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1 – 10 of over 1000David Dyason, Peter Fieger and John Rice
The New Zealand city of Christchurch provides a leading example of post-disaster rebuilding in a Central Business District (CBD) area. In its rebuilding programme, the city has…
Abstract
Purpose
The New Zealand city of Christchurch provides a leading example of post-disaster rebuilding in a Central Business District (CBD) area. In its rebuilding programme, the city has given emphasis to the greening of hospitality and traditional retail space through a combination of development of shared pedestrian spaces (with traffic exclusion and calming) and the integration of greening within the streetscape design. This paper aims to assess whether the development of greened pedestrian areas leads to higher retail spending and, thus, retail rental rates.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses pedestrian movement data collected from several CBD locations, as well as spending data on retail and hospitality, to assess relationships between pedestrian movements and spending. This study explores retail spending in greened pedestrian shared spaces, and explores how this differs from retail spending in traditional street areas within the Christchurch CBD.
Findings
Spending patterns are location-related, depending on the characteristics of pedestrian space in the selected area. Greened shared pedestrian areas have the highest spending per measured pedestrian for retail and hospitality, whereas traditional street areas have lower spending for retail and hospitality per measured pedestrian, demonstrating the benefits in redeveloped central city areas.
Originality/value
The scope of smart data continues to develop as a research area within urban studies to develop an open and connected city. This research demonstrates the use of innovative technologies for data collection, use and sharing. The results support commercial benefits of greening and pedestrianisation of retail and hospitality areas for CBDs and providing an example for other cities to follow.
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Bill LaFayette, Wayne Curtis, Denise Bedford and Seema Iyer
Bill LaFayette, Wayne Curtis, Denise Bedford and Seema Iyer
Rayman Mohamed, Robin Boyle, Allan Yilun Yang and Joseph Tangari
There is a resurgence in the adaptive reuse of buildings. However, there is a lack of literature that pulls all the strands of adaptive reuse together. Furthermore, despite claims…
Abstract
Purpose
There is a resurgence in the adaptive reuse of buildings. However, there is a lack of literature that pulls all the strands of adaptive reuse together. Furthermore, despite claims that it is motivated by the 3 Es of the sustainability triangle, the authors could find no research that critiques adaptive reuse from this perspective. The purpose of this study is to review the literature to collect pertinent information in a single place and to critically examine whether adaptive reuse incorporates the 3 Es of sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodological approach of this study is a literature review and a critical analysis of the practice of adaptive review.
Findings
Adaptive reuse is concentrated at the environment and economic development corners of the sustainability triangle. There are positive interactions along this edge. The authors attribute this to the fact that the same actors – the private and public sectors – are located at both corners of the triangle, and they have shared interests. This is different from the wider sustainability literature, where major actors at each corner are different and tensions along each edge are resolved through mediation. In adaptive reuse, there are no actors at the equity corner of the triangle, and there are minimal attempts to address concerns along the equity–environment and equity–economic development edges of the triangle.
Research limitations/implications
This study focuses on the USA.
Practical implications
This study suggests policy interventions that address the equity issue in adaptive reuse.
Originality/value
This is the first study to provide a succinct review of contemporary adaptive reuse and that places the practice within the framework of the 3 Es of sustainability.
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Architecture is a social art. Buildings reflect the social and material conditions of the place and time where they are created. This is especially true of libraries, which…
Abstract
Architecture is a social art. Buildings reflect the social and material conditions of the place and time where they are created. This is especially true of libraries, which represent our collective aspirations. For architects and clients involved in planning libraries, it is important to take a broad view of the task at hand, to understand the premises that guide design solutions, and to place libraries within a cultural context.
Leslie Kern and Gerda R. Wekerle
In the post-industrial economies of large urban centers, redevelopment has become the primary engine of economic growth. Redevelopment projects are designed to encourage…
Abstract
In the post-industrial economies of large urban centers, redevelopment has become the primary engine of economic growth. Redevelopment projects are designed to encourage investment, attract tourism and bring new residents to the city. This form of city building is driven by a neoliberal urban agenda that embraces privatization, and is controlled by the economic interests of private business. In this chapter, we argue that city building under a neoliberal rubric is also a gendered political process, the outcome of which is the redevelopment of urban space in ways that reflect a masculinist and corporatist view of city life. Moreover, both the form of redevelopment and the process itself function to limit public participation in the life and growth of cities, particularly for women and other marginalized groups. In the first section of this chapter, Gendered spaces of redevelopment, we examine how the results of such a process are made manifest in the built form of Canada's largest city, Toronto, with a population of 2.5 million. The city is experiencing a major process of redevelopment and city building that is evident in a massive wave of condominium construction. We suggest that condominium projects, as a particular form of redevelopment, create privatized spaces and encourage privatized services that articulate neatly with a neoliberal urban agenda.
Chihiro Shimizu, Koji Karato and Yasushi Asami
When Japan's asset bubble burst, the office vacancy rate soared sharply. This study seeks to target the office market in Tokyo's 23 special wards during Japan's bubble burst…
Abstract
Purpose
When Japan's asset bubble burst, the office vacancy rate soared sharply. This study seeks to target the office market in Tokyo's 23 special wards during Japan's bubble burst period. It aims to define economic conditions for the redevelopment/conversion of offices into housing and estimate the redevelopment/conversion probability under the conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
The precondition for land‐use conversion is that subsequent profit excluding destruction and reconstruction costs is estimated to increase from the present level for existing buildings. Regarding hedonic functions for offices and housing and computed profit gaps for approximately 40,000 buildings used for offices in 1991, it was projected how the profit gaps would influence the land‐use conversion probability. Specifically, panel data for two time points in the 1990s were used to examine the significance of redevelopment/conversion conditions.
Findings
It was found that, if random effects are used to control for individual characteristics of buildings, the redevelopment probability rises significantly when profit from land after redevelopment is expected to exceed that from present land uses. This increase is larger in the central part of a city.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations stem from the nature of Japanese data limited to the conversion of offices into housing. In the future, a model may be developed to generalize land‐use conversion conditions.
Originality/value
This is the first study to specify the process of land‐use adjustments that emerged during the bubble burst. This is also the first empirical study using panel data to analyze conditions for redevelopment.
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The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the “knowledge city” spatial socio-economic imaginary used in the post-earthquake city of L’Aquila, Italy, to promote its…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the “knowledge city” spatial socio-economic imaginary used in the post-earthquake city of L’Aquila, Italy, to promote its socio-economic redevelopment.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper counters primary and secondary data with the expected qualities of a knowledge city. The analysis is supported by the literature review on knowledge-cities and post-disaster redevelopment, local and national documentation review, on-site observations and an inquiry of the case of the Gran Sasso Science Institute, the leading project towards the implementation of the knowledge-city agenda through interviews with key actors and a survey among its researchers.
Findings
Post-disaster realities and path-dependency leave little room for a positive path-shaping redevelopment trajectory related to a knowledge-city urban archetype. This vision promotes materialism and intellectualism from local, national and international stakeholders; however, the city lacks specific urban qualities to attract and maintain highly skilled labour and investments, while negative socio-economic trends still continue a decade after the earthquake.
Research limitations/implications
The city’s post-disaster recovery and redevelopment contain certain degrees of inertia. The early stage of it, the lack of certain secondary data, and the focus of the paper on specific indicators limit the opportunity for stronger reasoning.
Originality/value
The analysis reveals that the redevelopment vision of the knowledge city was hastily adopted. The mismatch between reality and expectations highlights the need for post-disaster territories to avoid overestimation of their capabilities and adjusts their redevelopment strategies to local characteristics adopting modest future projections.
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In 1975, private and social housing production in Chile started to become increasingly privatized, in parallel with capital switching into the secondary circuit due to severe…
Abstract
In 1975, private and social housing production in Chile started to become increasingly privatized, in parallel with capital switching into the secondary circuit due to severe deindustrialization of the country. Since then, housing demand has largely drawn on state housing subsidies aimed at middle- to low-income demand, but more recently, a growing financialized mortgage market has increased demand even further, enlarging the mortgage debt burden on Chilean households. Private housing producers achieve higher profits by increasing sales prices, whilst production costs are kept relatively stable by purchasing and developing the cheapest land available, both on the fringes and within the inner sectors of the main metropolitan areas, as a form of accumulation by dispossession in hitherto underexploited, non-commodified land. However, low purchase prices of land create housing unaffordability for numbers of original owner-residents who sell land to redevelopers but cannot then afford replacement accommodation given the soaring housing prices in the main metropolises. It is for this reason that some central areas become gentrified. Focusing on the case of high-rise redevelopment of inner-city areas in Santiago, Chile, this paper addresses the extent to which demand and private developers’ profits increase alongside the risks of a generalized growing level of household debt and the displacement of low-income communities from inner areas. The continuous expansion of the extremely privatized housing market of Santiago responds to the needs of capital expansion rather than to the people’s needs.
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