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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.

Large Housing Estates: Ideas, Rise, Fall and Recovery.

The Mediterranean has long been celebrated for the richness, diversity, and historical depth of its cultural heritage. However, in recent years heritage and heritage practice could be said to have become a new mode of production in the region (Bianchi, 2005). There are a number of reasons for this; one has to do with the stagnation of the Mediterranean's traditional “sun, sea, and sand” tourism. As a result of this tour operators and national governments have started to push the packaging of “culture” and “heritage” for a more diversified “up-market” product to attract higher-spending tourists to the region's cities and rural hinterland. Another factor is the restructuring and liberalization of the regional economy since the closing decades of the 20th century. There has seen a shift from agriculture to services as the dominant economic sector in this region and the concomitant discovery of culture has become an economic asset for investors seeking an outlet for global capital flows (Bianchi, 2005; Daher, 2007; Nogués-Pedregal, 2002). The European Union (EU) has had an important role to play in these processes, both in driving the region's neoliberal market reforms, and in promoting the establishment of its cultural heritage economy. Cultural heritage has become a priority area in EU Mediterranean policy, with millions of euros earmarked for heritage related projects. This takes the form both of loans to private investors from the European Development Bank, and of grants for public sector cultural heritage initiatives, for example, through its Euromed Heritage programs, the fourth phase of which is underway at the time of writing (Bianchi, 2005; Euromed Heritage, n.d.).

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.

In this paper, we want to describe the current trends in distribution and distribution research in the Netherlands. Because this is an extensive area, we restrain ourselves and focus on general economic developments that apply to shopping behaviour; on the regional distribution of stores and concentration trends; on shopping centre developments, on functional versus fun shopping for convenience goods and shopping/speciality goods, respectively; on price vs. service distribution and on store image research. In the discussion section, we conclude that psychological variables are necessary complements to economic variables in distribution research, and that only a few studies investigate actual shopping behaviour instead of perceptions and evaluations only.

Investigating some enriching perspectives on mid-career PSM and UrbEd ‘teaching, researching and innovation’ (Public Sector Management; Urban Education).

Alternative approaches, analyses, designs and methods (1) focused on national and local problems and policies, (2) to be reconstructed, researched, taught and enriched in practice-oriented MEd-courses for mid-careerists and (3) which might strengthen their capacities to shift from reflection in action to reflection on action. Two decades of UrbEd and PSM experiences in Amsterdam and Rotterdam are analysed. New perspectives – Social Quality and Artistic Empowerment initiatives – are assessed. The implications for current and future higher education policies and perspectives are then considered.

Initiatives implemented since the 1980s are bearing fruit. These address urban problems, foster innovation, enhance mid-career education and enable cross-border initiatives such as Social Quality measures. Such measures are well supported at the moment by practice-oriented policies at Applied Science Universities (ASUs).

The chapter’s recommendations might incite lecturers, (mid-career-) professionals of ASUs and local managers and authorities to intensify their cooperation with urban renewal projects and vice versa.

Provides definitions of the three concepts in the title and explores their interrelationships. Distinguishes six alienation dimensions – powerlessness; meaninglessness; normlessness; social isolation; cultural estrangement; self‐estrangement – and combines them with three kinds of participation: spontaneous, negative, and compensatory. Describes increasing societal complexity from a general systems perspective. Explores the psycho‐ and sociogenesis of unalienated as well as alienated participation. Increasing societal complexity creates new forms of alienation and participation, but also resistances of groups that feel threatened or left out by an excessively fast rate of change, which in turn threatens macro‐societal stability. Those left without the means to participate in the economic or political process tend to be the alienated “negative participants”; they are generally destructive and anti‐outgroup as a result of personal experiences or economic deprivation.

Aeroplanes fly routinely over residential areas. As we watch them fly over our cities, and our houses, it is difficult to think of a plane crashing amongst us. But that is what happened one evening in October 1992 in Amsterdam when a large cargo plane crashed into an apartment block. The following day a number of pupils did not show up at an elementary school in the vicinity. The majority turned up but four remained missing: they had been casualties of the plane crash. How did this school community manage the situation?