To go along with our current poll on “Economic Environment” we want to focus on one factor: geographic advantages. What are geographic advantages and disadvantaged? How can and in what way do cities benefit from geographic advantages? We found answers to these questions in a study by Kathy Benson which deals with the development of cities and the geographic factors that influence them.
The development of cities throughout the world is influenced by geographic features. Each feature offers advantages and disadvantages to the settlement of large groups of people. Most cities are located where there are more geographic advantages than disadvantages. The boundary between two different features, for example where mountains meet the flat lands or where land meets the sea, may offer the advantages of both features. These locations offer opportunities for people to develop trade and industry.
Although there are other geographic features, some of the most important features that influence the growth of cities are the following:
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We found out that one of our blogroll partner A Vision of Europe has a new interesting campaign: The European prize 2008 for the best urban neighborhood in Europe. This prize is launched in occasion of the 25th anniversary of the European Prize for the Reconstruction of the City, the Philippe Rotthier Foundation for the Architecture in Bruxelles, together with A Vision of Europe and CivicArch Lab at the University of Ferrara.
The European Prize promotes the characters of excellence in the designing and building of new urban neighborhoods and aims at enhancing the European genius of building the fundamental matrix of the traditional city: the mixed-use urban neighborhood. It also aims at encouraging the creation of new mixed-use urban neighborhoods conceived and designed according to the principles of Sustainable Development and the EU Green Paper for the Urban Environment.
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These days everyone is talking about the current environment problems and how to solve them. Everyone is advised to behave in an earth friendly way. Actually you can find a “Combating Global Warming Mind Map” which outlines approaches to solving Global Warming. The focus is on doing something.
Map © Jane Genovese
This works well for every single one of us. It is easy to understand and more or less to implement these hints in everybody’s everyday life.
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General @ 18 Mar 2008 03:38 pm by Eurohypo
Finally the second part of the issue of the PerfectCity Charter "The City of The Future" is now online. It includes the results and the interpretation of these results of the latest poll, which was to find out the most important factors of city architecture. It also provides an overview on the discussions on city architecture.
The overall goal is the development of the PerfectCity Charter, which is being developed stepwise in and through discussion and represented by the corresponding dossiers of each issue. The next dossier is environmental conditions and sustainability.
Please leave your comments, annotations and your suggestion here under this post or at the end of the dossier in the sidebar..
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Which infrastructural improvements do you anticipate for the districts, in which such arenas are going to be built?
The main infrastructural improvements concern transport: public transportation infrastructure and road network/parking. Arenas are able (and are made) to host big events, like concerts or sport’s games. Therefore, it is crucial to guarantee the access, both by public and private transport, to that place of the city, in those specific periods.
This poses a challenge for transport and urban planning. Public transport is made to serve large numbers of people, on a regular basis. Events, on the other hand, create a very high demand in a very short period of time and in specific days, often in offpeak hours. How to conceptualize a public transport system that is suited for that?
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PerfectCity Charter @ 18 Feb 2008 05:20 pm by Eurohypo
What makes cities most liveable? Cities of the future should provide space for comfortable conditions for as much people as possible and for a long time. Therefore we should not forget to suggest Environmental Conditions and Sustainability in our PerfectCity Charter. Especially after hearing about resources dwindling every day, sustainable city planning is becoming a vital asset to our survival.
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Today we want to focus on another factor of our current poll concerning City Architecture: Infrastructure. Infrastructure is everything that sustains our quality of life including at least (public) transportation, built environment, water supply, waste management, building and development constraints. All these points form infrastructure but public transportation is a point that concerns every one of us.
And this time I want to share some personal infrastructure experiences that I have had.
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In the light of our PerfectCity Charter and the poll on City Architecture, we would like to go to detail on another factor. After having brought articles on City History and Architectural Styles, we are focussing on Visual Excitement. Visual Excitement is the feeling that people get when they see beautiful or interesting buildings. This maybe because of the scale of the building (as in it is just huge) or it may be because it is very intricate design that leaves a person in awe as to how it was built.
So, we were looking for a ranking of the most beautiful cities of the world. If a city is beautiful, it must be visually exciting! But we did not find a representative survey or a ranking. What we found were statements of people with different opinions: some named Sydney or Paris to be the most beautiful cities of the world, other named Vancouver, Isfahan, Hamburg, New York, Cape Town…
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General @ 21 Dec 2007 10:44 am by Eurohypo
PerfectCity Team would like to say thanks to all our readers, authors, blog partners and friends for your support throughout the year.
You are always welcome to participate in discussions on our blog concerning the future of our cities and issues of urban design, architecture, and real estate.
We’re working on many new and exciting developments for 2008 and looking forward for your ideas, opinions and comments!
Your PerfectCity Team
© Lenneke Veerbeek
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