Spaces for People Papers
(re)Presenting Suburbia: image and identity at the citys edge
Kelvin Walsh
Summary: This paper presents the changing representation of suburbs and suburban culture during the 20th century and provides a global scan of new directions in suburban development and their implications for creating walkable cities. The role of the suburb in the metropolis is not as clear as it once was. The edges between city and suburb, suburb and country, and between the core and periphery have become increasingly blurred in the polycentric city. This presentation will explore the representation of suburbs and suburbia in contemporary culture (film, literature, art) and map its changing culture. This is presented alongside the manner in which city design professionals have discussed suburbs. Weaving the two simultaneous discourses provides a deeper understanding of the suburbs, its culture and the opportunities for improving city sustainability in the broadest sense. The presentation will demonstrate the way in which identity, geography, psychology, ecology, planning, population complexity and economy contribute to the complexity that is suburbs. It is vital that, as practitioners, we understand this complexity if we are to turn the visions of a new walkable culture into practice in the suburbs. The presentation concludes with a discussion of new directions in the development of suburbs and provides a global scan of developers emerging trends including the introduction of irony in suburbia, transposing urban ideals to the suburban context, the play on nostalgia and the importance of ecology. ... More
2009 Benchmarking
Understanding the characteristics, needs and abilities of walkers | Jim Walker, Walk21
Summary: The project aims to implement a common practical international measuring tool for the collection, analysis and dissemination of quantitative and qualitative information to help define and benchmark walkability; compare results; and monitor the impact and effectiveness of further investment. ... More
A Complete Street by any other Name is just as Sweet
April Bertelsen, City of Portland Bureau of Transportation
Summary: The Portland Oregon Story. ... More
A Continuous Pedestrian Network
Mayer Hillman
Summary: There is considerable evidence indicating that the wider public interest is better served when journeys are made on foot rather than by motorised means. For this reason, there is a strong case for re-ordering existing transport priorities in favour of pedestrians. ... More
A Manifesto for a New Walking Culture dealing with the city''
Wrights & Sites: Stephen Hodge, Simon Persighetti, Phil Smith & Cathy Turner
Summary: Drawing on the urban exploratory work of our ongoing is-Guide project and our use of the walking drift or derive, Wrights & Sites presents a manifesto for the active and creative pedestrian - envisioning a walking that is neither a functional necessity (to shops, to work) nor a passive appreciation of (or complaint about) the urban environment. Instead we present a manifesto for a walking that engages with and changes the city, particularly using the arts. One of our key strategies is site-specificity: devising walkings that are specific to their routes, to their surroundings. In harmony with this we present our paper in a manner specific to the Casino setting of the conference, dividing it into four suits (as in a deck of playing cards). The order of presentation of the material was determined by the shuffle of a deck of cards by a croupier. Each 'suit' of the manifesto has been written by a different member of Wrights & Sites. In broad outline these 'suits' have the following foci: The walker as artist, the city as compositional catalyst. Flirting with Dada (with its roots in Zurichs Cabaret Voltaire and its emphasis on chance operations and the production of manifestos), this 'suit' explores connections between the processes walking and artistic composition. [Clubs - Stephen Hodge] The walker as writer of the city. First we change the way we 'read' the city: a set of new concepts that will unbalance the consciousness of the everyday walker and challenge the dominant assumptions about walking and the city as a place for walking. Then proposing a set of strategies (or 'fulcra') for ways of re-writing the city, moving from changed perceptions of the familiar city to the means to change its organisation, uses, attitudes to and planning of public space. [Spades - Simon Persighetti] The walker as playful performer. Walking as a means of playful reinvention, a 'making strange' of the everyday. Remembering our theatrical roots and that Brecht was an exile in Zurich in 1947-1948, this suit considers the walker's performance as a move out from the theatre towards a more open playing space. [Hearts - Cathy Turner]Disrupted walking as the new designing of the city. How does a new kind of walking engage with the planning of the city and the powers that initiate and deliver it? Strategies for a new walking, to become more like an active re-designing of public place, generating a 'culture' that changes specific spaces. The creative pedestrian as the new architect of the city. [Diamonds - Phil Smith] In place of the 'court cards' (Jack, Queen, King) of these suits, we have invited guests to offer short interventions into our manifesto. These are Bess Lovejoy [journalist and writer on urbanism - Diamonds], Richard Layzell [performance artist - Hearts], Fiona Templeton [author of YOU, the city - Spades] and contemporaries of the Dada movement [Clubs]. ... More
Not found exactly what you were looking for?
Try a keyword search or define by subject using the Walk 21 Paper Search.