Last session on urban
environments
Lesson 10
Week 16 & 17 – New stuff
Key idea 3: Changes occur as urban environments
age and the needs of people change.
• The nature of, and reasons for, the changes taking place at
the edge of HIC cities (eg retail complexes, business parks
and industrial estates). The ‘greenfield’ versus ‘brownfield’
debate. - already done
• Areas of social deprivation and poverty in HIC
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cities: symptoms and locations. The changing
fortunes of inner-city areas.
The roles of managers (planners, politicians,
property developers and industrialists) in urban
regeneration and re-imaging.
A case study of one named urban area in an HIC
to explain how and why changes are taking place.
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• Cities are always changing
• In Manchester, both world wars had a big
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impact. The textile industry suffered during
WW1 as they could not use their major
supplier, India but has to source cotton from
elsewhere. After WW1, the cotton from India
resumed but tailed off as the century
progressed, dying completely after India
became independent and developed its own
textile industry.
During WW2 over 70% of the old inner city
was destroyed by German bombs.
The engineering skills were put to good use
making aircraft and weapons. This made them
a target for the enemy.
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• So, in the first half of the C20 the CBD was
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the hub of the town with shops, offices and
public buildings.
By 1950s the centres were suffering from
congestion, pollution, noise and
overcrowding.
The redundant buildings were cleared to
make way for redevelopment. Older building
were replaced by skyscrapers. Main
shopping streets were pedestrianised.
Inside shopping centres were developed.
Multi-storey car parks were provided as
part of the redevelopment.. Where the old 1960s coop
building
narrow streets remained, one-ways systems
altered the flow of traffic.
An alternative was to permit out-of-town
shopping centres, so if they were not to
loose out completely, CBDs has to change
fast.
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Signs of social deprivation and poverty
• The inner cities also needed attention. There
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were large areas of waste ground – some due to
war damage and others due to the loss of
Victorian factories.
Many of the small rows of terraces were
boarded up and unused.
Empty buildings were a target for vandalism,
squatting and spray paint. It was all very
decayed.
Those who could afford to move out did, leaving
the unemployed and those on low wages.
Crime rates were high.
The number of old or single parent families and
immigrants was well above average.
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1955 - 75
• The first wave of redevelopment was in the
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1960s and 1970s.
Over 90,000 of the worst houses were
demolished and replaced by tower blocks in
the inner city and ‘overspill’ communities in the
suburbs.
The feeling at the time was to provide as many
units as possible in a new clean and modern
environment.
Tower blocks were seen as the answer. The
case for tower blocks was pretty clear from
the start: slum clearance.
It allowed high density (on average 200 people
per acre) and the saving of urban land, which
even 40 years ago was scarce.
A British dwelling that offered better light,
an inside toilet and bath, central heating,
electrical fittings, cleaner circulating air - all
within a dry building set on a landscaped green
- might, even now, seem like a thing worth
having.
What was seen as
beautiful in the 1960s
…
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• Architects decreed that the sun, not the streets,
should determine the orientation of homes. But they
made too little allowance for the way people actually
live indoors, especially when occupying closed
buildings with shared lifts and other amenities.
• Very soon, those who had wrapped ribbon around
their first set of inside bath taps on the day they'd
moved in, wanted out - and preferably to somewhere
not unlike the place they'd left so triumphantly a
short while before.
• Looking out from a central stair well killed the sense
of community. Soon enough gangs set fire to the
stairwells, sprayed front doors and went joyriding on
top of the lift, shouting abuse and terrorising old
people.
• The surrounding shops and pubs were closed or
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fortified in the face of serial robberies.
• The planners began to see the error of
their ways.
• They began to think that the design
caused the problems, that the particular
type or shape of new blocks might, itself,
encourage vandalism.
• But some others took a long time to learn.
One planner in Glasgow is quoted as saying
‘My idea of fulfilment is to draw up the car
and see the lights of …a scheme shining
out and think of all the families translated
from gloom to happiness'.
• But what did the people say?
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The CBD
• In the city centre by the mid-1960s, the inner
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city area was ready for some serious
redevelopment. It had grown up haphazard and
hotchpotch, many of its old cobbled streets
were shabby and congested.
Begun in 1972, on completion in 1979 the Arndale
was the largest covered town shopping centre in
Europe, encompassing some 12 hectares (30
acres – big!!) in the old city centre, with over
200 shops, major department stores,
restaurants and fast food outlets with over
75,000 shoppers a day!
The Centre had an 1,800 space multi-storey car
park, shopping malls on two levels, office space in
the tower, residential flats, and a bus station.
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The CBD
• However, it was not a
popular development
as it obliterated some
of Manchester's old
streets and alleys and a cement monolith
clad in beige tiles which have got tired
over time – there was little natural light
and no window on the outside. It went
way over budget and many investors went
bust in the process.
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The CBD
• However as luck would have it the IRA
blew a big hole in part of it in 1996 – and
this redevelopment, giving a much more
pleasing look to it.
How has it
changed?
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The CBD is not the only place that has
changed….
• Within 20 years many of these tower
blocks have been replaced by low rise
accommodation, in attempt to take more
notice of the people’s need for community
as well as good facilities.
• Some of towerblocks that remain have
been upgraded with internal security from
a caretaker and an entry phone system.
• Young professional people who work in the
CBD and some retired folks find them
attractive and safe and compact.
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People involved in the planning process
• All these ideas need people to plan what is the most
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appropriate.
It is not just the planners in the planning offices of local
authorities that decide what can and what cannot be
built and making sure all the building regulations are
followed.
It is the local and national politicians who decide the
policies, who permit or forbid individual developments,
who decide what publicly-funded building they can
finance.
It is also these people who are setting out what they
want to achieve, the objectives for the development
Together with private sector designers, they create an
image to fulfil their objectives
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Other people who are involved in the
planning process
• The people who own the land, on which
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development are to be built, have a say in how
much it will be sold – not much of a say in the
current climate but up until 2007, it was very
much a matter of think of a number!
The developers decide where they want to build
(within the limits of government policy), acquire
the land and organise the finance.
The architects and builders plan and carry out
the work.
Industrial business, housing associations and
pressure groups all have ideas about how the
built environment should change.
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How did it all go wrong in the 1960s?
• As we see, the aims put in place by the
politicians and made into a realizable form
by the designers is where it went wrong.
• They aimed to improve the physical
circumstances, while ignoring the social
ones
• But this happened all over the world in the
60s and 70s.
• It was not until later that slowly people
began to see that this simply did not work
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One of the worst horrors in
Manchester
A closer look – if
you want it!
Aerial view of the
Crescents in
Hulme - 1970'
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• As we have said cities are always changing.
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Where there are major schemes, these take
many years to plan and implement. They usually
involve many different types of project, shops,
offices, industry, housing and transport. These
are known as urban renewal or regeneration.
These 2 words are used interchangeably.
They both mean the revival of old parts of the
built-up area by either installing modern
facilities in old buildings (known as
‘improvement’) or opting for redevelopment.
(knock down and start again).
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•However, some cities take this even further.
Where there is widespread need for
modernisation, and where the city feels it is
known not for the good things about it, it
attempts to change the perception of how the
city is seen through it regeneration. This is called
re-imaging.
•A well know example of this has been the reimaging of the London Docks.
•It was know to be old and decaying, a good place
for criminal gangs to operate, where life was
short and hard.
•Now when we think of the London Docks, we think
of it as a very select area where you do not live
without serious money, the centre for National
Newspapers and other high-tech industries and as
a financial centre – all in about 30 years!
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A bit of a change? The
blocks on the left of both
pictures are part of the
same place!
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The Image of Manchester
• Can you remember mentions of how
Manchester was seen in the past?
• Given what it was like in the 1950s, can
you see in your mind's eye the kind of
images people had of it from elsewhere in
the UK?
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• Manchester in 1960-80 was a city in decline.
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They were no longer able to compete with many
industries which produced much cheaper in the
MICs and LICs.
There was a recession in the UK (just like now –
they happen every so often).
The Trafford Area, in the 1880s one of the first
UK industrial parks, was loosing companies at an
alarming rate, declining from several thousands
to a few hundred.
The docks on the Manchester Ship canal which
joined it to the big port of Liverpool, finally
closed and lay derelict.
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• It was made an Enterprise zone, with all the
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grants and development help government that
came with that status, but little happened.
It then became an Urban Development
Corporation in 1987 and things moved much
faster.
Opportunities were made for industrial,
residential, commercial and leisure facilities.
It has become a major area of finance and the
arts (Lowry Centre) in an attractive landscape
along the old ship canal (in a similar way as
Docklands in London).
What is the image that
they are trying to show
the world?
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Re-imaging often applies to areas within a city
• Good transport and excellent facilities
have been important features of
Manchester’s success.
• Motorways link Manchester to the rest of
the UK. It has a rail-freight terminal.
• It has the metrolink system for travel
within the city.
• It also has a large international airport for
links to the continent and USA.
What is the image that they are
trying to show the world?
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More re-imaging
• In the 1990s Manchester put in for a bid for the
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Olympic games for 2000. As part of its application, it
chose an area of East Manchester as a potential site for
sporting facilities. Even though it failed to win, it built
The Velodrome as a centre for British cycling.
However, it did win a bid to host the Commonwealth
Games in 2002 and built the City of Manchester Stadium
to house it. This was handed over to Manchester City
Football club after the games were finished. East
Manchester gained a lot of prestige form hosting the
games and several nationally acclaimed sports venues are
now sited there.
In addition new housing and new community and business
facilities were built. The new investment created jobs
and an estimated 1/3 million visitors annually.
What is the image that they are trying to show the world?25
More re-imaging
• In the inner city there
have been a number of
innovative housing
schemes, e.g. turning
old mills into
apartments, with
prices up to £2 million
each! This one
however is cheaper –
only £650 a month for
a 2 bed apartment in
the roof!
What is the image
that they are trying to
show the world?26
Hulme ‘Design out crime’
• This is south of the ring road a little to the west of the
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university area- similar to Rusholme
The jewel in the M15 housing crown, this is a delightful
area with a seamless blend of terraced houses and three
or four storey apartment blocks.
Everything is light in colour, the place abounds in young
trees and other floral touches, roads are short, many
graciously curved, and the street plan deters any rat-run
possibilities.
The residents' pride in their properties is evident, and a
common sight throughout Hulme is a balcony groaning
under the weight of its own private jungle.
The houses also boast their own tiny gardens and some
have driveways, and community gardens and allotments
enhance the pleasant ambience.
The northern half of West Hulme has Hulme Park as its
focal point, facing south to the local high street of
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Stretford Road.
Pictures of Hulme and Hulme Park
Zion Arts centres
Basketball
Also outdoor performance space,
playground and lighting and fencing
throughout, at the request of
residents. Why?
Sensory Garden
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The way the park evolved shows another way
in which planning has changed
• Local people were involved in the development of Hulme Park, a
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large area of green space and sports facilities which connects
Hulme to Manchester city centre. Designed by Landscape
Projects.
The new 16 hectare park extends the vitality of the city centre
into the previously neglected area of Hulme, provides an offstreet route for pedestrians and cyclists into the city centre.
Its green space is close to community, sports and leisure uses,
and within its clearly defined edges are themed gardens,
professional sports provision and informal planted areas, as well
as a performance space.
The park's design and completion took place only after
successful public consultation process, during which major
adjustments were made to the layout and content of the park.
Everyone working together created the genuine sense of
ownership now expressed by local residents, and its value to the
community is reflected in the rise in house prices in the area
since its creation.
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So today we have looked at…
• Why there needed to be redevelopment
• Who was involved and what they were trying to
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achieve in the early days.
What happened then and the mistakes that were
made.
In what ways has it been put right since
How a city changes its image
And lastly just how much ideas have been
changed about how to redevelop – gone is the
"Defending Jobs, Improving Services“ attitude
and in has come “People and community first”
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