URBAN RENEWAL -- Visualizing how it could be in our cities

Recent stories about the city mayor's radical idea of  bulldozing Detroit's areas that are most afflicted with urban decay may have created a renewed interest in urban renewal.

Urban decay is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. It may feature deindustrialization, depopulation or changing population, economic restructuring, abandoned buildings, high local unemployment, fragmented families, political disenfranchisement, crime, and a desolate, inhospitable city landscape.

Urban renewal (similar to urban regeneration in British English) is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s - under the rubric of reconstruction. The process has had a major impact on many urban landscapes, and has played an important role in the history and demographics of cities around the world.   Source: Wikipedia

SAN FRANCISCO AND OAKLAND's urban decay

In the June 6 2010 edition of San Francisco Chronicle, the headline was "Enduring woes on Market". With the sky-high prices of real estate in San Francisco, this certainly presents opportunities to revive this area, considering its proximity to down town's thriving shopping district and residential lofts.

Most large cities, and certainly Oakland, are not exempt from such challenges. We can only hope that the powers that be ---- the local government, businesses and other concerned citizens ---- can rachet up efforts to save our inner cities.Without dedicated and devoted efforts, our cities may look war-ravaged, the way that cities of the future were envisioned in classic movies like Escape from New York .

VISUALIZE URBAN RENEWAL

There is a company called Urban Advantage based out of Berkeley CA that offers visualizations of what some segments of the city could look like when it undergoes urban renewal. These images are certainly inspiring.

Here's a link to some projects to envision urbanism. They describe urbanism as "the revitalization of vital public space --- streets, squares and neighborhood centers --- where peole can see each other and meet."

Here's an example of one of their projects in Oakland. All photos by Steve Price of Urban Advantage. You may contact him at

Urban Advantage
15 Shattuck Square, Suite 208, Berkeley, CA 94704
voice: 510 486-0427
shprice@urban-advantage.com

 BEFORE

AFTER  Added bike lane, light rail, trees, mixed-use buildings

RELATED POST:

Stop urban sprawl! Renovate fixers