While in the developed countries, they encourage the trend of increasing density, in developing countries any denser residential areas are associated with poverty and overcrowding. in many cases,density creates social, economic and environmental congestion and undermines sustainability. So, how dense is a "compact" neighbourhood?
Just want to add my views on the Compact neighborhood/settlement:
The compact settlement would a great pattern tool to control and an alternative solution to the new physical development in developing countries. This will help to ease the demand on housing to reduce the congestion of the existing towns by adding new urban neighborhoods. The density of such compact settlements should be manageable in size. It is said the manageable size of population is considered 100,000 in a neighborhood. (Actually I do not know who said and it can be discussed).
It would be appropriate to note the suggestion of Marcia D. Lowe, author of the Shaping Cities: The Environmental and Human Dimension, - The best hope for making cities livable, and at the same time stopping the juggernaut of urban development that destroys the surrounding environment, is to promote "compact development" and contain future urban development within "geographical boundaries".
Once the traditional towns in Nepal were the place of interesting place for architects and planners. The ancient planners and builders of the Kathmandu Valley Towns and Villages were put into "compact development" practice centuries ago by concentrating settlements in infertile high ground while leaving the surrounding land free for cultivation. The traditional towns in Kathmandu Valley towns were small and grew only slowly. Today the fast growing population, people's modern need and wishes has resulted rapid and unorganized physical growth and has created the problems of congestion and changed the image of these towns/villages. However it is sad to say that the practice of compact settlement trailing behind because of the lack of comprehensive land use planning and poor management, and is losing the fertile ground of country day by day.
Defined by density alone, areas like Manhattan would be some of the "poorest" places in the world.
I would think to operationalize this as some measure which is only activated in combination with some thresholds for lack of access to sanitation, for example. you could even operationalize this in a simple OLS regression by combining a variable for sanitation which becomes active when the number of toilets per population is below some threshold, then multiplied by the density. Do you get what I mean?
If you will do empirical estimation, you need a way to eliminate the Manhattan's of the world without relying on your subjective ability to correctly identify them (assuming the data is OK, but then you might HAVE to rely on your subjective ability ...)
Dear Thi Thanh Hai Truong,
I believe that you research will lead to the development of a typology of "compact" cities with different thresholds. For example, based on the size of cities (i.e. small, medium, large), the country they belong (i.e. developed vs developing countries), their economic structure, etc. Best of luck !
Juste
Some work we did in 2013 allowed a depiction of the dwelling structure and density based on the census in Australia. It did not, however, attempt to define 'compactness' which would differ as you went to various settings around the world. What was notable was the surprisingly high dwelling density achievable from single storey terrace housing, the old Victorian form from England which can likewise be found in Sydney and Melbourne today.
Fitzpatrick, R. and Wadley, D. 2013: ‘The Relation of Dwelling Structure and Dwelling Density in Australian Cities’, Urban Policy and Research, 31/3, pp. 343-66.
Hi Saroj, thank you for yours response. It's absolutely trues compact settlement is solution if we can achieve good comprehensive land use planning and good management. However, in developing countries has been creating many social problems:poor living standard, slum, health issues. I therefore looking for any solution for developing countries to be sustainable but also affordable.
It's interesting point of view, Nathan. Thank you. it's absolutely right that talking about density in compact cities is a broad, and access to sanitation is one of aspects. I'm therefore trying to concise the topic a little bit by centre in the developing countries.
David and Juste, thank you for your advices and thanks for sharing those information.
Hi Thanh Hai Truong
how does one define 'compact' with respect to urban development?
Check out this visualization and definition of density and compact neighborhoods from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy: http://www.lincolninst.edu/subcenters/visualizing-density/
For the link between compactness and high-density, I would suggest :
Gordon, P. & Richardson, H.W. (1997) Are compact cities a desirable planning goal? Journal of the American Planning Association, 63(1), pp. 95–106.