Compact City
Encyclopedia
The Compact City or city of short distances is an urban planning
and urban design
concept, which promotes relatively high residential density with mixed land uses. It is based on an efficient public transport system and has an urban layout which – according to its advocates – encourages walking and cycling, low energy consumption and reduced pollution. A large resident population provides opportunities for social interaction as well as a feeling of safety in numbers and 'eyes on the street'. It is also arguably a more sustainable urban settlement type than urban sprawl
because it is less dependent on the car, requiring less (and cheaper per capita) infrastructure provision (Williams 2000, cited in Dempsey 2010).
and Thomas L. Saaty, two mathematicians whose utopian vision was largely driven by a desire to see more efficient use of resources. The concept, as it has influenced urban planning
, is often attributed to Jane Jacobs
and her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities
(1961), a critique of modernist
planning policies claimed by Jacobs to be destroying many existing inner-city communities.
Among other criticisms of the conventional planning and transport planning of the time, Jacobs' work attacked the tendency, inherited from the Garden City Movement
, towards reducing the density of dwellings in urban areas. Four conditions were necessary to enable the diversity essential for urban renewal: mixed uses, small walkable blocks, mingling of building ages and types, and "a sufficiently dense concentration of people". The 'sufficient' density would vary according to local circumstances but, in general, a hundred dwellings per acre (247 per hectare – high by American standards, but quite common in European and Asian cities) could be considered a minimum.
has become more common. The two concepts are very similar, although 'smart growth
' carries more strongly normative connotations. In Australia, Steffen Lehmann
has extensively written about the Compact City and Green Urbanism. His book The Principles of Green Urbanism (Earthscan, 2010; ISBN 978-1-84407-817-2) presents a series of international case studies in great detail and outlines 15 core principles for the design of compact, sustainable cities. These principles are also outlined in an article in the journal S.A.P.I.EN.S.
, which produced the report Towards an Urban Renaissance
. Influenced by this report, the UK Government issued PPG 3
Planning Policy Guidance on Housing which introduced a 60% brownfield target, a minimum net residential density guideline of 30 dwellings per hectare, a sequential hierarchy beginning with urban brownfield land, maximum parking guidelines replacing the previous minima, and a policy of intensification around public transport nodes. Over the succeeding years, these targets were substantially exceeded, with the brownfield proportion reaching 80% by 2009, and average densities 43 dwellings per hectare.
') does or can reduce problems of automobile dependency
associated with urban sprawl
has been fiercely contested over several decades. An influential study in 1989 by Peter Newman
and Jeff Kenworthy compared 32 cities across North America, Australia, Europe and Asia. The study's methodology has been criticised but the main finding that denser cities, particularly in Asia, have lower car use than sprawling cities, particularly in North America, has been largely accepted – although the relationship is clearer at the extremes across continents than it is within countries where conditions are more similar.
Within cities, studies from across many countries (mainly in the developed world) have shown that denser urban areas with greater mixture of land use and better public transport tend to have lower car use than less dense suburb
an and exurban residential areas. This usually holds true even after controlling for socio-economic factors such as differences in household composition and income. This does not necessarily imply that suburban sprawl causes high car use, however. One confounding factor, which has been the subject of many studies, is residential self-selection: people who prefer to drive tend to move towards low density suburbs, whereas people who prefer to walk, cycle or use transit tend to move towards higher density urban areas, better served by public transport. Some studies have found that, when self-selection is controlled for, the built environment has no significant effect on travel behaviour. More recent studies using more sophisticated methodologies have generally refuted these findings: density, land use and public transport accessibility can influence travel behaviour, although social and economic factors, particularly household income, usually exert a stronger influence.
For example, Portland, Oregon
, a U.S. city which has pursued smart growth
policies, substantially increased its population density between 1990 and 2000 when other US cities of a similar size were reducing in density. As predicted by the paradox, traffic volumes and congestion both increased more rapidly than in the other cities, despite a substantial increase in transit use.
These findings led them to propose the paradox of intensification, which states:
At the city-wide level it may be possible, through a range of positive measures, to counteract the increases in traffic and congestion which would otherwise result from increasing population densities: Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany is one example of a city which has been more successful in this respect.
This study also reviewed evidence on the local effects of building at higher densities. At the level of the neighbourhood or individual development, positive measures (e.g. improvements to public transport) will usually be insufficient to counteract the traffic effect of increasing population density. This leaves policy-makers with four choices: intensify and accept the local consequences, sprawl and accept the wider consequences, a compromise with some element of both, or intensify accompanied by more radical measures such as parking restrictions, closing roads to traffic and carfree zones.
in its Resolution of 9 July 2008 called among other things for “drawing up customised sustainable mobility plans and supporting measures for regional and urban planning ('city of short distances'), a process in which all parties concerned should be involved from an early stage”. They referred among others to the EU strategy to combat climate change and other environmental problems.
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
and urban design
Urban design
Urban design concerns the arrangement, appearance and functionality of towns and cities, and in particular the shaping and uses of urban public space. It has traditionally been regarded as a disciplinary subset of urban planning, landscape architecture, or architecture and in more recent times has...
concept, which promotes relatively high residential density with mixed land uses. It is based on an efficient public transport system and has an urban layout which – according to its advocates – encourages walking and cycling, low energy consumption and reduced pollution. A large resident population provides opportunities for social interaction as well as a feeling of safety in numbers and 'eyes on the street'. It is also arguably a more sustainable urban settlement type than urban sprawl
Urban sprawl
Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density and auto-dependent development on rural land, high segregation of uses Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a...
because it is less dependent on the car, requiring less (and cheaper per capita) infrastructure provision (Williams 2000, cited in Dempsey 2010).
Origins
The term Compact City was first coined in 1973 by George DantzigGeorge Dantzig
George Bernard Dantzig was an American mathematical scientist who made important contributions to operations research, computer science, economics, and statistics....
and Thomas L. Saaty, two mathematicians whose utopian vision was largely driven by a desire to see more efficient use of resources. The concept, as it has influenced urban planning
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
, is often attributed to Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs, was an American-Canadian writer and activist with primary interest in communities and urban planning and decay. She is best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities , a powerful critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s in the United States...
and her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, is a greatly influential book on the subject of urban planning in the 20th century...
(1961), a critique of modernist
Modern architecture
Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely...
planning policies claimed by Jacobs to be destroying many existing inner-city communities.
Among other criticisms of the conventional planning and transport planning of the time, Jacobs' work attacked the tendency, inherited from the Garden City Movement
Garden city movement
The garden city movement is a method of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts" , containing proportionate areas of residences, industry and...
, towards reducing the density of dwellings in urban areas. Four conditions were necessary to enable the diversity essential for urban renewal: mixed uses, small walkable blocks, mingling of building ages and types, and "a sufficiently dense concentration of people". The 'sufficient' density would vary according to local circumstances but, in general, a hundred dwellings per acre (247 per hectare – high by American standards, but quite common in European and Asian cities) could be considered a minimum.
The Compact City and 'Smart Growth'
Although the term was coined by American writers, it has been used more in recent years by European and particularly British planners and academics (see for example Jenks et al 1996). In North America the term smart growthSmart growth
Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl and advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a...
has become more common. The two concepts are very similar, although 'smart growth
Smart growth
Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl and advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a...
' carries more strongly normative connotations. In Australia, Steffen Lehmann
Steffen Lehmann
Steffen Lehmann is a German-born architect and urban designer, born 19 June 1963 in Stuttgart, Germany.-Biography:Lehmann holds the UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Urban Development for Asia and the Pacific, the Professorial Chair in the School of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of...
has extensively written about the Compact City and Green Urbanism. His book The Principles of Green Urbanism (Earthscan, 2010; ISBN 978-1-84407-817-2) presents a series of international case studies in great detail and outlines 15 core principles for the design of compact, sustainable cities. These principles are also outlined in an article in the journal S.A.P.I.EN.S.
Influence on policy in the UK
The Compact City had a particularly strong influence on planning policy in the UK during the Labour Governments of 1997–2010. The first Labour Government in 1998 set up the Urban Taskforce under Lord Richard RogersRichard Rogers
Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside CH Kt FRIBA FCSD is a British architect noted for his modernist and functionalist designs....
, which produced the report Towards an Urban Renaissance
Towards an Urban Renaissance
Towards an Urban Renaissance was a report written by the United Kingdom's Urban Task Force headed by Richard Rogers and published on 29 June 1999...
. Influenced by this report, the UK Government issued PPG 3
PPG 3
Planning Policy Guidance Note 3: Housing, commonly abbreviated as PPG 3, is a document produced by the British Government to advise local planning authorities on the treatment of housing within the planning process. The current version was introduced in March 2000 following the Rogers Report and...
Planning Policy Guidance on Housing which introduced a 60% brownfield target, a minimum net residential density guideline of 30 dwellings per hectare, a sequential hierarchy beginning with urban brownfield land, maximum parking guidelines replacing the previous minima, and a policy of intensification around public transport nodes. Over the succeeding years, these targets were substantially exceeded, with the brownfield proportion reaching 80% by 2009, and average densities 43 dwellings per hectare.
The Compact City, urban sprawl and automobile dependency
Whether the Compact City (or 'smart growthSmart growth
Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl and advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a...
') does or can reduce problems of automobile dependency
Automobile dependency
Automobile dependency is a term coined by Professors Peter Newman and Jeff Kenworthy to capture the predicament of most cities in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and to a lesser extent, large cities in Europe....
associated with urban sprawl
Urban sprawl
Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density and auto-dependent development on rural land, high segregation of uses Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a...
has been fiercely contested over several decades. An influential study in 1989 by Peter Newman
Peter Newman
Peter Newman may refer to:*Peter C. Newman, Canadian journalist who emigrated from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia*Peter Kenneth Newman , English economist, historian of economic thought*Peter R...
and Jeff Kenworthy compared 32 cities across North America, Australia, Europe and Asia. The study's methodology has been criticised but the main finding that denser cities, particularly in Asia, have lower car use than sprawling cities, particularly in North America, has been largely accepted – although the relationship is clearer at the extremes across continents than it is within countries where conditions are more similar.
Within cities, studies from across many countries (mainly in the developed world) have shown that denser urban areas with greater mixture of land use and better public transport tend to have lower car use than less dense suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
an and exurban residential areas. This usually holds true even after controlling for socio-economic factors such as differences in household composition and income. This does not necessarily imply that suburban sprawl causes high car use, however. One confounding factor, which has been the subject of many studies, is residential self-selection: people who prefer to drive tend to move towards low density suburbs, whereas people who prefer to walk, cycle or use transit tend to move towards higher density urban areas, better served by public transport. Some studies have found that, when self-selection is controlled for, the built environment has no significant effect on travel behaviour. More recent studies using more sophisticated methodologies have generally refuted these findings: density, land use and public transport accessibility can influence travel behaviour, although social and economic factors, particularly household income, usually exert a stronger influence.
The paradox of intensification
Reviewing the evidence on urban intensification, smart growth and their effects on travel behaviour, Melia et al (2011) found support for the arguments of both supporters and opponents of the compact city. Planning policies which increase population densities in urban areas do tend to reduce car use, but the effect is a weak one, so doubling the population density of a particular area will not halve the frequency or distance of car use.For example, Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, a U.S. city which has pursued smart growth
Smart growth
Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl and advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a...
policies, substantially increased its population density between 1990 and 2000 when other US cities of a similar size were reducing in density. As predicted by the paradox, traffic volumes and congestion both increased more rapidly than in the other cities, despite a substantial increase in transit use.
These findings led them to propose the paradox of intensification, which states:
At the city-wide level it may be possible, through a range of positive measures, to counteract the increases in traffic and congestion which would otherwise result from increasing population densities: Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany is one example of a city which has been more successful in this respect.
This study also reviewed evidence on the local effects of building at higher densities. At the level of the neighbourhood or individual development, positive measures (e.g. improvements to public transport) will usually be insufficient to counteract the traffic effect of increasing population density. This leaves policy-makers with four choices: intensify and accept the local consequences, sprawl and accept the wider consequences, a compromise with some element of both, or intensify accompanied by more radical measures such as parking restrictions, closing roads to traffic and carfree zones.
Europe
Based on previous work of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, the European ParliamentEuropean Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
in its Resolution of 9 July 2008 called among other things for “drawing up customised sustainable mobility plans and supporting measures for regional and urban planning ('city of short distances'), a process in which all parties concerned should be involved from an early stage”. They referred among others to the EU strategy to combat climate change and other environmental problems.
See also
- Community Preservation ActCommunity Preservation ActThe Community Preservation Act is a Massachusetts state law passed in 2000. It enables adopting communities to raise funds to create a local dedicated fund for open space preservation, preservation of historic resources, development of affordable housing, and the acquisition and development of...
- Garden CitiesGarden CitiesGarden Cities may refer to:* Cities designed using principles of the garden city movement* Sustainable Ecocities that are an alternative to urban sprawl* Retrofitted or new Pedestrian Villages utilizing the principles of New Pedestrianism...
- New PedestrianismNew pedestrianismNew Pedestrianism is a more idealistic variation of New Urbanism in urban planning theory, founded in 1999 by Michael E. Arth, an American artist, urban/home/landscape designer, futurist, and author...
- Planned communityPlanned communityA planned community, or planned city, is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in a more ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are less frequent in planned communities since...
- New UrbanismNew urbanismNew Urbanism is an urban design movement, which promotes walkable neighborhoods that contain a range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually continued to reform many aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use...
- Principles of Intelligent UrbanismPrinciples of Intelligent UrbanismPrinciples of Intelligent Urbanism is a theory of urban planning composed of a set of ten axioms intended to guide the formulation of city plans and urban designs. They are intended to reconcile and integrate diverse urban planning and management concerns...
- Slow architectureSlow architectureSlow Architecture is a term believed to have grown from the Slow Food movement of the mid 1980's. Slow Architecture is generally architecture that is created gradually and organically, as opposed to building it quickly for short term goals...
- Smart growthSmart growthSmart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl and advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a...
- Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND)Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND)Traditional Neighborhood Development refers to the development of a complete neighborhood or town using traditional town planning principles. TND may occur in infill settings and involve adaptive reuse of existing buildings, but often involves all-new construction on previously undeveloped land...
- Transit Oriented Development
- Urban SprawlUrban sprawlUrban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density and auto-dependent development on rural land, high segregation of uses Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a...
- Urban RenewalUrban renewalUrban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...