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