ARCH 551 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Urban Design, Urban Studies
22 Jun 2018
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ARCH 551: Topic 1
Cities, Metropolitan Landscapes, and Urban Design
01/12/18
“The parable of the blind men and the elephant”:
oAll men describe elephant based on their partial experience, and project their
own partial experiences as the whole truth
oTake into account in urban studies: definitions are subjective and may need to
define a term multiple ways to get a true account
Defining a “city”:
oLarge town; incorporated municipal center; place or situation characterized by a
specified attribute
oA large or important municipality; larger than a “town”
oThe built-up and densely inhabited part of a region as distinguished from the
countryside; urban areas
Defining a “metropolitan landscape”:
oOf, belonging to, or constituting a metropolis
Metropolis: the chief town or city of a country (occasionally of a province
or a district), especially one that is the seat of a government; a capital. In
extended use: any large, bustling city.
Metropolitan district: an area of dense urban occupation
Metropolitan region: all agglomerations of 250,000+ inhabitants
oDesignating a political association of individual cities within an urban
agglomeration
Five fundamental properties of cities and metropolitan regions:
oProximity: the compression of things, people, activities in space for convenience,
safety, mutual benefit, etc.
oProduction: a focus for a large, specialized labor force, concentrations of
employment opportunities
oCapitalization: processes of investment and profit-making (spurred by proximity
and production), which in turn make urban land a scarce resource
Uncapitalisation: the reverse processes- lack of investment, more land
than people, example: Detroit
oInfrastructure: capitalization is a response to the scarcity of urban land… which, because
of how intensively it gets used, requires specialized design intervention and extensive
engineering (= sunk capital)
oPlanning and management: specialized (state-led and state-supported) administrative
systems are needed to make cities and metropolitan regions work
Includes space for deliberative dialogue to ensure workable compromises
among actors
Defining “urban design”:
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
