Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The full flowering of many of the NU principles would seem to imply some mas-
ter plan whereby these are developed as individual pods in some larger development
plan designed for the whole city and region, rather than these pods being viewed
on their own terms. But individual developers are unlikely to have the resources to
construct at a city scale. This means that the limited results of Howard's Garden
City ideas may be repeated again, since his objective was to create a self-sufficient
town, which he regarded as was one unit in a larger metropolitan region. He also
envisaged these as being produced by social co-operation of residents not by private
or state interests, perhaps an example of
real
community effort, a type of principle
that is not found in NU. Unfortunately, as the discussion of city-region governance
has shown, there are still few examples of effective administrations at this scale
(Janssen-Jansen and Hutton
2011a
,
b
). What is clear from the case studies of city-
regional governance is that the entrenched oppositions to such regional schemes
are still considerable, despite the theoretical support for the ideas. Moreover these
administrative structures take many forms, contingent upon the circumstances of
the region. However, where there has been a successful implementation of such
schemes this does seem to have been helped by a previous history of regional un-
derstanding and co-operative effort. It also helps to have some mandatory powers
to ensure compliance to regional objectives, as well as a democratic legitimacy.
Perhaps a big advantage of these regional authorities has been their ability to build
partnerships with various agencies, organizations and levels of government, as well
as providing tangible results in all parts of their region, so that the various actors and
general population in the area can see the benefits of this regional approach. In this
way governance becomes wider in scope and open to more ideas. Although some
progress is being made in the development of city-regional governance, relatively
few areas have such structures and many still have handicaps in their operation. But
without such organizations it is difficult to see how many of the principles in the
first part of the NU Charter can be fulfilled. Moreover since most of NU examples
at the urban or neighbourhood scale focus on design, they pay relatively limited at-
tention to many of the other conceptual developments of the last 20 years described
in subsequent chapters that are also leading to new ways of creating better urban
places, such as in urban greening, sustainability and resilience against natural di-
sasters, greater safety, health, or other lifestyle and new employment ideas. So the
search for any type of 'good' or rather better community must surely involve more
than just NU ideas, useful though some of the concepts may be. What also seems
important is a greater need to deal with such fundamental questions as those associ-
ated with justice in the city, issues that go beyond the provision of different types
and presumably costs of housing, which is why it is the focus of the next chapter.
References
Aldous, T. (Ed.). (1992).
Urban Villages: A concept for creating mixed-use urban developments on
a sustainable scale
. London: Urban Village Group.
