Urban Morphology Assignment
Added on 2020-04-21
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Urban MorphologyNameCourseInstructor
I.IntroductionSeveral countries have stumbled on establishments which result from actions instead of designs.Most householders have been in need of land for shelter while firms also require land forestablishing workspace (Redazione, 2014). However, for a particular population, the greater theland area that is consumed per worker or per household is a reflection on the distance forcommuting between the households and the firms. In such a case, it is evident that a trade-offexists between the uses of land against the commuting distance1. However, the commutingdistance is but a proxy for travel cost and time that are two factors limiting labor marketefficiency and concentration. In the development of urban centers, technologies for transport area factor that constitutes speeds and costs for commuting. In turn, distance becomes an imperfectproxy for the efficiency of the labor market. In this case, we differentiate “urban design” from“urban planning.” In this case, planning constitutes several tasks of which most are projections.Such projections are traffic and demographic or even future demands for things like energy orwater. However, the design is a little bit specific when it comes to urban planning. The design isall about imposing limits that are physical on an already constructed environment. The designalso constitutes the production of individual buildings plans, limiting of building height, drawingof zoning plans, separating the use of lands, urban growth boundaries establishment amongothers2.Looking at Sydney, for instance, one is likely to think that design is entirely responsible for theskyline. There are several architectural firms that work for developers in this city that havedesigned unique skyscraper shapes. It is the sum of individual designs of building s that form theskyline as it appears. Contrarily, such is not the case. Sydney was created by market forces. Onthe same, the skyline came into existence due to the pilling demand for floor space within theurban location. This was also a reflection of the high accessibility of labor force. Urban1Szolnai, L. (2017). Environmental ethics for business sustainability. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227429417_Environmental_ethics_for_business_sustainability2TUT. 2017. Chinese Superblock : A Study and Design Tools for Sustainable Urban Development in China. Research Portal. https://tutcris.tut.fi/portal/en/publications/chinese-superblock--a-study-and-design-tools-for-sustainable-urban-development-in-china(0e5fe80c-9833-4a51-a5c6-ec098126ed5b)/export.html
developers in this area anticipated a high demand for office space at a price that was higher thanthe cost of building in terms of land and material costs (Redazione, 2014). The construction ofthin, tall buildings makes the large part of the esthetic attraction of the skylines. Such buildingsare also associated with the production of market forces. Because Sydney faces a high demandfor land, the price for the same is high. Urban developers are, therefore, obliged to substitute landfor capital through the construction of tall structures. These structures are, however, expensive toerect per square meter of floor space compared to squat buildings. On the contrary, additionalfloor erected reduces the land cost per floor space unit. In aggregate, the skyscrapers are notconstructed by design but by market forces. If the market demand for office space is low, suchbuildings might not have existed. In case land would have been cheaper in Sydney, for instance,such skyscrapers would have absolutely not existed. What would have been noticed are squatoffice buildings of few stories as in the case of suburban office parks3.This paper will also look at the impacts of designs and markets in shaping urban centers. On thesame, we will look into market economies. The effects of government design and market forcesare the sources of urban spatial structures. In Australia for instance, design happens to be theonly factor responsible for shaping cities. Markets, on the contrary, are a source of blindmechanism that constantly modifies and produces urban shapes.These urban shapes can becompared to evolutionary processes. These evolutionary processes contribute to the creation of ablind mechanism for modifying and producing organisms (TUT, 2017). It is the function ofmarkets to shape cities via land prices. For instance, high demand for particular regionscontributes to the large differences in the prices of land viewed in several cities. The prices ofland, in return, modify cities through the building of highly concentrated floor spaces. Tallbuildings are, therefore, built in areas that are of high prices but of low concentrations. Smallbuildings are contrarily built where land prices are considered low4. The concentration ofskyscrapers in a given city can then be explained by high demand for floor space in an area with3Kader, M. (2017). Strategic Management (StratMgt). Open2study.com. https://www.open2study.com/courses/strategic-management4TUT. 2017. Chinese Superblock : A Study and Design Tools for Sustainable Urban Development in China. Research Portal. https://tutcris.tut.fi/portal/en/publications/chinese-superblock--a-study-and-design-tools-for-sustainable-urban-development-in-china(0e5fe80c-9833-4a51-a5c6-ec098126ed5b)/export.html
limited floor space such as CBDs (central business districts). Talking of income; high incomesform a good explanation for the spread of suburbs that are of low-density. On the contrary,extremely low household income is the reason towards high residential density in slum areas inurban locations. In these areas, the prices of land are reduced comparatively. The varyingbalance between demand and supply, incomes variations and transport costs also explain theextremity in the shapes of buildings as well as their spatial distribution in an urban setting (TUT,2017). We will also discuss the manner in which Australian markets react to factors that are exogenousin a way that urban planners are not even capable of anticipating. There are several exogenousforces that are changing the equilibrium of the Australian market. As a result, the use of land andalso the shapes of urban centers are constantly evolving. Such forces are yet becoming numerousas their effects grow volatile due to globalization. Today in Australia, for instance, IT hasenabled clerical workers to compete with other European workers. This kind of a competition, onthe other hand, is likely to affect the demand for clerical workers in European countries. Thatmeans that the location of and demand for office buildings will change in both Australia and theEuropean cities. Technological changes alongside salary levels are some of the factors thatcontribute to these exogenous forces that determine the land use for most cities. Themultiplication of call centers in Singapore, for instance, is as a result of the availability of newtechnology as well as higher salaries for clerical workers (Bercovici, 2017). Markets are always associated with reacting quickly to changes that occur throughout the world.When the demand for certain activities falls, reduced rent for buildings where such activities arecarried out is realized. What is then triggered is the rapid change in the use of land where thesebuildings are erected. The changes for land use that are forced by market changes are issues thatare experienced well before urban planners notice the change in demand. In cities, markets areresponsible for the creation of new land use types making other uses obsolete. Most researchersagree that markets are responsible for the production of uncertainty and agitation; all of whichrefer to the changes occurring in most cities with emerging economies. The term used to refer tosuch situation is land recycling. Land recycling is healthy for the welfare of any given urbanpopulation. For both long and short-term benefits, land use changes, as well as changes in spatial
concentration, happen to be disorienting and alarming5. As a way of responding to the changesthat result from changes in land use, local governments intervene to slow down such changes aswell as to prevent the recycling land use that is obsolete. On the contrary, the long-range effectsassociated with the maintenance of obsolete land use via policies and regulations are considereddisastrous for employment levels as well as the welfare of urban dwellers in general. Through theprevention of the transformation of the use of land that is obsolete, the creation of new jobs isalso prevented. Regulations have the ability to restrict the changes of land use but cannot preventthe disappearance of jobs from areas that are obsolete. The labor market of a city then happens toshrink if the government maintains land to be used for a purpose that doesn’t have demand(Bercovici, 2017). Privately Developed Access Roads results to Poor Urban Road Networks Sydney, for instance, is yet to find a method by which it absolutely depends on the private sectorto finance, design and operate its cities’ road network without having to let the governmentintervene. One thing to note is the importance of distinguishing the provisions of local accessroads to networks that serve a whole city. Private developers are always faced with the duty ofproviding roads at the edge of their lines of property (Bala, 2017). The ownership of such accessroads is then transferred to authorities which then integrate the network into the public domain tocome up with a web of streets that are interconnected. The aggregation of roads that are privatelydeveloped is the core developmental strategy for several cities. The networks of the street are tofollow original property lines. However, there is a chance of having several subdivisions thatwould also be created by original developers. The networks are non-hierarchical making themquite sufficient in the provision of access to properties. On the contrary, they are inadequatewhen it comes to allowing mobility in a large urban setting. Aggregating access roads that areprivately built does not make what is known of an urban network which has the potential ofallowing labor market to efficiently function (Bala, 2017). Complex Models 5Dictus, R 2017, How will volunteers help meet sustainable development goals? Devex. https://www.devex.com/news/how-will-volunteers-help-meet-sustainable-development-goals-85160
The development of models for land use comes with one main objective.This objective is todemonstrate that population densities are determined by market forces. The densities, therefore,react to events that are exogenous. This paper would, therefore, recommend that urban plannerscome up with projections of densities for the purpose of evaluating the demand for land in thefuture likely to be converted to urban use. On the contrary, urban planners are required to basetheir projections on markets scenarios that are credible6. Such scenarios must also be based onprices and income and not on design preferences with regards to high or low densities. So as tomake density projections that are more credible, planners need to have the models made morecomplex. For example, having the urban population disaggregated in terms of income groups is away of ensuring differentiation between land and floor consumption for the income intervals ofseveral households. Also, the disaggregation of commercial land use into particular land use suchas office, types- retail, and industrial uses is a way of making the projections more realistic.6Nbs.net, 2017, Engage Your Community Stakeholders: An Introductory Guide for Businesses. https://nbs.net/p/engage-your-community-stakeholders-an-introductory-gui-615902ab-e363-47ff-a3fc-d87188938739
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