Urbanization and spatial planning in an international perspective

This contribution compares Germany, France, and the United Kingdom with the Netherlands on a number of issues. The focus is on (a) processes of urbanization and (b) urban policies (broadly defined in an economic, social, and ecological sense). These issues are seen in relation to national spatial planning. The authors combine the findings of this comparative analysis with the results of previous research by one of the authors. At the end, they draw some conclusions and make recommendations for the next (Fifth) Report on Physical Planning in the Netherlands. Ton Kreukels is professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Geographical Sciences at Utrecht University. From 1986 to 1992, he was also a member of the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy. Then, and especially in this last position, his research was focused on a study of the four big cities and city regions in the Netherlands: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht. From 1992 up to the present, he has been involved in a comparative study of urban regions in Europe, including those of the Netherlands. Egge-Jan Pollé is a human geographer from Utrecht University. In 1996, while a junior-researcher at Utrecht University, he worked together with the first author on the study about Germany, France, and the United Kingdom that is reported in this article. That study was commissioned by the Netherlands National Spatial Planning Agency.     

Action space as planning concept in spatial planning

Society is becoming more and more complex. This shows up in an increasing diversity of activity and mobility patterns of individuals, households, companies and organizations. In a network society, the significance of physical distance declines as the importance of available time increases. Many spatial planning concepts like ‘location policy’ and ‘the compact city’ and the criteria of accessibility do not take these developments sufficiently into account. This reduces the effectiveness of mobility and spatial policy. Spatial planning can benefit from deeper insight into the time-space options that individuals have. For that reason, planners need concepts that help them to understand the behaviour of individual actors and to influence them at the local and regional level. One such concept is action space: the area within which persons can undertake activities. This paper presents the theoretical backgrounds of this concept. A typology of action space for dual-income households with children, living in two Dutch municipalities, is constructed and analyzed. In addition, a model of action space, called MASTIC, is developed. This model allows planners to determine the degree to which the action spaces of individuals can be influenced. Some applications of the model are discussed: to identify the mobility effects of urban form; to coordinate services at the local level; and, finally, to assess the influence of demographic, cultural and economic developments on the composition of the population and thereby to study the aggregate mobility effects of an area. Martin Dijst (1957) is an associate professor of urban geography at the Urban Research center Utrecht (URU), Faculty of Geographical Sciences, Utrecht University in the Netherlands. His research activities are focused on transportation studies. He is particularly interested in the relation between urbanization, infrastructure and the activity/travel patterns of specific population categories. In 1995 he completed his Ph.D. dissertation entitled “An elliptical life” in which he treats action space as an integral measure of accessibility and mobility.     

The semantic interview,a tool for research on urban meaning

This is a revised version of a paper presented at the International Research Conference, “Housing, Policy, and Urban Innovation” held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in June–July, 1988. The Conference was sponsored by three research institutes that are members of the Netherlands Organisation of Research Institutes in the field of housing and urban research (GS): the Center for Metropolitan Research, University of Amsterdam; the Institute of Geographical Research, University of Utrecht; and, OTB Research Institute for Policy Sciences and Technology Delft University of Technology.     

The green heart and the dynamics of doctrine

The Green Heart is the most pronounced of Dutch planning concepts. It rests on an organic metaphor that for over 40 years now has been at the heart of Dutch national planning. Although the object of much debate, the national government has decided recently to stick to a restrictive policy for the Green Heart, for the next decade anyhow. The authors shed light on the apparent continuity of policy by invoking the concept of planning doctrine. Planning doctrine is a framing device for planners. It combines substantive as well as procedural aspects. In developing the notion of planning doctrine, the article draws on the work of Kuhn, Lakatos and Laudan. Arnold van der Valk ia an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences and the Amesterdam Study Centre for the Metropolitan Environment (AME) of the University of Amsterdam. Andreas Faludi is a Professor of Planning at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Chairman of the Board of the Amesterdam Study Centre for the Metropolitan Environment (AME) of the University of Amsterdam.     

Financing the non-profit rented sector in Western Europe

The degree to which the non-profit rented sector in Western Europe has had to adjust itself toward privatization is the subject of this article. Specifically, we examine how private financing in the non-profit rented sector is implemented in Western Europe. We also trace how these practices affect the way the sector performs in various countries. In the final section of this paper, we shed some light on the diversity of responses to the challenges facing the non-profit rented sector in Western Europe. This article is based on the study “Financing the non-profit rented sector in Western Europe”, published in the series Housing and Urban Policy Studies. This project was carried out by the OTB Research Institute for Policy Sciences and Technology of Delft University of Technology, in cooperation with the School of the Built Environment of the De Montfort University in Leicester (UK). This cooperation forms part of the Centre for Comparative Housing Research. Peter Boelhouwer is a senior researcher at the OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies, Delft University of Technology. His research focus has been on general housing policy, housing finance and comparative housing research.     

International comparison of social housing management in Western Europe

This article provides an overview of social housing management in seven West-European countries. In order to place the concept of housing management in context and allow comparison, housing management is classified according to technical, social and financial aspects of management. Housing management has become increasingly independent and the financial ties are becoming looser in nearly all of the seven investigated countries. Even though governments still play a major role in Europe with respect to the granting of subsidies, the non-profit institutions have to entirely rely on the capital market in order to obtain the required funds. However, in many cases intermediary organisations are still responsible for attracting loans. Peter Boelhouwer is a senior research at the OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies, Delft University of Technology. His research focus has been on general housing policy, housing finance and comparative housing research. This paper is based on two recent OTB-studies about the social rented sector in Western Europe. The first study was written by Birgitta van de Ven and was published in 1995 in the Dutch series “Volkshuisvestingsbeleid en Bouwmarkt” (26). The title of this report is “Housing systems in Europe: A comparative study of housing management”. The second study (Boelhouwer, 1996) is titled “Financing the social rented sector in Western Europe”, and is published in the series Housing and Urban Policy Studies. This project was carried out by the OTB in cooperation with the School of the Built Environment of the De Montfort University in Leicester (UK). This cooperation forms part of the Centre for Comparative Housing Research.     

Housing choice: Assumptions and approaches

Residential mobility and housing choice are studied within a variety of research traditions. The traditions are classified into four approaches, depending on the conceptualization of housing choice they use. Four approaches of housing choice are distinguished: the continuous choice approach, the risk approach, the two-stage choice approach, and the three-stage search and choice approach. In the continuous choice approach, people are assumed to continuously choose between types of housing or levels of housing consumption. It is argued that this approach conforms to a concept of rationality used in the micro-economic sense of utility maximization. The other three approaches are more in line with a bounded rationality concept. They assume that people are not constantly evaluating their housing situation but consider moving only after a certain trigger has set off an intention to move. The three approaches assuming limited periods of housing choice differ in the way they treat triggers for moving versus resources, constraints, and opportunities. They also differ in terms of what is viewed as the object of choice. The risk approach does not explicitly model choice. The two-stage approach models the choice between various opportunities. And the three-stage approach models the choice between accepting and not accepting a particular opportunity “arriving” at a certain point in time. Clara H. Mulder holds a rearch fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) while being a member of the Falculty of Geographical Sciences at Utrecht University.     

The different faces of private rented housing

The relation between public policy and the private rented sector is usually unclear. The private rented sector often suffers from public policy, although private landlords mostly enjoy fiscal advantages as well. In many European countries, private renting housing has been losing ground. Nevertheless, private rented housing fulfils a number of useful functions in the housing market: as a tenure for urban starters; for the elderly; and for a mobile, well-to-do segment of the population engaged in flexible labour markets. The main lines of seven country profiles are sketched here: (West) Germany, England, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Canada and the United States. In his comparative contribution at the end of this special issue, Maclennan points out that the private rented sector has indeed declined in many European countries. But he also shows that in countries like the USA, Germany and Sweden the sector has had a broadly constant share since about 1980. In the future, private rented housing will remain an attractive sector, at least for those who are unable to afford owner-occupied housing and those unable to gain access to social housing. Hugo Priemus holds the chair in housing at Delft University of Technology and he is managing director of OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies. Duncan Maclennan is McTaggart professor at the Centre for Housing Research and Urban Studies, University of Glasgow, Great Britain.     

Predicting consumer response to new housing: A stated choice experiment

This paper discusses problems typical of eliciting housing preference. It will be argued that stated preference and choice models are potentially powerful in eliciting consumer housing preferences. This approach is illustrated in an example of new housing construction in Meerhoven. The design of the stated choice experiment is outlined and the estimated part-worth utilities of the attributes are presented. Furthermore, choices for houses in low- and high-density environments are predicted and its is examined how much more households are willing to pay for low-density housing. Eric Molin is Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Harmen Oppewal is assistant professor at the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Harry Timmermans is professor of Urban Planning at the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. He also hold the Carthy Foudation Chair in Makerking at the Department of Marketing and Economic Analysis, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.     

Movable roof insulation in hot climates

This paper presents the results of experiments on the effect of a system of movable insulation – with and without a roof pond – on temperature and heat flow at the ceiling surfaces of air conditioned and unconditioned rooms in buildings roofed with thick reinforced concrete which are exposed to extremes of hot and cold weather. Results indicate that there is considerable merit in adopting such a system, particularly in hot, dry conditions, in addition to the limited benefits of harnessing solar energy in winter conditions.

The experiments were carried out at the Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee, UP, India. Mr Rao is at present working as an associate professor in the Department of Building Science, Faculty of Architecture, University of Singapore.     

The anti-apartment movement in the U.S. and the role of land use regulations in creating housing segregation

In the U.S., typically, poor and minority households are concentrated in central cities, which are ringed by middle class suburbs which contain a majority of the population of the metropolitan area. The resulting segregation is largely the outcome of public policy and institutional arrangements, rather than the excesses of a free market. Land use regulations have played a central role in creating segregation among the types of housing that are affordable to different income groups. Single family only zoning is a central institution in suburban areas; often multifamily housing is limited to a very tiny portion of the land zoned for housing. Land use policies regarding housing are formulated on a municipal level, in which states have only a minimal role and the federal government has no role. Decentralization of revenue sources and fiscal support for local services, including education, provides incentives for local zoning policies which exclude groups which are viewed as more costly to service, while decentralization of zoning powers make these policies possible. This article describes 1) the basic contours of the housing stock and population distribution in metropolitan areas, 2) the evolution of the single family only policy, and 3) recent efforts to counteract housing segregation patterns, which have had little success. Kenneth K. Baar is a attorney in the Berkeley, California and has a Ph.D. in urban planning. From 1991 to 1993, he was a Fulbright professor at the Budapest University of Economic Sciences. In 1994–95 he was visiting professor in the Urban Planning Department at Columbia University in New York City.     

A Review of “Art and the city; Civic imagination and cultural authority in Los Angeles”

Evaluation Studies Review Annual, Volume 1 Gene V. Glass, ed. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1976. 672 pp. $29.95.

Evaluation Studies Review Annual, Volume 2 Marcia Guttentag with Shalom Saar, eds. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1977. 736 pp. $29.95.

The Evaluation of Social Programs Clark C. Abt, ed. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1976. 503 pp. $25.

A Decade of Federal Antipoverty Programs Robert H. Haveman, ed. Academic Press, New York, 1977. 381 pp. $17.

Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward. Pantheon Books, New York, 1977. 381 pp. $12.95.

Social Science and Public Policy Martin Rein. Penguin Books, New York, 1976. 272 pp. $2.95 (paperback).

Social Policy: An Australian Introduction Adam Graycar. MacMillan, Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, 1977. 70 pp. $3.50 (paperback).

Social Services in the United States: Policies and Programs Sheila B. Kamerman and Alfred J. Kahn. Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1976. 554 pp. $15. (cloth), $7.95 (paperback).

The Structure of Urban Reform Roland L. Warren, Stephen M. Rose, and Ann F. Bergunder. Lexington Books, D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington, Mass., 1974. 214 pp. $14.50.

Planning for Social Welfare: Issues, Models, and Tasks Neil Gilbert and Harry Specht, eds. Prentice-Hall, Engle-wood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1977. 390 pp. $13.50.

The Implementation Game: What Happens after a Bill Becomes a Law Eugene Bardach. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1977. 323 pp. $17.95.

The Politics of Social Service Jeffry H. Galper. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1975. xi + 237 pp. $6.95.

Health Care Politics: Ideological and Interest Group Barriers to Reform Robert R. Alford. University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1975. xiv + 294 pp. $4.95.

Need Assessment in Health and Human Services Roger A. Bell, Martin Sundel, Joseph F. Aponte, and Stanley Murrell, eds. University of Louisville, Louisville, Ky., 1976. 360 pp. $8.95 (paperback).

Human Services and Resource Networks Seymour B. Sarason, Charles Carroll, Kenneth Maton, Saul Cohen, and Elizabeth Lorentz. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1977. 201 pp. $12.95.

Awakenings Oliver Sacks. Vintage Books, New York, 1976. 344 pp.

Social Services Planning Series The Research Group, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia.

State Experiences in Social Services Planning: Eight Case Studies on Social Services Planning in Response to Title XX of the Social Security Act Gerald T. Horton, ed. 1976. 520 pp. $10. (paperback).

Alternative Approaches to the Organization and Staffing for Social Services Planning: State Experiences and Suggested Approaches Gerald T. Horton, ed. 1976. 66 pp. $2.50 (paperback).

Techniques for Needs Assessment in Social Service Planning: State Experiences and Suggested Approaches Edmund H. Armentrout, ed. 1976. 122 pp. $5. (paperback).

Techniques for Resource Identification and Service Inventory in Social Services Planning: State Experiences and Suggested Approaches Gerald T. Horton, ed. 1976. 82 pp. $3. (paperback).

Techniques for Goal and Objective Setting in Social Services Planning: State Experiences and Suggested Approaches Edmund H. Armentrout, ed. 1976. 75 pp. $3. (paperback).

Techniques for Resource Allocation in Social Services Planning: State Experiences and Suggested Approaches Edmund H. Armentrout, ed. 1976. 71 pp. $2.50 (paperback).

Alternative Approaches to Program Planning Coordination in Social Services Planning: State Experiences and Suggested Approaches Gerald T. Horton, ed. 1976. 44 pp. $2. (paperback).

Preparation and Format for State Social Service Program Plans in Social Services Planning Gerald T. Horton, ed. 1976. 93 pp. $3. (paperback).

Techniques for Public Information, Participation, Review and Comment in Social Services Planning: State Experiences and Suggested Approaches Victoria M. E. Carr, ed. 1976. 63 pp. $2.50 (paperback).

Alternative Approaches to Program Development in Social Services Planning The Research Group, Inc. 1976. 69 pp. $5.

Social Limits to Growth Fred Hirsch. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1976. 208 pp. $10.

The Limits to Satisfaction—An Essay on the Problems of Needs and Commodities William Leiss. University of Toronto Press, Toronto and Buffalo, 1976. 159 pp. $4.50 (paperback).

The Poverty of Power—Energy and the Economic Crisis Barry Commoner. Knopf, New York, 1976. 314 pp. $10.

The New Urban Politics Louis H. Masotti and Robert L Lineberry, eds. Ballinger, Cambridge, Mass., 1976. 264 pp. $15. (cloth), $7.95 (paperback).

No Little Plans: Fairfax County's PLUS Program for Managing Growth Grace Dawson. The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., 1977. 168 pp. $3.95 (paperback).

Land Use Controls in the United States Natural Resources Defense Council. Dial Press, New York, 1977. 362 pp. $15.95 (cloth), $7.95 (paperback).

Federal Land Use Regulation Fred P. Bosselman, Duane Feurer, Tobin M. Richter. Available from the Practising Law Institute, New York. 384 pp. $35.

Urban Modelling: Algorithms, Calibrations, Prediction Michael Batty. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Great Britain, 1976. 381 + xxv pp. $46.

The Fiscal Impact Handbook: Projecting the Local Costs and Revenues Related to Growth Robert W. Burchell and David Listokin. Rutgers University, Center for Urban Policy Research, New Brunswick, N.J. 1978. 542 pp. $20.

Planning the Fourth Migration: The Neglected Vision of the Regional Planning Association of America Carl Sussman, ed. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1976. 277 pp. $14.95.

Comparative Metropolitan Analysis Project John S. Adams and Ronald Abler; Ki-Suk Lee, Chief Cartographer; Ronald Abler, ed. (For the Association of American Geographers). Three volumes.

Volume 1, Contemporary Metropolitan America: Twenty Geographical Vignettes Ballinger, Cambridge, Mass., 1976. In four volumes, $100 the set.

Volume 2, Urban Policymaking and Metropolitan Dynamics: A Comparative Geographical Analysis Ballinger, Cambridge, Mass., 1976. 577 pp. $25.

Volume 3, A Comparative Atlas of America's Great Cities: Twenty Metropolitan Regions University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1976. 527 pp. $95.     

Movable roof insulation in hot climates

This paper presents the results of experiments on the effect of a system of movable insulation - with and without a roof pond - on temperature and heat flow at the ceiling surfaces of air conditioned and unconditioned rooms in buildings roofed with thick reinforced concrete which are exposed to extremes of hot and cold weather. Results indicate that there is considerable merit in adopting such a system, particularly in hot, dry conditions, in addition to the limited benefits of harnessing solar energy in winter conditions.

The experiments were carried out at the Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee, UP, India. Mr Rao is at present working as an associate professor in the Department of Building Science, Faculty of Architecture, University of Singapore.     

MTO: A residential relocation demonstration program in the United States

This article provides an overview of an experimental residential relocation program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development known as Moving to Opportunity (MTO), currently in operation in five U.S. cities: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. Because families are randomly assigned to three groups, each of which receives a different bundle of housing services, MTO provides a unique opportunity to learn more about the effects of concentrated urban poverty on the outcomes of families. Yet residential relocation can be an effective anti-poverty strategy only if families successfully relocate and if their new neighborhoods translate into improved labor-market, educational, or other outcomes. We illustrate the potential as well as the limits of residential relocation policies by focusing on the relationship between the housing market and educational opportunities in the Baltimore demonstration site. Helen F. Ladd is Professor of Public Policy Studies and Economics at Duke University. Much of her current research focuses on education policy, particularly performance-based approaches to reforming schools. She is the editor ofHolding Schools Accountable: Performance-Based Reform in Education (Brookings Institution, May, 1996). She currently co-chairs a National Academy of Sciences Committee on Education Finance: Equity, Adequacy, and Productivity. Jens Ludwig is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University.     

Publications Received

Abstract

Public Policymaking Reexamined, Yehezkel Dror, Chandler Publishing Company, San Francisco, 1968. xiii, 370 pp. $7.50.

Feasible Planning For Social Change, Robert Morris and Robert H. Binstock with the collaboration of Martin Rein Columbia University Press, New York, 1966. 169 pp. $5.75.

The Study Of Policy Formation, Edited by Raymond A. Bauer and Kenneth J. Gergen The Free Press, New York, and Col-lier-Macmillan Limited, London, 1968. xxii, 392 pp. $9.95.

Automobile Ownership and Residential Density, John B. Lansing and Gary Hendricks, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1967. 230 pp. n.p.

People &; Plans: Essays On Urban Problems and Solutions, Herbert J. Gans, Basic Books, New York, 1968. 395 pp. $10.00     

重庆大学建筑城规学院多功能厅室内建筑声环境研究

重庆大学建筑城规学院多功能厅是学院师生进行会议、学术报告的主要场所。本文介绍了该多功能厅的室内概况以及主要建筑声学评价参数的测量结果,并用ODEON软件对厅堂室内音质参数进行模拟分析研究;同时分析了报告厅室内建筑声学环境特点,提出建筑声学改造措施。     

Ghettoization or gentrification? Post-socialist scenarios for Budapest

During the communist period, the guarantee of cheap housing and job security constituted the cornerstone of the communist welfare state in East European countries. But a decreasing social security and an increasing social polarization were the outcome of the 1989/90 transition. This paper highlights some of the effects of the political and economic transformation on urban societies in Eastern Europe, using Budapest as a case study. The emerging social inequalities are discussed in detail, along with the growing concentration of poverty. These processes have also had direct impacts on the social differentiation of urban neighbourhoods, creating new dimensions of urban segregation. In this respect, Budapest represents a unique case among East European cities, containing a considerable number of people belonging to the Gypsy population. Presently, we can observe very upward and down-ward processes in different inner-city neighbourhoods of Budapest. Some areas show clear signs of ghettoization, while others are clearly moving in an upward direction in terms of income and social status. Zoltán Kovács is a senior research fellow at the Geographical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and reader in geography at the University of Budapest. He is specialized in urban and political geography. His major field of interest includes the social and political consequences of post-communist transition and the transformation of East European cities with special attention to the transformation of the housing market.     

景观意识的融入:建筑设计基础空间教学研究

从重庆大学建筑城规学院一年级空间教学的改革实践出发,提出"将景观意识融入建筑设计基础空间教学"的教育理念,对该理念指导下的空间教学目标、方法、内容、成果等进行总结和介绍,并探讨了建筑与景观在空间教学上的结合点,以及景观意识对于空间教学的指导意义,旨在摆脱传统教学形体造型趋向的局限性,发展设计方法学指导下"空间-场地-行为-材料-形体"整体关联的建筑空间教学体系,为空间教学的理性研究和创新发展提供新的实践思路.     

Themes and contradictions in housing management: An analysis of bureaucratic discourse

The aim of this paper is to examine the ways in which housing management is socially constructed through analysis of the language and meaning used in one policy document, the Housing Management Standards Manual, produced by the Chartered Institute of Housing. Four recurrent themes are identified in the Manual which illustrate the ways in which language is used to construct the nature of the housing management task and build the professional and organizational structure which provides the framework for relations between housing managers and tenants. An analysis of the document illustrates the impact of contextual factors such as economic change, government policy and the restructuring of public sector management, which are facing housing management in Britain. The research on which this paper is based was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Lise Saugeres worked as a Research Associate with Bridget Franklin and David Clapham in the Centre for Housing Management and Development at Cardiff University on a two-year project on ‘the social construction of the occupational role of housing management’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. She has recently obtained her Ph.D. from Manchester and has now been appointed as a Lecturer in Human Geography in Plymouth.