Remaking the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

Remaking the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge PDF Author: Karen Trapenberg Frick
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317338510
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Winner of TransportiCA’s September Book Club Award 2018 On 17 October 1989 one the largest earthquakes to occur in California since the San Francisco earthquake of April 1906 struck Northern California. Damage was extensive, none more so than the partial collapse of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge’s eastern span, a vital link used by hundreds of thousands of Californians every day. The bridge was closed for a month for repairs and then reopened to traffic. But what ensued over the next 25 years is the extraordinary story that Karen Trapenberg Frick tells here. It is a cautionary tale to which any governing authority embarking on a megaproject should pay heed. She describes the process by which the bridge was eventually replaced as an exercise in shadowboxing which pitted the combined talents and shortcomings, partnerships and jealousies, ingenuity and obtuseness, generosity and parsimony of the State’s and the region’s leading elected officials, engineers, architects and other members of the governing elites against a collectively imagined future catastrophe of unknown proportions. In so doing she highlights three key questions: If safety was the reason to replace the bridge, why did it take almost 25 years to do so? How did an original estimate of $250 million in 1995 soar to $6.5 billion by 2014? And why was such a complex design chosen? Her final chapter – part epilogue, part reflection – provides recommendations to improve megaproject delivery and design.

Remaking the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

Remaking the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge PDF Author: Karen Trapenberg Frick
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317338510
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of TransportiCA’s September Book Club Award 2018 On 17 October 1989 one the largest earthquakes to occur in California since the San Francisco earthquake of April 1906 struck Northern California. Damage was extensive, none more so than the partial collapse of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge’s eastern span, a vital link used by hundreds of thousands of Californians every day. The bridge was closed for a month for repairs and then reopened to traffic. But what ensued over the next 25 years is the extraordinary story that Karen Trapenberg Frick tells here. It is a cautionary tale to which any governing authority embarking on a megaproject should pay heed. She describes the process by which the bridge was eventually replaced as an exercise in shadowboxing which pitted the combined talents and shortcomings, partnerships and jealousies, ingenuity and obtuseness, generosity and parsimony of the State’s and the region’s leading elected officials, engineers, architects and other members of the governing elites against a collectively imagined future catastrophe of unknown proportions. In so doing she highlights three key questions: If safety was the reason to replace the bridge, why did it take almost 25 years to do so? How did an original estimate of $250 million in 1995 soar to $6.5 billion by 2014? And why was such a complex design chosen? Her final chapter – part epilogue, part reflection – provides recommendations to improve megaproject delivery and design.

Hella Town

Hella Town PDF Author: Mitchell Schwarzer
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520391535
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Hella Town reveals the profound impact of transportation improvements, systemic racism, and regional competition on Oakland’s built environment. Often overshadowed by San Francisco, its larger and more glamorous twin, Oakland has a fascinating history of its own. From serving as a major transportation hub to forging a dynamic manufacturing sector, by the mid-twentieth century Oakland had become the urban center of the East Bay. Hella Town focuses on how political deals, economic schemes, and technological innovations fueled this emergence but also seeded the city’s postwar struggles. Toward the turn of the millennium, as immigration from Latin America and East Asia increased, Oakland became one of the most diverse cities in the country. The city still grapples with the consequences of uneven class- and race-based development-amid-disruption. How do past decisions about where to locate highways or public transit, urban renewal districts or civic venues, parks or shopping centers, influence how Oaklanders live today? A history of Oakland’s buildings and landscapes, its booms and its busts, provides insight into its current conditions: an influx of new residents and businesses, skyrocketing housing costs, and a lingering chasm between the haves and have-nots.

A Tale of Two Bridges

A Tale of Two Bridges PDF Author: Stephen Mikesell
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
ISBN: 0874174678
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
A Tale of Two Bridges is a history of two versions of the San Francisco—Oakland Bay Bridge: the original bridge built in 1936 and a replacement for the eastern half of the bridge finished in 2013. The 1936 bridge revolutionized transportation in the Bay Area and profoundly influenced settlement patterns in the region. It was also a remarkable feat of engineering. In the 1950s the American Society of Civil Engineers adopted a list of the “Seven Engineering Wonders” of the United States. The 1936 structure was the only bridge on the list, besting even the more famous Golden Gate Bridge. One of its greatest achievements was that it was built on time (in less than three years) and came in under budget. Mikesell explores in fascinating detail how the bridge was designed by a collection of the best-known engineers in the country as well as the heroic story of its construction by largely unskilled laborers from California, joined by highly skilled steel workers. By contrast, the East Span replacement, which was planned between 1989 and 1998, and built between 1998 and 2013, fell victim to cost overruns in the billions of dollars, was a decade behind schedule, and suffered from structural problems that has made it a perpetual maintenance nightmare. This is narrative history in its purest form. Mikesell excels at explaining highly technical engineering issues in language that can be understood and appreciated by general readers. Here is the story of two very important bridges, which provides a fair but uncompromising analysis of why one bridge succeeded and the other did not.

Homeland

Homeland PDF Author: Yael Allweil
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315395967
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
On 29 March 2016 the New York based online journal, Realty Today reported ‘Israel is facing a housing crisis with ...[the] home inventory lacking 100,000 apartments... House prices, which have more than doubled in less than a decade, resulted in a mass protest back in 2011’. As Yael Allweil reveals in her fascinating book, housing has played a pivotal role in the history of nationalism and nation building in Israel-Palestine. She adopts the concept of ‘homeland’ to highlight how land and housing are central to both Zionism and Palestinian nationalism, and how the history of Zionist and Palestinian national housing have been inseparably intertwined from the introduction of the Ottoman Land Code in 1858 to the present day. Following the Introduction, Part I, ‘Historiographies of Land Reform and Nationalism’, discusses the formation of nationalism as the direct result of the Ottoman land code of 1858. Part II, ‘Housing as Proto-Nationalism’ focuses on housing as the means to claim rights over the homeland. Part III, ‘Housing and Nation-Building in the Age of State Sovereignty’, explores the effects of statehood on national housing across several strata of Israeli society. The Afterword discusses housing as the quintessential object of agonistic conflict in Israel-Palestine, around which the Israeli polity is formed and reformed.

Riyadh

Riyadh PDF Author: Yasser Elsheshtawy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000460649
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
Riyadh has set its sights on becoming a world city befitting the twenty-first century. To that end it has embarked on a massive construction drive evidenced in the proliferation of proposals for high-end districts, giga-developments and elaborate infrastructures. An urban vision seemingly dedicated to attracting global capital. Yet such a narrative can be misleading. A ‘humanization programme’, initiated during the tenure of its former mayor Abdulaziz bin Ayyaf, has complemented the city’s rapid rise by providing spaces catering for the everyday needs of its inhabitants. Yasser Elsheshtawy, in this richly illustrated book, targets these people-centred settings. It is a compelling counter-narrative interweaving critical theoretical insights, personal observations, and serendipitous encounters. He deftly demonstrates how Riyadh thrives through the actions of its people. As the world moves towards an urban model that is resilient and humane, the humanizing efforts of an Arab city are worthy of our attention. Riyadh’s premise is perhaps best captured in the cover image depicting the desert riverbed of Wadi Sulai, filled with rainwater, making its way towards the Saudi capital. Along its banks there will be dedicated public pathways and urban parks. It is a vision of an urbanity where both the spectacular and the everyday coexist. A city that is not just dedicated to the few, but one that serves the many.

No Little Plans

No Little Plans PDF Author: Ian Wray
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429950837
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Is planning for America anathema to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness? Is it true, as ideologues like Friedrich Von Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Ayn Rand have claimed, that planning leads to dictatorship, that the state is wholly destructive, and that prosperity is owed entirely to the workings of a free market? To answer these questions Ian Wray’s book goes in search of an America shaped by government, plans and bureaucrats, not by businesses, bankers and shareholders. He demonstrates that government plans did not damage American wealth. On the contrary, they built it, and in the most profound ways. In three parts, the book is an intellectual roller coaster. Part I takes the reader downhill, examining the rise and fall of rational planning, and looks at the converging bands of planning critics, led on the right by the Chicago School of Economics, on the left by the rise of conservation and the ‘counterculture’, and two brilliantly iconoclastic writers – Jane Jacobs and Rachel Carson. In Part II, eight case studies take us from the trans-continental railroads through the national parks, the Federal dams and hydropower schemes, the wartime arsenal of democracy, to the postwar interstate highways, planning for New York, the moon shot and the creation of the internet. These are stories of immense government achievement. Part III looks at what might lie ahead, reflecting on a huge irony: the ideology which underpins the economic and political rise of Asia (by which America now feels so threatened) echoes the pragmatic plans and actions which once secured America’s rise to globalism.

Olympic Cities

Olympic Cities PDF Author: John Gold
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317565304
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
The first edition of Olympic Cities, published in 2007, provided a pioneering overview of the changing relationship between cities and the modern Olympic Games. This substantially revised and enlarged third edition builds on the success of its predecessors. The first of its three parts provides overviews of the urban legacy of the four component Olympic festivals: the Summer Games; Winter Games; Cultural Olympiads; and the Paralympics. The second part comprisessystematic surveys of seven key aspects of activity involved in staging the Olympics: finance; place promotion; the creation of Olympic Villages; security; urban regeneration; tourism; and transport. The final part consists of nine chronologically arranged portraits of host cities, from 1936 to 2020, with particular emphasis on the six Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games of the twenty-first century. As controversy over the growing size and expense of the Olympics, with associated issues of accountability and legacy, continues unabated, this book’s incisive and timely assessment of the Games’ development and the complex agendas that host cities attach to the event will be essential reading for a wide audience. This will include not just urban and sports historians, urban geographers, event managers and planners, but also anyone with an interest in the staging of mega-events and concerned with building a better understanding of the relationship between cities, sport and culture.

The Evolution of Urban Heritage Conservation and the Role of Raymond Lemaire

The Evolution of Urban Heritage Conservation and the Role of Raymond Lemaire PDF Author: Claudine Houbart
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040132391
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
The 1960s and 1970s saw a marked change in the approach to built heritage conservation. From a focus on the preservation of individual buildings, attention turned to the conservation, regeneration, and reuse of entire historic districts. A key player in this process was the Belgian art and architecture historian Raymond Lemaire (1921–1997), yet beyond those in conservation circles few people know of his work and influence or even recognize his name. In this book, Claudine Houbart traces how the change came about and the role played by Lemaire. She describes his work and influence and in so doing provides a history of urban conservation over the last four decades of the twentieth century and beyond. The first chapter summarizes Lemaire’s background from his training during the Second World War and his work as a Monuments Man immediately after the war, to his role in the drafting of the Venice Charter and his appointment as Secretary General of ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites). The next chapter describes the rehabilitation of Great Beguinage in Louvain. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the project was directed by Lemaire and is a perfect example of the restoration of an entire district. The following chapter provides case studies of his work in Brussels, demonstrating his methodology in action. The final chapter discusses the transposition of the model of the historic city to urban projects and summarizes Lemaire’s influence on heritage conservation today, particularly integrated conservation. His participation in drafting key conservation documents sponsored by the Council of Europe, UNESCO and ICOMOS, and his desire to revise the Venice Charter are discussed. The book’s conclusion reflects on what has gone before, ending aptly with Lemaire’s own words ‘the past, properly understood, is one of the references for judging the value of today and tomorrow’.

Planning Singapore

Planning Singapore PDF Author: Stephen Hamnett
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351058215
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Two hundred years ago, Sir Stamford Raffles established the modern settlement of Singapore with the intent of seeing it become ‘a great commercial emporium and fulcrum’. But by the time independence was achieved in 1965, the city faced daunting problems of housing shortage, slums and high unemployment. Since then, Singapore has become one of the richest countries on earth, providing, in Sir Peter Hall’s words, ‘perhaps the most extraordinary case of economic development in the history of the world’. The story of Singapore’s remarkable achievements in the first half century after its independence is now widely known. In Planning Singapore: The Experimental City, Stephen Hamnett and Belinda Yuen have brought together a set of chapters on Singapore’s planning achievements, aspirations and challenges, which are united in their focus on what might happen next in the planning of the island-state. Chapters range over Singapore’s planning system, innovation and future economy, housing, biodiversity, water and waste, climate change, transport, and the potential transferability of Singapore’s planning knowledge. A key question is whether the planning approaches, which have served Singapore so well until now, will suffice to meet the emerging challenges of a changing global economy, demographic shifts, new technologies and the existential threat of climate change. Singapore as a global city is becoming more unequal and more diverse. This has the potential to weaken the social compact which has largely existed since independence and to undermine the social resilience undoubtedly needed to cope with the shocks and disruptions of the twenty-first century. The book concludes, however, that Singapore is better-placed than most to respond to the challenges which it will certainly face thanks to its outstanding systems of planning and implementation, a proven capacity to experiment and a highly developed ability to adapt quickly, purposefully and pragmatically to changing circumstances.

The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies

The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies PDF Author: Anthony M. Orum
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118568451
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 2919

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Book Description
Provides comprehensive coverage of major topics in urban and regional studies Under the guidance of Editor-in-Chief Anthony Orum, this definitive reference work covers central and emergent topics in the field, through an examination of urban and regional conditions and variation across the world. It also provides authoritative entries on the main conceptual tools used by anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, and political scientists in the study of cities and regions. Among such concepts are those of place and space; geographical regions; the nature of power and politics in cities; urban culture; and many others. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies captures the character of complex urban and regional dynamics across the globe, including timely entries on Latin America, Africa, India and China. At the same time, it contains illuminating entries on some of the current concepts that seek to grasp the essence of the global world today, such as those of Friedmann and Sassen on ‘global cities’. It also includes discussions of recent economic writings on cities and regions such as those of Richard Florida. Comprised of over 450 entries on the most important topics and from a range of theoretical perspectives Features authoritative entries on topics ranging from gender and the city to biographical profiles of figures like Frank Lloyd Wright Takes a global perspective with entries providing coverage of Latin America and Africa, India and China, and, the US and Europe Includes biographies of central figures in urban and regional studies, such as Doreen Massey, Peter Hall, Neil Smith, and Henri Lefebvre The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies is an indispensable reference for students and researchers in urban and regional studies, urban sociology, urban geography, and urban anthropology.