- About the Lecture
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About the Lecture
Even as new supercities pop up around the world, with populations in the tens of millions, urban planning remains stuck in an older time. As Dennis Frenchman says, “Amazingly very little progress has been made ... We’re using basically the models and methods of the 1920s.” Frenchman says we need to confront the immense challenges of rapid urbanization, universal mobility sustainability and basic livability.
Some emerging concepts include new century cities, where single “messy” mixed-use zones will house shopping, living, and commerce. He describes technology networks built into urban environments, producing streams of data that not only reveal how a city works, but allow better real-time management of systems. Cities will sense traffic flows and change street signage and lane markings accordingly. Smart cars will guide users to available parking. Public buildings will have changing faces. This “agile infrastructure has the potential to make day to day interactions more efficient and productive, but also more personal, because systems can interact with you and adjust to your desires,” says Frenchman.
Boston invests big-time in infrastructure, says Antonio di Mambro, but its transportation system is very “Boston-centric.” He believes it’s time to convert this system into a regional one, “tied to a new image of the city.” Di Mambro is developing a new transportation network based on the area’s “educational necklace,” developing a West Station hub that connects universities to each other, and to the rest of the world.
Di Mambro also describes how coastal cities should plan for global warming impacts. He describes Venice’s strategic plan to defend itself from rising water, which includes massive mobile flood barriers, environmental restoration, economic development of neglected areas and green infrastructure.
In the 1990s, Martha Lampkin Welborne became convinced that Curativa, Brazil’s public transit system would be perfect for LA. In this system, buses operate in dedicated lanes, with costs far less than those required for subway or even light rail. A nonprofit team “created the vision and sold it to everyone -- the MTA and the city.” After this accomplishment, LA’s mayor drafted her to create an economic center in a desolate city stretch. In re-imagining Grand Avenue, says Welborne, she has been transforming a physical vision into a reality, starting with a precise economic analysis, politicking with city and county officials and collaborating with Frank Gehry.
“Without being hyperbolic, it’s the greatest building boom in human history,” says
Tom Campanella of China’s construction frenzy. Campanella marshals many astonishing facts to back up the statement: In Shanghai, more than 900 million square feet of commercial office space were added to the city between 1990 and 2004, roughly equivalent to 335 Empire State Buildings. Between 1985-1995 Shanghai’s footprint and suburbs jumped from 90 to 790 square miles. China will end up with more than 1 billion people in its cities. We Americans must “learn humility,” he says, in imagining urban planning for this scale of building boom, or establishing what constitutes good versus bad urbanism.Related Videos
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- About the Speakers
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About the Speakers
Moderator: Lawrence J. Vale SM '88
Professor and Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT School of Architecture and Planning
Margaret MacVicar FellowLawerence Vale is the author or editor of six books examining urban design and housing. Architecture, Power, and National Identity (1992), a book about capital city design on six continents, received the 1994 Spiro Kostof Book Award for Architecture and Urbanism from the Society of Architectural Historians. Vale is also Co-Editor, with Sam Bass Warner, Jr., of Imaging the City: Continuing Struggles and New Directions (Center for Urban Policy Research Press, 2001), and co-editor, with Thomas J. Campanella, of The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover From Disaster (Oxford University Press, 2005), which was recognized as one of the “Ten Best Books for 2005” by Planetizen, the Planning and Development network.
He attended Amherst College, and received the S.M.Arch.S. degree from MIT and a D.Phil from the University of Oxford. He has been a Rhodes Scholar and a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as the recipient of the 1997 Chester Rapkin Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. He has taught at the MIT since 1988.Dennis Frenchman MCP '76, MAA '76
Leventhal Professor of Urban Design and Planning, and Director, City Design and Development, MIT
Antonio di Mambro '71, MAA '77, MCP '77
Principal, Antonio di Mambro+ Associates
Martha Welborne MCP '81, MAA '81
Thomas J. Campanella
Assistant Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Thomas J. Campanellais a Faculty Fellow of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at UNC, and a former Fulbright fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He previously was a Lecturer in City Design and Development in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT.
Campanella is a recipient of the Spiro Kostof Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians, and has also been awarded the John Reps and de Montequin Prizes from the Society for American City and Regional Planning History. In addition to his scholarly work, Campanella has written for Metropolis, Salon, Architectural Record, and other publications, and he is a former contributing writer for Wired.
Campanella has consulted on urban design and planning projects in China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan and the United States. He serves on the Chancellor's Committee for Buildings and Grounds at UNC, and on the Town Planning Board of Hillsborough, NC, where he recently completed an award-winning restoration of a 200 year-old home. - About the Host
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About the Host
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
The Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) is a department within the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT. It is comprised of four specialization areas (also referred to as Program Groups): City Design and Development; Environmental Policy and Planning; Housing, Community and Economic Development; and the International Development Group. There are also three cross-cutting areas of study: Transportation Planning and Policy, Urban Information Systems (UIS), and Regional Planning.
Video Player
Building Responsive Cities: Technology, Design, and Development
- Moderator: Lawrence J. Vale SM '88
- Dennis Frenchman MCP '76, MAA '76
Antonio di Mambro '71, MAA '77, MCP '77
Martha Welborne MCP '81, MAA '81
Thomas J. Campanella - April 4, 2008
- Running Time: 1:26:27
