Downtown is for people~

The Power of Jane Jacobs: healthy cities, urban theory and design
Jane Jacob was born in  Scranton, the daughter of a doctor and a former teacher and nurse, who were Protestant in a Catholic town. A year later, in the middle of the great depression, she left Scranton for New York.
She studied at Columia Unversity Extension School for two years, taking courses in geology, zoology, law, political science and economics. About the freedom to study her wide-ranging interests.
In 1968, Jacobs moved to Toronto, where she lived until her death. She decided to leave the United States in part because of her objection to the Vietnam War and worry about the fate of her two draft-age sons. She and her husband chose Toronto because it was pleasant and offered him work opportunities.
How hard can a street work?
The street works harder than any other part of downtown.It communicates the flavor, the feel, the sights.Users of downtown know very well that downtown needs not fewer streets, but more, especially for pedestrians.also a good street includes 4 points:
1.The animated alley
2.The pedestrian`s level
3.Maps of reality
4.The customer is right.
The Citizen
The remarkable intricacy and liveliness of downtown can never be created by the abstract logic of  a  few men. Downtown  has had the capability of probiding something for everybody only because it has been created by everybody.

Final
  Designing a dream city is easy, rebuilding a living one takes imagination.

Pluralistic Planning 4 Multicultural Cities (⊙o⊙)

"A tree can be the source of neighborhood battles, as shown in Toronto by the "nature meets culture"headlines in the globe and mail. Italians and Portuguese like to keep trees short, allowing a better view of the neighbors.Ango-Saxons want trees to be tall and leafy,blocking any views from and to neighborhood houses.The chinese believe trees in front of a home  bring bad luck."---e.g

                              
Multiculturalism in Canada
  Canada is one of the  multiculturalism countries in the world. In the mosaic of aboriginal cultures and languages there,multiculturalism extends back to antiquity.(include British French Germans Russians and Chinese,ect).There are 3 indicators for Canadian population：ethnic origin，status as an immigrant and languages.There are old and new multiculturalism in Canda.The old multiculturalism or cultural mosaic was a private affair of immigrants.The new one is  acknowledged by public ideology and official policy.
 Multiculturalism,social diversity and the planning process
The cultural and racial diversity of citizens bears on the planning process in 3ways.
1.affects the rational technical component
2.planners must be sensitive to the needs of  individuals in new ways
3.the scope and procedures of citizen involvement in the planning process have to be modified to accommodate multicultural policies
Metropolitan Toronto:Kingsview Park
Kingsview Park is a high rise condominium complex of 6 buildings containing 1794 apartments, it was built in 1971 along the four land Dixon road in Etobicoke. First occupants are young families and empty nester, half of them are European migrants after WWII. In a few years time, tenants have changed to people from south Europe and Asia. The proportion of rents rose to about 12 percent and that’s in 1977. 1980s tomato’s property boom attracts speculator investors, by 1989-1991, 25 percent of the apartments were renter occupied. Because of high vacancies and downturn in property market, occupancy gradually filtered down in the rental market. 1994, most poor Somalis moved in and occupied 59 percent of rental units and 35 percent were in Kingsview Park. Tension grow between owners and poor Somali due to black and white culture, and has caused a culture conflict.
The Dixon case

From the Dixon case, The proposed solutions to the Dixon complex include regulations to discourage overcrowding and a recommendation to amend provincial legislation to allow municipal inspectors the authority to enter private dwellings without warrants. In short the planning response to this social and cultural clash was simply to tune up property standards and create the statutory instruments to enforce the.

This case illustrates public issues precipitated by the diversification of forms, functions and population in neighborhoods.

Ethnic Business Enclaves

In Canadian cities, local businesses of ethnic neighborhoods have been the basis of their cultural economies, and they often extend their markets beyond their surrounding neighborhoods. However not all immigrants owned business target ethnic populations, a historical example is that a restaurant opened in a little village in the 19th century, and they were the main restaurants there.  In the 1970s, a new form of ethnic business enclaves emerged in Canada. Toronto’s revitalized Chinatown and its Chinese suburban malls and office clusters, its Indian bazaars and Greek villages.

Housing Choices- new culture is coming in,the old cultures stay.People move around all the time~

Institutions and services- Not only spatial and architectural forms,but also social institutions and community services,are affected by multicultralism.

Multicultural cities:

                                                                    Hongkong

                                                                       London

                        The entertainment capital of the world-Las Vegas (not 4 sure)

                                                                     Sydney

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New directions in planning theory 0_0

The communicative model
When 2 things are communicate, there is always a sender and a receiver. At least there is an intended receiver. In the diagram above A is the sender, B is the receiver.
A and B have different personal realities. They each have their own world formed by their experiences, their perceptions, their ideas, etc. They will perceive, experience, and interpret things differently. The same event will always be perceived a little different by each of two people.
For the consideration to communicate to appear at all there must be some kind of shared space. The participants must have some kind of concept of each other's location and of a possible channel of communication existing between them. They must agree sufficiently on these to agree that communication is taking place.
The sender will have some kind of meaning she wishes to convey to the receiver. It might not be conscious knowledge; it might be a sub-conscious wish for communication. What is desired to be communicated would be some kind of idea, perception, feeling, or datum. It will be a part of her reality that she wishes to send to somebody else.
Theoretical and practical deficiencies
One problem in communicative planning in practice is the gap between rhetoric and action. Another problem is the lengthy time, this leads to burnout among citizen participants and disillusion. Also the difficulties involved in framing alternatives when planners desist from agenda setting can raise another issue.
In communicative planning theory the spotlight is on the planner. Instead of asking what is to be done about cities and regions, communicative planners typically ask what planners should be doing, and the answer is that they should be good (i.e. tell the truth, not be pushy about their own judgments). Like the technocrats whom they criticize, they appear to believe that planners have a special claim on disinterested morality:
New urbanism
New urbanism refers to a design-oriented approach to planned urban development.The principle of new  urbanism includes 10 points: walk ability ,connectivity, mixed-use and diversity,mixed housing,quality architecture and urban design, traditional neighbourhood structure, increased density,green transportation,sustainability and quality of life!And the benefits of  urbanism are residents, business,developers and municipalities.
Critique

•Emphasis on public  space, its consideration  of the relationship between work and living, and its stance toward environmental quality.

• One of the frequently made criticisms is that it merely calls for a different form of suburbia rather than overcoming metropolitan social segregation.

• The New Urbanism can commit the same errors as modernism – that is assuming that changing peoples physical environment will somehow take care of the social inequalities that changed their lives.

• Only a publicly funded effort to combine social groups through mixing differently priced housing with substantial subsides for the low-income component can produce such a result.

• For planning theory, the most interesting aspect of the new urbanism is that its assurance of a better quality of life has inspired a social movement.

The just city

Just-city theorists fall into two categories: radical democrats and political economists. They believe that progressive social change results only form the exercise of power by those who previously had been excluded from power. Participation in public decision making is part of the ideal of the just city.

A theory of just city values participation in decision making by relatively powerless groups and equity of outcomes. The just city needs to incorporate an entrepreneurial state that not only provides welfare but also generates increased wealth, it also needs to project a future embodying a middle-class society rather that only empowering the poor and disfranchised.

Resurrecting optimism

The three types of planning theory described in this article all embrace a social reformist outlook. They represent a move from a purely critical perspective that characterised much theory in the 1970’s and 1980’s to one that once again offers a promise of a better life. More recent theorising has advanced from mere critique to focusing instead on offering a more appealing prospect of the future.

 

______-_-///______+_+_______o(n_n)0________what a hard  article it is  >_<

American Town Planning Theory since1945 —。—

The focus of  presentation this week is---American Town Planning Theory since 1945:Three significant developments but no paradigm shifts. (Nigel Taylor)
Over the past of fifty years, town planning has developed  more and more important in Britain and North Americca..And this article is an overview of the history for town planning  thought since 1945 .There are three outstanding changes in town planning over that period.
First, the shift from the view of  planning as an exercise in physical planning in 1960s and urban design to the systems and rational process views of planning.
Second, the shift from the view of town planning as an activity require to some technical skills for planning as a political process of making value-judgements about environmental change in which the planner act as a manager and facilitator of that process.
Third, the shift from 'modernist' to 'postmodernist' planning theory.
Half a century ago, there have been  significant development  in town planning theory  .We have to learn more about the town planning of urban environments and the diverse values of different communities
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