"Valongo, entre o ser e o não querer ser um cemitério de prédios inacabados"

por Abel Coentrão

2 de Dezembro de 2012
jornal Público

O prédio inacabado na Avenida do Dr. Fernando Melo é, ele próprio, um mote. Com o seu cartaz - retirado este ano, já depois de feita a fotografia ao lado - a anunciar uma "Nova Valongo", a imagem condensa o resultado do choque entre a vontade política de atrair a este concelho milhares de novos moradores, abrindo para isso o terreno à explosão urbanística e à habitação barata, e o arrefecimento provocado pelo excesso da oferta e a crise no mercado imobiliário.

Em Valongo, como noutros espaços suburbanos das áreas metropolitanas de Lisboa e Porto, a cidade moderna convive com a sua própria ruína, a dos esqueletos inacabados à espera de uma solução. Vizinho desta realidade, o fotógrafo Helder Sousa fez do levantamento destas promessas por cumprir a sua tese de mestrado. E a Câmara de Valongo aceitou expor estes retratos de um problema que anda a tentar resolver.

Entre os Censos de 1981 e 2011, a população de Valongo cresceu quase 46 %, passando de 64.234 habitantes para os actuais 93.753. O fluxo, facilitado pela melhoria das acessibilidades ao concelho, por um lado, e ao crédito bancário por parte da classe média, por outro, foi alimentado, no destino, com novas urbanizações a prometer qualidade de vida, proximidade ao Porto e preços bastante inferiores aos praticados na área central da região.
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Link para o texto integral:
http://www.publico.pt/local/noticia/valongo-entre-o-ser-e-o-nao-querer-ser-um-cemiterio-de-predios-inacabados-1575826#/1

EN12 | Estrada da Circunvalação

EN12
Marta Ferreira

 EN12  mais conhecida como Estrada da Circunvalação  é uma estrada que delimita
 a cidade do Porto na zona norte e este.  Concluída no final do século XIX a Estrada
 da Circunvalação  foi originalmente construída com objectivo de controlar a entra-
 da de bens e pessoas na cidade do  Porto.  Para se entrar na cidade era necessário
 pagar  uma  taxa.  Em 1943 foram suprimidas as portagens e a  EN12  passou a ser
 uma estrada de livre circulação,  tornando-se numa importante via de distribuição
 automóvel, essencialmente para o norte do país.  A Estrada da Circunvalação fun-
 ciona, de certa forma, como uma “fronteira” entre o Porto e os municípios circun-
 dantes, Matosinhos, Maia e Gondomar.
 Este projecto tem como objectivo incidir sobre a intervenção e transformação das
 pessoas  na  paisagem,  e  de  que  forma estas se relacionam com a própria inter-
 venção.

www.facebook.com/en12circunvalação

PROJECTO PERIURBAN

ÁREAS PERI-URBANAS PERANTE OS DESAFIOS DA SUSTENTABILIDADE - DESENVOLVIMENTO DE CENÁRIOS PARA A AML

Os territórios periurbanos têm ganho um interesse renovado perante os desafios da sustentabilidade. Contudo, o aproveitamento do seu potencial carece de uma abordagem que se situe além das perspectivas urbanísticas clássicas de um espaço a consolidar e, nessa medida, de uma perspectiva mais abrangente, focada nas suas especificidades e na sua aptidão para contribuir para um acréscimo da qualidade vida das populações.

Reconhecendo que a oportunidade destes territórios reside na capacidade de integração de múltiplas políticas e visões sectoriais no processo de planeamento territorial, o projecto PERIURBAN pretende desenvolver cenários tendo em vista a identificação dos principais constrangimentos e potencialidades das áreas peri-urbanas contando com a colaboração activa dos agentes envolvidos na sua transformação

O projecto (financiado pela FCT) envolve uma equipa de 15 Investigadores, 11 áreas disciplinares e 4 centros de investigação (Centro de Sistemas Urbanos e Regionais (CESUR/IST/UTL), Centro de Ecologia Aplicada Prof. Baeta Neves (CEABN/ISA/UTL) e o Centro de Estudos sobre a Mudança Socioeconómica e o Território (Dinâmia/CET-IUL/ISCTE-IUL).

Com base no pressuposto de que não há “um espaço periurbano” na AML, mas diferentes tipos de territórios, os quais devem ser analisados e explorados de forma diferenciada no planeamento territorial, o Projecto PERIURBAN considera relevante explorar os seguintes aspectos:

1. Clarificação conceptual do “peri-urbano” como espaço com uma identidade própria que lhe advém de uma posição geográfica particular entre o espaço urbano e o espaço rural.

2. Identificação de tipologias de áreas peri-urbanas com base numa análise estatística de variáveis ecológicas, sociais, económicas e das dinâmicas territoriais diferenciadoras, assim como, a representação da sua expressão geográfica na AML.

3. Desenvolvimento de cenários para concelhos-tipo que contemplem visões diferenciadas de mudança no que respeita às actividades económicas, aos novos mercados, aos serviços ambientais, ou aos modelos de governança que se situem no horizonte das expectativas da população local e da sua percepção de qualidade de vida.

4. Definição de uma metodologia para formulação de objectivos de sustentabilidade para os territórios peri-urbanos, conforme Convenção Europeia da Paisagem, tendo em conta a definição de critérios e de modelos de avaliação.

5. Experimentar novas práticas de investigação que promovam uma maior integração entre a ciência e a sociedade, favorecendo fluxos bidireccionais de diferentes tipos de conhecimento, por forma a orientar a investigação no sentido de responder às necessidades dos agentes com responsabilidade na transformação dos territórios periurbanos da AML.

Newsletter 1

Mais informação:

No site do projecto, novidades relativas às comunicações do Workshop de dia 20 de Setembro 2012 e informação relativa a congressos, publicações, reportagens e outras iniciativas relativas às áreas periurbanas.

Exposição: Unfinished Projects

De Helder Sousa

Quando:
de 10 de Novembro de 2012

até 13 de Janeiro de 2013


Onde:
Fórum Cultural de Ermesinde
Rua Fábrica da Cerâmica

Valongo é um concelho periférico da Área Metropolitana do Porto. O seu rápido desenvolvimento ocorrido nos últimos 20 anos deu origem a um fenómeno que se encontra um pouco por todo o concelho. Assim como em tantos outros concelhos periféricos foram construídos edifícios de habitação que visavam acolher novos moradores e os trabalhadores da grande cidade. Publicitava-se uma melhor qualidade de vida, com espaços verdes e maior tranquilidade a preços convidativos e com boas acessibilidades. Tinha-se construído uma autoestrada e modernizado a linha de caminho-de-ferro. Neste clima de expectativas positivas, a planificação urbana do concelho correspondeu com a classificação de elevadas quantidades de solo a urbanizar.

O ciclo imobiliário rapidamente se inverteu, deixando sem procura a “sobre construção” do período da euforia. Em várias freguesias do Concelho encontram-se diferentes edifícios de habitação que nunca foram acabados. Neste contexto, Unfinished Projects é um projeto de fotografia documental que pretende documentar esta realidade que faz parte da paisagem urbana deste concelho há mais de 10 anos. Existem e coabitam no mesmo espaço, edifícios habitados e inacabados, compondo uma paisagem entre a disfunção e a “predação”; uma espécie de ecossistema do abandono onde a natureza rapidamente se insinua com espécies infestantes na linha da frente. Unfinished Projects opera como uma metáfora da crise económica contemporânea.

Mais informação:
https://www.facebook.com/events/371011649646472/

Urbanization after the Bubble

Anticipating the City That Never Was
By Christopher Marcinkoski and Javier Arpa

One of the most overlooked aspects of the ongoing global economic crisis is the contributing role that the urbandesign disciplines – architecture, landscape architecture, city planning and civil engineering, among others – have played in the shaping and production of this situation. Beyond discussions of banks, mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, derivatives, credit default swaps and “too big to fail,” there is a clear body of evidence of design’s complicity – whether intentional or not – in the production of this moment in history. In particular, the recent proliferation globally of incomplete, unoccupied and abandoned urban settlement can be directly linked to awidespread disciplinary reliance on inflexible, singular formats of settlement and easily replicable urban spatial products that characterize contemporary urban design practice. The geographer David Harvey, among others, has pointed out that this current economic crisis can in fact be characterized as an urban crisis in its social effects on a population, but also in the many ways it has emerged from the ongoing investment in and construction of new urban settlement.

One might easily argue that urbanization in its most basic form is a fundamentally speculative act, one that presumes both population growth and ongoing investment.

The relationship between urban design and an economy has long been fraught with incongruities. Real estate bubbles in particular are a recurrent phenomenon in a wide range of geographic and economic contexts, and have continued to occur at an array of scales with varying degrees of long-term effect. In fact, one might easily argue that urbanization in its most basic form is a fundamentally speculative act, one that presumes both population growth and ongoing investment. Historical examples of this sort of speculation abound, including the Los Angeles real estate boom of 1887 and the South Florida boom of the 1920s, both of which were the result of a real estate market generated through the opening up of a new or exotic landscape. More familiar contemporary examples from the first decade of the 21 century include extensive speculative construction in the Sun Belt and desert Southwest regions here in the United States, as well as construction booms in contexts as varied as Ireland, Panama and Angola.

China has been under increased scrutiny of late as a growing number of media reports and images emerge of massive, unoccupied new settlements being built in the country’s interior western and southern provinces. Of particular concern is the proportion of the Chinese economy tied to this speculative construction, which conservative estimates suggest is greater than 25 percent of GDP. However, perhaps the most dramatic example of the potential consequences of the speculative tendencies of contemporary urbanization, both in terms of its scale and the repercussions of its failure, can be found in Spain.

The quality, scope and extent of this urbanization can be described as nothing short of delirious, seeming to have more in common with emerging Asian economies than Spain’s own continental neighbors.

Following its accession to the European Union in 1986 and the success of the Barcelona Olympics and the Seville Expo in 1992, through to the global economic collapse of 2008, Spain experienced an unprecedented expansion of its urbanized territory. Unlike many historical examples that were limited to a particular geographic region, this building boom can be seen throughout the country and was comprised of five primary formats of urbanization: 1) peripheral expansions of established cities like Madrid; 2) new dormitory or commuter towns often 50-plus kilometers outside of these established centers; 3) new mobility infrastructures including highways, high-speed rail lines and international airports; 4) state-of-the-art culture and leisure amenities such as expos, museums and theme parks; and 5) coastal resort and recreation developments intended to lure investment capital from other European countries. The quality, scope and extent of this urbanization can be described as nothing short of delirious, seeming to have more in common with emerging Asian economies than Spain’s own continental neighbors.

Spain’s particular urban growth model was so robust during the early years of the 21st century that it was frequently held up as an exemplar of contemporary urbanization both in terms of the quality of its physical form, as well as its own particular economic strategy. In fact by 2006, Spain was widely perceived to have displaced the Netherlands as the epicenter of cutting-edge architectural and urban design as demonstrated by the Museum of Modern Art’s now widely panned “On Site” exhibition. Yet the result of this model – which devoted as much as 20 percent of the country’s GDP to the construction sector during the boom – is a current national unemployment rate of nearly 25 percent; an economy overwhelmed by both private debt accumulated through underwater home loans and public debt created by trying to offset the downturn post-2008; a population fleeing the country with increasing frequency (when the means are available); and a physical landscape characterized by over-scaled, under-occupied settlements and infrastructures that were promiscuously broadcast into almost any territory not holding a designation of high ecological value.

Certainly, many would rightly argue that the decision-making processes and policies that lead to this massive, unchecked urbanization were outside of the traditional purview of design. Yet given the fact that urbanization though history has proven to be a fundamentally speculative act – one characterized by risk, interruption, inflection and failure – it is discouraging to note that design continues to engage the task of planning for new settlement in fixed, singular and unresponsive ways that presume the preferred outcome is the only one worth elaborating.

Given the increasing reliance on urbanization as a favored instrument of economic production in both emerging and established economies, the symposium “The City That Never Was” posits that there is a clear need for the urban design disciplines mentioned above to reconsider their particular modes of operation; the tools upon which they rely; and the metrics by which the success of these projects are evaluated, in order to begin anticipating and negotiating the inevitable instability that characterizes contemporary urbanization.

A Disciplinary Opportunity

Urban design is a fundamentally optimistic endeavor. As such, disciplinary work has long been predicated on assumptions of population growth, market expansion, increased wealth and improved social equity through design. And the products of this work are almost exclusively oriented towards a singular, idealized future. Site plans, renderings and animations show shimmering edifices; lush, verdant landscapes; speeding systems of transport; and smiling, contented citizenry often punctuated by a butterfly or fireworks or dapples of gleaming sunlight reinforcing the optimistic ambitions of the project. Yet the capacity of the work to achieve this ideal future is under constant challenge from a variety of influences and inputs, including the global economy, local market, climate, community, politics, geography and environment to name a few.

What if the focus shifted to the elevated likelihood of inflection, interruption, pause and failure in the creation of new settlement, rather than the single, idealized outcome?

Though many of these inputs and influences reside outside the control of the designer, there is a long, mixed history in urban design of looking to mitigate and attempt to control the potential impact of these influences. But what if design shifted its focus away from pursuing formats of control in favor of generating new strategies of contingency? What if the focus shifted to the elevated likelihood of inflection, interruption, pause and failure in the creation of new settlement, rather than the single, idealized outcome? What if the focus of urban design was the articulation of precise catalytic interventions that leverage an economy of means in order to trigger longer-term processes? Does such repositioning erode disciplinary credibility by acknowledging these inputs are outside of the designer’s control? Or does such a reorientation actually increase the cultural value of the allied urban design disciplines because expertise is employed in the longer-term management of urbanization, rather than just its one-time planning and construction?

In order to make this shift, new disciplinary tools and models of practice must be demanded of urban design. The inevitability of multiple outcomes suggests the need for adaptive, resilient operating systems for urbanization projects rather than fixed master plans or near-
future framework plans. Interruption, inflection and failure should become potential moments of urban opportunity rather than inescapable write-offs or losses. Economy, ecology and politics should become peer disciplinary considerations to form, material and performance. Generic, reproducible formats of urbanization should be discarded in favor of hyper-localized specificity. Waste and entropy should be seen as potential points of leverage and opportunity rather than something that needs to be mitigated or designed away. Networks of infrastructure and utility should be hybridized and “lightened” so as to move beyond the weighty monocultures of their 19th century-based predecessors. Systems of agriculture, food, water and natural ecology should move from peri-urban support structures to the basis of new hybrid formats of settlement. Seemingly radical notions of nomadism, periodicity and lightness should be reconsidered as lenses through which to consider new formats of settlement. Or perhaps more simply put, the recent proliferation of incomplete and failed urban settlement globally is a strong indictment of contemporary urban design’s current mode of operation and suggests a need to radically rethink its current disciplinary and cultural orientation.

At a point in time when there is widespread consensus on the ascendency of the city as – to borrow Ed Glaeser’s description – “humankind’s greatest invention,” it is worth pausing to consider whether the formats of urbanization upon which the last century has relied represent the appropriate way forward for conceiving of and deploying 21st century urban settlement.

Or are designers at a moment in history that demands they stop focusing solely on the idealized city of the future, and instead turn their attention to anticipating the city that never was?
...

Published: October 29, 2012

Link para o texto integral:
http://archleague.org/2012/10/urbanization-after-the-bubble/

Delirious Development

What can architects, planners, and politicians learn from the economic collapse of 2008 about how to plan better, more responsive large-scale urban development?

On February 22, 2013 the Architectural League will present “The City That Never Was,” a symposium that uses the crisis in Spain as a lens through which to consider future forms of urbanization. Gregory Wessner, the League’s Special Projects Director, sat down with symposium co-organizers Christopher Marcinkoski and Javier Arpa to talk about their research and why architects and planners need to rethink urban design for the 21st century.

Gregory Wessner: Let’s start by talking about the title of the symposium, “The City That Never Was,” because I think that will give you a chance to explain the larger focus of research that the two of you have been doing.
...

What the title of the symposium suggests is the need to fundamentally reject the idea that 21st century urbanization is somehow a transportable, reproducible, standardized product.
...

In “The City That Never Was,” everything was predicated upon expectations of endless growth. Reality says otherwise.
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If you’re a young designer or you’re a small practice and you have the opportunity to build at the scale we are talking about, the likelihood that you’re going to turn it down is slim to none.
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At a point in 2005 almost 20 percent of Spain’s GDP was tied to the construction industry–which meant that when that all disappeared, millions of people lost their jobs.
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The problem is that with the crash, the influx of private developers stopped: cities, towns, and villages all over Spain found themselves with huge amounts of unoccupied urban infrastructure.
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The situation in Spain was delirious in every way. In terms of the physical outcome, but in some ways also the rationale that drove the kind of decision-making process.
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This conversation took place on October 15, 2012.

All images courtesy of Google Earth.

Link para o texto integral:
http://archleague.org/2012/10/delirious-development/

Here is Spain (slideshow)

After a decade of intense building, the economic collapse of 2008 has left Spain littered with unfinished, partially completed or abandoned developments: housing complexes left unenclosed; empty museum buildings with no collections; hundreds of miles of roads unused; and airports without a single arrival or departure.

The images in this slideshow (click above) were taken between January and July 2012 during multiple visits to sites in the regions of Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha Spain as part of the ongoing research by Chirstopher Marcinkoski and Javier Arpa, co-organizers of the symposium The City That Never Was, on contemporary formats of urbanization.

Link para o slideshow:
http://archleague.org/2012/10/referwgrg/

A 21st-Century Grand Tour (slideshow)

A photography series
by Ricardo Espinosa

Ricardo Espinosa’s work is an excursion around the metropolitan area of Madrid. In a kind of 21st-Century Grand Tour, the series records the incomplete leftovers of excessive urban development. The images accumulate a set of landscapes devoid of human activity that are increasingly characterized by a new form of entropy in the hands of nature.

Link para o slideshow:
http://archleague.org/2012/10/a-21st-century-grand-toura-photographic-series-by-ricardo-espinosa/

Ecumenopolis: Ciudad Sin Límites

Publicado el junio 28, 2012

Ecumenopolis es una palabra inventada en 1967 por el urbanista griego Constantinos Doxiadis para representar la idea que, en el futuro, las áreas urbanas y las megalópolis se fundirían eventualmente an una ciudad única de extensión ilimitada y escala mundial como consecuencia del progreso de las tendencias de crecimiento de la población y necesidad consecuente de urbanización.

La transformación neoliberal que se extendió por toda la economía mundial durante los años 80, y junto a ella el proceso de globalización, han traido consigo una profunda transformación de las ciudades de todo el mundo. Para esta nueva estructura económica basada en las finanzas, el terreno urbano se convirtió en una herramienta para la acumulación del capital, lo cual ha tenido efectos profundos en las principales ciudades de países en desarrollo. En Estanbul, que ya tenía carecía de tradición en el planeamiento regulado, los políticos locales adoptaron ciegamente la aproximación neoliberal que antepuso el beneficio económico a las necesidades de las personas; todos lucharon por un trozo del pastel; y el resultado es un megasuburbio de 15 millones de personas luchando contra un conjunto de problemas potencialmente mortales.

Los límites ecológicos se han sobrepasado. Los límites económicos se han sobrepasado. Los límites de población se han sobrepasado. La cohesión social se ha perdido. Aquí tenemos una estampa del urbanismo neoliberal: Ecumenopolis.

Ecumenopolis tiene como objetivo una aproximación holística a Estanbul, cuestionando no sólo la transformación sino también las dinámicas tras esta. Desde barriadas demolidas hasta la cumbre de rascacielos, desde las profundidades del Marmaray hasta las carreteras alternativas del tercer puente, desde inversores inmobiliarios hasta la oposición urbana, la película nos llevará a través de un largo viaje en esta ciudad sin límites. Contará con intervenciones de expertos, académicos, escritores, inversores y líderes locales.

Sin duda, es un documental que pone nombres y apellidos a los grandes agentes que transforman nuestras ciudades mostrando, en paralelo, los efectos devastadores que estas decisiones tienen sobre el medio ambiente, social y cultural de nuestros entornos. No nos sorprende que el futuro que plantea sea completamente insostenible.

Vídeo e mais informação:
http://www.morethangreen.es/ecumenopolis-ciudad-sin-limites/

Ruinas modernas, una topografía de lucro | Quaderns

Julia Schulz-Dornburg

La ruina, como concepto, tiene indudablemente un relieve melancólico, pero no del pasado, vestido de orden; más bien del futuro, de un futuro de “déjà-vu” que ya tenemos aquí y que aún no sabemos organizar. La ruina: el arte en la era de su congelación, Jorge Luis Marzo. 1991

Ruinas modernas, una topografía de lucro

“Ruinas modernas, una topografía de lucro” es un inventario fotográfico de la construcción especulativa abandonada en España. Se retratan parajes ocupados por conjuntos de edificaciones no completadas dentro del territorio nacional. La reciente implantación masiva de enclaves de ocio, de complejos turísticos y residenciales de todo tipo, ha transformado vastas regiones de la costa y ha llegado incluso a las provincias interiores. El ocaso prematuro de algunos de estos asentamientos a causa del estallido de la burbuja se nos presenta con imágenes de inquietante belleza, la incongruencia entre la vida corta de la especulación inmobiliaria – abortada por causas técnicas- y sus perdurables secuelas físicas.

El fenómeno de ladrillo español y su funesto desenlace ha engendrado la proliferación de un nuevo tipo de paisaje a medio construir, que se podría denominar paisaje de lucro. Peculiaridades como la topografía, el clima y las circunstancias locales no suelen tenerse en cuenta en la creación de este tipo de enclave. Las promociones están más bien enfocadas hacia el consumo mediático y visual. Su significado se confecciona – similar a la televisión - por medio de la extracción, la reducción y la mezcla, con el fin de crear parajes que pueden ser reproducidos, clonados y vendidos independientemente del lugar. El resultado es una especie de paradigma de paisaje definido por su a-territorialidad que, en su estado de abandono, desprende una sensación de extravagante singularidad. El contraste entre la pretensión del producto y la realidad construida está latente.

Hay muchas clases de ruinas y sus significados son múltiples. Un edificio en decadencia con vegetación en auge no suele dejar el espectador impasible. Su estado incompleto es sumamente sugerente y se reconstruye en el imaginario como objeto que marca el paso de tiempo, como elemento trágico, como monumento melancólico o como simbiosis romántica entre la naturaleza y el hombre. Las edificaciones a medio construir que forman parte de esta investigación son ruinas algo diferentes de lo habitual. Esta crónica trata de construcciones que nunca se terminaron y por lo tanto nunca cumplieron su función de cobijar a nadie. ¿Significa que la carencia de su historia – jamás albergaron inquilinos y nada transcurrió entre sus muros – las convierte en residuos obsoletos sin posibilidades de transformación, o acabarán representando algo que puede tener sentido o valor?

Fecha:
proyecto en curso, 2010-2011

Autor y fotógrafa:
Julia Schulz-Dornburg

Colaboradores:
viajes Javier Ventosa
investigación Eugenia Troncoso

In:
Quaderns #262
código: 26220
Julia Schulz-Dornburg: Ruinas modernas, una topografía de lucro | Quaderns

Ruinas modernas. Una topografía del lucro - EL PAÍS

Se hace difícil elegir entre tantos fósiles del paraíso. Carreteras que no conducen a ninguna parte, playas en medio de las montañas, pistas de esquí alpino en estepas resecas, vías para trenes invisibles, desolados aeródromos que albergan el vuelo de los cuervos. Cualquiera de los rastros es la materia prima de un sueño y la tumba de una pesadilla. Si ustedes quieren disponer de una guía para viajar al jardín de las delicias les recomiendo fervientemente el libro Ruinas modernas. Una topografía del lucro (editorial Ambit). Creo que ni siquiera Las cárceles imaginarias de Giovanni Battista Piranesi contienen tantas fantasías.

Su autora es la arquitecta alemana Julia Schulz-Dornburg, y el tema no puede ser más idóneo en nuestros días: la exhibición de las ruinas en que se han convertido decenas de proyectos urbanísticos en los años de la rapacidad, la megalomanía y la estudipez. Schulz-Dornburg ha hecho un concienzudo trabajo de arqueólogo. Estamos acostumbrados a que los arqueólogos se lancen sobre vestigios muy antiguos en el tiempo; sin embargo, la voracidad constructiva y destructiva de nuestra época permite crear una "antigüedad reciente" donde las ruinas se solapan con los cimientos. De hecho, el ciclo estudiado en el libro se extiende sólo a lo largo de dos décadas (aproximadamente de 1992 a 2012)...
...

link para texto integral:
http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/07/10/opinion/1341938258_244779.html

Master in Regenerating Intermediate Landscapes

The Master in Regenerating Intermediate Landscapes at ESARQ-UIC in Barcelona provides a unique methodology for regenerating complex contemporary landscapes that encompasses practices from urban design to landscape architecture at a scale between neighborhood and region. It focuses on the regeneration of urban sprawl, informal settlements and the preservation of cultural landscapes in order to build a more efficient and sustainable metropolis.

Intermediate Landscapes are consistent, functional and environmentally coherent areas made possible with specific tools and knowledge at the local to regional level. Developed and developing nations currently face an important challenge in urban design and planning: the management of intermediate landscapes triggered by the increased mobility and unprecedented urban growth. Standard planning cannot guarantee the efficiency and environmental quality of these new urban systems and open spaces. These landscapes, by their size, morphology and use, question the very notion of the compact city, as well as our common urban practices.

The need to regenerate the large suburban growths, the shopping centers and commercial strips; or to preserve agricultural land and river banks, strongly arises in our metropolitan regions. All these episodes no longer respond to local government boundaries, but to ad hoc constraints of functional, morphological or environmental character. For this reason, intermediate approaches, those between the local and regional level, are therefore needed to resolve conflicts and develop new opportunities.

The Master in Regenerating Intermediate Landscapes is devoted to providing the tools and methodology required to address these needs. This program is based on traditional core values of European planning, specifically: the concern and promotion of local identity and environmental values and the commitment to social equity. This program integrates current research by international experts into a comprehensive approach where economics and management combine with ecology and culture.

Through the training of skilled technicians this program seeks to answer some of the most challenging and urgent needs in urbanism. Among these are the regeneration of sprawl, the transformation of intercity roads into civic axes, and the preservation of cultural landscapes. Since the eighties, critical answers were being formulated in Europe and North America in response to environmental, economic, social and cultural challenges arising as a result of an unplanned and uncontrolled urban growth. We can confirm that at the present time there are sufficient theoretical and professional grounds to develop a coherent alternative model. In this context, the Master in Regenerating Intermediate Landscapes intends to contribute to the construction of more efficient and sustainable metropolis.

GOALS OF THE PROGRAM

The Master in Regenerating Intermediate Landscapes is of an academic nature and trains the students in an emergent field of urbanism and regional planning. This program is oriented to the specialization in an innovative disciplinary field where the contribution of international research and the direct knowledge of exemplary experiences are essential. According to this, the content of the program provides:

• Skilled methodological training in the regeneration of intermediate landscapes by means of their analysis, interventions, and integrated management.
• Scientific training based on the latest international research, which ranges from a global vision to a focused and specific knowledge.
• Opportunity to access, through field work knowledge of detailed model initiatives of local regeneration.
• A chance to gain a technical awareness of social balance, a rational use of resources, and the preservation of a local identity.

Mais informação:
http://intermediatelandscapes.com

Study Shows Urban Sprawl Continues To Gobble Up Land

by Staff Writers
Columbus OH (SPX) Dec 18, 2007

The study also found a link between sprawl and the building of roads and zoning regulations that require larger lot sizes. However, it was not possible to distinguish whether large-lot zoning and roads cause sprawl, or vice versa.

Despite reports to the contrary, urban sprawl has continued to grow significantly for the past several decades, new research suggests. A study of changing land use patterns in the state of Maryland found substantial and significant increases in sprawl between 1973 and 2000.
...

"We found that the areas where sprawl increased the most were in the exurban areas - out beyond even the suburbs," said Elena Irwin, co-author of the study and associate professor of environmental economics at Ohio State University.

The study looked for evidence of fragmented land use - areas where housing was juxtaposed with agriculture or forested areas, for example. That's one of the basic hallmarks of sprawl.

Results showed the level of peak land-use fragmentation was 60 percent greater in 2000 as it was in 1973, and shifted outward from the central cities to a distance of 55 miles in 2000, up from about 40 miles in 1973.

Fragmented land use increased the most in non-urban areas located about 80 miles from the nearest city, the researchers found.

"People are moving further and further away from the center of cities and increasingly more people are living on larger lots," she said. "That's increasing the level of sprawl."
...

link para o texto integral:
http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Study_Shows_Urban_Sprawl_Continues_To_Gobble_Up_Land_999.html

Analysis of urban sprawl in mega cities synergistically using Landsatand TerraSAR-X data

H. Taubenböck & A. Roth

I. Introduction

Over the last 50 years, the world has faced dramatic growth of its urban population. In 2007 the amount of urban residents has outnumbered the rural population for the first time in history and by the year 2030 already two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to live in cities [1]. The number of so-called mega cities –cities with more than 10 million inhabitants– increased in the period from 1975 until today from 4 to 22, mostly in less developed regions [2]. Furthermore, a United Nations report [1] projects that almost all global population growth in the next 30 years will be concentrated in urban areas. This dynamic phenomenon will necessitate advanced methodologies such as space technologies, which will help city planners, economists, environmentalists, ecologists and resource managers solve the problems which accompany such growth [3]. In this uncontrolled situation, city planners lack tools to measure, monitor, and understand urban sprawl processes.

Multitemporal remote sensing has become an important data-gathering tool for analysing these changes [4]. In our study we use multi-sensoral time-series of Landsat MSS, Landsat TM and Landsat ETM data as well as TerraSAR-X stripmap data to continuously classify urban footprints from the 1970s to 2008. We use hierarchical, object-oriented classification methodologies for automatic detection of urbanized areas. This lets us detect temporal and spatial urban sprawl, densification processes and urban development on city level in our test sites: the European mega cities of Moscow, Russia and Istanbul, Turkey.

II. Data

III. Methodology

IV. Results

The analysis reveals dichotomies in spatiotemporal urban development for the two study sites. While the urban footprint of Istanbul is determined by the coastal and hilly orography, the urban footprint of Moscow is not subject to orographic restrictions. Differences include absolute urbanized area (Moscow by far larger), different temporal evolution (extensive urban sprawl in Moscow began post 2000, while in Istanbul extensive urban sprawl until 2000 has now been replaced by densification and flattening spatial gain), dispersed axial growth (Moscow) versus laminar growth (Istanbul). The comparison of complete urbanized area to official absolute population –Moscow 10.9 million and Istanbul 11.1 million – reveals different living characteristics for the two mega cities. In addition, we compared urban patterns using six concentric ring zones around the main urban centre (Figure 3). We use gradient analysis to identify location- and time dependent areal growth effects comparing the urban core to the periphery in the two mega cities. We see a clear shift of spatial growth to peripheral areas and more or less stagnant urban centres.

Due to a large amount of mixed spectral information in such a coarse ground resolution of the Landsat imageries the accuracy is limited. But for the requirement of mapping the city footprint, its spatial dimension and the spatial developments over the years, the Landsat images provide enough information for an assessment of urban change. An accuracy assessment has been performed by a randomization of 150 checkpoints and a visual verification process. The accuracy assessment for the various scenes resulted in 89 to 92 %. Using the presented approach urban footprints can be derived from TSX images with a total accuracy of 91 to 95%.

V. Conclusion

The study shows the capabilities of TerraSAR-X data to continue monitoring of urban sprawl processes to date. Although the capabilities of the two data types –Landsat and TerraSAR-X– vary in geometric and radiometric details, the individual classifications of urban footprints achieve comparable results for change detection. With classification accuracies around 90 % for the individual images the multi-sensoral data sets enable to assess the correct dimensions of urban growth, its directions and the large-area patterns. Especially in the highly dynamic urban environments the possibility of continuative monitoring of urbanization is essential for substantial decision-making.

Acknowledgements

References

link para o texto integral:
http://sss.terrasar-x.dlr.de/papers_sci_meet_3/poster/LAN002_taubenboeck.pdf

Novos pólos territoriais motivados pela dispersão urbana.

O cenário do Distrito Federal

Anamaria de Aragão Costa Martins

Mobilidade: deslocamentos entre núcleos urbanos.
em amarelo, áreas urbanas (ano de referência 2004);
em laranja, áreas de concentração de empregos

1. Introdução

As áreas metropolitanas contemporâneas, perspectiva em que se insere o Distrito Federal, encontram-se em um processo que reforça o papel das infra-estruturas viárias na localização de uma série de atividades, que eram implantadas, no passado, em zonas periféricas das cidades.

Este contexto de dispersão territorial segue a lógica de descontinuidade espacial, diluindo o limite urbano-rural.

Vários autores vêm caracterizando neste contexto cenários de polaridades, em que elementos dispersos no território configuram novos pontos de centralidade.

Desde a construção de Brasília, a ocupação do território orientada pelo planejamento seguiu um modelo polinucleado, com cidades economicamente dependentes da capital federal. Verifica-se, desde os anos 90, a passagem a um modelo de dispersão da residência pelo território, a partir de crescimentos suburbanos resultantes do parcelamento irregular de solo rural.

A partir da sistematização dos elementos que surgem como pólos territoriais, este trabalho apresenta as transformações na paisagem urbana decorrentes deste novo tipo de território.

2. Bases do fenômeno da polarização

3. Caracterização das atividades polarizadoras
3.1 A Natureza das atividades
   3.1.1 Pólos tecnológicos
     a) Pólos de produção
     b) Parques tecnológicos e científicos
     c) Equipamentos sociais metropolitanos
     d) Parques empresariais
   3.1.2 Pólos de lazer
   3.1.3 Pólos comerciais
     a) Grandes superfícies comerciais
     b) Comércios de região
     c) Parques comerciais
   3.1.4. Pólos intermodais
3.2. A morfologia das polaridades
   3.2.1 Recintos
   3.2.2 Containers
   3.2.3 Somatório de edificações
   3.2.4. Agrupamentos lineares
3.3. O problema da localização das polaridades

4. Conclusões: os novos espaços da cidade difusa

No Distrito Federal, incentivou-se o modelo de ocupação extensiva do solo, como solução à frágil estrutura ambiental (pelo tipo de solos e especialmente pela situação do território em áreas de nascentes).

Deve-se recordar, que também reflete um modelo cultural (7), associado com o culto à cidade-jardim como a alternativa por excelência à problemática da cidade industrial do século XIX. Este modelo foi reelaborado em diferentes versões, sendo uma delas o modelo de cidade-parque de Brasília.

O apelo ambiental, modelo cultural e mudança nos modos de locomoção foram determinantes no padrão de dispersão urbana verificado em grande parte das áreas metropolitanas, do qual o DF não é exceção.

Como conseqüência, observamos que a dispersão urbana delineia novos espaços territoriais:

a) De espaços fluxos a recintos urbanos: rodovias cuja função inicial era a conexão entre núcleos urbanos consolidados passam a adquirir feição urbana, já que atraem, de forma lindeira à via e em sua extensão, numerosos pólos urbanos. Estas novas ruas do território implicam a revisão de seu desenho viário, uma vez que os trechos mais urbanos implicam menores velocidades, maiores movimentos de entrada e saída de veículos, maior número de paradas do transporte coletivo. Estes espaços consolidam-se como grandes corredores de transporte e requerem sua revisão na hierarquia viária.

b) Paisagens urbanizadas: a paisagem ao longo da rodovia já não é a idealizada nas “parkways” (estradas parque) da primeira metade do século XX. A paisagem da rodovia da cidade difusa está caracterizada pela sucessão de grandes bolsões de estacionamento, elementos de publicidade de grande porte, edificações de grandes dimensões, novas fontes luminosas e áreas livres residuais. Áreas passíveis de serem preservadas por sua importância ambiental são convertidas em espaços intersticiais em uma mancha urbana fragmentada e contínua.

c) Do centro urbano à estrada-mercado: perde importância o modelo de centro urbano tradicional como o espaço com grande acessibilidade nos núcleos urbanos compactos, onde estão concentrados as principais instituições, estabelecimentos comerciais, locais de emprego e de lazer, espaços de interação social. Aquelas atividades de caráter cotidiano passam a localizar-se nos pontos de maior acessibilidade entre as áreas residenciais dispersas. Volta-se ao modelo de urbanização ao longo das estradas do qual derivou o embrião de muitas cidades no passado. Entretanto a nova rua mercado não dá origem ao ponto fundacional do núcleo urbano, pois não se percebe a concentração de usos e edificações de uma cidade. No caso do DF, é necessária a articulação dos diferentes parcelamentos residenciais com a intervenção sobre os vazios intersticiais. Realocando as polaridades lindeiras às rodovias nestes espaços pode-se configurar o embrião de novas localidades urbanas.

d) Do centro regional às polaridades territoriais: na dinâmica de fluxos da cidade difusa, muda a lógica morfológica de um centro regional. Já não é mais a área urbana compreendida entre núcleos urbanos de grande porte e influência regional, onde poderiam estar localizadas importantes instituições e grandes empreendimentos comerciais. O anel viário que conecta tais núcleos de importância regional configura o centro regional, pois as atividades tendem a se localizar ao longo da infra-estrutura viária. No caso do DF, contrariando o previsto pelo PDOT/97, o centro regional configurou-se no anel viário formado pelas vias EPTG, Pistão Sul de Taguatinga, parte da EPNB e um trecho da via EPIA.

Com isso, o efeito de um padrão de uso e ocupação do solo, inicialmente desenhado para desafogar os centros urbanos e melhorar a qualidade de vida dos habitantes, parece indicar a urbanização progressiva do território de forma contínua ao longo das infra-estruturas de conexão e dos pontos de intersecção entre áreas suburbanas, cada vez mais dissociadas dos núcleos urbanos consolidados.

In:
Revista Arquitextos
077.04 - ano 07, out 2006

link para o texto integral:
http://www.vitruvius.com.br/revistas/read/arquitextos/07.077/309

Monitoring Urban Sprawl in Germany - Towards a GIS-based Measurement and Assessment Approach

S. Siedentop
Leibniz Institute of Ecological and Regional Development (IOER) – Weberplatz 1, D-01217 Dresden, Germany. e-mail: s.siedentop@ioer.de

Background

During the 1990’s, the phenomenon of urban sprawl received growing attention in the international urban policy debate. In a recent report, the European Environmental Agency addressed sprawl as one of the major challenges facing urban Europe in the next decades (EEA 2006). However, a survey of the literature yields no agreement in terms of defining and measuring urban sprawl. Some scholars denote sprawl simply as ongoing urbanisation or low density development, others stress the level of suburbanization and deconcentration or characteristics of land use patterns. The absence of a common understanding constrains the analysis of sprawl’s causes, costs and consequences as well as the formulation of planning strategies towards economically, ecologically and socially acceptable land use patterns. Urban and environmental planning aiming to combat sprawl must have an agreed-upon way to measure it in order to evaluate the progress of planning strategies and programmes (Siedentop 2004).

Alongside the lacking definition and measuring convention, the specific process character of urban land use change hinders more effective anti-sprawl-policies. Environmental, social and economical problems caused by urban sprawl tend to be cumulative in nature. They build up over a period of time and usually have more than one cause. In contrast, the legal framework regulating the use of environmental resources generally addresses a single pollutant or a single project but ignores multiple actions that can add up or interact to cause cumulative effects. It has to be acknowledged that the mismatch between the scales at which sprawl-related environmental degradation occurs and the scales at which regulatory decisions are made is a significant obstacle to a more effective environmental management. Therefore, the development of a multi-dimensional and multi-temporal measurement approach is of crucial importance for urban and regional development policies.

Measurement Approach

On this background, a methodological framework for the measurement and assessment of land use patterns and dynamics is presented. First, the approach should be able to indicate the multiple driving forces and causative agents of land use change associated with urban sprawl. Secondly, this framework should be qualified for considering and assessing different impacts of land use and land use dynamics concerning ecological, social and economical objectives of urban and regional development policies. It also should recognise direct, indirect and cumulative cause and effect relationships. A third important requirement is that the selected indicators should be applicable with available data sources. And last but not least the approach has to deal with the varying scales on which land use policies are carried out.

The GIS-based measurement tool is based on the assumption that urban sprawl is a multidimensional phenomenon which can only be measured with a multiple-indicator approach. Three general process characteristics of urban sprawl are being discerned: the conversion from natural to artificial surfaces (surface-related impacts); the change of land use patterns from a compact urban form to irregular, dispersed land use patterns (pattern- related impacts) and the reduction of urban density (density-related impacts). Each sprawl- dimension is related to specific environmental impacts as well as unintended social and economic outcomes (Figure 1). These very different kinds of impacts can be addressed in terms of their specific impact pathway (direct, indirect, cumulative impacts), their spatial and temporal scale (local, regional and global impacts; short-term and long-term impacts) and particularly affected environmental components, social groups or economic subsystems.

Figure 1. Three dimensions of urban sprawl and impacts explained by one or more dimensions (examples)

The proposed indicator system contains about 20 core indicators. Some indicators can be applied to the measurement of the (aggregate) land use pattern. Due to their low level of elasticity, “pattern-indicators” are suitable for “global” sustainability appraisals of land use in larger time intervals. Other indicators aim to address land use changes within a specific period of time on patch level (see Table 1 with examples). The latter are notably qualified for the continuous controlling of land use development in order to assess the success of regulatory policies.

Table 2. Categorisation of selected sprawl indicators

References

European Environment Agency (2006) Urban Sprawl in Europe. The ignored challenge. EEA Report No 10/2006. Copenhagen.
Siedentop, S. (2004) Urban Sprawl – verstehen, messen, steuern. DISP 160: 23-35.

link para o texto:
http://docsfiles.com/pdf_monitoring_urban_sprawl_in_germany_towards_a_gis_based.html

Land Policy against Urban Sprawl in Germany

Theo KÖTTER

ABSTRACT

Urban sprawl is one of the greatest deficits and challenges of a sustainable development of the settlement. Urban sprawl is commonly used to describe physically expanding urban areas. The EEA has described sprawl as the physical pattern of low-density expansion of large urban areas, under market conditions, mainly into the surrounding agricultural areas. Sprawl is the leading edge of urban growth and implies little planning control of land subdivision. Development is patchy, scattered and strung out, with a tendency for discontinuity. Sprawling cities are the opposite of compact cities — full of empty spaces that indicate the inefficiencies in development and highlight the consequences of uncontrolled growth. As a result, the various demands for land in and around cities in Germany are becoming increasingly acute. On a daily basis, we all witness rapid, visible and conflicting changes in land use which are shaping landscapes in cities and around them as never before. In Germany today, even where there is little or no population pressure, a variety of factors are still driving sprawl. Global socio economic forces are interacting with more localised environmental and spatial constraints to generate the common characteristics of urban sprawl. The drivers of sprawl and their environmental and socio-economic impacts are fully interconnected and essential to the concept of sustainable development and the associated ecosystems view of the functioning of the city and its surrounding areas. In future more effective Initiatives to counter sprawl will be necessary. By the 1990s comprehensive planning concepts were firmly established, based on an integrated urban development plan. Successful strategies and implementations of a compact city model in the planning of the city that has effectively contained urban sprawl are mainly based on the following key objectives and actions:

- integrated city development plan
- regional cooperation
- stakeholders' involvement in city planning
- consequent land management
- emphasis on reuse of vacant brownfields
- continuously improving public transport with as few new roads as possible
- dominant goal: keep the city compact, urban and green.

Presentation outline

1. Urban sprawl – characteristics, trends and drivers
2. The region is the town - challenges and impacts
3. The 5 C-Strategies against urban sprawl
4. Conclusions

in:
http://www.fig.net/pub/fig2009/papers/ts02d/ts02d_koetter_abs_3439.pdf

Apresentação completa:
http://www.fig.net/pub/fig2009/ppt/ts02d/ts02d_koetter_ppt_3439.pdf

The ‘production’ of urbansprawl in eastern Germany as a phenomenon of post-socialist transformation

Henning Nuissl, Dieter Rink

Figure 1.
‘Saale Park’, located around 20 km west of the city centre of Leipzig on the territory of a little village of less than 1000 inhabitants, used to be Germany’s biggest out of town retail cluster in the 1990s (and is currently converted into a real shopping mall)
(Photo: City of Leipzig).

The paper examines the causes, features and consequences of the vigorous dynamics of urbansprawl seen in recent years in eastern Germany. Firstly, regarding the theory of urban development, it demonstrates that this case of sprawl displays certain peculiarities—and so cannot be sufficiently understood by drawing on ‘western’ experience. Secondly, concerning the management of urban development, it is particularly striking that urbansprawl in eastern Germany has largely proved to be the product of specific legislative and political conditions. Changes in these conditions ought thus to significantly affect urban development. To help contain urbansprawl in the context under scrutiny, however, these changes need to be geared to the situation of urban stagnation and decline.

in:
Cities
Volume 22, Issue 2, April 2005, Pages 123–134
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026427510500003X

SUSTENTABILIDADE, ORDENAMENTO DO TERRITÓRIO E AMBIENTE

Sérgio Palma Brito

Capítulo 1
INTRODUÇÃO à HISTÓRIA do VIAJAR e à FORMAÇÃO do TURISMO em PORTUGAL
...

Durante o período que vai de meados dos anos 50 do século XX à crise de 2008-2009, concentramo-nos na formação da oferta de turismo resultante da procura massificada e sazonal da viagem para estanciar durante o tempo livre. É esta oferta de turismo que está no cerne da relação entre turismo, ambiente e ordenamento do território, a qual constitui a base do conceito de sustentabilidade.
A política e a administração do turismo começam por se preocupar com o turismo cultural, urbano e termal e, numa menor dimensão, com o das praias. A partir do início dos anos 60 do século XX, a mutação da oferta de turismo, sobretudo no Algarve, coloca novos problemas quanto à sua relação com esta última oferta de turismo (com destaque para o turismo residencial) e com a política e a administração do ordenamento do território e do ambiente.
...

Urbanização Turística

Anos 60 a 90: Urbanização Turística Dispersa

«Urbanização turística» designa a concentração crescente das populações que podem viajar para estanciar durante o tempo livre em estâncias ou zonas de turismo (no passado), e em núcleos turísticos, núcleos e urbes urbano-turísticas e edificação dispersa, integrados ou não numa área turística (no presente).
Entre os anos 60 e 90 forma-se no Algarve uma urbanização turística dispersa, caso especial da urbanização dispersa que então prolifera por todo o País, com edificação legal ou clandestina, e que está na origem de parte das actuais fraquezas da urbanização em Portugal. É a primeira patologia do povoamento urbano do Algarve, utilizando-se o termo «patologia» no sentido económico, social e político de «excessos de uma prática a que falta regulação», e não no sentido biológico.
Durante cerca de um quarto de século, esta urbanização turística dispersa compreende duas formas distintas:

► O «núcleo turístico fora dos perímetros urbanos», com urbanismo turístico em «ambiente de resort», criado na maior parte dos casos pela urbanização estruturada de propriedades cuja área varia entre alguns hectares e os 16 km de Vilamoura. Estes núcleos passam por processos de expansão orgânica («arredondamento»), de densificação das áreas iniciais e de reconversão estruturante (caso de Vilamoura em Vilamoura XXI);
► O «núcleo urbano-turístico», resultante da transformação dos núcleos urbanos da vilegiatura tradicional, por expansão orgânica para a periferia ou densificação da edificação urbana no seu seio, ou por ambos os processos. Alguns destes núcleos formam-se a partir de aglomerados piscatórios que, dada a sua irrelevância, não são sequer objecto do planeamento urbanístico anterior a 1962.

Datam também desta altura:

► a edificação dispersa de utilização turística, de que são exemplo as moradias construídas no Cerro da Águia, a poente de Albufeira;
► aquilo que, dezenas de anos mais tarde, se designará por estabelecimentos hoteleiros isolados ...

A urbanização turística integra dois tipos de espaços cuja dinâmica é inseparável do turismo residencial:

► A prática do golfe ...;
► As marinas ...

Ruptura Política dos Anos 90 e Novas Formas de Urbanização Turística

A ruptura política dos anos 90 está na origem de duas novas formas de urbanização turística. A primeira assenta na consolidação da urbanização turística dispersa e compreende duas dinâmicas similares, mas diferentes na escala:

► A consagração da expansão de «núcleos urbano-turísticos» preexistentes, pela definição de perímetros urbanos mais ou menos generosos – um processo que ultrapassa, em muito, os limites do Algarve e de que são exemplo os núcleos de desenvolvimento turístico do PROTALI de 1993;
► No Algarve, começam a formar-se quatro «urbes urbano-turísticas» (do Alvor a Praia da Rocha, Armação de Pêra e Albufeira e de Vilamoura a Quarteira) que se distinguem pela sua escala e pela formação, a norte, de largas frentes de mar, segundo dois movimentos: a expansão orgânica do núcleo urbano-turístico inicial; e a integração de outros focos da dinâmica urbana dispersa, localizados a poucos quilómetros deste núcleo.

Na sub-região do litoral do Algarve, a escala da procura faz com que estas quatro urbes e uma consolidação mais intensa nos «núcleos urbano-turísticos» contribuam para formar uma economia turístico-residencial única em Portugal. Encontramos algo deste modelo na urbanização que actualmente vai dos Estoris até à Guia, no concelho de Cascais.

A segunda forma de urbanização turística é a dos núcleos turísticos de nova geração. Estes núcleos são uma nova e mais sofisticada forma do «núcleo turístico fora dos perímetros urbanos» após quase 30 anos de urbanização turística dispersa.

Edificação Dispersa

A edificação dispersa é um problema em várias regiões do País, sendo utilizada para residência permanente ou casa para viver o tempo livre com a possibilidade de alternar ou conciliar estas utilizações. A vivência do tempo livre começa por ter lugar na proximidade dos grandes centros urbanos (onde nasce a designação de «casa de fim-de-semana») ou em áreas turísticas cujo exemplo mais significativo é o Algarve.

No caso do Algarve da actualidade, edificação dispersa designa a transformação da dinâmica de dispersão e concentração de «habitações dispersas» do povoamento rural do Algarve de 1962 pela utilização como casa do tempo livre ou residência permanente da população local. Inclui a recuperação de habitação da população rural e novas edificações cujo licenciamento assenta em criativas interpretações das disposições legais que pretendem limitá-la ou proibi-la.
Esta definição de edificação dispersa não inclui a aparente dispersão física das moradias de um conjunto urbanístico (Vilamoura ou Quinta do Lago), nem a edificação dispersa de cariz suburbano e mais concentrada verificada na proximidade de uma cidade; e é diferente da morfologia de empreendimento de turismo residencial, que designamos por «estruturação da exploração de moradias dispersas».

Link para o texto integral:
http://www.spi.pt/turismo/Manuais/Manual_II.pdf

Darkness on the Edge of Town: Mapping Urban and Peri-Urban Australia Using Nighttime Satellite Imagery

Paul C. Sutton and Andrew R. Goetz - University of Denver
Stephen Fildes and Clive Forste - Flinders University, Australia
Tilottama Ghosh - University of Denver

This article explores the use of nighttime satellite imagery for mapping urban and peri-urban areas of Australia. A population-weighted measure of urban sprawl is used to characterize relative levels of sprawl for Australia’s urban areas. In addition, the expansive areas of low light surrounding most major metropolitan areas are used to map the urban–bush interface of exurban land use. Our findings suggest that 82 percent of the Australian population lives in urban areas, 15 percent live in peri-urban or exurban areas, and 3 percent live in rural areas. This represents a significantly more concentrated human settlement pattern than presently exists in the United States.

Urban Decentralization Processes

Methods

Results and Discussion

Conclusion

Nighttime satellite imagery has been used to map urban and an exurban population in the United States and this article demonstrates that the same methods are reasonable for mapping similar urban and exurban environments in Australia. Comparing these results with prior studies of U.S. cities shows that Australia is significantly more urban than the United States and Australia’s urban areas do not sprawl in either an urban or peri-urban way relative to those in the United States. Within Australia, Sydney sprawls the least and Brisbane sprawls the most. Perth sprawls a bit, but Melbourne and Adelaide do not. Comparing the peri-urban populations and areal extent of these five big cities is problematic due to the differing degree of conurbation they have with nearby large cities (e.g., Sydney with Newcastle and Woo- longong; Brisbane with the Gold Coast; Perth with Freemantle and Mandurah; Melbourne with Geelong; and Adelaide with Mt. Barker). Future demographic, economic, social, political, and ethical decisions and nondecisions will determine whether Australia will move toward or away from the urban and exurban sprawl that presently exists in the United States.

Literature Cited

in:
Sutton, Paul C., Goetz, Andrew R., Fildes, Stephen, Forster, Clive and Ghosh, Tilottama(2010) 'Darkness on the Edge of Town: Mapping Urban and Peri-Urban Australia Using Nighttime Satellite Imagery', The Professional Geographer, 62: 1, 119 — 133, First published on: 11 December 2009 (iFirst)

link para o texto integral:
http://urizen-geography.nsm.du.edu/~psutton/AAA_Sutton_WebPage/Sutton/Publications/Sut_Pub_9.pdf