concern of the coming century by different experts from different fields whereas transportation planning remains isolated forming a large gap in the strategies of urban sustainability.

Importance of Transportation planning

Transportation is not an end in itself. Rather, it is an investment tool that cities use to help achieve their larger goals. Transportation planners and engineers always focus on the efficient movement of people and goods across the country. However, transportation touches all aspects of city life such as economic development, quality of life, social equity, public health and ecological sustainability.

How is land divided in a town/city?

December 7, 2013October 7, 2013 by Architect

Distribution of Land uses in a town/city

Zoning is done at different levels. Macro level and micro level. Macro level zoning includes the representation of all the natural bodies such as sea, rivers, lakes, mountains, hills, valleys, large open areas and potential sites for building new towns and cities. Micro zoning includes the zoning of individual towns or cities. It consists of six distinct parts.

1. Town centre

This is the place where major commercial activity takes place. It indicates the central area containing commercial and administrative blocks, theatres, principal library, museum etc.

2. Residential area

It is evenly distributed across the town depending upon its suitability. This part is mainly used for providing residential accommodation to the inhabitants of the town. But it also contains small shops, primary schools, gardens and small service industries.

3. Commercial area

We have retail and wholesale commercial spaces across the town. Commercial area is the heart of any town or city. Without commerce, the town/city would not survive. Hence, it is very important to have commercial areas spread evenly across the town.