HOUSING POLICY DEBATE VOLUME 17 ISSUE 3 © 2006 FANNIE MAE FOUNDATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Abstract This article examines the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI), Mayor John F. Street’s plan to revitalize Philadelphia’s distressed neighborhoods by issuing $295 million in bonds to finance the acquisition of property, the demolition of derelict buildings, and the assembling of large trac...

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan and the revitalization of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn offer insights into the intersection of arts and urbanization after World War II. This intra-city comparison shows the aggrandizing pull of the international arena in the shaping of Lincoln Center and the arts it featured in contrast to the local focus and debate that transfor...

"Americans ense that something iswrong with the places where we live and work and go about our daily business." So begins a recent jeremiad by author Howard Kunstler on the "environmental calamity" we call the suburbs [Kunstler, 1996, p. 43]. Critics point to fundamental spects of post-war planning, such as zoning, highway dependence, and decentralization, asthe determinants of our current subu...

The notion of sustainability is widely used from micro to macro scale studies but only few approaches deal with its measurement. Increased global interest in sustainability has triggered attention in indicators as a means of achieving a more sustainable world. Although the search for indicators has led to the development of criteria for good indicators, it has also been dominated by scientific ...

Analysing the urban renewal of Boston’sWest End during the 1950s, we examine how psychiatrists, social scientists and urban planners understood the relationship between the urban environment and mental health. For psychiatrist Erich Lindemann, the West End offered a unique opportunity to study how acute stress and loss affected populations, thus contributing to social psychiatry, which sought t...

China is gradually shifting towards more sustainable urban development, and the local governments are increasingly promoting social environmentally spatial planning practices. This article debates potential contradiction between goal of a constantly growing population limits to consumption land planned by this new direction development. The analysis focuses on wealthy city Suzhou in Yangtse Riv...

In this paper, results are reported of a technology assessment of the use and integration of decentralized energy systems and storage devices in an urban renewal area. First the general context of a different approach based on 'rethinking' and the incorporation of ongoing integration of coming economical and environmental interests on infrastructure, in relation to the sustainable urban develop...

Sustainable development requires that the goals of economic development, environmental protection and social justice are considered collectively when formulating development strategies. In the context of planning sustainable transport systems, trade-offs between the economy and the environment, and between the economy and social justice have received considerable attention. In contrast, much le...