A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Measuring Intensity – Describing and Analysing the “Urban Buzz”
Density or Intensity?There is much debate about how to measure density – dwellings per hectare, bedrooms per hectare or people per hectare; including or excluding major highways, parks and open spaces; the permanent population only or the transient one too?While this gives urban planners something to disagree about it risks missing the point: great urban places are not created by density; they are created by intensity.And the difference matters. When people describe the buzz of a marketplace they do not say, “Wow - it was so dense!”. They are much more likely to say how intense it was. Density is a word used by planners. Intensity is a word that real people use, and perhaps because it describes the outcomes that people experience rather than the inputs that have gone in to creating them. It is the outcomes that are ultimately more important. But planning professionals like density. Even though density fails to capture the essence of what it feels like to be somewhere, the term appeals to professional instincts. It describes the raw ingredients that planners have to handle and, once you choose which version of the formula you are going to use, density is easy to measure. It involves a simple calculation of straightforward urban quantities such as the number of people, the number of houses or the number of bedrooms, all divided by the geographic area over which those ingredients occur. Easy.In contrast, intensity seems more difficult to pin down, not least because it appears to have a subjectively emotional dimension; it speaks of feelings, of responses, of stimuli, and this raises problems about how it can be effectively measured. But intensity is also a response to context, to place and above all to people - and here we can find clues to its measurement.Observing IntensitySo what are the factors that people are responding to when they instinctively feel the intensity of a great place? For a start, they can not be calculating a planner’s measure of urban density because, even if they were so minded, they could ...
Measuring Intensity – Describing and Analysing the “Urban Buzz”
Density or Intensity?There is much debate about how to measure density – dwellings per hectare, bedrooms per hectare or people per hectare; including or excluding major highways, parks and open spaces; the permanent population only or the transient one too?While this gives urban planners something to disagree about it risks missing the point: great urban places are not created by density; they are created by intensity.And the difference matters. When people describe the buzz of a marketplace they do not say, “Wow - it was so dense!”. They are much more likely to say how intense it was. Density is a word used by planners. Intensity is a word that real people use, and perhaps because it describes the outcomes that people experience rather than the inputs that have gone in to creating them. It is the outcomes that are ultimately more important. But planning professionals like density. Even though density fails to capture the essence of what it feels like to be somewhere, the term appeals to professional instincts. It describes the raw ingredients that planners have to handle and, once you choose which version of the formula you are going to use, density is easy to measure. It involves a simple calculation of straightforward urban quantities such as the number of people, the number of houses or the number of bedrooms, all divided by the geographic area over which those ingredients occur. Easy.In contrast, intensity seems more difficult to pin down, not least because it appears to have a subjectively emotional dimension; it speaks of feelings, of responses, of stimuli, and this raises problems about how it can be effectively measured. But intensity is also a response to context, to place and above all to people - and here we can find clues to its measurement.Observing IntensitySo what are the factors that people are responding to when they instinctively feel the intensity of a great place? For a start, they can not be calculating a planner’s measure of urban density because, even if they were so minded, they could ...
Measuring Intensity – Describing and Analysing the “Urban Buzz”
Stonor, Tim (author)
2019-12-26
doi:10.15320/ICONARP.2019.87
ICONARP International Journal of Architecture and Planning; Vol. 7 (2019): SPECIAL ISSUE "URBAN MORPHOLOGY"; 240-248 ; 2147-9380
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
DDC:
720
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