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A study of growth and decline: Urban Europe. Volume 1
274
legally bound by the abolition of capital punishment, the Governor has nevertheless chosen to commute death sentences but in the face of strong retentionist feeling among the native population, even within the, university community: the British authorities have been unable to ,transmit traditional liberal thinking on the subject from the metropole to the colony. This inability to infuse local institutions with metropolitan political thinking is a general characteristic. Thus in Part III, Urban Structure and Growth we are told by Chi-Keung that when the Governor was seeking to animate Hong Kong’s New Towns politically he turned to long established residents organizations, among them the Conservative Heung Yee Kuk, a landowners organization, who ironically seem to have used mainland support to get some of their demands across to the British administration. Hong Kong’s governance is full of such compromises in which the implicit wish of the People’s Republic is deferred to as condusive to the continuing existence of the colony and of its New Territories beyond 1997. We are reminded of the importance of these Territories when we are told by Sit that the three New Towns located in them will eventually have a population of 2 million. In contrast the 22 British New Towns are to have an ultimate population of only 2.5 million. Interestingly the Hong Kong New Towns are much less self-contained, a circumstance that Sit uses to draw some interesting conclusions about Asian New Towns and Asian urbanization in general. general. This reviewer found most interesting the absence of physical considerations in the design of Hong Kong’s urban growth. Long a city state deprived of a regional hinterland, slated in the long run to become joined to the Canton metropolitan area regardless of its political status, never a net exporter of capital with which to give form to its land use needs, Hong Kong remains a repository for population and economic activity in an almost aspatial setting. D. PROCOS of Urban & Rural Planning Faculty of Architecture Technical University of Nova Scotia P. 0. Box 1000 Halifax, N.S. B3J 2X4 Canada
Department
GROWTH
AND DECLINE
IN URBAN
EUROPE
A Study of Growth and Decline: Urban Europe. Volume 1. L. van den Berg, R. Drewett, L.H. Klaassen, A. Rossi and C.H.T. Vijverberg. Pergamon Press, Oxford, Great Britain, 1981. 156 pp., US$40.00/%18.00. ISBN 0-08-023156X. Grimes Graves in Norfolk, England, a Neolithic industrial site where flints were mined, shaped and sharpened was the Sheffield of its time. But new ma-
275
terials, bronze and iron, made flints obsolete. An old settlement dies and a new one flourishes somewhere else. Growth and decline, the natural history of man’s evolution, has ravaged, first the land and then turned villages into cities and cities into megalopolis. What can we learn by studying the evolution of cities so that we may be better able to direct them towards greater harmony? This volume is the first of nine to be published under the general title of Urban Europe. It is the outcome of a research programme entitled The Costs of Urban Growth Project from the European Coordination Centre for Research and Documentation in Social Science (the Vienna Centre). The study bases itself on comparisons from both Eastern and Western Europe - a difficult task to ensure that data is comparable and definitions precise enough to permit these comparisons. Volume 1 presents a concept of the Functional Urban Region (FUR) described as ‘nodal regions, identifying urban centres and delimiting zones dependent on those centres; in practice the delimitation is determined by ‘the size of journey to work flows’ within these FURS. These are then classified by population size and examined in terms of their cores and their rings. From this follows a major proposition, namely, that there are stages through which urban development passes and that each city can be classified by the dominant stage which it has reached. The three major stages are: (1) urbanization, defined as the stage when either absolute or relative centralization of population is occurring in the core; (2) suburbanization, when either relative or absolute decentralization of population is taking place in the core; and (3) desurbanization, when the whole FUR is declining in total population. If we study the results of this classification we see, for example, that Sofia and Warsaw amongst others were urbanizing while Vienna, Rotterdam and Manchester were desurbanizing with London, Liverpool and Liege at an advanced stage and Sunderland even further on. Considering the general trend for the whole desurbanization sample (in other words the declining cities) there was an increase from 3% in the Fifties to 19% in the Seventies. As the authors ask what economic and social forces are generating such decline? Having established a theory of urban development the authors then look at the way government policies may have influenced development patterns, particularly for employment, housing services and transport. Governments may try to relieve congestion or to set up industries where there have been none before, such as in some Eastern European states, but the authors’ view that ‘without intervention or regulation urban growth will be limited to just a few places’ is doubtful as a general rule. Evidence shows the contrary, for instance in Germany and Britain in the 19th century. But the general contention that a government will have to decide whether it will follow a strategy promising maximum growth of the national product (accepting the resultant regional differences in economic development which may follow) or a strategy likely to encourage a balanced development of the regions (accepting a more restricted growth of the national income) raises a key issue. In the early stages
276
of the urban cycle development is unshackled and it can be argued that its uncontrolled vigour is its strength; shackle it and it may cease to have such vigour. Only when high productivity has been created out of the turmoil of such enterprise are attempts made to introduce some order in the house by intervention by governments - financial, fiscal, legislative and so on. Industry tends to leave its mess behind it and this includes social deprivation as it moves from one location to another. Hence, the special problems outlined in this book of those urban areas which have already reached an advanced stage in the urban cycle and whose industries, having caused an expansion of the area in the first place, decline, or go out of business leaving a large population with little hope of work. There is likely to be little difference in centrally directed economies where change may take place in the location of industry - new technologies, exhaustion of natural resources and so forth. The issue then is whether to move jobs to people or encourage people to move to locations where new ventures are economical in terms of changing markets, fuel costs and other factors. This book, the first of a series of importance to all those concerned with making decisions in the field of urban policy, cannot, nor does it try, to give us prescriptions; however, what it does do is to show the extent of the problems throughout Europe (with a nod towards the U.S.A.) and to lay out some of the issues and some of the possible directions. Later volumes will no doubt provide some guidelines based on case studies which might provide those who make policy with a more reliable basis on which to make decisions than hitherto. GORDON
WIGGLESWORTH
Planning and Development Consultants Alan Turner and Associates 31 Duncan Terrace London Nl 8BS Great Britain
URBAN
SOCIAL
GEOGRAPHY
an Introduction. Paul Knox, Longman, Harlow, Essex, Great Britain, 1982. 243 pp., $7.95. ISBN o-582-30044-4.
Urban Social Geography,
Urban geography, like social geography, has undergone a substantial transformation in recent years. Concerns with factorial ecology and concentric zones have been replaced by interest in processes and societal relationships. The moves from what had become rather static descriptive work to dynamic analytic inquiry are well charted in Paul Knox’s book. He begins with a valuable historical account of the rise of cities. He then proceeds to assess the social dimensions of urbanism, spatial differentiation, the operation of the housing market and finally spatial conflict, politics and planning. He thus picks up on most of the issues which have been current in this area of geography over the last thirty years. His commentary is largely based on Britain and America
legally bound by the abolition of capital punishment, the Governor has nevertheless chosen to commute death sentences but in the face of strong retentionist feeling among the native population, even within the, university community: the British authorities have been unable to ,transmit traditional liberal thinking on the subject from the metropole to the colony. This inability to infuse local institutions with metropolitan political thinking is a general characteristic. Thus in Part III, Urban Structure and Growth we are told by Chi-Keung that when the Governor was seeking to animate Hong Kong’s New Towns politically he turned to long established residents organizations, among them the Conservative Heung Yee Kuk, a landowners organization, who ironically seem to have used mainland support to get some of their demands across to the British administration. Hong Kong’s governance is full of such compromises in which the implicit wish of the People’s Republic is deferred to as condusive to the continuing existence of the colony and of its New Territories beyond 1997. We are reminded of the importance of these Territories when we are told by Sit that the three New Towns located in them will eventually have a population of 2 million. In contrast the 22 British New Towns are to have an ultimate population of only 2.5 million. Interestingly the Hong Kong New Towns are much less self-contained, a circumstance that Sit uses to draw some interesting conclusions about Asian New Towns and Asian urbanization in general. general. This reviewer found most interesting the absence of physical considerations in the design of Hong Kong’s urban growth. Long a city state deprived of a regional hinterland, slated in the long run to become joined to the Canton metropolitan area regardless of its political status, never a net exporter of capital with which to give form to its land use needs, Hong Kong remains a repository for population and economic activity in an almost aspatial setting. D. PROCOS of Urban & Rural Planning Faculty of Architecture Technical University of Nova Scotia P. 0. Box 1000 Halifax, N.S. B3J 2X4 Canada
Department
GROWTH
AND DECLINE
IN URBAN
EUROPE
A Study of Growth and Decline: Urban Europe. Volume 1. L. van den Berg, R. Drewett, L.H. Klaassen, A. Rossi and C.H.T. Vijverberg. Pergamon Press, Oxford, Great Britain, 1981. 156 pp., US$40.00/%18.00. ISBN 0-08-023156X. Grimes Graves in Norfolk, England, a Neolithic industrial site where flints were mined, shaped and sharpened was the Sheffield of its time. But new ma-
275
terials, bronze and iron, made flints obsolete. An old settlement dies and a new one flourishes somewhere else. Growth and decline, the natural history of man’s evolution, has ravaged, first the land and then turned villages into cities and cities into megalopolis. What can we learn by studying the evolution of cities so that we may be better able to direct them towards greater harmony? This volume is the first of nine to be published under the general title of Urban Europe. It is the outcome of a research programme entitled The Costs of Urban Growth Project from the European Coordination Centre for Research and Documentation in Social Science (the Vienna Centre). The study bases itself on comparisons from both Eastern and Western Europe - a difficult task to ensure that data is comparable and definitions precise enough to permit these comparisons. Volume 1 presents a concept of the Functional Urban Region (FUR) described as ‘nodal regions, identifying urban centres and delimiting zones dependent on those centres; in practice the delimitation is determined by ‘the size of journey to work flows’ within these FURS. These are then classified by population size and examined in terms of their cores and their rings. From this follows a major proposition, namely, that there are stages through which urban development passes and that each city can be classified by the dominant stage which it has reached. The three major stages are: (1) urbanization, defined as the stage when either absolute or relative centralization of population is occurring in the core; (2) suburbanization, when either relative or absolute decentralization of population is taking place in the core; and (3) desurbanization, when the whole FUR is declining in total population. If we study the results of this classification we see, for example, that Sofia and Warsaw amongst others were urbanizing while Vienna, Rotterdam and Manchester were desurbanizing with London, Liverpool and Liege at an advanced stage and Sunderland even further on. Considering the general trend for the whole desurbanization sample (in other words the declining cities) there was an increase from 3% in the Fifties to 19% in the Seventies. As the authors ask what economic and social forces are generating such decline? Having established a theory of urban development the authors then look at the way government policies may have influenced development patterns, particularly for employment, housing services and transport. Governments may try to relieve congestion or to set up industries where there have been none before, such as in some Eastern European states, but the authors’ view that ‘without intervention or regulation urban growth will be limited to just a few places’ is doubtful as a general rule. Evidence shows the contrary, for instance in Germany and Britain in the 19th century. But the general contention that a government will have to decide whether it will follow a strategy promising maximum growth of the national product (accepting the resultant regional differences in economic development which may follow) or a strategy likely to encourage a balanced development of the regions (accepting a more restricted growth of the national income) raises a key issue. In the early stages
276
of the urban cycle development is unshackled and it can be argued that its uncontrolled vigour is its strength; shackle it and it may cease to have such vigour. Only when high productivity has been created out of the turmoil of such enterprise are attempts made to introduce some order in the house by intervention by governments - financial, fiscal, legislative and so on. Industry tends to leave its mess behind it and this includes social deprivation as it moves from one location to another. Hence, the special problems outlined in this book of those urban areas which have already reached an advanced stage in the urban cycle and whose industries, having caused an expansion of the area in the first place, decline, or go out of business leaving a large population with little hope of work. There is likely to be little difference in centrally directed economies where change may take place in the location of industry - new technologies, exhaustion of natural resources and so forth. The issue then is whether to move jobs to people or encourage people to move to locations where new ventures are economical in terms of changing markets, fuel costs and other factors. This book, the first of a series of importance to all those concerned with making decisions in the field of urban policy, cannot, nor does it try, to give us prescriptions; however, what it does do is to show the extent of the problems throughout Europe (with a nod towards the U.S.A.) and to lay out some of the issues and some of the possible directions. Later volumes will no doubt provide some guidelines based on case studies which might provide those who make policy with a more reliable basis on which to make decisions than hitherto. GORDON
WIGGLESWORTH
Planning and Development Consultants Alan Turner and Associates 31 Duncan Terrace London Nl 8BS Great Britain
URBAN
SOCIAL
GEOGRAPHY
an Introduction. Paul Knox, Longman, Harlow, Essex, Great Britain, 1982. 243 pp., $7.95. ISBN o-582-30044-4.
Urban Social Geography,
Urban geography, like social geography, has undergone a substantial transformation in recent years. Concerns with factorial ecology and concentric zones have been replaced by interest in processes and societal relationships. The moves from what had become rather static descriptive work to dynamic analytic inquiry are well charted in Paul Knox’s book. He begins with a valuable historical account of the rise of cities. He then proceeds to assess the social dimensions of urbanism, spatial differentiation, the operation of the housing market and finally spatial conflict, politics and planning. He thus picks up on most of the issues which have been current in this area of geography over the last thirty years. His commentary is largely based on Britain and America