City Making and Urban Governance in the Americas: Curitiba and Portland(Design and the Built Environment)

Cities in both North and South America are confronting tremendous challenges in urban growth and management as they enter the new century. Curitiba in Brazil and Portland in Oregon, US are cities that have achieved recognition for exemplary urban planning programmes over the past three decades. As such, they provide particularly useful illustrations of the intense development pressures that many urban areas currently face. This book explores the dynamics of their urban governance, arguing that, in general, there has been a unique synergy derived from the combination of visionary leadership, innovative urban plans and effective citizen involvement. The book argues that, while urban design and architecture are key to the success in making cities livable and in augmenting the global reputations, such sensitive, innovative urban planning and design projects first need to be governed effectively and grounded within the specifics of their local cultures and existing built environments.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction: Local Spatiality in a Global World: Beyond the urban convergence/divergence debate: architecture and urbanism in a global urban context. Citizens and their City-States: A governance approach to urban development; Urban governance and citizen participation: Definitions and models; Urban governance in comparative perspective: Curitiba and Portland. Governance and the Practices of Urbanism in the Americas (1960-2003): Curitiba and Portland: The politics of urban and regional development in Curitiba; The politics of urban and regional development in Portland. The Built Environment in the Era of Globalization: City making and the (re)production of social and spatial (in)equality in Curitiba and Portland; Gated and edge cities: community and alienation in Curitiba; Housing and growth management debates in Portland: conflicting planning views, contrasting architectural typologies; Architecture and image-making: invocations of tradition vs. critical transnationalism in Curitiba; Nike vis-à-vis adidas: Spatializing regional planning discourses in Portland's global corporate architecture. Epilogue: Urban governance and city-making in the Americas; Bibliography; Index.

About the Author :
Clara Irazábal is an Assistant Professor in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California, USA.

Review :
’Irazabal offers a fresh look at how planning processes influence the development of built environments and the changing definitions of community, public spaces, and public participation. As the book makes links between governance and urban design in Curitiba, Brazil and Portland, Oregon it offers both a contextual and comparative analysis of the interaction of global and local forces at work in specific sites and illustrates how debates over planning concepts like growth management can alter urban form and image/meaning at a regional scale.’ Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, University of California at Los Angeles, USA ’This is one of the most interesting academic books on urban studies published in many years. It shows how planning and urban policy can improve people’s lives in cities under the right political and social conditions, but also the limits imposed to reform by interest groups. Professor Irazabal’s comparison of Curitiba and Portland, the two most often cited cases of innovative urban planning, will remain a reference in the field.’ Manuel Castells, Professor Emeritus, University of California at Berkeley, USA ’This work is both theoretically and empirically strong and offers a model for comparative governance studies of all kinds...Highly recommended.’ Choice ’...provides valuable insights into the relationship between governance, urban growth and design in the cities of the Americas in the context of a globalising world...it represents a valuable contribution to contemporary urban analysis and is likely to stimulate further research.’ Geography ’Those who want to make changes in cities should read this...in depth study.’ Built Environment 'It is thoroughly researched and offers a large amount of factual, descriptive information about these two fascinating cities, as well as important insights into their respective political and planning processes. The numerous illustrations, figures and diagrams nicely complement the t