Politecnico di Milano
Facolt di Architettura e Societ
Corso di Laurea Magistrale in
Architettura
Anno Accademico 2012-2013
EMPTinner
A shrinking city from South:
Montevideo
ISABELLA FORESTIERI
RELATORE: GENNARO POSTIGLIONE
CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION |9
II. SHRINKING CITIES |27
* DEFINITION
* THREE RESEARCH PROJECTS OF URBAN SHRINKAGE
* CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS
* GLOBAL PHENOMENON
* CAUSES
* URBAN SHRINKAGE PATTERNS
III. CASE STUDIES |63
* DESIGN FOR A SHRINKING CITY
* SCALE OF INTERVENTIONS
* INTRODUCING THE SIX CASE STUDIES
* VALPARAISO - LA HABANA - BALTIMORE -
- LISBOA - BEIRUT - TOKYO
IV. MONTEVIDEO |107
* SUGGESTIONS
* FROM ITS FOUNDATION TO '90
* MONTEVIDEO: A SHRINKING CITY.
CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES
V. MONITOR OF INTERVENTIONS |149
VI.INTERVIEWS |289
VII.CONCLUSION |397
BIBLIOGRAPHY |401
6***
More than fifty percent of the world's population
now lives in cities, and the figure is expected
to increase in the next two decades.
However, the common assumption that the global
increase in urbanization means that all cities
are growing, is false: in every part of the world
many cities are actually shrinking.
As the city is "context par excellence" where
man lives and acts, delineate the trajectories,
the phenomena and processes that trigger in
these living organisms, which are the cities,
it is essential to understand the anthropology
of contemporary life, its its unfolding, and
to be able to act consequently to improve the
livability the unity and the equity of its
inhabitants.
The research project consists of two parts:
the first deals with the topic of shrinking
cities as a global phenomenon, searching for the
causes and effects, the second part explores the
argument through the case study of Montevideothe
capital of Uruguay, which in contrast to other
Latin American urban areas, where the trend
is a continuous growth, manifests a loss of
population.
The phenomenon of shrinking cities is not considered
as a problem but rather as a transformation,
an ongoing process, trying emphasize how the
decrease is also an opportunity, a condition
of possible otherwise allows to rethink the
urban space. In addition, the urban shrinkage
7process is not even understood as the opposite
of growthsince can occur simultaneously, as two
different sides of the same coin. The urban
shrinkage pattern that clarifies the concept is
the so-called Doughnut Effect: the empty core
and a periphery that at the same time continuing
to grow.
But the shrinkage process also manifests itself in
a contrary manner , stable core and suburbs that
have started to contract, or indistinguishably
among the parts of the city, as if they were
perforated at random.
Six case studie are examined as representatives
of these patterns of urban shrinkage. In these
exemples it was possible to trace the different
levels of intervention that dialogue with the
transformations put in place, and coming from
different parts of the world to emphasize the
global scale of the phenomenon.
The de-growth occurs in Montevideo as a process,
not as a traumatic event, and begins statistically
from the 1996 Census but with a complexity of
causes that must be traced in the actuality of
the city but with roots in the history of the
last 50 years of Uruguay.
The areas that have lost more population are the
central and consolidated ones, a clear example
of what is called Doughnut Effect: empty inner
city and full to the crown.
With the collaboration of the Facultad de
Arquitectura of Udelar of Montevideo, in
particular the Unidad Permanente de Vivienda,
an attempt was made to understand the causes
and consequences of the process of shrinkage
8intrinsically linked to the opposite effectthe
expansion out from the edges of the consolidated
city.
Through interviews carried out directly,
collection of materials and first hand sources,
through the exploration of the city of Montevideo
and research on the fieldinterventions have
emerged from the Administration that, relieved
of the problems associated to the need to manage
the growth of a city, has the opportunity to
direct its efforts toward the construction of
new paradigms of making city: quality versus
quantity, concentration versus growth, social
cohesion and cohabitation versus fragmentation
and segregation, equality versus inequality,
trying to interact with the phenomenon of
emptINNERS , voids in the center.
***
9Introduction
10
Inhabitants
>5.000.0002.500.000- 5.000.0001.000.000-2.500.000500.000-250.000100.000-250.00050.000-100.000
11
More than 50 per cent of global population now lives in urban areas.This figure is expected to increase as the world is rapidly urbanizing.
Source: Dynamic Maps, World Countries Atlas
12
***
6.1 billion of people currently live
on earth
3 billion of them live in citis
By 2030, the population of the world
will increased by 2 billion
This increase will be stem almost
exclusively from the growth in urban
population
In 2030 4.9 billion people will live
in citis
Every day 190.000 new city-dwellers
are added all over the world, 2 in
every second.
13
BUT NOT ALL CITIES ARE TAKING PART IN
THIS COMPETITION :
AROUND THE WORLD MORE THAN
1 IN 4 CITIES IS A SHRINKING CITY
***
Source: www.shrinkingcities.com
14
SHRINKING CITIES MAP Cities over 100,000 inhabitants
> 75%
> 50% - 74%
> 25% - 49%
10% - 24%
Population lossesInhabitants>5.000.0002.500.000- 5.000.0001.000.000-2.500.000500.000-250.000100.000-250.00050.000-100.000
15
Source: Dynamic Maps, World Countries Atlas
16
***
A casual, random change in the cells genetic
material produces alterations in one or more
inherited characteristics, provoking a break
in the mechanisms of heredity: a mutation is
produced; a substantial alteration affecting
both the morphology and the physiology, not only
of the cell or the organ but of the entire
organism." 1
Constantly and inexorably, cities keep changing
because they are the stage of human life and
activities and as long as they are inhabited
they express, just like any living organism,
an instability caused by behaviours that react
to the climatic conditions, the availability of
resources, the decisions of those who govern,
protect or simply pass through them.
Consequently, cities born and die, they develop
or empty out, they undergo transformations or
they are artificially frozen in lime, thus
ceasing to be cities and becoming gadgets,
showcase objects, as for instance Venice, or
amusement park like Las Vegas.
Or they may become the stage of genetic
metamorphoses, as in Dubai where the desert
becomes a lagoon and the open sea an archipelago.
And like a membrane cities lives, and their
transformations are a continuos processes of
expansion and contraction, like an organism born
and even die.
Its not a new phenomenon in the history: Atlantis,
1Sol-Morales, I., Present
and Futures. Architecture in
Cities, Barcelona: ACTAR, 1996.
17
Troy, Pompeii, Mayas cities. Catastrophic,
exeptional events.
Also today, wars and natural-disasters are still
causes of urban shrinkage; just see the events
of contemporary history like the hurricane
Katrina in New Orleans or the Tzunami in Asia,
and the wars in Iraq, where cities have lost
huge numbers of inhabitants and large part of
physical heritage.
But in the last decades several causes have
emerged, resulting in the shrinkage of cities.
Not only dramatics sudden events, but now
shrinking cities are increasingly a lasting
phenomenon.
It cannot be considered as a extra-ordinary
urban contingency, however a common expirience
for the most part of the world: despite all the
expectations created by the scenario of constant
growth, the number of shrinking cities has
increased faster than the number of boomtowns.
***
18
***
DOES GROWTH MEAN BEAUTIFUL?
People have difficultly to accept shrinkage.
Since the beginning of human history, all have
been focused on growth, expansion, renewal,
innovation.
This goes beyond the capitalistic structure as
the chosen model for society. This has to do with
the human condition, with wanting to live and not
to die, with progressing and not degenerating.
Growth is a sign of youth.
Even the dominant paradigm among planners and
policy makers is planning for growth; looking
out the language of planning paradigm is full of
words like development, progress, expansion and
management of growth.
But today the scenario is different: universal
shrinkage is manifest.
Human populations age, and thus energy levels
decrease; money devaluates, natural resources
are depleted; economies stagnate; rainforests
and polar icecaps are getting smaller; budgets
and workforce shrink; farmland is vacated/
abandoned.
And all this is starting to attract quite some
attention.
Shrinkage is no longer a deniable side-effect of
growth, but instead is seen by many people to be
an overpowering reality/fact.
Can an answer to shrinkage be found that is
not inspired by conservatism, fear or short-
sightedness, but rather sees the greatest of
19
challenges in shrinkage?
Or, more precisely, is it possible to design for
shrinkage rather than for growth?
No human activity is more estranged from shrinkage
than design.
In particular, architecture has so identified
itself with growth-scenarios in the past hundred
years that the idea that the opposite process
can also use design is regarded as blasphemy.
Population growth, the growth of prosperity,
hygiene and production, the growth of velocity
and experience, everything had to be accommodated
for and stimulated by architecture.
Above all: there is money in growth, but not
in shrinkage; therefore, growth is much more
attractive.
A change, then, begins to become apparent in
this simple opposition.
The small, the miniaturised, the refined, the
modest, the slow, they all come to be viewed in
a different light.
More than that, they begin to acquire something
exclusive, a privilege, a quality.
The small nestles itself in the aesthetic of
things. It returns as a 'clever solutions'. It
is itself seen as a new scientific paradigm
(nanotechnology). In addition, more recently,
there is a growing realisation that more study
must be done of the shrinkage process as perhaps
not being by definition opposed to growth, but
rather, shrinkage being an aspect of the same
growth; or more precisely, growth and contraction
are not two different phenomena, they are two
sides of the same coin.2
2Martinez Fernandez, Chung-
Tong Wu, in AA.VV., Future of
Shrinking Cities. University of
California, Berkeley, 2009.
20
The relevant question here is: Is this an
insight into shrinkage as something other than
the harbinger of cramp and narrow-mindedness,
which is converted into action, into policy,
into vision and above all into design.
Is shrinkage a domain where there is not only
something to be lost, but also precisely something
to be gained?
Is shrinkage a field in which talent can be
better utilised than in the frayed clich of
growth, and is completely true the paradigm big
is beautiful?
***
21
INSIDE DENSITY: THE OVERPOPULATED CITIES OF
J.G.BALLARD
The Concentration City (1957) and Billennium
(1962) are two short stories written by James
Graham Ballard who describes in them two
situations that could actually belong to the same
world. While the first one depicts an infinite
dense city in which free space and non-
functional space are considered as oxymoron and
impossible to fathom, the second one dramatized
a urban code which forbids anybody to live in
more than 3.5 mq. In The Concentration City, the
main character travels East in a train looking
for the free space that would allow him to test
his flying invention and realized after several
days spent in this train that he came back to
his departure point both in space and in time
(the day he came back is the same day that he
left). In Billenium the two protagonists finds
few extra square meters hidden behind a wall
that they use as a clandestine shelter before
realizing that they re-created the same density
that they were originally running away from. The
stories are pervaded by a subtext that makes the
reader suspect that this urban structure itself
is only the result of the economic exploitation
of space, a sort of exaggerated "land limited
supply" such as that familiar from Hong Kong.
Ballard's description of extreme urban density
is based on the model of the capitalistic
production of things, in this case buildings and
the corresponding urban infrastructure.
22
"The surgeon hesitated before opening the door.
"Look," he began to explain sympathetically,
"you can't get out of time, can you? Subjectively
it's a plastic dimension, but whatever you do
to yourself you'll never be able to stop that
clock"- he pointed to the one on the desk-"or
make it run backward. In exactly the same way you
can't get out of the City."
"The analogy doesn't hold," M. said. He gestured
at the walls around them and the lights in the
streets outside. "All this was built by us. The
question nobody can answer is: what was here
before we built it?"
"It's always been here," the surgeon said.
"Not these particular bricks and girders, but
others before them. You accept that time has no
beginning and no end. The City is as old as time
and continuous with it."
"The first bricks were laid by someone," M.
insisted. "There was the Foundation."
"A myth. Only the scientists believe in that,
and even they don't try to make too much of it.
Most of them privately admit that the Foundation
Stone is nothing more than a superstition. We pay
it lip service out of convenience, and because it
gives us a sense of tradition. Obviously there
can't have been a first brick. If there was,
how can you explain who laid it, and even more
23
difficult, where they came from?"
"There must be free space somewhere," M. said
doggedly. "The City must have bounds."
"Why?" the surgeon asked. "It can't be floating
in the middle of nowhere. Or is that what you're
trying to believe?"
M. sank back limply. "No"
The surgeon watched M silently for a few minutes
and paced back to the desk. "This peculiar
fixation of yours puzzles me. You're caught
between what the psychiatrists call paradoxical
faces. I suppose you haven't misinterpreted
something you've heard about the Wall?"
M. looked up. "Which wall?"
The surgeon nodded to himself. "Some advanced
opinion maintains that there's a wall around the
City, through which it's impossible to penetrate.
I don't pretend to understand the theory myself.
It's far too abstract and sophisticated. Anyway
I suspect they've confused this Wall with the
bricked-up black areas you passed through on
the Sleeper. I prefer the accepted view that
the City stretches out in all direction without
limits."
From The Concentration City by J.G.Ballard
The Ballard's dystopia comes true: These images were taken
in the districts of Sham Shui Po, Yau Tsim Mong and Kowloon
City for a campaign -Society for community organization-
to raise awareness about the living conditions in Hong
Kong.
26
27
II. Shrinking cities
28
***
DEFINITION OF SHRINKING CITY
...structural economic weakness and a lack
of jobs and job training opportunities; the
departure of the young and the skilled; empty
housing; rising poverty; a high percentage of
old people; dwindling tax revenue to pay for the
increasing costs of social security; a poor image
and a reluctance to invest, all of which combine
to reinforce the existing structural economic
weakness generates an overall downward spiral
encompassing every aspect of urban life in the
form of structural shrinkage.3
The term shrinking city, of german coinage
Schrumpfende Stdte emerges in the 1990s with
the collapse of the Soviet Union and partly as a
result of the massive, east-west migration that
depopulated a large number of Post-Socialist
cities.
One of the first pieces dealing with city
shrinkage in a German context and one of the
first contributions to a debate on the subject
can to be found in the book Neue Urbanitt from
1987 by Hartmut Huermann and Walter Siebel.
In this book they elaborate on the declining
cities discussing the relation between growing,
stagnating and shrinking cities.
In recent years, the German Shrinking Cities
project has taken the notion of Schrumpfende
Stdte and translated it into the English term
shrinking cities and in that process expanded
3Kaltenbrunner R., The Other
Citi es/Die anderen Stdte, Band
3, IBA Stadtumbau 2010, Jovis
Verlag GmbH, Berlin, 2006.
29
the debate into a broad context entering the
international urban planning scene.
"Shrinking cities- a problematic term." 4
First of all , the Architect Philip Oswalt of
the project Shrinking cities, a project of
the Kulturstiftung des Bunders-German Federal
Cultural Foundation, declare the nature unclear
of the epithet "shrinking" for a city, a world that
not explain the complexity of this phenomenon,
lead it back to the sphere of decrease, reducing a
heterogenic urban transformation into a "simple"
decline of urban population and/or economic
activity in some cities.
Indeed, there is also growth in the process
of shrinkage: the most clear pattern of this
affirmation is the so-called doughnut effect,
metaphor of the mid-1960s continued to be used
to characterize the ongoing decline of the inner
city and the growth of outlying areas.
Therefore, the term shrinking city is a
simplification.
A simplification can both be positive and
negative: it can make a complex phenomenon like
shrinking cities understandable, while running
the risk of being so simple that it does not
reflect real life.
The advantages of using simplifications is that
it brings into sharp focus certain limited
aspects of an otherwise far more complex and
unwieldy reality 5, but that the risk with
simplifications are that they do not successfully
represent the actual activity of the society
they depicted6.
Therefore, shrinking territories can be
5Scott J., Seeing Like a State
How Certain Schemes to Improve
the Human Condition Have Failed,
New Haven, Connecticut, 1998.
6Ibidem
4Oswalt P., Shrinking Cities
Volume I, Hatje Cantz Verlag,
Germany, 2006
30
considered a variation of urbanism that is part
of an overall and general transformation of the
traditional city-model.
Thus, it is not a distinct city-model, but a
variation with some similarities and differences
in relation to other city-variations.
***
31
***
THREE STUDIES OF URBAN SHRINKAGE PROCESS
Inside the debate about shrinking cities,
there are three contemporary projects that have
contributed to the research and diffusion of
theories, case studies and possible practices:
the Shrinking Cities Project, the Shrinking
Cities Group and the Iba stadtumbau 2010.
The Shrinking Cities Project
"The objective of shrinking cities project is
to identify new models of action capable of
shaping and qualifying the urban transformation
resulting from shrink".7
This is a German project that was initiated by
the German Federal Cultural Foundation under the
curatorship of Philip Oswalt, in co-operation
with the Leipzig Gallery of Contemporary Art,
the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and the magazine
Arch+. The research and design project looks at
shrink as a cultural challenge.
The starting point for the project was the change
taking place in the former of East Germany
after the reunification of Germany. From this,
the research extended the discussion into a
international context , analyzing four cases
of shrinkage process in different parts of the
world: Halle-Leipzig (East Germany), Manchester
and Liverpool ( Great Britain) Detroit (United
States of America) and Ivanavo (Russia).
Investigating and documenting case studies
undertaken in different parts of the world have 7www.shrinkingcities.com
32
shown that what was happening in the east of
Germany was happening in other parts of the
world, leading to consider the urban shrinkage
as a global phenomenon.
The Shrinking Cities Group
This is an international group based at the
Berkeley University of California's Institute
of Urban and Regional Development, composed by
researchers and policymakers from North America,
South America , Europe, Asia and Australia.
This group has a more theoretical approach
and it is working "in a global perspective,
setting the context for in-depth case studies in
selected cities and considering specific social,
economic, environmental, cultural and land-use
issues". 8
The objectives of the research can be listed in
four points:
1. to develop a strategic framework for discussion
of the shrinking cities phenomenon;
2.to establish a network of experts for the
exchange of information and feedback;
3.to find and evaluate successful patterns of
revitalization or strategic models that can be
applied to other regions;
4.to communicate findings to policy-makers
around the world.
Furthermore, each case study will be looked at
through a specific lens in order to understand
the role that different approaches, policies and
strategies have in the re-generation of shrinking
cities. The lens are: innovation, environmental
sustainability, culture and creative industries, 8
www-iurd.ced.berkeley.edu/scg/
33
information and communication technologies, land
use, transport and industry infrastructure,
community involvement, shrinking suburbs and
core cities in large metropolitan regions, post-
socialist cities.
The IBA Stadtumbau 2010
This project can be seen like a laboratory where
different city re-development tools are tested
and applied by the year 2010 in the region of
Saxony-Anhalt: cities are finding new profiles,
trying put new methods and exploiting new
oportunities.9
For the IBA Stadtumbau is not enough to remove
superfluous housing from the market and demolish
old buildings, but shrinking cities need to
redefine themselves in order to find the
components to their future profile, functions
and identity. "The objective of the IBA 2010
is to build up practical urban re-development
expertise at the state and local level, and to
devise pilot schemes that will set standards for
international urban research and design under
the conditions of demographic, economic and
social change. (IBA)
Nineteen cities are participating in this
project, each having a specifi c theme attached,
and all of them addressing problems and issues
of relevance for them. The different themes
of the cities can all be categorized into four
main spheres of action: architectural-spatial
measures, socio-cultural issues, infrastructure
and economy. 9www.iba-stadtumbau.de
34
INDUSTRALIZATION CENTER-PERIPHERY
concentration of professionals;flow of creative class;technology changes;industrial restructuring
DE-INDUSTRALIZATION
downtown decline;inner cities decline;brown fields sites;increase in socio-economicinequality
ECONOMIC/ SOCIAL/ENVIROMENTAL MANIFESTATIONS
rapid development of centers; industrial zonesfree trade zonespollution
DRIVERS OF SHRINKAGE concentration of public/private investments;centripetal forces created by growth poles
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS FOR SHRINKING CITIES
35
corporatization of cities;gobal city formation;competion between world city regions;shift towards professionalservices employment;concentration of innovationand knowledge workers;new megalopolis
decline in birth date;ageing of population;loss in population;migration
GLOBALIZATION POPULATION TRANSITION
persistant aridity, floods, natural disasters,hurracanes, tsunamis;corporatization of farming
CLIMATE CHANGE
high levels of housing vacancy;abandonment of residential areas;wastage ofinfrastucture;increase in socio-o-economic inequality
global cities;Decline/Abandonment of cities/ part of cities/metro areas;gentrification;increase in socio-economicinequality
abbandoned farms;destroyed infrastructure;changing coast lines;shrinkage of territories;rapid change of ecosystems;increase of socio-economic inequality;cultural displacement due to relocation
Source: Martinez Fernandez & Wu, 2007
36
[Source:AMO,WWF The Energy Report]
37
***
A GLOBAL PHENOMENON
Shrinking cities are like "the canary in a
coal mine"10 , the industrialized worlds early
warning signal of the global urban crises of
deindustrialization, suburbanization and
metropolitanization."
The phenomenon of urban shrinkage is the
harbinger of the end of the growth era based on
cheap fossil fuel; a crisis of cheap mobility,
of ageing populations and of constantly new
waves of technological restructuring increase
by climate change, which will re-concentrate
suburban populations to the urban cores; a crisis
of social polarization with social divisions
between growing places, globally connected to
capital circuits and shrinking places depend
on locally grown microfinancing. Shrinking
processes will ostensibly be so ubiquitous that
losing all stigma they will soon become as normal
as growth processes.
Oswald Philip in Hypotheses on urban shrinking
in the 21st century present these argument in
six hypotheses:
1. Shrinking cities are qualitatively and
quantitatively different from the urban decline
experienced in the 20th century. In the 21st
century shrinking cities represent the end of a
growth era that began with industrialization 200
years ago. In the 21st century industrialized
countries will bear the brunt of this change with
10Oswalt P., Shrinking Cities
Volume I, Hatje Cantz Verlag,
Germany, 2006
38
the largest number of shrinking cities resulting
from de-industrialization, suburbanization,
and metropolitanization; Growth and shrinking
will be in a state of equilibrium and mutual
determination.
2. A culture of shrinkage. City shrinking
processes will be de-stigmatized and considered
as normal as growth processes. However the
socioeconomic and social equity outcomes of
these processes will involve conflicts;
3. Shrinking cities, conceived as a component of
the process of de-urbanization in the 21 century
will increasingly affect suburbs and office
districts. Increasing mobility costs and ageing
populations will re-concentrate people from the
suburbs to the urban cores, while technological
restructuring of the service sector will shrink
conventional office complexes;
4. The end of the fossil energy era and climate
change will exacerbate the shrinking cities
phenomenon due to (a) climate effects related to
water resources, flooding and natural hazards;
and (b) decline of petroleum rich areas as their
stocks deplete;
5. Shrinking processes exacerbate uneven
development and the emergence of polarized dual
regions whereby shrinking ones are increasingly
de-capitalized. This will lead to dual societies
characterized by growth regions connected to
global capital flows and shrinking regions
39
locally dependent on leveraging home grown
capital for micro enterprises;
6. Urban planning and architecture in shrinking
cities will face new tasks associated with
deconstructing and adapting to no growth
conditions.
***
40
***
CAUSES
Cities shrink for different reasons.
Urban shrinkage is not a single process in
it-self but rather a combination of different
conditions, global and local, that impact on
cities.
Nonetheless , apart from wars, epidemics and
natural-disasters, defines the are four causes
that can be described as the main reasons for
post world War II urban shrinkage
In this complexity of causes, there are commons
background traceble as the main reasons of post
world War II urban shrinkage: changes in the
economic (deindustrialization), demographic
(population ageing, low birth rate) urban
and social (suburbanization, gentrification)
changes.
Economic change
Urban structure
change
Demographic change
Deindustrialization
Population ageing
and low birth rate
Suburbanization
Gentrification
41
One of the most visible links between
urban shrinkage and economic changes is the
deindustrialization, the decline of the economic
attraction of a city. Cities of the industrial age
have been drained by suburbanization driven by
an industrialized vuilding sector and increasing
private car ownership; and they have undergone
process of deindustrialization followed by losses
of workplaces and population. Further-more, the
increased suburbanization processes constitute
a change in the urban structure in which the
center of the city is abandoned in exchange for
a life in the suburbs. Suburbanization does not
imply a complete loss of inhabitants but more
a move away from the city-centre to the urban
periphery. But in the last years, related decline
of suburbs, a new phenomenon is taking place:
a opposite flux from suburbs to inner cities.
This process can implicate a change in the urban
and social structure of a specific area: the
gentrification, the replacement of working or
lower classes that already live in a part of the
city with new and richers individuals.
Therefore the loss of population of a city can
be caused also for the increase of population
ageing and low birth rate, a process already
started in the most part of the world.
DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES
suburbanization
gentrification
URBAN STRUCTURE CHANGES
population ageing
low birth rate
migrations
DEINDUSTRIALIZATION
de-centralization
technology
the service era
economic supremacy of
China
NATURAL DISASTERS
POLLUTION
_complexitys
44
DEINDUSTRIALIZATION
Population levels are falling, the industrial
base is shrinking, and the governmental and
financial powers and autonomy of the city are
being eroded. 11
Deindustrialization is a process by which a
country or area stops having industry as its
main source (= cause) of work or income.12
As a structural process, the deindustrialization
particularly affects cities where manufacturing
constitutes the largest component of the urban
economy.The urban fabric is a constantly
changeable structure, influenced by the different
capitalist eras, among other things.
Edward W. Soja talks about an urban restructuring
taking place based on a shift from the industrial
capitalist city to the post-industrial or
information-age city. This restructuring is
a fundamental shift away from the structures
and logics of what Soja calls urban-industrial
capitalism. Thus, in the late 1970s a new era
of capitalism slowly emerged the era of
globalization. Apart from this general shift
from manufacturing industry to knowledge based
businesses, historical changes such as the 1970s
oil crisis and the fall of the Berlin Wall
(the fall of the iron curtain) have influenced
the development. Finally, the development of
IT and telecommunication technologies have
made globalization the overall developmental
guideline for contemporary societies.12
Cambridge Dictionaries Online
11Clark D., Urban Decline,
Routledge, London, 1989.
45
a shift from manufacturing to service
sectors;
the side effect of globalization and
neo-liberalization;
the increasingly development of
technology;
the move of industries to areas where the
cost of labor is significantly lower;
the supremacy of China economy.
cities stop growing
massive unemployment
migration of population
inner cities begun declining
industrial ruins
Consequences for industrial cities
Causes of deindustrialization
46
LONG WAVES OF URBAN GROWTH // DECLINE AND INDUSTRIAL CHANGES
transport / infrastructure
system of production
leading countries
key industries steel, machine tools
Germany, United States
urban growth
path breaking shocks great depression and World Wars
industrial core, early suburbanization
aberrant citiesurban decline
port, railways, steamship
craft based production
PRE-FORDIST
1890
47
steel, machine tools
United States Japan China
aereospace, electronics, computers, telecomunications, producer services
producer services, software, internet commerce
edge cities, global cities
networked cities, mega-regions and megalopolis growth
Cold-War, oil crisisfall of Soviet Union, trade blocs
2008 financialcrisis
port, railways, highways
mass productionlean productionindustrial outsourcing
global value chainsglobal service outsourcing
cargo airports,highways, rail, standardized containers
massive suburbanization
core industrial cities
post-socialist cities, central cities and firt tier suburbs SHRINKING CITIES
FORDIST POST-FORDIST DIGITAL-ECOLOGICAL
1945 1974 2002
48
CHANGES OF URBAN STRUCTURES
Another factor which explains the decline of
some areas is the change in urban structures
suburbanization and gentrification.
SUBURBANIZATION
Suburbanization is an ambiguous phenomenon when
its related to the phenomenon of shrinking
cities.
Indeed, from a physically view, cities that
experienced suburbanization are grown in the
edges, changing and crumble cities boundaries.
The result is that peripheries keep on growing
at the same time that inner cities experiencing
loss of population.
Suburbanization does not imply a complete loss
of inhabitants but more a move away from the
city-centre to the urban periphery. This means
that shrink is embedded in a larger process
of growth. This kind of urbanization can be
characterized as a doughnut, with the empty city
centre surrounded by growing urban sprawl.
Urban sprawl, a trend long associated with
North American cities, is fast engulfing many
developing countries where real estate developers
are pushing a world class lifestyle .13
However, the flows of populations out of a
citys center may not always mean that residents
are moving to peri-urban area; the population
movement may also be to neighbouring cities with
different politico-administrative structures.
Many formerly monocentric cities in the developing 13
UN Habitat, State of the
Cities 2010-2011
49
world are becoming increasingly polycentric,
developing urban nucleations with their own
downtowns, employment centres and other features
of independent cities. These adjacent urban
areas expand their populations, often at the
expense of the original city that experiences a
decline in population, accompanied by a decline
in economic activities and opportunities.
But in the last years, especially in the United
States, where suburbs have representing the
American Dream - a big house with a yard, a
pool and a barbecue, a peaceful place to raise
a family - a new phenomenon is taking place: a
opposite flux from suburbs to inner cities.
The main causes of this new wave of back to the
city are the increase of poverty in suburbs, due
to the loss of many manufacturing and construction
jobs, the decrease of the use of cars ( status
symbol of suburbs) since the middle-2000 and the
younger generation, a generation that is driving
less and is more interest in leaving the death
suburbs to the inner city, the Pandoras box.
50
SPRAWL
They heard me singing and they told me to stop,
Quit these pretentious things and just punch
the clock,
These days, my life, I feel it has no purpose,
But late at night the feelings swim to the
surface.
Cause on the surface the city lights shine,
Theyre calling at me, come and find your
kind.
Sometimes I wonder if the worlds so small,
That we can never get away from the sprawl,
Living in the sprawl,
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond
mountains,
And theres no end in sight,
I need the darkness someone please cut the
lights.
We rode our bikes to the nearest park,
Sat under the swings, we kissed in the dark,
We shield our eyes from the police lights,
We run away, but we dont know why,
And like a mirror these city lights shine,
Theyre screaming at us, we dont need your
kind.
SCENES FROM THE SUBURBS - short film
Director: Spike Jonze, 2011
Music; Arcade Fire
"GENTRIFICATION AND TOURISM SPECULATIONS ARE KILLING OUR
HOMETOWN"
Outside of the Ufizzi - Florence, Italy
53
GENTRIFICATION
Displacement from home and neighbourhood can
be a shattering experience. At worst it leads
to homelessness, at best it impairs a sense of
community. Public policy should, by general
agreement, minimize displacement.
Yet a variety of public policies, particularly
those concerned with gentrification, seem to
foster it." 14
Gentrification derives from gentry, meaning
the people of gentle birth, good breeding, or
high social position, as in the landed-gentry .
Sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term in 1964
to mean the influx of richer individuals into
cities or neighbourhoods who replace working or
lower-classes already living there: One by one,
many of the working class quarters of London
have been invaded by the middle-classesupper
and lower. Shabby, modest mews and cottages
two rooms up and two downhave been taken over,
when their leases have expired, and have become
elegant, expensive residences.... Once this
process of gentrification starts in a district
it goes on rapidly until all or most of the
original working-class occupiers are displaced
and the whole social character of the district
is changed. Gentrification is therefore a
process that occurs when new residents, with
higher education and income levels, managerial
workers, professionals and young, replace older
residents, who disproportionately are low-
income, working-class and poor or minority and
ethnic group members, and elderly , from older
and previously deteriorated inner-city housing.
14Marcuse P., Gentrification,
Abandonment and Displacement:
Connections, Causes and
Policy Responses in New York
City, Journal of Urban and
Contemporary Law, Volume
28, St. Louis, Washington
University, 1985.
54
DEMOGRAPHICAL CHANGES
POPULATION AGEING
Population ageing, "the process by which older
individuals become a proportionally larger share
of total population" 15, become one of the most
distinctive demographic changes of the century:
after celebrating the young, fresh and new,
the twenty-first century will become ever more
mature.
Experienced at the beginning by the more
developed countries, the process has recently
become manifest in many countries considered
less developed: in the next future, the entire
world will face population ageing, even though
different levels of intensity and time frames.
Global population ageing is a by-product of the
declining levels of mortality ad fertility, the
so-called demographic transition : the total
fertility rate is below the replacement level in
almost all industrialized countries. In the less
develop regions, the fertility decline started
later and has proceeded faster than in the more
developed areas. Therefore, the shift in age
structure, paired with a declining fertility
rate, means that not only people are living
longer, but society is getting older. Population
ageing has a profound impact on a broad range
of economic, political and social conditions: an
extension in labor participation over time, an
increasing competitiveness of global migration a
mutation in multi-generational family forms, an
increasing demands for health services. 16Definition of Chesnais J.C.
15Population Division, DESA,
United Nations, "World
Population Ageing 1950-2050"
2010 2050
longevity
shrinking nations
increased life expectancy
shrinking nations
increased life expectancy
median world agelife expectancy
5
10
male
pe
rce
nt
female
51 01 52 02 53 03 54 04 55 05 56 06 5 70 75 80 85 90 95 100+0
western baby boomersmigration to western europe
lower fertility
lower fertility
increased longevity
lower life expectancy
migration to western europe
lower life expectancy
youth bulge
youth bulge
youth bulge
youth bulge
median world age
life expectancy
15
05 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100+
5
10
male
pe
rce
nt
age
female
temporary migrant-influenced structure
age0
No Babies? from The New York Times
Painting of Edward del Rosario
57
LOW BIRTH RATE
In the 1970s only 24 countries had fertility
rates of 2.1 or less, all of them rich. Now
there are over 70 such countries, and in every
continent, including Africa. Between 1950 and
2000 the average fertility rate in developing
countries fell by half from six to threethree
fewer children in each family in just 50 years.
Over the same period, Europe went from the peak
of the baby boom to the depth of the baby bust
and its fertility also fell by almost half, from
2.65 to 1.42but that was a decline of only
1.23 children. The fall in developing countries
now is closer to what happened in Europe during
19th- and early 20th-century industrialisation.
But what took place in Britain over 130 years
(1800-1930) took place in South Korea over just
20 (1965-85).
Things are moving even faster today. Fertility
has dropped further in every South-East Asian
country (except the Philippines) than it did in
Japan. The rate in Bangladesh fell by half from
six to three in only 20 years (1980 to 2000). In
Just in Japan, where the phenomenon is already
well established, researchers coined shoshika,
meaning a society without children, to evoke
the fertility decline. "Socially, the drop was
linked to later and lower rates of marriages,
prolonged education, and individualized career
endeavors." 17 Combined with the prohibitive cost
of child bearing, this entailed a major fertility
reduction.
***
17Chapple, 2008
58
***
URBAN SHRINKAGE PATTERNS
Population loss is the most clearly and
significant index to detect a shrinking cities
but which population?
Sometimes as repeatedly stated, shrinkage may
also be contain in growth, especially when
dealing with large conurbations.
Is possible to identify three kind of patterns
of urban shrinkage due to loss or displacement
of population: dounghnut effect, perforated city
, and stable core.
DOUGHNUT EFFECT shrink of inner city growth of suburbs
PERFORATED CITY shrink of both inner city and suburbs
STABLE CORE shrink of suburbs growth/stable inner city
59
DOUGHNUT EFFECT
"The Doughnut Effect has several different
meanings and implications, but the chief
principle is the hole in the center surrounded
by a delicious treat around the periphery: this
being a metaphor for the centrifugal force of
urban abandonment on 20th century cities. With
the growth of American cities (not just American
cities but evidenced most clearly by them) there
was a migration to the suburb. This migration in
search of newer, larger, and/or more affordable
homes left many inner cities "hollow" and devoid
of population and vitality". 18
Grow and shrink in the same time: the inner city
shrink, undergo population loss and urban decay
while suburbs and new peripheral constructions,
keep growing.
The inner city empty, physically and culturally.
The citizens experience a spatial and cultural
segregation and fragmentation , the richer' s
one and the middle class become drift away to
the city center preferring the newest suburb,
and the poorest inhabitants remain in the inner
city decaying, paradoxically, they physically
live in the city center but only because they
squatted houses and they have no means to try
alternatives.
PERFORATED CITY
"Cities grow like a liquid, shrink like a gas,
they perforated"
Otherwise the doughnut effect, "perforated city"
refer to cities where urban shrinkage occurs in
different areas throughout the city, nebulously 18Adam Ferrari
19Smith D.A. ,
www.affordablehousinginstitute.org
60
in the city center , in the peripheries or
suburbs.
The term "perforate" appears for the first time
in relation with an urban structure with Lutke
Daldrup, that used it to describe "a new era of
cities characterized by simultaneous demographic
decline and urban sprawl". Like a pattern of
urban shrinkage the term appears to have first
been used to describe Leipzig, in Saxony:"
Leipzig was one of the first cities to regain
scope for action by overcoming collective self-
deception, to call a spade a spade, and to find
a striking term to describe the situation, the
"perforated city". 20
STABLE CORE
This pattern is usually traceable in cities
experienced a deeply and for a long time urban
growth, with a process of suburbanization and
massive use of the land in the surrounding
areas. But now a days, with economic crisis and
demographical changes, particulary the increase
of population ageing that have problems to reach
at the inner city where service are located,
these huge suburbs will start to shrink: the
residential density will drop, abandoned
houses in the metropolitan suburbs and vacant
land will increase.
The case must study that concerned this pattern
of urban shrinkage is Japan, especially Tokyo ,
where the 87 % of citizens lives in the suburbs
of Tokyo.
But this phenomenon is taken place also in the
United States, where suburbs were the "American
10Jessen J., Urban Renewal,
German Journal of Urban
Studies, 2006
61
dream": a house close to the city but not inside
the chaos of large cities, a big car, a yard and
a barbecue. But with economic crises, above all
with the crisis of car industry and petrol, a new
generation is growing without the status symbol
of the car and young people have begun move from
suburbs to city centres.
***
62
63
III. Case studies
64
De-growth does not mean negative growth
A better term to use is a-growth, in the same
way that we say atheism, because it means
precisely that, giving up a faith the never-
ending pursuit of growth is incompatible with
the planets basics There is still time to
imagine, quite calmly, a system based upon a
different logic, and to plan for a de-growth
society.
SERGE LATOUCHE
Island Within an Island
Gabriel Orozco
65
***
DESIGN FOR A SHRINKING CITY
In relation with shrinking cities, the disciplines
of urban development, urban planning, and
architecture, which traditionally have been
guided by ideas for managing growth, reach their
limits and have to face with the question: how
to approach shrinking cities?
Lea Louise Holst in his work "Shrinking cities
or Urban transformation" underline "a need for
working both strategically and place-specific
with the territory; meaning the need for working
both at an overall strategically level and very
local at a specificsite. This is suggested because
there is both the need to address overall issues
like where the eff ort should lie and how to deal
with the phasing out of certain areas and to
create distinction by developing the resources
of the specific site."
And as argued by Philip Oswalt "In addition
to traditional urban development measures, we
must test and explore possibilities for social,
cultural, and communicative interventions. The
restructuring of cities should be understood as
an opportunity."
Using the holistic model presented by Lea Louise
Holst, it is possible to identify four scales of
intervention traceable in actions related to the
shrinkage process.
66
SCALE OF INTERVENTIONS
STRATEGIC SOLUTIONS > map the territory
local anchors
political will
PRAGMATIC SOLUTIONS > demolition
prioritazed local
development
MULTIFUNCTIONAL LANDSCAPE
SOFT TOOLS > the event and the
temporary
the reuse and the
transformation
67
STRATEGIC SOLUTIONS
The strategic level can be considered an OVERALL
POLICY level that sets up rules, tools
and initiatives which are to be implemented on
the local micro level.
In the same way that polices are formulated to
handle growing areas, polices must be formulated
for integrate declining territories: not only
plan for growth but also plan for shrink.
Furthermore, this strategic level helps organize
the local place-based level and makes it possible
to work on the local level: indeed, it is on the
local level that things in the local community
can take place.
In order for them to be so, it is important
to have laws and policies that are flexible in
relation to these actors needs, because local
networks and local people are the keys elements
in a urban/local transformation, even more if
the strategy is for a declining territory.
Several tasks can be used for this kind of
intervention, like map the territories, identify
possible anchors for a future development and
politicians and governments policies.
MAP THE TERRITORIES
Mapping is a very important tool for have an
overview of the extent and character of decline
as well as an idea of what the potentials are
in the territory: map the significant elements
of a territory , both positive and negatives
68
ones, in order to qualify the effort that seems
necessary; focus on the existing environmental,
cultural, natural, architectonic and infra-
structural development potentials; map the
negative and positive developments both according
to population, physical appearance, economy and
socio-cultural structures.
LOCAL ANCHORS
In the opperation of mappinag is important
to define/INDIVIDUARE possible anchors,
geographical, architectonical or mental, which
can be used in future development , like a
starting point for a positive domino effect.
This anchors can be related to different things
such as landscape, culture, accessibility..
Its clear that not all areas of a declining
territory can be transforms for the better; it
is important that some areas stand out from the
crowd where interesting spatial narratives can
be told and in that way distinguish them from the
grey mass of decline.
POLITICAL WILL
We have broken the connection with politics and
have not been able to find a different domain
of legitimacy apart from good and intelligent
architecture. But that would be tremendously
important. Architecture is only legitimate when
it formulates a utopia. Since 1945, however, this
idea of social task has continually declined.
The loss was compensated by a lot of attractive
69
new inventions by architects. Only in the past
ten years, however, as the number of project for
the public domain has increasingly diminished,
and we architects find ourselves serving private
interests, has it become very clear that the
decline of our theoretical content is also a
decline of architectural content. (Rem
Koolhaas)
This strategic plan is also a way for politicians
and local governments to work with determination
in the field. In order to succeed, the politicians
have to acknowledge the situation and work both
with development and unwinding of particular
areas.
It s essential to use the already existing
initiatives, to formulate a set of visions and
develop action plans with a basis in the local
strengths - and to engage the relevant local
actors.
On the basis of a new socio-political model is
possible to create new forms of financing, new
models for taxation, new concepts for community
politics, new institutions.
70
PRAGMATIC SOLUTIONS
The category of pragmatic solutions includes
acknowledging that it is not possible
to save all urban territories from decline
and that some will definitely vanish.
This means that renewed growth in some of the
territories do not seem a likely possibility
in the future. Therefore, it seems
inevitable not to discuss the unwinding of
some of these territories. However, the
problem is that the urban territories will
not just disappear from one day to the next.
Many of them will probably still be here in some
form or another 50 or 100 years from now still
suffering from decline. Discussion concerning
what to do with the declining territories
with little chance of survival. For that
reason there seems to be a need for discussing
demolition and prioritized local development.
DEMOLITION
By undoing a building there are many aspects of
the social condition against which i am gesturing:
first, to open a state to enclosure which had been
preconditioned not only by wphysical necessity
but by the industry that [proliferates] suburban
and urban boxes as a context for insuring a
passive, isolated consumer-a virtually captive
audience...The question is a reaction to an ever
less viable state of privacy, private property,
and isolation.(Gordon Matta-Clark, interview
71
by Donald Wall Gordon Matta-Clarks Builiding
Dissections, Arts Magazine 50, no9 maggio 1976)
In the declining areas there are derelict houses
and buildings falling into ruins. This is not
a sustainable situation neither for the people
living there or for the physical appearance;
therefore demolitions of dilapidated houses
appears also as an instrument for aesthetic and
environmental hygiene.
Therefore its a priority find fertile solutions
concerning the surplus of built structures, and
demolition of parts of the built structure in
declining territories seems inevitable.
However, it is important that demolition
strategies do not stand alone but are integrated
into a
bigger overall strategic plan.
PRIORITIZED LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
Based upon different external and internal
criteria, the municipality or city develops a
structure that gives the different localities a
role in a greater whole, creating in that way a
network structure.
In practice, a common approach is to increase
settlement in selected places, where urban
development is mostly concentrated in easily
accessible areas with good infrastructure and
especially in areas considered suitable for
commuting to the next larger city (Tietjen and
Laursen 2008).
The regulation of the urban pattern is therefore
a decisive political instrument in the
72
distribution of future urban growth or shrinkage.
In generally declining municipalities, the role
assigned to a local community with regard to the
municipal urban pattern might be the deciding
factor regarding survival or death (Tietjen and
Laursen 2008).
73
MULTIFUNCIONAL LANDSCAPES
The dichotomy of city versus countryside is no
longer applicable; landscape cannot be reduce
to natural land but the term EMBARASSING a
more complex theoretical/ racchiudein s diversi
signficati . landscape cio che un popolo
riconosce in un determinato luogo un valore
culturaleper la counit stessa.
The built is now fundamentally suspect. The unbuilt
is green, ecological, popular. If the built
le plein is now out of control subject to
permanent political, financial,cultural turmoil
the same is not (yet) true of the unbuilt;
nothingness may be the last subject plausible
certainties! [Koolhaas, 1995: 974].
Koolhaass words are always provocative but
its true that landscape is the new protagonist
in the urban development; landscape must be
considered as a characteristic structure in a
transformation process instead of just letting
it take over, exploiting landscape potentials
and sources in the improvement of declining
territories.
Thus, landscape can be seen like a tool , not
only like a SCOPO: its a medium which contains
growth as well as decline.
We can use the term landscape urbanism PER INTENDERE
PROPRIO QUESTO STRUMENTO: an hybridization
of architecture and landscape that can unite
fragmented urban areas, that can accommodate
shrinkage, that can capture the complexity of
74
areas undergoing urban transformation.
James Corner says that It marks dissolution
of old dualities such as nature-culture, and it
dismantles classical notions of hierarchy, boundary
and centre. Perhaps most importantly, it marks a
productive attitude towards indeterminacy, open-
endedness, intermixing and cross-disciplinarity.
Unlike the overly simplified view of the city
as a static composition [.] landscape urbanism
views the emergent metropolis as a thick, living
mat of accumulated patches and layered systems,
with no singular authority or control.
75
SOFT TOOLS
Soft tools are related to seeing possibilities
in the small, the fragmented and the momentary.
This kind of intervention has its starting point
in empty buildings and disused sites that go
unused for some period of time, whether shorter
or longer. What is traditionally regarded as
failure on the part of city planners and real
estate developers not infrequently represents an
opportunity and a resource when seen from the
perspective of other actors.
Empty and disused spaces can be considered urban
reserves for testing collective dreams.
It is a micro-level of planning, and in soft
tools category it's possible to individualize
more frequently kind of processes in urban
transformation,: the events, the temporary, the
reuse and transformation.
THE EVENT AND THE TEMPORARY
The event and temporary refer to a wide range
of short-term actions that to test new ideas
and different development alternatives for urban
environments.
Temporary uses are unplanned, but they are
present in every larger city. Often, they play
an important role in a citys public and cultural
life as well as in its urban development, but they
have thus far been almost completely ignored in
official policymaking and city planning circles.
Former industrial areas, waterfront areas,
76
railroad stations and airports, unused commercial
parks, empty residential neighborhoods and
public institutions, as well as vacant lots of
various sizes constitute seemingly functionless
zones that linger for years and often decades
in a state of transition between their old uses
and new ones. Temporary uses can explore and
illuminate various accounts of a citys past and
create compelling narratives that are grounded
in the physical environment and the cultural
geography of a specific place.
Stories are good for cities. They help people
come to terms with the past and build optimism
about the future. Urban storytelling can also
increase tourism, which in turn can help support
the local economy.
Temporary services are a way to create short-
term, portable places of inclusion. Traditional
real estate development typically targets a
desirable market niche, excluding those who
dont fit the picture of ideal consumers.
Temporary projects can provide opportunities and
amenities for all, fostering social interaction
and engaging residents in playful and unexpected
ways.
REUSE OR TRANSFORMATION
Thus, the constant process of change and
redevelopment in cities leads to a kind of urban
three-field crop rotation system: urban spaces
now lie fallow from time to time during the
transition from
one use to another: existing structures are
transformed or reused for new and different
77
purposes. This reuse and transformation can,
thus, be seen as a reuse of place-based resources
taking its point of departure in the place and
its social, cultural, physical and economical
capitals and in an ecological and sustainable
approach, concerned with reuse of material and
processes.
By working with a transformation of existing
structures, new and previously unseen
possibilities are rendered visible, when the
non-economical, cultural and moral resources are
in focus. In cases like these, a
thematic overview of the productive and
constructive potentials of a society can render
visible the positive dimensions and qualities
of a declining city, which can bring the local
actors and their capacity into play and thereby
activate and develop the local resources. This
can be combined with using cultural strategies.
It could be a goal to create a vibrant cultural
life for the population, business, tourism etc.,
in which culture can contribute to a re-definition
of the identity and mental environment of the
cities.
78
* * *
INTRODUCING THE SIX CASE STUDIES
Following, are presented six case studies of
cities very different for geography position
and history: Valparaiso, La Habana, Baltimore,
Lisbon, Beirut and Tokyo.
The choice of telling about these cities results
from several factors: first of all the will to
demonstrate how the phenomenon of urban shrinkage
is a global process, not restricted to the Old
Europe and to the crisis of suburbanization of
American cities.
For this reason every city comes from distinct
geopolitical areas, South America, Central
America, NorthAmerica, Europe, Middle East and
Asia.
Two other factors of the case studies were the
number of inhabitants of the cities, more than
100,000 inhabitants, as suggested by the research
team Shrinking Cities : " All known shrinking
cities with populations larger than 100,000 were
taken into consideration for the international
comparison and the worldwide cartography".
This choice it was made for understand what
happens in densely populated areas in the past
have experienced a great expansion and now find
themselves questioning the paradigm of growth.
And other discriminating important was the
possibility of finding actions, policies,
projects, studies that have in their intentions
79
to try to give an answer to the changes put in
place by the process of urban shrinkage.
The order in which they are presented for
simplicity goes from the city further to the
west, Valparaiso, to most eastern city, Tokyo,
to give more sense of this cross with a quick
look at this phenomenon all over the world.
* * *
80
La Havana
Baltimore Lisboa
Valpariso
81
Beirut Tokyo
VALPARAISO
REPUBLIC OF CHILEJust 90 minutes from the capital Santiago, the Unesco World
Heritage site was a stopover for ships sailing from Europe
to California via the Magellan Straits in the 19th century.
Straddling a series of hillsides that form a natural amphi-
theatre along the Pacific coastline, its cobbled streets
twist sharply upwards from a narrow waterfront strip,
scaling gulleys and ravines towards the higher mountains
behind. In places, the ravines are so steep that footpaths
resemble staircases; in others, they give way entirely to
ascensores, whose tiny wooden cabins and clanking were
constructed a century ago.
POPULATION LOSS
[INE -Chile]
1992
282.840
275.982
2002
Particularly busy during the California Gold Rush of the
late 1 840s and 1 850s, Valparaso declined following the
construction of the Panama Canal. Numerous immigrants from
all over Europe gave i t an international character that
eased its transition to a tourist economy and many of the
neighborhoods that were settled in have now been preserved
as National Historic Districts. I n the late twentieth
century, activists lobbied for the government to apply for
UNESCO world heritage status, which was finally given in
2003 which gave rise t o a new wave o f real estate
speculation.
SHRINKAGE URBAN PATTERN
DOUGHNUT EFFECT
VALPARAISO
ATLAS CIUDADANO
map the territoryValparaiso
Atlas Ciudadano_Valpariso was developed as
a workshop under the auspices of Valparaso
Aula Permanente (Permanent Classroom
Valparaso) which is an open research project
planned as a process of building a learning
community across the city and its current
culture scene. The project encompasses three
facets: an exhibition, a workshop and public
sessions.
Notes for a People Atlas invites participants to
fill in the blank outline of the political border
of their city o r region with individual and
collective local knowledge, forgotten histories,
ongoing debates, and changing definitions of urban
space. Notes generates dialogue and open-ended
imagining about urban space and history, taking
seriously the expertise and ideas of
nonspecialist community members. When archived,
it presents information i n a form that is
accessible, well-designed, and visually rich.
Sitesize first learned o f the NPA approach
through their participation i n the
Transductores: Spatial Politics and
Collective Pedagogies seminar at Centro Jos
Guerrero i n southern Spain i n which NPA
mapping workshops a bout the province of
Granada were being developed.
the blank map
LA HABANA
REPUBLIC OF CUBA
POPULATION LOSS
[ONE-Cuba]
2002
2.201.610
2.135.4982.129.013
2010 2011
Havana Viejas historical, cultural and architectural
heritage is unquestionable.
Neglected, however, through the course of its history,
starting in the middle of the XIX. century and accelerated
after the Triumph of the Revolution in 1959, the city core
has turned into a mere ghost of its once splendid stature.
Not indifferent t o the ruinous condition o f this city
segment, the international community, with the Cuban
authorities at the lead, has been taking drastic measures
in order to delay, and further, to reverse the progressing
deterioration of Havana Vieja.
SHRINKAGE URBAN PATTERN
PERFORETED
The fundamental philosophy that defines the program of
rehabilitation of Havana Vieja is to promote a synthesis of
two already available factors: the local population and the
surrounding cultural domain with a third one, indispensable
to the holistic process: the tourism. To improve the social
dimension and benefit its local population, the cultural
heritage is perceived as a resource, The locals play a vital
part in supporting the architectural legacy -employed in the
service of physical repair and maintenance of the historical
center as well as through their sheer presence keeping the
spirit of the place alive.
LA HABANA
FOTOTECA DE CUBA
Plaza Vieja
reuse and transformation
The public part occupies the
front and consists of two levels:
a lobby and a generous upper floor
which hosts one large exhibition
room, a couple o f back offices,
accessed from a balcony and
public toilets. Laboratory and
equipment rooms are stations
half-way between
the ground and the first floor.
Fototeca i s meant t o serve not
only the cultural/commercial
goals, but also the social ones.
The building on the back side of
the courtyard was destined to be
an old peoples home after the
renovation has been complete.
With time, the seniors families
came to live with them to care for
them, many of the old people have
passed away and the families have
stayed behind.
Now they raise their own children
in the very same rooms.
The building took its natural
course.
Today it cannot assume a role of
a social institution anymore.
A co-existence o f private and
public spaces under a single roof
seems to function very well. Both
parts benefit from each other
insofar the use o f the generous
common space, the social aspect
and security o f the individual
privacy. To dwell in an artistic
environment raises the quality of
life for the inhabitants; the
presence o f such a n unusual
neighbour ennobles their daily
life and offers high level social
activities directly at the door.
The Fototeca de Cuba was created to preserve, study
and promote the countrys photographic patrimony
and create a space for the promotion of
international photography. The Fototeca i s an
archive with a vast and valuable collection of
documents; it is also a museum with the widest and
most valuable collection of Cuban photography known
and i t functions a s a gallery with rooms for
temporary exhibitions in which works that do not
belong t o the permanent collection are generally
exhibited.
BALTIMO
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
REPOPULATION LOSS
[City of Balti more, Department of Planning]
1960
939,024
651.154
631.366621.342
2000 2006 2010
This urban field of the Northeast Seaboard, with
the cities o f Boston, New York, Philadelphia,
Baltimore and Washington DC, i s an excellent
picture of the development of American urbanism.
It tells a story o f an urban America that has
changed since the end of World War II.
Looking further into the Baltimore metropolitan
area i s like looking a t all other Metropolitan
areas exploding outwards at an extraordinary rate.
Single-family houses are popping up like mushrooms
SHRINKAGE URBAN PATTERN
DOUGHNUT EFFECT
placed near big infrastructural links and shopping
centers.
But Balimore is a city of dualism: on the one hand a
growing metropolitan area and on the other a decaying
city center; is a Doughnut city.
Urban growth and decline are situated right next to
each other, suggesting they can b e linked i n a
complex interplay.
BALTIMORA
PARKS & PEOPLE
Inner city
The purpose is to develop a comprehensive strategy
for revitalizing neighborhoods that suffer from
population loss, vacant housing, inadequate
maintenance of vacant land and small parks (Parks
& People 2000). The goal is also to transform the
vacant lots in Baltimore into valuable green space
and thereby help neighborhoods revitalize
themselves.
reuse and transformation
Parks & People is a nonprofit organizations that work
with declining terrtories and operates a t a local
level, attempting to make changes at the community
level. This group works with recreation and park
issues, where a lot of work is put into neighborhood
greening i n declining territories. Parks & People
want to improve the quality of life in Baltimores
neighborhoods, helping to better the physical, social
and environmental quality o f neighborhoods through
greening activities and forming networks among
communities to sustain natural resources.
The adopt-a-lot program is a proactive approach to
land use management and according t o the Parks &
People foundation, this kind of approach is essential
in order to cope with the changing urban landscape.
It i s a local, place-based bottom-up strategy: a
strategy o f how t o use vacant lots o n a temporary
basis, b y using the areas t o improve the
neighborhoods, while being in a transiti on period.
LISBOA
PORTUGUESE REPUBLIC
POPULATION LOSS
[INE-Portugal]
1991
807.937
663.394
564.657
547.631
1981 20112001
Lisbon is the westernmost large city located in Europe, as
well as its westernmost capital city and the only one along
the Atlantic coast. I t lies i n the western Iberian
Peninsula on the Atlantic Ocean and the River Tagus.
It is also one of the oldest cities in the world, and the
oldest city in Western Europe.
Lisbon i s recognised a s a global city because o f its
importance i n finance, commerce, media, entertainment,
arts, international trade, education and tourism.
But since the 80s the city has begun to have a slow and
progressive decline.
Today the famous neighbourhoods o f its historic centre,
which include Chiado, Baixa, Alfama, Graa and Alcntara,
are full of empty houses. Even the most expensive areas are
not fully occupied, and streets that are home t o luxury
shops, hotels, banks and multinationals also have their
share of decrepit buildings.
Lisbon and Porto top the European Unions list of cities
where the population is in decline .
In spite of its declining glory, the beauty of Lisbon with
its seven hills and omnipresent river Tagus continues to
enthral foreign visitors.
SHRINKAGE URBAN PATTERN
PERFORETED
LISBOA
2012-EDIFICIO MANIFESTO
In Artria's "script" for the Manifesto Building, they
reflected o n a model for a n integrated urban
rehabilitation. T o achieve this holistic approach, the
community has to be involved in the process. But also from
the architect's perspective, they think, it's important to
try t o understand the dynamics o f each area i n order to
understand what can b e the function o f the architecture
there, and the architect has to establish a connection with
the place he or she is designing for.
Mouraria
Lisbon-based studio Artria's reflections on the goals
and limits of rehabilitation led to systematic approach
that materialised i n its 2012 Edifcio Manifesto
(Manifesto Building), renovated in the heart of
Mouraria, a dilapidated neighbourhood at the centre of
the city. The development of the Edifcio Manifesto
took place i n partnership with the neighbourhood
association. The studio has continued to reflect on a
model for urban rehabilitation that encompasses social,
cultural and economical interventions, in a range of
projects including a map of old buildings to buy and
renovate in Lisbon.
To bring the involvement o f the community even further
Artria developed activities with children from a local
elementary school, who accompanied the Manifesto Building's
construction development with weekly activities.
This workshops aim to raise awareness of the importance of
caring for the city a s our heritage, knowing that the
children will pass o n this message t o parents and
grandparents.
Maquette 2012-Edificio Manifesto
BEIRUT
LEBANESE REPUBLIC
POPULATION LOSS
[UN data + Hamdan;the informations ares inexact since the last census
for Lebanon was conducted in 1932]
1970
~1.100.000
403.337
2001
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon.
Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanons
coastline with the Mediterranean Sea, Beirut serves
as the countrys largest and main seaport and also
forms the Beirut Metropolitan Area, which consists
of the city and its suburbs. After Lebanon achieved
independence i n 1943, Beirut became its capital
city. It remained an intellectual capital of the
Arab world and quickly became a financial center
for much o f the Arab w orld and a major tourist
destination.
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon.
Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanons
coastline with the Mediterranean Sea, Beirut serves
as the countrys largest and main seaport and also
forms the Beirut Metropolitan Area, which consists
of the city and its suburbs. After Lebanon achieved
independence i n 1943, Beirut became its capital
city. It remained an intellectual capital of the
Arab world and quickly became a financial center
for much o f the Arab world and a major tourist
destination.
SHRINKAGE URBAN PATTERN
DOUGHNUT EFFECT
after and before bombardments
This era of relative prosperity ended in 1975 when
the Lebanese Civil War broke out. During most of the
war, Beirut was divided between the Muslim west and
the Christian east. The downtown area, previously the
home of much of the cit ys commercial and cultural
activities, became a no-mans land known a s the
Green Line. Many inhabitants fled t o other
countries. Thousands of others were killed throughout
the war, and much of the city was devastated.
Since the end o f the war i n 1990, the people of
Lebanon have been rebuilding Beirut.
SOLIDARE
BEIRUT
Inner city
Solidare Masterplan
The Beirut city center Master Plan aims to direct the
ongoing transformation o f the formerly war-ravaged
heart o f Beirut into a vibrant and sustainable,
mixed-use city center. The plan builds upon the
unique geographic and historic setting o f the
Lebanese capitals core, reflecting the site
topography and natural characteristics.
The parts which Masterplan is compose are:
The Public Domain; The Conservation Area; The
Heritage; Residential Neighborhoods; The Souk of
Beirut; New development areas; The New Waterfront; A
vibrant city center.
The main drivers o f master
planning Beiruts city center:
Involves the recovery o f the
public domain, with the
installation o f a complete
modern infrastructure.
Provides a n urban design
framework for new construction
and for the restoration of
preserved and historic
buildings with a good
integration between old and
new, tradition and innovation
Creates public spaces including
gardens, squares, belvederes,
promenades and trails.
Unearths layers o f the city
center's history.
Reestablishes the fabric and
neighborhood structures
accommodating a broad mix of
land uses ranging from business
and institutional to
residential, cultural and
recreational facilities.
Offers a flexible,
market-oriented development
framework, encouraging the
emergence o f a sustainable
environment.
Creates poles of attraction for
city center renewal.
Creates a vibrant, 24-hour
active downtown
TOKYO
STATE OF JAPAN
POPULATION LOSS
Security Research has warned that there will be a mere 49.59 million Japanese by 2100, a decline of more than 61 percent on the 2010 figure
[Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications- Japan]
2010
13.500.000
13.160.000
12.780.000
2020 2035
This statement aptly suggest that i f you are to
search the divine or cosmic order in city of Tokyo,
probability is that you might not find any kind of
visible order which your eye i s conventionally
familiar with. Tokyo defies order o n its own way.
While Tokyo appears unplanned, it possess a hidden
sense of order, but this is the order of fragmented
unity, village-like areas stapled together,
possessing a feeling of chaos that many architects
have found inspiring. Tokyo has long been criticised
for its lack o f greenery and its poor disaster
mitigation efforts.
SHRINKAGE URBAN PATTERN
STABLE CORE
As a n economic construct Tokyo has only experienced
the kind of growth that goes with enormous land prices,
and therefore urban planning that would lead to more
open land i n the Tokyo area has hardly ever b een
considered. So, we might say the reduction in demand
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