Urban vitality

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Barcelona - La Rambla 04.JPG
The Plaça Reial of Barcelona has a high vitality, with pedestrian spaces and a variety of establishments in its vicinity.
Placa dels Paisos Catalans P1170975.JPG
Comparatively, Plaça dels Països Catalans has a low vitality, with fewer establishments and large, surrounding streets which inhibit pedestrian movement.

Urban vitality is the quality of spaces in cities that attract diverse groups of people for varied activities over frequent, varied times. [1] [2] These spaces may be perceived as alive, lively or vibrant, in contrast with low-vitality areas, which may repel people and be perceived as unsafe. [3] [4]

Contents

The urban vitality index is a measure of this quality and has become a fundamental tool in urban planning, especially in interventions for spaces with low vitality. [5] The index is also used to assist the management of spaces that already have high vitality. However, the success of high-vitality spaces can sometimes lead to gentrification and overtourism that may reduce their vitality and initial popularity. [6]

The concept of urban vitality is based on the works of Jane Jacobs, especially her most influential work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities . In the 1960s, Jacobs criticized the modern and rationalist architecture of Robert Moses and Le Corbusier, whose work centered private cars. She argued that these forms of urban planning overlooked and oversimplified the complexity of human life in diverse communities. She opposed large-scale urban renewal programs that affected neighborhoods and that built freeways through inner cities. She instead advocated compact and mixed-use development with walkable streets and “eyes on the street” to deter crime. [7]

The concept of urban vitality is important in Mediterranean urbanism and its history, in which public space, walkability and squares are valued as centers of social interaction and cohesion, in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon urbanism of large, car-centric infrastructures with greater distances between conveniences. [3] [4] [8]

Conditions for high urban vitality

Urban vitality can be quantified thanks to the analysis of the elements that determine it. Among them are: [9] [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Jane Jacobs was an American-Canadian journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics. Her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) argued that "urban renewal" and "slum clearance" did not respect the needs of city-dwellers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tàrrega</span> Municipality in Catalonia, Spain

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Built environment</span> Human-made space in which people live, work and recreate on a day-to-day basis

The term built environment refers to human-made conditions and is often used in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, public health, sociology, and anthropology, among others. These curated spaces provide the setting for human activity and were created to fulfill human desires and needs. The term can refer to a plethora of components including the traditionally associated buildings, cities, public infrastructure, transportation, open space, as well as more conceptual components like farmlands, dammed rivers, wildlife management, and even domesticated animals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urban ecology</span> Scientific study of living organisms

Urban ecology is the scientific study of the relation of living organisms with each other and their surroundings in an urban environment. An urban environment refers to environments dominated by high-density residential and commercial buildings, paved surfaces, and other urban-related factors that create a unique landscape. The goal of urban ecology is to achieve a balance between human culture and the natural environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urban geography</span> Subdiscipline of geography concentrating on urban areas

Urban geography is the subdiscipline of geography that derives from a study of cities and urban processes. Urban geographers and urbanists examine various aspects of urban life and the built environment. Scholars, activists, and the public have participated in, studied, and critiqued flows of economic and natural resources, human and non-human bodies, patterns of development and infrastructure, political and institutional activities, governance, decay and renewal, and notions of socio-spatial inclusions, exclusions, and everyday life. Urban geography includes different other fields in geography such as the physical, social, and economic aspects of urban geography. The physical geography of urban environments is essential to understand why a town is placed in a specific area, and how the conditions in the environment play an important role with regards to whether or not the city successfully develops. Social geography examines societal and cultural values, diversity, and other conditions that relate to people in the cities. Economic geography is important to examine the economic and job flow within the urban population. These various aspects involved in studying urban geography are necessary to better understand the layout and planning involved in the development of urban environments worldwide.

<i>The Death and Life of Great American Cities</i> 1961 book critiquing American urban redevelopment policies

The Death and Life of Great American Cities is a 1961 book by writer and activist Jane Jacobs. The book is a critique of 1950s urban planning policy, which it holds responsible for the decline of many city neighborhoods in the United States. The book is Jacobs' best-known and most influential work.

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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 infrastructure provision.

<i>Cantabroraphidia</i> Extinct genus of insects

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An urban meadow is a meadow which is influenced both by the environmental conditions of a city and the aesthetic and social needs of its residents. This differs from other meadow types as it is a highly engineered, novel, and site-specific designed landscape as well as an example of a nature-based solution (NBS).

References

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  2. Kang, Chaogui; Fan, Dongwan; Jiao, Hongzan (2021). "Validating activity, time, and space diversity as essential components of urban vitality". Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science . 48 (5): 1180–1197. doi:10.1177/2399808320919771. S2CID   218914835.
  3. 1 2 Índice de vitalidad urbana. La aventura del saber. RTVE. 7 February 2019.
  4. 1 2 Jane Jacobs y la vitalidad urbana en Barcelona. TEDxBarcelona. 8 September 2021.
  5. "La importancia de la vitalidad urbana". Ciudades. November 2017.
  6. Delclòs-Alió, Xavier; Miralles-Guasch, Carme (June 2018). "Looking at Barcelona through Jane Jacobs's eyes: Mapping the basic conditions for urban vitality in a Mediterranean conurbation". Land Use Policy. 75: 505–517. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.04.026. S2CID   158995589.
  7. Jane Jacobs. The Death and Life of Great American Cities .
  8. Delclòs-Alió, Xavier; Gutiérrez, Aaron; Miralles-Guasch, Carme (March 2019). "The urban vitality conditions of Jane Jacobs in Barcelona: Residential and smartphone-based tracking measurements of the built environment in a Mediterranean metropolis". Cities. 86: 220–228. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2018.09.021. S2CID   158254925.
  9. Alió, Xavier Delclòs; Guasch, Carme Miralles i. (January 2021). "Jane Jacobs en Barcelona: las condiciones para la vitalidad urbana y su relación con la movilidad cotidiana". Documents d'Anàlisi Geogràfica. 67 (1): 51–72. doi: 10.5565/rev/dag.567 . S2CID   234023321.
  10. Liang, Yang; D’Uva, Domenico; Scandiffio, Alessandro; Rolando, Andrea (2022). "The more walkable, the more livable? -- can urban attractiveness improve urban vitality?". Transportation Research Procedia. 60: 322–329. doi:10.1016/j.trpro.2021.12.042.