Urban Planning Legislations Course

1. Comparative Urban Planning
Law
By: James A. Kushner

2. Chapter 1
Introduction

3. Chapter 1
City Life

4. City Life
• QoL in US leads developed nations!
• Tourist’s view:
– Historical landmarks
– Old city centers
– Shopping streets
– Rarely observes the life of typical dweller
– Public transit and residential districts

5. Historical landmarks

6. Old city centers

7. Shopping streets

8. Life of typical dweller

9. Public transit and residential districts

10. City Life
• In America’s population
centers, the typical lifestyle
is automobile centered.
• It is necessary for most
people to drive to each and
every destination except for
the few who happen to live
close to some place.

11. City Life
• As America’s suburbs have
developed, most require a
drive to school, work,
shopping, library, or
exercise at the park.
• The elderly, the young and
the disabled, unable to
drive, are captive in their
homes and dependent on
others for mobility.

12. City Life
• Americans, long sold on the
benefits of the quiet country
life, and committed to
preserving the low-density
subdivisions that define
suburban sprawl.

13. City Life
• Some of the harshest
impacts of low density,
automobile dependent
sprawl development fall on
the poor and working class
as major employment
centers are not served by
convenient public transit,
rendering automobile
ownership a condition for
employment.

14. City Life
• Central cities with lower
income communities often
suffer a decline in revenue,
translating into declining
resources for schools,
transit, police, and the
delivery of other municipal
services.
• Suburban migration and
urban decline.

15. City Life
• Class segregation.
• Unmet housing and services needs of those of
lower income.

16. City Life
• The subject of this book is
exploration of the laws and
policies affecting planning
and city development.
• The focus is comparing
American experience with
the other Nations of the
world.

17. City Life
• How is that relatively poor
so-called “emerging”,
“developing”, or “under-
developed” nations, as in
the case of Curitiba, Brazil,
have attained a significant
measure of urban success.

18. City Life
• This book will also
explore alternative to
current American
planning policy.
• Those alternatives
range from the
regulatory society to
the more free market
deregulated laissez
faire model.

19. Sustainability
Sustainability!
“The basically environmental-oriented
concept looks at the quality of air and
water, seeks to reduce dependency
on oil and non-renewable resources,
and seeks to develop communities
that are not based on pollution
generation but upon an ethic of
pedestrianization, protecting flora and
fauna, and encouraging community
and architectural design that seeks
greater efficiency and self-
sufficiency.”

21. END