This document discusses the theory and practice of mixed-use property development in urban policy. It begins by exploring definitions of mixed-use and how separating land uses became common in the 20th century. Examples are given of vertical mixed-use like Dubai's Burj Tower and horizontal mixed-use developments. The document then examines the challenges planners face in implementing mixed-use and achieving goals like social integration. A case study of a London neighborhood in transition shows mixed-use there did not necessarily promote social mixing. The document concludes that mixed-use policy has contradictory outcomes and has been more rhetoric than rigorous analysis, raising questions about place, space and rights to the city.

1. Mixing Uses in a Mixed Up City: the
theory and practice of mixed use property
development in urban policy
London Met Post-Graduate Conference
2010
Glyn Robbins (Cities Institute)

2. What is Mixed Use?
• Defining the concept of mixed use has
become one of the research questions.
• Additional complication because the
term is over-used, but under-theorised.

3. Look out of the window
•Almost any urban landscape, including
Holloway Road, will have examples of mixed
use.
•Mixing uses e.g. living above shops, has
been the norm of human urban experience.
•Moves to separate land uses, particularly
associated with 20th
century UK planning
policy, are the exception

4. Example from Bracknell of separation of
residential and industrial uses, part of the post-WW2
New Town policy

5. The Burj tower in Dubai, tallest building in
the world and example of ‘vertical’ mixed use. ‘Population’ of
8,000 people including hotels, swimming pools, offices and apartments.

6. ‘A Place to Work, Play, Eat and Stay’
Brindley Place, Birmingham. Example of ‘horizontal’
mixed use. Commercial-led, 8,000 workers, but no residents.

7. Mixed use ‘ideal type’, Charter Quay, Kingston-upon-Thames: public realm, public art,
cafes, restaurants, bars and private apartments.

8. ‘A Tesco Express with 30 flats on top’
A more common image of high street mixed use.

9. The Jane Jacobs Playbook:
Butcher, baker, candlestick maker
Potential for urban vitality and ‘sustainability’ questioned by some
mixtures of use.

10. ‘…sensitively integrating new buildings to create a series of linked spaces which
respond to the existing urban grain…an inviting retreat from the hustle and bustle of
the Kings Road.’
More sophisticated mixed use, Duke of York Square, Chelsea, next to Saatchi gallery.

11. More brutal mixed use design in Shadwell, Tower Hamlets.

12. A waste of space
Aprox. 30% of commercial mixed use space in London empty.

13. A global concept
A similar problem in the Yukon!

14. The livable, walkable (inclusive?) city
20 mins. walk south of US Capitol, Washington DC. Former public housing project
bulldozed to make way for new, mixed use, riverfront ‘community’.

15. Theoretical Possibilities
• A response to the 21st
century city?
• A route to ‘sustainable urbanism’?
• A reaction against urban planning?
• A green-washed justification for gentrifcation?
• A well-intentioned policy aspiration that
became an empty slogan?

16. ‘It enables vitality through activity and diversity.
It makes areas safer. It also reduces the need to
travel, making people less reliant on cars, bringing
welcome environmental benefits.’
Tory Environment Minister John Gummer, 1995

17. ‘…set out a vision of well designed, compact
and connected cities supporting a diverse
range of uses – where people live, work and
enjoy leisure time at close quarters – in a
sustainable urban environment…’
Lord Rogers’ Urban Task Force, 2005

18. Mixed Use at the Coalface: how planners
understand and implement mixed use
• The Planners’ Dilemma
• No mixed use consensus
• Local variability
• Mixed motives
• Differential outcomes, with some
common themes

19. Watney Street Case Study
• A place in flux
• Little evidence of mixed use promoting
social integration
• Racialised response to changing built
environment
• Competing narratives

20. The Regeneration Line

21. Zones of Exclusivity and
Exclusion

22. ‘I’ve made friends with one person in that
development (Tarling Heights)…I don’t see
them. (Barry)
‘They don’t seem to be part of the texture of
the area. It’s more mixed, but people don’t
seem to be interacting.’ (Ishmail)
‘I don’t see this as a Mixed Use
development in a meaningful way because
it’s polarised.’ (Ben)

23. ‘Where they wanted integration, it’s caused
segregation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not
racist, but the Asian community gets all
these new builds because they’re purposely
built for them. They’re making communities
of Asians. They don’t want to mix with us.’
(Eliza)

24. ‘Those little stone things? They don’t even look
like benches!’

25. ‘They’ve tried to manufacture the public realm.
It’s typical planners. They set down rules and
we’ve got to conform to them.’ (Barry)
‘I’d tell the architects “there is no public space
here”. All there is are some concrete planters
and benches. It could have been much more
carefully designed. (Mario)

26. Non-use of ‘public realm’

27. Use of public realm

28. The night-time economy and café culture
Problems of application

29. Mixed, ‘tenure blind’ communities

30. Permeability, vitality and passive
surveillance

31. Vehicle for Urban Regeneration

32. Conclusions
• Contradictory policies and outcomes
• No thorough policy analysis (EBP?)
• Seductive, design oriented rhetoric
• Mixed Use part of ‘The Game’ between
planners, developers and politicians
• Raises broader issues - expectations
and meanings of place, space,
entitlement and rights to the city