With the progress of urbanization, urban management is facing a series of challenges in the new situation. The scale of the city is growing, urban management problems are increasingly prominent, the urban population is showing a rapid growth trend, and various elements of urban infrastructure management, such as rapid growth and urban expansion, have increased the load of urban infrastructure. To make overall planning for urban transportation, municipal administration, economic industry, and public service, intelligent urban planning and (...) construction came into being. Big data technology provides important support for the construction and development of smart city, which is not only an effective means to improve the design of smart city, but also the premise for the development of smart city. Therefore, this paper first introduces the characteristics of smart city, analyses the application of big data technology in smart city design, and finally evaluates the impact of smart city planning and construction based on big data on economic and social benefits. (shrink)

AtPol.7.12, 1331a19–20, Aristotle states it as a matter of fact that the citizenry of the best city should be divided into ‘public messes’ (syssitia). His primary concern in the rest of the chapter is to uncover the optimal way in whichsyssitiashould be organized, and the way in which they should be situated in relation to other facilities, public buildings,agoraiand temples in the city. The proposed plan is roughly as follows.Syssitiawould be divided into three main sections. First, thesyssitiaof soldiers (...) would be held at the guardhouses located at strategic points along the walls surrounding the city (1331a20–3). Next come ‘the most supremesyssitiaof the magistrates’ (τὰ κυριώτατα τῶν ἀρχείων συσσίτια: 1331a24–5) and thesyssitia‘of the priests’ (τῶν ἱερέων: 1331b5). These would be held at a place appropriately having ‘an appearance directed at establishing virtue and [being] more strongly positioned than the neighbouring parts of the city’ (1331a28–30), that is, the highest place in the city. This envisioned acropolis would also house temples (1331a24–5). Situated below it would be the ‘freeagora’, which would include gymnasia (1331a35–7) and would be generally directed at leisurely activity (1331b12). Finally, below the freeagora, a ‘necessaryagora’ and buildings of officials entrusted with legal, commercial and municipal duties would be established, at a location conducive to importing and exporting goods (1331b6–12). (shrink)

We present a research on smart city planning and community governance using dynamic game methods, analyze the current status and problems of the current smart community service system, and put forward countermeasures and suggestions based on the global smart community development experience. Through smart city planning and construction, the game model of government governance and information sharing between communities and decision making is obtained, and the two-dimensional replication dynamic system equations of smart city planning (...) and construction agencies and communities are obtained from smart city planning and construction. The evolutionary stability strategy and a united front are analyzed. The strategy achieves the ideal stable conditions. We define the relevant definition of a smart community and discuss the purpose and significance of the research, especially the importance and necessity of the construction of the smart community. Based on the current situation of the construction of smart communities, we conduct specific research, discuss the deficiencies and shortcomings in the current construction of smart communities, and find out the causes of these problems. Finally, based on learning from the relevant work experience, corresponding improvement measures are proposed for the existing problems from the united front, top-level design, social participation, platform construction, and talent training. (shrink)

Le Corbusier's visionary or realistic urban plans are accompanied by various experimental ways of presentation, all designed to involve the public and political authorities through spectacular installations that play on the dimension of illusionism. In his quest to present his urbanistic ideas, Le Corbusier uses dioramas, photographs and film projections. The aim of his staging is to modify the conventional vision of reality with a systematic bombardment of spectacular images.

. Decision-making under uncertainty is sometimes investigated as a homogeneous problem, independently of the type of decision-maker and the level and nature of the decision itself. However, when the decision-maker is a public authority, there immediately arise problems additional to those that concern any other decision-maker. This is not always clearly recognised in orthodox discussions on decisions under conditions of uncertainty. This article investigates the methodological, strategic and procedural challenges of taking public decisions in such conditions. It focuses mainly on (...) decisions involving urban contexts, such as planning decisions regarding land use and building transformations, by trying to develop some pioneering research studies in this field. (shrink)

This chapter brings to light how urban planning serves the interests of the most powerful groups in society. Urban planning seems to be a major concern of local and national governments also for ideological reasons. The discussion shows how state ideologies influence city plans and how, conversely, cities reflect these ideologies. These ideologies make it clear who is in power. Similarly, political changes are reflected in new urban plans. The case of Indonesian cities illustrates this rhetoric of (...) power. In pre-colonial towns, the rulers formed the symbolic heart of the city. In Dutch colonial towns, planning was based on the segregation of people from different ethnic backgrounds. After independence, ethnic boundaries were blurred, stressing that all people ideally should form one nation. Thus, planning ideals have changed with the emergence of new political leaders, reflecting the political climate of the time. (shrink)

The idea of applying biomimicry to cities is attracting increasing attention as a way of achieving sustainability. Undoubtedly the most frequently evoked natural model in this context is the forest, though it has not yet been investigated with any great scientific rigour. To overcome this lacuna, we provide: first, a justification of the model of the forest via what we call the arguments from “fittingness”, “scale”, and “complexity”; second, an exploration of various key innovations made possible by this model in (...) the fields of urban planning, urban water systems, urban energy and transport systems, and urban food and nutrient systems. (shrink)

This article applies a constructivist perspective to the analysis of a town-planning innovation. The so-called Cerdà Plan for the extension of Barcelona was launched in the 1860s and gave this city one of its most characteristic present features. For different reasons it can be considered an extraordinary case in town-planing history, though almost unknown to international scholars. The authors analyze the intense controversy that developed around the extension plan and the three technological frames involved. Finally, the relationship between (...) power and technology is discussed. The sociohistorical account is used to illustrate a specific concept of power, to be used in a politics of technology. (shrink)

‘Text’ has been a frequent notion in analytical conceptualizations of landscape and the city. It is mostly found in analyses of textual representations or suggestions concerning a metaphor of “reading” an (urban) landscape. In the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics the idea of the text of St. Petersburg has also been applied in analysing particular cities as organizing topics in literature and in culture more widely, but it has not happened to an equal degree in studies of actual urban spaces. (...) The understanding of text as a semiotic system and mechanism is, however, more promising than revealed by these conceptions. Some potential can be made apparent by relating this textual paradigm to a more pragmatic understanding of the city and its planning. My project in this paper is to uncover an analytical framework focusing on the concepts of ‘text’, ‘textualization’ and ‘texting’ in studying the planning of urban environment. The paper observes the case of the urban planning process of the Tartu city centre in Estonia during 2010–2016, and is particularly concerned with the roles that urban nature has acquired in the process of this “textualization” of the local environment, societal ideals, practices and possible others. (shrink)

The UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) in the 1990s becomes a landmark and has now been ratified by every other country of the world. Bring hope for a better world—for all children was highlighted as one of the most far-sighted human right instrument in the convention. Yet access to basic livelihood needs such as clean drinking water, primary health services, primary education, recreation and other urban infrastructure becomes a nightmare for millions of children and youth in (...) the developing world and particularly in metropolitan cities in India. The Indian children are living in varying residential environment, comprised of residential colonies of rich, high-raised flats of middle and low-income groups and the economically weaker sections living in slums and squatter colonies. The conventional method of planning residential neighbourhood lacks in indentifying the varying needs of children while building urban infrastructure. As a result there is a large gap in getting access to basic livetihood needs for children of rich and poor. The basic question becomes, is the urban child and youth population just as a numerical variable in planning infrastructure needs in metropolitan cities? This article attempts to analyse the situation in some of the selected residential areas in Delhi. (shrink)

‘Text’ has been a frequent notion in analytical conceptualizations of landscape and the city. It is mostly found in analyses of textual representations or suggestions concerning a metaphor of “reading” an (urban) landscape. In the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics the idea of the text of St. Petersburg has also been applied in analysing particular cities as organizing topics in literature and in culture more widely, but it has not happened to an equal degree in studies of actual urban spaces. (...) The understanding of text as a semiotic system and mechanism is, however, more promising than revealed by these conceptions. Some potential can be made apparent by relating this textual paradigm to a more pragmatic understanding of the city and its planning. My project in this paper is to uncover an analytical framework focusing on the concepts of ‘text’, ‘textualization’ and ‘texting’ in studying the planning of urban environment. The paper observes the case of the urban planning process of the Tartu city centre in Estonia during 2010–2016, and is particularly concerned with the roles that urban nature has acquired in the process of this “textualization” of the local environment, societal ideals, practices and possible others. (shrink)

Beginning in 1992, MBA students enrolled in a capstone Strategic Management course at Loyola University Chicago have, as their major course assignment, researched and prepared an original business plan proposal to provide a needed good or service, as well as employment opportunities, to residents in one of Chicago's underserved innercity neighborhoods. This paper describes the genesis of the project, how it works, and what the outcomes have been to date. The pedagogical model is arguably appropriate for MBA programs in or (...) near any area that is economically underdeveloped, be it urban or rural. (shrink)

In this paper, we study the structural optimization of community governance in smart cities and optimize the structure based on the game analysis of dynamic planning evolution. Theoretically, the connotation and extension of the concept of “self-organization” are cleared, and the environment and conditions of community self-organization formation, the formation process of community self-organization, and the types of community self-organization are discussed. The so-called “self-organization” is a process of spontaneously moving from disorder to order, and the environment and conditions (...) of community self-organization are mainly the openness, nonequilibrium state, and nonlinearity of the system. The key parameters of the contract with the change of the values of each factor make up for the inability to collect data for the empirical study in this paper; then, it presents four linear stages along with the cause such as self-creation, self-expansion, self-maintenance, and self-degeneration, respectively. The types of community self-organization mainly include community self-organization with random aggregation, socialized community self-organization, and stable community self-organization with autonomy orientation. By systematically sorting out the relationship between community self-organization and government, while confirming the positive significance of community self-organization to community cultural governance, various complex conflicts and game relationships will deeply affect the actual effectiveness of cultural governance and provide useful knowledge reference for future community cultural governance. (shrink)

Adomnán of Iona's work on the holy places of Jerusalem and surrounding regions has been used as a guide to seventh-century Palestine. In particular, its plans of monuments such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre have been used by archaeologists for information about buildings, while their form interests historians of cartography. However, these plans must be read with the book's several purposes in mind. They attempt to harmonize biblical data visually. In addition, they project elements of Iona's monastic liturgy (...) into an alien liturgical space. The plans are not simply illustrations to clarify the text but constitute a distinct, parallel text of their own, with elements shown that Adomnán would not have asserted in writing. They indicate that, for Adomnán, there were different orders of verification for written texts and visual materials such as plans. (shrink)

The article presents a series of urban regeneration programmes carried out in the Lazio Region from 2011 to 2016, and financed by the resources of the cohesion policy 2007–2013. It covers: programme background, experience of the Municipality of Aprilia analysed in its most relevant details, some reflections concerning opportunities and limits of the programme, and some key elements to be developed in future research.

Knowledge and expertise -- Knowledge and action -- The nature of professional action in urban planning.

Based on their research showing that growing cities follow basic principles, two theoretical physicists, Luis Bettencourt and Geoffrey West, call for researchers and professionals to contribute to a grand theory of urban sustainability. In their research, they develop a ‘science of the city’ to help urban planners address problems that arise from population increases. Although they provide valuable insights for understanding urban sustainability issues, they do not give planners a manageable way to approach such problems. I argue that developing (...) an applied mereology to understand the concept of ‘city identity’ gives planners a theoretical device for addressing urban affairs, including ethical concerns. In turn, I devise a model of city identity to show how a ‘philosophy of the city’ contributes to a grand theory of urban sustainability. (shrink)

Ethical dilemmas and value conflicts affect cities globally, but urban leaders and citizens often avoid confronting them directly and instead view the governance of cities as primarily an administrative task or, even worse, a merely political one. Timothy Beatley challenges readers to consider the issues in our cities not simply as legal or economic problems but as moral ones, asking readers 'How can a city become more ethical?' Beatley unearths, exposes, and explores the many ethical questions cities face today (...) and touches on many topics, from privacy and crime to racism and the ethics of public space. Drawing from recent policy debates and using extensive examples to consider complex ethical dilemmas, Beatley argues that cities must expand the definition of the moral community to include all their citizens. Cities must take profound steps to address social injustice and plan for climate change-both moral obligations-and this approachable and readable introduction to moral philosophy, urban planning, and social justice will help new generations to grapple with these global issues. (shrink)

This book explores how the weather and city-form impact the mind, and how city-form and mind interact. It builds on Merleau-Ponty's contention that mind, the human body and the environment are intertwined in a singular composite, and on Walter Benjamin's suggestion that mind and city-form, in mutual interaction, through history, have set the course of civilization. Bringing together the fields of philosophy, urbanism, geography, history, and architecture, the book shows the association of existentialism with prevalence of mood (...) disorder in Northern Europe at the close of Little Ice Age. It explains the implications of city-form and traces the role of the myths and allegories of urban design as well as the history of gender projection onto city-form. It shows how urbanization in Northern Europe provided easier access to shelter, yet resulted in sunlight deprivation, and yielded increasing incidence of depression and other mental disorder among the European middle-class. The book uses the examples of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Kafka, to show how walking through the streets, squares and other urban voids became the informal remedy to mood disorder, a prominent trait among founders of modern Existentialism. It concludes by describing how the connection of anguish and violence is relevant to winter depression in cities, in North America in particular. (shrink)

On the basis of PM2.5 data of the national air quality monitoring sites, local population data, and baseline all-cause mortality rate, PM2.5-related health economic benefits of the Air Improvement Action Plan implemented in Wuhan in 2013–2017 were investigated using health-impact and valuation functions. Annual avoided premature deaths driven by the average concentration of PM2.5 decrease were evaluated, and the economic benefits were computed by using the value of statistical life (VSL) method. Results showed that the number of avoided premature deaths (...) in Wuhan are 21,384 (95% confidence interval (CI): 15,004 to 27,255) during 2013–2017, due to the implementation of the Air Improvement Action Plan. According to the VSL method, the obtained economic benefits of Huangpi, Wuchang, Hongshan, Xinzhou, Jiang’an, Hanyang, Jiangxia, Qiaokou, Jianghan, Qingshan, Caidian, Dongxihu, and Hannan District were 8.55, 8.19, 8.04, 7.39, 5.78, 4.84, 4.37, 4.04, 3.90, 3.30, 2.87, 2.42, and 0.66 billion RMB (1 RMB = 0.1417 USD On 14 October 2019), respectively. These economic benefits added up to 64.35 billion RMB (95% CI: 45.15 to 82.02 billion RMB), accounting for 4.80% (95% CI: 3.37% to 6.12%) of the total GDP of Wuhan in 2017. Therefore, in the process of formulating a regional air quality improvement scheme, apart from establishing hierarchical emission-reduction standards and policies, policy makers should give integrated consideration to the relationship between regional economic development, environmental protection and residents’ health benefits. Furthermore, for improving air quality, air quality compensation mechanisms can be established on the basis of the status quo and trends of air quality, population distribution, and economic development factors. (shrink)

Visual representations have often played a crucial role in imagining future urban forms. In the aftermath of the Second World War, a noteworthy new genre of urban plan was published in Britain, most deploying seductively optimistic illustrations of ways forward not only for the reconstruction of bomb-damaged towns and cities but also for places left largely undamaged. Visual representations have often played a crucial role in imagining future urban forms. In the aftermath of the Second World War, a noteworthy new (...) genre of urban plan was published in Britain, most deploying seductively optimistic illustrations of ways forward not only for the reconstruction of bomb-damaged towns and cities but also for places left largely undamaged. This paper assesses the contribution of visual elements in this,process with a detailed case study of the maps, statistical charts, architectural drawings and photographs enrolled into the 1945 City of Manchester Plan. The cultural production of these visual representations is evaluated. Our analysis interprets the form, symbology and active work of different imagery in the process of reimagining Manchester, but also assesses the role of these images as markers of a particular moment in the cultural economy of the city. This analysis is carried out in relation to the ethos of the Plan as a whole. (shrink)

This article provides an explanation for how increased public participation can paradoxically translate into limited democratic decision-making in urban settings. Recent sociological research shows how governments can control participatory forums to restrict the distribution of resources to poor neighborhoods or to advance private land development interests. Yet such explanations cannot account for the decoupling of participation from democratic decision-making in the case of planning for climate change, which expands the substantive topics and public funding decisions that involve urban residents. (...) Through an in-depth case study of one of the largest coastal protection projects in the world and drawing on global scholarship on participation, this article narrates the social production of resistance to climate change infrastructure by showing how the state sidestepped public input and exercised authority through appeals to the rationality of technical expertise. After a lengthy participation process wherein participants reported satisfaction with how their input was included in designs, city officials switched decision-making styles and used expertise from engineers to render the publicly-supported plan unfeasible, while continuing to involve residents in the process. As a result, conflict arose between activists and public housing representatives, bitterly dividing the neighborhood over who could legitimately claim to represent the interests of the “frontline community.” By documenting the experience of participants in the process before and after the switch in decision-making styles, this article advances a sociological description of public influence in policy: The ability for participants in a planning process to recognize their own input reflected in finished plans. (shrink)

Kevin Lynch's books are the classic underpinnings of modern urban planning and design, yet they are only a part of his rich legacy of ideas about human purposes and values in built form. City Sense and City Design brings together Lynch's remaining work, including professional design and planning projects that show how he translated many of his ideas and theories into practice. An invaluable sourcebook of design knowledge, City Sense and City Design completes the (...) record of one of the foremost environmental design theorists of our time and leads to a deeper understanding of his distinctively humanistic philosophy. The editors, both former students of Lynch, provide a cogent summary of his career and of the role he played in shaping and transforming the American urban design profession during the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s. Each of the seven thematic groupings of writings and projects that follow begins with a short introduction explaining their content and their background. The essays in part I focus on the premises of Lynch's work: his novel reading of large-scale built environments and the notion that the design of an urban landscape should be as meaningful and intimate as the natural landscape. In part II, excerpts from Lynch's travel journals reveal his early ideas on how people perceive and interpret their surroundings—ideas that culminated in his seminal work, The Image of the City. This part of the book also presents Lynch's experiments with children and his assessment of environmental-perception research. The examples of both small-scale and large-scale analysis of visual form in part III are followed by three parts on city design. These include Lynch's more theoretical works on complex planning decisions involving both functional (spatial and structural organization) and normative (how the city works in human terms) approaches, articles discussing the principles that guided Lynch's teaching and practice of city design, and descriptions of Lynch's own projects in the Boston area and elsewhere. The book concludes with essays written late in Lynch's career, fantasy pieces describing utopias and offering new design freedoms and scenarios warning of horrifying "cacotopias.". (shrink)

The paper contributes to the reflection on how the 19th-century national events of wider appeal such as the Art and Industrial Exhibitions fostered the dissemination and enhancement of archaeological discoveries. The specific case of the ‘Exhibition of the City of Rome’, held during the Turin Exhibition in 1884, is examined as a paradigmatic example of the archaeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi’s commitment to promoting Rome in united Italy, using archive and press documents of the time. The Roman pavilion at (...) Turin in 1884, for which de Rossi was responsible for the medieval section, is presented as a key event in the dissemination of Roman archaeological discoveries after 1870 and as a major event in the promotion of studies of Roman topography strongly desired by de Rossi, and which can be read as the starting point for the setting up of the Museum of the City of Rome. (shrink)

City Living is about urban spaces, urban dwellers, and how these spaces and people make, shape, and change one another. More people live in cities than ever before: more than 50% of the earth's people are urban dwellers. As downtown cores gentrify and globalize, they are becoming more diverse than ever, along lines of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, sexuality, and age. Meanwhile, we are in the early stages of what seems sure to be a period of intense civil unrest. (...) During such periods, cities generally become the primary sites where tensions and resistance are concentrated, negotiated, and performed. For all of these reasons, understanding cities and contemporary city living is pressing and exciting from almost any disciplinary and political perspective. Quill R Kukla offers the first systematic philosophical investigation of the nature of city life and city dwellers. The book draws on empirical and ethnographic work in geography, anthropology, urban planning, and several other disciplines in order to explore the impact that cities have on their dwellers and that dwellers have on their cities. It begins with a philosophical exploration of spatially embodied agency and of the specific forms of agency and spatiality that are distinctive of urban life. It explores how gentrification is enacted and experienced at the level of embodied agency, arguing that gentrifying spaces are contested territories that shape and are shaped by their dwellers. The book then moves to an exploration of repurposed cities, which are cities materially designed to support one sociopolitical order, but in which that order collapsed, leaving new dwellers to use the space in new ways. Through detailed original ethnography of the repurposed cities of Berlin and Johannesburg, Kukla makes the case that in repurposed cities, we can see vividly how material spaces shape and constrain the agency and experience of dwellers, while dwellers creatively shape the spaces they inhabit in accordance with their needs. The book concludes with a reconsideration of the right to the city, asking what would be involved in creating a city that enabled the agency and flourishing of all its diverse inhabitants. (shrink)

This article focuses on the idea of ‘human rights city’ and explores its practice. It starts from the concepts of human rights cities and subsidiarity to explain what a human rights city is and delves into the existing literature identifying the challenges to guarantee human rights in local contexts, such as the legal framework, education and training, the institutional structure, and the resources. Our article is based on an empirical-based study of Madrid Human Rights Plan (2017–2019). We carried (...) out semi-structured interviews, focus group, and participant observation to grasp the obstacles that civil servants encounter in the implementation of the Plan. We identify five types of obstacles that we classify as conceptual, ideological, legal, organisational, and budgetary. Our study questions the idea that the local context, just because of its proximity to the citizenry, is the best equipped level of government to guarantee human rights. Without proper training and resources human rights can be lost in translation. Through the identification of such obstacles in a specific case study, we contribute to the academic debate on human rights in practice with the aim of fostering its guarantee in local contexts. (shrink)

This book critically examines the philosophy of the term 'transgression' and how it shapes the utopian vision of contemporary urban design scenarios. The aim of this book is to provide scholarly yet accessible graphic novel illustrations to inform narratives of urban manifestos. Through four select case studies from the UK, Cyprus and Germany, the book highlights the paradoxes and contradictions in architecture and provides detailed evaluation of the limits and contemporary forms of sustainable urban regeneration. The book proposes an 'utopian (...) urban vision' approach to social, political and cultural relations, trends and tensions both locally and globally, and seeks to inspire an awakening in architectural discourse. The book argues that the philosophical undermining of transgression is the result of a phenomenon from a different perspective -- its philosophical background, its social construction, its experimental research process and its design implications on the city. As such, the book provides a critical examination of how architectural design interventions contribute to sustainable urban regeneration, gentrification and can impact local communities. This book provides a significant contribution to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as early career researchers working in architecture, planning and sustainable urban design. It offers effective guidance on adopting the state-of-the-art graphical illustrations into their own design projects, while considering contradictions between architectural discourse and the philosophy of transgression. (shrink)

Available in paperback under the title Good City Form With the publication of The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch embarked on the process of exploration of city form. A Theory of Good City Form, his most important book, is both a summation and an extension of his vision, a high point from which he views cities past and possible. The central section of the book develops a new normative theory of city form—an identification of (...) the characteristics that good human settlements should possess. This follows an examination of three existing normative theories—those which see the city as a model of the cosmos, as a machine, and as a living organism—which are shown to be finally inadequate and unable to hold up under sustained analysis. In addition, an appendix demonstrates the inadequacies of a number of functional theories—those whose aim is simply to describe how settlements work rather than to evaluate how they ought to work. Among these theories are models of cities as ecological systems, as fields of force, as systems of linked decisions, or as areas of class conflict. Lynch puts forth his own theory by searching out the qualities that produce good settlements, qualities that allow "development, within continuity, via openness and connection." He identifies five interrelated dimensions of performance—vitality, sense, fit, access, and control—and two "meta-criteria," efficiency and justice. As in all of Lynch's writing, the theory flows from and leads back to specific examples and everyday realities. The final section of the book is concerned with applications of the theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"A City of Brick":Visual Rhetoric in Roman Rhetorical Theory and PracticeKathleen S. LampPerhaps none of the words Augustus, the first sole ruler of Rome who reigned from 27 BCE to 14 CE, actually said are quite as memorable as the ones Cassius Dio has attributed to him: "I found Rome built of clay and I leave it to you in marble" (1987, 56.30).1 Suetonius too discusses Augustus's building (...) program, offering an alleged quote along with an explanation of his motivation: "Since the city was not adorned as the dignity of the empire demanded, and was exposed to flood and fire, he so beautified it that he could justly boast that he had found it built of brick and left it in marble" (1998, Aug.28.3). Though Suetonius's explanation is practical, Dio argues Augustus's "city of brick" had a more metaphoric or symbolic meaning: "In saying this he was not referring literally to the state of the buildings, but rather to the strength of the empire" (1987, 56.30).Both historians, then, perceive a connection between the physical appearance of the city and Rome's place at the head of the (Roman) world. Maecenas, Augustus's right-hand man who was essentially the minister of culture, explicitly draws attention to this strategy in a speech fabricated by Dio. Maecenas advises Augustus, "Make this capital beautiful, spare no expense in doing so, and enhance its magnificence with festivals of every kind. It is right for us who rule over so many peoples to excel all others in every field of endeavor, and even display of this kind tends to implant [End Page 171] respect for us in our allies and to strike terror into our enemies" (1987, 52.30). Here Dio suggests, albeit in hindsight, that Augustus's building program was a conscious "display" of Rome's supremacy meant to elicit a reaction, particularly from those who dwelled outside the city.Though from this passage of Dio's it is possible to argue that the physical appearance of the city of Rome was meant to persuade, or at least elicit some response, the passage does not provide support for the claim that architecture, monuments, and city planning functioned rhetorically in ancient Rome. After all, Quintilian reminds us that "many other things have the power of persuasion" (1970, 2.15.6-9). Nonetheless, this passage does generate questions about the relationship between the Augustan building program, or more broadly the Augustan cultural campaigns, and rhetoric in the principate—specifically about the way in which the cultural campaigns functioned rhetorically to help Augustus gain and maintain power.Recently, I have argued that the Ara pacis Augustae, an Augustan monument commissioned in 13 BCE, functioned as a visual example of a rhetorical text, meant not only to celebrate Augustus's successful campaigns is Spain and Gaul but also to garner public support for Augustus's heir and the process of dynastic succession. Because specific rhetorical techniques often associated with the epideictic genre clearly function on the altar, the Ara pacis demonstrates that Augustus and/or his ministers were thinking rhetorically when constructing at least some Augustan monuments (Lamp 2009). Similarly, architectural historian Diana Favro has argued that certain aspects of Augustan architecture made use of rhetorical techniques related to the canon of memory (1996). These findings are perhaps not surprising given that George Kennedy, writing nearly forty years ago, acknowledged that Augustus, a figure he called "the greatest rhetorician of antiquity, " "developed new techniques of verbal and visual persuasion which took over some of the functions and adapted some of the methods of traditional oratory" (1972, 378, 382).Still, very little attention has been paid to Augustus as a rhetorical figure, which is not to say that scholars of rhetoric have paid no attention to Roman rhetoric. While the classicist Theodore Mommsen, writing in the latter half of the nineteenth century, went as far as to refer to the principate as the "end to the entire discipline of rhetoric" (1992, 125), the decline narrative in regards to Roman rhetoric is shifting. Traditionally, this decline narrative suggested that following the assassination of Cicero, traditional oratory retreated into... (shrink)

The Second World War and its associated political events of a national and global scale brought new circumstances, which was considerably influenced the development processes of Tehran. During World War II, Iran hoped that Washington would keep Britain and the Soviet Union from seizing control of the country’s oil fields. In 1951 and 1952 Truman worked with Iranian Prime Minister, though unsuccessfully, to regain some of those lost oil rights for Iran. By the late 1950s and President Kennedy’s presidency, he (...) used aid as leverage for social reform. During the early years of 1960s, the Kennedy Administration was urging its allies in the third world to carry out necessary reforms in order to prevent popular discontent and enhance the dominant ideology of ‘modernism’. In 1968, a major piece of legislation, the Urban Development and Renewal Act, enabled the municipality to implement Tehran’s Comprehensive Plan (TCP 1968), which integrated all the elements of a 1960s’ American city such as the separation of functions, highways, suburbs, shopping centers and housing area. The export of these American cities principles can only be understood from the background of the Cold War period, in which the east and west were both competing for cultural colonization of Middle Eastern strategically important cities like Tehran. During this period, the new developments supported by the oil boom of 1970s, were built in different forms to constitute an expanding metropolis. In 1974, the second “International Congress of Architecture” with the theme of “Toward a Quality of Life” held at Persepolis and brought together all leading world architects and planners to review Iran’s progress in its professional response to the challenges posed by increasing oil revenues. This research aims to represent the export of planning as a political means of cultural colonization of the Third World during the cold war period. (shrink)

Cities are inextricably bound to their human denizens, although this human dimension is complicated by the emphasis on scale, speed, and progress that often dominates the semiotics and discourses of urban competition. In a profoundly ambivalent movement, various aspects of human “livability” are highlighted in the “quality of life” components of cities rankings and planning, while at the same time the “megacity” trend in planning and semiosis constantly threatens to overwhelm precisely that human livability. We can thus detect (...) two broad and fundamentally-opposed semiotic trends, namely, the confidently cosmopolitan trend that emphasizes urban growth and the positive effects these are assumed to have on quality of life; and the dehumanizing trend that emphasizes the human cost of urban growth and its technological components. The profound ambivalence that this indicates, needs to be figured into urban discourses towards a more holistic and balanced account. (shrink)

When town planning emerged at the end of the 19th century, its proponents did not envisage the city without nature. Some, such as Ebenezer Howard, believed the garden city would become the new face of the urban landscape, bringing together only the positive aspects of both city and country. Others, health experts and rationalists, advocated functional planning, where the ‘green space’ was part of the overall plan. And so nature was not forgotten. But what ‘nature’? (...) A ‘nature’ external to the town-dweller, like an ornament or decoration? Something that enhanced the built environment and not the very condition of our existence as human beings? Behind the planners’ inclusion of ‘nature’ lie very different intentions, from one period to another and one culture to another. The globalized, standardized ‘nature’ that was subsequently part of marketing the city is just an image; whether wild or tamed, it is no longer localized, no longer a partner in our condition as denizens of the earth. Thierry Paquot examines these continuing processes of change. (shrink)