The research addresses two related topics:
i) the historical development of Chinese and European cities
ii) spatial masterplanning at scales ranging from the local place to the whole metropolitan area
A central focus of this network will be to investigate the way that urban spatial structure relates to social cultures. This aspect of planning is central to the creation of sustainable communities, and can benefit from cross cultural comparison. We will investigate the use of spatial analysis and modelling methodologies to allow a common basis for cross cultural and historical comparison. In this way we will investigate the application of analytic technologies in urban design, planning and policy formation.
Challenges
1. Issues of sustainability are fundamentally holistic: they encompass many different apparently independent domains. Political institutions, environmental flows and processes, social and psychological fields all interact in complex and poorly understood ways. The spatial structure of a city provides the context within which all of these different systems and processes are played out.
2. Different kinds of process operate at different spatial scales: identity of place and neighbourhood seem socially important at a relatively local scale, however in urban systems of any size a neighbourhood gains part of its identity from its relations to the larger scale system. Equally, cities gain their identity from that of their constituent neighbourhoods. Spatial scale defines not only sense of place, but also economic role and land use.
3. New technologies affect these issues of scale: rapid transit systems, for example, can effectively shrink spatial scale, whilst mobile communications and information technologies can create radical differences in the way that services are delivered and social networks are constructed. Energy generation, water and waste handling infrastructure are also intimately related to spatial scales. Each new technology has spatial implications.
4. Human settlement patterns are fundamentally about culture: cities generate and reproduce social forms and economic systems. These differ from country to country and community to community. The rich heritage of a culture is reproduced by its settlement forms, but these are themselves living and evolving so that culture cannot be preserved solely by conserving physical infrastructure. We need to develop an understanding of the relationship between spatial design of the Chinese city and Chinese culture, as well as the way that it differs from western traditions.
5. Sustainability is also a matter of governance: it is important that local communities be involved in decisions regarding their local environment, but if decisions are only local then this could create conditions in which local interest overrules the global good. UK and Chinese institutional systems are radically different in this respect, and much is to be learned through exchange.