Urban Design for Urban Renewal

Abstract

Urban renewal involves changes in the physical fabric of cities. These changes can make the city function better or worse and they can make the city look better or worse. Each change can be initiated without regard or with inadequate response to these two issues or it can be initiated in such a way as to improve the functioning and the look of the city. In this context the word functioning refers to the way the city works as a physical unit: the efficiency of its physical infrastructure; and by the look of the city we mean the extent to which the city is aesthetically legible and pleasing to the eye. Urban design is a process of responding to these two issues when making decisions about the location and physical manifestation of investment in the built environment: it is the adaptation of building and engineering operations to functional and aesthetic ends.