Urban transformation

Abstract

In my research project I ask what planning task it is to keep alive modern urban functions in old, historical town centres as the urban life is changing. It is not so much the question about changes in their material substance, but more whether modern versions of urbanity will continue to fit into this material frame. Urban economics depend on a well functioning region with an attractive centre (1). Historical town centres play in that context an important role, but there is a lack of knowledge about how its agglomerations of economic functions are developing (2). Thus there is a question of what kind of planning and management this agglomeration of function would need. One most visible challenge for the old cities are the many shopping centres in the periphery. Big scale, car - orientation, property development, increasing spending power, new ways of organisation, are some of the elements adding to the driving forces that lead the urban development in a centrifugal direction. The resisting centripetal forces are building on elements such as tradition, density, prestige, existing mixture and numbers of functions in the town centres. Tensions between those forces are seen as an explanation for the changes of urban spatial structure over time.(3) One question to be discussed in my theses is what factors of location are active in the old historical centres, what role do they play in urban transformation. I want to study the centripetal forces hidden here and how it may be possible to make them «visible» and to understand their «nature» and capabilities.