Editing Urban design (section)

== Issues ==
[[File:Climate Change Camp Protest.jpg|thumb|Protest banner during the Climate Change Camp 2007 at Heathrow Airport in London.]]
The field of urban design holds enormous potential for helping us address today's biggest challenges: an expanding population, mass urbanization, rising inequality, and [[climate change]]. In its practice as well as its theories, urban design attempts to tackle these pressing issues. As climate change progresses, urban design can mitigate the results of flooding, temperature changes, and increasingly detrimental storm impacts through a mindset of sustainability and resilience. In doing so, the urban design discipline attempts to create environments that are constructed with longevity in mind, such as [[Zero-carbon city|zero-carbon cities]]. Cities today must be designed to minimize resource consumption, waste generation, and pollution while also withstanding the unprecedented impacts of climate change.<ref name="Padmanaban"/><ref name="Seto">{{cite journal |last1=Seto |first1=Karen C. |last2=Churkina |first2=Galina |last3=Hsu |first3=Angel |last4=Keller |first4=Meredith |last5=Newman |first5=Peter W.G. |last6=Qin |first6=Bo |last7=Ramaswami |first7=Anu |title=From Low- to Net-Zero Carbon Cities: The Next Global Agenda |journal=Annual Review of Environment and Resources |date=18 October 2021 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=377–415 |doi=10.1146/annurev-environ-050120-113117 |s2cid=238677484 |language=en |issn=1543-5938|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Ürge-Vorsatz">{{cite journal |last1=Ürge-Vorsatz |first1=Diana |last2=Khosla |first2=Radhika |last3=Bernhardt |first3=Rob |last4=Chan |first4=Yi Chieh |last5=Vérez |first5=David |last6=Hu |first6=Shan |last7=Cabeza |first7=Luisa F. |title=Advances Toward a Net-Zero Global Building Sector |journal=Annual Review of Environment and Resources |date=17 October 2020 |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=227–269 |doi=10.1146/annurev-environ-012420-045843 |s2cid=225303035 |language=en |issn=1543-5938|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Narayan">{{cite journal |last1=Narayan |first1=Abishek Sankara |last2=Marks |first2=Sara J. |last3=Meierhofer |first3=Regula |last4=Strande |first4=Linda |last5=Tilley |first5=Elizabeth |last6=Zurbrügg |first6=Christian |last7=Lüthi |first7=Christoph |title=Advancements in and Integration of Water, Sanitation, and Solid Waste for Low- and Middle-Income Countries |journal=Annual Review of Environment and Resources |date=18 October 2021 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=193–219 |doi=10.1146/annurev-environ-030620-042304 |s2cid=236252766 |language=en |issn=1543-5938|doi-access=free }}</ref> To be truly resilient, our cities need to be able to not just bounce back from a catastrophic climate event but to bounce forward to an improved state.

Another issue in this field is that it is often assumed that there are no mothers of planning and urban design. However, this is not the case, many women have made proactive contributions to the field, including the work of Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch, Florence Kelley, and Lillian Wald, to name a few of whom were prominent leaders in the City Social movement. The City Social was a movement that steamed between the commonly known City Practical and [[City Beautiful movement|City Beautiful]] movements. It was a movement mainly concerning lay with the economic and social equalities regarding urban issues.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Sies|first1=Mary Corbin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vTGq0NhtE38C&dq=+Planning+the+Twentieth+Century+American+city.+M.+C.+Sies+and+C.+Silver.+Baltimore,+M.D.:+Johns+Hopkins+University+p.+55%E2%80%9075.+&pg=PR11|title=Planning the Twentieth-century American City|last2=Silver|first2=Christopher|date=1996|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=978-0-8018-5164-3|language=en}}</ref>

Justice is and will always be a key issue in urban design. As previously mentioned, past urban strategies have caused injustices within communities incapable of being remedied via simple means. As urban designers tackle the issue of justice, they often are required to look at the injustices of the past and must be careful not to overlook the nuances of race, place, and socioeconomic status in their design efforts. This includes ensuring reasonable access to basic services, transportation, and fighting against gentrification and the commodification of space for economic gain. Organizations such as the Divided Cities Initiatives at Washington University in St. Louis and the Just City Lab at Harvard work on promoting justice in urban design.

Until the 1970s, the design of towns and cities took little account of the needs of [[Disability|people with disabilities]]. At that time, disabled people began to form movements demanding recognition of their potential contribution if social obstacles were removed. Disabled people challenged the 'medical model' of disability which saw physical and mental problems as an individual 'tragedy' and people with disabilities as 'brave' for enduring them. They proposed instead a 'social model' which said that barriers to disabled people result from the design of the [[built environment]] and attitudes of able-bodied people. 'Access Groups' were established composed of people with disabilities who audited their local areas, checked planning applications, and made representations for improvements. The new profession of 'access officer' was established around that time to produce guidelines based on the recommendations of access groups and to oversee adaptations to existing buildings as well as to check on the accessibility of new proposals. Many [[Local government|local authorities]] now employ access officers who are regulated by the Access Association. A new chapter of the Building Regulations (Part M) was introduced in 1992. Although it was beneficial to have legislation on this issue the requirements were fairly minimal but continue to be improved with ongoing amendments. The [[Disability Discrimination Act 1995]] continues to raise awareness and enforce action on disability issues in the urban environment.


The issue of walkability has gained prominence in recent years, not only with the concerns of the aforementioned climate change, but also the health outcomes of residents. Car-centric urban design has an invariably negative effect on such outcomes. With proximity to internal combustion engines, residents tend to suffer from dangerous levels of air pollution which lead to cardiovascular complications ranging from the acute, in hypertension and alterations in heart rate, and the chronic, the outright development of atherosclerosis. More people die from air pollution each year than from car accidents.  This issue has been used to fuel movements for alternative forms of long to mid range transportation such as trains and bicycles, with walking as the primary means of short-range travel. This would bring benefits from two simultaneous avenues. The physical activity from walking, and the lack of particulate matter (carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, etc.) has shown to alleviate and lower the risk of many maladies such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Physical activity levels from walking are closely related to the abundance of open public spaces, commercial shops, greenery, among others. These attributes also have been stated to contribute to stronger social and emotional health as the open public spaces facilitate more social interaction within communities. This issue is most prevalent in the United States, where the rise of neoliberalism directly and intentionally caused the car-centric infrastructure.