Livable City

The Livable City is a normative idea that has been developed to help guide thinking about the way our cities function and develop. Some good definitions of a livable city can be found in Vukan Vuchic's work: [cite book |last=Vuchic |first=Vukan |title=Transportation For Livable Cities |year=1999 |publisher=Center for Urban Policy Research |location="Rutgers, NJ" |isbn=0139394966 ]

" Livability [of a city] is generally understood to encompass those elements of home, neighborhood, and metropolitan area that contribute to safety, economic opportunities and welfare, health, convenience, mobility, and recreation"... Although livability cannot be defined precisely or measured quantitavely, it is recognized as a very important concept and consideration in the societies of developed countries. [cite book |title =Ibid |pages=7 ] The adjective "livable" for a city connotes a desirable quality of life for its citizens -- including social activities, attractive public places, provision of a certain level of privacy, as well as a sense of community... The term "livable" is defined even more broadly as encompassing the city's economic soundness, social health, and environmental viability. Such a broad definition is used because all these elements are interdependent. A city may be physically beautiful, but if it suffers from high unemployment, it probably will also suffer from crime and other social problems. Consequently, within the overall goal of achieving a livable city, three major sets of objectives can be defined as characteristics of such a city:

* "Human-oriented and environmentally friendly," with features that make it attractive and make living in it conveient, safe, and pleasant; a high degree of sustainability is a component of this characteristic
* "Economically viable and efficient"
* "Socially sound" -- that is, without social, economic, or ethnic barriers, or wide variations in income, crime, and unrest; there should be a sense of togetherness and pride in the city and region.

A livable city is difficult to define precisely, but one can recognize elements that contribute to making an urbanized area livable. By the same token, one can quickly recognize the city that is nonfunctional, that is riddled with problems, that has no social life and few cultural functions. [cite book |title=Ibid |pages=233 ] The concept of "livability" is a qualitative one; it represents the characteristic that "depends on the attractiveness of an area as a place in which to live, work, invest, and do business." [cite book |title=Ibid |pages=xix ]

In many ways, the idea of livable cities can be traced back to the work of those such as Jane Jacobs in her book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". Jacobs' nemesis was Robert Moses, one of the premier implementors of post-war American highway policy in urban areas. As Vuchic points out, "A number of elements of livability of an area depends, directly or indirectly, on the type and quality of its transportation system. Thus, the discussions of interaction between transportation and human environment, or, particularly, cities and automobiles, have intensified and progressed in most developed countries." [cite book |title=Ibid |pages=7 ]

Related Fields

Thinking about livable cities is a very interdisciplinary exercise. Areas that are often included in the discussion of livable cities include Public Transport, Urban Planning, Urban Design, Affordable Housing, Parks, and Parking

References

External links

* [http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~vuchic/ Vuchic's web page]