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All over the world, millions of people live in buildings and neighbourhoods that follow the principles of Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and Le Corbusier: high-rise “residential machines” in parks reminiscent of green seas. Some of these have become very successful living environments, but in Europe and the USA, several neighbourhoods featuring this architectural design dream have become a social nightmare. Residents who were able to moved to more desirable neighbourhoods. This led to a high level of vacancy and crime and fear of crime have flourished, resulting in a stigma that is often long-lasting and difficult to repair. The pupose of this study is to learn from these experiences.

In this paper, two high-rise neighbourhoods, built in a Corbusier-like fashion and situated on the outskirts of major cities, are put under the evaluation spotlight: Bijlmermeer: located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with an abundance of landscaping, shrubbery, green fields and one high-density neighbourhood; and Bellvitge: located in Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain, looking less like a park and more like a city with open-air parking on ground level, and many small shops, bars and restaurants.

Both neighbourhoods faced enormous problems from crime, incivilities, disorder and drug abuse. Fear of crime and feelings of insecurity were high. Both governments reacted by investing huge sums of money. In Bellvitge, the investment was mainly in public transport, the public domain and new approaches in policing while keeping the high-rise buildings intact. In Bijlmermeer, a large regeneration project supported the demolition of two-thirds of all apartments and the neighbourhood was rebuilt in a low-rise fashion.

This paper outlines the history of both neighbourhoods and describes the solutions that were implemented. Important lessons can be learned regarding current high-rise neighbourhoods and about the learning capacity of urban designers and planners regarding urban management.

The paper suggests that urban planners, designers and managers are slow in learning from earlier mistakes. The hypothesis is that there is no clear method available to evaluate new urban planning designs by incorporating lessons from the success or failure of previous cases. This paper focuses on density, ownership and design to identify possible approaches to evaluate new high-rise estate plans.

The Western high-rise “wave” has faded away but nowadays has become a high-rise “tsunami” in Asia. Learning from European experience may be beneficial.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the nexus between Crime Prevention through Urban Design and Planning (CP-UDP) and e-participation in urban planning, with the idea that a comprehensive planning approach is needed in order to have effective safe cities.

This study relies on some European case studies on CP-UDP learned by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (EU COST) Action TU1203 and on a personal research experience focused on CPTED and its potential development in Italy – which was based on literature review and interviews with key informants.

CP-UDP, as a proactive and potentially effective crime prevention strategy plays an important role in order to implement safer cities. Information and communications technology (ICT) can provide a valuable tool to enhance participatory planning. The thesis supported in this paper is that through the widespread of e-participation in urban planning is possible to implement safer cities if a comprehensive planning approach is applied and Italy has already made its first steps forward this direction.

The smart city concept pervades contemporary urban studies, supported by European policies, according to the logic that the use of ICT could contribute to sustainable development in its various dimensions. A new-generation CP-UDP focused on e-participation may enhance safer cities.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that playing computer games for lengthy periods of time, even in a manner that will force the player to forgo certain other activities normally seen as more important, can be an integral part of human flourishing.

The authors' claim is based on a modern reading of Aristotle's Nichomacean Ethics. It should be emphasized that the authors do not argue that computer gaming and other similar online activities are central to all people under all circumstances; but only seek to show that the claim holds true for some people under some circumstances and the authors try to spell out the relevant circumstances in detail.

The authors provide a list of situations in which playing computer games for lengthy periods of time, in a manner that will force the player to forgo certain other activities normally seen as more important, is an integral part of human flourishing.

The paper puts some novel pressure on the widely‐held belief that playing computer games for lengthy periods of time, in a manner that will force the player to forgo certain other activities normally seen as more important. The paper claims that playing some computer games and partaking in some forms of online activities could be highly conducive to what it actually means in practice to take care of oneself and, to paraphrase Aristotle, to be eager for fine actions.

During these past years, contemporary urban entertainment economy has been increasingly driven by social and spatial inequality and segmentation of consumer markets. This dominant mode of production has involved a displacement of older modes of working-class nightlife. However, social resistances mainly played by suburban young working classes are being especially (re)produced during their nighttime leisure activities. In the case of Barcelona (Catalonia), youth policies carried out by local administration during these past three decades have intended to reinforce social sanitation through the re-catalanization of its suburbs and by marginalizing social and cultural practices of the young suburban working classes. Focusing on the Catalan capital, this chapter explores how a suburban otherness is mainly built up through the (re)production of highly politicized suburban nightscapes, which are largely related to the claiming of a Spanished ‘suburban’ identity, clashing with the Catalan official one. This chapter ends up opening a debate about the relationship of the re-bordering of postcrisis urban inequalities, the collapse of social cohesion in suburbs, and the emergence of new topographies of urban and suburban power in Barcelona.