Suburban Urbanities Suburban Urbanities Suburbs and the Life of the High Street Edited by Laura Vaughan First published in 2015 by UCL Press University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT Available to download free: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press Text © Contributors 2015 Images © Contributors and copyright holders named in the captions A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Non-derivative 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work for personal and non-commercial use providing author and publisher attribution is clearly stated. Further details about CC BY licenses are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 ISBN: 978-1-910634-14-1 (Hbk.) 978-1-910634-13-4 (Pbk.) 978-1-910634-17-2 (PDF) 978-1-910634-15-8 (epub) 978-1-910634-16-5 (mobi) DOI: 10.14324/111.9781910634134 To Neil and Daniel from ‘U’ F O r E W O r D vii Foreword In recent years there has been much debate within urban studies as to which came first in the evolution of human settlements, the countryside or the city. There was always a third context to this discussion, however, and that was the suburb. Life beyond the city walls was a distinctive feature of ancient urban civilisations from Persia to Minoan Crete, and today in the Anglophone world the suburban population is a majority. How surpris- ing, then, that few scholars have attempted to understand the nature and agency of suburban living as a dominant characteristic of human settle- ments. This was symptomatic of a wider academic indifference and even hostility towards ‘the suburban’ which has only (ridiculously) recently been challenged by a new generation of scholars who take suburbs seriously. Suburban Urbanities is a hugely important contribution to understand- ing our suburban world. Drawing upon scholarship within the now rapidly expanding field of suburban studies, synthesising historical geography with space syntax theories and methods, and the sociology of everyday life, it sheds new light on the historic and spatial evolution of the city. It shows that suburbia is not a synchronic caricature of a life-less-lived, but a dynamic context of metropolitan agency and creativity. As an historic process, sub- urbanisation is not something that evolved beyond the city to suck the life out of it, but was intertwined with trajectories of growth, with the socio- economic patterning and structuring of cities large and small. It is impossi- ble to grasp the meaning of class relations, of gendered lifestyles, of ethnic segregation and integration, of urban economies and patterns of mobility and communications, without placing suburbia at the forefront of the anal- ysis. The universality of the themes of Suburban Urbanities is obvious: the dynamics of growth are significant historically because suburbs are starting points in change over time, not the end of the line. Old suburbs were once new, and today’s new suburbs, springing up rapidly across the world, will one day be old. As dynamic environments they continue to act as vectors of social, economic and political development, locally, nationally and globally. The book is timely in another important sphere, and that is the per- sonal subjectivity of suburbanites. To those who live in them, suburban lives viii F O r E W O r D have meaning. Back in 2013, I went for a walk in Fort Totten, an African- American suburb of Washington, DC. On a sweltering August lunchtime, as I took photographs of the comfortable suburban homes of middle-class black people in roads that were empty except for flowering trees and parked cars, a woman’s voice called out to me with a gentle but audible ‘good after- noon’. Across her neatly trimmed front lawn I began chatting with a woman in her sixties who was taking tea with a friend on her veranda. She had left downtown DC in 1976 and as she stated with some passion, ‘I couldn’t wait to get out’. Fort Totten had its problems, but it was an attractive and spacious place to raise children, and well connected to the city. Her story is an important one because it is one of millions of inconvenient truths being ushered out of view by the current urban policies that demonise suburbia, and by the retro-fitting of suburbs that were, until very recently, doing just fine. Myriad examples of successful suburban living and suburban happi- ness and of triumph over social exclusion can be found if academics want to look for them. Suburban Urbanities looks for them, and understands that they are part of an ongoing pattern of human settlement that stretches from the ancient past to the present, and will persist long into the future. Mark Clapson reader in History University of Westminster P r E FA C E ix Preface This book has taken shape over many years, as part of an ongoing con- sideration of the way in which society and urban form interact over time. My research focus on the suburbs was first sparked by Professor Bill Hill- ier, who liked to tease me, as his student on the Bartlett’s MSc Advanced Architectural Studies, as being ‘just a girl from Edgware’ (despite my hav- ing spent much of my life till then in the suburbs of Jerusalem). This very much echoes the experience of my predecessor at the Bartlett, Ian Davis, almost exactly forty years earlier. In ‘Dunroamin’, Davis describes his own first day at the Bartlett School of Architecture in 1953, putting down ‘Edg- ware’ as his address and being advised by his tutor that he should make rapid plans to move from there to a more ‘civilised address, such as Cam- den Town’. 1 Subsequently, my reading of Mark Clapson’s essential histories of the working-class suburb opened my eyes up to alternative narratives of the twentieth-century suburban experience. I should also mention the series of exchanges with Vesna Goldsworthy, whose ‘The Good Life’ conference at Kingston University in 2004 formalised suburban studies as a field of academic research in its own right. Shortly after the conference Vesna and I wrote a proposal for a multidisciplinary book on suburban studies, which, although never realised, helped seed the idea for this book in its current guise. The urban theories of Bill Hillier, Julienne Hanson and Alan Penn at the UCL Space Syntax Laboratory, Bartlett School of Architecture, have deeply influenced my thinking about how cities grow and change. Amongst many of my other colleagues elsewhere at UCL I would like to particularly mention the work on high streets by Matthew Carmona of the Bartlett School of Planning. Last, but not least, I would like to mention the vital con- tribution that my research colleagues Muki Haklay and Sam Griffiths have made to the creation of this book. Our weekly discussions over coffee and cake influenced my own reflections of the suburbs as being as complex as the city itself. Essential to this understanding was Muki’s thinking regarding interdisciplinary research and the nature of space in geography, as well as Sam’s urban historian’s conception of the temporality of urban form. x P r E FA C E The financial support from the UK research councils transformed what had started off as old-fashioned scholarship – carried out alongside the myriad responsibilities of a busy academic – into two vast enterprises of scientific research. I close by acknowledging and expressing my gratitude for this support. 2 Notes 1 Oliver et al. (1981: 27). 2 The two research projects in question were: Funded by UK EPSrC Grant no. EP/ D06595X/1 (2006–9) ‘Towards Successful Suburban Town Centres: a study of the rela- tionship between morphology, sociability, economics and accessibility’. Project team: Laura Vaughan and Muki Haklay with Sam Griffiths and Catherine (Kate) Emma Jones. Funded by UK EPSrC/ESrC Grant no. EP/I001212/1 (2010–13) ‘Adaptable Suburbs: a study of the relationship between networks of human activity and the chang- ing form of urban and suburban centres through time’. Project team: Laura Vaughan, Claire Ellul, Muki Haklay, Sam Griffiths and Victor Buchli with Patrick rickles, Ashley Dhanani and David Jeevendrampillai. C O N T E N T S xi Contents List of Figures and Plates xiii List of Tables xx List of Contributors xxii Introduction Suburbs are as Old as the City Itself 1 Laura Vaughan Part A: Theoretical Preliminaries 9 Chapter 1 The Suburb and the City 11 Laura Vaughan, Sam Griffiths and Muki Haklay Chapter 2 The High Street as a Morphological Event 32 Sam Griffiths Part B: Suburban Centralities 51 Chapter 3 Suburban Continuity and Change 53 Ashley Dhanani Chapter 4 Spatial Memory and Shifting Centrality 77 Nadia Charalambous and Ilaria Geddes Chapter 5 Street Quality, Street Life, Street Centrality 104 Adel M. Remali, Sergio Porta, Ombretta Romice and Huyam Abudib Chapter 6 Beyond Lively Streets 130 Borja Ruiz-Apilánez, Mayte Arnaiz and José M. De Ureña xii C O N T E N T S Part C: High Street Diversity 151 Chapter 7 High Street Diversity 153 Laura Vaughan Chapter 8 High Street Transactions and Interactions 175 Garyfalia Palaiologou Case Study 1 High Street Productivity 204 Fiona Scott Case Study 2 High Streets and the Pedestrian realm 223 Yodan Rofè, Galit Yerushalmi, Moshe Margalith and Ahuva Windsor Part D: Everyday Sociability 237 Chapter 9 Street Interaction and Social Inclusion 239 Ann Legeby, Meta Berghauser Pont and Lars Marcus Chapter 10 Sociability and Ethnic Identity 263 Angela Piragauta Chapter 11 Being Suburban 287 David Jeevendrampillai Glossary of Space Syntax 307 references 313 Index 341 L I S T O F F I G U r E S A N D P L AT E S xiii List of Figures and Plates *Plates refer to images in case studies. Figure 1.1: relief of the Elamite city of Madaktu, Persia showing suburban growth beyond the walls (668–627 bce) 2 Figure 1.2: Sir richard Steele’s Cottage, Hampstead by John Constable (1831–2) 5 Figure 2.1 (a): Villages to the north-west of Sheffield c .1795 35 Figure 2.1 (b): Villages to the north of London c .1820 35 Figure 2.2: Montage view of Willesden High road c .1920s and c .2010 37 Figure 2.3 (a): High Street, South Norwood c .1905 38 Figure 2.3 (b): High Street, South Norwood 1956 38 Figure 2.3 (c): High Street, South Norwood 2015 38 Figure 3.1: London-wide street network dataset with M25 ring-road overlaid highlighted in red 60 Figure 3.2: Street network evolution of High Barnet and Loughton 62 Figure 3.3: Street network evolution of Surbiton and South Norwood 62 Figure 3.4: Maps showing constraints to growth; Epping Forest adjacent to Loughton and Hampton Court Palace and Hampton Court Park adjacent to Surbiton 63 Figure 3.5: Street network density (km/km 2 ) from 1880 to 2013 in each case study 63 Figure 3.6: Map showing analysis subdivisions of London street network 65 Figure 3.7: Historical network density changes in case studies in comparison to contemporary London network subdivisions 66 xiv L I S T O F F I G U r E S A N D P L AT E S Figure 3.8: Comparison of junction density change in four case study areas in comparison to contemporary London network subdivisions 67 Figure 3.9: Comparison of junction to dead end ratio change in case studies in comparison to contemporary London network subdivisions 68 Figure 3.10: Map showing the development of dead ends during net- work growth and parcel subdivision in South Norwood 69 Figure 3.11: Transformation of Kingston By-Pass junction in Surbiton study area showing maps of the highlighted area for 1880, 1910, 1960 and 2013 71 Figure 3.12: First section of the Kingston By-Pass is opened to the public in 1927 72 Figure 4.1: Tourist map of Limassol during the Colonial period from Mangoian and Mangoian (1947) 79 Figure 4.2: Diagram of Limassol’s main routes, zones and car parks, 2011 81 Figure 4.3: Admiralty chart of Limassol, 1849, drawn by Lieut. Lord John T. Browne 82 Figure 4.4: Map of Limassol in 1883 from rodney (2001) 83 Figure 4.5: Map of Limassol (detail) from 2011 Selas (2011) 84 Figure 4.6: Characteristics of Anexartisias street 86 Figure 4.7: Characteristics of Makriou street 87 Figure 4.8: Multi-scale accessibility core of Limassol 92 Figure 4.9: Distribution of land uses in the area of Anexartisias 95 Figure 4.10: Distribution of land uses in the area of Makariou 96 Figure 4.11: Proportion of land uses on Anexartisias and Makariou 97 Figure 4.12: Average pedestrian and vehicular movement per hour in the surveyed areas 98 Figure 4.13: Distribution of land uses and pedestrian movement peak (12:00–14:00) on the two high streets 98 Figure 5.1: The three character areas in Tripoli’s city centre: Old Town, Italian Quarter and Garden City 112 Figure 5.2: The MCA analysis of street centrality over Tripoli city centre 114 L I S T O F F I G U r E S A N D P L AT E S xv Figure 5.3: The three case studies are 400m × 400m areas centred on highly central streets in the three character areas 115 Figure 5.4: Street centrality in the three case studies 115 Figure 5.5a: Old Town: street front quality map 117 Figure 5.5b: Italian Quarter: street front quality map 118 Figure 5.5c: Garden City: street front quality map 119 Figure 5.5d: Old Town, Italian Quarter and Garden City: overall quality 119 Figure 5.6: Old Town, Italian Quarter and Garden City: quality amount per class of quality 122 Figure 5.7: Old Town, Italian Quarter and Garden City: human activities and street quality at peak and non-peak times 126 Figure 6.1: Map of the contemporary city of Toledo 131 Figure 6.2: The study area, showing Zocodover Square, Town Hall Square, and the high street linking them 134 Figure 6.3: Total pedestrian volumes on Wednesday (08:00–20:00) in the study area 135 Figure 6.4: Total pedestrian volumes on Saturday (09:00–21:00) in the study area 135 Figure 6.5: Percentage of visitors from total pedestrian volume on Wednesday (08:00–20:00) in the study area 136 Figure 6.6: Percentage of visitors from total pedestrian volume on Saturday (09:00–21:00) in the study area 136 Figure 6.7: Average pedestrian volume per hour in the high street and its side streets on Wednesday 137 Figure 6.8: Average pedestrian volume per hour in the high street and its side streets on Saturday 137 Figure 6.9: Distribution of stationary activities in Town Hall Square, the high street and Zocodover Square 138 Figure 6.10: Town Hall Square from the high street 139 Figure 6.11: The high street. Comercio Street towards Town Hall Square 140 Figure 6.12: Zocodover Square from the north entrance 140 Figure 6.13: Distribution of ground-floor land uses in 1995 and in 2014 141 xvi L I S T O F F I G U r E S A N D P L AT E S Figure 6.14: Distribution of the retail sector in 1996 and 2014 143 Figure 6.15: Percentages of visitor customers in ground-floor units 144 Figure 6.16: Distribution of frontages according to the visitor-/ non- visitor-oriented image 145 Figure 6.17: Evolution of normalised angular integration (NAIN) for four different time periods for the city of Toledo 147 Figure 7.1: Non-domestic land uses in Surbiton in 1880, 1910, 1960 and 2013 158 Figure 7.2: Weighted counts of land uses in the four study areas across time 160 Figure 7.3: Non-domestic land uses around Surbiton town centre in 1880, 1910, 1960 and 2013 161 Figure 7.4: Pie charts showing average building area by use class for Surbiton in 1880, 1910, 1960 and 2013 163 Figure 7.5: Traffic on South Norwood high street c .2008 165 Figure 7.6: Line chart showing overlap between radius 400m, 800m, 1200m, 1600m, 2000m, 3000m and 4000m 166 Figure 7.7: Contemporary map of South Norwood street layout surrounding the town centre overlaid with segment angular integration 800m 166 Figure 7.8: Non-domestic land uses, Victoria road, Surbiton in 1880, 1910, 1960 and 2013 168 Figure 7.9: Axonometric projection of the built form changes over time on the north side of Victoria road, Surbiton 169 Figure 7.10(a): Victoria road, Surbiton 1907 170 Figure 7.10(b): Victoria road, Surbiton 2014 170 Figure 8.1: Islington, London: Upper Street and surroundings ( c. 2013) 178 Figure 8.2: Islington, London, c .1805. A plan of Islington and its environs 179 Figure 8.3: Section of Charles Booth Maps Descriptive of London Poverty 1898–99 showing Islington, London, c .1898–9 181 Figure 8.4: Upper Street and surroundings. Showing segment length weighted measures for choice and integration, c .2013 183 Figure 8.5: Upper Street and surroundings. Showing segment angular analysis for the measure of combined integration and choice , for radius 2,500m, c .2013 185 L I S T O F F I G U r E S A N D P L AT E S xvii Figure 8.6: Upper Street and surroundings. Showing building entrances and associated land use classified as domestic or non-domestic, c .2013 186 Figure 8.7: Upper Street – west and east street sides. Showing building entrances and associated land use, c .2013 190 Figure 8.8: Upper Street – northern, middle and southern sections. Showing visibility fields and community buildings, c .2013 190 Figure 8.9: Islington, London: historical street network, c .1910, c .1965. Showing grid transformations and segment angular analysis for the measure of combined integration and choice , for radius 2500m 193 Figure 8.10: Islington, London: historical street network, c .1910, c .1965. Showing segment angular analysis for the measure of normalised choice , for radius n 196 Figure 8.11: Upper Street – historical built form transformations. Showing building footprints for c .1875, 1910, 1965 and 2013 198 Figure 8.12: 133 Upper Street 200 Plate 1.1: Map showing network of over 600 London high street locations 205 Plate 1.2: Hand sketch illustrating high street urban blocks on roman road (A1818), redbridge, London: a spiritualist church, a tile wholesaler, a Caribbean restaurant and a Punjabi bakery, amongst other uses 206 Plate 1.3: Hand sketch illustrating high street urban blocks on roman road (A1818), redbridge, London: a recycling centre, learning centre and crèche, café, amongst other uses 207 Plate 1.4: Hand sketch illustrating high street urban blocks on roman road (A1818), redbridge, London: Seven Kings parade of shops including mosque, nightclub and other uses 208 Plate 1.5: Aerial view showing extent of employment study areas in the Upper Lea Valley 210 Plate 1.6: Cox Workshop, Tottenham 213 Plate 1.7: rosamanda Pleaters, Tottenham 214 Plate 1.8: ‘From Around Here Shop’ exhibition of locally produced goods, on High Street Tottenham 215 xviii L I S T O F F I G U r E S A N D P L AT E S Plate 1.9: Existing industrial buildings, Blackhorse Lane, Waltham Forest 216 Plate 1.10: Plan showing suite of project proposals for Blackhorse Lane Outer London Fund (round 2) bid 218 Plate 1.11: Blackhorse Lane shop-front improvements 219 Plate 1.12: Blackhorse Lane public realm and trading estate improvements 219 Plate 1.13: Blackhorse Lane public realm and trading estate improvements 220 Plate 1.14: Blackhorse Workshop building devised, designed and implemented by Assemble and London Borough of Waltham Forest 220 Plate 1.15: Blackhorse Workshop building devised, designed and implemented by Assemble and London Borough of Waltham Forest 221 Plate 1.16: Artwork at Blackhorse Lane and Forest road junction, by Chris Bracey (London Borough of Waltham Forest) 221 Plate 2.1: The modernist paradigm – the functional hierarchy of urban street design and its relationship to traditional major urban streets 224 Plate 2.2: Case study streets in the metropolitan context 225 Plate 2.3: Typical view of Sokolov Street, ramat Hasharon 227 Plate 2.4: Typical view of Ahuza Street, ra’anana 227 Plate 2.5: Typical view of Weizmann Street, Kfar-Saba 228 Plate 2.6: Pavement on Sokolov Street; note raised planting box meant to direct pedestrians to painted crossing at intersection 229 Plate 2.7: Crossing between intersections on Weizmann Street 229 Plate 2.8: Lively pedestrian realm on Weizmann Street 232 Plate 2.9: Extended and well-managed pedestrian realm on Ahuza Street 233 Plate 2.10: An arcade allows the extension of the pedestrian realm and creates a protected walking and sitting area on Weizmann Street 234 Plate 2.11: Combining modes of movement on suburban high streets increases their viability 235 L I S T O F F I G U r E S A N D P L AT E S xix Figure 9.1: Correlation between degree of ‘integration interface’ and degree of incoming people to squares in Stockholm 248 Figure 9.2: The location of the studied neighbourhoods and squares in Gothenburg 250 Figure 9.3: Network integration at city scale (radius 50) 251 Figure 9.4: Distance to home addresses of co-present people 254 Figure 9.5: Catchment area of the squares: the home addresses of co-present people 255 Figure 9.6: Minimum distance to urban amenities, access to urban amenities and aspects important for opportunities in the labour market 257 Figure 9.7: Line analysis east–west section in Bergsjön illustrating topography, betweenness, constitution and mix between residents and non-residents 258 Figure 9.8: Proposed interventions in Bergsjön 259 Figure 9.9: Increase of access to workplaces before and after the proposed interventions 260 Figure 10.1: Ordnance Survey maps for Seven Sisters area. 266 Figure 10.2: Land use map of Seven Sisters Market 267 Figure 10.3: Ethnic ownership map of Seven Sisters Market 268 Figure 10.4: Seven Sisters Market, entrance from High road 270 Figure 10.5: Seven Sisters Market, Pueblito Paisa Café 270 Figure 10.6: House in Pueblito Paisa, Medellín, Colombia 271 Figure 10.7: Stalls decoration inside the market 272 Figure 10.8: Direct references to Latin-America 272 Figure 10.9: restaurant inside the market 273 Figure 10.10: Stationary activities in the market on a Saturday, from 8.00 to 9:00 p.m. 276 Figure 11.1: Seethinger wearing an ‘I live in Seething’ T-shirt 296 Figure 11.2: Making a giant wicker lamp 297 Figure 11.3: The Annual Lefi Parade fronted by Thamas Deeton, the giant of Seething 299 Figure 11.4: The Sardine Parade stopping traffic whilst moving from the river to a local park 300