A suburb is an area within a metropolitan area which often contains most of the area's economic activity, which may include commercial and mixed-use. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate political entity. The name describes an area that is either more or less densely populated than an inner city. In many metropolitan areas suburbs rise in population during the day and are where most jobs are located; being major commercial and job hubs, many suburbs also exist as separate residential communities within commuting distance of a larger city. Suburbs can have their own political or legal jurisdiction, especially in the United States, but this is not always the case, especially in the United Kingdom, where most suburbs are located within the administrative boundaries of cities. In most English-speaking countries, suburban areas are defined in contrast to central city or inner city areas, but in Australian English and South African English, suburb has become largely synonymous with what is called a "neighborhood" in the U.S., but it is used in contrast with inner city areas.
Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has been used to describe a wide array of phenomena, usually in a pejorative connotation.
In urban planning, zoning is a method in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into "zones", each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a single use, they may combine several compatible activities by use, or in the case of form-based zoning, the differing regulations may govern the density, size and shape of allowed buildings whatever their use. The planning rules for each zone determine whether planning permission for a given development may be granted. Zoning may specify a variety of outright and conditional uses of land. It may indicate the size and dimensions of lots that land may be subdivided into, or the form and scale of buildings. These guidelines are set in order to guide urban growth and development.
In British town planning, the green belt is a policy for controlling urban growth. The term, coined by Octavia Hill in 1875, refers to a ring of countryside where urbanisation will be resisted for the foreseeable future, maintaining an area where local food growing, forestry and outdoor leisure can be expected to prevail. The fundamental aim of green belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently green, and consequently the most important attribute of green belts is their openness.
Brownfield is land that is abandoned or underutilized due to pollution from industrial use. The specific definition of brownfield land varies and is decided by policy makers and/or land developers within different countries. The main difference in definitions of whether a piece of land is considered a brownfield or not depends on the presence or absence of pollution. Overall, brownfield land is a site previously developed for industrial or commercial purposes and thus requires further development before reuse.
Thames Gateway is a term applied to an area around the Thames Estuary in the context of discourse around regeneration and further urbanisation. The term was first coined by the UK government and applies to an area of land stretching 70 kilometres (43 mi) east from inner east and south-east London on both sides of the River Thames and the Thames Estuary. It stretches from Westferry in Tower Hamlets to the Isle of Sheppey/Southend-on-Sea and extends across three ceremonial counties.
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighted areas in inner cities in favour of new housing, businesses, and other developments.
Ballymun is an outer suburb of Dublin, Ireland, at the northern edge of the Northside, the green-field development of which began in the 1960s to accommodate a housing crisis in inner city areas of Dublin. While the newly built housing was state-of-the-art at the time, comprising high-rise tower blocks and flat complexes, residents were moved in years before shops, schools and other infrastructure were fully ready, and the area became well known for both a strong community spirit and considerable social challenges. Ballymun has several sub-districts such as Sillogue, Coultry, Shangan and Poppintree, and is close to both the Republic of Ireland's only IKEA store and to Dublin Airport. The area is the source of one Dublin river, and parts lie in the floodplain of another, and there are a number of parks.
Urban sprawl is defined as "the spreading of urban developments on undeveloped land near a more or less densely populated city". Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growth in many urban areas of housing, commercial development, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for very dense urban planning. Sometimes the urban areas described as the most "sprawling" are the most densely populated. In addition to describing a special form of urbanization, the term also relates to the social and environmental consequences associated with this development. In modern times some suburban areas described as "sprawl" have less detached housing and higher density than the nearby core city. Medieval suburbs suffered from the loss of protection of city walls, before the advent of industrial warfare. Modern disadvantages and costs include increased travel time, transport costs, pollution, and destruction of the countryside. The revenue for building and maintaining urban infrastructure in these areas are gained mostly through property and sales taxes. Most jobs in the US are now located in suburbs generating much of the revenue, although a lack of growth will require higher tax rates.
Tax increment financing (TIF) is a public financing method that is used as a subsidy for redevelopment, infrastructure, and other community-improvement projects in many countries, including the United States. The original intent of a TIF program is to stimulate private investment in a blighted area that has been designated to be in need of economic revitalization. Similar or related value capture strategies are used around the world.
Suburbanization (AE), or suburbanisation (BE), is a population shift from historic core cities or rural areas into suburbs, resulting in the formation of (sub)urban sprawl. As a consequence of the movement of households and businesses away from city centers, low-density, peripheral urban areas grow.
Redevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses. It represents a process of land development uses to revitalize the physical, economic and social fabric of urban space.
The Northern Quarter is an area of Manchester city centre, England, between Piccadilly station, Victoria station and Ancoats, centred on Oldham Street, just off Piccadilly Gardens. It was defined and named in the 1990s as part of the regeneration and gentrification of Manchester.
In urban planning, infill, or in-fill, is the rededication of land in an urban environment, usually open-space, to new construction. Infill also applies, within an urban polity, to construction on any undeveloped land that is not on the urban margin. The slightly broader term "land recycling" is sometimes used instead. Infill has been promoted as an economical use of existing infrastructure and a remedy for urban sprawl. Detractors view increased urban density as overloading urban services, including increased traffic congestion and pollution, and decreasing urban green-space. Many also dislike it for social and historical reasons, partly due to its unproven effects and its similarity with gentrification.
An urban enterprise zone is an area in which policies to encourage economic growth and development are implemented. Urban enterprise zone policies generally offer tax concessions, infrastructure incentives, and reduced regulations to attract investments and private companies into the zones. They are a type of special economic zone where companies can locate free of certain local, state, and federal taxes and restrictions. Urban enterprise zones are intended to encourage development in deprived neighborhoods through tax and regulatory relief to entrepreneurs and investors who launch businesses in the area.
Main Street is a metonym used to denote a primary retail street of a village, town or small city in many parts of the world. It is usually a focal point for shops and retailers in the central business district, and is most often used in reference to retailing, socializing, and the place to go to find "common" concerns.
Land recycling is the reuse of abandoned, vacant, or underused properties for redevelopment or repurposing.
A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many other terms: "bedroom community", "bedroom town", "bedroom suburb" (US), "dormitory town", or "dormitory suburb" (Britain/Commonwealth/Ireland). In Japan, a commuter town may be referred to by the wasei-eigo coinage "bed town". The term "exurb" was used from the 1950s, but since 2006, is generally used for areas beyond suburbs and specifically less densely built than the suburbs to which the exurbs' residents commute.
Urban regeneration in South Korea began with the reconstruction following the Korean war.
The urban renewal of Sydney is an ongoing land redevelopment process that is creating and reviving new urban centres across Sydney, Australia. Urban renewal refers to the refurbishment of derelict buildings, streets or neighbourhoods and is accompanied with the process of gentrification attributed by changes in land use and deindustrialisation of areas. In 2020, there are several projects underway and planned including Barangaroo, The Bays Precinct and Green Square.
