Resume Book

Compact Cities
Sustainable Urban Forms for Developing Countries
Diajukan untuk Memenuhi Ujian Akhir Semester Mata Kuliah Arsitektur
Berkelanjutan yang Diampu oleh Dr. Eng. Beta Paramita

Disusun Oleh:
Inna Syani Pertiwi
1300249

PROGRAM STUDI PENDIDIKAN TEKNIK ARSITEKTUR

DEPARTEMEN PENDIDIKAN TEKNIK ARSITEKTUR
FAKULTAS PENDIDIKAN TEKNOLOGI DAN KEJURUAN
UNIVERSITAS PENDIDIKAN INDONESIA
2016
Result Resume of Book

Compact Cities
Sustainable Urban Forms for Developing Countries
Edit By Mike Jenks and Rod Burgess, London and New York: Spon Press

Part 1
The Compact City Debates: A Global Perspective
From global urban sustainability, first, concerns the scale of the global
urbanisation process in the contemporary period. This has been accompanied by
an increase in the spatial scale and intensity of these environmental impacts,
including now those at a global level. Cities and urban systems are part of a tradeand production-induced spatial division of labour that links them with surrounding
rural areas, regions, other cities and urban systems, national markets and the
global space economy. Then second implication is that an adequate understanding
of urban sustainability problems requires a close examination of how individual
cities and regions function in terms of an increasingly integrated but differentiated
global system. It should not be assumed that the way in which cities in developed
countries are integrated into the global system (the core) is the same as the way
cities in developing countries (semi-periphery and periphery) are integrated into
it, although all are likely to experience the effects of and contribute to
globalisation.
Then from developing countries, issue debated is the advisability or not of
densification has to be related to the question of how densities are distributed in
cities in developing countries. In developed countries the urban poor and lowincome groups live in the centre and the rich and the middle class live on the
periphery. In developing countries the poor live in the centre where they are
accommodated at very high densities in tenement blocks, interstitial shantytowns,
and in downgraded and subdivided houses formerly belonging to the now

decentralised upper income groups. But they also live in far greater numbers on
the urban periphery in often-vast rings of low- and middledensity squatter
settlements and illegal subdivisions. A pattern of intra-urban residential mobility
has been recognised whereby rural migrants move initially to the inner city
receptor areas and subsequently, with higher incomes and greater space
requirements, move to the periphery where they commence an informal building
process based on progressive development and self-help (Turner, 1976).
As the problems associated with global environmental change and globalisation
deepen, so too does the need for urban policy and professional practice to
respondto them. This can best be achieved through the assertion of an
environmental basis for architectural, planning and design practice and the
recognition of a global rationale that has to be considered everywhere and at all
spatial levels. In policy terms, it involves accepting that the key issue is the
relationship between social and political organisations at various scales rather than
the assertion of the primacy of social organisation at one scale. The current global
interest in the ability of compact city approaches to realise sustainable urban
development reflects these preoccupations and the problems that create them.
Part 2
Compact Cities in Developing Contries: Assessment and Implications
This chapter has four aims. The first is to collect data on densities and other
correlates for a large sample of cities in developing countries.1 The second is to
evaluate the costs and benefits of compact cities in developing countries,
especially with respect to transportation and environmental externalities. The third
aim is to discuss the concept of sustainable urbanisation with respect to
compactness in developing country contexts. Finally, the chapter explores the
implications, if any, of developing country urban compactness for cities in
developed countries, especially the United States.

Given the strong promotion by many in the planning profession of compact city
strategies in developed countries, and given the evidence that shows that
developing country cities are more compact, an obvious question is whether
developed countries have anything to learn from city compactness in developing
countries. The short answer is probably not very much. For example, the
transportation systems of developing countries (e.g. high public transit use) cannot
be replicated in developed countries because income determines automobile
ownership and (for the most part) automobile ownership determines low public
transit use. In any event, cities in developing countries tend to have higher levels
of traffic congestion (reflecting inadequate highway capacity, accelerating
automobile ownership growth rates, mixed road uses and poor, and often nonexistent, traffic management). Of course, a perverse prescription would be to
argue in favour of creating developing country levels of congestion in developed
countries (and there are a few examples in the United States of converting fourlane highways into two lanes) in an effort to make public transit trip times
competitive with automobile travel, but the welfare effects of such steps would be
devastating.
The compactness of cities in developing countries is the product less of strict
land use planning than its absence, so the planning lessons are negligible.
Compactness in developing country cities (especially in peripheral squatter
settlements or central city slums) is frequently associated with high levels of
environmental degradation (e.g. pressures on inadequate water supply, sanitation
and solid waste management systems). Even if there is a case for densification in
developed countries, it is based on relatively marginal additions to density via
smaller lots for single family homes or more emphasis on condominium and
townhouse development, rather than on attempts to replicate developing country
central city densities.

Part 3
Compact City Policies for Megacities: Core Areas and Metropolitan Regions
This chapter arose out of (and provides the context for) a research programme
into urban design and management approaches for sustainable development in
the core areas of megacities in developing countries.1 The chapter first addresses
the urbanisation process and policy responses at the broader metropolitan
regional scale. Parallels are drawn with megacities in developed countries and the
idea of travel time, as a structuring constraint, is introduced. The final section
deals with inner city and core area spatial development issues. The argument is
that, by addressing at source deconcentration (the relocation of the population
from central areas to the periphery), one major factor contributing to the urban
decentralisation and sprawl around the megacities of the developing world can be
contained. The need to develop new approaches arises as a response to the
development pressures on low-income communities who live and work in the core
areas. Their dispersal to peripheral areas adds to growing problems of urban
sprawl and lack of sustainability.
New approaches to core area development, clearly, can form only part of a
package of compact city policies. Population pressures caused by continuing
inmigration to the major metropolitan regions and by internally generated growth
still have to be accommodated. Some relocation of inner-city economic activities.

Part 4
The Regional Dimension of the Compact City Debate:
Latin America
Public investment has not been able to cope with the rapid growth of private
investment in some central locations in large Latin American cities, nor to meet
the needs arising from population growth and the extension of the built area
caused by counter-urbanisation. Some have maintained that rapid social and
spatial transformations have been achieved only by increasing the deficit of the

public goods, resulting in a general deterioration of cities as a whole. Rapid

economic growth and a significant expansion of the private economy have
occurred without corresponding public investment in public space, residential
infrastructure and public services, leading to the downgrading of services
elsewhere. In Latin American cities, there is no clear urban policy to reorient
development towards better living conditions for all citizens. The issues of what
kind of city was wanted, how to plan the city and how compact or dispersed it
should be, were debated several decades ago. Structural adjustment policies of the
1970s and 1980s have made the problem more complex. In most cases,
municipalities have been empowered, regional powers have emerged and the
metropolitan power has disappeared. In most cities, urban management practices
have been oriented towards concrete daily problems and, often, the interests of
particular groups. Problems such as air pollution, street vendors and public space
shortages are on many political agendas. Sectoral issues such as a car-free inner
city, vehicular restrictions, the privatisation of services and the improvement of
the public transport system are the basis of much political discourse and
increasingly capture the publics attention. The growing significance of public
opinion for city governance and demands for the adoption of coherent, simple and
strict urban policies, capable of achieving concrete rapid results, is challenging
institutional inertia. Often urban demands have transcended the ideological
agenda of the political parties. There is a general consensus about the need to
adopt strategic visions, to implement urgent measures, the need to co-ordinate and
the need to involve the user in financing goods and services. Many believe that the
search for compact city goals, for modernity, efficiency, competitiveness,
adaptability and flexibility do not necessarily conflict with goals based on ethics,
solidarity and social justice.
Result compairing from compact cities in any countries like as the book, can
concluded that the compact cities has been one of the motivations for this third
book in the series about sustainable urban form. There is a great deal of
information to draw on. Reviews of data from many countries in the world,

comparative case studies and detailed research from 11 developing countries form
the content of the 26 chapters in the book. Grouping these into four parts gives
first a broad context to the debate about compact cities in developing countries.
Second, key issues are raised about core urban areas, the process of
intensification, and urban sprawl on the periphery. These are then illustrated in the
third part, through case studies. Finally, aspects of transport, infrastructure and
environment are considered in some detail. Within this range of information there
are some common themes, as well as distinct differences.
Urban form
Many complex factors relate to the sustainability of urban form, and include
issues at the regional and city scale, and those of density and peripheral urban
sprawl. These are considered below.
Urban regions and agglomerations
The rapid growth of urbanisation has meant that the worlds major cities have
become ever expanding urban agglomerations, making metropolitan regions an
important focus for policy-making and problem solving. The general
characteristic is that, with the exception of many cities in Africa, higher densities
are found in the core of cities in developing countries than in developed countries.
Yet despite inner-city compactness, there is no evidence of containment as these
cities and their metropolitan regions occupy larger land areas than their
counterparts in the developed world. The fastest growth is seen in the million
cities, the secondary cities, and on the urban periphery with extensive lowdensity
urban sprawl and the widespread encroachment on agricultural land. At the same
time, there is some evidence of a counter-trend towards urban concentration in
some regions and primate cities.
Urban form at the city scale
Globalisation and ubiquitous modernism also affect urban form. Familiar types of
high-rise commercial and residential buildings grouped in blocks within a grid of

streets, and the ever-present central business district, are recognisable in most
cities in the world. The importance of meaning and image should not be ignored
as they can have both positive and negative implications
Brand points to the positive, using the idea of metaphor to give meaning and
social purpose to interventions aimed at improving sustainability, in this case in
Medelln, one of the worlds most violent cities. On the negative side, the rush by
cities and regions to win foreign investment and gain world status engenders
aspirations for modernity and gigantism, while ignoring the sustainability of such
forms. This apparent sameness led de Schiller and Evans to raise the significant
issue of climatewhich varies from region to region. Urban forms and building
designs that pay little regard to climate adversely affect sustainability. They fail to
make use of micro-climatic benefits such as shading and air movement, and
designs tend to favour buildings that depend on air conditioning that wastes
energy and adds to the heat island effect, raising temperatures in cities.
Density and urban intensification
The perception is that to achieve a sustainable compact city, denser forms of new
development, and the intensification of existing urban areas are needed. However,
higher density is not an absolute concept, but a relative one. Densities vary
considerably between cities in different countries, and what is considered high
density in one country may not be thought as high in another.
Achieving higher densities in existing cities can only be through a process of
intensification (or densification). This process may be driven by policies through
the formal sector, or happen through the efforts of the informal sector.
Informal and unplanned intensification, by contrast, was found to have virtually
no transport benefit. This process occurs through conversions and extensions of
residential areas (often illegally), through plot sub-division, and land invasion.

Although characterised by congestion, pollution and overstretched (or

nonexistent) infrastructure, there are benefits of vitality and social interaction. The
account of the barrios of Caracas shows not only intensification, but also a process
of consolidation over time. This has led to a knowledgeable and skilled
construction workforce and impressive examples of community self-organisation.
It seems possible that some convergence between the formal and informal sectors
could yield benefits, especially in poorer cities where there is a high proportion of
the population in the informal sector.
Urban sprawl and the peripheries

The vast and widespread expansion of peripheral development not only takes up
valuable land and increases transport problems, but also has other costs and
impacts on peoples lives. As Fadda et al. so aptly point out, living at the
physical edge of a city, for many, can mean living at the edge of urban society.
Development results from policy in the formal sector, from private developers
usually taking advantage of weak controls and low land prices, and from informal
and illegal settlement.
Transport and infrastructure
As in developed countries, high densities and compact development facilitate more
viable and effective public transport provision. Excellent mass transit and public
transport systems accompany the very high densities in Hong Kong, However, this
works because of its strong economy, strong (even authoritarian) government and
fairly draconian car restraint policies. Singapore, Seoul and Tokyo provide similar
examples. The balance between car restraint and highquality alternatives means that
public transport retains its middle-class custom in these cities. Despite this, the very
high densities still lead to traffic problems even though levels of private vehicle
ownership are low.
High density alone is not sufficient to assure good public transport and avoid traffic
chaos, as evidenced in Bangkok. Here, as in many Asian cities, the road capacity is
low, and thus can become saturated with relatively small increases in private vehicle

use. The high densities make it impractical to increase road capacity, and possible
technical solutions such as multi-decked roads are environmentally undesirable.

Transport, its costs and benefits, tends to be a dominant issue in the compact city
debate. Rather neglected is the provision of infrastructure. Biermanns study
provides an important missing perspective. Unlike the clear association of high
densities with viability for public transport provision, the relationship between
density and infrastructure is not very encouraging. Costs do not decrease with
increasing density, and it can be as expensive to provide infrastructure to denser
city centres as to developments on the periphery. The crucial issue is one of
capacity. The most cost-effective development is where there is spare
infrastructure capacity, and least when the threshold is reached, capacity is
exceeded and new infrastructure has to be provided. Infrastructure needs to be
included as an integral part of the debate about sustainable urban form.
Some aspects of implementation
A considerable range of ideas and examples of good practice that may go some
way towards achieving a number of the objectives of sustainable urban form exist.
These are considered below.
Political will. The success of the richer cities in public transport and
infrastructure provision demonstrates the impact of strong local government,
willing to restrain car use and invest in mass transit and other transport networks.
However, it is questionable whether such authoritarian forms of government are
widely transferable, or even desired by many countries pursuing neoliberal
policies. Yet there is a clear understanding of the need for empowered local
government if sustainable forms are to come into being. The experience of
Curitiba, using its powers to guide development where it is wanted, and link it to
public transport corridors, may have wider application.
Fiscal measures. The strength of the private sector in driving development is
often the result of weak controls and laissez-faire policies. The taxation system

has been proposed as one method of achieving a more equitable distribution of

costs, and of making development more sustainable. Development taxes are
suggested in both South Africa and Brazil, to make developers pay the costs of
infrastructure provision, and to encourage development on vacant land within
areas of urban sprawl. If taxation is the stick, then there are carrots in the form
of incentives. The manipulation of permitted floor area ratios to encourage
development by giving developers a higher return, or of the transfer of
development rights to allow development in planned locations, has been shown to
work in practice. Both give incentives to more compact, higher density
development. There is a negative side, as global competition to attract foreign
investment can lead to granting that loosens controls and gives free rein to market
forces that may have little concern for the environment.
The informal sector. A great deal of peripheral development is created within
the informal sector and through illegal land invasion. While this development may
lack resources and infrastructure, it results from the energy, skill and selforganisational abilities of sometimes a considerable proportion of a citys
population. The process of consolidation of informal development turns
precariously established shelter into reasonably liveable dwellings. This is a
resource that could be empowered and peoples efforts integrated into the overall
development of the city.
Models and measurement. Knowing what is within the city and
metropolitan region is an important precondition of successful policy-making.
With the rapid growth in population and development, the advent of remote
sensing provides an instrument to identify the extent of development and any
potential threats to the environment. The utility of mapping and modelling,
whether of sustainability indicators or scenarios for compact development, is
shown to be practicable and significant in informing policy direction.