Report n°1: The new constraints of urban development

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o Urban sprawl and its possible impacts on the activities of Veolia
Environnement
 The phenomenon of urban sprawl and city growth. Daphné
BORET
 The development of cities around the world

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The development of cities around the world

A general process of spatial expansion

On all continents, a relative decline in average urban growth rates has been observed for
the last 20 or 30 years, compared to those of the preceding decades. This declining trend
in demographic growth becomes more obvious if fixed perimeters are used, as a general
process of spatial expansion occurs everywhere. The extension of urban sprawl along
communication routes often precedes the type of sprawl in which empty areas are filled.

Besides these general forms of urban sprawl, the patterns of peripheral expansion turn out
to be extremely heterogeneous in terms of type of housing conditions, population pattern,
means of protecting structures, construction type and social categories concerned. Despite
geographical, socio-cultural and political situations differing greatly from one
metropolitan area to the next, the processes of urban expansion are similar.

In metropolitan areas in developing countries, the informal urbanisation of the outskirts is

a classic working-class practice, whether in the form of clandestine housing
developments that fail to comply with the planning regulations, or in the form of illegal
occupation of sites without the owners' consent, with inhabitants constructing their own,
often precarious, dwellings. Although such illegal occupation (invasiones in Latin
America, squats or squatter settlements in Asia, campements in Africa) tends to target
available sites on city outskirts, which are often inappropriate for habitation, it may
equally occur within the gaps in the urban area, including in central or pericentral zones.

Periurbanisation may also result from planned development, as demonstrated by single-

family-home developments and other residential programmes produced by the capitalist
sector or controlled by the public sector. Some projects may be on a very large scale: new
districts corresponding to satellite subcities in Delhi, huge metropolitan projects in
Bangkok, edge cities in Cairo, etc.

However, the centrifugal dynamics by no means affect only the poorer people and
working classes, who are pushed towards increasingly outlying locations. A dispersal of
affluent households across the outer peripheral area is also in progress, facilitated, of
course, by the rapid growth in car ownership, including metropolitan areas in developing
countries. Luxury apartments in Cairo, some distance from the centre, the construction of
vast luxury residential blocks of very low density in Sao Paulo, and luxury residential
districts in Delhi's rural fringes all serve to illustrate this phenomenon.

The dispersal of city dwellers is, in some cases, driven by the search for a better living
environment, which turns into a process of rurbanisation, illustrated by the proliferation
of datchas in the countryside and forests around Moscow, the transformation of
farmhouses in the south of Delhi, or the conjuntos cerrados (secure residential blocks)
that are springing up around the village centres in the Sabana to the north of Bogota.

In large metropolitan areas in industrialised nations, the phenomena of remote and

discontinuous urban extension linked to increased car use and home ownership have also
been commonly observed, the American metropolitan areas leading this phenomenon to
its climax.

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Similar trends on all continents

Here I will give some examples of metropolitan areas that allow me to illustrate the
remark made previously.

Moscow
Inner-city Moscow is characterised by total domination of collective housing. In the last
decades of the Soviet era, housing construction in Moscow was almost exclusively in the
form of mass-produced vertical blocks. However, this new type of dwelling was greeted
and

experienced as a promotion, and it remains positively associated with city dweller status
to this day.

The territory is delimited by a ring road around 20 kilometres from the Kremlin, while
outside this ring starts what is called the leisure zone, or green zone. Alongside the
development of the housing market, significant property activity is developing, entirely
devoted to forms of single-family housing. These are the traditional datchas, which are
today becoming cottages.

The tradition of the datcha (summer residence) is an ancient one, but it only ceased to be
elitist in the latter days of the communist era. This concept became popular through the
"garden co-operatives", which allowed Muscovites to supplement their resources. Then
the residents themselves had their garden chalets converted into datchas, when it was
made legal to build permanent constructions there. Since the 1990s, economic
liberalisation and the birth of a property market have multiplied the amount of housing on
offer around villages or on new sites. The concept of a cottage, in other words a solid
house with modern comforts, is superimposed on that of a datcha, in wood, whereas the
datchas themselves were equipped for winter stays. Permanent constructions are thus
taken into consideration.

Altogether, the phenomenon is reaching considerable proportions, since two-thirds of

Moscow's population have direct access to a datcha, or have access through relatives.
However, the world of datchas is a long way from being equipped for everyday urban
life, and the urban status still remains historically and psychologically linked to the
apartment, yet access roads are improving and mindsets are changing. So the possibility
of a two-sided Moscow cannot be ruled out: an individualist Moscow would eventually
respond to the collectivist city.

Another phenomenon can also be seen, relatively marginal in inner-city Moscow but
extraordinarily active within the agglomeration: the appearance of districts containing
detached housing or luxury residential blocks. Prestigious apartment buildings or luxury
detached houses have a common concern for security modelled on their American
counterparts: electric barriers, permanent security guards, underground parking and
common services for the residents. This new style of urban living in sheltered housing is
currently undergoing rapid development in all the outskirts of the agglomeration, beyond
the city's administrative limits.

Cairo
Two opposing trends can be observed in Cairo. On the one hand, the'verticalisation' of
the old city, which aims to make the expensive land, drawn from the precious delta, more
profitable and, on the other hand, an extension of the city's outskirts in the form of new
districts. In fact, an increasing number of a new type of top-of-the-range residential
accommodation is being developed along the desert roads, with easy motorway access.
These are known as edge cities (in reference to American cities that developed around
motorway junctions). These private, secure and guarded developments correspond to the
city's new image for the Muslim elite. The big attraction of these residential colonies,
besides the security aspect and a less polluted environment, is the presence of discos,
clubs, theme parks and tourist attractions.

This new market trend is in fact due to demand from affluent classes who are
disillusioned with urban life in new cities and want to escape from a metropolis that has
become too busy.

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Delhi
In Delhi, the proliferation of illegal housing developments has contributed decisively to
the development of the city's outskirts. Essentially, these sites were originally farmland
that could not be developed, purchased by unscrupulous developers from farmers in the
surrounding villages, now assimilated into the city, and then resold to individuals after
being divided into plots of land. As these developments failed to observe any planning
regulations, they are not recognised by the municipality and are considered illegal.
Since the mid-90s, the increasing number of reinforced dwellings found in numerous
shanty towns is accompanied by frequent additions of floors to accommodate a growing
family or to let a room and thus profit from an additional income. We are therefore
witnessing a process of residential densification, sometimes considerable, in already
congested districts in lanes that are still too narrow.

In addition, a dispersal of the affluent classes towards the rural outskirts can be observed,
causing competition for land use in the agricultural belt around the city, and more
specifically for farmhouses. These properties were originally actual farms within
agricultural business, and therefore governed by planning regulations specifically
designed to limit the expansion of constructed surfaces in comparison with natural or
cultivated areas. Today, the agricultural role of such areas has often been forgotten, and
now they are simply luxury, spacious villas, surrounded by vast landscaped parks and
protected by surrounding walls. They have been developed for a high-income population,
giving them real havens of peace and greenery right on the doorstep of a capital that is
among the most polluted in the world.

Faced with this reality, the authorities now tend to change the planning documents and
allow the division of properties with a view to creating residential housing developments.

However, in the absence of an efficient public transport network serving the metropolitan
area, the spectacular rise of individual means of transport has enabled the establishment
of good quality and luxury residential districts on the rural fringes, for those who can
afford the cost of long daily car journeys to and from work.

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American cities
In the United States, around the largest population centres, the process of sprawl began in
the first half of the 19th century. However, after 1850 the sprawl intensified under the
effect of more sustained population growth in these cities, and also as collective means of
transport were deployed (tramways, trains), allowing real-estate developers to provide
new residential areas seeking to satisfy the needs of the developing middle classes. This
process is primarily of a social nature: the residential pattern was formed logically as the
middle classes distinguished and distanced themselves from the working-class areas,
squeezed into old districts which thus turned into ethnic enclaves as a result of continued
immigration.

With the end of the 19th century, the development of services which helped to increase
the social standing of the middle classes and the economic integration of immigrants who
arrived before 1870 gave a new impetus for sprawl, even if property and real-estate
production continued with blocks that were still often quite small, along routes served by
tramways or in city blocks concentrated around the stations. In fact, the sprawl was still
limited by means of transport. The era of the car, with mass production beginning in
earnest during the 1920s, most certainly made way for a real boom in suburban housing.
Programmes for road and motorway infrastructure converged to intensify the
suburbanisation, which was no longer limited to the immediate edges of the cities. At the
same time, the social pattern of suburbanisation changed, as standardisation and mass

production of housing models, the type of ground used and the size of plots enabled
lower purchase costs and thus opened up the suburbs or commuter zones to many more
households.

During the past four decades, the sprawl has continued but has changed form. In effect,
residential suburbanisation has progressed in other ways and, in particular, is no longer
the only cause of sprawl. It is no longer just the residential activity that is becoming
deconcentrated and dispersed, but all activities, combining to make the suburbs much
more heterogeneous. This explains why even in agglomerations where demographic
growth is very low, resulting in moderate demand for new dwellings, we can still see
significant increases in the urbanised area.

Finally, the model of the family house, surrounded by its garden, served by the road
infrastructure that has been developed, has become the housing reference model for
American families.

For around ten years, New Urbanism has been on the American architectural and town-
planning scene as an alternative to urban sprawl. It encourages housing developments
where the principle of the single family house goes hand-in-hand with that of the town
house, where the pedestrian is restored to favour and where the density of construction is
therefore much greater than in the traditional suburbs or outskirts. This trend also aims to
give an identity to housing estates that is able to convey a sense of community.

Furthermore, a new form of housing is today taking on more and more significant
proportions. These are gated communities, the first of which, built in 1854 by a
businessman, was intended as a retreat, located at a reasonable distance from Manhattan.
Today, however, these are not simply golden ghettos, but consumer products aimed at
middle and upper-middle classes, with different social and ethnic backgrounds. In fact
white, Hispanic and Asian populations can all be found in these areas. Thus each gated
community associated with a type of location and type of population seems to correspond
to a real-estate market segment. The developers' desire to cover the whole of the solvent
home ownership market is clear. Thus, 80% of new housing developments built in the
United States are gated communities.

This is, by nature, an extremely diverse residential form, and it is difficult to simply hold
onto the archetype of a secure golden ghetto.

While there were already 2,500 in the 1950s, there are now around 20,000 communities
of this kind in the USA. With some accommodating up to almost 20,000 people, it is
estimated that they house 8.4 million people.