Postmodern Urbanism:
The Restless Urban Landscape
Postmodern Urbanism – Central City Issues
Economic & Social Polarization: Spatial Mismatch
Economic & Social Polarization: Gentrification
Landscape Features: Festival Setting
Gentrification
A type of neighborhood change involving the replacement of lower income residents w/ middle or high income residents.
Most pronounced in world cities and regional centers that have evolved from older urban cores.
Production side explanation
“Rent Gap” – difference between cost of land, improvements AND value associated with “highest and best use”
Gentrification fueled by developers (Neil Smith’s early work)
Displacement of moderate income population as city becomes new “bourgeoisie playground”
SOHO NYC
Claire Dane’s Loft in NYC
“New Middle Class” – Consumption Side
Gentrification – Consumption Driven
Ley’s argument – new culture of consumption
Qualities of community
Assessing Gentrification
Production vs. Consumption -?
Merging of cultural & economic features in literature of gentrification
Postmodernism as “cultural clothing” of advanced capitalism
Knox’s List of Postmodern Urban Features
Gentrification Historic Preservation Postmodern architecture Mixed Use Development (MXD) Multiple Use Development (MUD) High-tech corridor Master planned suburban development Exurban development
Festival Settings
In attempt to enhance cities as places of consumption, cities support development of festival marketplaces and other ‘tourist’ attractions.
Ex.: Faneuil Market, Boston
Postmodern Urbanism – Postsuburban Development
What’s post-suburban about it? -- Suburban areas no longer primarily residential and, in fact, are creating new densities with functions competitive with central business district.
New vocabulary: “stealth” cities; Edge Cities; Technoburbs; High Tech Corridors; Asylum Suburbs
Edge City – joel garreau (1988)
Has five million square feet or more of leasable office space – the workplace of the Information Age
Has 600,000 square feet or more of leasable retail space
Has more jobs than bedrooms Is perceived by the population as one place Was nothing like “city” as recently as thirty years
ago
Flex-space
This concept combines “designer” office frontages w/ rear access loading bays and interior space that can be used as office, industrial, or warehousing space in any proportion.
Welton Enterprises, Inc.
High Quality Office/Industrial FlexSpace
Mixed Use Development
Harbor Square
Master Planned Communities
Features: “a definable boundary; a consistent but not necessarily uniform character; overall control during the development process by a single development entity; private ownership of recreational amenities; and, enforcement of convenants & restrictions by a master community associations.”
Prairie Crossing: “A Conservation Community”
Responses to Postmodern Conditions: New Urbanism
For Community?
For Environment?
For Market Niche?
Milwaukee Example
Beerline B – Ex. Trostel Square
New Urbanism
Community – ‘Neo-traditionalism’; local references, increased interaction
Environmental Critique – Pedestrian & transit orientation; Anti-sprawl w/higher densities
Market Niche – expensive master planned communities; ‘gentrification’ or New ‘Sub’urbanism