Mixing Uses in a Mixed Up City: the theory and practice of mixed use property

development in urban policy

London Met Post-Graduate Conference 2010

Glyn Robbins (Cities Institute)

What is Mixed Use?

• Defining the concept of mixed use has become one of the research questions.

• Additional complication because the term is over-used, but under-theorised.

Look out of the window

•Almost any urban landscape, including Holloway Road, will have examples of mixed use.•Mixing uses e.g. living above shops, has been the norm of human urban experience.•Moves to separate land uses, particularly associated with 20th century UK planning policy, are the exception

Example from Bracknell of separation of residential and industrial uses, part of the post-WW2New Town policy

The Burj tower in Dubai, tallest building in the world and example of ‘vertical’ mixed use. ‘Population’ of 8,000 people including hotels, swimming pools, offices and apartments.

‘A Place to Work, Play, Eat and Stay’

Brindley Place, Birmingham. Example of ‘horizontal’ mixed use. Commercial-led, 8,000 workers, but no residents.

Mixed use ‘ideal type’, Charter Quay, Kingston-upon-Thames: public realm, public art,cafes, restaurants, bars and private apartments.

‘A Tesco Express with 30 flats on top’

A more common image of high street mixed use.

The Jane Jacobs Playbook:Butcher, baker, candlestick maker

Potential for urban vitality and ‘sustainability’ questioned by some mixtures of use.

 ‘…sensitively integrating new buildings to create a series of linked spaces which

respond to the existing urban grain…an inviting retreat from the hustle and bustle of the Kings Road.’

More sophisticated mixed use, Duke of York Square, Chelsea, next to Saatchi gallery.

More brutal mixed use design in Shadwell, Tower Hamlets.

A waste of space

Aprox. 30% of commercial mixed use space in London empty.

A global concept

A similar problem in the Yukon!

The livable, walkable (inclusive?) city

20 mins. walk south of US Capitol, Washington DC. Former public housing project bulldozed to make way for new, mixed use, riverfront ‘community’.

Theoretical Possibilities

• A response to the 21st century city?• A route to ‘sustainable urbanism’?• A reaction against urban planning?• A green-washed justification for gentrifcation?

• A well-intentioned policy aspiration that became an empty slogan?

‘It enables vitality through activity and diversity. It makes areas safer. It also reduces the need to

travel, making people less reliant on cars, bringing welcome environmental benefits.’

 Tory Environment Minister John Gummer, 1995

‘…set out a vision of well designed, compact and connected cities supporting a diverse

range of uses – where people live, work and enjoy leisure time at close quarters – in a

sustainable urban environment…’

Lord Rogers’ Urban Task Force, 2005

Mixed Use at the Coalface: how planners understand and implement mixed use

• The Planners’ Dilemma

• No mixed use consensus

• Local variability

• Mixed motives

• Differential outcomes, with some common themes

Watney Street Case Study

• A place in flux

• Little evidence of mixed use promoting social integration

• Racialised response to changing built environment

• Competing narratives

The Regeneration Line

Zones of Exclusivity and Exclusion

‘I’ve made friends with one person in that development (Tarling Heights)…I don’t see them. (Barry) ‘They don’t seem to be part of the texture of the area. It’s more mixed, but people don’t seem to be interacting.’ (Ishmail)  ‘I don’t see this as a Mixed Use development in a meaningful way because it’s polarised.’ (Ben) 

‘Where they wanted integration, it’s caused segregation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not racist, but the Asian community gets all

these new builds because they’re purposely built for them. They’re making communities of Asians. They don’t want to mix with us.’

(Eliza)

‘Those little stone things? They don’t even look

like benches!’

‘They’ve tried to manufacture the public realm. It’s typical planners. They set down rules and we’ve got to conform to them.’ (Barry) ‘I’d tell the architects “there is no public space here”. All there is are some concrete planters and benches. It could have been much more carefully designed. (Mario)

Non-use of ‘public realm’

Use of public realm

The night-time economy and café culture

Problems of application

Mixed, ‘tenure blind’ communities

Permeability, vitality and passive surveillance

Vehicle for Urban Regeneration

Conclusions

• Contradictory policies and outcomes• No thorough policy analysis (EBP?)• Seductive, design oriented rhetoric• Mixed Use part of ‘The Game’ between

planners, developers and politicians• Raises broader issues - expectations

and meanings of place, space, entitlement and rights to the city